The Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post invites the public to experience a day filled with art and free music on Sunday, Sept. 3.
Over a dozen artists representing local Indigenous communities will be presenting demonstrations and sharing information about their work. They will also have artwork for sale at the event. Current participants of the Minnesota Historical Society’s Native American Artist-in- Residence Program will be among those sharing their art.
Prae Pupityastaporn is one of 10 artists featured in Frieze Seoul’s Focus Asia section. Her landscape diptychs are being shown by the Thai gallery Nova Contemporary.
Sometimes a painting can be adjusted slightly and suddenly take on a new meaning for the artist. For Prae Pupityastaporn, a Thai landscape painter whose works are being presented at Frieze Seoul by the Nova Contemporary gallery in Bangkok, working with two similar paintings side by side can depict the delicate balance between memory and the present moment. An image can change ever so slightly, and ever so profoundly.
Ms. Pupityastaporn’s admirers wanted to share her works with the world, and the Korean fair’s Focus Asia section, which will spotlight 10 artists from Asia, seemed like a natural platform.
“Frieze Seoul is a new art fair, and Focus Asia is about bringing contemporary art to Seoul and reviewing and reflecting the new atmosphere of Asian contemporary art,” said Hyejung Jang, chief curator at Doosan Art Center in Seoul, a nonprofit gallery that nurtures emerging Korean artists. “We tried to avoid the typical point of view of what Western people expect to see in Asian art based on their Orientalist perception.”
Ms. Jang worked with Joselina Cruz, director and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila, as advisers for Focus Asia.
“We both agreed that Prae’s work is so beautiful, and a few of her paintings fall somewhere between figurative and abstract,” Ms. Jang said. “The color palettes are very elegant and subtle. Her brushstrokes are very delicate.”
Ms. Pupityastaporn decided to paint large diptychs in acrylic for Frieze Seoul — “Way to Remember” (each of the two panels measures about 7 feet by 8.3 feet) and “Misplaced Memory” (each panel about 6.3 feet by 5 feet) — as a sort of extension of an idea about painting from memory she nurtured during a recent exhibition at Nova Contemporary. But she did not begin with a specific topic for Frieze Seoul. Rather, she just let her works evolve and decided to see where that took her.
“Normally, I don’t have a specific theme, but for my first solo show with Nova I started two landscape paintings that were similar, but I wanted to intentionally create them to work together as one landscape,” Ms. Pupityastaporn, 42, said in a recent video interview.
“For Frieze Seoul, I created a few new paintings that could be a sequence and or be conceived as one. ‘Way to Remember’ is a scene of leaves blowing in the wind. If you put the two images together, they could be one scene. There is movement. The wind blows this way and that way, creating tiny variations.”
Sutima Junko Sucharitakul, founder and director of Nova Contemporary, chose to show Ms. Pupityastaporn’s work for Frieze Seoul in part because of the gallery’s devotion to focusing on female Asian artists — and its home, Thailand, as an emerging global arts center.
“I feel that Thailand needs to build an ecosystem for contemporary art, and I want to promote female artists,” Ms. Sucharitakul, 34, said in a recent phone interview. “Prae is one of the first artists we have worked with. A lot of people see her work as more European, but we want to present our artists as international, not just as associated with one country. There is not enough presentation of female artists in Thailand.”
Ms. Sucharitakul said that she had great respect for Ms. Pupityastaporn’s work, mostly because she blends classic European arts training — Ms. Pupityastaporn studied in Germany for many years — but also incorporates her Asian roots. Her depictions of native vegetation and rock formations jutting out of the ocean come to mind.
Nova Contemporary exhibited her works in a group show titled “Last Words” at ROH gallery in Jakarta, Indonesia, in late 2021, but this will be her first solo presentation outside Thailand since she had two small solo exhibitions in Germany while earning her master’s degree. Ms. Pupityastaporn had two solo presentations at Nova in November 2019 and August 2022, and she was in a group show in May 2022.
“By focusing on paired works and diptychs, Prae expresses how subjective memory can be,” Ms. Sucharitakul said. “The paintings appear almost identical at first, but there are subtle differences. Everyone has an image of the beach or the sky or the moon when we think back on a vacation. Sometimes, these change each time we remember.”
Ms. Pupityastaporn often paints in her studio in Bangkok after visiting a favorite Thai beach, so that blurred remembrance defines a few of her diptychs. It is all part of that organic process of letting her paintings evolve together.
“When I finish everything, then I put a show together, because the most important process for me is to work,” she said. “Normally, people have a concept for a show, or at least which paintings will be more specific to a show, but I try to make it all more natural. I think it’s important for an artist to have their signature and know what that is.”
Ninepipes Museum hosts several artists and educators for First Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 2.
Appearing at the museum south of Ronan:
• Ariel Bleth, a mosaic artist from Missoula who gathers and works with shale, slate, limestone and sandstone.
• Shannon DePoe, an artist and educator currently producing an activity book for
Ninepipes Museum which will be published this winter. Her son Ryder will play traditional
native flute music at request.
• Traditional native arts teachers Cameron and Aspen Decker, owners of Xʷlxʷilt (Alive and Well); the couple will give a 20-minute presentation at 1 p.m.
• Janice Snook and Megan Snook, a mother and daughter team who paint with oil on
porcelain.
The museum is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; learn more at www.ninepipesmuseum.org, on Facebook or by calling 406-644-3435.
