It was a creative family as well. Anna
Guerrier Pratt was an accomplished storyteller, honored in 1987 as National Indian Woman of the Year. Harvey’s brother Charles became a well-known sculptor. “He couldn’t have been 12 years old, and he made a tandem bike out of scraps. Instead of handlebars he put a steering wheel on it,” Pratt recalls. “I was younger than him, and schoolteachers would say, ‘Are you Charlie Pratt’s little brother?’ and I’d say ‘Yes, ma’am.’ They’d say, ‘Are you as talented as he is?’ And my answer was, ‘Well, I guess I am. I like to draw.’” He has been drawing as long as he can remember. And it was a family with a history of
military service. Pratt’s great-great-great grandfather, the priest and arrow-keeper White Thunder, died at the Battle of Wolf Creek in 1838. Charles Guerrier, Anna Pratt’s younger brother, was a much-deco- rated Marine who fought in World War II and the Korean War. Encouraged by his family and schoolteach-
ers, Pratt intended to be an artist. When he was 17, he painted a crucifixion scene in which all of the figures were American Indians. An ad- mirer bought it for $90, two weeks’ wages for a laborer at the time. At college in Edmond, Okla., however, an art teacher used one of Pratt’s drawings as an example of what not to do. He changed his major from art to psy- chology, then left school altogether to enlist in the Marine Corps, where his uncle was still on active duty. Assigned to the Marine Corps Military Police in Okinawa, Pratt volunteered for special duty. He spent an additional two months in training, then seven months in Vietnam guarding the air base at Da Nang and helping to support helicopter squadrons in recovering pilots who had been shot down. In 1965, when his enlistment ended, Har-
vey joined the Midwest City, Okla., Police Department. The first drawing of a suspect he made from a witness description led to an arrest and conviction in a homicide. In 1972, he joined the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) and retired as an assis- tant director in 1992, but continued to serve until last year as a forensic artist. He has also worked on historic reconstructions. Pratt has also had a distinguished career
as an artist working in oil, watercolor, metal, clay and wood. His public art works include a sculptural relief for the entrance to the OSBI building and a 37-foot-long mural depict- ing the bureau’s history. Last year the state of Colorado commissioned him to create a
Artist Harvey Pratt.
life-size bronze sculpture to memorialize the victims of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. His paintings are among the permanent collec- tions of the National Park Service. In thinking about concepts universal to
American Indians for his memorial design, Pratt focused on the four directions, the ele- ments – water, fire, earth, air – and especially the circle. “Everything that we have as tribal people honors the circle,” he says. “Tipis and kivas are round. Earth lodges and igloos are round. Indian people have always seen the circle in the sun and the moon. We’ve seen it in the weather, the seasons and the cycle of life. It is continuous and timeless.” Repeating circles form the foundation
of Pratt’s memorial design. In the center, an upright steel circle rests on a circular fountain that evokes a drum. On special occasions, such as Veterans Day, a flame at the base of the steel circle can be lit. A circular inner wall opens to the cardinal directions. An outer circle holds four lances, or eagle staffs.
If circles are the memorial’s key design
motif, its symbolism lies in the way visitors will use it. “I don’t want people just to walk up to a statue and think it’s pretty,” Pratt says. “I want them to come inside the walls. There’s a place to sit and do whatever someone has to do for medicine, to use the water, use the earth, use the wind. I hope it will be a place for war mothers. As non-Native visitors see Native veterans and their families blessing the water and tying prayer cloths, letting the wind carry their prayers, the memorial will be a place of learning and understanding as well. “I hope it will be a place where veterans
come and tell a war story, and where people come and say, ‘We’re so proud of you.’” That is what people did when Pratt returned from Vietnam – they did an honor dance and prayed for him. He reflects: “It becomes a place of power, a place of strength, a place of comfort.”X
Kevin Gover (Pawnee) is the director of the National Museum of the American Indian – Smithsonian.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 5
PHOTO BY NEIL CHAPMAN, COURTESY OF HARVEY PRATT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
