Collections Spotlight with Sean Standing Bear

During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and through the reopening afterward, the Coe Center partnered with First American Art Magazine to present an interactive Zoom series in which Native artists discussed artworks in the Coe Collections. Collections Spotlight brought deep dives into objects from the Coe collection to the public from the artist’s perspective. These events were free and open to the public.

Sean Standing Bear is an oral historian and well-respected consultant on Osage history and traditions. Standing Bear is the son of George Eugene Standing Bear and a descendant of Chief Fred Lookout, the last hereditary chief of the Osage. His cultural understanding comes from a unique perspective shaped by long conversations with his grandmother Mary Nora Lookout Standing Bear.

Standing Bear has spent years studying the Osage Nation Museum collection and is knowledgeable about the donor collections and early inventories conducted by the Stovall Museum, Norman, OK, during the 1960s. He studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM, during the 1970s and earned an A.A. at Rogers State College, Claremore. He was a primary consultant for the Art of the Osage exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Standing Bear notes the all-red fabric, indicating that this blanket would belong to an eldest daughter or son. He mentions the duality between the violet and green background, which is not symmetrical, this indicates the division of the sky people and the earth and water people. He also acknowledges that you can arrow designs and anthropomorphic figures.

Standing Bear explains these designs using a diagram, noting the arrow designs can face either left or the right direction. He focused on the negative space with its design from the green and violet cloth. He also makes us aware of the mix of arrows and anthropomorphic figures.

Standing Bear shares his memories and experience of being in a cradleboard and disliking the experience. He goes on to say that cradle boards were convenient for hanging the baby in a tree or in the home and keeping them with the mothers. Anthropomorphic figure and arrow designs on a piece of paper are shown in comparison to the cradleboard design. Standing Bear shares that the designs were clan knowledge and secret.

There are ‘Romanesque’ arches in the back as air holes, and the smaller holes underneath are to hold the tie that would be used to hang the cradleboard. He mentions the types of wood typically used and says they are chosen for being durable; he also mentions that cedar is too brittle. Standing Bear conveys that the older boards usually have commercial paint and have tertiary and primary colors. Due to the commercial paints and availability, people could pick whatever colors they wanted for the cradle.

Standing Bear starts by discussing the mirror portion of this object is based on a Christian cross; the triangular area at the bottom may represent a claw or talon. There could be ceremonial ideas with the line forms representing a snare.

Standing Bear mentioned that the Osage women had similar tattoos that represented power. The clans claimed certain plants and animals, but the women had gardens and ultimate say over them. He notes the women as the crucibles of their culture, mothers, and protectors of children.

Standing Bear talks about the power of women and the four worlds (sky people, water people, unseen world, known world, and unknowable), which could be represented through designs. He also talks about how specific designs can symbolize family events.