Art is a process for Rory Erler Wakemup. I kind of fell into it and it has kind of been dragging me along ever since, I guess.
tool clamps onto material
Rory admits he's a reluctant artist. I hate it, I hate it... Well, love/hate. Time for the fun part.
claps hands
Ask Rory to describe his art and he'll say... Pretty looking garbage. I like dumpster diving.
welding torch sears metal
Rory's so-called garbage art is guided by the sounds of ancient voices.
Rory singing along with Native American music
Rory Erler Wakemup heard a calling to wake-up the masses with a political art project. Literally, like, wake people up to, "Natives can do real conceptual art." It started with making a headdress. And, you know, I was like, "Hey, feathers! Let's make a million."
knife slices glass
It's kind of cool some of these will sometimes look like deer prints and then if you just change the angle a little bit, it almost looks more like a butterfly.
tool breaks glass
You do it a couple of hundred times, you start seeing things. And I just wanted to make, like, pop kitschy art. And put an Indian twist on it. You know, the "Neon Chief." My spin off of the nickel store wooden Indian to attract customers, and it does exactly that.
Rory laughing
Neon attracts an audience to Rory's art work. And with this piece, I just want people to see the beauty of it. You know, the... Just those infinite reflections that go off, and I want them to see it with their own eyes. Rory says you may see endless teepees, or a million light sabers. To watch it move when you move, like it reacts to your movement. Keeps my A-D-D at-- I can probably sit and look at this longer than I can look at a TV without doing something else. This neon wall became part of Rory's final grad school project at the University of Wisconsin. I realized this is the last year of school... And I just daydream, "If I could do anything what would I do?" Rory's daydreaming sparked this creation...
Imitating Darth Vader's voice
You don't know the power of the dark side.
laughs
You like that? That evolved into just creating my-- an alter ego. To take the battle into the art world. His alter ego's battle would be political. Taking on the controversy of Indian mascots. I just thought it was such a trivial issue... at first. Why do we care about logos when, you know, there's... we're still trying to deal with the aftermath of boarding schools and genocide? Like, I didn't get it. 125 years ago, people like Colonel Henry Pratt aimed to assimilate Native Americans in boarding schools by wiping out their Indian identity. Colonel Henry Pratt, first publicly used, or when it was first published,anyway, I think, "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." Basically, kill the native culture in the Indian, but save the man. I guess I'm kind of surprised how many natives in my family hadn't heard the phrase before. "Kill the Indian, save the Man". "Kill the Idiot, Save the Fan," just popped into my head. Most people think it's pretty clever. They like it and then, when I get into the Darth Chief body armor with a latex rubber cat suit, on stage fighting racist mascots. It's definitely my crazy twist on it. I've definitely got screws loose. His Darth Chief Star Wars-inspired regalia is getting noticed. In 2015, Rory won the "Chazen Prize." It's a bona fide accolade. You know,it's something, you know, one of those badges I'm gonna put on my war shirt. The Chazen Prize is awarded to an outstanding student in the Master of Fine Arts program. It couldn't have come at a better time. I was ready to quit after last year. I was ready to quit, I was done, burnt out. But Rory ultimately stayed in... and winning the Chazen Prize guaranteed a showing at one of Wisconsin's most prominent art museums. By opening night, Rory was a celebrity. This piece is intended to be, like, the disco room for his coming out party for the "Kill the Idiot, Save the Fan" campaign. Yeah, this is my Madison piece for sure. It was born and raised here. A lot of my work is art therapy when you boil it down or whatever that chaos is of where my brain is or isn't in spirit world, or whatever. It's just, you know... It's all just
Pfft
Bottom line
it's art therapy. Soothes my soul, I guess. I guess It's been dragging me along for so long, I guess I'll just let it drag me to wherever it ends up.
Rory laughs
Bottom line
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