Stephen K Lehmer

" My work is about learning through exploration and discovery. Embracing otherness." ________________________________ Contact and other inquiries: [email protected]

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Crow Fair

The Crow people call themselves Apsáalooke. A nomadic Northern Plains tribe, The Crows’ traditional territory was located predominately in the Yellowstone River valley, though they followed the buffalo as far north as the Missouri River, and as far east as the Black Hills.

The Crow blossomed when they were introduced to the horse. A nation of clans constantly on the move, they took pride in mobility, and quickly became renowned horsemen bringing their lightweight Tipis to make each new camp.

Starting at the turn of the 19th century, the many clans and districts began gathering every year to trade goods and camp together. They called it Crow Fair; it continues today with traditional parades daily and dancing day and night.

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Nevada Creek, Montana

The Beaverslide was invented a hundred years ago in Montana’s Big Hole Valley. An intricate net of poles, pulleys, and cable, it stacks hay into 30 foot x 30 foot cubes designed expressly to store forage through the brutally dry and cold winters of the Western high plains.

Despite its low cost and ingenious design, the massive apparatus is seldom used these days. The slide requires a large crew to operate, and where manpower was once traditionally shared among neighboring ranching communities, dwindling rural populations have made the necessary labor hard to gather.

Earl and Glenna Stucky still hay by Beaverslide at their ranch in the Nevada Creek area outside Avon, Montana, albeit with some upgrades: teams of horses and mules once tasked with hoisting the slide have been replaced by custom built motorized jalopies called “buck rakes.”

As for labor, perhaps the most important aspect of Earl and Glenna’s operation is the proximity and cohesion of their extended family. Come haying season, most the work is done by three generations of Stuckys that live on or near the ranch, supplemented by about 15 local hired hands. Even the grandkids, too young to help, play and observe from the shade of a pup tent, studying for the season when they are enlisted to work.

Like all ranchers, the Stuckys work hard, but like the best of them, they work smart: adapting, evolving, and cultivating community to make the Beaverslide succeed in a new century.

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Water Exhibition 

The water document never changes but it is never the same

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New Getty Museum - LA, California

Getty Villa - Malibu, California

The Getty consists of two separate museums, The Villa and the New Getty. The collection and exhibitions present art from classic Mediterranean to current contemporary work.

Both show that great architecture can serve as a vessel for great art. At its best, space compliments the pieces within it, rather than distracting from them. The same can be said of the environment in which a well-built structure should appear natural and complementary. The fact that both Gettys have managed to do this and also remain such iconic structures is testament to their design.

“Form follows function.” - Louis Sullivan

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Italy - Venice

Venice has a long history of fostering emerging art. Those overlooked by the salons of Rome and Paris often had better luck finding patrons amidst the unique Venetian mix of art and commerce, where great boat builders and craftsmen worked alongside vibrant and experimental expressionists.

Inevitably, many of these emerging artists found success in the mainstream and became established. What was historically a small industrial port became the home of a new European art scene, and today Venice hosts the internationally-renowned Biennale exhibition, which draws artists and onlookers from every region of the world.

But in true Venetian fashion, spontaneity and ingenuity still thrive in the margins. A new generation of artists continue to work away from the Biennale in the peripheral neighborhoods, projecting films in alleyways, painting shop walls and showing in impromptu converted spaces in the true emerging spirit of the city, carrying on the tradition of change.

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Italy - Rome

Italy is quite young compared to the many ancient cities and regions within it, each with its own district reflecting the different communities evolution through time. Centuries of people have intermingled in Rome, where even the smallest exploration under the surface can reveal endless layers of culture. The vastness is dizzying. But here history is distilled in a clear essence of place, and where detail, not the whole, shows the story. Less is more.

“Eliminate the obvious and emphasize the essential.” -Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Montana - Hi Line Portraits

When the Great Northern Railroad first cut across Montana’s Hi-Line, it established approximately 45 communities between North Dakota and East Glacier. Today it stops at four.

For the railroad, the High Line has turned from a collection of small communities to a land bridge between Northern Europe and Shanghai, leaving many of those bypassed communities to experience a process I call “quieting”: The kids leave and the elders linger.

