This month, Janis Lodermeier talks about having George Morrison as an art professor.
When I was going to the U – I am not Native American, but the AIM Movement was very active right up here. The Native American Center was just built and the Native artist George Morrison, who did the beautiful mural, he was one of my art teachers at the U. He didn’t pick me. I didn’t pick him. It was just the luck of the draw. I did not know until years later, he was like a member of the Art Students League, I think in New York. He lived in Paris. He was…somebody…
… I started not coming to class because the models, for that class, we had to pay separately, and they would frequently be standing out in the hall smoking, and then when they saw him coming down the hallway, they’d jump back up, and that really made me mad. It didn’t seem to bother a lot of other people, but I thought… they’re supposed to be up there. We’re paying them to do that stuff, and so I started not coming all the time, and I didn’t think he even noticed I wasn’t there. And then towards the end of the class, we’re going over portfolios and getting graded… he came up to me… he said I noticed you haven’t been coming a lot. I would come in maybe once or twice a week to get assignments from other people and then do them on my own, so I was working really really hard at home.
…I was surprised that he noticed I wasn’t there. And so he wanted to see my portfolio, one of the first ones, because I think he thought I was slacking off and I wasn’t doing anything. So he was very surprised at a lot of work that I did.
One of our assignments was to do a self portrait, and at the time my hair was light brown and with lots of blonde and I usually wore it in a…braid, and I had hoop earrings. I had like four or five sweaters to my name. One I always liked the, like reindeer sweater patterns and stuff, so I had this old one, and when I did the drawing I did it in magic marker and pen and ink and stuff …when he was looking at it, he said ‘is this Russell Means?’ and I thought he was making a joke so I was laughing. I said ‘No that that’s me. That’s a self portrait.’ And…he looked at it and he looked back at me and he said ‘you look like Russell Means.’ Oh he started laughing and laughing.
