By Richard Turner

Okimono are typically used in Japanese stone display to suggest scale, establish a sense of place or tell a story. Okimono are finely detailed miniature sculptures cast in bronze or carved from hardwood or ivory. They are usually human figures, animals, or architecture. Serious collectors will have large inventories of Okimono from which they can pick just the right one to complement a particular stone. Okimono commonly play a supporting role. The stone is the leading character. But what if the roles were reversed? What if the relationship between the stone and the Okimono were ambiguous rather than obvious?

This pot metal figurine of an Indian wearing a feathered headdress and cradling a drum in his lap is not only a caricature of an indigenous person but it is a degraded sculpture, its indifferent detail worn smooth by time and careless handling. It serves as a ready metaphor for the sorry history of the treatment of indigenous peoples in the United States. Paired with a southern California desert stone that evokes the rugged beauty of the western landscape that, for centuries, was the home of tribes such as the Sioux, Osage, Apache, Navajo and many others, the dialogue between the figurine and the stone references the history of broken treaties and tribes forcibly moved off their native lands. The contrast between the jagged delicacy of the stone and the crude caricature of the Indian accentuates the estrangement of the indigenous peoples from their lands. 

What figurines, toys or dolls do you have that you might pair with a stone to tell a story, ask a question or signify a place. I’ve been thinking of using some lead soldiers that I played with as a child or some dollhouse furniture that belonged to my grandmother.