SOUTHWESTERN CULTURE THROUGH A NATIVE LENS

Selected works of Nathan Orosco, MHCC instructor of sculpture and drawing, are on display in the Visual Arts Gallery and highlight the romanticism and misrepresentation of Native Americans.

Orosco’s works in “Fences in the Horizon” focus on the balance between the end of the western cowboy “free range” mentality and the “manifest destiny” push of settlers that impacted Native Americans. 

As he notes, there was a time when the latter befriended the European immigrants, who then ran them off. Native Americans taught the immigrants to hunt, fish, grow crops, find medicine and survive in this then-wild land of abundance. 

Of Mexican-Native American ancestry himself, Orosco utilizes a variety of elements to demonstrate his thoughts with feeling. He also uses his own story, including his work for an oil drilling company in the Southwest during his twenties.

Framed photographs depict the wide range of the desert in the Big Bend area of Arizona, and stark storefronts nearby. A skating rink with Republican headquarters in the background has a dual purpose. A roadhouse bar shows where Orosco and others would go after a day of laboring in an oilfield. The “Lucky 777” gambling sign above the bar indicates “the luck of the draw” – their Native American plight, he explained in an interview.

Other elements of his reflective work include a bronze, rattlesnake-themed, obelisk sculpture. This, and others made of glass and plastic, draw visitors to the center of the display. In another room, an enormous aluminum “X” with colorful sandstone markers and a desert lantern hanging from cactus tree wood hung with copper, stands ready to guide one’s way through a desert trail.

In a corner of the same room, visitors may view an exquisite (and highly radioactive) glass uranium axe manufactured by a miner many years ago. Engraved with a string of beads and what appears to be the head of a Native chief, this impressive piece glows a brilliant green under the special lamp included in the display.

One display in his exhibit shows a week’s worth of jeans branded with his name, issued to him by the oil company where he worked, in part to conduct research.

“Fences” is open to Mt. Hood students, staff and public, free of charge, through Feb. 27. The Gallery is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

Advocate Staff