Artist’s Opening Reception Speech

January 10th, 2020

Watermark Art Center

Bemidji, MN

Opening message: 

First of all I’d just like to say how grateful I am to have all of you here supporting me and being willing to take this journey with me. I’d like to take the opportunity to share a little bit about my work with you. I’ve prepared something to read. And know that there will be the opportunity to ask questions once I’m done reading it. I know hearing someone read can be less engaging and feel less like a conversation but I’d rather be boring but articulate about my work, instead of risk going off on a tangent and never coming back.

I now describe myself as a textile artist who “paints" with fabric and “draws" with thread. It’s very difficult for me to talk about what I’ve created. When people approach me and say, “Tell me about your art”, it feels like they are saying “Open your heart to me,” to which I’d instinctively like to reply.... “I’m not sure we really know each other that well…”

But for all of you here tonight, I’ll do my best to try to open my heart to you so that we can share this experience with each other. 

First I’d like to talk about my craft, or more specifically about how the work is physically made:

I am not a quilter. For me the word quilter assumes mastery of various sewing techniques. My sewing abilities are very minimal. I know that when I but two pieces together and slide it under the needle of my machine, it will connect the two pieces… and that’s pretty much the extend of my sewing capabilities.  I have lots of respect for master quilters, so I definitely want to make the distinction. I don’t sketch anything out ahead of time. I just hold it all in my head. I use fabric of varying textures, shapes, and sizes and place them on a large blank piece of fabric, like you would a brush stroke onto canvas if you were a painter. Most of my pieces are about an inch in diameter, but many are smaller than that. I place several small pieces at a time while I process. 

Once I feel solid about what’s happening in front of me, I tack each piece down with a tiny drop of fabric adhesive to hold the pieces in place while I continue placing the next several pieces. Batik fabrics are my favorite to use because of all of the subtle nuances in the fabric. Looking for pieces to use is like a scavenger hunt for me, not just in a fabric store with what fabric to choose but even within a single piece of fabric itself. I scan every square inch of the material looking for the right color gradient or shape or blending of colors within a single square of batik fabric. 

For most of these portraits I took a video of my child, then took several stills of the video so that I could reference their facial structure from different angles and from that could roughly get the proportions close to their actual facial structure. I don’t measure anything. Nothing at all, I eyeball it. Which is part of the reason why my work is irregular shaped. I don’t measure, I feel it out instead. When I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the composition is complete, then I make the work more permanent by sewing it together. I love thread. I love the kaleidoscope of colors in my collection of thread. I love that I can add fine detail to my work using thread and I love how challenging it is to draw with it. I have to shout out to the Region 2 Arts Council for the Individual Artist Grant I had received in March because my new sewing machine handles all of my beautiful specialty threads like a boss! 

Once I've sewn it together, at that stage the piece feels finished but I still have to mount it. It took a long time to decide how to display my work. I thought about hanging them like tapestries, which is a pretty traditional way to display fabric. But that didn’t feel right from the very beginning. So then for months I thought I was going to stretch them over a frame like one would a canvas. But my work wasn’t perfectly square or rectangular because I don’t measure anything. And it wasn’t perfectly flat because I don't iron anything. The thought of changing my approach to accommodate that particular way of presenting them …measuring and ironing …and conforming, made me feel …stressed honestly. Not only did I really not want to incorporate those things into my process, I didn’t want to consider those things at all. 

My images desired both structure and movement. So I had the idea to mount them on some sort of shapable wire. When I mentioned this to the very few people who knew what I was up to, I got a lot of hesitant head nodding with “Oh’s" and “Hmmmm’s” which were not altogether very encouraging. But then I told my daughter Maddy about my vision, who is an artist herself. And she said, “YES! YES! Do it! They’ll be even more dynamic that way!” I highly value her opinion, especially when it involves something creative. And Maddy totally totally gets me. So in that exchange between her and I, full of energetic and excited vibes bouncing off of one another, it became clear to me that I should follow my creative vision, no matter how weird it is. 

