We Planted Way Too Much Corn Print

This piece was painted from life in the town of Eagle Butte, South Dakota. With a population of 1300, Eagle Butte lies on the Cheyenne River Reservation and is surrounded on all sides by the vast stern plains of South Dakota. Teens play basketball in a gym covered in murals; rap music blares. A man stands at the entrance of the Lakota Thrifty Mart selling beaded jewelry. In the evenings, young kids skateboard down the street into the sunset, wild dogs running behind. I worked for several weeks in the produce garden at the Cheyenne River Youth Project. Sometimes little kids would come to the garden to learn. Our harvest was hundreds of pounds per day. We hauled it on small wagons into the Keya (Turtle) Café, to be cooked and served to locals. This painting is a still-life of our seed crop, Bloody Butcher Corn. I painted it in the window of the café, with the sun coming in.