{"id":716,"date":"2019-08-30T21:03:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T21:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethnicstudies.ucr.edu\/?p=716"},"modified":"2024-10-27T08:17:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T15:17:06","slug":"tweaking-the-traditional-spotlight-on-prof-gerald-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethnicstudies.ucr.edu\/tweaking-the-traditional-spotlight-on-prof-gerald-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweaking the Traditional: Spotlight on Prof. Gerald Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palm Springs Life<\/em> published a profile<\/a> on Prof. Gerald Clarke and his Palm Springs Art Museum online exhibition \u201cGerald Clarke: Falling Rock<\/a>.<\/strong>\u201d Excerpt below:<\/p>\n

The dirt road leading to the home and art studio of Gerald Clarke begins at State Route 371 in Anza, a mountain community 40 miles southwestof Palm Springs. Flanked by the Cahuilla Casino and the Cahuilla Band of Indians\u2019 modest tribal offices, the narrow path is the inconspicuous gateway to a 19,000-acre reservation steeped in centuries of history but populated with only about 50 houses; two-thirds of the tribe\u2019s 300 members live off the reservation. Clarke knows every sliver of this land, every critter and every plant \u2014 the stinging nettles (\u201cThey sting like hell, but we eat those\u201d), tobacco (\u201cWe have songs about it\u201d), elderberry trees (\u201cThe berries are edible, you can make flutes out of the wood, but the leaves, they\u2019ll kill you\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cT.E.K., they call it: traditional ecological knowledge,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Clarke also knows every lingering remnant of the tribe\u2019s history here \u2014 the Catholic church (originally a schoolhouse) where a Bureau of Indian Affairs officer was fatally shot in 1909, the hot springs where his family bathed until they got running water in 1986 (\u201cMy dad would say, \u2018People in Palm Springs pay hundreds of dollars to do what you\u2019re doing.\u2019 \u201d), the old\u00a0ramada<\/em>\u00a0where tribal members once sang bird songs, and the cemetery where he and the men of the tribe still dig graves by hand. \u201cBurial came with the Catholics,\u201d he says, adding that traditional cremation is returning to favor.<\/p>\n

Although he and his sister grew up in Hemet and Orange County, his father, Gerald Clarke Sr., picked them up on weekends and hosted them for summers on the reservation. \u201cI grew up doing the cowboy stuff,\u201d the younger Clarke says. \u201cI learned early on that stereotypes are bullshit. My grandpa and my dad were hardcore Indian cowboys.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Clarke was passionate about learning. He went to college and earned master\u2019s degrees in painting and sculpture from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He became an educator, knowing all along that his heritage would eventually lead him back to the reservation. \u201cFrom the time I was very young, I knew it was my role to take over the ranch after my dad died,\u201d he says. That day came in 2003, when Clarke was teaching studio art at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. He gave up his position, returned to the ranch, and began teaching part time at Idyllwild Arts, where he later became chairman of the visual arts department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house I live in is 100 years old; my grandpa built it and ran things. He passed away, and my dad ran things. And now I\u2019m \u2026 shopping for a bull,\u201d he says, driving by a pasture and pointing out one of two steers he and his brother-in-law will butcher, providing his family with meat for a year.<\/p>\n

Clarke has emerged as a tribal leader, and he\u2019s back on the tenure track as an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside. But neither he nor his tribe is stuck in a time warp; the reservation has plenty of modern amenities: a bright-white internet repeater towering on a hillside, a softball field situated across from a new\u00a0ramada<\/em>, solar panels on several rooftops, and Clarke\u2019s art studio, a Quonset structure he built two years ago.<\/p>\n

Read the full article here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n