by: Noelle Backer

Our Own Woodruff Butte

Last night, I was watching a special on public television about a piece of land in Arizona called Woodruff Butte. The land is the site of one of the only remaining Hopi shrines in the area. It happens to fall outside of the land designated as the Hopi Reservation. In the early ’90s, the Clinton administration saved the land from a mining project that would have destroyed it. But once again, a project arose that threatened to bulldoze the site to supply gravel for a nearby interstate. Despite Hopi protest, the land was bulldozed while the Hopi watched.

The owner of Woodruff Butte explained that he had asked the Hopi to show him where the shrine was located, so that he might try to work around it, but when they showed him, he could see nothing. (There are petroglyphs carved into the rock in many places in the area.) The owner saw a not very attractive, barren piece of land, he said. If there had been something he could see, it would’ve been different, he said.
Yet the Hopi did see something there. And if history has revealed anything about Native American cultures it is that they are different than Eastern and Western religions and cultures. Not everyone can look at a piece of land and see a shrine in the rock and dirt, see a doorway to another world, another time, or to the future. And not everyone can look at a statue of Jesus and see a link to the past, the future and the hereafter.

While I was watching this special, I was eerily reminded of a story I was told in a history class about a Native American tribe that was trying to prevent the white man from tearing down a dam built by beavers. The judge asked them, “Is this your land?” They replied, “No, it belongs to the beaver.” The judge said that if it didn’t belong to them, they had no rights to it. … I unfortunately can’t remember which tribe this was, and I’m sure some of the other details might be slightly askew, but the idea is as clear as it was then. And decades and decades later, things are still the same.

People have different beliefs, different views of the world and its meaning. Yet still, after centuries of bloodshed over differing religious beliefs and cultural traditions, people continue to destroy things they don’t understand and to disregard opinions that are not their own.

How craft directly relates to the Hopi, I’m not exactly sure. I guess I wonder if the craft field isn’t losing some of its own traditions, its own roots, some of the beliefs and practices of those who made craft a way of life in the ’60s, those who believed the craft field was a community, and made it a unified movement.
While the field is growing and its economic potential is rising daily, there is risk involved. As competition in the field grows, will it lose the sharing, supportive nature it has boasted for so many years? Will people become more protective, more critical and cutthroat?

I have been especially concerned about the recent lack of compassion on The Crafts Report’s online discussion board, as well as on other craft-related discussion boards.

Sometimes when browsing the messages it is hard to believe that this field is said to be a community of giving, supportive artists. The fighting, the condescending remarks, the attitudes. …

A discussion board that has the potential (and has often met that potential) of fostering the sharing of information and support in this very challenging field has become intimidating for some. Why?

Of course, it is certainly not all bad. An amazing amount of information has been shared by some of the many giving, sharing artists, and there is often overwhelming support for artists entering the field, encountering difficult situations, or even just pursuing new sales venues. And, of course, this is all just my perspective based on what I see. I do not know everything, or even one-tenth of it, and I have been known to see some shrines where I’m sure no one else does. But it seems like a good time for all of us to sit back and look at some of our own shrines while we can still see them. .

OCTOBER 2001: TABLE OF CONTENTS