Lil Coyote Riding Near Oyaken Creek, Spokane Reservation
Matted ledger drawing on embossed 1898 Harrison, Idaho, ledger paper.
2002, 9 1/2 x 15 1/2
"The Year 1898 Lil Coyote was Riding Near Oyaken Creek. He Saw the Ghost of a Powerful War Horse"--(from writing in upper right-hand corner).
"What I've done with my ledger work, as we progress into the new years that are coming on, like 2003. . . I've started embossing old, antique ledger paper. I appreciate the work that was done in the 1840s, 1870s, 1890s of ledger artists. . . and I began to understand it more and more and more to this day. And I am now able to emboss paper--just to get a little more of the spirit helpers that these people had, whether they ride horseback through the mountain areas or the plains, whatever it might be. And I try to pass on the feelings these Indian people might have had."--George Flett narrating exhibit video.
Lil Coyote was one of the elders and tribal leaders who were members of Flett’s family living near Oyaken Creek in the 1890s. Wearing a traditional Spokane stand-up bonnet and carrying a spear and shield, he rides over the page of an 1898 cash book--his vision competing with that of the merchant watching his business grow.
The embossed horse spirit (which Flett calls a ghost image) makes its presence felt as well as seen, literally adding a spiritual dimension to the work and changing its appearance as the filtered daylight fades.