Native American Culture Inspires Art Show in Chillicothe’s Pump House

Chillicothe and the Dayton area — July’s show at the Pump House Center for the Arts is inspired by a reconstructed late-prehistoric American Indian village near Dayton.

“Reflections of Sunwatch: Ancient Cultures” had its opening Friday night in the Pump House in Chillicothe’s Yoctangee Park. The archaeological site was recognized and excavated starting in 1968 in preparation for construction of a Dayton water treatment facility.

Instead, “SunWatch” was reconstructed on part of its own foundations, and is an attempt to interpret the lifestyle that was lived between the Adena and Hopewell cultures and historical Indian tribes.

Half of the Pump House show is art inspired by SunWatch, curated by one of the eight Miami Valley artists. Rusty Harden gave me an introduction and tour of the exhibit in the videos below and in the next story. She said the artists worked to appreciate and understand the site, but not appropriate the culture.

The other half are works by local artists that highlight Native American culture, including fancy dancing in the Feast of the Flowering Moon by Shelley Pocock. She told me that she brought out some of her older art that has not been seen for several years. Other works are by Sara Cory and Jason Vaughan-Kinnamon.

The SunWatch park, as part of the Boonshoft Museum of the Dayton Society of Natural History, has a website and Facebook page. The Pump House Center for the Arts has a Facebook page and website. Also see the SunWatch entry in Wikipedia.

Next, a companion story: a deeper look at the show.