KILGORE, Texas (KLTV) – Artwork from the great East Texas oil fields is on display at the East Texas Oil Museum.
The works were created by Nacogdoches native Charlotte Baker Montgomery, depicting the oil field community in Kilgore back in the boom days through her eyes.
Montgomery was an artist, author, poet, teacher, naturalist and humanitarian. She was born in Nacogdoches in 1910 and earned a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1930. In 1950, she returned to Nacogdoches and became a full-time writer and illustrator.
“It really transcends, even if you are not from Kilgore or you are from Kilgore — just East Texas in general,” said Museum Director Olivia Moore. “They can speak to you for a lot of different reasons, whether it is the country escape, the derricks, the small town. Whatever it is, people can connect to it for a lot of different reasons.”
The exhibit is on loan from the Museum of East Texas in Lufkin. It will be on display at the East Texas Oil Museum through Oct. 28.
Copyright 2023 KLTV. All rights reserved.
From now until Tuesday, Oct. 31, The Linda and Gene Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability is transforming their land into sustainable artwork as part of the center’s sixth land art exhibit “Earth Connections.” Guests are invited to hike the roughly 12-acre Natural Path Sanctuary to locate pieces from over 20 local artists, including – for the first time – youth participants.
The Farley Center – an organic farm, nature preserve and green cemetery – has hosted a land art exhibit every other year since 2013. What started with a handful of artists has grown to include many large, entirely outdoor installments – even earning recognition through a photo exhibit at the Overture Center’s Playhouse Gallery in 2018.
The Farley family is no stranger to art either, center director Shedd Farley said. His parents, Linda and Gene, lived at this location on Spring Rose Road, which always had art displayed from many different places. They also created art themselves – Linda a watercolor artist and Gene a self-titled “doodler.” Shedd said his father’s “doodles” are visible as steel sculptures throughout the land.
Program director Caroline Farley said the two-month land art exhibit takes multiple trips to fully absorb all that it has to offer. Many creations blend seamlessly into their environment, making it a fun challenge to spot all the installations while following a map of the 12-acre property.
Additionally, the artwork can look different each time someone visits, Caroline said. Changing fall leaves and elements such as light play a key role in the presentation of the natural creations.
Assembling the sustainable pieces themselves for the biennial exhibit is only one part of the long, challenging process, Caroline said. Since every piece is made of natural materials and displayed outside, they are not immune to damage that may occur with weather conditions.
Despite uncertainty with the weather, the artists are dedicated to their pieces. Even after strong winds knocked down three artists’ hard work, they returned to the site, spending nearly 12 hours rebuilding the towering sculpture.
In addition to having the first ever youth participants this year, such as the Urban Indigenous Art and Sciences Youth Group, the center is also partnering with Dane Arts for the first Buy Local Market to take place outside of Madison since its inception in 2015.
The Dane Arts Buy Local 2023 (DABL) Annual Art Market will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Farley Center. Everyone is invited to stop by for music, food carts, and fun in the woods.
At 1 p.m., guests can join for a guided tour of the Earth Connections exhibit alongside many of the participating artists. Original pieces from local artists will be available for sale.
“The Dane Arts Buy Local Art Market supports local artists by providing a platform to exhibit and sell their artwork,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said in a Dane Arts news release. “We look forward to celebrating our community of artists with this upcoming event.”
According to the release, Dane Arts has been promoting local visual artists to local businesses in a business-to-business effort since 2014. This works to highlight both the economic and cultural impact the arts generate throughout the county.
To learn more about the Farley Center, visit farleycenter.org. To learn more about the Dane Arts Buy Local Art Market, visit dablmarket.com.
The following artists are participating in the Earth Connections 2023 Land Art Exhibit at the Farley Center. Those marked with an asterisk will participate in the community tour during the Dane Arts Buy Local Market on Sept. 9.
Angela Johnson is an artist, educator and creativity coach located in Madison. She earned both her MA in Art Education and MFA with a focus in photography from the University of Wisconsin. Johnson’s work focuses on alternative processes in photography, installation and bookmaking. She has shown her work widely, participating in group exhibitions including the Fort Worth Cultural Art Center in Texas; Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona; Wichita Falls Museum of Art in Texas; The Creole Creamery in New Orleans, Louisiana; FotoFest in Houston, Texas and the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
Johnson has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin in the Art Department, teaching both “Intro to Darkroom” and “Intro to Digital Photography” to undergraduate students. She has two decades of experience teaching in formal and informal learning environments, including elementary schools, museums, senior centers, colleges and universities.
Erin McWalter is passionate about interactive public spaces and loves forests. She is a co-founder of Madison Traffic Garden with many projects including Wisconsin Food Forests. McWalter is returning for her second installation at the Farley Center. She is very excited to collaborate with Char DeVos this year.
Ameila Higgins, a vivacious 13-year-old has a great love for the outdoors, hiking on the Ice Age Trail, managing turkeys and sheep and attending naturalist training at botanical gardens in Wausau. She will be joining her grandmother, Char DeVos, and Erin McWalter with the outdoor installation.
Karen Reppen is a mixed-media artist whose work frequently combines commonly used items, unusual found objects and other materials to create curious sculptures, wall art and jewelry. Influenced by experience gained as a professional and volunteer hospice worker and end-of-life educator, Reppen’s work often includes images and metaphorical messages that are meant to invite the viewer into new discovery around matters related to aging, illness, death and grief.
