Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette
Ilo, a new arts and creative crafts store in Hancock, is the first store offering supplies in the Copper Country since Commercial Systems, in Houghton, closed its doors in the 1980s.

HANCOCK — A new arts and crafts and creative supply store opened on Quincy Street on April 13. The family-owned business name is ‘ilo,’ which is Finnish for “joy.”

Brian Paavo, an area native, and his wife Rebecca, a native of Florida, are owners of the store.

Rebecca said she and Brian were both civil engineers serving in the U.S. Air Force. Brian, who enlisted in 1999, recently retired after a 23-year career.

“He retired in September,” said Rebecca, “and we just decided to move back to his home area.”

When they arrived, she said, all the festivals, art shows, and other events were going on, and she was amazed that in spite of the number of artists creative crafts producers, there was not an art supply store in the area. The only options for artists were to drive to Marquette or online shopping.

“We put into our ‘future dream’ list, that wouldn’t it be nice, one day, to open an art supply shop. It’s just always been kind of a back-seat dream.”

When the location, 129 Quincy Street, became available, Rebecca saw it as the ideal spot for the type of store they had wanted to open.

“If you’re going to be an art supply store,” she said, “there’s no better place than right across the street from the Copper Country Community Arts Center.”

The store offers kits to create art, which include paint kits and drawing kits, said Rebecca, most of which come with online classes and tutorials.

The Paavos offer supplies ranging from watercolor to acrylic to oil paints, along with pastels, gouache, and even alcohol markers for illustration.

Also available are drawing pencils, colored pencils and drawing pens, along with a wide variety of brushes, canvases and papers. There are also supplies for felt sewing and embroidery.

There are also block-printing supplies and block carving, macrame, basket weaving kits. There are also supplies for kids, said Rebecca.

“One of the most popular things,” she said, “is a soapstone carving kit where the kids get a raw piece of soapstone that’s cut into the rough shape of animal. The kit comes with a file and the polishing cloths.”

Bonnie Loukus, assistant director of the Copper Country Community Arts Center, across the street from ilo, said the new art store is a wonderful addition to the area.

“It’s great to have a neighbor as an art supply store. For us being an arts center, it’s a wonderful fit.”

Loukus, like Paavo, said previous to ilo opening, artists and art students either had to drive to Marquette for supplies or order them online.

“So,” said Loukus, “to have a local resource is excellant.”

The Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) has announced the 5 projects selected for the 2023-2025 Activate Rural Learning Lab-a cohort-based peer network, workshop series, and resource hub which supports community leaders and artists in cultivating welcoming and creative physical places of connection in rural communities.

Activate Rural supports creative building activation projects that inspire, motivate, and open up possibilities for connection in rural communities across Minnesota. Five projects based in communities with populations under 10,000, were selected for the 2023-2025 Cohort, which is in its first year of operation, led by the Activate Rural Program Director Sarina Otaibi. Activate Rural projects will receive $25,000 for artist-led community engagement projects and program participation, one-on-one technical assistance, access to a supportive cohort peer network, project promotion and documentation support, access to Activate Rural Learning Lab resource guides and workshops, as well as travel and lodging costs for three core team members to attend two in-person cohort gatherings. This program is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.

Sarina Otaibi, Activate Rural Program Director says: “I am beyond excited to begin working closely with the 5 Activate Rural projects selected to participate in our first 2-year learning lab experience! Each project has a team of passionate and dedicated artists and activators ready to experiment, engage, and transform places into creative and welcoming hubs of connection for their communities.”

The Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) believes in working with artists, cultural workers, and connectors to strengthen rural places by supporting the role of community assets-social, cultural, and built-as a lens to help communities investigate and celebrate their collective story: past, present, and future. From creative taprooms and gathering places to multi-use community hubs and knowledge centers, DoPT views these types of ‘third places’ as vital contributors to increasing social connections, strengthening a shared sense of place, and supporting cross-cultural understanding in rural communities. The five building activation projects selected for the inaugural Activate Rural Cohort align with these values.

DoPT invites you to get to know the new 2023-2025 Activate Rural Cohort below:

City of Buhl-Buhl, MN

Activate a community building as a safe space for youth to gather and for community members to come together.

Reclaim Community-Jasper, MN

Activate ‘Bauman Hall’ as a welcoming place of comfort and learning and a social gathering place for creativity and connection in the community.

Mni Sota Arts-Redwood Falls, MN

Activate a downtown building as a place for Native artists to exhibit, gather and connect and as a safe place for truthful historical sharing.

Spring Grove Cinema-Spring Grove, MN

Activate the cooperatively-owned movie theater located downtown as a place for connection, innovation and community vitality.

Manoomin Arts Initiative-White Earth Nation

Activate and sustain the Animikii Print Club Studio into an artist-run print studio and gallery in the city of Mahnomen.