Then I made my daughter Luella’s portrait. As I was creating it, I felt very strongly that not only did the image want both structure and movement like the other pieces I'd created, it also wanted to explode.  I shouldn’t box her in, I couldn’t box her in. If you know Luella, that probably resonates even more. Once I mounted her portrait, I absolutely fell in love with it and with using a freer form like that. And so with every portrait that followed, I stopped not at an edge but wherever it felt natural for me to stop, whatever the shape may be in the end. 

These portraits took me a tremendous amount of time. The time it took was in part because I was experiencing a learning curve figuring out how to do this, but even when I arrived at a place of confidence with what I was doing it became very clear that this work, the way that I do it, it's so meticulous and it simply takes a tremendous amount of time. The least amount of time I spent on one portrait was around 200 hours. And each portrait took me a minimum of three days just to sew it together, I’m talking about 8 hour days or longer. I think on one of them I sewed for 18 hours one day, and I was half way done with it when I finally went to bed. So blood, sweat, and tears were all involved in creating this work that you see before you. Yes I said blood, and I mean that too. In the process I once managed to put the needle of my machine straight through my finger, trapping myself to the machine until someone came to rescue me. Thanks mom, for the rescue!

Now I’d like to share with you how I got here, how I came to this craft and how I found my voice by creating my own language if you will.  

My children participate in a particular Native American ceremony, and it is a very big deal for them and for our family. I was required to make blankets as a part of their offering for this ceremony. Because these blankets were made as a spiritual offering, the process was very spiritual for me. And because it was the only way that I could contribute to this part of my child's  spiritual journey as a non-native woman, I poured everything I had into those offerings. I have always been a creative person and so I couldn’t simply do squares for these tremendously important offerings. I instead used each blanket to depict or represent the native American names that my children had been gifted. In the process of creating their blankets I taught myself to sew and eventually arrived at this art form and now I cannot seem to let this love affair with fabric go.

Even still, though my work is no longer ceremonial, it’s very spiritual for me. An image comes to me first. The images are like visions that nag at me, much like a dream you’ve had that you can’t stop thinking about. I feel inspiration channeling through me faster than my fingers can move. It's not until the piece is finished, that I ask myself…”Ok, now what was this meant to communicate to me?”  The decisions I make are not what will the image be, I feel like that is instead decided for me. So the decisions I make are on how to best recreate the image in my head. It’s not until the end that I ask myself, “Now what does this mean to me?”

Often the meaning comes in waves or layers over time and sometimes this revelation can take months. And like the interpretation of a dream. You may have insights into the meaning that either are, or are for the time being, lost on me. These images may speak to you in a way they do not speak to anyone else. For several of the portraits included in the show, the story has not yet completely unveiled itself for me. Instead, it is still in the process of slowly unfolding. And for the portraits I feel I’ve adequately deciphered, I still continue to make new connections, to see things that I hadn’t before. 

Now I’d like to tell you about what what you see, and what my work means to me. 

First of all, I am well aware of issues concerning cultural appropriation. My dearest friend, a native woman, expressed concern early on in this project about what people would have to say about me creating images that represent and are absolutely about Ojibwe Culture. To that I’d like to say that I recognize that that may make some people uncomfortable, and I’d love to have a conversation about that should it be anyone's concern. I’ve not created this work to be provocative, and I will not shy away from that conversation. 

What I would like people to understand is that this …what you see before you …is what my life looks like. These are the people with whom I’ve most intimately connected. And in this show about identity, it was incredibly important to me to accurately depict my family members as authentic to who they are as I could. So there are three Portraits in this show that I feel portray Ojibwe Culture so clearly that it would not be lost on anyone. I would argue that these 3 human beings in particular: my son Evan, my son Isaac, and my husband, all hold their heritage in very high regard. These three Ojibwe men, (Evan’s 12 so he’s getting closer to manhood) but for these men in my life, they absolutely want you to know that they are Ojibwe. It is central to how they see themselves, they would not want that to be lost on you. And so, to be true to who they are, these images are exactly how they need to be, made by the non-native woman who loves them.  

