00:00.00 archpodnet Go and. 00:02.45 Alan Hey, all you rock art podcasters. It's Dr. Alllan Alan Garfinkel your host with the California Rock Guard Foundation and we have ah professor sallyer hannah salier who's um, going to be ah sharing ah with us more reflections and. Some of the details surrounding her ah forthcoming book on rock art oriented towards the younger cast of individuals children's book Hannah are you with us hi Hannah. 00:34.88 Hannah Salyer Um, yes, hello Alan um. 00:39.70 Alan Believe it or believe it or not that's the same name as my ah my daughter Hannah she spells it that way too. So you're in good company. So what about this? So what about this children's book when did you ah get the bug or get the opportunity to put such a book together and what. 00:45.68 Hannah Salyer Um, oh okay. 00:58.20 Alan What was the you know the the development surrounding that initiative. It sounds like you were cultivated or had the opportunity to talk about this to a ah major publishing house am I correct. 01:11.58 Hannah Salyer Yes, yes I was super lucky. Um, so the way this book came about um was that so I finished um I had just finished up my debut picture book which is. Called pacs strength and numbers packs as in packs. Um, that is about different species who work together and why they work together. Um in groups. Um, so I had just. Finished up the writing and the illustration and I turned it in um and that was actually I had worked on that book with um potent Mifflin Harcourt um I got connected with them through I have a ah literary agent. 02:01.45 Alan Um. 02:02.82 Hannah Salyer Um, who focuses specifically on children's literature. Um, and so you know she connected me to Houghton Mifflin um and i. You know for that first book I worked with a team that just really really understood where I was coming from my editor was right there with me on the same page. Um I would say holds a lot of the core kind of values that I do which is incredibly lucky. 02:29.97 Alan Um. 02:37.58 Hannah Salyer To have my first editor be someone so amazing. Her name's Kate O'sullivan um and so you know when this idea popped up I certainly was interested in working. 02:43.99 Alan Are. 02:53.26 Hannah Salyer With the team the same team again because we had such a good workflow and and um, she really understood where I was coming from. So. 03:02.40 Alan Tell me about the values and where you were coming from and ah give me sort of a glimpse of of what your what your consciousness was what your value system was what was it that you were espousing sort of in the picture book in the. 03:17.51 Hannah Salyer Um, yeah, that's that's a good question. Um, so you know as I mentioned before I feel like I make a lot of my work. Um, kind of. 03:18.55 Alan Initial book where you were talking. Yeah please. 03:34.13 Hannah Salyer Zooming out and thinking about the planet as this living breathing kind of organism of sorts with all these different ecosystems and really focusing On. Um, you know that certainly the principles in that first book How we. We really do all work together. Um within this on this planet within these systems like we we rely on each other you know and when I say we I mean all different species. Um, and. 04:06.83 Alan And what you're what you're saying of course and you're probably aware of this is that sort of an indigenous you know, ah set of their cosmology. Their religion is that is that all things on this planet. All things in the landscape. 04:24.82 Alan Sentient. Love that word, they're alive. They have agency they make decisions and that they they matter this is plants animals, trees rocks, etc, water, etc. And so by taking that Perspective. You're sort of living in the same. World as indigenous native people. 04:48.77 Hannah Salyer Yeah, um, most certainly and it's something you know I rule me. 04:50.83 Alan And it's very different. It's very different than the western or cartesian perspective which sort of views humankind as sort of the purveyors or managers and all else in the world sort of as our. Not our playthings but but our responsibility to do things with and allow us to create value and and engineer a particular area. So it's more productive or or having the particular resources or ah materials that we need. To live meaning humankind very very different and you you you understand what I'm saying don't you Hannah. 