Please visit the Activate Rural homepage for more information on the program, selected projects, and DoPT: https://www.publictransformation.org/activate-rural

About Activate Rural:

The Activate Rural Learning Lab is a cohort-based peer network, workshop series, and resource hub which supports community leaders and artists in cultivating welcoming and creative physical places of connection in rural communities. Activate Rural’s artist-led asset activation framework, provides an accessible, replicable, and scalable approach to building design and development for those who have a passion and vision for working with their community. More information at www.publictransformation.org/activate-rural

About Department of Public Transformation (DoPT):

The Department of Public Transformation is an artist-led nonprofit organization that works to develop creative strategies for increased community connection, civic engagement, and equitable participation in rural places. More information at www.publictransformation.org

Nathan Miller is an artist who captures the vibrant radiance of nature between the borders of his lovely acrylic artwork. His captivating works of art have now won him the Best in Show award at the 38th Annual Art in the Park, a showcase for the arts hosted on March 11 and 12 by the Hernando County Fine Arts Council at Tom Varn Park in Brooksville. Art in the Park is an annual event dedicated to fine art, craftsmanship, and community that creates a unique opportunity and tradition for artists, collectors, and patrons of the arts.

“It felt amazing,” Miller said, referring to the win. “You never know exactly what the judges are thinking when they enter your booth. Art can be such a subjective thing. With my work, though, I really try to focus on detail, meaning, and originality. My exhibit features imaginative, realistic acrylic paintings of wildlife and people with themes relating to coexistence and conservation. Fortunately for me, the judges appreciated my work. But I didn’t enter with expectations. You can never go into it expecting to win. But when you do, it’s an incredible feeling. And it’s really nice when fellow artists give their support as well.”

Miller counts wildlife as his favorite artistic subject as well as his greatest inspiration. “I always loved animals, but it wasn’t until I moved to Costa Rica that I thoroughly explored the theme of wildlife in my work. Before then, I was working as a graphic designer in Houston, TX. I rarely found time to focus on my art, but I knew I wanted to paint,” he shared. “In 2012, I decided to pack up and move to Nosara, Costa Rica, a small beach town on the Pacific coast. With vibrant birds and howler monkeys surrounding the property where I lived, it was no surprise that they would become my inspiration. Since then, I have gravitated toward big cats and vulnerable species often found in indigenous folklore.”

It is through vivid streams of bright acrylic paint that Miller makes his nature-born subjects come alive on canvas. “Acrylic paint on board is my medium of choice. I started using acrylic paint in high school and exclusively used acrylics when I started my professional career in Costa Rica,” he said. “Since I worked from my home studio apartment, I preferred a water-based paint that was considered less toxic when used in a small space. While I originally painted on canvas, today, I prefer to paint on very smooth flat panels like Ampersand Gessobord. And my acrylic of choice is Golden Heavy Body Acrylic Paints.”

Aside from his exhibit at Art in the Park, Miller also displays his work at Gallery 201 in Brooksville. His painting “Hope of a Florida Native” is currently featured in the collection of and on the promo poster for the gallery’s Florida Native exhibit.

“The ‘Hope of a Florida Native’ canvas print that I have in the exhibit features a Florida panther mother with her two cubs surrounded by Florida’s natural ecosystem,” he said. “It’s my hope, as a Florida native, that we protect the panthers and their home. Pedram Moghaddam, the curator of Brooksville’s Gallery 201, appreciated this piece when he saw it at the Brooksville Art in the Park Festival. He asked if he could display it in the show, and I agreed.”

This show is only the latest showcase for Miller’s popular work. He stated, “I’ve displayed my work mostly at art festivals and through online exhibitions. But I have also displayed my work at Art Center Manatee in Bradenton, Florida. I’m considering displaying my art at exhibitions with the Society of Animal Artists or the International Guild of Realism.”

Miller has garnered a number of honors for his artistic masterworks, including an Award of Excellence from the 2023 Lake Wales Art Festival, a Bronze Award for “Legend of the Jaguar Shaman” from the 2022 Animal Painting Competition – Global Painting Conclave, and the Tom & Jan Nielsen Best in Show in 2022 from The Arts Festival of Carrollton. To read about his other honors and his career overall, check out the About page of his website at www.nathan miller.gallery.com.

Beyond the painted canvas, Miller’s artsy images can be seen on the surfaces of mass-produced puzzles as well. “A puzzle company from Europe reached out to me with interest in ‘Legend of the Jaguar Shaman,’ one of my most popular paintings. Realizing that images of my art would work well on puzzles, I decided, however, to do a little research into puzzle companies,” he said. “When I found Art & Fable Puzzle Company, I was really impressed. They specialize in high-quality puzzles that feature art by living artists. And they put a spotlight on the artists and donate a percentage of the profits to a charity of the artists’ choice. I reached out to them, and they decided to feature ‘Legend of the Jaguar Shaman’ on one of their puzzles. It recently won the Best Puzzle of the Year Award, and Art & Fable Puzzle Company won Best Overall Puzzle Company in the Puzzle Pals Choice Awards. And that was just the first. Art & Fable will be coming out with another puzzle before long featuring another one of my paintings.” These puzzles can be purchased directly from the Art & Fable website or from Miller’s website.

