Carving Out A Legend
about the artist
Tribe: Mohawk
Occupation: Artist, Carver
PERSONAL
Born: Stanley R. Hill, Six Nations Reserve, Ohsweken, Ontario, on November 16, 1921, to a Tuscarora father and a Mohawk mother: by tradition, the Iroquois adopt the tribal affiliation of their mother, so Hill considered himself a Mohawk; however, the Canadian government categorizes Indians according to their father's tribe, so he is listed as a Tuscarora on the tribal enrollment for the Six Nations Band.
Education: Oshweken, Ontario schools and Metalsmith School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Military Service: U.S. Navy, World War II. Metalsmith, First Clas and Deep Sea Diver
Career: Construction and iron worker for thirty-three years, including twelve as co-owner of a steel construction company; field laborer; full-time artist since the mid 1970s.
Awards: Over 50, including Northern Arts and Crafts Show in Buffalo, New York, First Place, 1975; Scottsdale Annual Indian Art Exhibition, Third Place in Sculpture, 1976; 32nd Annual American Indian Artist Exhibition, Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, First Place Award in Sculpture, 1977; Heard Museum Guild Annual Indian Art Show, Phoenix, Arizona, First Place in Sculpture, 1980.
Individual Exhibitions:
1977: Bone Carvings by Stanley Hill, Sioux Indian Museum and Crafts Center, Rapid City, South Dakota
1982: Niwodihi Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona
1984: Stan Hill: Iroquois Art, Schoharie Museum of the Iroquois Indian, Schoharie, New York
1985: Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art 1965-1985, national touring exhibition through 1987
1989: Ganondagan State Historical Site, New York
Collections:
Bolle Museum, Paris, France
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Ontario
Eitlejorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana
Indian Art Centre, Government of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinberg, Ontario
Miccosukee Museum, Tamiami Trail, Florida
Museum of the Iroquois Indian, Schoharie, New York
Rochester Museum and Science Museum, Rochester, New York
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario
Seneca Iroquois Museum, Salamanca, New York
Woodland Indian Cultural Education Center, Brantford, Ontario.
NARRATIVE ESSAY:
Stan Hill comments (1977):
"I did not plan to be an artist; therefore, working with bones and antlers was quite accidental. After doing a few carvings, the antlers and bones seemed to come alive. A whole new world opened to me. It appeared that any discarded bone or antler could be transformed into a life-like object of beauty. I am an instinctive carver. Every piece is a challenge. It has always been amazing to me to see my carvings slowly come alive with my inner feelings. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to give life to some animal that has lived his life upon this earth and the remains discarded and thrown away. My work makes me fully realize that life is a circle. Even though we cannot see this circle, it does not mean it isn't there."
- (From the catalog Bone Carvings by Stanley Hill.)
Stan Hill was raised on a farm on the largest reservation in Canada, where he gained a respect for the annual cycles of nature, the sustenance given by the ripening crops, and the importance of animals. While he did not grow up within the traditional rituals of his people, his real life experiences paralleled that of his ancestors, who were noted farmers, hunters and warriors. Hill left the reserve and worked on fruit farms and in construction in the Lewiston, New York, area, where he met his wife Alma, a Tuscarora Indian. He then became an ironworker, like many other Mohawk men in his era, and was drafted into the American Navy during the World War II, where he served as a deep sea diver in the South Pacific to locate and repair ships. After the war he returned to Buffalo, New York, and resumed his career as an ironworker. The tragic death of one of his four sons in a car accident changed Stan's life. He became more introspective and turned to art for consolation. He started by carving rings out of stainless steel nuts he would pick up on the job site. His first works were of animals and images of ironworking. On a mountain-climbing trip in Alaska, he saw an eagle for the first time in his life and watched as it swooped down and captured a fish. Upon returning home, he was given a piece of bone and encouraged to carve that eagle by his brother-in-law, Duffy Wilson, himself a stone sculptor. When he did, a whole new life was begun, at the age of 55. Hill decided to sell his construction business and take up carving full time. "For 33 years I worked in the construction business, up there in the sky with the high steel," explained Stan. "It was a dangerous job, very hard work. I was good at it. But there's more to a man than making a living." Hill is a self-taught artist, carving moose and deer antler, animals bones and ivory. His work recalls traditional beliefs, but it is truly unique in that he taught himself how to carve, how to craft the images he wants, and how to market his work. In fact, he did not have much schooling at all, but worked hard to make his life significant to himself, his family as well as the others he meets through his art. He is proud of his accomplishments but is not comfortable calling himself an artist, as he views the process of making art as a gift from a higher power. He believes that the power to think about the meaning of life is enhanced by the discipline that art requires. The hours it takes to carve allow him to think about the things that matter to him and to work his way through what he was taught, what he used to believe, and to seek a more enlightened understanding. In this way, Hill believes that one of the functions of art for Indians is the meditative process: the creative energy of making art feeds the creative thinking about meaning.
Since the mid-1970s, Hill has used his art as his way to make a difference. He works for change, as he says: "So there's nothing I could say that would make you understand my feelings. The feelings of an Indian. That's why sometimes, I guess, the artist tries to get his feelings into his work, hoping that the white man can understand it." Sometimes the recognition he receives amazes him, other times it confuses him, as he can remember a more racist time when Indians were looked down upon; now, people will pay for what he has to say as an Indian.
Hill lived with the belief that life without struggles is no life. His own struggles have enriched his life. With each success he grew more thankful for the gift of art. Through his antler and bone carvings he grew more sensitive to the ways of his ancestors. His work shows the eagles, deer, bear, turtles, beaver, herons, hawks and wolves that animate the oral history of his people, as well as the legendary spirit of corn, beans and squash that he experienced as a young boy planting seeds, hoeing the fields and harvesting the fruits of the earth.
To see his work today, you would think that he was a born carver, that he spent his whole life perfecting his skill and vision. Yet, Stan is a self-taught artist and single-handedly revived bone carving, one of the most ancient American Indian art forms. There were no rules for him to break, no blueprints to follow, no instruction manual to read for what he has done. It is his sheer self-determination that has allowed the beauty of his work to come forth. He works diligently to find the right tools, the right techniques, the right feelings that he wants to project. Over the last 30 years, Hill has remade himself through his art, becoming more in tune with his ancestors, and his experience proves that art has power to transform the artist.
PUBLICATIONS ON HILL:
American Indian Lives: Artists and Craftspeople, by Arlene Hirschfelder, New York, 1994.
"Iron and Antler: The Art of Stan Hill," by G. Peter Jemison, Northeast Indian Quarterly, Winter 1990
"Stanley Hill and Lost Art of Carving," The Indian Trader, March 1982
"Iroquois Sculptors," American Indian Art Magazine, Spring 1990.
