Hello readers both old and new. Thanks so much for your readership and for all the good energy.  We have heard thunder and seen lightning all around the Black Hills, so spring is truly underway.  We are seeing that haze of green break out all around; it's most evident out on the prairie where all the grasses are putting on the dog for the coming season.  It's still WAY dry here but naturally we are optimistic about the coming rain.  The birds are back as well - the cranes have flown south over my house out in the country and those chesty little robins are strutting their stuff, to say nothing of all the meadowlarks and redwing blackbirds.  My friend Carol lives up in the Hills in an old mining town and she called me last week all excited because she saw a real male cardinal up there.  We just never see those birds here.

Speaking of birds, my boss and I drove up to Montana this last weekend and we couldn't turn our heads without seeing hawks, ravens and eagles all over the place.  We saw coyotes nosing at tussocks of grass looking for mice on the prairie and those mysterious, tattooed antelopes were standing like they were waiting for some ancient ceremony to begin.  Everyone is out and about.  The weather was a mixture of fast-moving sunny cloudscapes and brief bursts of intense snowstorms.  It's definitely not time to clean out the woodstove for the season YET.  Dan and I made the trip for the annual buying foray on the Northern Cheyenne reservation and then over to Crow country.  It's an annual event for us and one we totally look forward to making - it's work, but exciting and relaxing at the same time.  We left the Black Hills at 5:00 a.m. and drove northwest on Highway 212 through a hazy, dense atmosphere - like a here-and-there fog.  As familiar as we are with that stretch of the road, there were certain buttes that would loom out of the mist and they appeared new to us - the haziness gave them a new depth and we had to keep asking each other if that certain cluster of hills had just appeared since last year.  The full sweep of the prairie was obscured by the mists and heightened the sense of expectancy that we had for the days ahead.

We got up to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation by mid-morning and were early enough that we did a little sight-seeing, driving north of Lame Deer to the town of Colstrip and back.  We drove past the Bailey ranch where Sitting Bull's people had converged before the battle of the Little Bighorn and where he received spiritual direction from the pictures anciently carved and painted on the rock formations there.  When we got back to town, we set up at the tribal office and thoroughly enjoyed seeing some old friends and meeting some new ones.  Dan talked to a gentleman named Don Many Bad Horses from Busby, Montana, who was full of stories from the area.  I was totally thrilled to FINALLY meet Louella Fire Crow Russette - a beadwork artist who makes a definitive neck pouch.  I have been trying to track her down for twelve years, after my relatives who ranch up there on Muddy Creek showed me some of her beautiful, tidy work.  We were disappointed to not see our friend Conrad Fisher from the Tribal Preservation Office, but we were busy meeting new artists.  Some Plains Cree folks even came, driving for six hours down from the Rocky Boy Reservation to the north.  They had beautiful floral beadwork in a fantastically neat applique stitch done on that thick hand-tanned moosehide that is THE most fantastic material on which to bead.  We left in the mid-afternoon and drove through a raging snowstorm to Billings, stopping at River Crow Trading Post on the way to say hey to Theodine Hugs and her daughter Jill at Crow Agency.

Billings has a very large and vigorous downtown area and we checked it out a bit.  I made my pilgrimage to Lou Taubert's - the best Western clothing store EVER.  There were so many wonderful snap shirts that I could not make my mind up and left empty-handed, which is a crime.  The next day was clear but quite cold.  We ate breakfast at Stella's, a downtown Billings landmark - a bakery and restaurant that automatically puts you at ease and in a good mood.  We were seated right next to a customer of ours from Rapid City, believe it or not and we had a good visit.  After an unfortunate but not insurmountable flat tire issue in the Walmart parking lot, we drove south to Pryor on the Crow Reservation and set up at the Chief Plenty Coups Museum.  The museum is sited just north of the Pryor Mountains and they would hove in and out of sight all day, being covered completely by fog and clouds and then suddenly appearing a bit later.  The calm and efficient Susan Stewart is the director of the museum and she had arranged for quite a few Crow artists to come with their fabulous, sophisticated beadwork.  LaVonna Falls Down had beaded a lance case and a gun scabbard that took our breath away.  I marveled, once again, at the totally unique quality of Crow art, with its shifting two-dimensionality patterns and colors so unlike anything in the region.  Anyone who beads always closely examines their art and we all wonder how they DO that.  One of the Rock Above girls came in with some work and Derek and Jace Big Day were there as well.

The Crows have a charming phrase for saying farewell that translates literally as "next time again" and this is what they said to us as we were leaving.  It was all very soothing and "homey" and the weather held for us on the way back to Billings that afternoon.  I visited with Thommy Meyers that afternoon at Buffalo Chips Trading Post and was impressed, as usual, with all of his creatively displayed inventory.  Be sure and check out his shop on 24th Street on the west side of Billings.

We left for home the next morning after another fortifying breakfast at Stella's and drove south to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming.  Stopping at Sheridan, which has another very healthy downtown (such a rarity these days). We tried to find a friend's gallery but with no luck.  We were back in the Black Hills by early afternoon and I had the pleasant task of wowing my coworkers with the van-load of Indian art just purchased.  In early May, we are traveling to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming for just the same reason - to meet Shoshone and Arapaho artists from that area.  All of these peoples mentioned make up the pulse of the region in which we live and we want to include them and provide a venue for their art.

Say, I have a "new product" update:  We now have glover's needles in size #12!!  They are nicely small and can easily be used on those tougher spots for actually beading.  The #9 and #10 sizes had a tendency to occasionally break the beads as they went through them, but this smaller size is just the ticket if you find yourself stuck with beading onto a tougher hide.  They retail at $11.30 per package of 25.  We are all pretty excited about them and the customer response has been good.

