SCULPTURE
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Many creative Haudenosaunee turned to sculpting in stone, antler, and clay. These artists exert a strong influence upon public expressions of Haudenosaunee identity. Their works are often featured at culture centers, distributed as posters, or printed in magazines and native newspapers. As spokespersons for their people, the artists seem to be expected to cross language and culture barriers in communicating, perhaps simplifying and almost codifying a complex culture for non-natives to understand. Few museums purchase their work, and patrons are scarce. They often supplement their artistic efforts by working as cultural leaders, contributing to the challenge of increasing public understanding of matters Iroquois. Painting and sculpting are the two most public and dynamic art forms, deeply involved in expressing a people’s evolving and enduring sense of identity. Haudenosaunee artists are communicators and they confront the viewer with issues that are important to them today. For many Haudenosaunee, carving in stone or sculpting in clay is their canvas. Carving is a traditional skill practiced by Haudenosaunee for centuries. Haudenosauneeare perhaps best known for carving wood flasks used in medicine rituals, but Haudenosaunee also carved antler decorative combs and fashioned stone into gorgets. Rarely did they create sculptures; rather their skills and aesthetic inspirations led them to decorate utilitarian objects with carved images such as a bird on a spoon or face on a war club. Influence from another culture and recognition of a market place that valued art objects prompted some Iroquois to create free-standing sculptures rather than decorative objects.

The TERA project in the 1930s encouraged a few men to sculpt human figures depicting traditional Haudenosaunee activities. Interestingly, most of the figures are engaged in activities of the pre-contact era. Some, however, show individuals dressed in cloth clothing. Kidd Smith, the brother of Ernest Smith, was a prolific carver at the time, creating dynamic images of Haudenosaunee working, playing, and involved in ritual. Much of the work created as part of the project was done to preserve craft skills and techniques or to record traditional life ways. The focus was not on art and developing the artist’s skills. When the project ended, most of the wood carvers did not pursue their new talent. Nor did other Haudenosaunee become involved in sculpting wood; rather a new medium, soapstone, appeared to inspire a new tradition. In 1969, a Tuscarora artist named Duffy Wilson began carving in soapstone and met with great success. Inspired by the appreciation that people gave to Duffy's work and the dynamic and bold expression of Haudenosaunee values and symbols in his pieces, many other Haudenosaunee sought out chunks of soapstone and began to carve. The result was a remarkable burst of Haudenosaunee creativity in a new form.

With only a few exceptions, most of the carvers are men, and many of them have worked in heavy construction. This new medium is an ideal way to express religious symbols, clan animals, or figures from ancient legends. Typical subjects of the forceful soapstone art are False Faces, Husk Faces, Turtle rattles, Wampum designs. Tadodaho with snakes in his hair, Horned Serpents, Flying Heads, the Tree of Peace, the Guardian Eagle as well as a few realistic portrayals of animals or people. The carvers went to their elders and listened to their accounts, they researched museum collections (for example, the wood carvings of Kidd Smith at Rochester), or they pored through books on Iroquois legends and culture. Sculptors, like painters, also succinctly present concepts in Haudenosaunee culture. The carvers feel very strongly about their work. Some allow the stone to speak for itself. When the carver senses what the stone wants to say, the piece flows along naturally. If the creative inspiration fades, the unfinished work is put aside until the carver feels he is able to be true again to what the stone wants to tell him. The result is a final work that can contain very deep spiritual feelings. Soapstone carving is really a new art form, and it is creating its own traditions as it evolves from some of the deepest roots of Haudenosaunee culture. Another rediscovered art began in the 1970s with the bone and antler carvings of Stanley Hill. A Mohawk highsteel worker from Six Nations, Stanley Hill started sculpting originally in steel, but quickly moved to creating eagles and turtles out of moose and deer antler. Other animals and Haudenosaunee symbols soon followed, and Stanley became known as the foremost antler scuIptor. His eagles showed the pride and stubbornness of the Iroquois Confederacy they symbolize, and his Corn Spirits stoically stand watchful of the modern world’s fight against the environment.