Aidekman Arts Center / Medford
Véxoa: We Know (Nós sabemos) 
September 5–December 10, 2023
Reception & artist program: Wednesday, September 20, 6–8pm, with exhibiting artists Denilson Baniwa and Daiara Tukano, and Claudia Mattos Avolese

SMFA at Tufts / Boston
Elizabeth James-Perry: Double Arrows 
September 5–November 12, 2023
Toast, tour, and workshop: Wednesday, September 13, 5–8pm, with Erin Genia, guest curator Abigail Satinsky, and Tanya Crane

Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) are thrilled to present Véxoa: We Know (Nós sabemos) at our Medford galleries this fall, a groundbreaking survey exhibition of Indigenous artists of Brazil today developed by curator Naine Terena (member of the Terena Indigenous people of the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul). Informed by the role of art as a tool for activism, the exhibition presents the work of 22 artists and collectives from regions throughout Brazil, featuring painting, drawing, sculpture, and video. Véxoa, which means “we know” in the Terena language, reaffirms Indigenous agency and struggle for self-determination as well as Indigenous contributions to the richness and diversity of Brazilian visual culture. In so doing, it subverts persistent boundaries between art and artifact, traditional and modern, popular and high culture, declaring a new approach to art in Brazil that can embrace the diversity of Indigenous experience today. First presented at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo in 2020, Véxoa: We Know has its only North American venue at TUAG and was made possible by the Teiger Foundation. 

At the TUAG galleries in Boston at SMFA at Tufts, Elizabeth James-Perry: Double Arrows calls forth a visually evocative concept of acknowledging our shared space and human interdependencies with the natural world. James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag) is a lifelong traditional artist, scientist, and illustrator who engages with Northeastern Woodlands Native cultural expressions in myriad forms. For this installation, which includes James-Perry’s textured weavings and subtly detailed jewelry, she expands this interconnection to a kinship network of artists who share her concerns. These include SMFA faculty member Tanya Crane and Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), an Indigenous multidisciplinary artist; as well as the artist’s brother, Jonathan James-Perry and mother, Patricia James-Perry. 

For a full listing of programs and events, visit our website. 

About Tufts University Art Galleries 
As the public center for visual arts at Tufts University, the Art Galleries create a dynamic learning space through a responsive program of contemporary art exhibitions, events, collecting, and scholarship, across our two locations in Medford and Boston. We are driven by our belief in the impact of art and artists on our world and grounded in the values of care, learning, dialogue, and the creative process. 

Tom Battista spent summers on the road with the iconic musician who brought those chasing the laidback lifestyle together.

Twelve up and coming musical artists filled the Knutzen Family Theatre in Federal Way with their voices on Saturday, Aug. 26. They are the product of a new career building creation from Federal Way native Shyan Selah called The Artist Workshop.

The Artist Workshop is described by parent organization Brave New World as a series that “teaches practical applications to give performing artists, as well as budding entrepreneurs, a solid foundation as it pertains to working in the industry of entertainment.”

Artists included Midnite Blu, Tazz Enrico, Ayana, Jade, Shaflo, Shayla Jasmine, Gavi, O.Z., Cazzi, Pure Art, Sahanie Shell and Yung Shaedy.

The evening also featured guest performances by Sir Darion Dotson and Selah’s daughter Asia Selah. Co-hosts were Muranga Maina and Shyan Selah.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror
Artist Midnite Blu about to throw merchandise into the waiting audience during the showcase.

Over 150 youth and young adults participated in the workshops this year, according to materials at Saturday’s event. Artists then auditioned for a coveted spot in the final showcase.

Song styles ranged from hip-hop to reggae to pop to acoustic to a cappella. The artists each shared two pieces. Some performed original music while others put their spin on covers. A few artists included dance performance or added a guitar into the mix, and one even tossed merchandise into the crowd.

The show was framed as a competition with a professional recording opportunity as the prize. In a surprising twist at the end of the show, Selah told the lineup of rising artists that they would all get the chance to record their own single.