Thank you so much again for your loyal readership and now that the new season is coming on, come visit and have a time with us!

"Next time again"!  Pilamiye ka doksa ake from Michael.

As you are reading the May edition of the Prairie Edge Newsletter, I see you have successfully navigated our brand new website.  Welcome!

I would like to introduce you this month to an early day photographer.

Laton Alton Huffman (1854-1931) is perhaps the most significant photographer in the West, particularly in the Montana-Wyoming region.  He learned photography as an understudy of F.J. Haynes, the renowned photographer of Yellowstone National Park.  Arriving in Fort Keogh, Montana Territory in 1879, ten years before Montana would become a state, he would capture the spirit of the American West like no other artist.  Equally comfortable photographing Plains Indians and working cowboys, Huffman worked both in the studio and out on the open range, carrying his camera on horseback as he documented untamed western landscapes and the last of the buffalo herds. While many painters and photographers created art that romanticized the West, Huffman also photographed everyday life, including sheep and cattle ranching, hunting and Indian camps.  He captured city life in Miles City and Billings, with parades, street scenes and local citizens.  Landscapes of Yellowstone National Park and photos of the evolving memorials at Custer Battlefield are also part of Huffman’s historic legacy.

“The lesson of Huffman’s work is that photography – used with intelligence, enthusiasm, knowledge and passion – can help us to enlarge and enrich our understanding of and our affection for the west that has passed.  In my humble estimation, no one did it better than L.A. Huffman.”  (Larry Len Peterson)

Prairie Edge is proud to offer a line of pottery on which Huffman’s black and white images are portrayed.  A different photograph is showcased on each piece and is designed to best display the beautiful, historic photography of L.A. Huffman.  Each piece has a logo on the reverse of a replication of his signature along with the title and date of the original photo.

The dinnerware is made of fine, light-weight porcelain that is easy to handle.  The larger pieces are designed on dolomite for either everyday use or light enough for display.  Each piece is dishwasher/microwave safe and is made in a FDA approved factory.

We have many different images on small plates, bowls, canister sets and platters.  Give us a call for further details.  Prices range from $8 to $170.

Thanks for your time and have a wonderful month of May.

Hello again everyone. Along with the new and improved website that we’ve been laboring away on, we’ve also made some big changes in the gallery. We’ve moved all the artwork and displays around, making it fresh and different and we have a brand new artist to the gallery and are loving the addition. Jennifer Braig is an oil painter who lives in Spearfish, SD. She paints landscapes in bright colors and uses very expressive texturing which make her pieces visually exciting and her style uniquely hers.

Jenny grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, a Midwestern town along the Mississippi River. She received a degree in Art, minoring in Art History and English, from Loras College in her hometown in 1992. That same year she moved to the Black Hills in South Dakota. Jenny says that for a landscape painter, moving to the West was ideal. She now spends her time painting landscapes of her two homes, the open spaces of the western landscape and the rolling farmlands of her childhood home.

“My paintings invite you to step close. Full of texture and color, they offer a luxurious eye feast. The images in my art are representations of places I have lived in and traveled through. The surface of my work is alive and lush. The gestural sketching and scratching give the surface action. The act of painting and drawing are on display. The work is real and full of life. When you see my paintings you are there, experiencing the hand and eye of the artist and the reality of the paint.”

When Jennifer brought her pieces into the gallery she told me that she loves paint. Looking at the way that she has applied the paint and the techniques she uses to get such varied textures; it is obvious that the paint is what makes her style resonate. The paint itself is her foremost inspiration and she is able to manipulate it to show in a very interesting way her second inspiration, the landscapes that she loves to drive around in and admire. I find her paintings very fascinating to study and I hope that you enjoy them as well. Her pieces are a great addition to our gallery and quite possibly you may want to welcome one of her unique paintings into your home or office. Indeed they do offer a “luxurious eye feast!”

Thanks for reading and enjoy the feast.

Ok, so now you are practicing the Lakota language, bought a couple of books on  Lakota culture and are holding your plane tickets in hand  waiting anxiously to come visit us...right?  Maybe you have never traveled out west before. Maybe you have never been on the reservation before and maybe you have never encountered a Native American before!

Oh my gosh, so many questions such as:  Why is the word squaw offensive?  Is it true that Native Americans don’t like to have their photographs taken because they believe it might steal their spirit?  Did Indians really use smoke signals?  How did Pendleton blankets become so important to the American Indian?  Why do Indians wear feathers?  What are ledger drawings?  What are tom-tom drums and do Indians chant? 

Now that I’ve peaked your interest let me introduce you to a book that might help answer some of these basic questions and a whole lot more!  “Do All Indians Live In Tipis?  Questions and Answers from the National Museum of the American Indian.” This book has the answers to those sometimes seemingly sensitive questions $14.95.

For those of you looking for the answers to questions such as:  Is the Indian population increasing or decreasing? How many tribes are federally recognized?  How many official treaties did the U.S make with Indian tribes and what is the present status of those treaties?  What is Indian trust land, how much is there and is the amount increasing or decreasing? Tough questions and here is the book with all the answers “American Indians, Answers to Today’s Questions” by Jack Utter $24.95.

Both of these books would be great reference guides for anyone (including me!) that may be researching the culture and history of the Native American people. These two books do a great job answering questions you may think are too silly to ask.  My co-workers and I had great time asking each other questions from the book to see how much we really knew! 

Toksa Ake` wancinyankin kte`…until next time, I’ll see you again!