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Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.
Artist Don Tenoso is a prolific creator, known for his Lakota-style dollmaking that depicts Sioux culture. Tenoso came to the Washington, D.C., area in 1991 as the first artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, where he created new pieces and led demonstrations for the public.
Don Tenoso, circa 1990 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Tenoso was born in Riverside, California, and is a member of the Hunkpapa, one of the seven bands of the Teton Lakota Nation and part of the Sioux-speaking indigenous population. Tenoso’s mother was born on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota, and he is a descendant of One Bull and Sitting Bull. His father was in the U.S. military during Tenoso’s early life and the family often moved around the country and abroad.
The following interview excerpts are from a 2008 oral history with Tenoso. At the time of this interview, he had lived in Arlington for about 14 years. In the full interview, which can be accessed in print at the Center for Local History, Tenoso also discusses his family and lineage, as well as tribal traditions and the Lakota language.
Don Tenoso, circa 2005. Image courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where Tenoso was the university’s first artist-in-residence at the Native American House.
Narrator: Don Tenoso
Interviewer: Tom Dickinson
Date: January 23, 2008
Note: The audio for this interview is currently unavailable.
Don Tenoso: I was the first artist-in-residence in the Natural History Museum. Prior to that they had brought me in for a three-day doll demonstration where they had taken one of the glass cases out of one of the Native halls there in Natural History at Smithsonian and by different artists coming in. Me, a Sioux doll maker, was invited to come up and do that. I guess they had spent like nine months trying to find me. I started dollmaking back in the seventies.
Anyway, in the eighties, ‘86 or so, ‘87, there was an article in American Indian Art magazine that was published about dolls. In ‘86 I believe it was, I had a one-man show down in Andrew Park, Oklahoma and they collected the International Crafts Board for four of my dolls.
So one of them got in that article and then the director over at education in the outreach program saw the doll and they said they wanted to find that guy.
Don Tenoso circa 1991 outside of the National Museum of Natural History with some of his works of art. The doll beside Tenoso is called “Iktorni,” or “trickster doll.” Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Leather holster created by Tenoso in 2006, covered in a beadwork design. Image courtesy of the British Museum, where the piece is held.
Tom Dickinson: How did you get started doing this [art practice]?
DT: Actually I started when I was in New York. I went out there because I heard that C. W. Post [campus of Long Island University] had a scholarship for Natives who wanted it to be teachers. It turns out they didn’t so I went to the American Indian Community House there in New York.
Actually, backpedal a little bit. I was born in Riverside, California in 1960. In ‘63 we were in France. We were there when de Gaulle kicked us out. So my earliest memories are there when the French high school kids were throwing rocks at us on the playground. They would stone our bus. I remember flying out of there and the U.S. piling up all these brand new, big boxes and stuff and just setting them on fire. Big old wrecking balls smashing holes into runways as you flew out. I also got to see some whales as we flew, that’s how low they went across the ocean. You can see the spouts and little tails going across.
So from there we go to Oklahoma City, so I got to meet all these Natives. They used to call it Indian Territory which is sort of a penal colony for Native Americans starting back through Trail of Tears, Andrew Jackson and all of that stuff.
From there we went and lived in Rapid [City] back where my grandma lived, lot of relatives in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the Black Hills which is our sacred area, which actually by federal courts is still our property. But they offered us $10 million or $100 million or something but we still don’t take it. Because our sacred Wind Cave is there and that’s one of our origin stories. We came from there. The thing about Wind Cave you stand there one hour of the day and it blows your hair back.
So geologists say, “Yeah, there’s probably an underground stream - they haven’t found it yet - flowing and air displacement and that’s causing your hair to go that way.” The only thing is you come back some hours later, same day, and now it’s sucking your hair into the cave. “I guess there’s a tilting rock or something under there that messes with it.” We say that’s Mother Earth breathing, that’s where she breathes from.
Learn more: View a program from the 1992 exhibit Contemporary Plains Indian Dolls, which took place at the Southern Plains Indian Museum and Crafts Center in Anadarko, Oklahoma. The exhibit featured a piece by Don Tenoso (“Gourd Clain Dancer,” figure 10).
This interview was conducted as part of The Many Faces of Arlington oral history project, which sought to document the County’s diverse population as a reflection on the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown by English colonizers.
The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.
The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.
To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.
A surprisingly open memoir co-authored by the married duo of a world class oncologist and a cancer survivor about love, pain, hope, strength and resilience while navigating the overwhelming breast cancer advocacy movement.
