She was Elizabeth when she painted, and Betty when she sang.

Whether creating an award-winning painting, or entertaining an enthralled audience of jazz fans, Elizabeth “Betty” Asche Douglas expressed herself with poetic elegance and compelling skill.

An eloquent writer and trailblazing student and educator, Douglas, a Beaver Falls native and longtime Rochester Township resident, made a positive impact on the Beaver Valley and far beyond.

Friends are mourning the loss of an amazing woman after one of Douglas’ daughters, Nanette Douglas Sykes, announced on Facebook this past weekend that her mother had died. An obituary was being developed Monday morning.

“We are still finalizing arrangements, but viewing will be at Murphy’s Funeral Home in Rochester July 24,” Sykes said.

“She touched so many different generations and groups,” said Tony Lang, a guitarist from Freedom, who regularly performed on stage with Douglas in recent years as she continued to sing at local clubs and bars into her 90s. “She was like Mr. Rogers. She made everyone she talked to feel special.”

Retired as a professor of fine arts and humanities from Geneva College, Douglas operated the Douglas Art Gallery in Rochester Township, where for more than 30 years she created art pieces exhibited at prestigious galleries and art shows nationwide. She helped create and curate Sweetwater Center for The Arts’ annual Mavuno Festival in Sewickley, fostering Black artists and dialogue.

“She did things in earnest,” said close friend and professional jazz artist Rex Trimm, who regularly collaborated on stage with Douglas over the past few decades. “She never quit learning and challenged the living daylights out of her peers to do the same. I had the great fortune to be in her sphere. Although I was prepared for this loss, I am completely unable to process the passing of this giant. I posted our music on Soundcloud and I am proud to have some record of our time together.”

Raised by parents who didn’t graduate high school, but imparted a keen appreciation for the arts, Douglas began drawing before she was old enough to attend school, adding piano lessons at the age of 7. Gifted her first set of oil paints at age 10, she won her first of numerous arts awards as a third grader for a book poster contest sponsored by the Carnegie Library.

Her father was an electronics technician who serviced jukeboxes in various establishments, Douglas recalled in a 2017 video interview with The Times. “He would bring the old records off the jukeboxes, so we had all kinds of music in our house.”

Douglas became a student and fan of jazz and blues music, and throughout her singing career enjoyed sharing with audiences the stories behind the influential songs she performed.

Using the stage name Betty, but signing her artworks as Elizabeth, she remained a multidisciplinary artist her whole life, not wishing to limit herself to one or two styles.

“I just keep doing what I feel like at the time,” Douglas explained in her 2017 Times interview. “Usually I try to keep some sort of ties with what I’m doing with my visual art and musical art. It’s my life. Quite simply, I don’t know what I’d do without them. It’s just as normal to me as eating or sleeping.”

Douglas broke down barriers at age 16 as the first Black student enrolled in the Art Department at Carnegie Mellon University, two years behind Andy Warhol, or Andy Warhola as he was known then.

“I was in the same little gang of outsiders mentored by a couple of the youngest faculty members that he belonged to,” Douglas recalled in a profile interview with Carnegie Mellon’s School of Art Alumni News

After graduating with honors in 1951, she expected to follow the common CMU Arts career path of department store advertising and display designing but was turned down in job interviews. To see what would happen, a white friend pretended to be Douglas and showed her portfolio to a downtown department store manager who promptly offered the white woman a job.

Momentarily discouraged, Douglas took a job at a Westinghouse factory and saved up money to attend graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh.

With a graduate degree in hand, she heeded a local minister’s recommendation to apply for teaching positions at Black colleges in the South, procuring her first teaching job as a substitute for a professor on sabbatical at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Douglas befriended the Rev. T. J. Jemison, who helped organize the nation’s first successful bus boycott. and was introduced to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he visited Baton Rouge to speak with Rev. Jemison about the event, which would inspire the groundbreaking bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala.