Selah told The Mirror that the tracks will be released in a compilation within the next year, with a goal of recording them before the new year begins.

Selah intends to make the showcase and musical compilation of new artists from Federal Way an annual occurrence. The first workshop of next year’s Artist Workshop series will start in October.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror
Artist Tazz Enrico performing at the Saturday showcase.

The Artist Workshop

“My ultimate goal was to take the arts culture to the sports level, respected like sports and supported like sports,” Selah told The Mirror. To him, this means creating “infrastructure and regimen and resource and coaching.”

Over the past year, eight workshops, two audition days and two career days led up to the showcase on a variety of topics related to the entertainment industry. In Selah’s words: “In essence it is an alternative education system totally designed for career path development.”

Backstage before the show, several artists shared their experience with The Mirror.

Tazz Enrico said he got a lot out of Shyan Selah’s “old school” approach. He said the exercises were often rigorous, like one where the artists learned to their control their breath in challenging positions, like on the floor on their backs with one leg in the air.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror
Artist Shaflo performs at Saturday’s Showcase.

In another exercise where the artists pictured their younger selves, several people said they almost cried.

“It’s a rewarding feeling,” Tazz said of making it into the final showcase lineup. “After all the stuff we did, it’s like, I definitely deserve to be here.”

Describing Selah’s teaching and mentorship style, Tazz said that he “broke us down in the most encouraging way,” while someone else chimed in and said “he didn’t break us down, he built us up, building that kinship.”

Overall, they said the workshop taught them the power of connecting with others, especially in the entertainment and music industry.

“Win or lose, we get this new community,” said one artist.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror
Artist Gavi received a standing ovation when he performed at Saturday’s showcase.
Artist Gavi received a standing ovation when he performed at Saturday’s showcase. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror

Selah’s own artistic journey started in Federal Way. This drives his passion in focusing his outreach efforts here.

“I love my hometown, to the bone,” he told The Mirror. He said he grew up as an accomplished athlete, but had other dreams as well. “I was an artist the whole time, but I was afraid of it. I couldn’t reconcile running for three touchdowns or playing basketball and then saying ‘yeah I write poetry’…it just didn’t match up. I was one of those kids who had to kind of tuck it away.”

He said if it wasn’t for his oldest brother Marcus, who took him to studios while still in high school and showed him the ropes, he might have never pursued his artistic side.

With the artist showcase and next year’s Artist Workshop series, Selah hopes to continue to create infrastructure and the space he wishes he had had growing up.

Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror
The featured artists celebrate after learning that every one of them will receive the grand prize of a studio produced single for a group compilation through The Artist Workshop.
The featured artists celebrate after learning that every one of them will receive the grand prize of a studio produced single for a group compilation through The Artist Workshop. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror

PEMBROKE – The juried 9|9 Native South Art Exhibition, which celebrates American Indian artists throughout North Carolina, will be on display at the Museum of the Southeast American Indian from Sept. 9 through April 6.

Nancy Fields, museum director and curator, said the 9|9 Native South Art Exhibition gives visitors insight into the culture and history of Native Americans.

“These works represent native culture and identity,” Fields said. “A lot of these works dispel stereotypes. They are very authentic. They come from the heart. They reveal experience.”

The exhibit features many works of art, including compelling paintings, sculptures, beadwork and other genres of art. The museum will hold an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. on Sept. 9.

The museum is in Old Main on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

Visitors can explore native identity and culture through a wide range of exquisite and compelling paintings, sculptures, beadwork and other genres of art. Many of the works are for sale.

For more information, call 910.521.6282.

The mission of the Museum of the Southeast American Indian is to educate and serve the public about the prehistory, history, culture, art and contemporary issues of American Indians, with particular emphasis on American Indian communities of Robeson County, North Carolina and the American Southeast; to conduct scholarly research; to collect and preserve the material culture of Native America; to encourage American Indian artists and crafts persons; and to cooperate on a wide range of research and service projects with other institutions and agencies concerned with American Indians.