For Nathan Miller, the pursuit and mastery of the visual arts is clearly a lifetime passion. “I’ve been into art since as far back as I can remember,” he said. “My mother was an artist, and I believe I got the artist gene from her. She exposed me to art and supported my passion for drawing and painting.”

Miller counts his piece “Legend of the Jaguar Shaman” as his favorite artistic creation. “It was inspired by the five years I spent in Costa Rica,” he said. “It has meaning and significance to me, and it also seems to be resonating a lot with others as well.”

A native of Tampa, Miller now lives in Covington, GA. His work can be seen at various art festivals. Next, he will display his work at the Mayfair by the Lake Art Festival in Lakeland from May 13th–14th. He plans to return again in the fall.

“I’m planning to dive deeper into the art festival circuit. I’ll be doing more shows and traveling further distances to find the best shows,” he said. “I’ll be leasing my art more to companies like Art & Fable. In fact, some of my pieces will be made into Diamond Art Kits very soon. But ultimately, I’m looking forward to creating more art and finding the best venues where I can sell my work.”

Pedram Moghaddam, also the Hernando County Fine Arts Council vice chair and public art chair, is a great admirer of the work of Nathan Miller. “Nathan understands the material well in an imaginative, realistic style,” he said. “While depicting the subjects in their glory, subtleties in the use of light and dark play on the subjects’ sense of majesty.”

Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow), b. 1981) wanted to be a horse trainer. Becoming her generation’s most prominent Native American artist wasn’t a consideration.

She loved horses and couldn’t draw.

When Red Star left the Apsáalooke Reservation in southern Montana where she was born and raised to go to college–Montana State University in Bozeman–she selected the school based on its proximity to home. She wanted to take classes close enough where she could trailer her horses. A portfolio did not accompany Red Star as she set out to make her mark on the world, but her horses did.

“I had a horrible time in my high school art class because it focused on realistic drawing and I really had a hard time,” Red Star told Forbes.com. “I thought, ‘if this is what art is, then I certainly can’t do it.’”

She credits her MSU professors with encouraging her to believe she could do it.

“I enrolled in graphic design and as part of graphic design, you had to take some core art classes,” Red Star remembers. “I had taken a 3-D art class and that’s when I was exposed to all these new mediums, not just bronze sculptures of elk, but actual conceptual works and that’s when I was like, ‘oh, there’s something here for me. There’s something that I can work with here.’”

Work with it she has.

Red Star has gone on to produce a stunning archive of photography, textiles and mixed media installations exploring themes of Apsáalooke history, the indigenous roots of feminism and contemporary life on the reservation. Her work has become a fixture inside America’s most prestigious art museums, rarified space for any artist, let alone a female Native American artist.

The latest example, “Wendy Red Star: A Scratch on the Earth,” a retrospective on view at the Columbus Museum of Art through September 3, 2023. The most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date, the show features more than 40 items highlighting 15 years of her studio practice.

Included are her now-iconic Four Seasons photographic self-portraits from 2006 which planted Red Star’s flag firmly among the vanguard of American contemporary art while she was still in her mid-20s, and 2017’s Diplomats of the Crow Nation photo-text pieces offering most audiences a completely new way of seeing historic photographs of Indigenous people.

“A Scratch on the Earth” features a new project as well, and what can’t be seen in Monsters may be as interesting as what can be.

The Little People

Co-directed by Red Star and Amelia Winger Bearskin (Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma), Monsters is a five-minute video screened in a simulated sweat lodge documenting the Montana landscape near the Apsáalooke Reservation. Utilizing a cutting edge 360-degree camera which can produce “surround video,” viewers become immersed in aspects of Crow mythology related to the land.

Bearskin provided the technical know-how, Red Star the concept. Red Star sought a return to the reservation to investigate a legend.

“I always grew up hearing about the Little People, and the Little People have a sacred rock there–a bolder–it’s called Prayer Rock,” Red Star said.

This specific area is near Pryor, MT where Red Star lived.

“They’re protectors of the Apsáalooke, but also, you don’t mess with them,” Red Star explained of the little people, also referred to as Nirumbee or Awwakkulé, which translates into “keepers of the land.” “Sometimes, people don’t even like to talk about them. It’s a fearful respect, and part of showing them respect is going to that rock and leaving offerings. We leave money and beads and all sorts of things, but they’ve always been our protectors and they actually show up in some of the oral stories of our enemy tribes who won’t go near that place because they ended up getting in trouble.”

