An Exhibit of Diversity, Community, Humanity and Environment
Interview Were there event(s) and/or individual(s) that triggered the decision to become a writer and painter? Can you describe the passion that you feel about in your work? Have there been challenges and adversities along the way? Are there any associations or camaraderie that have been particularly important in the exchange of ideas in your career? What personality traits were most helpful for success in your career? What advice would you give a person interested in pursuing a career in writing? How did you define yourself? Did you find challanges regarding identity? Is isolation a necessary part of the process to defining identity? |
© Nova Starling 2012 N Scott Momaday
"The most important question you can ask yourself is 'Who am I?'. Become and be who you are. There are always people who are willing to define you and that is certainly a way in which you lose your identity. Insist on defining yourself". |
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What About N Scott Momaday SCOTT IS A POET, ARTIST & NOVELIST Scott is Kiowa. He was born in Lawton, Oklahoma growing up in Arizona and New Mexico. We met in Santa Fe, NM for the interview and photo shoot in preparation for the painting. N. SCOTT MOMADAY is the first Native American to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for House Made of Dawn. His works are concerned with the human ability to live in harmony with nature, respect for ancestors and the place where one is born, spirituality and self definition. He is a great story teller with a voice like rolling thunder. SCOTT SAYS ON IMAGINING: "We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined." SCOTT SAYS ON NAMES: "We perceive existence by means of words and names. To this or that vague, potential thing I will give a name, and it will exist thereafter, and its existence will be clearly perceived. The name enables me to see it. I can call it by its name, and I can see it for what it is." SCOTT SAYS ON CULTURE: "I sometimes think the contemporary white American is more culturally deprived than the Indian." SCOTT SAYS ON PERSEVERANCE: "I simply kept my goal in mind and persisted. Perseverance is a large part of writing." SCOTT SAYS ON THE SACRED: "The highest human purpose is always to reinvent and celebrate the sacred." SCOTT SAYS ON ONENESS: "I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable. If we are to realize and maintain our humanity, we must come to a moral comprehension of earth and air as it is perceived in the long turn of seasons and of years." Find out more about Scott by listening to his interview and reading his Bio and Quotes |
Related Links PBS Series "The West" / Keeper of the Flame / Interview Sacred & Ancestral Ground by N Scott Momaday, NY Times Review of Way to Rainy Mountain, House Made of Dawn, Ancient Child Modern American Poetry / Biographical, Literary, and Multicultural Contexts Plains Indians Cultural Reference House Made of Dawn and N Scott Momaday Bio |
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