This is a print of the portrait from the series Dormidera. This print is of Dormidera #3: LAW  (Espiritu Chijulla Leonis). The third in the series is the portrait of mixed Chumash/Tongva-Gabrielino (Fernandeno) woman Espiritu Chijulla Leonis. She was the 30 year common law wife to Miguel Leonis, an abusive Basque sheepherder nicknamed "The King of Calabasas". Espiritu's father’s land grant, Rancho El Scorpion, came under ownership of  her husband due to laws of the era and their marriage. After her husband’s death, she was left nothing in his will and hired a lawyer, Horace Bell,  to help fight for the estate of her father and family’s traditional homelands her husband acquired. After a 16 year court case, she won her right to 50% of what was hers.
 
For this series, I am using rare historical portraits to create a visual juxtaposition between ephemeral, classical portraiture and overlays similar to Victorian pressed flower collecting and modern #superbloom trends. My goal in this work is to create a dialogue about how the women in these photographs have been implemented in today’s modern cultural revival and the current “reseeding” of both culture and the larger landscape of California, reflecting the health of and/or damage to our tribal communities. This series hopes to also create a visual color through-line between Poppy/Flame motif speaking of how fire continues to be the commonality in this revitalization: a physical manifestation in shades of yellow-orange-red speaking to land care relationships and a forward movement of cultural revival through language keeping, protests of land theft and fights for land back, as the intangible petals of the poppy flower, whose beauty no one can truly hold onto.
 
The prints will be glicee on thick art paper. 
 
for larger custom sizes, please message me directly. 
 
Please allow 2-3 weeks from order date to ship, as I use an outside print house to have these done.