Enemy tribes weren’t the only ones to find trouble near Prayer Rock.

Developers blew a hole through it in the early 1900s so they could run a train from Billings through the mountain to Cody, WY increasing access to nearby Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo Bill Cody, that town’s namesake, was a backer.

The venture went bankrupt not long after opening; the train kept having mechanical trouble passing through the reservation, particularly that tunnel.

Red Star and Bearskin decided to visit the area with their 360-degree camera.

“We captured all this amazing footage, and it’s deeply personal footage,” Red Star said. “We actually got close to where they say the Little People live, we were on the railroad tracks.”

Being that the camera films in 360-degrees, the filmmakers must vacate the surroundings where the device is placed to avoid being in the shot.

“We would walk off in the distance and hide behind rocks or trees or whatever, so we went and hid and then let it shoot for a few minutes,” Red Star remembers. “Then we came walking back and one of the dogs (along with them) started barking uncontrollably. We were looking where it was looking and we could see nothing, but it was one of those moments where your hair stands on end and it was right by the cave and there was nothing, so we quickly gathered that stuff up and left and we walked as fast as we could.”

The state-of-the-art camera requires footage being uploaded to the cloud for storage and processing.

“Amelia did that when she got back and the only footage that didn’t come back from the cloud was that specific footage,” Red Star said. “We decided we need to respect the Little People.”

Instead of trying to expose the them, the film’s focus turned toward respecting the land, in honor of the Little People and how they protect the land.

Sweat Lodge

Visitors view Monsters by entering a faux sweat lodge.

“Sweat lodges are very important to Crow; they have a few different reasons why they use it, and one is a recreational use where sometimes people use it daily and go in and take a sweat,” Red Star said. “Then there are more special, ceremonial uses. Even in recreational use, they still say prayers and there’s a protocol in there, but for me, it’s emerging into that landscape, so when you crawl in, you close the door, and then you’re in these different scenes of this very important landscape.”

While firmly rooted in the past, all of Red Star’s work makes clear that the Apsáalooke and other Indigenous people are contemporary. In addition to incorporating more Native artists in broad-based group shows of contemporary art like she has been, Red Star sees reinforcing contemporaneity as the next step museums must take in improving their representation of Native people.

“Referring to Native people as in the present–contemporary Native artists–I think it’s really important,” she said. “There’s something that always happens within the writing of Native artists’ work that attaches us to the past, instead of letting us be in the present as we are.”

The best opportunity to see the Apsáalooke in the present comes the third week of August during the annual Crow Fair celebration at Crow Agency, MT. The week-long, public event draws tens of thousands of visitors to the largest teepee encampment in the world and numerous other events and activities.

Visit. Learn. Enjoy. Just steer clear of the Little People.

Working with glass started out as “a very cool day job” for renowned glass maker and artist, Preston Singletary. He was a recent high school graduate making Christmas ornaments and paperweights in a factory setting, learning how to handle the fragile material. After meeting artists who were working with glass, including two Native American glass makers, he was inspired.

“At the time, that was a pretty unique situation because it wasn’t very common to see people of color working with glass,” says Singletary, who is Tlingit, Filipino, and mixed European heritage. “Several years later, I started to dabble in the cultural arts myself, and that’s where I kind of found my ultimate success — connecting the material to my (Tlingit) culture.”

For more than 40 years, he’s been experimenting with the mythology and designs he’s learned from his Indigenous Alaskan background, incorporating those into his art along with collaborations with artists from other Indigenous cultures. His critically acclaimed exhibitions have been on display in traveling and permanent shows, including the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass., and the Seattle Art Museum. He is also the featured guest in the Joyce Axelrod Lecture series on May 5 and in “Cultural Transformations with Preston Singletary” on May 6, both at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. He took some time to talk about his work, his upcoming appearances in San Diego, and his perspective on contemporary Indigenous art and culture. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q: When you began working with glass in 1982, what did you initially plan to do with it? How did you see yourself using it?

A: Well, I started directly out of high school and, at the time, it was just a very cool day job, so to speak. I started in a factory, making pretty basic items, like Christmas balls and paperweights, and some things that were working on a consistent form and getting comfortable with handling the material.

I was exposed to some artists and how they work with glass. A good friend, Dante Marioni, his father, Paul Marioni, is a glass artist and one of the early pioneers from the early origins of the studio glass movement. Then, I went to Pilchuck Glass School, which is an international school, located north of Seattle. It was founded by Dale Chihuly and it’s an international meeting place for glass makers from all around the world.

Soon after, I started to work in the fairly specialized studio of Benjamin Moore. There, we worked for lots of different artists and designers and, basically, I was expected to assist on a very high level. I learned a lot through working with lots of different people. Each time, we worked for different artists who required a totally different sort of approach, so it’s unique to every artist or every person you work for. I kept going back to Pilchuck, year after year, and meeting people from all around the world and getting a lot of inspiration from being with all of these other people.