About UNC Pembroke

Established in 1887 as a normal school to train American Indian teachers, UNC Pembroke today has an enrollment of 7,667 in 41 undergraduate and 18 graduate programs. UNCP is a constituent institution of The University of North Carolina System. For more information, contact Mark Locklear, Public Communications Specialist with University Communications and Marketing, via email ([email protected]) or by phone (910.521.6351). Connect with UNC Pembroke on social media or online at uncp.edu to learn how the university is changing lives through education.

Take a day trip to a modernist paradise: The Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio in Lenox provides a splendid view of two groundbreaking artistic lives

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  Suzy and George were a devoted couple. She won him over upon their first meeting with her ability to identify the music from any opera that he hummed. Courtesy Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio

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  The house, built in 1941, was designed to be harmonious with the both environment and the studio. There is a formidable use of glass and glass blocks in the building. Courtesy Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio/Gavin Preus

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  Suzy Frelinghuysen’s nephew Kinney Frelinghuysen, right, makes a point regarding an artwork in the studio. Built in 1931, it’s based upon a Parisian studio designed by the architect Le Corbusier. Courtesy Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio

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  In 1947 Suzy embarked upon a successful career, lasting some four years, as an opera singer. A bout with bronchitis, however, caused her to lose some of her range and she retired from the stage. Courtesy Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio

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  Aside from his talents as a painter and writer, George also filmed animations of abstract Cubist forms which are shown in a documentary a short walk from the studio. Courtesy Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio

For the Gazette

Published: 9/1/2023 3:30:38 PM

Modified: 9/1/2023 3:30:04 PM

A short drive from downtown Lenox, you travel past ornamental wrought iron gates and enter into the former Gilded Age estate of “Brookhurst.” You’re first greeted by a voluptuous two-and-a-half-ton reclining female figure sculpted by Gaston Lachaise.

It’s an homage to his model who later became his wife. “La Montagne” (The Mountain) was commissioned by the author and painter George L. K. Morris (1905-1975) who spent his childhood summers here and later would build a studio and house on these grounds.

He may well be one of the most remarkable American artists you’ve never heard of — a man intent upon introducing European abstract art and “Cubism” to these shores. It was an epic battle.

“To be a modernist artist, and particularly to be an abstract artist, for an American in the 1930s, it was an uphill struggle,” the late art critic Hilton Kramer notes in a documentary shown at a nearby carriage house.

It’s a 10-minute walk through a dense hardwood forest, where George once played as a child, before the home and studio appear. You pass by two bridges, capped in white marble, while crossing March Brook, a meandering waterway that eventually flows into what is now known as the Stockbridge Bowl.

Native Americans called it “Mirror Lake” and proximate to it is a Native American and early settler burial ground. George was extremely influenced by Native American culture and its symbols are often found in his artwork. As an adult he financed an archeological restoration of the cemetery.

Brookhurst was his parent’s summer home. New Yorkers, they also kept a residence in Paris and frequently traveled throughout Europe.

He recalled in an interview that during a 1925 outing “it was really the first time I’d gotten to museums … from then on I decided that I wanted to become a painter.”

George was educated at Yale where he studied architecture and majored in English.

“Until I got to Yale, I’d never even heard of Cezanne,” he noted. “It’s incredible how little of Cezanne and Renoir were (commonly) known.”

Upon graduation he studied at New York’s Art Students League, and in 1929 he returned to Paris to be instructed by Fernand Leger in the 20th century’s most influential art movement, Cubism.

Hardly the starving artist, George hobnobbed with a Who’s Who of painters. This was when a Fernand Leger work could be had for $30 and a Piet Mondrian for $300. He secured a Pablo Picasso directly from the artist for doubtless an underwhelming sum.

Returning to Lenox, in 1931 George built a studio on a hillside below his parent’s estate and four years later he married Estelle “Suzy” Frelinghuysen (1911-1988). She grew up on a New Jersey estate named “Oakhurst” and, like her husband, was a talented pianist. She also had a trained operatic voice.

