This is the 10th summer trying to do something worthwhile on Standing Rock, and it does feel like something of a culmination. Nearly always my efforts have been connected with the annual Rock Creek V-J Day Celebration, the second weekend in August, in Bullhead, SD. This traditional Lakota powwow honoring Veterans and commemorating the end of WW II seems as remarkable to me now as it did the first time I stumbled across it in 2008. Part of this sense of coming to a kind of conclusion is simply age - I’m now 73 and past the time of heading up youth baseball/softball-type mini-camps as I did with my son and a friend starting originally in 2017.

But the main thing is this year Standing Rock artist Gilbert Kills Pretty Enemy has come up with an idea far better and more ambitious than my humble efforts in the past.

There are 8 districts on Standing Rock. Most are centered around a small village, like Bullhead in Rock Creek District, pop. 300. McLaughlin in Bear Soldier District might count as a small town. But each district has a famous chief historically and there are 7 traditional Lakota virtues. Gilbert wants to create permanent signs for each district that are genuine works of art celebrating, acknowledging the chiefs and a virtue for each district. Fort Yates, the governing center of SR, will have an 8th overarching theme. Two signs for each district.

This may not sound like much but Standing Rock stretches over 36,000 square miles, almost twice the size of Delaware. There are roughly 16000 enrolled members. It's nearly 20 miles from Bullhead to both Little Eagle and McLaughlin, the two closest villages or districts. And yet the culture has survived over 130 years since Wounded Knee. Nearly everyone knows the struggles and challenges Indigenous people in general and Lakota people in particular have faced in that time but that almost certainly has made their feeling of connection with one another stronger, the very fact of the culture surviving that much more powerful. Having driven through that basically empty country every year since 2008, it just really hits me that to have genuine works of art for people to see every day, honoring their culture and their own community, reinforcing that culture and their connectedness with everyone else on the Reservation - I'm tellin' ya - in my view this is art that will make an impact.

And then also an impact on anyone visiting or driving through, spreading out over so many miles these random-not-random works of art. You drive through a lot of Indigenous reservations going across this country, and I haven't seen anything that would approach this concept for making a point. I saw the Picasso sculpture in Chicago when I was a teenager. It was interesting as a public art display. Call me crazy, but it pales compared to these signs, viewed as a singular work, spreading out across Standing Rock.

That's what I got. Will only add I'm also, as in the past two years, giving away t-shirts (81) at this year's Celebration. Design pictured above. And my new (ok - also my one and only) book has come out this summer - Out of My Life and Two Visions. It totally rocks, imho. It includes three of Gilbert's designs and the backstory of me going out to Standing Rock all these years. But the point is I will be happy to send a Celebration t-shirt to anyone who donates $50, or a copy of the book signed by both Gilbert and me for a donation of $100 or more. No royalties for me with the book. All money donated outside the cost of the t-shirt or book and shipping go directly to this project.

And finally, the signs will be 4' by 8'. The cost of each sign is 2K. A simple plaque at the bottom noting the contribution will be provided for any group or individual that fully funds a sign. To me that is an honor worth having, and my family is in on sponsoring a sign. If and when we hit $10,000 with this fundraiser (and I am in this for the long haul), the goal will jump to full funding for all 16 signs.