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Edited by Margaret Dubin
Trade paper, 96 pages, (8 x 9.5), with over 50 full-color and b&w images
ISBN: 1-890771-54-6, $16.95

Grandma slammed the bottle
down on the table, and
it burst
into a wind of
green shards
caught in candlelight

The Dirt is Red Here brings together works by many of today’s finest artists and poets of California’s Indian communities. Whether it be a contemporary painting, an intricate basket, or a lifetime expressed in powerful lines of poetry, each selection in this book reflects personal and cultural experience, presented authentically with great artistry.

Contributors to The Dirt is Red Here hail from tribes throughout California. Some—artists Fritz Scholder, Frank LaPena, Harry Fonseca, and Rick Bartow, and writers Greg Sarris, Janice Gould, and Wendy Rose—have enjoyed wide audiences, while others are published here for the first time. Drawing on California’s most ancient traditions while anchored solidly in the modern world, these artists have forged a body of thought–provoking, sometimes playful, and often revelatory work that extends not only our sense of what it means to be Indian, but also of what it means to be human.

Reviews:

"To read The Dirt Is Red Here: Art and Poetry from Native California
is to experience the thriving and dynamic life of a continuing land and people. No matter the invasion by Spanish conquistadors, no matter the devastation of the Gold Rush, no matter Silicon Valley! These are Chumash, Hupa, Maidu, Miwok, Chukchansi, Achumawe, Atsugewi, Luiseño, Paiute, Yurok, Ohlone, Wintu, Karuk and more, many more, saying, ‘This is our home. We are here. This is our art, and this is our poetry.’"—Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), author of Out There Somewhere, After and Before the Lightning, Men on the Moon

"The little-known California Indian tribes with names like Konkow, Karuk, Nomtipom, Luiseño, Atsugewi, and Acjachmem are able to transport one into marvelous dreams of atavistic worlds. This book gives us access to ways in which their tribal descendants echo and give expression to these noble cultural traditions."—Wayne Thiebaud, painter

"Here is a stunning collection of poetry and visual art from Native California which gathers together poets, painters, photographers, and artists from many California nations into one place, ready to delight, entertain, challenge, and inform. This is a collection that should be read by all students of Native America."—Patricia Penn Hilden (Nex Perce), author of When Nickels Were Indians: An Urban, Mixed-Blood Story

"Collected here are passionate, wise, and gorgeous works by the same growing community of writers, scholars, and artists which News from Native California has fostered."—Peter Nabokov, author of A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History

Author Biography:

Margaret Dubin is managing editor of News from Native California, the quarterly magazine that for fifteen years has documented and celebrated California Indian art and culture. Dubin is the author of Native America Collected: The Culture of an Art World. She lectures on Native American art and literature at the University of California, Berkeley.