The Museum of the Plains Indian to feature Hollie Eagle Speaker, Clarence Comes At Night and Louis Still Smoking in a Special Exhibition

August 21, 2023 

BROWNING, MONTANA: The Museum of the Plains Indian, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Indian Arts and Crafts Board, announces the opening of a special exhibition, Summer Showcase, featuring Hollie Eagle Speaker, Clarence Comes At Night and Louis Still Smoking.  The exhibition will run from August 21 to October 30, 2023.  On August 25, 2023, there will be an opening reception for the exhibit from 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm. 

Hollie Eagle Speaker, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana is a skilled beadwork artist who creates intricately beaded purses, armbands, and jewelry.  Many of her works include beadwork portraits, which are adapted from photographs of her family members.  She draws inspiration from the rich tradition of beadwork among the Blackfeet and hopes that her artwork will inspire Blackfeet youth to continue to practice the traditional arts of their ancestors.   

Hollie was first exposed to the art of beading at the age of seven, watching her mother, Emily Scabby Robe, create beaded clothing and jewelry.  As a teenager she began to create her own beadwork, but it was not until her twenties that she dedicated herself to mastering the craft.  She uses a variety of traditional materials in her artwork including glass seed beads, trade cloth, Czech beads, and smoked buckskin to create works that are both beautiful and functional.   

Clarence Comes At Night, Jr., an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, is an emerging artist who specializes in three-dimensional art, often in the form of wooden dance sticks.  Inspired by both the warrior tradition of the Blackfeet Nation and the modern pow-wow circuit, Clarence developed an interest in creating carved wooden rifles for male traditional dancers to use at pow-wows.  He sees contemporary pow-wow dances as a continuation of Native American warrior traditions: dancers go into battle to defend their homelands, and the dance sticks they carry symbolize the rifles warriors once used. 

Clarence is a self-taught artist who fabricates his dance sticks from recycled wood using both power and hand tools and then embellishes them with pyrography and paint.  This exhibit marks his first appearance in a museum exhibition.   

Louis Still Smoking, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana, is an accomplished artist whose artwork spans a variety of mediums.  Following his graduation from Flandreau Indian School, he worked as a stone sculptor for over a decade before moving on to other mediums such as oil paintings.  He now specializes in creating large scale murals for various businesses and Tribal programs around the state of Montana.  

A self-taught artist with over 20 years of experience, Louis’ inspiration comes from the Blackfeet people, culture, and landscapes.  He describes his work as impressionistic realism and seeks to bring a fresh and modern approach to the contemporary Native American art world.  His work has been exhibited at the Plains Indian Museum in, Cody, Wyoming and the Bozeman Art Museum in, Bozeman, Montana.