What Was, What Is, What Will Be 2024, 75″ x 40″x 40″, Steel, Nylon
Created as a site-specific for the Rotunda Gallery at Montclair Art Museum. This work is delicate dance shawl fringe that encircles an 1896 marble figure by sculptor William Couper, “Crown for the Victor (Beauty’s Wreath for Valor’s Brow)” (1896), that had been in the gallery for the last 20 years. The shawl fringe is a way to layer my Delaware Lenape history and that of the sculpture showing both our histories together.
What Was What Is What Will Be
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
Bloodline, Keeper of the Seeds 2021, 30″ x 98″ x 18″ in, Unique cast bronze with patina, cedar, and steel
It is a matriarchal society that my family lineage comes from; the woman cared for the children and the stories of their family. They told the history and planted the seeds for the next generation. Their lives, my life, and that of my daughter are full of the twists and turns that women hold in our society.
The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures, and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.
When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.
Sold
In the collection of the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State, University Park, Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
To Take Shape and Meaning, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina (March 2–July 28, 2024)
EXPO Chicago 2023, Center for Native Futures, Chicago Illinois (April 13-16, 2023)
Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )Bloodline Keeper of the Seed installed at Volland
Bloodline Keeper of the Seed Installed at The Volland Store
Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Glass, Brass, and Feathers, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2022
I am more than the view that my people are frozen in time, lost to a romanticized ideal of who the Native Americans were, we are more, and we are still here. I am not this fluff; I am here; I am loud and larger than life.
In the collection of the Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Red, is my daughter; she wanted to be Deadpool, a fast-talking superhero, though at the time she was not much of a talker. In that moment I wondered how will she be seen or heard as she grows in our current world. What mask will she have to wear to be considered equal.
As children, we make and wear masks to become anything we want or need to be. We can do anything in them, from being a superhero to a bird in flight. As adults, the layers and meaning of masks deepen and grow. They are a way to represent the different personas that we need or desire to be in life. Masks are an identity that one can live through or hide behind.
RED
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
36″ x 24″
2, 4, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
In the Collection of:
Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, Indiana
C. N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California
Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri
Exhibition History
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis
(January 9-March 16, 2018)
In a strategic trickster twist, I feature children, often masked, as a tool to bring the viewer into my work. Masks are multi-layered. They are a mechanism to hide or obscure our true intentions, acting as a wall between us and the world. Masks are also agents of transformation, powerful and sometimes dangerous.
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
GHOST OF THE DEAD
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/4″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1, 2, 3, and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
In the Collection of:
C. N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California
Exhibition History
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis
(January 9-March 16, 2018)
My work attempts to explore what lies beneath or in the shadows. I am intrigued with the power of these shadows in our lives and how they haunt us or make us doubt our reality, at times even terrorizing us. I consciously incorporate shadows in my work by controlling the lighting and relationships of the figures, giving form to the secrets that linger in our lives.
Archival Color Photograph
mounted on 1/8″ plexi with museum mount
24″ x 36″
1, 3, 4 and 5 available from the edition of 5
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
In the Collection of:
C. N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California
EXHIBITION HISTORY
The Thread that Connects, Spiva Center for the Arts, Joplin Missouri (January 14 – March 4)
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
Upturned Flower That Travels, The Volland Store, Alma, Kansas (November 6 – December 5, 2021 )
Holly Wilson: Talk Story, C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California-Davis
(January 9-March 16, 2018)
Currently on view in a Solo Exhibition
“On Turtle’s Back”
September 8 – October 11, 2022
Pauly Friedman Art Gallery
Misericordia University
301 Lake Street
Dallas, PA 18612
1.570.674.8420
For inquiries, please contact: The Studio
Mustang, OK 73064 | 405.308.0239
IN THE COLLECTION OF
Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania
Exhibition History
On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)
2017, 29” x 11.5’ x 9”, Unique Cast Bronze with Patina, Cedar, and Steel
The figures walk across a cedar tree base that is cut lengthwise exposing the rough center revealing the lines that show its life and history. Growing up, my mother would use cedar to purify our home, release spirits, and chase away bad dreams. That smell for me is home. I de-barked the exterior but kept the curve of the tree and its raw surface. You see the figures walking through time—their life above and the tree’s life below.
The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors from my past as far back as I can trace.
There are sections for each generation, beginning with my children. Though I only have two, there are five figures. Each life is counted and the children who did not survive are remembered with a place on the wood in history; their forms small and their heads bowed. Next, I have my section with my sisters and brother followed by my mother’s history. When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.”