Influenced by our ever-changing world and personal experience, Katrina Krueger has gained a lifetime appreciation for self-expression and creativity through various art forms. A true artist at heart, Krueger has always had a fascination for different mediums, whether it be hair artistry, many forms of painting and drawing, environmental sculptures or music. She takes pride in always being open and receptive to where her artistry takes her. Krueger has a true passion for discovering the beauty that lies in all of us and the world we live in and loves to translate that into her creations.
Krueger has been a beauty artist for the last ten years in Madison. She currently owns and operates The Wander Parlour, an online clean beauty boutique that specializes in hair and skin care that is environmentally friendly, nontoxic and cruelty-free. Krueger also operates a newly launched online eyewear boutique – Manifest Eyewear – that helps raise money for various organizations fighting for social justice.
John Steines grew up on the very southernmost edge of the Canadian Shield in north-central Wisconsin, just north of Leopold’s Sand Counties, exploring north-woods remnants and extensions along rushing creeks. His outdoor sculpture work began during explorations of woods and ravine as a child, weaving simple structures and figures. Steines’ two-dimensional work is primarily abstract expressionist oil canvases creating overlapping landscapes with figure form, often within dream context. His theme is resiliency – the challenges of attaining it both in personal human form, for species at large and in habitat. He enjoys working with peeled willow and bark.
Steines co-founded the Witness Tree Collective with Rebeca Power in 2013, working with science, art and conversation on critical issues of nature. He was the lead artist for the Intentionally Welcoming Long House display at Union Corners in 2016. Steines also drafted the Master Plan for Silverwood Park in Dane County. Currently, he is collating his work into a storyline describing his expressionist content within trauma and resiliency for an international art prize. He expects to grow that material into a book format for documentation.
Barry Sherbeck is a photographer, filmmaker, visual artist, curator and writer based in Madison. He has worked in visual art, communication and design for 35 years. In his art practice, Sherbeck loves to explore color and light as refracted in/on/through water, as well as the textures and play of light and shadow in nature. He enjoys pairing haiku with photographs a few times each week.
Betsy Delzer is a mixed-media painter and an art educator in Middleton public schools. She has led workshops for all ages in a variety of media, including art-journaling, collage and painting. This is her sixth installation at the Farley Center.
From Georgia to Kansas, Nebraska and now Wisconsin, Billy Morgan has enjoyed various landscapes and the beauty of nature in all of them. It’s important for him to stay connected with nature. The Farley Center and this project gives him the perfect opportunity to do so.
Ruthanna Hutton-Okpalaeke is a Wisconsin native, having lived in various areas from Madison and Green Lake to River Falls. She grew up in her parents’ garden where she benefited from the fruits of their labor and a little bit of her own too, catching garden snakes and sampling all the garden had to offer. After college, Hutton-Okpalaeke followed her passion for people and the land and joined the Peace Corps, living in Cameroon Central Africa for over two years working with Cooperative farming groups in Cameroon’s west region. Upon returning to the United States and a few stints working in various laboratory settings, she left lab work behind to work for Urban Triage where she manages their Agricultural Programs supporting Black farmers and families with farmland access, expansion and education.
Sue Schuetz works in metal, watercolor and cold wax/oil paint media. Her art is influenced by the natural world, by found objects and by industrial landscapes. These elements become important facets of her paintings and her interesting and unique mobiles, assemblages and objects tableau. Schuetz has shown/sold her work at Kaleidoscope in Mount Horeb; U-Frame It Shop on E. Johnson St.; Black Earth Public Library; Spring Green Taliesin Visitor Center; the marketplace in Viroqua; the Mazomanie Historic Arts Building and the WHA Annual Art Auction. She has also done commission work.
Schuetz has taken art classes at MATC, Rhinelander School of the Arts, the University of Wisconsin and Edgewood College. She has also had instruction from local artists and from the late watercolorist Joanne Hauser Warren. Scheutz’s outlook is toward the unusual and her tastes are eclectic. These traits contribute to her quirky, singular art forms which always beg a closer look.
Phil Saunders was born in 1949 and grew up on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay on the south shore of the Nanticoke River, referred to by Conroy and others as “the low country.” He traveled extensively in his youth, landing in Madison. Primarily a performance artist, Saunders is attempting a visual installation at the Farley Center out of regard for its mission and an attempt to develop his character.
Bobbette Rose is a mixed-media artist who is inspired by the rhythms and mysteries revealed through nature and the environment. She has volunteered and worked with the Farley Center/NPS for over 10 years and is the arts coordinator. This is the sixth land art installation exhibit she has helped organize. Although she will not participate as an artist this year, she will continue to work with the other artists and create the print materials for the show.
Dave Carlson recently retired and relocated to La Crosse. This allows more time for woodworking as an art form. Trees and the wood they produce make it easy to admire the art of nature and its artist.
Cooper Talbot is a New Jersey native and has been in Madison for 10 years. Two of her greatest loves helped plant some strong roots in a state where she had no one: music and agriculture. Talbot utilized access to radio broadcasts to celebrate Women in Music and Culture and Arts, becoming Madison’s favorite music radio personality seven years running. WORT 89.9fm gave her direct contact with the community, its needs and what it loves. Music is the most powerful medicine she knows, and it helps everything around her grow – literally. Every plant or flower Talbot grows has a favorite song. She has been gardening since a kid, inheriting her Uruguayan mother’s very green thumb.
