Rain Prud’homme-Cranford
Biography
“Mom hoktiwe pumblo! (Let’s all dance together!)”
Rain Prud’homme-Cranford PhD: is a FAT-tastically queer (dis)Abled Louisiana Creole IndigeNerd and an Associate Professor of English & International Indigenous Studies at U of C. A singer-songwriter-poetess-artist and Executive Editor, Publisher, and “Book Doula” of That Painted Horse Press, she is the author of Smoked Mullet Cornbread Crawdad Memory (2012 MEP, as Rain C. Goméz); Miscegenation Roundance: Poèmes Historiques (2021 Mongrel Empire Press); and the co-edited collections Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community (University of Washington Press, 2022) and Indians, Oil, & Water: Indigenous Ecologies and Literary Resistance (TPHP 2022). Her publications include Post-Contact Afro-Indigeneity and méstizaje within Gulf Creole cultural formations; Fat/Obesity, Queerness, and Gender; and Ecocriticism. Rain reads too much, drinks too much black tea, watches too much Speculative Fiction, and celebrates her lupus sle alopecia with too many tígnons. She works primarily in pen/ink, water colour, graphite and charcoal, mural, photography, clay, and digital paint mediums. Her art has been featured in various collections, books, and book covers. She is grateful to live and work on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot (Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai) Nations, the T'suu Tina, the Stoney Nakoda, and Métis Region III peoples.
Artist's Statements
Collection Title
Kakau' iye'tsne u't ińi (To look toward sunrise) “Kakau' iye'tsne u't ińi” Ishakkoy (Atakapa-Ishak language) for, “to look toward sunrise” is a diversely related set of images centering the interconnectivity of the world seen, felt, embodied, and unseen–– Where land, heart, head, spirit, body, and sex, echo through the ecologies we inhabit reminding us as we move through tides of shadows and light, that we are strengthened when our soles/souls touch soil and our eyes seek the rising sun. Each painting is accompanied by lines from the poem “NDN Organisms” from the upcoming collection, Epidermal Journal: The Body Book: Original Poetry, Art, and Photography
The Works
Mami Wata Welcomes Us Home 2021: “Vision Painting” representing Louisiana Creole Water mother, Yemanjá or Mami Wata manifests over the Gulf of Mexico to welcome her children home. Each plant carries meaning, medicine, and purpose as the mother of waters seeks balance in all things.
“My blood is connected
to your blood is connected
to our blood is connected
to Mother's blood.
[Our]celium 2021: A play on mycelium-the “root” systems of fungi, which works as the central nervous system of mother earth in conjunction with the waters– her veins. The connective waters and mycelium uniting us on Mother Earth moves toward balance in all relations, elements, directions, and worlds.
“My breath is connected
to your breath is connected
to our breath is connected
to Mother's breath…
“Prayers for Sister” 2022: (For JL) “Vision Painting” for prayer, health, balance, love, joy, peace, ancestral guidance, and rebirth.
“… We are a singular organism.”
~ “NDN Organisms,” Epidermal Journal: The Body Book (forthcoming).
SubMushroom Mama 2022: Collaborative work: A playful remediation on submission, dominance, and balance, “SubMushroom Mama” includes original art drawn by Prud’homme-Cranford on an image by her partner, Sámi (Kemi and Inari) mycologist and photographer Patrick W.C. Part of the new book project Epidermal Journal: The Body Book: Original Poetry, Art, and Photography. This collection seeks to celebrate beauty, sensuality, and sexual spectrums of BIPOC Fat female identified bodies in balanced intimacy with the environment or a celebration of “Fat-tastic” eco-erotics.
“…I am breathing
We are choking.
I am blood
We are bleeding
Wi hokišak kuš (We Are Relatives): Sisters Rise 2021: “Wi hokišak kuš is Ishakkoy” (Atakapa-Ishak language) for “we are all relatives” or “we are all connected.” With an emphasis on Red/Black/Latinx intersectionalities of gender, health, equity, global Indigeneity, and diaspora– Our sisters face the sun in resistance, power, and solidarity.
“…We gather to
stave Mother's wounds.
We raise raspy swollen
cedar filled voices to
clear her airways.