Douglas worked other temporary teaching positions at Black colleges, including Texas College, where she met her husband, Bill Douglas. After marrying, they moved to Fort Worth, where Douglas became a layout editor for Sepia magazine, a photojournalistic magazine profiling achievements by Blacks.

In her CMU Alumni news interview, Douglas recalled rising through the ranks quickly, becoming an editor for Jonathan Howard Griffin’s series of articles that would be turned into “Black Like Me,” a book about racial segregation in the Jim Crow South and a key text of the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

Bill finished his master’s degree in 1961, though the couple discovered jobs were scarce for them in Texas.

“So we loaded an old Peugeot with all our worldly goods and took off for Pennsylvania since my family was here,” Douglas recalled in a 1974 profile in The Times.

Beaver County public schools were just getting integrated with their teaching staffs as Bill took a teaching job in the Rochester Area School District.

Douglas became the first Black teacher in the Beaver Area School District in 1964, and the first female Black professor at Geneva. where she helped develop the Interdisciplinary Humanities program.

She proudly raised three daughters, Andrea, Vicki and Nanette, and along with her husband opened the Douglas Art Gallery in 1974, retiring from teaching in the 1990s when her husband became terminally ill.

Her artworks were featured at the National Museum of Women in Washington, D.C., and the Uganda Christian University in Africa, as well as closer to home at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. She was the first artist to be featured in a one-person show at the Merrick Art Gallery in New Brighton and was a panelist at the 23rd annual National African American Women’s Conference at the University of Kentucky.

She also kept busy, regularly giving guest lectures and performances at Geneva College, and singing jazz at church concerts, festivals, Pittsburgh clubs and Beaver Valley restaurants and taverns.

As recently as last month, she had a headlining gig scheduled for 37th Street Park in Beaver Falls.

A 2003 inductee into the Beaver Valley Musicians’ Hall of Fame, she sang in recent years at Beaver County spots like Old Economy Village, the Fallout Shelter, Mario’s Dockside Grille, Wooly Bullys Juke-Joint, Lincoln Park and Long Branch Saloon. Last year, she was a featured entertainer at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Day at Memorial Park in Rochester.

In 2016, Douglas received the Lifetime Service Award from the Rochester Chamber of Commerce during a banquet at Seven Oaks Country Club.

In his induction speech on her behalf, former Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center managing director Stephen Catanzarite said he’s always had this image of Douglas’ art studio and gallery complex “as a kind of anchor and spiritual center for the surrounding community,” and described her as “without question one of the most accomplished people I know ― artist and educator, advocate and activist, scholar and singer, community leader and volunteer and lately, particularly through her use of social media, agent provocateur.”

A multidisciplinary artist to the end, Douglas effectively communicated on social media, often posting eloquent Facebook messages crusading for social justice.

Her final Facebook post, July 7, decried gun violence in the wake of a Philadelphia mass shooting.

Many musician friends took to Facebook to share memories of what made Douglas so remarkable.

Elbie Yaworsky, founder of the Performing Arts Legends Museum in Ambridge recalled meeting Douglas at St. Stephen’s Church in Sewickley in 1976 as members of the choir and music ministry.

“Her presence was felt as she sang with such a quality, range and passion,” Yaworsky said. “I worked in downtown Pittsburgh when the August Wilson Center was being built. I was taken back when I saw a huge portrait of Betty Douglas on the building site along with August Wilson and many other African American artists from Pittsburgh. When I asked Betty about her presence at the construction site, she was very humble about the honor they bestowed upon her.

“We performed together with the Hopewell Community Big Band for several years and I would always be lifted by her amazing voice,” Yaworsky said. “She sang at a concert in New Brighton and she made sure that the audience would understand the (borough’s) significance in history with the Underground Railroad. Betty was always teaching.”

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

There is art and there is commerce and often that relationship can make for strange bedfellows. But in reality, the two can ultimately work in harmony and thrive, with the right conditions and pairing of like-minded visionaries.

Enter long-time Ann Arbor-rite and born and bred Dearborn resident Cheryl Dawdy and her business partner and significant other Jim Moran.

Dawdy is a visual artist and singer-songwriter that, for the last 20 years or so, has specialized in what she calls “Reconstructed Landscapes”—taking paper, postcards, paints and blending various textures and recycled materials into something visually interesting and new. She is also a vocalist in the nationally-recognized and Ann Arbor-based musical trio The Chenille Sisters. Moran managed and was the founder and driving force behind Detroit’s Attic Theater, Pontiac’s Strand Theater, Ann Arbor’s Performance Network and active in many other Michigan-based theatrical ventures.

Both Dawdy and Moran bring their considerable artistic and administrative acumen to the art world and are all about bringing artists together on several different fronts. “When I started the Attic Theater in 1976 we always used the lobby for an artists’ gallery space,” explains Moran on the origin of their artistic pursuits. “And every time the Attic moved somewhere galleries sprouted up around it. So, I’ve always had connections with galleries. I particularly had an interest in pop-up galleries. I got the idea about 10-15 years ago when I saw what was going on in Grand Rapids, with their use of abandoned city spaces. So, we always had the idea to bring pop-up galleries to Ann Arbor.”

During the latter part of 2021 into 2022 the couple did just that, opening a gallery, first in what was the former Peaceable Kingdom gifts and curios shop and, eventually, moving to their current location at 407 E. Liberty in downtown Ann Arbor as Makeshift Gallery.

“The property owners Hillside Investments had a soft spot for us regarding rent,” says Moran. “We’ve never had a long-range plan. We have a monthly lease that they were very nice to give us because they like us here. The owners have been very gracious to us. We’ve had good months and bad months, but the building owners know we’re serving a definite purpose. They’ve told us the reason they’ve kept us here is because they’ve gotten a lot of compliments, and it makes them look good as supporters of the community and the arts.”

Patterned after the classic Parisian salons frequented by authors like Fitzgerald and Hemingway, artists like Picasso and Matisse and musicians like Django Reinhardt, Moran and Dawdy wanted to create a place where artists could gather, sell and display their wares, perform, give demonstrations of their artistic process and share ideas. With nearly 30 artists currently active in the gallery, they’ve attracted some of the cream of Michigan and national renown like Dick Siegel, Jack Kenny, Carlye Crisler and John Lloyd, to name a few.

“For a while on Thursdays from 4-6pm we’d have various artists doing demonstrations and talking about what they do,” says Dawdy. “Unfortunately, not much of the general public came in, but the other artists would come in and ask interesting questions about each other’s work. It showed a real appreciation for other art forms that may be different from theirs.”

The Makeshift Gallery has also sponsored Sunday music performances from 12-2pm where they serve coffee, tea, croissants and muffins and admission is free. Some of the musicians who have played here have been visual artists as well like Dawdy’s trio The Chenille Sisters, singer-songwriter Dick Siegel, author and playwright Jay Stielstra and Michael Smith.

The annual Ann Arbor Art Fair will be in full swing this Thursday July 20th through Saturday July 22nd. With their location strategically placed downtown on Liberty Street, Makeshift Gallery plans on being open each day for the duration of the Fair from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The gallery features everything from large oil paintings and colored pencil drawings to cigar box guitars, photographs and original jewelry. One of the artists who features her unique jewelry at the gallery is Carolyn Tjon-Burnstein. Like a number of the artists with work on display, she is also a musician. She was active as a singer and vocal coach until the pandemic inspired her to pivot toward another creative avenue. “I had been dabbling in art and making jewelry since the early 2000s,” says Tjon-Burnstein. “I love looking for beach glass, stones, going to garage sales and finding stuff to use in my jewelry. When Covid hit I stopped teaching and performing and started making stuff. I’ve been doing jewelry just for fun, but now I’m thinking of selling things too.”

Dawdy, who has exhibited her artwork in national shows and recently had a piece from her “Reconstructed Landscapes” collection accepted by the National Association of Women Artists, handles the daily management of the gallery and deals one on one with artists that are featured there.