Lessons in agriculture relate to Talbot’s everyday life. For example, the saying, “A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow” and “The tiny seed knew that in order to grow it needed to be dropped in dirt, covered in darkness and struggle to reach the light.” Joining Urban Triage’s Supporting Healthy Black Agriculture endeavor is the light this seed has been reaching for. Talbot looks forward to blossoming along with the crops.
Cynthia Reynolds is primarily a textile artist. The Farley Center – with its open doors, co-op farms and natural burial ground – draws her in to using her love of textiles to participate in being one with nature. This is Reynolds’ fifth year creating installations at the Farley Center.
Efrat Livny’s art is inspired by a deep love of nature and the multitude of creative expressions that she encounters as she travels in the world. The study and practice of Shamanism, Buddhism, Bodywork and the Circle Way have provided the foundational insights and inquiries that her art explores. Her mixed media creations utilize natural, found and recycled objects that she collects as she wanders through her neighborhood and around the world. She is especially enamored with sticks, stones, seeds, feathers and bones, along with beads, talismans and curious knick-knacks. Livny enjoys finding the hidden affinities between these objects, assembling them into objects that support presence, growth and connection to self, others and the world.
Ellen Khalifa is not a professional artist – she’s a retired public employee who has entertained herself with artistic challenges, such as doing props and stage settings for plays with Madison’s Theatre Guild, coordinating stage and lighting for local school programs, painting winter scenes on store windows of her husband’s business, making costumes for school and women’s programs and working in her large perennial garden. Khalifa has participated at Farley Center fall events for the last few years and always wanted to do one of the displays. She has a concept in mind and is looking forward to the challenge of making it happen.
Gene Delcourt grew up in a small mill town in Southern Maine. His great grandfather – on his father’s side – was recruited to move there from Quebec to work in the paper mill in the early 20th century. They came from a reserve called St. Francis in Odanak, Quebec, where the St. Francis River meets the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is the home of the Abenaki from which he is descended. After graduating from Westbrook High School, Delcourt joined the U.S. Military and completed ten years of service. He then realized his dream of becoming a high school educator and an artist, earning three degrees in Education and Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin. He had the honor of being Drumkeeper since 1995 for the Madtown Singers, a local indigenous drumming and singing group.
Delcourt’s art is inspired by the natural world and pays homage to regional, natural beauty. The art he creates reflects his personal connection to the Flora and Fauna of the Northern U.S. where he has always lived, along with the belief that anything he creates can only serve to enhance the natural beauty already present in the wood. All the wood used in his sculptures, caskets, snowshoes and violins are sourced from locally grown trees. These trees are acquired after being harvested and removed from homes around the state by local tree companies. Delcourt also harvests ditch willow for woven baskets from the wetlands and woodlands surrounding his home.
Kate Hieber-Cobb founded the Madison Area Permaculture Guild in the spring of 2008 and continues to coordinate the grassroots organization. Through her business. Sustainability on Stilts, LLC, she designed, educated and consulted on Permaculture. Hieber-Cobb has taught at the Continuing Education Department of Madison College, Olbrich Gardens and other venues. She was honored as a Badger Bioneer in 2010 and received recognition from Oxfam as a Woman Leader in her community in 2011. Hieber-Cobb previously served on the Advisory Board of the Edgewood College Sustainability Leadership Graduate Program. She presently works with Land Healing and Honoring, is a grief worker and is mostly retired and enjoying her own gardens and arts and crafts.
Justin Bitner is an artist/craftsman residing in Madison, where he attended the University of Wisconsin and earned an MFA. His work there involved creating environments based on sound and time, exploring spaces and human-made objects. The culmination of this body of work was an installation in MMoCA’s 2013 Triennial, which explored how “once humans are removed from objects, other forms of nature are revealed in their absence.” Bitner subsequently served as Artist in Residence at the Madison Public Library to create “Community Through Art.” He constructed a 50-foot-long pinewood derby track and invited local craftsmen to create “Art Cars.” While there, he held workshops for children to build cars from kits, themed on their favorite library books.
Bitner’s current work is installation-based. He pillages the nooks and crevices of various maker environments, investigating objects once used or created by others, most of which were deemed too beautiful to throw away. With this work, he acts as an archaeologist attempting to preserve and document the evolution of makers, craftsmen and society by rescuing objects from landfills or dusty cabinets and telling their stories on a gallery wall.
Kelsey Voy’s work with handmade paper is an extension of investigations with printed and dyed fabric, embroidery and garment construction. Voy earned a degree in Human Ecology with a major in Textile Design from the University of Wisconsin and currently studies at the University of Iowa Center for the Book as an MFA candidate. She pursues the meditative quality of craft and appreciates paper and cloth for their intricacies in carrying information.
Mona Cassis has a BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin. Her art mediums include jewelry and other metal-work, pastels, stained glass and pottery. Steve Heuer is a tag-along artist, trying out many of the art forms Cassis has worked in over the years.
Heuer spends most of his creative time in words, but also spends stretches of time in pottery, both thrown and hand-built. He finds a lasting beauty in the lines and forms in nature, particularly plant-life, striving to capture these in his hand-built pottery.
