Animal Effigies
Replica Cahokia Mound beaver effigy, courtesy Joan Gross. Read more about Cahokian (Mississipian) zoomorphic pots and see a picture of the original in Ceramics Monthly.
A while back, a colleagueand my former major professor from long ago, sent me a picture of a replica Cahokia (Mississipian) pot in the form of a beaver, noting that I had made a couple of Mississippian-inspired beaver bowls for that year's Empty Bowls auction.
I’ve been inspired by both the Mississippian animal effigy bowls and Egyptian ‘offering’ bowls on human feet, and it does raise the question; where’s the line between inspiration and appropriation?
That’s a bit of a sticky question for any anthropologist worth her salt. According to the reasonably easily digestible Encyclopedia Britannica, "Cultural appropriation takes place when members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical way." Reams have been written on the subject, even by me in the early 1990s before cultural appropriation was a term trotted out on American university campuses every October.
Now, some might argue that it's not really problematic to be appropriative of no longer extent cultures, but the Mississppian Mound Builders and pre-dynastic Egyptians are the ancestors of some very much existent peoples, and one must be cautious when messing about with the ancestors, particularly if they are not one's own. I compare my inspiration here with that of "Thracian potter," Georgi Genov, or Graham Taylor and Sarah Lloyd of Potted History. These folks are out right replicating the works from their own ancestral heritage, and if you want to do that, knock yourself out. Both are really super fabulous, by the way. Check them out.
Without going into the weeds too much, I'll give myself a pass on all this inspiration, because it is just that. I'm not copying, I'm not indulging in some white-fantasy-of-the-'Other', I'm not trying to pass my works off as anything other than some general ideas I've gotten from some really lovely pieces of craftsmanship, and I'm giving credit where credit is due for that inspiration.
That said, I'm always going to be thinking about this issue and questioning myself when I get inspired by something or someone. That's generally a good idea.
