In 2006, Charles Rencountre reinvoked the spirit of NATL through his bronze sculpture of this figure, inspired by a traditional pipe found among those living in the northern plains of the North America, including his own people, the Lakota. The original was known as Not Afraid to Look the White Man in the Face.
The spirit of Not Afraid to Look (NATL) is not new. Sitting, grounded, resolved, unafraid to look into the face of what is coming, whether it is over the horizon or filling our view is as old as humanity. NATL has been resurrected in the form of this specific effigy and invoked to remind of us in this time when it might seem that everything is changing too fast or big to face.
Since Charles first created a limited edition series of 12″ bronzes of NATL, there have been a number of alternate renderings of this effigy. A 9′ concrete sculpture sits at XXXX in Santa Fe, NM and in 2017 Charles joined other Water Protectors at the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, creating on-site another similar scale rendering who still remains, overlooking the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers.
NATL has also been laser scanned, photographed, and rendered in stacked glass, 3D printed models, and even a hologram.