Watch the video: https://youtu.be/5JPqRkpBzp4
About the Authors:
Liza Marshall left her law practice in 2005 to focus on her family and Hope Connections for Cancer Support, of which she is a founding member. In 2006, at the age of forty-three, Liza was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, the most deadly form of the disease. Throughout her treatment and beyond, Liza has been an active volunteer at Hope Connections and other local non-profits, serving on boards, directing development campaigns, and supporting a variety of communities and missions.
John Marshall is a medical oncologist and a professor at Georgetown University, and an internationally recognized expert in gastrointestinal cancers and the development of new treatments for cancer. He has been outspoken on controversial issues in cancer research, including his criticism of the dominance and success of breast cancer advocacy and research at the unfortunate expense of other specialties.
About the Interviewer:
Bethanne Patrick is a Washington Post book reviewer and the editor, most recently, of “The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians and Other Remarkable People.”
October 8, 2021
The REAL Archives Project, or el Re-Encuentro de Arlington Latinos, is designed to illustrate the rich, vibrant history of the Latino community in Arlington County.
The Center for Local History (CLH) is seeking donations of a variety of materials to document the impact of the Latino community which will inform how Arlington’s history is told and remembered in the future.
REAL is a multi-year collecting initiative with the goal to include more documentation of the Latino community’s history in the CLH’s Arlington Community Archives.
Between 1990 and 2000, the County’s Hispanic/Latino population increased by 52.7%. Today, that sector makes up 15.7% of the Arlington population, and the County is now home to generations of Hispanic/Latino residents.
“Arlington Public Library shares and preserves Arlington’s story through books and other media, programs, family histories and personal recollections. REAL is a concerted effort to collect and share the stories of our Latino neighbors and friends who have made significant contributions to our community,” said Library Director Diane Kresh.
The CLH collects, preserves and shares historical documents that tell the history of Arlington County, its citizens, organizations, businesses and social issues. The CLH operates the Research Room at Central Library and the Arlington Community Archives program.
Arlington residents and Library patrons are in for a visual treat when entering the second floor at Central Library. The newly installed artwork titled “North Lincoln Street, Arlington, Virginia” by Arlington artist Jason Horowitz, features a playful, 360-degree view of a re-imagined Ballston neighborhood landscape.
Horowitz’s use of the Google Photo Sphere app in conjunction with his camera allows the artist to both deconstruct and re-imagine his images into immersive viewing experiences. According to Horowitz, “Incorporating new technologies into my creative process enables me to bend space and time which results in abstracted painterly views filled with a dizzying sense of wonder.”
“The Portable Works program transforms and enlivens interior spaces for both Arlington residents and its workforce and is a great temporary placemaking tool for the County when integrating artwork into the building process is not possible,” said Public Art Administrator Angela A. Adams.
Meet the artist on Thursday, Nov. 4, 5:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m., at Central Library, Second Floor, to learn about the new art installation and get an in-depth view about Horowitz’s process and work.
The new acquisition is part of the Arlington Public Art’s Portable Works collection. Spanning back two decades, the program acquires, commissions or exhibits portable works by DMV artists. The collection consists of primarily wall-hung works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and prints.
Most of the artworks in the collection are on display at public spaces located at the Ellen M. Bozman Government Center (2100 Clarendon Boulevard), the Department of Human Services (2100 Washington Boulevard), Arlington Economic Development (1100 North Glebe Road), Arlington Cultural Affairs (3700 S. Four Mile Run Drive) and Arlington Public Library’s Central Library branch (1015 N. Quincy St).
To find out more about the artist Jason Horowitz and his recent photo spheres series, visit https://www.jasonhorowitzfineart.com/photo-spheres.
The Anatomy of Desire by L.R. Dorn
This is the first episode of our third season, and “The Anatomy of Desire” is the perfect book to introduce our fall reading theme and schedule. In season two we tackled a variety of western classics and foundational texts. With this book we’re beginning to explore the work built on those foundations. Published in May, 2021, “The Anatomy of Desire” is a modern reimagining of Theodore Dreiser’s classic crime drama, “An American Tragedy,” which we read earlier this year.
Reminder: this is a spoiler-filled podcast. So if you’re not into that kind of thing, read the book first and come back later.
Episode Links
“Anatomy of Desire” by L.R. Dorn
Reading
Tell us what YOU think about this book, or anything else you’re reading, in our GoodReads or Facebook groups, or talk to us on twitter using the #BigBookPodcast hashtag.
If you’d like to make a suggestion for future reading send us your recommendations on the Big Book Club Podcast page on the Arlington Public Library website.
Upcoming Books:
“The Ballad of Black Tom” by Victor LaValle and “The Horror at Red Hook” by H.P. Lovecraft
“The Balled of Black Tom” has been described as “a novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York.”
From the publisher: People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?
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