A senior fellow's project: Native Expression

Posted 10/28/00

Lisa LeFlore '01, one of seven senior fellows, will learn in the studio and the stacks instead of the classroom this year. Through her project, "Chiricahua-Fort Sill Apache Identity Explored Through Wearable Sculpture," LeFlore will study the past of the historically significant tribe, to which she happens to belong, as expressed through the jewelry its artists produce.

The art of the Fort Sill Apache, now a small tribe located mostly in Oklahoma, has been studied by several artists and art historians, including Dartmouth professors John Lee and Michael Hanitchak. Both Lee and Hanitchak, along with studio art assistant professor Brenda Garand, will assist LeFlore in her research.

Many of her ancestors actually produced the work she plans on studying; her great-uncle is widely regarded as the foremost authority on tribal history and will play an integral role in her research. And rather than produce a written dissertation on the subject, LeFlore is organizing a May exhibition of Fort Sill sculpture in the Hood Museum.

"It is so unique that another media really wouldn't do it justice," she says.

The six other senior fellows and the projects they will spend the year working on include:

• Corrie Francis, creating animated film Psalm
• Bob Mirakian, developing concert The Conductor's Craft
• Sope Ogunyemi, writing a novella, The Intersection of Race and Friendship
• John Phinney, researching "Fathers and Sons: Paternal/Filial Relationships in the Life and Writing of Ernest Hemingway"
• Linda Romano, researching "Living in a Tragic Land: American Bereavement Rituals in the 21st Century"
• Ari Rosenblum, writing screenplay The Sensitive Ones