Q: When did you begin incorporating your Tlingit culture and heritage into your glasswork?

A: I started dabbling in it, really, as early as 1988. That’s when I first started trying to transfer some of the design work onto the glass through a sandblasting process. There was a woman there [at Pilchuck Glass School] and that was a big part of her work, drawing on this rubber stencil and then cutting out the designs. Then, sandblasting it and just wearing the surface of the glass down until it brought up the resolution. In my case, today, I sandblast three layers of color to create that contrast, but this was a very basic and simple way for me to put the designs onto the glass. I really was looking for a way to distinguish myself from other glass makers, trying to find my own niche, and that’s how I did it, I turned to my cultural background.

Q: And I read that your great-grandparents were full Tlingit, and that you recall them telling you stories and teaching you about your culture?

A: Yeah, my great-grandmother lived to be quite old, to be 100. We spent a lot of time around her. I grew up outside of the traditional Tlingit territory, that’s basically up in Alaska, so it’s a very different cultural and geographical location. I think that’s what just planted the seed in my head. There are stories that were shared with us, me and my cousins. There are aunties, and I have great-aunts and -uncles, as well. We’re a pretty big family and I learned, through discussing it with my family, but also reading books about my own culture. I was self-taught, in a lot of ways, until I started going up to Alaska and spending time up there, which I do pretty regularly these days. I go up and interact with the tribal community in a very direct way today, but it took a while for me to have the time to go spend up there and work with different elders and learn about different aspects from talking with different people.

Q: What kinds of references of Indigenous glass making were you aware of at the time, and how did that shape the way you approached your work?

A: As I mentioned, when I was up there that very first time, I met two men who were some of the earliest Native glass artists that I know of. One was Tony Jojola from New Mexico, and then the other was Larry Ahvakana in northern Alaska; so, Alaskan, like me, but the very extreme north, from Barrow, Alaska, so he had a different cultural style than my own. I knew of only a handful of other Native glass artists. In some cases, you can approach glass as a designer, more so than as a maker. The folks that I’m thinking of who inspired me, were working with the master craftspeople that could make the work for them and they would design it, which is perfectly acceptable in our glass community. We don’t usually make a distinction between the two. The thing is, for me, I came to it from the angle of being a maker. Then, I had to learn about the objects and the stories and the history, and understand aspects of the protocol and the culture. So, there’s a lot to catch up with in terms of understanding all of that. When I started, there was only a handful of Native American people working in glass and, today, there’s many more people that are both makers and designers, too.

“Unassimilated” by Preston Singletary. Blown and sand-carved glass.

(Photo by Russell Johnson)

Q: You’re scheduled to speak in San Diego on May 5 and 6, where you’ll discuss your work, your creative process, and Indigenous art. How would you describe the way that you see and understand contemporary Native art?

A: In my estimation, it usually means something that is a life practice where you’re interpreting your own culture, the objects or the concepts of your culture. In this case, since I’m a maker, I make objects, so I kind of go in many different directions. I used to spend a lot of time trying to make things that would look like the things from the culture — a totem or a hat or a spoon, a mask or a rattle. Today, I play a little bit more freely with that. I do things that are more modern. I let modernism sort of influence what I do, but I spend a lot of time working with other Indigenous people from around the world. I feel like what we’re trying to accomplish is to kind of keep the symbols and stories alive with our art. It comes in all forms; it comes in the form of an object or comes in the form of a conceptual piece. Or, in my case, it also goes into contemporary music. That’s just part of my expression, working with other Native performers and singers and musicians, storytellers, what have you. I think that what we’re trying to do is to sort of declare who we are on our own terms. People can come to learn something about our culture because that’s what we’re trying to share and there’s all kinds of ways to do that.

Q: You mentioned earlier that, in your glass work, you would try to stick to things that people would recognize, like a totem or a spoon, and now you feel a little bit more freedom to play with that. What would be an example of ways that that you’re doing that that would be understood as more modern?

A: There’s an era of art that was started by the modernists (Picasso to Jackson Pollock to Henry Moore) and was, sometimes, maybe more directly inspired by African art, Oceanic art. In some ways, a lot of these forms were kind of appropriated, but inspired by these cultures. So, I like to look at the work of [Isamu] Noguchi and [Henry] Moore and make sort of a spare, organic form, but then ornament it with Northwest coast art; kind of play with more of an abstract sculptural form, but in the three-dimension. It will have the typical design work what I do on the object itself. Sometimes, it’s more literal, like a series of mobiles that an object rests on a table, but has kind of branches floating around and glass balls and elements, what have you. That’s kind of a direct tribute to [Alexander] Calder.

Q: How has your perspective of contemporary Native culture evolved over the years, and what does it look like today?

