“Just take French”, a University of Washington advisor said with a fatigued sigh from a day of counseling dozens of students.  I’d asked if I could transfer Comanche Nation College language classes as the foreign language requirement.  So I did… just take French.

Sadly, my French isn’t much better than my nearly nonexistent Nʉmʉ Tekwapʉ̠(Comanche).  So, when I read "Ceci n'est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe) on René Magritte’s, The Treachery of Images, it flows with more familiarity and comfort than “Itsa keta to’i”.

My grandmother’s first language was Nʉmʉ Tekwapʉ̠.  A language on life-support with less than 10 fluent speakers but dozens working on revitalization efforts. The attempted evisceration of the language began when she was taken from her parents to Fort Sill Indian Boarding School established by the United States Government.

After Magritte, my initial inspiration for this piece was Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s Ceci N'est Pas Une Peace Pipe (This is not a peace pipe).  Then after seeing how Ai Wei Wei used well known images to communicate powerful ideas, I was sparked to create my own interpretation to demonstrate the assault of a culture through theft of language.

Creating my version of this famous painting inspired a dive into Nʉmʉ Tekwapʉ̠.  It also led to a questioning exploration of pipe traditions in Native cultures and the European influenced moniker of the peace pipe.  The investigating continues.