Cassis graduated from the University of Wisconsin Art School. She apprenticed with Mike Selfridge, a California potter and stained-glass artist, for many years. She continues creating when time and inspiration align. Cassis is a disciplined devotee to the process, finding joy in seeing a project through to its end. Both Cassis and Heuer sell their art at the weekly Artist’s and Farmer’s Market in Verona.
Char DeVos relocated to Madison from the northwest part of the state where she was an art teacher for over 25 years. Now retired, she devotes her time creating art, showing and selling, writing books, along with teaching workshops and private lessons. DeVos is currently a member of 608 Art Collective in Madison.
Urban Indigenous Arts and Sciences Youth began sketching out their art ideas for the Earth Connections Land Art. They individually developed their ideas, then as a group pulled ideas together.
Native Soul creates entrancing electronic dance music born from a mix of styles and genres made popular in South Africa. The Pretoria-based duo — comprised of Alfred Mhlanga and Kgotatso Tshabalala — has released four albums to date since their formation in 2019 at the ripe ages of 18 and 19 years old. Quickly establishing themselves as worthy ambassadors of both amapiano and gqom on their instrumental first album Teenage Dreams.
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Native Soul’s debut revealed the producer duo’s talents for crafting elusively alluring and electrifying soundscapes, relying heavily on the galvanizing exchanges of piano-drum-synthesizers that interlace amapiano. Every track on the record unfolds as this borderline cinematic and exceptionally paced crescendo. One that edges you forward via the vigorous melodies that evolve from drummed bass lines into swelling mixtures of jazz, folk, afro, deep, and tech house, as well as kwaito and dibacardi.
Their sophomore album Native Roots continued to coalesce their sound around amapiano while also adding a cast of contemporaries to flesh out their music. Whether that’s on the hypnotic opening track “Labo Bhuti” (feat. Blaq K & Mrs Rain) or the explosively frenetic “Forth Line” (feat. Tshepzin Loco). For their 2023 follow-up Rise Up they joined forces with Jacksman (who also appeared on their second album) to propel themselves into even more futuristic iterations of their constantly morphing amapiano sound.
Only two months into the new year Native Soul dropped its colossal fourth album Undisputed, a sizzling and sprawling collection that ambitiously ups the ante on everything they’ve released thus far. Embracing both their love of enthralling instrumentation and the inclusion of choice features that only enhance the energies that course through their tracks. Be that on the droning fixations of “Siren” or the absolutely stacked but mesmeric “Hello” (feat. Aembu, Jacksman, Kha Ching Vocals, Blaq Boy ZA).
Visit Native Soul on their Bandcamp and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Words: Steven Ward
Listen to Teenage Dreams the debut album from Native Soul below!
Aug. 30, 2023
Join the Honors College for an exploration into the rāgas of Carnatic music with Sri Vittal Ramamurthy–internationally-celebrated violinist–and Grammy-nominated Sri Poovalur Sriji–percussionist, composer and performer–at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 13, in Gearhart Hall 130 as part of the Honors College House Concert series.
The concert is free, open to all and will be followed by a reception. Please RSVP here and come early to reserve a seat. Parking will be available in the Harmon Avenue Parking Garage.
“Founding dean of the Honors College, Bob McMath, created the House Concert series to produce a space for community and artists to come together in celebration of the performing arts,” said Lynda Coon, dean of the Honors College. “Professor of Music Nikola Radan’s expertise in global music adds new dimensions to this storied series, delivering an exciting journey into the music of India.”
Carnatic music is a form of classical South Indian music that balances both devotion and creative self-expression by drawing inspiration from sacred texts.
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| Sri Poovalur Sriji |
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| Vittal Ramamurthy |
While a large portion of Carnatic music is composed, Ramamurthy and Sriji will treat the audience to manodharma sangita – imaginative music, as most of their performance will be improvised on the spot. Sriji will lead vocals with solkattus, spoken rhythm, and Ramamurthy will guide the melodies by accompanying the vocals with strings.
“It’s a dialogue between the violin and the vocals,” Ramamurthy shared. “I don’t know what [Sriji] is going to sing, and he doesn’t know what I will play.”
Although the music system is universal, “the handling of Carnatic music is different,” Ramamurthy said. He encourages those interested in world music to attend and learn more about complementing traditional composition with creative latitude.
“We are honored to host two of the top Carnatic music artists: Sri Vittal on violin and Sri Poovalur on mardagam,” said Nikola Radan, director of the World Music Ensemble and music instructor. “Carnatic music is the mother and the root of all music in India. It is considered to be one of the most complex music styles in the world with compound rhythmical patterns. Thank you to the Honors College, Department of Music and the RA-VE Cultural Foundation to make this concert possible.”
ABOUT SRI VITTAL RAMAMURTHY
Ramamurthy, an internationally acclaimed violinist and top-ranking artist at All India Radio, is the torchbearer and leading disciple of the Lalgudi bani, a distinctive style of music in which the violin is “made to sing” and mimic the human voice. Ramamurthy describes himself as a “solo performer, accompanist, teacher and humble student of the arts.” He has students worldwide, many of whom are leading performers. To give back to the community he grew up in, he conducts a free summer camp in his native house Karunbithil, where he teaches more than 250 students Carnatic music in the style of Gurukulam, an education system where students live with their guru.
