Positively Glorious!

Due to a scheduling error that I made, I accidentally published this before “The Old Gods.” That post is supposed to be read before this one.

Having visited Germany, having read of such beauty in Pre-Christian Germanic culture, I felt that I wanted to honor those ancestors as well. So much of what Native people here cherish is tied up in stories of Salmon, Raven and Wolf. It’s interesting to know that what Native people in Northern Europe cherished was so similar. Salmon, Raven and Wolf show up a great deal in the stories of Northern Europe. Universality, commonality.

Humanity.

"Haida Dog Salmon" (1974) Bill Reid (Haida)

I started looking at the art of Pre-Christian Northern Europe in a new way. Once again, it began to hold a strange familiarity. Looking at NW art, we see so much embellishment. It’s as if the artists make a conscious effort to fill in all the open space with something. An open space near Raven’s claw gets filled with a curve of black, or a swath of red, or a filled circle, or a hollow circle with a curve of black within it. Space. It’s all used, filled with the embellishments of the culture.

Oseberg Ship Head

It’s a similar story in Northern Europe, it’s only the embellishment that differs. We see this in the filling in of Celtic and Norse art with knotwork. If there’s a bare space, there’s a knot put in, or a vine, or a flower. It’s so different from NW art, yet so similar.

And thus my decision was made. I would make my art use both of the embellishments. I would fill the space in both ways. As soon as I did, and interesting pattern emerged.

Foreground and Background: The German Indian

The full design of my tattoo

In the Northwest art, the background was white, the embellishment had color. Foreground and background were thus defined. But in the knotwork, it was the white part which became the foreground. White knotwork on a black background. As the design progresses, the foreground shifts, and our perspective shifts with it. What was once merely something background becomes important and what was once important becomes merely a background. Suddenly our attention is drawn to what was once ignored.

And thus it is in culture. Perspectives. Foreground and background. Importance and attention. So different. One an incongruous negative of the other. Yet they can live together.

In fact, bringing them together helps us appreciate a hidden beauty that we had formerly missed. What is new in another culture can help us appreciate things in our own.

Things that, previously, were mere background to be ignored.

That’s what I wanted for my tattoo. I wanted to honor these views of art as embellishment, but I also wanted to honor the view of body art as embellishment.

Most of all, I wanted to honor this coming together of cultures, the coming together that can create so much beauty, so much perspective, so much depth.

That was the coming together that also created me.