A: I grew up fairly urban. That’s an understatement—I grew up very urban. I grew up in Seattle and I’ve lived here my whole life, so I’ve seen it change and I’ve seen the appreciation for Native art grow. I’ve seen a little bit more opportunity for Indigenous artists and people of color, so that, to me, I think is really exciting. I think that, as a culture, it’s a balancing act to actually practice your culture and live in the modern world. There are a lot of trade-offs, but in that, I think that there’s an opportunity to bring more awareness. I think what’s happening on television with Native stories is really exciting, so that’s a new opportunity to kind of showcase and celebrate the culture and provide opportunities for Natives to get involved with movies and TV and what have you.

Q: What is it about the medium of glass, specifically, that has continued to hold your interest in creating artwork that reflects your Tlingit identity?

A: Glass is my first medium and really the one that I understand best. I think glass, in terms of sculptural approaches and the way that I can handle the material, just brings another dimension to Indigenous art. I saw, early on, several confluences of influence that come into my whole story. It’s meeting those folks up at Pilchuck (the other two glass artists), traveling to Japan and seeing how the glass makers there could make work that had sort of an Asian influence to it, and I found that quite fascinating. I really have a fondness for Japan, so that was kind of eye opening. If it exists there, I imagine that Native Americans could work with the material and the same kind of thing would happen over time. I realized, too, that I occupy sort of a unique position because I’ve been doing it for so long that this is kind of like my life’s work. This is what I’m doing today, and it gives me a tremendous sense of purpose and it gives me this opportunity to reach a broad number of people because it’s bringing people’s awareness to a new material. In a lot of ways, it’s a transformative medium. That metamorphosis from being a furnace full of hot glass, into becoming an actual shape and form; that’s how I think of the process and it has this ability to transform culture and bring a new awareness to it.

Q: You mentioned in one of your other responses that you’ve been working with other Indigenous artists and in other countries, creating artwork together. Can you talk a bit about what that work has looked like?

A: I’ve spent a few years traveling to these Indigenous artist gatherings (one in Hawaii, another in New Zealand, and some previous gatherings). When we come together, it’s really profound because we share a lot about our culture and sharing stories and processes. By doing that, I learned how other cultures create work for the current society and art market. A lot of the work that I do doesn’t necessarily go back into the culture. You’re making a totem pole, you’re making it for your community; today, we’re sort of forced to go to the commercial market. The fact is, in the old days, the clan leaders were the ones that had control of the local resources and all the material wealth, and they were able to commission totem poles to be made. Today, the clan leaders all, everybody in this country, for the most part, has a job. Therefore, they’re not financially empowered to commission totem poles for the community, but in the old days, that was one of the only ways that you could raise your status within the community, by hosting a potlatch and being generous with your wealth and distributing it. A kind of redistribution of wealth is what a potlatch actually is.

Some of my favorite collaborations were with the Maori people and this one man, in particular, named Lewis Gardiner, who is a jade carver. We would combine glass and jade sculptures and sort of melt or glue them together. We’ve looked at similar kinds of symbols or stories, and we represent them in sculptural form. Then, there’s a woman down in New Mexico, Jody Naranjo, and she and I have been collaborating. I think we’ve done four different shows. She’s Santa Clara Pueblo and she represents her culture’s pottery. My love and my initial training is working with classical forms; this was a way for me to get back to making vases. That was really fun because, in some ways, it’s kind of a joy just to make a round, vessel form and not have to get all complicated and make it sculptural. We have a lot of fun.

Before emerging as an iconic figure of Indian cinema, Satyajit Ray was a graphic illustrator and perhaps that has become a less-known side of him today. Long before he created wonders in the world of celluloid Ray had established himself as a promising illustrator in the arena of advertisement.

According to the famous Indian painter Paritosh Sen, “Ray brought a mini-revolution in printing design.” Before joining D.J. Keymer’s office in 1943 as a junior visualiser, Ray extensively practiced “Oriental Art” under the tutelage of Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee. It is true that the “Kala Bhavan” of Shantiniketan was well-known for its emphasis on Indian tradition and originality but Ray and his batch-mates were not restricted within Indian culture and tradition.

Dinkar Kowshik – the well-known visual artist and Ray’s batchmate in Shantiniketan – says in the book “Satyajit Ray – an intimate Master: Those Kala Bhavan days”: “The hostel verandah was usually our drawing room.

We would gather and talk endlessly about the current world scene of art. The discussions were rambling and endless; names like Paul Klee, Brancusi, Kandinsky, Juan Miro, Picasso, Salvador Dali and Cezanne were used as sterling currency.

The Indian artists whose names graced the list were but few. Benode Behari, Nandalal, Ramkinkar, Rabindranath, Abanindranath and for a change Jamini Roy. No artist from Bombay could find favour in this elite list.