“Almost every artist represented here didn’t have an outlet to sell or display their work,” says Dawdy. “A few did, but they were doing an occasional art show or doing art in their basement or garage. In addition to everything else, we try to give budding artists that are looking for guidance a place to show their work. And that’s thrilling!”

For more information on Makeshift Gallery visit them on Facebook or just stop in Wednesday-Sunday Noon – 7 p.m.

Details

By Coyote & Crow Games

July 17, 2023

The Native creators of the award-winning game Coyote & Crow are back with a new tabletop game, Wolves, which is crowdfunding now on Kickstarter. This is a family-friendly game for 3-6 that has players take on the mantle of leaders of agrarian communities, working together to share resources and make it through winter.

llustrated and designed by Indigenous creatives, the game follows in the footsteps of the company’s first game, Coyote & Crow, which has not only been nominated for numerous awards but broke multiple Kickstarter records when it crowdfunded back in 2021.

Now the creators want to use modern tabletop game mechanics to highlight cooperative play and gifting economies. The game encourages players to work together since if any player fails to meet their community’s needs, all players lose the game. Only if everyone makes it to the end of the game can there also be an individual winner.

In addition, Coyote & Crow Games, the publisher, is producing this game without any plastics and their components are FSC certified, meaning that all items are recyclable and sustainable. There are also pledge levels available to donate copies of the game to schools, libraries, and community centers that serve Native communities.

Wolves launched on Kickstarter on July 10 and runs through August 7, 2023. The game met its base funding goal in under five hours but is now looking to reach numerous philanthropic stretch goals. First up is a free digital version of the game to be released through Tabletop Simulator, a game emulation software available on Steam. The company also has plans to donate money to Illuminative, create a grant program for Indigenous creatives looking to travel to conventions, and more.

The game was designed by Connor Alexander (Cherokee Nation), who was also the creative force behind Coyote & Crow, the roleplaying game. In addition, both Ovila Mailhot (Sto:lo / Nlaka’pamux Nation) and Sadekaronhes Esquivel (Kanyen’kehà:ka/Mexican Indigenous) provided art for the game.

“We wanted to create a game that spoke to the idea of sharing,” said designer Connor Alexander. “Most games have a winner at the cost of everyone else losing. I think the tradition of gifting shows that everyone can make it to the finish line and we’re all better off for it when we do. The game promotes cooperation while still providing an incentive for individual players to do their personal best.” Wolves also allow players to manage resources and push their luck to gain more while penalizing them if they overstretch those resources. In addition, there are Knowledge Cards that allow players to gain special individual benefits along the way.

Coyote & Crow Games is a company dedicated to bringing Indigenous concepts to modern tabletop games by lifting up Native writers, designers and artists within the board game industry. They also aim to provide positive, accurate, and uplifting depictions of Native Americans in the gaming space.

You can watch the full trailer video here:

No genre of art is more misunderstood, or less appreciated, by the general public than video art — for a couple of reasons.

Even though it has been recognized and discussed for more than half a century — and has produced genuine art superstars ranging from pioneer Nam June Paik to current practitioners like Matthew Barney, Bill Viola and Tania Candiani — video art remains hard to define and a challenge to exhibit.

It is easier to say what it is not: cinema, or at least traditional filmmaking where creators use actors to tell cohesive stories (although some video art has a narrative and a lot of it uses actors).

But video art, speaking generally, tends to focus on presenting an idea or a concept, rather than a coherent tale. Most of the video art you see in galleries these days unfolds as a series of moving images, connected in a dream-like or surreal way that is meant to conjure an emotional response rather than to impart fact-based information.

If you think of video art more like a symphony than a painting — in that it revolves around a theme, often repeated in variations — it starts to make more sense as a category.  Although just stating that, I can think of a thousand exceptions.

Still, video art is best experienced in the way of classical music. It is a slow art. You have to be patient with it and let it unfold at its own tempo to fully get it. That makes it difficult to show in galleries and museums where people like to go at their own pace, which is usually fast; there is always too much to see and not enough time to see it.

