Within the Native American art world, forms are constantly changing. To stay relevant, artists must constantly reinvent themselves. One artist who is not content to sit by and do the same thing over and over is Saginaw-Chippewa painter Daniel Ramirez. Ramirez, who has been painting for most of his 57 years, recently began embarking on a new artistic journey with the development of his "World's Longest Native American Painting," which had a partial debut in Marin County last month. The painting, which is comprised of one entire canvas, rather than multiple pieces, will hang one-hundred feet long by eighteen inches high upon completion five years from now.
The journey to create the “World’s Longest Native American Painting” sprung out of an exhibition of Ramirez’s “Women of the Great Lakes” at Washington D.C.’s NMAI (The National Museum of the American Indian) in 2006. This piece hung six feet long by twelve inches high. As a guide to his piece, Ramirez will create a full-scale drawing of the “World’s Largest Native American Painting.” With the Native American art enthusiast in mind, Ramirez will have every three feet and every six feet photographed so that he can create giclee prints, which he will personally hand paint. The end result will be thirty-three panels available for purchase by individuals and collectors.
Ramirez spoke to me about this magnificent work at the 53rd Annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix as part of my "Heard @ the Heard 2011" series. Watch the video HERE:
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