ABOUT SRI POOVALUR SRIJI
Sriji is a prolific composer, performer, educator and an “A Top” grade artist at All India Radio – the highest ranking given by the Indian government. His love and expertise in Indian Classical music are inspired by his father. Many of his compositions celebrate South Indian idioms, and for decades, he has performed with leading artists from across the world. He accompanied American banjo player Béla Fleck, Hindustani classical instrumentalist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Chinese fiddle player Jiebing Chen on their collaborative album “Tabula Rasa,” which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1997. He is currently an adjunct instructor of percussion at the University of North Texas and director of the South Indian Cross-Cultural Ensemble.
About the Honors College: The University of Arkansas Honors College was established in 2002 and brings together high-achieving undergraduate students and the university’s top professors to share transformative learning experiences. Each year the Honors College awards up to 90 freshman fellowships that provide $80,000 over four years, and more than $1 million in undergraduate research and study abroad grants. The Honors College is nationally recognized for the high caliber of students it admits and graduates. Honors students enjoy small, in-depth classes, and programs are offered in all disciplines, tailored to students’ academic interests, with interdisciplinary collaborations encouraged. All Honors College graduates have engaged in mentored research.
About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas’ flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas’ economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea
July 28, 2023–January 14, 2024
Washington, DC
Many Wests is an exhibition focused on what gets left out of stories traditionally told about the American West. Visions of Anglo-Americans bravely settling the landscape originate, as we learn from the exhibition’s didactic material, with the US government’s policy of unhalted territorial expansion beginning at the end of the seventeenth century. Organized by a team of curators—Amy Chaloupka at the Whatcom Museum, Meanie Fales at the Boise Art Museum, Anne Hyland at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Danielle Knapp at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schniter Museum of Art, E. Carmen Ramos, currently Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Art, and Whitney Tassie at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts—Many Wests showcases forty-eight modern and contemporary (mostly Indigenous, Latinx, Black, or Asian American) artists. These diverse curatorial and artistic voices work together to show, as the Utah Museum of Fine Arts put it in the promotional materials for their version of the show earlier this year, “how the West wasn’t one.”
Visitors to Many Wests are greeted by a monumental detail of Apsálooke/Crow artist Wendy Red Star’s photographic series “Four Seasons: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer”(2006). Red Star is one of a number of artists in the exhibition who dissect and examine distorted narratives about Native Americans. Seated in ceremonial dress among plastic flowers and inflatable animals and set against panoramic photographs of Western landscapes, Red Star conjures the deadpan satire of Cindy Sherman’s “Film Stills” to skewer treatment of Indigenous peoples in ethnographic displays. Nuyorican artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz, meanwhile, takes on Hollywood’s stereotyping of Native Americans in Cowboy and “Indian” Film (1957–58). Ortiz chopped up copies of Anthony Mann’s Western Winchester ’73 (1950) with a tomahawk (a tribute to his Yaqui heritage) and ritualistically jumbled and reassembled them, mounting a literal attack on the genre. The violence with which Ortiz meets Mann’s film feels both just and hopeless—the film may be destroyed, but the damage is already done.
The exhibition awards considerable space to Latinx experiences. Among the most compelling works is photographer Christina Fernández’s María’s Great Expedition (1995–96), in which Fernández embodies the character of her grandmother in order to narrate Chicanx stories through photographs and explanatory text. Ken Gonzales-Day’s devastating Erased Lynchings (2006), part of a larger series the artist developed between 2002 and 2017, features a grid of fifteen appropriated souvenir cards from extrajudicial murders in California between 1850 and 1935, the brutalized bodies of the victims removed from the images. Gonzalez-Day’s series focuses on violence perpetrated against Latinx, Native American, and Asian American individuals through a mode of racial terrorism most Americans associate only with African American targets. Asian American trauma receives direct attention in the works of Japanese American artists Wendy Maruyama and Roger Shimomura, who both pay homage to the 13,000 people unjustly interned at Minidoka Relocation Center between 1942 and 1945. Maruyama’s work functions as a kind of anti-monument, fashioned from the reconstructed identification tags of incarcerated people, while Shimomura contributes a painting of the camp in the style of a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century Japanese byobu screen. These works bear haunting witness to lives previously rendered forgettable.
The vast majority of the artworks in Many Wests are readily identified with ethno-racial categories: Native American, Latinx, African American, Japanese American—notable exceptions include Angela Ellsworth’s breathtaking Seer Bonnet XI and XII. These crafted caps were painstakingly constructed by the self-identified Mormon artist out of pearls and needles in tribute to prophet Joseph Smith’s thirty-five wives. The curators’ apparent discomfort with the show’s readymade classifications is indicated by the fact that they demarcate the works not by ethnicity or culture, but rather through the categories of “Caretakers,” “Memory Makers,” and “Boundary Breakers”—labels so abstract as to be ornamental. The problem of organization raises a more fundamental question about exhibitions in 2023: namely, is “all-but-white-artists on x topic” a sustainable model for an exhibition theme? Certainly, opportunities to show complex, interesting works by Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, and African American artists are both exciting and long overdue. Yet to place such works in one bucket, simply distinguished from those of Anglo artists, also holds the danger of homogenizing and devaluing unique experiences. Many Wests is strongest when focused specifically on the question of narrative—which stories are being told, how, and for what purpose? The exhibition’s arguments might even be strengthened by the inclusion of an artist such as (the white, straight, male) Richard Prince, for example, whose works dismembering the figure of the American cowboy have much to discuss with those of artists such as Ortiz, Red Star, and Fernández. As museums rightly expand and diversify their holdings and exhibitions, they should be mindful not to let this task overshadow their primary responsibility: to offer visually stunning, intellectually rigorous exhibitions that inspire visitors of all backgrounds.