05:35.21 Hannah Salyer Oh yeah, absolutely I mean this is something I think about all the time and I think you know I've always been drawn to stories that really push back on human exceptionalism stories that are rooted um in you know. 05:47.91 Alan Ah. 05:52.49 Hannah Salyer Cultures that aren't Western Um, kind of that have dominated the narrative for so long these like imperialist stories that talk you know, talk a lot about taking and how humans are like you said the kind of pinnacle of evolution and. All of these like those ideas felt so um, damaging and foreign to me I think that. 06:16.63 Alan But it's really it's really very interesting hannah because you know I worked with a whole bevy of archaeologists anthropologists various professionals with various hats on and in the language that they use in the perspective that they use it comes in even when they're dealing with. 06:23.58 Hannah Salyer I. 06:36.14 Alan Ah, resources that are Native. You know, generated be they archeological sites or artifacts so there is this this kind of philosophy or this kind of kind of perspective. So. In other words, even the field that I work with it's called Cultural. Resource management. Well I mean isn't that a rather western version of ah the way to think about things these are cultural resources that we're managing. 07:00.37 Hannah Salyer Um, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. 07:11.11 Alan And then when I developed the California Rock Art Foundation I thought I was being very sensitive to native americans and so I had some key words that went along with California Rock Art Foundation and it was you know respect and and conserve. Discover and the native american says no sorry, get rid of that word discover. You didn't discover them I've been here I know where they are I did them. You're not discovering them but you see you see how how sort of sensitive or sort of. 07:36.81 Hannah Salyer Um. 07:39.95 Hannah Salyer Me. 07:50.13 Alan Ah, duplicitous Some of this stuff can be good. 07:53.48 Hannah Salyer Oh yeah, it absolutely and it's something I came up. Ah, it's something I kept experiencing in my research for this book and that's why yeah I mean so you know, kind of. 08:02.20 Alan Well tell me about that. That's that just thing. Yeah please. 08:10.34 Hannah Salyer Ah, tailing on your comment about the word discover in the book I'm I'm really careful to always say if the the notion of Discover is in there. It's always reiscover it's always you know like ah, kind of. 08:13.40 Alan Yeah. 08:25.52 Alan Ah. 08:29.36 Hannah Salyer Unveiling something that was known about, but it wasn't maybe known about to you know it was lost for a bit. Um I talk about these sites as treasures that were you know so powerful and held they held so much power and they still hold so much power but they got lost. 08:35.75 Alan Right? Oh I do too. That's good. 08:47.54 Alan Right? And it's it's really interesting talking to you Hannah because this sort of picks up on some of the work I've done in this in this field called cognitive neuroscience or neuro theology or neurophysiology. 08:49.30 Hannah Salyer Um, and we're just refinding them. 09:07.49 Alan And that's ah become one of my one of my more favorite things and and the more you talk about the way you see rock art. It. It certainly feels a bit like this where we're talking about how people view the rock art and to this very day. It still communicates to them. It. It causes them to emote to have emotions and this emotion might be fear or mystery or intrigue or curiosity or joy or sadness or or surprise or even homage and connection. To a higher power am I correct. 09:50.60 Hannah Salyer Yeah, absolutely um and when I I haven't visited many sites in person because I didn't even mention but I started working I got the contract for this book right? as Covid hit So that's a whole other. 10:01.30 Alan Sure. 10:06.10 Hannah Salyer A whole other um vein I can go down you know I I had all these research trips planned and then it was just like poof. Ah none of that could happen and that's actually how I got connected to um, the rock art network and Dr Carolyn Boyd um and 10:24.98 Hannah Salyer Yeah, and she connected me with um Dr. Jeanette Deakin um and Noel Hodalgo Tan um in Thailand and um so that was a really interesting pivot that happened because of covid um, but. Back to what you know you were saying about emoing and and feeling the power of these sights. Um I was really lucky to to visit 1 site. Um in Utah it was a horseshoe canyon the petroglos of Horsehoe Canyon um 10:56.15 Alan Oh. 11:01.51 Hannah Salyer And you know it was it was like I remember getting it's it's amazing because for horseshoe canyon you have to hike five miles in to the canyon to what they call the I think it's the the great theater the grand theater. 