California
Allison Wiese
Altered Book:
Untitled
Blue Jacket, War Chief of the Shawnee, Allan W. Eckert (1969)
Signed first edition of 1969 novel submerged in Karo corn syrup in stainless steel lidded tray.
Artist Statement
Untitled submerges a signed first edition of Allan W. Eckert’s Blue Jacket, bookmarked with my family’s pie crust recipe, in a baking dish filled with light Karo corn syrup, in an attempt to seal in a white supremacist lie without hiding it.
The B.S. “Cherokee Princess” story in my white family is weirder than some. Initially floated in an 1877 article in the Daily Ohio State Journal by Thomas Jefferson Larsh, the lie that the skilled Shawnee War Chief Blue Jacket (a precursor to the better-known Tecumseh) was an abducted white settler has continued to spread through a Young Adult novel published the year before my birth. Though Eckert presented the work as based on historical research, he cannot have inquired very far. The actual descendants of Weyapiersenwah (Blue Jacket) (ca. 1743-1810) have always been clear that he was born Shawnee.
Short Bio
Allison Wiese is an interdisciplinary artist who makes sculptures, installations, sound works, performances, and architectural interventions. Her work is often created for public spaces at the boundaries, or outside of, institutions, and has been exhibited throughout the United States, among other venues at: Machine Project in LA; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City. She is the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and has received grants from Art Matters, Creative Capital, the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and the City of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture.