The Skidi Pawnee lived along the banks of the Loup River in what is now central Nebraska. They are the people of my Grandfather, my “Upp’it”, as said in Pawnee.
Theirs was a universe of certainties, of rhythms followed for hundreds of years. They knew that each day was greeted by the appearance of the Morningstar, the father of the first human, a girl. Her mother, Eveningstar was perpetually chased across the heavens by her lover, Morningstar. They could see the arm of the Milkyway that defined the eternal procession of their ancestors to the land of “Tirawa”, or Great Spirit. Everything was understood, and everything came in its own time. The Universe spoke, every morning and every night. It came into their earthlodges and guided their earthly rhythms from generation to generation. It showed when to plant crops, when to hunt, when to build, and when to go into battle.
They were surrounded by a common granular matter, the silica that lined the riverbeds and flood plain. To them this silica was the remnant of fallen stars. The eternal material of the night sky flowed through the circulatory system of the land, and ultimately through their own ephemeral veins.
“When the Stars Came to Earth” recalls this universe, one that is still present but lives in relative obscurity under the surface. Crafted from molten silica, it shares material qualities with the lost universe it recalls. Modeled after the star maps that can be found in the Sacred Bundles of the Pawnee Medicine Man, it is meant to hold the viewer in suspension between the “eternities”, one modeled on a micro level, the other all-enveloping. It is not meant to be a commemoration of history or a longing for the past, but a documentation of what has always been and will forever be.