“Tribes on the plains survived by forming alliances, not unlike the nation-states through history,” begins Tom. “The tipi was very universal in nature, as were the ways of the Plains Indians’ lives. You’d be hard pressed at a glance to know whether one or multiple tribes were present in a village and sometimes something as minor as an entrance flap representing the style of one tribe as opposed to another was needed to determine it. Tribal Tripartite is as much about the shared necessities and influences of Plains’ life as it is color and design.”