HOW I BECAME A DRUM MAKER

 

I have always been attracted to drums, from my earliest experiences with them they have seemed living beings to me.  As a pre-schooler I spent many summer evenings with my parents watching Native people dance at local community events.  The sounds from shell leggings, tin jingles, rattles and dance drums are some of my first musical impressions. 

As a Junior High school art teacher, I attended pow wows with a Native family whose children were in my art classes.  Their willingness to include me in their culture’s art gave me opportunities to watch drums being assembled, prepared, and played. 

When I returned to my university art teaching from a Sabbatical in 1986, I was invited to join a shamanic drumming circle.  I seemed unable to 'journey' as were the other participants.  This became very frustrating for me until another member of the circle journeyed for me to his power animals to ask "Why is Kristen  blind?" (i.e. unable to visualize)  He returned with the answer, "It's the wrong drum.  She has to make her own."  This man, (who had never built a drum and did not know me before this experience) also brought back quite detailed instructions of where I was to find materials and how I was to proceed with their construction.  Although during the building of my first several drums, I received advice from an Ojibwa friend, a MicMac medicine woman, and my native students at the art college, I never claimed my drums were "indian."  I believe to do so would be disrespectful to the help and friendship that has been shown me.  I now use an east coast MicMac style lacing, given to me while in Nova Scotia, to anchor the west coast cedar ring that holds the thongs; an east coast white ash wood hoop to support the west coast blacktail deer hide.  I consider that I am taught by the drums themselves, and by the strength and sorrow of deer and tree, to be a drum maker.

As soon as I finish tying the last thongs, I take a new drum outside (regardless of the weather or time of day) and make a ceremony offering it to be seen by the four Directions, then claiming it with my breath, then displaying it again to the Directions as my child.  After this I ground the energy of the drum by touching it to a natural presence--a rock, tree, flower, pond, etc.--in order to make a gift of the energy of my effort to feed the earth. Therefore, all drums I make are mine first, and are only offered for sale later if they want to be.

 

The paintings on my drums come from gazing, while in a light trance, at the surface of the drum until creatures and beings appear. I understand as I paint with raw earth and mineral pigments that I am bringing images from another reality into this one. My skill is in being true to the appearances shown me, and not to my 'artistic' training that sometimes wants to dictate particular conventions or expectations of representation.   These images bring the spirit world close, in the same way a loved photo of a dear friend brings the spirit of that friend close to us when we gaze at their picture.

One might say, therefore, that although I am trained as a visual artist and art educator, I am self taught by my life experiences to be a drum maker. This is as it should be I think, because I believe the only appropriate credentials a drum maker can have, ultimately, are the voices of her drums.

           

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