The author F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “The rich are very different from you and me.” The Morris wealth originated with a land grant that provided valuable real estate in what is now the Bronx.

Among Morris’ forebears were signatories to the Declaration of Independence and the first American-born Supreme Court Justice. His wife traced ancestry to 18th century Dutch Reformed Church preachers. Both shared past generations of people serving in public service and both were raised in opulent surroundings among a social class best described in the Edith Wharton novels.

The studio and home

The creation of the studio, with soft northern light captured by doubled skylights, was based upon a Parisian studio George had admired.

“He did a basic importation of a Le Corbusier design,” Kinney Frelinghuysen said shortly before a guided tour of the buildings. He’s Suzy’s nephew and the director of the 46-acre site.

Le Corbusier was one of the fathers of modern architecture and may be best known for his collaboration in designing New York’s United Nations building.

In creating the adjoining white stucco home, the couple relied upon a local architect. They shared in the planning of the interiors to create a very open, airy series of rooms in harmony with the environment. George also painted a large Native American-themed design on an outer wall.

“George added this mural which ties together this asymmetrical structure,” the director said. “It creates a sense of unity.”

No one has yet disputed the claim that the structure is the first modernist building created in New England.

As you enter the living room, there’s a step down to an intimate wet bar. The room, with a 1905 concert Knabe piano in the corner, has a leather floor and features a wall of windows framing a heritage apple tree and star magnolia fronting a lush garden and grounds.

George painted two frescos to either side of the fireplace, large enough in scale that they are referred to as “gentle giants.”

The house has several features, among them indirect lighting, an innovation at the time, as well as a spiral staircase and a dumbwaiter for efficiently transporting objects between floors. A kitchen call box would alert staff that service was required in one of the rooms.

The studio displays a rich collection of small, individual paintings from Picasso to Georges Braque and Juan Gris.

Dominating the room are both Cubist and representational paintings by the couple. George encouraged Suzy to paint and she became well known in the arts years before she became a celebrated operatic singer.

“George is very devoted to abstraction,” Sean McCusker, an assistant to the director, said during a studio tour. “Suzy is freer in what she’s painting. His ultimate goal was pure abstraction and he felt that it was where art would lead.”

Suzy joined him in this mission to bring to American culture what he had seen among the avant-garde abstractionists in Europe. It was tough sledding, given that the vogue at the time were the representational paintings by such names as Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton.

Cubism, in simple terms, is a style of painting in which the conventional is abandoned and objects can seem to be shattered, with multiple perspectives, or as if seen through a kaleidoscope. Among the most famous is Marcel Duchamp’s 1912 “Nude Descending a Staircase” which one critic derided as looking like “an explosion in a shingle factory.”

George’s mother Helen forbade any of his abstract paintings to be hung in her Parisian home.

Due to their elite social standing, critics referred to the couple as “Park Avenue Cubists.” This is also the title of the comprehensive documentary regarding the artists, continually shown a short walk from the house.

The Renaissance man

Beginning in the late 1930s George edited and wrote art criticism for the “Partisan Review” and provided financing for the periodical. He was the founding member of American Abstract Artists that remains one of the few such Depression era organizations continuing to this day. The artist also served on the advisory committee for New York’s Museum of Modern Art and selected some of the paintings now in its permanent collection.

George was remembered as being a modest, somewhat shy and extremely witty person while his wife was much more headstrong and assertive. They made friends easily and upon the passing of his mother they legally adopted her nurse Sophie Von Enden. They were an inseparable trio until the early summer of 1975.

While driving in Stockbridge a truck slammed into their car, killing both George and Sophie. Suzy remained in a coma for days and was not stable enough to be informed of her losses until several weeks later.

Today the Brookhurst mansion is privately owned and the sales of the New York and Paris homes financed the creation of a foundation to manage the artistic properties.

In the 2005 documentary, the artist Will Barnet summed up George’s work quite succinctly. “His interest in architecture permeates his work … because Cubism has an awful lot to do with structure and structure has a lot to do with architecture. He was a poet that was an architect who became a painter.”

The Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio season begins each year in late June. From Sept. 1 to Columbus Day, it’s open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $20 for adults, and free for anyone under the age of 18.

For more information, go online to visit the website Frelinghuysen.org.

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Award-winning Fresno, California artist Bobby Von Martin paints Native American-inspired art. He has a passion for inspiring youth and adults and does a lot of volunteer work in communities to reach out to others.

Martin donates his time to local youth art classes and to local Native and non-Native activities for fundraisers and local events. His work is known worldwide, and he owns and curates the Honor Your Elders Art Exhibit in Fresno, one of California’s largest Native American art exhibits.

This year’s August event, complete with food, dancing and drumming, was organized, curated and funded by Martin and his wife, Soupie, as it has been for over half a decade.

Elders were honored and celebrated at the event through life-like portraits painted by Bobby Von Martin and his brother, artist James Martin.

“We see families crying, and it touches your heart when you start to talk to them and how they feel about it all and seeing their reactions. it’s a beautiful thing,” said Bobby Von Martin in a news interview.

Over $10,000 of hand-painted art was gifted to elders.

He said of the exhibit that though many tribes are represented, he still honors his tribal roots.

Martin talked to us about how the exhibit began.

“I started this show six years ago with my wife, Soupie Martin, as a way to give back to my community elders. As a child, my grandmother was my only safe place coming from a broken home with many traumas. Also, when I was twelve or thirteen, a local elder went above and beyond to help me learn the local tribe’s traditions, help me with trauma, help me understand why people struggle with addiction, who many of my family members struggled with. It really did give me hope for the future.”

According to Martin, he started working with local Native American youth by teaching art classes and giving them a positive tool through art.

“Because of my own childhood trauma, I’m able to make a connection with some of the youth who might be coming from a similar childhood. I’ve taught youth up and down California and Arizona hoping to give these youth some hope,” said Martin. “Working with them I’ve also seen the many elders who were also working hard to give these youth hope, so I wanted to start this show to honor them. The elders I paint locally are people I see and know out teaching language, tradition, working with our community to get clean from drugs and alcohol, and they need to be honored publicly. I can’t thank them enough for what they do for our youth.”

Martin has painted over 100 paintings and gifted them to elders or their families.

“Because I couldn’t paint enough, I asked my brother [James Martin] to help me paint them starting about three years ago. Every year he paints four or five out of the 20-25 that we s paint. It gives me the ability to honor even more during the show,” Martin.

Photo Courtesy of Bobby Von Martin
Choctaw artist Bobby Von Martin, right, with Tamu McPherson, Italy, are shown work- ing with an after-school program for the Save the Children Organization. Martin and his wife, Soupie, worked seven different sites in one month to teach future generations about art and color during their second year working with the organization.

For Martin, the most important part about the elders’ show is that the families of the elders themselves write their family member’s biography, and it sits next to their paintings where you get to view the art and get to know the elder as well.

In other projects, for every painting Martin sells, he gifts one to the community to keep the circle moving and put out positive energy.

“I hope our youth see what I’m doing, see how I honor our elders, and see a successful, positive person who grew up around drugs and alcohol, and violence,” said Martin.

The artist has received so much attention for his work that he has been contracted by the Save The Children World Organization for the past three years to teach art to youth in rural areas of the Central Valley. He also teaches art classes yearly at the Okla Chahta gathering in Bakersfield.

He says he has also been honored to have his “English Only” painting hang permanently in the “Hall of Nations” at the USDA AG building in Washington, D.C., where the halls are filled with art from Native Americans and used as a backdrop between tribal leaders and the President of the United States.

The artist credits the help of his wife, family and community for his success.

Martin’s art can also be viewed at the Choctaw Nation Headquarters, Choctaw Casino Resort and the Choctaw Cultural Center, all in Durant.

His artwork and merchandise can be seen on his website bloodlineartstudios.com, and he can be followed on Facebook and Instagram.

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