The wildest accounting of the Indian wars for Dakota Territory is in the art Donald Montileaux draws on ledger paper. On the pages of cracked old leather volumes that once recorded sales of seed and plows to homesteaders, Montileaux now draws ponies that bound off into space, carrying Lakota warriors on journeys that have nothing to do with dollars and cents.
“Ledger art is a traditional form of drawing,” says Montileaux, a Rapid City-based artist who has been drawing images on aged paper for more than 20 years. “The only thing that makes it ledger is it’s done on ledger and accounting books.”
Today, ledger art has gained prominence thanks to South Dakota artists like Montileaux, Evans Flammond Sr. and Quinton Maldonado.
Discovering ledgers
Plains Indians used to express stories by creating images on rock walls, on bone, on tanned animal hides. But as hides became hard to come by in the latter part of the 19th century, those stories and images made the jump to paper in order to sustain the ceremony and culture of Native Americans.
One story has it ledger art emerged because a Native warrior wanted to feed his starving family. The locals in the community said they would give the hungry man beef but he refused the food unless he worked or traded for it. In turn, the proud man created renderings, using a ledger book supplied to him, selling each page for a quarter.
Another take on the art’s creation derives from a group of imprisoned Native American warriors who were given pencils, ink, paint and most importantly, ledger pages.
“The warriors would sit around and instead of showing photos, like today, they exchanged drawings,” says Flammond Sr., a modern-day Pine Ridge-based ledger artist. “It wasn’t really to show others. They were sharing tales with each other, like a newspaper.”
The renderings were recognized by Richard Henry Pratt, a military man who oversaw captured Native Americans in Fort Marion, Fla., in the 1870s. Pratt saw the drawings as a way to provide a Western education to the Native Americans. Henry Benjamin Whipple, a bishop in Minnesota, thought the drawings were proof of the progress in assimilating the captive warriors.
Although there are various accounts of the origins of the art, one thing is certain: more than a century after its creation, the art form has not only survived – it has flourished.
Searching for golden pages
Century old books used to be hard to find. Before the days of eBay, ledger books were often confined to the musty basements of second hand stores or auction blocks.
The problem with many ledger books sold via auction was that they were often stripped of the most important quality. The writing and dates were removed, and Montileaux said that is unfortunate. “The dates provide an insight into what the Native American may have been doing at the time, which in turn, may inspire a particular image.”
For Montileaux, the penmanship found in the ledger books is just as important as the dates. “The accountant was very prideful of the fact that he could write,” he said. “He was an artist himself when he was writing.”
The entries found on the lined pages of these finely crafted bound volumes provide a glimpse into the past, including records of loans once issued to individuals from all over the country. It places a stamp on who was conducting business in a particular place.
Once commonly used by accountants and bankers, who artfully wrote their itemized entries with elaborate stylings, ledger books fell out favor as they began to be replaced by electronic spreadsheets.
A lot of people in the last 5 to 6 years have gone more toward putting their records on the computer, Montileaux says. But as use of ledgers declined, the books gained importance for Native Americans artists like Montileaux and Flammond Sr.
Instead of searching for books in rank rooms, artists now troll the Internet in search of old ledgers.
The pages themselves are so highly regarded that Montileaux and Flammond Sr. treat them like baseball cards, trading them on occasion. “It’s hard to come by some of the pages from this area,” Montileaux says. Both he and Flammond Sr. try to focus on using pages from the region, where Lakota people roamed.
“Anything pertaining to South Dakota is pretty much gold in paper form,” Flammond Sr. says.
A personal narrative
Half French and half Native American, Montileaux sees ledger art as a means of personal reflection. “The French-European side is in the book itself and the entries and the Lakota side being the images I put on top of those pages,” he said.
Under the tutelage of renowned artists like Herman Red Elk and Oscar Howe, Montileaux learned to create images that were once confined to buffalo hide. His advancement as a renowned ledger artist has provided him an opportunity to travel around the country over the years.
“You want to be recognized,” he said, which comes by creating a unique style. “Even though we’re all doing the same thing, we’re all doing something different.”
While developing his skills, Montileaux wanted to use the tools that were available to Native American artists who preceded him including quill pens, colored pencils, water color and paint.
After experimenting with acrylic paint, Montileaux turned to prismacolor pencils and felt tip pens. “Those created the style I wanted to have plus they are also a little bit translucent when you put them on ledger paper,” he said. The pencils allow the handwritten words on the ledger pages to be stand out rather than be hidden.
Along with finding the right tools, Montileaux has discovered his own style. It includes his now-famous hoofless horses, which create an effect that allows the horses to almost leap off the page.