I watch most of my video art at home, via Youtube or Vimeo, late in the evening, with a mouse in one hand and a martini in the other, a method I fully recommend if you suffer from an attention deficit.

All that buildup around characterization is meant to underscore the challenge facing video artists who want to get their work seen in a meaningful way, and the opportunity that an event like Denver Month of Video presents to both creators and consumers. It is an invitation to put the genre front and center, without other distractions, and for viewers to make time and gather the resolve to revel in its quixotic ways.

There is a schedule of offerings on the Month of Video website, but the main offering is the exhibition “Crimes Against Reality,” which features work from the art collective New Red Order. The show is curated by Jenna Maurice and Adán De La Garza, who also happen to be the founders of Denver Month of Video.

New Red Order describes itself as a “public secret society” powered by its “core contributors,” Indigenous artists Jackson Polys, Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil. The New York City-based collective has several aims, but its core work revolves around recognizing the mistreatment of Indigenous people in what is now the United States and imagining a path forward that includes rights, and reparations, for Native Americans.

“Crimes Against Reality” is not a large show, maybe a half-dozen works, but it is expansive in both the ideas it presents and the way it displays them, in some cases on very large screens that fill entire walls at the RedLine Art Center in Curtis Park, where it continues through Aug. 27.

The works range in length from a few minutes to nearly an hour and they are, like a lot of video art, abstract, fast-moving and sometimes confusing. But they are also pointed, convincing and, if you are open to it, humorous.

“Never Settle” is a 50-minute video that takes the form of a mockumentary, or an instructional film, that looks at the ways non-Indigenous people view the role of “settlers” like themselves in the displacement and exploitation of Native Americans. The piece satirizes do-gooders who empathize with contemporary native causes without firmly grasping the complexities of either the problems or their solutions.

Another piece, the nine-minute-long “Culture Captures,” deconstructs public monuments, using digital tricks to transform statues  — among them a larger-than-life bronze of Theodore Roosevelt that was deemed offensive and removed from its perch at New York’s American Museum of Natural History in 2019 — into something resembling human flesh. The piece underscores the real-life harm these public symbols can inflict on Native Americans.

There is also “Give It Back: Stage Theory,” a six-minute piece that underscores New Red Order’s very serious contention that stolen land should be handed back to Indigenous people. The work references historic panoramas that traveled the country as a form of mass entertainment in the 19th century that were built around objects dug up from native burial mounds along the Mississippi.

Each piece in the show carries a lot of personality and takes up considerable space — the projections are massive. But curators Maurice and De La Garza give them the room they need. They chose their offerings well and edited wisely. Some shows benefit from being lean, rather than abundant, and this is one of them.

And while not everyone will agree with the ideas presented — they are not radical, as much as they are direct — the works do represent the variety of  video art that is trending right now. That is to say, the visuals are a combination of old-school photography techniques and advanced digital manipulation, and the themes center on the politics of diversity and inclusion that dominate institutional art exhibitions in the U.S. in the present decade.

That makes “Crimes Against Reality” an apt flagship for Month of Video overall. It also will whet appetites for the event’s other offerings, which take place in galleries across Denver for the rest of the month.

IF YOU GO

“Crimes Against Reality” continues through Aug. 27 at RedLine. It is free. For info on this show and other Month of Video offerings, go to denvermov.com.

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Artist Fnnch set out to build a giant Bop Bag — and succeeded.  
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COURTESY OF FNNCH

Artist Fnnch set out to build a giant Bop Bag — and succeeded.

If you have fond memories of trying to knock down a Bop Bag as a child — maybe a clown, maybe a dolphin? — you’re going to love the interactive art piece just installed on the roof of City Museum.

It’s a 14-foot, 200-plus-pound Bop Bear. And yes, you can knock him over, but only if you’re really good at that sort of thing.

The bear comes via the San Francisco-based artist Fnnch, who created him for last year’s Burning Man festival. A St. Louis native whose whimsical honey bears adorn a prominent mural in Grand Center, Fnnch credits his childhood visits to City Museum for his affinity for such projects.

