Call me by my name

The Laguna Foundation is hosting an exhibit of whimsical paintings of native flora and fauna paired with their names in the Pomo language

Nicole Jones with her son Wyatt at an exhibition of her work at the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

“ʔay:a:kʰe čahnu” (Our Language), an art exhibit by Nicole Jones at the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation began as a way for the artist to teach herself the Pomo language and pass it down to her son.

“This started when I was passing on our language to my son, Wyatt, and I was just focusing on picking one or two words a week. Actually one of the ways I teach myself the language is through art; it helps get the words into my brain. So I would create an image. I'd print it out, put it on the refrigerator, teach Wyatt and it just kind of built up from there.”

Jones is a Southern Pomo citizen of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, but she didn't grow up speaking the Pomo language. In fact, she said she didn't learn her first word of Pomo until she was in high school, and she didn't start studying it in earnest until later.

“It wasn't until Wyatt was born and I was really wanting to pass on the culture that it kind of hit me, well, who's gonna pass it on? You know, who's he gonna learn from? Our tribe isn't that big, and we're seeing more and more elders pass on. It's really important to keep the language going and use the language every day. In our in families, we believe that for our plants and our animals in our area, like this is their language too—it's their first language—and it's important to call them by that name.”

Jones is a self-taught artist, but she has a sophisticated graphic sensibility. Creative Sonoma recommended her work to the Laguna de Santa Rosa foundation as a part of a program connecting artists to local non-profits.

Ultimately, Jones said she'd like to gather all the images together into a board book that every Pomo child would be given at birth.

“That's my longterm vision,” she said. “But I'm not quite there yet. I want to create a few more and then submit it to Heyday Books,” referring to the Berkeley publisher of books about Native Californians. “It'd be so awesome to hand it to any southern Pomo for their newborns, where it could be continuing the language right from day one.”

“I feel like learning the language is important to our own cultural healing,” Jones said. “I believe in ancestral memory, like, this is what our bodies know. Our bodies know the language, our bodies know our food, our traditions. And this is about reconnecting with that, even if we didn't get taught directly from our families at a young age.”

You can see Jones' artwork this weekend in Heron Hall at the Laguna de Santa Rosa's August Art Walk on Saturday, August 26, from noon to 3 pm. Enjoy the exhibit in the gallery then take a tour of the center’s beautiful native plant garden. Find out more here.