The Dirt is Red Here brings together works by many of today’s finest artists and poets of California’s Indian communities. Whether it be a contemporary painting, an intricate basket, or a lifetime expressed in powerful lines of poetry, each selection in this book reflects personal and cultural experience, presented authentically with great artistry.
Contributors to The Dirt is Red Here hail from tribes throughout California. Some—artists Fritz Scholder, Frank LaPena, Harry Fonseca, and Rick Bartow, and writers Greg Sarris, Janice Gould, and Wendy Rose—have enjoyed wide audiences, while others are published here for the first time. Drawing on California’s most ancient traditions while anchored solidly in the modern world, these artists have these artists have forged a body of thought-provoking work that extends not only our sense of what it means to be Indian, but also of what it means to be human.