Artists, volunteers reimagine downtown space for Evanston Made holiday pop-up

By in Art World News

Artists, volunteers reimagine downtown space for Evanston Made holiday pop-up

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

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Shun Graves/The Daily Northwestern

Artists and volunteers help set up the Evanston Made holiday pop-up in a vacant downtown space. The store opens Dec. 1.

November 29, 2023

Over the course of just a few days, volunteers and artists have reimagined a vacant space in downtown Evanston into the third annual Evanston Made Holiday Market, set to open Dec. 1.

Visitors can stop by the curated market of Evanston Made members’ art and handmade items at 1631 Chicago Ave. Thursdays through Sundays until Dec. 17.

The Merion, a senior living community, offered the space for the event, formerly the restaurant Found. Evanston Made Co-Director Liz Cramer said she felt excited about the “gorgeous” location and expected it to attract more visitors.

“Anytime that we can do something where we have a workshop where artists can actually be making and creating in front of the public, or to guide them through their own adventure, then that’s a great use of the space,” she said. 

The pop-up market will offer scheduled events including a whiskey tasting, artist demonstrations and artistic “do-it-yourself” workshops. Those interested in participating can RSVP or get tickets through Eventbrite and the Evanston Made website.

Volunteer and contributing artist Lisa Haskin said she will run a demonstration on how she makes her Christmas tree button ornaments. Haskin will be selling books bound by hand, Christmas card prints and other mixed media work. 

“Anything that I make is repurposing different materials,” she said. “I have a problem throwing things away. Even little scrap pieces of paper I’ve had from bookmaking, I’ve made little tiny book ornaments.”

The contributing artists also have their goods for sale online and are benefiting from the digital market, according to Haskin. 

She said a customer bought all of her handmade book ornaments over the weekend, inspiring her to create more for the pop-up.

“I hope that (the pop-up) really helps the general public see and then in turn support artists more because there’s a lot of us that are working,” Haskin said. “We don’t have storefronts, we have online shops with Evanston Made or our own Etsy shops.”

Pop-up retail has emerged as a way to repurpose otherwise empty retail spaces, both nationwide and locally. On the Main-Dempster Mile, Swantiques opened a furniture pop-up in November. In downtown Evanston, which continues to struggle with high office and retail vacancy rates, Evanston Made could bring in foot traffic for the holiday shopping season.

“For the temporary pop-up tenant, it’s a great opportunity to showcase small businesses and create a little more retail energy happening from that space,” said Andy Vick, executive director of nonprofit group Downtown Evanston. “For downtown, it does fill an empty storefront, and for the property owner, it’s a chance to show off the space and also to be a good community player.”

Last year’s holiday pop-up space filled with a permanent tenant — Chiropractic First — afterward, said Lisa Degliantoni, Evanston Made’s founder and co-director. A pop-up brings “added visibility” to the vacant space, she added, for prospective tenants and for artists.

“It makes people a little bit sad to see empty spaces and vacant spaces, and for businesses to go out of business,” Degliantoni said. “We’re also trying to bring a little bit of life and positivity to what a lot of people interpret as, ‘Oh bummer, my Found restaurant’s gone.’”

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Related Stories:

— Swantiques shows promise of pop-up retail in Evanston and beyond

— Some Evanston shops see ‘disconcerting’ sales slump ahead of holiday shopping season

— Rising office vacancies show warning signs for downtown Evanston

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Multimedia Native American Art Exhibition, ‘Boundless,’ Opens at the Mead Art Museum

By in Native

Multimedia Native American Art Exhibition, ‘Boundless,’ Opens at the Mead Art Museum
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By Kaili Berg

November 29, 2023

From never-before-exhibited drawings to pages from the Algonquin-language Bible, “Boundless,” a multimedia Native American art exhibition, is on display at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College until Jan. 7, 2024. 

“Boundless” gathers the works of more than 150 artists to tell a story of creativity and resistance across the centuries, including sculptures, historical and contemporary writing, photographs, quillwork, musical scores, basketry, and more. At times, the exhibit incorporates objects by non-Native creators to further its inquiries. 

“There were so many key items that really inspired me. Because I was doing both Indigenous works and a few non-Indigenous made works in the collection, I focused on works that connected artists,” Heid Erdrich (Ojibwe), a poet and writer who curated the exhibit, told Native News Online. 

The exhibition includes items from the Amherst College Collection of Native American Literature and the Mead’s collection, along with key loans from the Northeast region and beyond. Reading rooms within the exhibition even offer guests a chance to engage with Native American-authored and illustrated books. 

Erdrich has been working on the exhibit since 2020.

