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Accession #	2010.61
Artist	Kevin Pourier
Title	Escher-ish Horn Spoon
Date	2009
Medium	Buffalo horn, mother-of-pearl, resin
Dimensions	3 1/2 x 17 in. (8.9 x 43.2 cm)
Credit Line	Gift of William A. Putnam, by exchange
Location	American Identities: Everyday Life / A Nation Divided
Description	Kevin Pourier, Oglala Lakota artist, ascribes his artistic inspiration and his source materials to Pte Pyate - his own culture of the Buffalo People. His buffalo-horn works quote his tribe's art historical past but with a present day twist. This Escher-ish Horn Spoon is made from buffalo horn cut down the middle, smoothed, then carved, inlaid with crushed mother-of-pearl mixed with a resin for the shimmering white spaces, etched to create shadows and shapes and then smoothed and polished in an unique process that Pourier developed.

Curatorial Remarks: Native American artists Marcellus and Elizabeth Toya Medina and Kevin Pourier create works inspired by both old and new art forms. The painted designs on the water jar of classic Pueblo shape combine traditional masked Kachinas in static poses with naturalistic, muscled, male Pueblo dancers who seem to burst off the vessel’s surface. The inlaid buffalo-horn spoon, a traditional Plains implement, is given a contemporary twist in Pourier’s homage to M. C. Escher’s hypnotic prints.