Luzene Hill facts for kids

Caroline Luzene Hill (born 1946) is a Native American artist and a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She creates art that combines performances with art installations. Her work often explores difficult topics, like challenges faced by women, using abstract and artistic ways to share her message.

Luzene Hill is well-known for her art piece Retracing the Trace (2011-2015). This installation helps people think about the widespread pain of difficult personal experiences. Her art mainly focuses on the feelings of hurt and shame that can come from various challenges faced by women and indigenous cultures. It also shows how art can be a powerful tool for healing and change. Hill's art has been shown in many countries, including Canada, Russia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Early Life and Education

Caroline Luzene Hill received the name "Luzene" from her grandmother, who was Cherokee. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, with her mother's family. Hill shared that her father's parents were sent to a school called Carlisle Indian Industrial School. There, they were punished for speaking their native language. Because of this, her grandparents never taught Cherokee to their children or grandchildren. However, they still taught them to be proud of their heritage.

Hill started studying art when she was in her early thirties. But she didn't fully focus on her art until she was in her late forties, due to family responsibilities. In 2006, she moved to Western North Carolina. She wanted to focus on her art, learn more about her Cherokee heritage, and study the Cherokee language, which is endangered.

Hill earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Western Carolina University in 2012. Her project Retracing the Trace was part of her Master's work. In her thesis, Hill explained that each cord in the artwork had between one and 3,780 knots. These knots represented the many difficult experiences that go unreported each day in the United States. Hill said about the knotted, red-dyed cords, "They aren't being counted by our justice system, but I'm counting them. Each cord, like each person, is unique." She also used the qhipu knotting tradition from South America. This connected the idea of people not speaking about difficult experiences to the silencing of indigenous cultures. When creating Retracing the Trace, Hill was inspired by other women artists. These artists also explored themes of challenges and healing, including Suzanne Lacy, Kara Walker, and Tracey Emin. She also found ideas in the writings of Jacques Lacan.

Artistic Works

Hill's art explores difficult experiences, challenges faced by women, and the healing power of art. Her first art show, In de Soto's Path, took place in 1997 at the Santa Fe Indian Market. Some of Hill's earlier works also used Cherokee creation stories. These works explored connections between personal feelings, fulfillment, pain, and birth. They showed that Native American art is connected to modern and universal themes, not just historical ones.

Her most famous work, Retracing the Trace, was inspired by her own challenging personal experience. The art installation showed Hill lying among thousands of red cords tied into qhipu knots. After Hill stood up from the pile of knots, her body's outline remained on the floor. This outline looked like the mark her body left in the mud and leaves after her own difficult experience. Over ten days, Hill returned to the gallery. She rearranged and attached each knotted cord to a new spot on the gallery walls. Eventually, a new outline, created by her, surrounded the space.

Hill uses a special red dye called carmine to color her works. This dye gives her art the bright crimson red color seen in many of her pieces. This color reminds people of blood. Also, this dye is made by female cochineal insects to scare away predators. This idea connects to the main themes in Hill's art. Before colonial times, indigenous South American cultures used this dye in protection ceremonies and to make protective objects.

Artist and art expert Tania Abramson sees Hill's art as part of a tradition of "female artists who have faced difficult experiences. They use art as a way to transform, to move between feelings of shame and new beginnings, humiliation and understanding, anger and imagination."

After receiving fellowships from the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art and First Peoples Fund in 2015, Hill worked with Frank Brannon of Speakeasy Press. They created a special art book called Spearfinger. This book was printed only in Cherokee syllabary. Hill learned about the story of Spearfinger, a scary character from Cherokee stories, in James Mooney's book History, Myths and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee.

Hill met Cherokee Nation artist Brenda Mallory in 2015. Two years later, they had a joint art show called Connecting Lines. It was held at the Portland Art Museum's Center for Contemporary Native Art.

In 2019, Hill received the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists.

Personal Life

In 1994, Hill experienced a very difficult event while jogging in an Atlanta park. The details of this event later inspired her art, especially her most notable work, Retracing the Trace.

Hill is an official member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.