Just published my second comic titled My Sisters about Indigenous basketry 0

[OV]

Hooray!  I worked with the amazing artist Weshoyot Alvitre (@weshoyot) on a new comic I titled "My Sisters."  We co-wrote it and I published it.  My printer is called Tribal Print Source and they are an awesome company based in Southern California. 

My story is told from the perspectives of the baskets themselves.  In my Native cultures we believe that baskets used in ceremony are living members of society, with a spirit and a voice.  So I used that concept in the story.  This comic also honors basket weavers and their relationships to ancestral homelands.   

Here's a link to free standards-based school curriculum that goes with this comic as well as my World War One graphic novel "Soldiers Unknown." 

https://bluelakerancheria-nsn.gov/pathmakers/chaglowry/

If anyone is interested in this comic feel free to message me here.  Thanks for looking, and I wish everyone a safe and healthy 2021. 

Chag Lowry (Yurok/Maidu/Achumawi)

 

[kav]

at the state indian museum over here there are baskets the size of a pencil eraser.  truly amazing work.

[lizards2]

Hey Chag - 

I see the sources of supply at the link - are there any that take care in packaging that you are able to recommend? My go to would be Amazon, but their packaging is horrible, so a lot of stuff comes in damaged.

My dad's old friend that we used to elk and deer hunt with (actually, he became close friends with all of us), Ken Roberts, was Hoopa or Yurok. I am not sure which, as his wife was one and he was the other. Anyway, he served in Korea as a tailgunner on a B-29. His story was that he was one of the few small enough to crawl down the tunnel in the fuselage to where the tailgunner sat. Anyway, he had a few stories, but was particularly interested in how "the loneliest highway in Oregon" was doing these days, as he used to travel through Lakeview (where I have lived for the past 30 years) to get to and from his station in Boise/Mtn Home, and the stretch on Hwy 395 between Valley Falls and Riley is particularly empty and barren.

I remember one year we were retrieving an elk in the dark, and my brother was firing tracers from camp, and Kenny got quite mad, as the tracers brought back some bad memories. Another time at elk camp, a couple of the wild ones were up too late, and began firing rifles at the camp fire. Kenny got out of his bed in his canopy, and confiscated them all for the night. This was quite a sight, as I remember Kenny being about 5' 2", and the rowdies were 6' to 6' 4".

One time, at deer camp, my dad had shot a deer close to the road, and Kenny, in his stoic wisdom, suggested that the deer would be much easier to gut if we hung it from it's hind legs in a tree nearby. We were all, 'OK', as Kenny usually had good ideas, but this one was a prank, as he backed off and laughed while we attempted to carry out his directions.

On another front, my grandfather served for the U.S. in the WW I, and fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. I still have his campaign badge from that battle.  I just was reviewing that particular battle this year, and had never realized that it was one of the largest, and bloodiest battles in U.S. military history. Ed never talked much about his time there, as he suffered night terrors the rest of his life from his WW I experiences. He did say how amazed he was when they overran the German trenches, "as they had grand pianos down there." An interesting story that just surfaced - Ed claimed to be full blooded German in ancestry, which people tracked quite religiously back then. My dad always said that growing up in Minnesota, it was the first question you usually asked anyone you met. Anyway, my brother and sister recently did the ancestry tests, and that full-blooded German was most likely Irish in hiding! We have a 1/4 more Irish in us that we thought, and 1/4 less German. It works out for me here in Lakeview, as it is loaded with both 'off the boat' and descendants of the Irish immigrants that ended up in this area.

Anyway, thanks for posting your progress on these projects!

Mike

[OV]

Hi Mike,

Happy New Year!  Thank you for writing.  I remember you messaged me a while back about your Korean War veteran friend.  I wrote a book that featured several Native Korean War vet interviews.  I know the Roberts family is Yurok, but I'll ask to be sure about Kenny. 

Did you know my graphic novel with the artist Rahsan Ekedal is about the Meuse-Argonne Offensive?  It's historical fiction; based on the Army's 91st Infantry Division.  Most of the men from California who served were in this Division, which was located at the center of the American thrust against German defenses in that battle.  I researched this for years, and my novel is endorsed by the U.S. World War One Centennial Commission, which is a group of retired military and academics who were appointed by Presidents Bush and Obama to serve in that group.  My novel is the only comic they endorsed in their five year history.  If you look on the front cover of the photo I've posted you'll see their logo, which they allow endorsed publications to use.  I'm very proud of this to be honest.  I'll message you about how to get the comic! 

May 2021 bring good health to you and your family,

Chag