“At Burning Man, interactivity in art is something they try to highlight,” he says. “That’s unusual in the art world but not unusual for City Museum. Having had City Museum as a model as a kid, I think art should be interactive by default.”

Even with that background, Fnnch (pronounced “finch”) acknowledges it took him some trial and error to figure out the recipe for Burning Man success. Bop Bear ended up being a huge hit at the 2022 festival, something that wasn’t necessarily true of his previous attempts. He credits the novelty: “You see things you can climb and spin. Something you can bop is unusual.”

The Bop Bears on location in the desert.  
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The Bop Bears on location in the desert.

For Fnnch, placing one of the nine Burning Man Bop Bears at City Museum felt like a no-brainer. He initially began making art as a side project, only devoting himself full-time to the work in 2016. When City Museum first acquired one of his paintings, it felt like a big deal: “That was a moment for me of being like, ‘Oh man, I’ve made it.’ In this case, I don’t know a better place for this to go than City Museum.”

The piece was installed Saturday. Rick Erwin, the museum’s creative director, says, “Yes, a bear is on the roof — a phrase that should surprise no one. Fnnch fits right into our project to put art at eye/hand/foot level.”

On Sunday, its creator returned to watch kids take on the big bear.  He was delighted to watch kids giving it their best shot. You can see their efforts in the video he shot that day:

Fnnch stayed busy while he was in town, painting a mural at Clementine’s Creamery in Edwardsville (he and owner Tamara Keefe have a long, felicitous affiliation), creating a honey bear at Build-a-Bear and working on a street art project in suburbs like his native Kirkwood, Webster Groves and Clayton.

(“What is appropriate art for a suburban space?” he said he set out to explore. The answer ended up being waterproof, fully removable honey bears, installed on about 30 utility boxes around town.)

Street art, Kirkwood style.  
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Street art, Kirkwood style.

But the City Museum visit was a true highlight. “I’ve always thought of City Museum as a semi-dangerous jungle gym,” he says. “They don’t infantilize children. You could hurt yourself if you banged your head on a stalactite. You could fall off something. Like Burning Man, they put the power in your hands.”

And now that power includes the power to bop.

A determined local gives the Bop Bear his best shot.  
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A determined local gives the Bop Bear his best shot.

The Madison Public Library and Ho-Chunk Gaming Madison are calling for submissions for Teejop and Beyond, a celebration of Native artists, storytellers, and community leaders honoring Indigenous people. 

Through this collaboration, Indigenous artists will be able to present works including creation stories, cultural celebrations and seasons customs, food, herbs and crops, skills and crafts, histories about removals, returns and important figures, Indigenous peoples in community and government and relationships between different nations or collective efforts towards decolonization.

Neeyati Shah works with the Madison Public Library as a community engagement librarian. She talked with Madison365 about the importance of this programming and her hopes for participants and community members. 

“We’re on Indigenous land,” Shah said. “We also try to make sure that we are at least trying to work and reach out to any community that is living here, and particularly the first people here. We had gotten feedback from various native folks in some community meetings, just about the type of programming that the library was already doing, which we’ve always done some Native programs. 

“But often, it was maybe one thing here or there, it wasn’t like deeper engagement. We did hear that people wanted to see what it would be like if we did something that was more than one program here or there.”

Participants can pitch up to three ideas for programming and will be compensated per program. The deadline to apply for Teejop and Beyond is July 30. Applicants will be notified by late August. 

The Madison Public Library has had a distinct focus on supporting the lives and stories of Indigenous people and wanted to continue that support throughout the state. 

“This year, actually anybody who’s living in Wisconsin, who is Indigenous, even if their homelands are somewhere else in North America, or even somewhere else in the world,” Shah said. “We decided at this point, we’re ready to expand and keep opening up and learning.”

Shah added how important it is to be working with Indigenous people and helping them expose their stories and heritages. One of the goals set by Ho-Chunk collaborators early on was related to dispelling myths and stereotypes. 