“It was quite the challenge,” Erdrich said. “The thing that was the hardest was developing relationships with Indigenous artists in the area since I was not living on the east coast. I got pointed in the right direction and met some wonderful allies.”

“Boundless” hosts a number of unique objects by authors, artists, and musicians, including drawings by Mary Sully (Dakota), writing by Fritz Scholder (Luiseño), and pages from the Mamusse Wunneetupanatamwe Up-Biblum God, a 1663 Algonquin-language Bible created by a team that included three Indigenous translators and a Nipmuc printer. 

Erdrich explained that the Algonquin Bible, also called the Eliot Indian Bible, was the first Bible printed in America. It also became the first translation of the Christian Bible into an Indigenous American language, translated by missionary John Eliot, who set the print, translated, operated the press, and distributed the book. 

“He touched each of the pages,” Erdrich said. “It was just a great experience to see the ancestor’s work and how often do we get to know something like that when we see things that have been made anonymous in museum collections.” 

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“Boundless” was developed in dialogue with an advisory committee that includes members from the Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Shinnecock, and Mohegan Tribal Nations. The committee received support from staff at Mead Art Museum, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, and the Five Colleges. 

“The exhibition really tries to show all of the connections between the people who work in creative art programs and individual artists, which has helped enormously,” Erdrich said. 

The second iteration of “Boundless” will take place this spring at the Mead Art Museum and will focus on more of works from the Northeast Tribes, including Shinnecock, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag artists. It will also expand to include global Indigenous work from Mexico, Australia Aboriginal, and the Amazon. 

“It will make the connection on concerns we all have, especially around language and land,” Erdrich said. “It will have a bit of a different feel to it and will be a smaller exhibition.” 

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Together, we can educate, enlighten, and empower.

November is celebrated as “Native American Heritage Month.” At Native News Online, we amplify Native voices and share our relatives’ unique perspectives every day of the year. We believe every month should celebrate Native American heritage. 
If you appreciate our commitment to Native voices and our mission to tell stories that connect us to our roots and inspire understanding and respect, we hope you will consider making a donation this month to support our work. For those who commit to a recurring donation of $12 per month or more, or make a one-time donation of $150 or greater, we’re excited to offer you a copy of our upcoming Indian Boarding School publication and access to our quarterly Founder’s Circle meetings and newsletter.  

About The Author
Kaili Berg
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Staff Reporter
Kaili Berg (Aleut) is a member of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Nation, and a shareholder of Koniag, Inc. She is a staff reporter for Native News Online and Tribal Business News. Berg, who is based in Wisconsin, previously reported for the Ho-Chunk Nation newspaper, Hocak Worak. She went to school originally for nursing, but changed her major after finding her passion in communications at Western Technical College in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.


Museum of the Big Bend opens exhibition of photographs by Graciela Iturbide – The Big Bend Sentinel

By in Photography

Museum of the Big Bend opens exhibition of photographs by Graciela Iturbide – The Big Bend Sentinel

ALPINE — The Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine recently opened a new exhibition of black and white photographs by Graciela Iturbide. 

The exhibit runs through February 10, 2024. The work is on loan from The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University and will include 58 silver gelatin prints.

“The Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University is honored to host this exhibit with our sister institution Texas State University-San Marcos and The Wittliff Collections,” said Museum Director Mary Bones. “The Wittliff boasts the finest holdings of documentary photography and photojournalism by Mexican photographers in the United States.” 

Iturbide, born in Mexico in 1942, is considered one of the world’s finest contemporary photographers. Her work, which fuses her interest in traditional culture with a contemporary vision that reveals the symbolic power of images, has gained her enormous recognition in Mexico and all over the world. 

While studying cinematography at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in 1969, she took a still photography class with Manuel Álvarez Bravo and then became his assistant for the next year and a half.

In 1978, Iturbide was commissioned by the Ethnographic Archive of the National Indigenous Institute of Mexico to photograph Mexico’s Indigenous population. In 1979, she began her series on the culture of the Zapotecs of Juchitán — in particular the women — for which she received the Eugene Smith Award in 1987. 

In 2019, Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico, a major retrospective exhibition, opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She currently lives in Mexico City. 

The Wittliff Collection at Texas State University, San Marcos houses 260 images by Iturbide, one of the largest collections of her work in the U.S. Eyes to Fly With: Portraits, Self-Portraits, and Other Photographs by Graciela Iturbide (UT Press, 2006) was the ninth book in The Wittliff’s Southwestern & Mexican Photography Series.

For more information, visit museumofthebigbend.com/graciela-iturbide/ 

PHOTOS:

Graciela Iturbide, “Self Portrait at My House,” silver gelatin print.

