HERMOSA, 2021

Hermosa is a portrait of my daughter Crickett Tiger (Muscogee Creek/Cochiti) at Hermosa Beach, dressed in the regalia of the first peoples of California. The regalia is made and borrowed from California artist Leah Mata-Fragua. Captured at sunset and a surprise wave—the image evokes the oral history and creation story of Chemehuevi, known as Great Ocean Woman (Hutsipamamow), a spirit of the ocean that is seen and known throughout all of Southern California as the creator of all life. The arresting image halts the viewer and stands as a counter-narrative in the face of the ongoing erasure and genocide of California First peoples that our landscape and coasts are still revered as sacred places of creation. The photograph resulted from a series of images that appeared on billboards across Los Angeles in the summer and fall of 2021 while in quarantine with only family. The image pays homage to the original caretakers of this region—first known as Tovaangar. The three months we spent at the beach together in quarantine transformed us and became a communing and healing space of remembrance for me of Chemehuevi creation stories and songs we sing and tell of this place. The images that emerged became a visualization of the indigenous worldview that these places, however, developed, are still holy places to First Peoples.

Collections: Detroit Institute of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Huntington, and University of California