Terry Zee Lee
“War Pony,” a painting by D.G. House, flies over a tepee at the First Peoples Buffalo Jump near Ulm last summer.
On 10 occasions over the past two years, paintings by Native American artists have been flying over buffalo jumps in the United States and Canada.
Next week, the “Flying Buffalo Project” kites and some of the artists who created them will be honored at a reception in the Little Big Horn College Library in Crow Agency. The reception will run from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 11.
The project was organized by Billings residents Terry Zee Lee, president of SkyWindWorld, and her husband, Drake Smith, an experienced kite maker.
Lee had organized many other kite exhibitions and events, and originally she commissioned buffalo-themed kites for display at the Billings Logan International Airport. In the spring of 2012, she was at the First Peoples Buffalo Jump near Ulm and she had a few of the kites with her. The director suggested flying them over the state park.
Terry Zee Lee
Allen Knows His Gun’s “Buffalo Tracker” was the first painting commissioned by the Flying Buffalo Project.
After getting in touch with other buffalo jump sites, the annual tour was born. Lee said it’s a way of honoring Native American culture and the animal that was so central to that culture.
“Instead of seeing the buffalo, in our minds, come off the ridges and plunge to their deaths, this time they soar into the sky,” she said.
When she came up with the idea, Lee said, she sought the advice of Manuela Well-Off-Man, an art historian who used to work in Montana and is now the assistant curator at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas. Lee asked Well-Off-Man for the names of 10 or 20 top Native American artists.
“I have just been going down the list,” Lee said. “It’s an extremely talented bunch of people.”
The first artist she recruited was Allen Knows His Gun, a Crow Indian, who created a 5-by-7-foot painting called “Buffalo Tracker.” The artists paint on either rip-stop nylon or white canvas, which Smith then fashions into kites.
For the past two years, Lee and Drake have been taking the kites to buffalo jumps in Montana, Wyoming and Alberta, Canada, where they fly them for visitors and for schoolchildren specially invited to the events. They also take the kites to schools for programs.
Lee said they were told that when they put on a program last year at the Madison Buffalo Jump near Three Forks, it was the biggest crowd the park had ever hosted.
“People come from all over,” Lee said. “It’s been just remarkable.”
They now have 12 kites, with others in production. They will probably stop when they have 20 kites, Lee said, because that’s about all they can handle in one day, what with assembling, flying and disassembling them.
“It’s a full-body experience,” she said. “It takes a lot of stamina and you have to pay attention.”
Terry Zee Lee
“Resurrection” by Angela Babby.
“We’re careful with them,” she added, “but we’re very aware that every time we fly them we might be destroying something that is very special.” A sudden shift in the wind or a momentary lapse of concentration can send the kites crashing to the ground, she said.
John Pollock, a distinguished kite maker and former head of the Art Department at Montana State University Billings, figured out how to stabilize paint on canvas so that it won’t flake off in high winds, Lee said.
She credits her husband with doing the hard work of transforming the paintings into kites. His knowledge of physics—he’s a retired government physicist—and his commitment have made the project possible, she said.
Next year, the kites will be flown at the Madison and First Peoples buffalo jumps in Montana, at the Vore Buffalo Jump in Wyoming and the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site in Alberta. And, thanks to a grant from the Harry L. Willett Foundation, the project will visit even more schools next year. Lee said she is offering to bring the project to schools on every Indian reservation in Montana.
At the reception at Little Big Horn College, some of the artists will be on hand and project organizers will give tours of the exhibit.
In addition to Allen Knows His Gun, participating artists are Rabbit Knows Gun (Crow), Wendy Red Star (Crow), D.G. House (Cherokee), Frank Finley (Salish Kootenai), Daniel Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), Alaina Buffalo Spirit (Northern Cheyenne), Ivan Long (Sioux), Jaune Quick To See Smith and her son Neal Ambrose Smith (Salish Kootenai), Jon Cadotte (Blackfeet), Angela Babby (Oglala Lakota), and Dorores Purdy (Caddo).
