We're Still Here: American Indian Spirit in the Unmade Place
This summer, the Red Cloud Opera House is excited to welcome artists Steven Tamayo, Paul High Horse, and Anne Steinhoff as they present We're Still Here: American Indian Spirit in the Unmade Place. These Native American artists have brought together a number of cultural touchstones and mediums as they respond to our Spring Conference theme, "Cather's House: Examining Built and Natural Environments in Her Work."
A lingering modern critique of Cather's work points out the lack of Native American representation in her Nebraska novels particularly, despite an obvious historical connection. Though Cather's reasons for these erasures and omissions can only be conjectured, an examination of place would not be complete without including a response from the Native American community.
This beautiful and evocative work invites the viewer to consider the spaces—both spoken and unspoken—in Cather's texts.
Many of these pieces are for sale, and gallery sales not only support the artists in our communities, but also support the programming at the Red Cloud Opera House and Gallery.
Programming at the Red Cloud Opera House is made possible through a basic support grant from the Nebraska Arts Council and Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
About Our Artists
Steve Tamayo
Steve Tamayo is a traditional Sicangu Lakota artist whose family originates from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Tamayo is a regular consultant to the curatorial and conservation staff at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Tamayo’s honors include the 2014 Nebraska Arts Council Governor’s Heritage Art Award for excellence in cultural artistic expression. In 2015, he and Paul High Horse won the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award for best two-person exhibition; they were again nominated in 2016. Tamayo has exhibited at The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the Kaneko in Omaha, the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, the John G. Neihardt Center in Bancroft, Nebraska, and RNG Gallery in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Paul High Horse
Paul High Horse is member of the Sicangu (Sičháŋǧu) Lakota tribe. Son of a Lakota father and Italian mother, Paul was born in New Jersey; however, at the age of three, his parents moved to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota so Paul and his siblings could be immersed in their native culture. He lived on the reservation until he left to attend college at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees.
Paul’s artistic philosophy incorporates a modern approach to communicate a rich historical context of the Lakota people. His art captures the symbols, traditions, and values inherent to the Lakota tribe. His work also explores different media including acrylics, archival pens, watercolor, and ledger paper. Paul currently teaches 7-12th grade Art at Fort Calhoun Community School in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, but resides in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Anne Steinhoff
Anne Steinhoff brings a poet's sensibilities to the canvas, conveying strong emotions through bright colors, textures and gestures. She is motivated by the desire to produce dynamic abstract-expressionistic images that touch hearts and lift spirits.
She approaches each painting with a sense of discovery, possessing no expectations for the final result. She covers her canvas with multiple layers of paint that she swipes, stamps, flings, and drags onto the surface. The result is “visual poetry,” depictions of beauty, nature and transcendence.
A self-taught artist, Anne began painting in 2000, following a successful fifteen-year business career. During a two-year art sabbatical, she worked as an artist in residence at the former Jackson Artworks, an Old Market gallery in Omaha.
Anne has exhibited and sold her artwork in galleries and shows, and was one of 94 artists selected to participate in the largest public-art exhibit in Omaha’s history: The Public Art Exposure Project (J. Doe Project).
She has worked with dozens of nonprofits to develop creative projects and has managed several charity art shows. One highlight was helping students at St. Augustine Indian Mission in Winnebago, Nebraska, create a culturally relevant work of art. Titled “The Hearts of St. Augustine,” the 72-piece work was exhibited in an Omaha gallery and later installed at the school.
Anne is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, as well as a lineal descendant of the Seneca and Wyandotte tribes. She enjoys working with Nebraska’s talented Native American artists through both the nonprofit and art worlds. In all pursuits, Anne is motivated by the beliefs that we are all connected, and we need to support one another on our life journeys.