Graciela Iturbide, “Self Portrait in Country,” silver gelatin print.

Graciela Iturbide, “Our Lady of Iguanas,” silver gelatin print.

Surprising lessons for the vanishing art of stockpicking

By in Art World News

Surprising lessons for the vanishing art of stockpicking
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PATRICK HOSKING | COMMENT

History shows that winners ‘often emerge from mundane and traditional industries’

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Narrated by Patrick Hosking

Here’s a game for anyone interested in the stock market. Have a guess at what have been the ten most lucrative investments on the London market over the past ten years. You may be surprised.

Before we get on to that, though, no column on stockpicking can go any further before paying tribute to the magisterial Charlie Munger, who died on Tuesday, aged 99.

Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner, was not just a sagacious investor but also an engaging imparter of financial wisdom. And he wasn’t frightened of blasting Wall Street in defence of ordinary investors.

He was a champion critic of aggressive accounting. Who can forget his damning verdict on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation as “bullshit earnings”, which is still

From Vision to Impact: the Native American Student Association at Elon

By in Native

From Vision to Impact: the Native American Student Association at Elon

This year’s Native American Heritage Month during November marks five years since the founding of the Native American Student Association on Elon’s campus. 

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Five years ago, a group of Elon students with Native American heritage recognized the need for a space where they could connect with one another and educate their peers about their unique cultures. This vision led to the creation of the Native American Student Association (NASA).

Native American Student Association logoNASA was formally founded in the spring of 2018 by Arielle Watkins ’18, Bear Tosé ’18 and Xena Burwell ’18. That formal founding followed a vision created years before when the three students conceptualized NASA and laid the groundwork for the club during their first year at Elon. But they saw the full product of their work when the club was officially registered in 2018 during their senior year.

Paula Patch, a senior lecturer in English and the club’s faculty adviser, expressed pride in the club’s growth since its founding. “Over the past five years, this small group of students has kept the organization alive, and they have slowly built up the capacity to host events,” said Patch. “I am very proud of the work that the students have done in the past two years, in partnership with the CREDE especially, to host events and raise awareness of Native and Indigenous culture.”

Jorah Midgette ‘25 is currently president of NASA and said has found a community within the organization. Midgette has dedicated time to creating a safe community for Native American and Indigenous students on campus since she joined the organization during her sophomore year.

Members of NASA hosted a booth earlier this semester to raise awareness about missing and murdered indigenous women.

“Before coming to Elon, I hadn’t been very educated on my own Native heritage, so being able to explore my own background more while connecting with fellow Native American and Indigenous students has been great!” said Midgette. “As NASA, we want other members and students of the Elon community to know that we are here and that we are hopeful about increasing the conversation around Indigenous and Native American voices on Elon’s campus.”

Patch has been the faculty advisor for NASA since its inception. While the club has continued to grow, due to the very small number of Native-identifying students at Elon, it has been hard to keep the organization full over the years. According to Elon’s 2022-23 Fact Book, students who self-identify as American Indian make up 0.1 percent of Elon’s undergraduate population. Luckily, NASA has been able to partner with the Center for Race, Ethnicity, & Diversity Education (CREDE) to expand its influence throughout the campus and connect with a broader audience.

“Our vetting and continuation process for student organizations is dependent in part on membership numbers, leadership positions, and the availability of members to attend mandatory training,” said Patch. “As the adviser for this organization, I wanted to ensure that the organization could exist even if some of these conditions were not able to be met until Elon has more Native-identifying students.”

Midgette is a member of the Lumbee tribe and hopes to use her position as president to create a closer relationship with the Elon community, highlight the need for inclusivity on campus, and increase educational awareness for Native American- and Indigenous-identifying individuals. Another advocacy goal for NASA is to push for more Native and Indigenous content in the curriculum and more Native- and Indigenous-identifying faculty or staff to be hired.

While NASA’s primary focus is on holding a safe space on campus for Native-identifying students at Elon, the group has slowly built up the capacity to host events on Elon’s campus. NASA is currently looking into hosting a pow-wow or another community event on campus that would allow students to learn more about themselves and their own heritage. They are also hoping to work with Native student organizations at other universities, such as UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Throughout Native American Heritage Month in November, there have been a variety of events that enable students to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their cultural heritage.

The CREDE has hosted a beading workshop with a local member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, and a virtual art showcase displaying Native American art pieces. NASA is co-hosted an event with the French Club for a film viewing and discussion of the movie, “Kuessipan” on Nov. 15.

With a focus on creating meaningful connections and educational opportunities, NASA continues to empower students to deepen their understanding of their cultural heritage throughout November and beyond.

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