04 Feb 2012
Lodge opened at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon today. I am not yet there; my husband and I welcomed our daughter Evelyn into the world last week and of course I couldn't travel. But I will be at the museum on Friday, March 9, for a public conversation with the show's curator, Rebecca J. Dobkins, and my friend and reluctant mentor, James Lavadour. I'll also host a sewing circle in conjunction with the University's 10th annual Pow Wow on Saturday, March 10. I hope to see everybody I know at both events.
Lodge is a mid-career retrospective featuring a couple of installation pieces not yet seen on the west coast: Engine, which I made in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, and Dwelling, made for the No Reservations show at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Richfield, Connecticut. There is new work as well.
I am delighted and honored to be showing this work at Willamette – which as you may know is my undergraduate alma mater – and doubly so to have worked with the redoubtable Rebecca Dobkins, John Olbrantz, and their superb staff. The Hallie Ford Museum was only the Hallie Ford Gallery when I was a student: these people have done a remarkable job of transforming the institution into a regional hub for arts and culture. Anyway, I can't wait to get home to the Northwest. This is going to be fun.
06 Jun 2011
The photojournalist Alexia Beckerling made a lovely little film about my exhibit Heirloom, which hung at the Missoula Art Museum back in 2009. I didn't know it had been uploaded to Vimeo until now. Many thanks, Alexia.
13 May 2011
I was touched and honored to be selected as the featured artist at this year's installment of ArtBeat, Portland Community College's annual arts festival. I taught there for several years after I finished graduate school; and it was there that I met and learned from Bob Dozono, one of my first and most important mentors. I am a huge fan of the community college system in general, and Portland's in particular: it seems to me to come closest to the ideal Joseph Beuys' Free International University. It's not quite free, but it is affordable. And if you're willing to work a bit, you can get as good or better an education there as anywhere.
01 Jan 2011
I'm happy to announce that I've received a commission from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to make a site-specific piece for their new global campus, currently under construction near the Seattle Center.
Blanket Stories: Matriarch, Guardian and Seven Generations will be a 14-foot-tall column of wool blankets, and will be sited in the campus' greeting area. It's the first column I've made with the explicit goal of collecting and integrating blankets from around the world, echoing the Foundation's global mission; the column will be constructed of reclaimed blankets and reclaimed cedar, in resonance with the campus' goal of attaining LEED Gold certification.
We should install in mid- to late May 2011. If you'd like to donate a blanket, let me know: as always, I'll trade you the blanket for a small, silkscreened print.
16 Dec 2010
I haven't seen it yet, because I hate hearing myself talk, but my husband tells me that the segment OPB's Oregon Art Beat actually makes me sound like I know what I'm doing. (He was much more complimentary, actually.) At any rate, I'm grateful to producer Bruce Barrow for his interest and his patience, and delighted to be part of such an excellent program. (By the way, my husband has also been on the show, four years ago.)
05 Nov 2010
The Smithsonian made a nice little film about the sewing circle I held at NMAI for their Vantage Point exhibition back in September. If you haven't been to one of the circles, it'll give you a good idea of what goes on there.
12 Oct 2010
I'm honored to have been selected for a 2010 Artistic Innovation Grant from the Native Arts & Culture Foundation. The very generous award will help to underwrite my 2011 work, which is tentatively titled "A Secular Operatic Interpretation of First Nation Histories" and will consist of three large wall pieces – sewn in community – as well as drawings and other stuff slated for my show at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art and Tacoma and Seattle Art Museums in 2012. Thank you, good people: I'm very grateful.
01 Sep 2010
My friend and mentor James Lavadour (my term, not his; he claims not to want the responsibility) and I have been included in Vantage Point, a survey of contemporary Native art, at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. I'm delighted and honored to be showing with Jim and other friends from the Native community; the show has been sharply curated by Rebecca Head Trautmann. I'll be there, with my parents in tow, and hosting a sewing circle at NMAI on Saturday, September 25. Come by, say hello and sew a bit.
12 Aug 2010
Boy. It seems like ever since I moved East, my work keeps pulling me back West. I am honored to have been selected as a lecturer for the 2010 Mills College Art Lecture Series, a program for Mills MFA students (but I believe open to the public as well). I'll be in Oakland on February 23; my lecture is at 7:00 p.m. at the Danforth Lecture Hall. I have no idea what I'm going to say yet, but it's safe to assume that the slide deck will contain pictures of John Wayne.
14 Nov 2008
We're in Seattle this weekend, where I just opened Portraits, my first solo show at Greg Kucera Gallery. I'm happy to be showing with Greg, and happy with the work, which takes the cameo-style portraiture of Mothers and Sons in a slightly new direction. The show features composite portraits of Jim Thorpe, Joseph Beuys, Susan B. Anthony, my daughter Max and others, as well as several blanket stacks, including a 15-foot number which my parents (thanks, Mom & Dad) helped install.
My gallery talk is Saturday, 15 November at noon. If you're in town, come over and say hello. I'll post the work shortly; as usual, it was down to the wire, and some of it wasn't documented as well as I might have liked. But: good show, I think. Check it out.
23 Aug 2008
I'm halfway through three weeks in New York City, on fellowship at the Lower East Side Printshop. Can't say I was fully prepared for the weather (no raingear vs. severe thunderstorms), and feel like I flopped around for the greater part of the first week, but I've hit my stride and am pretty excited about the work I'm doing here. The main issue, as usual, is that now that I've figured out what to do, will I have enough time to finish it before I have to go home?
16 Jun 2008
We're in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week installing a slightly smaller version of the Blanket Stories: Almanac exhibition shown in 2006 at the Nicolaysen in Casper. It's a smaller space, so the work has been thinned out a bit; Braid had to go back to the Eiteljorg, so we've included Threshold from last year's Tread Lightly show at PDX Contemporary Art. While I'm here, I'll also be doing a little bit of teaching – local students who haven't yet had the chance to get used to summer vacation – as well as conducting a sewing circle on Saturday. If you're in the area, stop by and hang out.
15 Jun 2008
Last night was the grand opening of the first Contemporary Northwest Art Awards. True to form, we were sewing more or less up until the caterers arrived. The first Schnitzer Prize was taken by the gentlemanly Whiting Tennis, who is so tall he makes my 6'3" husband look like a normal person. I'm very happy with the studio's contribution (Forget-me-not: Blossom and Forget-me-not: Mothers and Sons), but that aside, I have to say this is a very strong show; kudos to Jen Gately for her whip hand, and also to Mr. Tennis, Dan Attoe, Cat Clifford, and Jeffry Mitchell for kicking out some awesome work. Also, in spite of the usual anxiety of installation, I had a great time: there was enough overlap among our various personality types to make for some real Mickey-Rooney-Judy-Garland-hey-kids-let's-put-on-a-show camaraderie. Sure, there was a prize at stake, but for artists, making art is not a competitive sport. All week, Jeffry wore a button reading "Everyone is a winner", and these people certainly made me feel like it.
09 Jun 2008
It feels a little redundant announcing a new Web site on the new Web site itself, but: we have a new Web site, designed and implemented by the Portland brand development firm Pinch. We're still pushing content – which means Emily is rooting through our stacks of CDs and slide folders and trying to get a handle on what we have documented – but the current CV is up, we have a fairly complete collection of pieces folks have written about us, and maybe about 20% of documented work posted. We'll keep at it; and though we're switching over to a faster host next week, keep in mind that the only way to look at art online is by using largish pictures, which can take a while to load if you're on a slow connection.