The Silence of Glacier

The Silence of Glacier depicts Glacier National Park peaks in the quiet before winter’s first snowfall. Kay WalkingStick painted it across two joined wooden panels and stenciled a Northern Cheyenne beadwork pattern in the lower left corner. The colors of the pattern echo across the mountains, forest, and sky. Meanwhile, the stenciled paint has a spongy texture that differs notably from the landscape’s brushwork and calls attention to the painting’s surface. By layering the beadwork pattern over the landscape, WalkingStick reclaims the Rocky Mountains as Native land and uplifts Indigenous sources of American abstraction.