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Ribbon Dance / Ruthe Blalock Jones

Essay/Description

The removal of Indigenous people to Indian Territory in the nineteenth century posed myriad challenges for the continuation of Native cultures, because the cultivation and practice of Indigenous lifeways, languages, and religious ceremonies were banned. Ribbon Dance, a diptych by Ruthe Blalock Jones (Delaware, Shawnee, Peoria), is a joyful tribute to cultural continuity and embodied resilience, and the vibrant colors contribute to the sense of a celebration of ceremonial dance.

Blalock Jones’s scene, which honors the unconstrained practice of Indigenous ceremonies, emerges within a historical and intergenerational tradition of Indigenous innovation in the visual arts. Electric-green trees billow behind the dancers engaged in the Ribbon Dance, with the middle ground divided by oscillating bands of green and orange. The painting highlights a collective female experience, and the unspoken cultural elements that each Ribbon Dancer brings with her to the moment through movement.

—Jordan Poorman Cocker, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Indigenous Painting Collection Research, 2021

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Title(s): 
Ribbon Dance
Creator(s): 
Ruthe Blalock Jones (Artist)
Culture: 
Native American; Delaware, Shawnee, Peoria
Date: 
late 20th century
Materials/Techniques: 
oil on canvas
Classification: 
Object Type: 
Credit Line: 
Purchased with funds gifted by Robert and Roxana Lorton
Accession No: 
01.2504a-b
Previous Number(s): 
TL1998.55a-b; TL1998.55; 0127.2504a-b; 0127.2504
Department: 
Not On View

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