The quality of the paper that Montileaux works on helps accomplish that leap, according to one expert. He once met the head of the art department from Penn State who told him the silk fibers in the ledger pages helped accentuate the colors.
Natural growth
Like Montileaux, Flammond Sr. has discovered his own styling over the years. Although he has only been making ledger art since 2002, Flammond Sr. was inspired to become an artist after an eagle tapped its claws on a car window when he was a child. He was mesmerized and, from that moment, inspired to create.
Growing up on the Rosebud Reservation, he began drawing tipis and moons when he was 7 years old. As he got older, his adventures in art didn’t lead him to take classes or attend art school.
“You can’t be taught to be an artist,” Flammond Sr. says. “Talent is something you acquire as you grow mentally.”
That growth occurred as Flammond Sr. was surrounded by his Native American culture, which instilled and inspired him to create the images he makes today. He admits that if he had gone to school, his art would’ve gone in an entirely different direction.
The path Flammond Sr. went down has led him to create powerful images, which have been challenging to some. Although he didn’t intend it, his work seems to stand out in a field that has become crowded by newer artists.
For one piece, Flammond Sr. used an old map to depict the Battle of Little Big Horn. He pitted the Native Americans on the western border of the map and American soldiers on the east. For some, the artwork was offensive. “What I’m doing is reminding everybody about the past,” he says.
The fact that it has made some people uncomfortable doesn’t bother Flammond Sr. because he sees it as being true to his roots.
A modern world
That willingness to depict confrontational subjects is shared by 32-year-old Maldonado. “I try to convey historical things and capture some of our modern history,” Maldonado says. “I find it very intriguing to be a ledger artist in our modern time.”
Maldonado learned his skills by attending Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation. He has also developed his craft under the tutelage of Montileaux. “Quinton is very unique,” Montileaux said. “His age group has really reflected well with the work that he does.”
Maldonado’s modern take on ledger art has resulted in some of his drawings having an interesting spin on the traditional art form. One drawing shows a Native American holding a basketball. Another addresses suicide. On occasion, he even creates humorous renderings including one entitled “The Sioux-Pranos,” which depicts Lakota warriors in 1930’s style mafia garb.
Using a 1911 ledger sheet, he created a rendering of President Barack Obama. The image of the president includes two warrior stripes, which Maldonado says is a reflection of the support Obama has given to indigenous people and because he was adopted by the Crow Nation.
“It is an influential piece to show modern history in the form of ledger art,” Maldonado says
Another creation Maldonado is especially proud of is his rendering of the Keystone XL pipeline. The image shows a kneeling Native American wearing a gas mask and shackles as the pipeline looms large in the background.
Throughout his 12 years as a ledger artist, Maldonado has been commissioned to create ledger pieces throughout the country, including one for U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.
The evolution of art
Within the past three years the ledger art industry has really bloomed, says Flammond Sr. He thinks a lot of modern ledger artists don’t have their heart in the art so much as a financial interest.
“They see a ledger on the wall that is priced $1,200 and they figure they’d try it out,” Flammond Sr. says.
That’s not something that Flammond Sr., who is proud of his cultural heritage, takes lightly. “My people literally invented the concept of ledger art and they weren’t even shooting for a profit.”
Montileaux sees the renaissance of an art form that was created more than a century ago as somewhat unusual. “You find all kinds of Indians doing it,” he says. Native Americans from California and Arizona are now creating ledger art in an attempt to mimic Plains Indian culture.
“All cultures have wonderful things to give to the world,” Montileaux said. “I don’t think you have to mimic another just to sustain yourself.”
Although the recent boom of ledger artists has made it hard to find old books, Montileaux, Flammond Sr. and Maldonado are up to the challenge.
And even if he can’t get a hold of as many books as his mentor, Maldonado has developed his own take on ledger art. For his XL pipeline image, he recreated a replica of an 1868 ledger page – a unique quality of Maldonado’s work.
Like his mentor, Maldonado knows he must continue to evolve as an artist. “I will always continue to refine my style as my work matures.”
Evolution is all part of the maturity process of an artist, which has even continued for Montileaux.
Recently, he has begun placing his ledger work on canvas. A walk down the aisle of an art store inspired Montileaux to think outside the box for an art form that has been around for well over a century.
The canvas work has both challenged and excited Montileaux. He has started attaching new elements including shells, brass beads, quilled medallions and leather to the traditionally two dimensional art form. “It’s a new adventure for me,” he says. “As an artist, you’ve got to be a step ahead of everybody if you want to be successful.
It’s an ongoing task for South Dakota artists such as Montileaux, Flammond Sr. and Maldonado. On pages that once confined financial transactions in orderly columns of black and white, something new is taking place – red and blue warriors, bison and horses now vault off the page into a future that is boundless.
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