In the prosperous Western regions of Montana, it is not uncommon for 70% of high school graduates to leave small towns and never return. In the harsh Northern High Line, this number only grows. Small farmers and ranchers face the decision to sell out or “go big,” expanding corporate agri-business and swapping local commerce for wholesalers in Denver or Seattle. As the next generation opts for education and life elsewhere, the towns empty more each year.

There’s something about the people that remain there: A living spirit. A sense of community where town halls have been replaced by bars and churches. Where forgotten farm co-ops erase their names from grain elevators. Where trains blow past at full speed.

The railroad giveth and the railroad taketh away.

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Montana - Vanishing Points

A massive crop failure in 1919 sent Central Eastern Montana into an economic crash a decade before the Great Depression, shuttering businesses, family farms, and most of the independent small town banks.

The buildings in which the banks stood, however, press on. Originally Bohemian settlers from Europe brought with them skill in brick and stone masonry.  The structures they built persevere in myriad forms through generations of re-appropriation and remain centerpieces for scores of small communities.

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Montana - Central Montana

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Norwegian Doors

In Norway a strong community balances the individual and the collective. At its best, it is commonality in the name of personality, a cohesive whole that enriches bold detail, revels in style, and becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

If Norwegian culture seems uniform, you can find the subtle individuality of its people on the front doors.

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Washington: Puyallup Indian Fishing Rights – 1970

Between 1854 and 1856, the new Territory of Washington and its first governor, Isaac Stevens, signed eight separate treaties with 24 local Indian tribes that granted access to traditional hunting and fishing grounds. It is unfortunately not surprising that these agreements, once reached, were routinely and roundly ignored.

The result was a decades-long dispute commonly known as the Fishing Wars, between Indians upholding their treaty rights and state officials interfering and arresting tribal fishermen with impunity.

Though contentious, this conflict was generally peaceful, except for the event shown here. In September 1970, Indians armed themselves with rifles, and city, state and Fish & Game police fought back with tear gas and shotguns.

The process of intimidation and harassment meant to discourage and opress the tribal people only strengthened their resolve. By 1974, increased attention sent the dispute to the Supreme Court where a federal judge ruled in favor of the tribes, declaring that Washington State must uphold the original “Stevens Treaties” and allow tribal members access to fishing grounds. That precedent stands today.

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Alcatraz 1969-70: Indian Occupation

By the late 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement had pervaded American culture. Disenfranchised people of all backgrounds fought for a better life on two fronts: against their government’s dysfunctional laws, and in the hearts and minds of their communities. It was in this context that American Indians sought to take a stand against a deeply-ingrained cultural oppression.

Richard Oakes and the United Indians of All Tribes (UIAT) found a toehold for that protest on November 9th, 1969, when they sailed from San Francisco to the tiny 22-acre island of Alcatraz and symbolically occupied it for one day. Upon returning to the mainland that evening, Oakes and the IOAT considered the viability of returning for a longer stay.

Alcatraz had been traded to the United States Government from the Miwok Indians a century earlier, and used as a Federal prison until 6 years previously, 1963, when the rusted facility was decommissioned and abandoned. Citing language in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, the IOAT contended that this deemed the island “surplus,” to be returned to native inhabitants. On November 20th, 1969, Oakes and roughly 100 protesters tested that treaty by returning to Alcatraz for an occupation that would last nineteen months and nine days, into the early summer of 1971.

During their stay, an evolving population of occupiers produced radio broadcasts and published newsletters from the island, sent envoys to negotiate with Federal and State officials, garnered support and supplies from celebrities and public figures (including the fishing boat “Clearwater,” gifted from the band Creedence Clearwater Revival) until talks fell through and federal marshals swarmed the island on June 10th, 1971, removing the last five women, four children, and six unarmed Indian men to officially end the occupation.

The protesters were clear in their demands: The deed to the island, an Indian university, a cultural center, and a museum. The government agreed to none.

Despite it’s end by force, the occupation is widely viewed as a success for its influence on subsequent demonstrations, including the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Wounded Knee Incident. In addition, the occupation is seen as a major influence on the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which gave recognized Indian tribes authority to administer Federal funds as they saw fit. For the American Indian Movement, Alcatraz represented “the symbol of a newly awakened desire among Indians for unity and authority in a white world.”

Click here for full text of The Declaration of the Return of Indian Land.