Candice Felice interviews Tracey Schmidt for WPPR

An NPR affiliate in North Georgia

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“It is important to follow the advice given

by some of the elders featured in the photographs:

TO REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE.

If you lose your true identity you lose

your chance to give your

UNIQUE GIFT TO THE WORLD.”

“Tracey Schmidt’s photographs

OF NATIVE AMERICANS AFFIRM

   the old belief that a camera

CAN CAPTURE A PIECE

            of one’s soul.”

“Yet it was when she visited Japan and lived in a

Buddhist monastery at age 19 that a desire awakened

in her to search her own country for a tradition that was

as authentic and indigenous in America as Buddhism

had been for her in Japan.”

“I felt it was my mission

TO HELP BUILD BRIDGES

 between their culture

AND OURS.”

“The photographer hand-painted a

13’ X 13’ BACKDROP AND STRAPPED

it to the top of her car, covering many miles

in the American Southwest.

PARTICULARY WITH THE BACKDROP,

Schmidt has isolated her subjects from

THEIR BUSY ENVIRONMENT ON PURPOSE.”
“I remember my first powwow, in a field out west,

where a number of people had gathered as day

turned to dusk.  There was no electricity, and in

 the darkness all these people were dancing around

a huge fire, recalling the sounds and movements

of the past.  I was hooked.  It was simply stunning.”

 

“Her photos capture that movement,

the colors, the faces, but  most of all

they capture a spirit: the joy of dance,

the sturdiness and strength of a mother,

the history held in steely eyes.” 

 

“We don’t share something
THAT IS MEANINGFUL TO US,
something that is precious to us,
WITH SOMEONE THAT DOESN’T
value or respect that.”

“Native Americans are facing a crossroads.
IT IS A TIME WHEN THE ‘SACRED HOOP’
Or circle of humanity
WILL BE MENDED.
It needs to be mended.”