Nature/Medicine

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, artist

Cultural affiliations: Enrolled Salish, member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana, Cree, Salish, Shoshone, Interior Salish, Flathead

1940–2025

Michael Sims, printer

born 1944

Zanatta Editions, publisher

1996–present

Nature/Medicine, 1996

Portfolio/Series title: Survival

Where object was made: Lawrence, Kansas, United States

Material/technique: chine collé; color lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 863 x 627 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 863 x 627 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 34 x 24 11/16 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 40 1/4 x 32 1/2 x 1 in
Weight (Weight): 13 lbs

Credit line: Museum purchase

Accession number: 1996.0011.01

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Healing, Knowing, Seeing the Body

In her Survival series, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith highlights the ways Indigenous people have sustained their lives and maintained their identities in the face of genocide, assimilation, and cultural erasure. This print suggests that one source of Indigenous strength and resilience comes through Nature/Medicine—the title implying that, in Indigenous worldviews, the two are not separate. In a gallery otherwise dominated by works that speak to Western biomedicine (including its limitations and problems), Smith’s print encourages us to remember that there are other ways to know and understand our bodies.

Healing, Knowing, Seeing the Body

Exhibition Label:
"Conflicting Memories," Oct-2003, Steve Goddard
“My art, my life experience, and my tribal ties are totally enmeshed,” she says. “I go from one community with messages to the other, and I try to enlighten people.”
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith’s Survival Series transforms traditional wisdom into a graphic re-telling of survival secrets. Images and the ironic use of language flip stereotypes, incorporating humor while exposing differences and oppositions in belief systems, symbols, and cultural references. Reversals like the small train chasing a group of
native riders on horseback next to the text "Get your reservations now," or "Coyote made me do it," turn history on its head. Difference survives through memory as conveyed by, Nature/Medicine, Tribe/Community, Wisdom/Knowledge and Humor.