They were just crass imitationists who painted to please customers instead of themselves.” From Kowshik’s memory, it can be noticed how well updated they kept themselves in those days and they were intensely looking for an alternative path by rejecting the commercial Indian art of that time.

Ray joined D.J. Keymer in 1943 and in a very short time he became a well-known face in the Calcutta advertisement world. Some of his commercial illustrations were warmly accepted by the people. The half-opened Margo soap, one cigarette stick sticking out from the tin of Chelsea cigarettes and the woman in the “Tea with Music” commercial were some of the famous designs Ray did in his early career as a graphic designer.

Ray’s career as a graphic designer was not confined to the commercial advertisement world, he designed book jackets too. For instance, the book cover of Jibananda Das’s “Banalata Sen” shows the artistic brilliance of Ray. In this cover we can see an enigmatic doeeyed mysterious woman peering from behind the foliage (this cover tells us that Ray had a deep understanding of poetry too).

The book-covers of Sukumar Ray’s “Khai Khai”, Leela Majumdar’s “Jonaki” and Jim Corbett’s “Man Eaters of Kumaon” were some of his notable works but Ray’s life took a completely different turn when D.K. Gupta of Signet Press asked him to illustrate for “Aam Antir Bhepu” – an abridged version of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s masterpiece “Pather Panchali”. Today, we consider Ray as a predominantly image-driven storyteller. Perhaps he formulated his deep understanding of image composition in cinema during this period of illustrating for “Aam Antir Bhepu”.

“The Pather Panchali Sketchbook”, which Harper Collins published in 2016, gives us an insight into Ray’s process of composing scenes for his debut film. His son, Sandip Ray writes in the preface of the book – “Ray did not use his now-famous kheror khata (red notebook) to write the screenplay. He did some sketches in a drawing book after he had come back from London in 1950 and illustrated a succession of pictures (in pen, brush and ink) for the sequences of frames as they would come up in the film. He used to take them to the producers and explain the sequences.

The producers he approached, however, had no interest, nor could they understand the whole process. Some of the shot divisions were scribbled on chits of paper and cigarette packs.” When Ray shifted to his career in filmmaking, he decided to leave his full-time job; although his career as an illustrator did not end but took a new turn. During this time, Ray’s creativity flourished in poster designs for his films.

He eschewed the then prevalent commercial Bombay-made posters — which depicted the star’s face most of the time — and took an aesthetic, abstract approach towards poster designing. For instance, the poster of his 1960 film “Devi” (The Goddess) shows a young woman directly gazing at the viewer. Ray divided the face of the woman in two shades to portray the superstitious ambiguity of orthodox society. Ray took a minimalist approach while designing the poster for his 1964 classic “Charulata” (The Lonely Wife).

With swift brush strokes he created a profile-image of Charulata. The loneliness was very apparent in the melancholic longing eyes of the lady in the poster. In 1961 Ray revived the famous children’s magazine “Sandesh” which was originally founded by his grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury. During this time, Ray started his second innings as an illustrator and he also blossomed as a writer and translator.

He spent a monumental amount of time sketching and sketches became an inseparable part of his narratives. Almost all of his “Feluda” stories contain some eye-catching sketches. He took a dark silhouette-ish approach toward the pictures he drew for Feluda and his short stories; while the pictures he used for the Professor Shanku series were a bit complex.

The illustrations of “Eksringo Abhijan” and “Hypnogen” are quite reminiscent of the psychedelic art which gained momentum in the early 70s. Ray also sketched for others stories too; for instance he sketched “Ichingka” – an alien who appeared in the short story of Amitananda Das. Ray also adopted an unique style for the cover designs he made for Sandesh – the covers incorporated colorful geometric and floral patterns native to alpana art done by Ray himself. Ray also developed his skill in sketching portraits.

For instance, he made some impressive portraits of figures such as Sergei Eisenstein and V.I. Lenin. Ray was one of those few men of wisdom who was able to share the ray of his wisdom with people of all ages. He has left his traces not only in the world of celluloid but also in literature, illustration, music, advertisement and calligraphy.

Ray had a special quality through which he molded his ideas of western aesthetics with Indian art and incorporated them in his films, music, commercials and illustrations, and these Ray-made aesthetics are still very much prevalent in our society.

The ideas of Ray which are reflected sometimes in celluloid, sometimes in the pages of books, shape our early minds. We still develop our early social values, principles, taste for art and eyes for aesthetics from Ray – who was a committed social artist. We are still indebted to Satyajit Ray.

(The writer is pursuing a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University.)

Photographer Matika Wilbur was tired of seeing one-dimensional, insipid, degrading depictions of Native Americans in mainstream media and popular culture. So in 2012, Wilbur, who is of Swinomish and Tulalip descent, decided to create her own catalog of images.

