PATTI ORTIZ FINE ART

Celebrating the Magic of Historical Discovery

Studies on the Chumash Culture of Southern California

Note: I have a modest approach to endorsing my work. My trademark signature nestles somewhere within the piece or on the back. The constellation PLEIADES makes a cameo appearance somewhere within each piece.

Home Page

Dias de los Muertos

Ornaments

About Patti Ortiz

An Encounter with Forgotten Gods
31”x26”
Modified Acrylic Paint on Canvas
1995
In the collection of the artist
NFS

An earlier work, this painting contains renderings of mandalas or sun burst images which are common to the rock art of the Chumash.  Toloache, an hallucinogen derived from the datura plant, would be ritually ingested to achieve greater mystical insight.  The visions  often included perceptions of bright colored mandalas over the normal field of vision and were followed by the appearance of tiny white dots around anything else looked at for the several days that followed. (Peterson, 1992, p. 80)
My renderings of the mandalas are accompanied by stencils of my hands which represent an attempt to physically touch and connect to the images.
The title is loosely derived by the title of Carobeth Laird’s autobiography, An Encounter with an Angry God.

Los Dos Corren Juntos (The Two Run Together) Revisited #2
31”x20”
Modified Acrylic Paint on Art Board
2005
$1400.

In the early part of the 20th century, a Californio by the name of Dona Marta told an interesting story about her grandmother who was a devout Catholic but was an “equally devout adherent of the old religion.“ “Los dos corren juntos“, she quoted her grandmother as saying. “ The two run together. When one fails, the other one helps.“ To convey this thought, I chose images which were found at an ancient Chumash pictograph site. I have united them with a cross motif ; the most familiar symbol of the Christian faith. The rock, water and reflection of a night sky serve as the common denominator… the wondrous natural world that we all share. (Laird, 1995, p.94)

Transformative Vision
16”x16”
Modified Acrylic Paint on Art Board
2006
$400.

   The images in this work are derived from what researcher Campbell Grant described as “a large painting unlike anything else in Chumash country. The meandering dots and chevrons suggest a map. The cave opening is tiny and easy to miss, as it is high on a cliff, in heavy brush and timber.” (Grant, 1993, plate 3)
When viewing this rendering look for what appears to be a metaphysical change in  the main image. Also note the added element of a black and white border that surrounds the full color inner square.

The Harrington Papers Series
These works incorporate printed text from some of the Chumash Oral Narratives that were collected by John Peabody Harrington. The text functions as a puzzle of sorts. It appears to be piled in random layers and only part of the story is revealed.

A note on the text: the ? is a phonetic rendition of a glottal stop sound that is not found in the English language. For more information visit Inezeno Chumash Language Tutorial

Kaqunup?mawa: The Sun
from The Harrington Papers Series
18”x18”
Mixed Media Collage on Art Board
2006
$500.

“ The sun is the beauty of the world- it is born in the east giving the world beautiful light... The morning and the evening stars were the wives of the sun… The sun goes to rest in this hole (of a sand dollar) and leaves it’s rays outside while it rests inside. Dawn is the sigh of the sun. The real name of the sun was kaqunup?mawa. This is it’s metaphorical name, and really meant ‘ the radiance of the child born on the twenty-fourth of December’.” (Harrington/Blackburn, 1975, p. 96)                   

Her Journey to Similaqsa
from The Harrington Papers Series

14”x18”
Mixed Media Collage on Art Board
2006
In the collection of Judith Skinner

The imagery in this work is derived  from a rock art site just north of Santa Barbara which is full of what appears to references to the experience of death. The centipede  is a sign of death according to Chumash legend and the striped figure appears to be that of a woman prepared for burial. The  Chumash viewed death in a positive way; the beginning of a new and wonderful journey into another world. We can only speculate that the paintings were perhaps the result of a ceremony that was performed to assist this particular soul in making the journey to the place known as  similaqsa ...land of the dead across the sea.

The Two ?antap
from The Harrington Papers Series

8”x10”
Mixed Media Collage on Art Board

2006
$400.

“An American once went to Santa Cruz Island with a Ventureno boy, and he wanted to go and get abalone at a certain place where they were so thick on the rocks that they were touching each other. The boy objected to this but the man insisted. While they were gathering the abalone the American found a cave in the rocks and looked into it. He saw old men inside- one with a bullroarer and the other had an elder wood flute- and they were dancing and singing as do the ?antapin the naxalyikis. When the tide came in the cave was covered, but at low tide the old men could be seen in there practicing their ceremony. When the water dashed over them they were unaffected by it, it was nothing to them. On the way back from the island the American was drowned and the boy returned to Ventura alone. He told his mother what he had seen and she immediately gave him toloache to counteract the effects.” (Harrington/Blackburn,1975, p. 290)

Animals
from The Harrington Papers Series

11”x14”
Mixed Media Collage on Art Board
2006
$400.

“Fernando’s grandfather told him that all animals are related. The horned toad is wot of all beasts, the swordfish of all fish, and the sl?ow of all birds. The bear is the older sibling of all the animals. The eagle, condor, and buzzard are said to remove the foulness of the world. I told Fernando of the San Gabriel belief that the condor rips up the carcasses for the buzzard- that they are fist cousins. Fernando replied that an old man told him that we are all brothers, and our mother is one: this mother earth. He has always believed what old people told him when he was a boy- that the world is God.”
(Harrington/ Blackburn, 1975, p. 102)

Sapakay’s Dream
Four 2”x4” Framed Panels
26”x102”
Molding Paste and Acrylic Paint on Canvas
1998
$2400.

Sapakay was a Chumash shaman who lived in the mid 19th century. During that time, the magic he practiced was increasingly being challenged by the Christianized people of his culture. He eventually made the decision to retire and in his final act as a shaman, he burned all his magic baskets before them all and then said to his people, ”All has ended now--all the practices in which we indulged for our salvation or diversion, for there are few now who believe in them, and the next generation will not endure the hardship and suffering that is necessary to maintain them.” (Harrington/ Blackburn, 1975, p. 268)

The Chumash were highly developed in the art of basketry. A black tar known today as asphaltum was abundant along the shore. They would use it to waterproof the inside of a basket which enabled them to both store and carry water. The also used asphaltum to line their plank boats to provide a seal and increase buoyancy. The black portions on this painting make reference to this ingenuity. At the same time it functions metaphorically in that it covers images from the old religion.