Mackinac Last Week

Summer resort, Grand Hotel's Dining Room holds porch geranium boxes. The Duck spent years of winters fixing furniture for the hotel. Some people have claimed that Indians were buried under the grand, and were later exhumed without care. This has been proven untrue. There are many graves scattered haphazardly around the island; in the winter, it was impossible to dig graves. However, the Grand Hotel doesn't seem to be one of them. 

I've been playing with this body for a few years. For a while, I made ghost images of myself and others in various points of interest on the island--places where myth has transformed with history, mainly the history of clashing cultures. I would juxtapose fake indian paraphernalia, reproduction flags, and toy artifacts into the images, referencing the plasticizing of legend brought forth by its maleable nature. Using the idea of ghost to symbolize Mackinac as a place that literally repeats history, I was exploring the change that explore ultimately the nature of our lives while we create and repeat legacy.  I see the work as a brainstorming session for the body which will at some point contain some of the images below.

George Wellington, Sr., the only taxi driver in the winter. A taxi on Mackinac Island is a horse-drawn carrige.

A workshop at an island barn, taxi carriage shaft is hanging for refinishing.

Don "The Duck" Andress, 6x great grandson of Chief Mackinac.

Luggage carts and awards left for the season at the Grand Hotel bellstand.

Sitting at the table with Becky Gallagher and Jen Bunker, reading about and poking fun at the big chiefs in the newspaper. 

Johnny Ray and his "Hits of Johnny Ray" tape.

Albert Mosley riding bikes in his backyard. Was adopted at age two with his two brothers into a family making nine (The fam has since grown to eleven with the addition of a grandson and a fiance).  His mother runs a daycare out of her house.

Duck, Gizmo and Teddy Ruxpin.

Bobby Roach hangs out at the barn after work.

The Duck with his hand-made walking sticks, one of which is in the Smithsonian American Indian Museum.

George Wellington and the number 3.

In this work, I am channeling some of those ideas as a lens to explore the resident culture on the island. Of particular interest to me is the Chippewa community, and the people who have resided on the island for generations. I hope that through this body of work, I can apply the idea of myth transforming history and events transforming myth to Native American history.

This year, the old structure called the Indian Dormitory will become the Richard and Jane Manoogian Mackinac Island Art Museum. (Whether or not the structure ever served as an actual dormitory is highly debatable.)  Also of interest in this project to expose tourists to a side of the island that isn't marketed as a commodity. Through the eventual exhibition (and hopefully coffee table book) of these images, a strange commodification occurs.  I am seeking to probe both the nature and novelty of residing on a tourist island that is closed for half the year, exploring the reality of a place built on the subfloors of historical legacy.

I intend for this project to seep into a much larger project about the lives of proclaimed Native Americans in the present day, so any feedback or leads would be greatly appreciate. 

also--PLEASE CRITICIZE!! To see more images like this from the island, click here

Also, visit the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau Website.