Chasing Olympic-sized Dreams

Add a touch of style to your walls with my one of a kind artwork! Purchased print will not contain watermarks.

No signatures of the skaters will be included on your print. Your print will be on a unique ledger paper from 1878, every print will be different due to that.

"Chasing Olympic-Sized Dreams"

Vector illustration on 1878 antique ledger paper featuring signatures by Olympic figure skaters from Team USA

My submission for the 58th Red Cloud Indian Art Show at the new Chatku Arts Center on the Pine Ridge Reservation

This piece continues the tradition of Plains tribal ledger art, a form that emerged during the beginning of the reservation era when Native artists used accounting ledgers to document their worlds and experiences. Lately I've been experimenting with ledger paper to illustrate contemporary scenes and living dreams instead of fixating only on the past, showing that Native stories continue to evolve today.

Watching Olympic skaters follow their dreams is inspiring to me as an artist. I've been a fan of figure skating my whole life; last night, I saw them perform during the Stars on Ice tour and met them afterward. Many historic ledger drawings contain the names of people from long ago, so I thought it would be meaningful to invite the skaters themselves to leave their signatures on the piece as part of the story's significance.

In Dakota thought (my culture), sičúŋ is a star gift of spiritual potency, influence and creative force carried within each person. Sičúŋ is the energy that allows people to move others through their gifts, actions and presence in the world. The Olympic stage becomes a powerful platform for that energy, where one person's lifelong dream can inspire many people across cultures and generations around the world.

The painted horses surrounding the skater represent our ancestors moving with us through the sacred motion of the universe. When we move fully into the dreams we are meant to follow, our footsteps begin to move in rhythm with something much larger than ourselves.