Artist Whit Olsen, an Orem native, captures identity and memories in her art with passion and a pocket full of flowers.
Her journey into floral art began in 2019 when Olsen’s husband gifted her a flower press for Christmas. Growing up in an artistic home, Olsen said she looked for her artistic niche for a long time before finding what truly inspired her.
“Everyone is an artist, you just have to find out what kind,” Olsen said.
Olsen presses her own flowers and frames them in glass, preserves them inside jewelry, attaches them to candles, sells them as original prints, creates custom works and creates what she calls her “flower girls,” one of her most popular creations.
For her flower girls, Olsen arranges flowers and petals into human representations.
“The petals fell out of the press and it looked like a little skirt and I was like ‘wait a second, I can make a girl out of this.’ And that’s how it started,” Olsen said.
Olsen said she received an enormously positive response from the community and often hears stories of people seeing themselves or their loved ones in the flower girls.
“People come up and they’re like ‘I saw this and it spoke to me and I’ve got to have it.’ It makes me feel so good because I hope that it speaks to people,” Olsen said.
Olsen grows most of her flowers at home in her garden, or sources them through other local growers.
Olsen said she felt more connected to family and nature since creating art with florals, especially when she uses the flowers she and her husband grew themselves.
Olsen’s mother is a florist, and that family connection means a lot to her. Olsen said she notices an added spiritual boost and sense of mindfulness come into her life when she works with flowers.
“I feel close to my Creator when I’m in nature. … I notice all the little things like how many butterflies we have on average each day in our front yard, or other things I’ve never noticed before, like what kind of insects like our yard like bumblebees and dragonflies,” Olsen said. “I’m taking in the small things a lot more.”
Along with her using her own flowers, Olsen takes custom orders, often preserving flowers from weddings, proms and funerals.
“When I’m creating art from flowers that someone has given me I take it seriously, especially funeral flowers. That is like the most sacred art I can do,” Olsen said.
Olsen is self-taught. She initially dove deep into YouTube tutorials and learned everything she could, with lots of trial and error. She currently sells her art on Instagram, Etsy and at local markets. She also takes custom orders via Instagram messages and teaches workshops.
In July, Olsen worked with the Sun River Gardens to teach flower pressing techniques. She has also worked with Utah lettering artist Betsy Goodman.
Olsen and Goodman connected over Instagram as local Utah artists, and Goodman expressed an interest in learning how to press flowers to include them in the wax seals she creates.
“The very first time I met her it was just like meeting an old friend. It’s kind of like I felt like we were already friends,” Goodman said.
Olsen then invited Goodman into her home to teach her the basics of flower pressing.
“Not only is she just pressing flowers and making her artwork, she’s involved in the whole process, especially with ones she grows herself,” Goodman said.
Since then, Olsen and Goodman have collaborated together in Goodman’s subscription box program, teaching a workshop to participants on how to dry flowers and include them in wax seals and lettering art.
Olsen’s younger sister, Courtney Campbell, is a Provo photographer and has seen Olsen’s “addiction” grow and enrich Olsen’s life. Campbell said she loved seeing Olsen’s artistic pursuits come to life through florals.
“Whit ventured into so many different ways to showcase the flowers, choosing different flowers, doing different designs, everything like that,” Campbell said. “I know she started mainly with flower girls, but it’s so cool to like see her do these big pieces, bouquets, the necklaces, the candles like, she’s added so much into her creative realm.”
Campbell owns several pieces of Olsen’s artwork and promotes them when she can.
“I get compliments on every piece that I have from her. And I just think, like, it brings me so much happiness because I’m such a nature child. And so is she. And so bringing that aspect into a house is so happy,” Campbell said.
Olsen considers her art mainly a creative outlet, and currently has no plans to take on her business full-time.
“Selling the art supports my addiction to making the art,” Olsen said.
Olsen will be selling her artwork at the upcoming September Beehive Bazaar and is always taking orders via Instagram.
TAHLEQUAH – In November, the Cherokee Phoenix will honor Cherokee Nation citizens who work to make the world a better place in the areas of business, community, education, health and service, as well as advance the tribe’s culture and language.
After accepting nominations for the newspaper’s fifth annual Seven Feathers Awards, this year’s winners are:
LANGUAGE: NEW JORDAN BAPTIST CHURCH
For language, the Cherokee Phoenix selected the New Jordan Baptist Church congregation for its use of the Cherokee language.
“The pastor and the majority of the small congregation of this church are elder first-language speakers,” the nomination letter states. “The weekly Sunday service is done in mostly Cherokee as well as most of the hymns. This gives people the opportunity to speak their first language with other speakers, which has become a rare opportunity for them.”
The Salina-based church and places like it “are key to maintaining and revitalizing our language,” according to the nominator.
“Although there are opportunities such as online classes and such, I feel that seeing the language spoken in a church and conversational setting from people who learned to speak Cherokee before they even learned English is the key to spark an interest in learning and carrying on the language,” the nomination letter states.
CULTURE: JESSICA (TYNER) MEHTA
The Seven Feathers award for culture goes to Jessica (Tyner) Mehta, a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary author, artist and storyteller from Hillsboro, Oregon.
