Biography

From BOOKISH Exhibition at SJMA in 2011. Label Copy:
In 1991, Lewis deSoto created a five-room installation at the San Jose Museum of Art based on the creation myth of his ancestors, the Cahuilla people of California. Pé Túkmiyat, Pé Túkmiyat (darkness, darkness – the source of all beginnings) metaphorically illustrated important moments in the myth, from the birth of the creator brothers, Múkat and Témayawet, to the eventual settlement of the tribe in Southern California. This library table piece, Pé Túkmiyat, Pé Túkmiyat #1, was part of that installation. Viewers entered the installation space and encountered this long table with English dictionaries open at each end. Funnels above the dictionaries slowly dripped black ink, blacking out the text and then pooling along the surface of the table.        

In this piece, deSoto asked that we consider how our cultural background shapes the way we experience the world. In each myth, story, or history, there is the opportunity for multiple interpretations and meanings to emerge.  In Pé Túkmiyat, Pé Túkmiyat #1, just as the words on the dictionary pages are erased by the blackness (or the darkness) of the ink, it is possible to clear our own minds in order to make alternate understandings and perceptions possible.
Lives in Napa, California.

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