She sold everything in her Seattle apartment and, with Kickstarter backing, headed out on the road, cameras in hand. Her goal: To illustrate Native Americans’ diversity and complexity by photographing members of all of the then-562 federally-recognized U.S. tribes.

Ten years, 600,000 miles, and several vehicles later, Wilbur has published her work – portraits and interviews – in a stunning new book: Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America. Over hundreds of pages, we meet Native elders, rappers, professors, artists, activists, linguists, dancers, ranchers, comedians, and more.

“In a lot of ways, this work is narrative correction work,” Wilbur said. “When I was talking to folks, I was aiming to understand, ‘What are some of the true stories about your people that you want people to know?'”

In her interviews with the people she photographed, they shared stories about the lasting effects of colonization and relocation; about environmental destruction done to Native lands; and about the traumatic experience of those who had been taken from their homes as children and sent to Indian boarding schools to be “assimilated,” forced to give up their language and Native identity.

But along with those painful conversations, Wilbur said, she also heard “the best parts: how we’ve healed from that, and what our people are doing to move forward, and to develop healthy and strong and thriving Indigenous nations.”

Wilbur dedicates Project 562 to her daughter Alma Bee, now three years old, with these words:

May your children

hear and breathe

the words of

our Indigenous ancestors.

May we all be so lucky to

know an Indigenous future.

Photos reprinted with permission from Project 562: Changing The Way We See Native America by Matika Wilbur © 2023. Photographs by Matika Wilbur © 2023. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The interview with Matika Wilbur was produced by Michael Levitt and edited by Justine Kenin. contributed to this story

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Fairgrounds, the whimsical walk-through, all-Florida art installation inside The Factory St. Pete, has unveiled its first new “exhibit” since opening in 2021.

Designed and constructed by the New Orleans “visual engineering team” Milagros, “Shrimpfinity” is, literally, a room full of shrimp imagery “as far as they eye can see.” There’s a six-foot tall shrimp cocktail, a shrimp-shaped disco ball ( a total of 34 shrimp sculptures), and numerous projections of undulating, plate-ready shrimp, all set to a soundscape that includes actual shrimp sounds (which is indeed a thing).

Milagros (Joey Fillastre and Felici Asteinza).

The Milagros collective consists of Felici Asteinza and Joey Fillastre, both native Floridians now hand-crafting art installations out of the Big Easy.

“When Fairgrounds reached out to us, we suggested a shrimp room, because that’s something that’s been in our universe for a really long time,” Asteinza explained. “And New Orleans has definitely amped our appetite for shrimp, for sure.”

Added Fillastre: “We’ve only ever lived in the Gulf South, so we’re really inspired by the aesthetics of Florida.”

The installation, he said, evolved from the initial sketches he and Asteinza submitted to Fairgrounds. There was quite a bit of back-and-forth, and ultimately another concept sketch. “If you saw the two different sketches at a glance, you’d go ‘oh, it’s the same thing. The actual overall idea of it was pretty much the same as the initial thing, but then it got more intricate.

“And in the design phase, we thought of other people to involve – in thinking about lighting and projections and that type of stuff – and that kind of informed the direction from there.”

Jessica Bizer (a St. Pete native who lives in New Orleans) created the animations, Fairgrounds’ Mikhail Mansion created projection maps, and musician Tristan Whitehill (of Gainesville) crafted the shrimp soundscape.

“Its very ethereal and ambient, and kind of electronic,” explained Fillastre. “But the base of most of the sound is shrimp noises.”

Fairgrounds website.

Fresh Squeezed

At the Morean Arts Center, the Fresh Squeezed exhibit- an all-Florida multi-media art show – is in its seventh year. For the first time, all six participating emerging artists are women.

According to Chief Curator Amanda Cooper, more than 120 portfolio submissions were received for the 2023 Fresh Squeezed exhibit. After a series of studio visits and interviews, the final participants were chosen. It’s the first solo gallery exhibition for each.

The artists:

Work by KJ Skidmore

KJ Skidmore, Tampa. A USF graduate student whose drawings and paintings explores gendered tropes and forms of voyeurism. Her works often include multimedia sculptural components.

Laura De Valencia, Tallahassee. A Colombia born lawyer turned multidisciplinary artist with a BFA in advertising design from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and an MFA from Florida State University.

Latonya Hicks, Clearwater. She is the Secondary Technology Integration Coordinator for Pinellas County Schools. Hicks says she “collects people as well as objects and uses them to tell a story she doesn’t quite know the end of yet.”

Deborah Perlman, Hollywood. Abstract geometric wall-mounted sculpture, emphasizing shadows, using a variety of materials including paper, plastic, wood, aluminum wire, wire mesh and photographs.

Work by Leeann Rae

Leeann Rae, Orlando. Drawn images with charcoal and soft pastel – she “utilizes photographic references, imagination, recounted stories and her own lived experience as vessels of recollected memories.”

Morean Arts Center website