“Dr. Mehta is a working artist, writer, scholar/researcher and business owner,” the nomination letter states. “She has had several award-winning books published during her career, all of which center on lessening the effects of decolonization and revitalizing Indigenous culture. Her artwork (visual, performance and installation) addresses similar themes.”
One of her recent exhibitions included an installation that explores the history of residential boarding schools. Mehta’s doctoral work focused on the intersection of poetry and eating disorders in Indigenous communities.
“Now, she is looking forward to an artist residency at Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania in August where she will work on a new, wearable art project,” her nominator said. “She prioritizes collaborating with fellow Native artists, creatives and culture-bearers whenever possible, and this extends to this work which is a collaborative undertaking with her youngest daughter.”
COMMUNITY: BRAD EUBANKS
The Seven Feathers honoree for community is Brad Eubanks, a board member of Help in Crisis and owner of the Tahlequah-based United Wrestling Entertainment professional wrestling company.
Help in Crisis offers support and services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Eubanks, of Hulbert, participates in the organization’s annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes fundraiser “to publicly show that he will not stand for domestic violence,” his nomination letter states.
“He works for Indian Child Welfare and helps children find foster homes,” his nominator says. “He also owns the UWE wrestling company that hosts monthly events to benefit children/organizations in the community. He is willing to always help others no matter the cost.”
Eubanks, also known as his wrestling persona “Fuel,” held the UWE’s first event in 2009 at the Cherokee Nation’s Talking Leaves Job Corps to help support Sequoyah High School.
SERVICE: HANNAH JIMENEZ
For service, the Seven Feathers recipient is Hannah Jimenez, who according to her nomination letter is “a rising star” at Columbia University in New York City with a mind for community service whether it’s volunteering or tutoring students.
Jimenez is a 2019 graduate of Sequoyah High School.
“Hannah has been extensively involved in her community in Tahlequah – from volunteering at the Cherokee Elder Care facilities before the peak of COVID-19 and tutoring students at the high school to helping facilitate the annual Performing Arts Summer Youth Camp for the past five years with Amanda Ray at Sequoyah High School,” her nomination letter states. “In the past year, Hannah was a part of the Summer Youth Leadership Intern cohort with the Cherokee Nation, and in that was an instructor of storytelling, theatre and performance where she demonstrated to Cherokee youth the importance of storytelling, culture and passing on oral histories.”
Jimenez is a recent recipient of Columbia University’s Leadership Award of “Indelible Mark” for the positive impact she’s had on the Native community on campus.
EDUCATION: REGINA (PHILPOTT) MCLEMORE
The Seven Feathers honoree for education is Regina (Philpott) McLemore, a retired teacher and librarian-turned author from Stilwell who is described as “a quintessential educator” by her nominator.
“She continually obtains knowledge then passes it on,” McLemore’s nomination letter states. “Her life choices – career in public education and involvement in her retirement – show how her love of learning and her love of teaching has made a difference and continues to make a positive impact.”
Over the course of her 33-year career in education, McLemore spent time at Stilwell Junior High, Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah and at Siloam Springs, Arkansas. After retiring, she “became an advocate for lifelong learning by joining organizations which promote volunteerism in educational endeavors,” her nomination letter states.
McLemore volunteers with the Stilwell Public Library Friends Society, Adair County Retired Educators Association, Alpha Delta Kappa and Adair County Historical and Genealogical Association.
HEALTH: DR. CRYSTAL HERNANDEZ
Selected as the Seven Feathers recipient for health is Dr. Crystal Hernandez, “a proud Cherokee citizen and Latina” and psychologist by training who has been a mental health administrator for more than 15 years, according to her nomination letter.
“Currently, she serves the state of Oklahoma as the executive director of the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health, which is an adult civil psychiatric hospital, the Oklahoma Forensic Center, which is the sole forensic psychiatric hospital for adjudicative competency and insanity, and the Transitions Recovery Center, which is a forensic mental health step-down unit,” her nominator wrote. “Dr. Hernandez is considered a tribal disabilities expert, as well as a researcher, autism mother and ally. She holds independent contracts with several tribal nations to provide guidance and insight to system and program development design.”
Hernandez, from Craig County, Oklahoma, is also the creator and co-host of the Black Feathers podcast, which offers “disabilities conversations for all.”
BUSINESS: KRISTOPHER EASTON
For business, the Seven Feathers winner is Kristopher Easton, a senior program manager of engineering and finance systems for Google.
Easton, of Buda, Texas, is a founding member of Google American Indian Network, now known as the Google Aboriginal & Indigenous Network.
According to Easton’s award nominator, following the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court’s historic McGirt v. Oklahoma decision, he leveraged work relationships to organize and lead a small project that added the Cherokee Nation and other major tribes in Indian Territory to Google maps.
The project ultimately made the Cherokee Nation recognizable and searchable on the world’s most-used map, the nomination letter states.
“Kris led a volunteer team back in 2014 to add all federal recognized tribes to the map … but was heartbroken at the time to not be able to include his own nation at the time due to legal ambiguity,” the letter states.
Honorees will be presented their awards during the Cherokee Phoenix Seven Feathers Awards Gala on Nov. 11 at the Chota Center in Tahlequah. Tickets for the gala will be available for purchase at a later date.
