Raven Halfmoon: Caddo Ceramic Art and Identity at Ballroom Marfa

Caddo Nation artist Raven Halfmoon presents powerful ceramic sculptures at Ballroom Marfa. Her work, reflecting cultural roots and depicting strong Indigenous women, includes large-scale pieces like Flagbearer and is her first major traveling exhibition.

Asked whether she is depicting herself in these portraits, Halfmoon grins. “The job I’m making is even more than myself,” she states.

Ballroom is a contemporary art space in a small town with an abnormally outsized art tradition in West Texas. Donald Judd relocated to Marfa in the 1970s and constructed a series of studios and galleries that still draw site visitors from worldwide. The Ballroom building was a dance hall in the 1920s. It was reprise in 2003 into a kunsthalle including art, efficiency and music by Virginia Lebermann and Fairfax Dorn.

Artist’s Caddo Roots and Unique Style

Halfmoon matured as a member of the Caddo Country in Oklahoma. She still lives there, although she is commonly away for occasions and residencies where she can use kilns much bigger than the one she contends home. But any place she functions, her ceramic sculptures emanate a durable personal style and language that reflect her cultural roots.

Several of the women busts and torsos exist as pairs in a single sculpture– either alongside, as in Tsu’- Cus lya’ y? I (Star Sister I) (2022 ), or with their backs versus one another like Night and day in Oklahoma (2026 ). To identify them, the two components are often repainted various colours– such as black and white, or red and white.

Halfmoon was birthed in Norman, Oklahoma. She showed an amazing ability for art ever before because she was a child, claims her mom, Stacey Halfmoon– who drove to Marfa with her daughter for the opening.

Halfmoon made Flagbearer (2022 ), the 12.5-ft-tall glazed stoneware figure in Ballroom’s exterior courtyard, throughout a residency at The golden state State University, Long Coastline. Halfmoon is tall– taller with her platform sneakers and cowboy hat– and puts on pilot sunglasses in the Texas sun.

Reclaiming Indigenous Narratives

The artist is keenly aware of stereotypical historical pictures of Indigenous Americans, and she is intent on responding to these with her very own depictions of strong, powerful women that control their own destinies. Via her art, she intends to tell the long-lasting and profound tales she matured with. “I really feel a responsibility to share backgrounds,” she claims. “I have a duty to my family members, to my tribe.”

Lebermann is delighted the museum was able to organize the Halfmoon program. “She’s an amazing artist, and she’s such a rockstar,” Lebermann claims. “There was additionally a bit of luck– our supervisor at the time was from Oklahoma, and she was the one that started the program.”

Ballroom’s central entrance hall features another of Halfmoon’s big women numbers, America’s Sweetheart (2022 ). This one has three colours and recommendations the United States flag. The upper section is polished in dark grey embellished with white celebrities, there is white in the center, and red on the legs and hips. The galleries on either side feature extra figurative job, including a couple equines.

Flagbearer took a year to create. It is so massive that it had to be made in three sections, developed making use of standard Caddo coil techniques and formed by the artist’s fingers raking and squeezing throughout the surface area “and other things neighboring”, Halfmoon claims with a laugh.

Halfmoon was birthed in Norman, Oklahoma. She showed an exceptional ability for art ever since she was a child, states her mom, Stacey Halfmoon– that drove to Marfa with her child for the opening. “When she was young, I took her to check out a senior that was making porcelains,” says the artist’s mother. The experience stuck to the younger Halfmoon, and when she participated in the College of Arkansas, she double learnt ceramics/painting and social anthropology.

Signature Style & Symbolic Glazes

Halfmoon appreciates leaving hand-made references on her jobs, and she suches as exactly how the glazes of red and white dripped on this one. This rough-hewn appearance is part of her signature design. Halfmoon likewise limits herself primarily to dark grey/black, white/cream and red lusters. The red is a recommendation to Oklahoma dirt and killed Indigenous women.

Halfmoon grew up as a participant of the Caddo Nation in Oklahoma. Halfmoon enjoys leaving handcrafted references on her works, and she likes exactly how the lusters of red and white leaked on this one. The exhibition concentrates on Halfmoon’s past five years of work and is her very first major travelling event.

Major Traveling Exhibition Details

Flags of Our Moms stemmed at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Gallery in Connecticut and Bemis Facility for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, organised by the 2 galleries’ primary curators, Amy Smith-Stewart (Aldrich) and Rachel Adams (Bemis). “When we discovered that we were both curious about a program with Raven, we determined to collaborate,” Smith-Stewart informs The Art Paper. The exhibit focuses on Halfmoon’s previous five years of job and is her first significant taking a trip exhibition.