11:08.55 Alan Um, ah. 11:19.85 Hannah Salyer Um, but all throughout your hike through throughout the Canyon there are scattered petroglyphs. So you're you're making your way to this feeder of sorts and um, you know you're seeing ah along the way there's incredible petroglyphs. 11:20.23 Alan Ah. 11:37.47 Hannah Salyer There's also a ton of of graffiti which was sad to see um but you know getting seeing those petroglyphs and then getting to the theater I mean it. It felt like it really felt like. 11:44.56 Alan Troubling troubling and sad. Yeah. 11:56.28 Hannah Salyer The artist could have been there 10 minutes ago I mean it was just so profound how how much power you know I keep repeating that word power but they really felt like they contained. Yeah. 12:00.46 Alan Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I I feel I feel I feel the same way Hannah because when you see these images. It's like it's like they're being seen for the first time because they're they're speaking to your soul. They're speaking to your eyes and your heart and. 12:23.21 Hannah Salyer You. 12:25.53 Alan And sometimes it's been quite a while since someone has visited them if you're if you're in a yeah out of the way spot. You might be 1 of the you know few people who've had an opportunity to process and understand and you know see see these. 12:30.54 Hannah Salyer You you. 12:45.41 Alan Images and um, it certainly feels like that anyways, Hannah um, you get this, you get this sort of what do you I don't know how you'd put it. You just get a special flavor. Don't you. 12:59.69 Hannah Salyer Um, yeah I would say it was kind of for me, it felt like stepping into a time machine I mean it could have been any time on the planet you could have told me like I had been transported back to a different era and I would have. 13:04.16 Alan Yes. 13:15.56 Hannah Salyer Believed you. You know it just it feels like time is frozen in a sense but it's also you also feel the immensity of all the the years and the the Millennia that have passed and um, even though you know these these works um, some of them are you know. 13:18.21 Alan Yes. 13:34.46 Hannah Salyer Ah, a couple thousand years old. Maybe even a couple hundred years old. They're still they're connecting to something um much you know it's It's well I talk about it in the book. It's our ancest story. It's this um story that continues and it's. You know there's no um, there were we keep writing chapters in this book and it's just a story that keeps Unraveling. Um. 14:03.54 Alan And I and I keep talking about when I think about rock art I explain it as a freeze frame. It's ah it captures an image and ah a feeling an emotion a picture a panel a story as you put it? um. 14:08.72 Hannah Salyer Yeah. 14:20.52 Alan Locked in time. Um, and it's like an invaluable time capsule that provides a window into the past into the Author's perspective on what was important in life and how. 14:35.67 Hannah Salyer Yes. 14:37.74 Alan How they perceived the universe and the cosmology and the the you know the the relationship that they had to their world and um it is it is rather rather special and I think that rock guard could be 1 of the most valuable data sets. That archaeologists have to deal with um although I I might be biased hanna. 15:05.90 Hannah Salyer Ah, well I mean you know I'm I'm not an archeologist but I would agree with you as an artist I mean it's It's so so important. Um as I you know I had felt before but working on the book I felt even more so like. 15:13.80 Alan Ah. 15:22.78 Hannah Salyer This is incredibly Important. It should be part of every curriculum you know it should Kids should be learning all about this. Um and I don't think kids have a ton of exposure to it unless it's something that you know you live close to a site or. Maybe it's mentioned in your art class like it was for me. Maybe you get to a museum that has an exhibit about rock art. But it's it's not um, as common as I would hope you know it would be. 15:51.77 Alan And it's not It's really not something that the the general public or the school systems have really entertain a notion of beginning to entertain and inform simultaneously Hannah. That's another good place to jump off and return for the. Third and final segment and of our conversation today and I think on this last piece we're going to dove dove delve right in to the book and talk about it in specifics. Thanks Hannah C it see a gangng see and the flipfl fla. 16:22.35 Hannah Salyer Okay, great.