ABOUT THE PAINTING

This painting was created by artist and historian Rick Hill in 2004. Rick Hill is a member of the Beaver Clan of the Tuscarora Nation, and has worked as Assistant Director for Public Programs at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian, Museum Director at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Assistant Professor in Native American Studies at the State University of New York in Buffalo.

Tree of Life emulates a nineteenth-century Mohawk infant cradle board, although Hill’s rendition utilizes canvas rather than the wood that traditional cradle boards are made of. Cradle boards are a functional craft, historically created by many Native American groups, which serve to keep Native infants safe while providing the mother with mobility and freedom, especially during nomadic migrations. The infant is strapped to the board, similar to the idea of swaddling. In the Mohawk design there would be a wooden bar set out to protect the child’s head should the board fall over. Tree of Life utilizes a common cradle board emblem of a flowering tree to reference the Tree of Life from the Sky World in the Mohawk creation story. The mother bird feeding her young is also commonly included in the flowering tree, which represents the relationship between the Mohawk people and the cosmos. Hill’s choice of colors, which only include shades commonly found in nature, and nature symbols, like the beavers, birds, and tree, call attention to harmonious relationships within nature. Through worms fed to baby birds, berries on the tree, or even photosynthesis in the green leaves, the painting suggests that nature gives life. By initiating that conversation on a “cradle board” and referencing Mohawk creation mythology and the Mohawk relationship with the cosmos, Hill celebrates the Native American relationship within that harmonious nature. -Keady Azzam ’28

Rick Hill
Tree of Life, 2004
Acrylic on canvas
SLU 2005.55
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY