“W
hat are we supposed to do over here?” asked
Touraine. “The Kootenai don’t want a war either; we just
want to solve this problem. You guys won’t pay attention.” He
thought about it and said, “Look, let me give you an idea …
the bond is definitely an attention getter. Why don’t you make
a peace bond instead? By the way, you’re a really good artist.”
Lights and bells and whistles went off in Rainbow’s head.
What a great idea, she thought. They’d been selling the bonds
by the handful at the World’s Fair (“What a convenient thing
to have going on at the same time…”). The bonds were about
the size of a placemat and asked for a dollar donation for the
cause. There was no reason a declaration of peace couldn’t
accomplish exactly the same goal. They brought the proposal
to the leaders of the Kootenai who unanimously supported it.
The mayor of Bonners Ferry donated the town hall for hosting
an arts and culture show. Rainbow traded some of her work for
two living bison and one butchered one to donate to the tribe
(who used the butchered one to throw a barbecue for the whole
town), and D.C. finally started moving its feet. “We mean
business!” Rainbow croons over the phone to me. “We’re
Symbolic Americana and we mean business!”
Compared to Touraine’s legacy, modern life seems a little two
dimensional — Rainbow doesn’t have an email address; she
doesn’t keep a mobile phone. Using search engines to dig up
information or prints is like mining with a thumbtack. Yet she
is in the last chapters of her life and still painting 16 hours a
day. “We’re all human beings,” she says. “Art is what is. Are
we what we are?” I reckon that’s a whole other story.
March | April 2019
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