“They also told us that they get a ton of requests from the public about learning about Ho-Chunk and about other native cultures,” she said. “This allows us to take on some of that work of hosting that and letting presenters determine their content.”

Shah hopes year’s call for programming invites a plethora of ideas and presentations from the many different Indigenous communities throughout the state. 

“As someone who’s not Indigenous, there’s so much that I don’t know,” she said. In our education system, we have maybe one narrow story or a couple of stories, but this really opens it up.”

Shah and the collaborators from the Ho-Chunk nation hope to see many new ideas and stories for this programming. They also hope participants come and learn about Indigenous cultures and histories. 

“We’re really excited to see what we have not seen,” she added. “We had a cooking demo that was really cool to see and really successful. We’ve had beadwork workshops, writings, and discussions around birth and kinship and history. we’re kind of open to anything and then we’ll see if certain themes come out after that, but we’re trying not to decide ahead of time what we want people to do.”

The programming for Teejop and Beyond begins on Indigenous People’s Day in October and will run through December. Visit this website for more information about the programming and application. 

Budding Indigenous artists are learning to more authentically connect to their cultural identity through art thanks to the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art unit (CAIA) and an Arts Queensland First Nations Commissioning Fund grant.

Dr Carol McGregor is the Program Director of CAIA at Griffith University’s Queensland College of Art (QCA) and has been awarded $125,940 to deliver Past, Present, Future: CAIA community – a beginning conversation.

The two-year project comprises a major exhibition at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair featuring First Nations artists who participated in the Queensland College of Art Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program, plus a community outreach program and $90,000 for an industry placement to create a career pathway for Indigenous curators.

Supported by Griffith University, QCA and the Griffith University Art Museum, the exhibition at the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair represented a milestone in showcasing CAIA’s achievements and cultural impact, underscoring the importance of preserving and celebrating First Nations art and providing a platform for Indigenous artists to connect with the broader community.

Dr McGregor said the primary aim of the exhibition was to highlight an extraordinary community and the excellence developed in their practices, leadership, and cultural understandings.

“Receiving this grant is just the beginning for offering a more in-depth examination of the history and impact of CAIA,” she said.

“As soon as people heard we were doing an exhibition, people in our industry just went ‘yes, this is what’s needed’.

“Not only has the exhibition highlighted the success and diversity of CAIA, but also the mentorship and the community that still exists through alumni and past teachers and lecturers who return to give talks and build the community.”

CAIA was started almost 30 years ago and remains the only degree program of its kind in Australia.

Having developed a reputation along the way for cultivating the careers of some of Australia’s most successful contemporary artists who have exemplified the highest standards of achievement nationally and internationally, the program fosters hope, resilience, a sense of possibility and cultural pride in its students.

Dr McGregor has been with the program since 2007 and said the authenticity and integrity in teaching and supporting various art forms goes well beyond traditional art forms.

“Students engage with diverse mediums including dance, film, sculpture, jewellery-making, fashion and printmaking, creating a rich and vibrant artistic tapestry,” she said.

“Students examine their own Indigenous identity and histories, making artworks through different mediums and storytelling within their creative practices.

“Quite often, students come to us having been taught art in schools and know there’s something more, so we look at Indigenous ways of making, researching and connecting to Country and people through art practices.

“CAIA incorporates courses such as Identity and Back to Country where students travel back to Country with many having opportunities to be with Elders, exercise Indigenous protocols and make artworks responding to Country.”

The CAIA program has also been connecting with the Cherbourg Indigenous community and will be working with students from the Murgon State High School, running creative based skill-building workshops and exhibitions.

The team is also working towards creating a mural with the students and other people who want to get involved in art practices in consultation with local Elders in Cherbourg.

“It’s about reciprocity and giving back – sharing our knowledge and experiences with the next generation and supporting them in exploring their creative potential,” Dr McGregor said.

“It’s our way of building a strong community and nurturing Indigenous art and culture and it’s significant to be recognised by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and the First Nations Commissioning Fund grant.”