gallery installation – jetsonorama

One of the best memes I saw over the past couple years read “Fuck a wall. America needs to build a big ass mirror to take a look at itself.” I used the opportunity to show work at Blue Sky to look at similarities we share in the Americas rather than what separates us. To this end I used corn as a metaphor for our shared realities. As noted in my artist statement for the show…

“Maize or corn, a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago, is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas and has become a staple food in many parts of the world. However, little of this maize is consumed directly by humans: most is used for corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and corn syrup. Genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. Its ubiquitous presence in unsuspecting food items contributes to the soaring prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

In 1894, two brothers, Dr John Harvey Kellogg and Will Keith “WK” Kellogg, were running a sanitarium and health spa in the town of Battle Creek, Michigan. Among the treatments offered at the sanitarium/hospital for various ailments were hot and cold water baths, hydro-therapy with water enemas, electric-current therapy, light therapy using both sunlight and artificial lamps, and a regimen of exercise and massage. Among the more famous of the hospital’s clients through the 1910’s and 1920’s were President Warren G Harding, actor Johnny Weissmuller, Henry Ford, Amelia Earhart, Sojourner Truth, and Mary Todd Lincoln.

As Seventh Day Adventists the Kelloggs believed in maintaining the purity of the “body’s temple”, and forbade the use of caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. They were also strict vegetarians. Dr. John Kellogg was firmly convinced that sex itself was impure and harmful–and most especially the “solitary vice”, the “self-pollution” of masturbation. Kellogg married, but never consummated the union. Among the treatments Dr. Kellogg proposed for masturbation were piercing the foreskin with silver wires to prevent erections, and using carbolic acid to burn the clitoris so it wouldn’t be touched.

Kellogg convinced himself that eating meats and spicy foods increased the desire for sex, and forbade any of them at his sanitarium. Following the earlier lead of Presbyterian religious fanatic Sylvester Graham, who had invented the whole-wheat graham cracker as part of a diet that would reduce people’s sexual desire and stop them from both copulating and masturbating. Kellogg now attempted to make his own anti-sex food which became the corn flakes we know + love today. (From The Daily Kos 10.23.14.)

Meanwhile, thousands of Central American migrants trudging through Mexico towards the US have regularly been described as either fleeing gang violence or extreme poverty. But another crucial driving factor behind the migrant caravan has been harder to grasp: climate change. Most members of the migrant caravans come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – three countries where corn is a cash crop and devastated by violence, organized crime and systemic corruption, the roots of which can be traced back to the region’s cold war conflicts. Experts say that alongside those factors, climate change in the region is exacerbating – and sometimes causing – a miasma of other problems including crop failures and poverty.

So when one thinks of what it means to be an American – whether it’s indigenous people praying with it’s pollen, religious groups ingesting it to curb sexual desires, people with amputations + blindness from type 2 diabetes or Central Americans pursuing a safer and better life, we have to examine our relationship with corn as a signifier of our shared experience.”

Ryan Pinto performing his chapter to “Messages from the Underworld” titled “Tribe-scendent.”

My Justseeds homie, Thea Gahr holding it down pulling screens for the people.

Shout out to Kingsley for the assistance.

Founding Blue Sky member Chris Rauschenberg rocking his t shirt from the show (who was heard saying under his breath “I went to an art opening and all I got was this lousy t shirt.”)

With my collaborators Ryan Pinto and Jesse Hazelip.

May 3, 2018 the show “Lazy Stitch” opened. Organized by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger the promotional material for the show reads “…

AZY STITCH exhibition opened May 3 at Ent Center for Contemporary Art UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art
Colorado Springs, CO. Organized by Cannupa Hanska Luger with collaborating artists Chip Thomas, Jesse Hazelip, Kali Spitzer, Kathy Whitman & 1000 Tiny Mirrors. Lazy Stitch is on exhibition through July 21, 2018

Contemporary artists from diverse backgrounds work together in collaboration with artist Cannupa Hanska Luger to present a new exhibition that investigates the interconnectedness of the human story. Through social engagement, public art, monumental sculpture, mural installation, photography, performance and wearable sculptural regalia, Lazy Stitch takes the relationship of the bead and the thread as its context, co-creating narrative about life on this planet.

“What constitutes a bead is the hole. It holds the thread. The voided matter actually creates the function of the object. This void becomes the potential for connection. In this respect, finding value in the relationship between humans acknowledges the importance of intersecting experiences which create a larger narrative.” -Cannupa Hanska Luger

The term lazy stitch describes a sewing methodology often used in Indigenous beadwork. Individual multi-colored beads are threaded and sewn, one row at a time, eventually revealing a complex image when all rows are complete. The lazy stitch is an approach to craft-making, but also represents a value system in which each individual is important to the whole. Lazy Stitch uses this metaphor as a way to explore contemporary issues through collaborative practice, while revealing the potential for collective social agency.”

This past February I spent a weekend with Cannupa, artist Cheyenne Randall and curator Erin Joyce. It was this time that afforded me the opportunity to learn stories about deities from the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara of North Dakota. Cannupa gave the framework of the warrior twins Big Medicine and Black Medicine (whom he referred to as “The One Who Checks” and “The One Who Balances”). For this show he imagined them as spirit guides who returned to the material plane to remind those who know, those who read the signs that it’s time for us to address our environment + social injustices. Cannupa and Cheyenne spent a day dressed in the regalia Cannupa and his mom, Kathy Whitman made for spirit beings as they went about their day engaging in acts of civil disobedience with the infrastructure of the extractive fossil fuel industry, getting food from a local trading post and getting gas from another trading post. A day in the life with the hero archetypes…

Lazy Stitch

tintype photo by kali spitzer with the beaded portrait created by cannupa + various communities collaborating with the project by making clay beads.

jesse hazelip pasteups of bomber buffaloes

decorated ceramic buffalo skulls + barbed wire sculpture by cannupa + jesse

rope performance by 1000 tiny mirrors

the warrior twins battling the extractive fossil fuels industry beast

Limited edition (50), hand-pulled screen print “spirits in a material world.” One hundred percent of sales from the first 25 prints sold (at $50/print) resulted in $1250 being donated to the National Women’s Association of Canada. They state on their website “…The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has worked for more than four decades to document the systemic violence impacting Indigenous women, girls, their families, and communities. From 2005 to 2010, NWAC’s Sisters In Spirit (SIS) Initiative confirmed 582 cases of missing and/or murdered Indigenous women and girls over a span of twenty years and worked to raise awareness of this human rights issue. ” The remaining 25 prints will be sold through Justseeds.org.