The Goldfinch

The goldfinch is a constant in my work. It is the language bird in Ojibwe culture. In my work however, I’ve expanded their representation to include the entire Ojibwe cultural and spiritual “tool box” if you will, which also includes the language. What I’ve experienced with traditional Ojibwe culture and spirituality is that it is so much deeper than a simple representation of past customs. The traditional food, clothing, language and  music…etc, ….it all has layers upon layers of meaning that means so much more than that ...those “things” explain to them how to connect to the earth, to the spirits that dwell here, to each other, and to one’s self. Those things are heavily saturated with meaning. The birds represent that depth of knowledge and understanding that my family and other Ojibwe people who follow a traditional path possess about who they are, where they come from, and what their purpose is while they are here. 

So for example of how that representation plays out in my work, I’ll explain a little bit about the portrait titled Prayer for Jordan. Jordan is my oldest child. She has struggled with drug addiction for a decade, has been in and out of treatment, in and out of jail, and has lost her children (who are featured in my portrait of my son Robert who dropped out of college to raise them when they were removed from my daughter’s care). The portrait is a prayer that those cultural and spiritual ways of being may overcome her vision by blocking her access to the destructive influences she has become fixated on. The cultural “toolbox” as I like to call it is a birthright … but it was also gifted to her. And it feels as though she has neglected to open the box for some time now. The wire mesh that I mounted my pieces on are visible in parts of this portrait representing the cage both literally and figuratively that she keeps not only her heritage in but the cage her body and spirit are in as well, having been placed behind bars several times. I encourage all of you to be prayerful as you interact with those particular pieces. 

As uncomfortable as it is for me, publicly sharing her private struggles, I know that she can’t do this all alone. In addition, I believe that  the more we “see” each other, actually see each other, the more love and support we can generate from each other and my hope is that by sharing this she will have the full weight and breadth of this community rallying behind her. Even if it's just through prayerful thoughts, because those are incredibly powerful. The goldfinch represents the awe inspiring beauty and …magic that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness and in some cases access living this life that I live.

This show, the “Portraits” series is an exploration into the role Ojibwe traditional cultural practices and beliefs plays in shaping the way my family sees itself collectively, the role it takes in shaping the personal identities of my husband and my nine children, and the influences or effect it’s had on my own personal identity. As a white woman, the only non-native person in my immediate family, this exhibit is about my reflections as an outsider and about the emotional rollercoaster I often ride as I stand fixed on the outside, but privileged enough to look in. This exhibition is not just about the pieces of Ojibwe culture I’ve been allowed to see, but also what it’s allowed me to see within myself, and even to recognize what cannot be found there.

My Self Portrait 

My self portrait is about the cocktail of both despair and hope that I feel as a mother and wife in this family, and about my purpose in this world. I’m in the dark and naked. I often feel I have nothing to offer my children or my husband. I am of Scandinavian decent but I don’t even know what that means to me. I don’t have ways of being handed down and taught with purpose. I don’t have things that are known by my people and through my people from ancient times. I don’t have spiritual gifts, birthrights to bestow...etc. No toolbox. I’m just out here winging it! Loaded up on American culture...gas stations, shopping malls, McDonalds. I didn’t realize how little I had until I realized my husband had so much. I didn’t know how lost I felt until I became aware of how sure-footed my husband and my children are. But I have hope. The antlers are on top of my head as if to say, there is something incredible about me too. I also possess a spectacular gift. I can’t see it but I can feel it as though it’s within my very bones, past down from my ancient tribe too. And someday I’ll know how to use it and be empowered by it.

Thank you

I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight. I’d like to thank everyone who has supported my ability to create these portraits and to be here with you. I want to thank those of you who’ve connected with me about my work and everyone who took the time to share my work with someone else. I’d like to thank the Watermark for not only allowing me the opportunity to have my art up on your walls, which is a very big deal for me, but I'd also like to thank you for your incredible support and mentorship. I’m am so grateful to be connected to all of you. 

I’d like to thank my children for supporting me, for tolerating me taking over the kitchen to create my art and of course for being the inspiration for this show. And I’d like to thank my husband. He is the reason this exhibit exists. It’s about him as much as it is about me. This man, the way he lives his life, the work that he is called to do, and the things he’s gifted me all these years. That's the heart of this show. You are what my heart wants to celebrate. I love you. 

-Blair Treuer 

Textile Artist

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