Lakota artist Jim Yellowhawk, Black Hills, South Dakota
Pendleton Blanket art Jim Yellowhawk. Photo Stephanie Seaton
South Dakota artist Jim Yellowhawk working in his studio
Photo by Christian Heeb
REZ13 photographed the Pendleton buffalo ‘robe’ blanket, designed by Jim Yellowhawk, in 2024 in the South Okanagan Valley. This blanket original design consists of four buffalo in Red, Yellow, White and Black gathered around a medicine wheel, pointing in the sacred Four Directions. The Lakota people depended on Pte, the bison, for food, clothing and shelter, and honored them as “The Buffalo People.”
In this design, artist Jim Yellowhawk embraces Mitakuye Oyasin (“We are all related”), a Lakota belief that all living creatures are family, and can live in harmony and peace.
Part of the Pendleton Blanket’s Company Legendary Collection, the Buffalo Nation blanket design honors stories and symbols of Native American cultures.
Pendleton Buffalo blanket story features our photoshoot and artwork of Jim Yellowhawk.
About the artist: Jim Yellowhawk is an enrolled member of the Itazipco Band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, with Onodoga/Iroquois heritage through his mother. He graduated from Marion College, Indiana and also studied at Columbus School of Art and Design in Ohio. His work encompasses many different media, including dance. “Traditional spirituality is woven into my daily life, work, practices and way of being,” says Yellowhawk.
Jim Yellowhawk with his father
Indians on Indians
Jim Yellowhawk grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. Yellowhawk has created a series of paintings depicting Indian motorcyles which he calls Indians on Indians. A new exhibit at Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota is showing his work which is a blending traditional Native art with modern motorcycles.
Andrew Dunehoo, the Crazy Horse museum curator, says, "The style itself that Jim does, he infuses messages of healing and peace. As a motorcycle enthusiast himself, he uses modern-day imagery of motorcycles on that old world traditional style, so he infuses the two, the traditional style of ledger art with the modern realm of contemporary imagery of the motorcycle."
Many of Yellowhawk’s paintings include ledger art, which is made with pencil, ink, or watercolor on pages of old ledger or account books. This type of artwork is a 19th century Plains Indian tradition for many tribes, not just the Lakota, and was developed as a way to use paper instead of other materials, for their art.
Jim Yellowhawk artwork on Aya Eyewear line. Photo Stephanie Seaton
Jim Yellowhawk, Lakota artist for Aya Eyewear. Glasses worn by Sterling Peterson. Photo Stephanie Seaton