Artist Spotlight
Self-Portraiture in the work of Wendy Red Star and Joe Fedderson

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

In an age in which self-portraiture is everywhere, contemporary art is tasked with taking on the vitality of an artist’s self-reflection. Featured in the Winter Exhibition are two Northwest Indigenous artists, Wendy Red Star and Joe Feddersen, who despite their generational gap both began their careers exploring self-portraiture. Many people’s first thought when they hear Indigenous artwork is to think of traditional baskets and weaving, a mistake that contemporary artists like Feddersen and Red Star have been setting straight from the beginning of their careers. These two artists demonstrate the dynamic nature of identity in all aspects of their work. Evidently, their self-portraits are a prime example of this. 

Joe Feddersen’s self-portrait, Surface Self Portrait, is on display in the Schneider’s Main Gallery. This is a multimedia work featuring a photo of Feddersen, push pins, staples, and various patterns. He placed himself as an Indigenous artist among modern artistic techniques such as the use of office supplies. This is in contrast to the patterns on the rest of the work that remind the viewer of something traditional, but which have clearly been updated. Made in 1988, this is the oldest piece of Feddersen’s work on display in this exhibition. 

Wendy Red Star’s Four Seasons series is her best known work. These photographs feature her in front of various artificial backdrops she created to emulate that of a natural history museum. Her artistic approach to this series, contrasts her identity to the historic and popular perceptions of what it means to be Indigenous. She combats this general prejudice by using herself as the subject in the midst of astro turf and fake seventies living room murals. Wendy has two more self-portraits in the exhibition, both of which also feature her daughter. Using the self-portrait format, she has updated what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous woman and artist. Many of her images correct the historic representations of her ancestors photographed by Edward Curtis. 

Both Feddersen and Red Star show the world that Indigenous artwork is contemporary, relevant, and stunning. They used their own image to combat the perceptions of their identities. In a society in which many people take pictures of themselves on a near daily basis, self-documentation has become both commonplace and highly artistic. The self-portraits in the Winter Exhibition demonstrate the power in being both the artist and the subject of your own thoughtful work. 

The Winter Exhibition Two Generations: Joe Feddersen & Wendy Red Star will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
Together/Juntos

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Justin Favela creates not only art, but also an environment with his pieces. Going into its final week of production, the exhibition Together/Juntos in the Schneider’s Main Gallery has enveloped the room. In contrast from the exhibition’s opening, the once sparsely covered walls are now coated in tissue paper from the floor up. 

At the base of Together/Juntos has been the Favela Tuesday Teams. Over the past two months the Southern Oregon community has really come together in the assembly of the mural. The beautiful thing about this installation is that everyone who came to the Tuesday Team has left their mark on the walls of the museum. The energy at these events has a certain sense of electricity, the excitement to participate in something both artistic and collaborative brought people back week after week. The Tuesday Team regulars returned with an eagerness to meet new people and watch as the mural came together. Music playing in the background, people chatting, and the rainbow colors of hundreds of pieces of tissue paper set the scene every Tuesday night. 

The final component of the exhibition will be the edition of student sculptures from Favela’s Site-Specific Art class. With their completion on Wednesday the 11th, these massive food sculptures will be on display with the mural for the final week of the Fall Exhibitions. This collaborative aspect from both Favela’s students and the members of the community have created what is truly special about Together/Juntos. Justin started with a vision and then the passion and excitement of others brought it all together. This exhibition has given the gift of collaboration to everyone who worked on it in a rare opportunity for people to be involved in the production of fine art. It is Favela’s unique piñata style and commitment to working together that makes his artwork so truly special. Shining through the production of the mural is both love and heritage, he teaches people that art is for everyone and embracing who you are and where you come from is the key to community. 

Everyone is encouraged to come see the final week of the Fall Exhibitions to not only see the progression of Together/Juntos, but to see the wonderful and thoughtful art by all the artists exhibited. 

The Fall Exhibitions will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until December 14th, 2019.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
V. Maldonado

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Looking at Maldonado’s paintings begs us to ask: what can be said when we aren’t using words? There is something about these massive paintings that wants to be understood. They envelope their space while simultaneously explaining something unexplainable and guiding us through incredible simplicity. This was Maldonado’s attempt to try something they have never tried before, and the payoff has been incredibly positive. 

Victor Maldonado, who now goes by V., is originally from Changuitiro, Michoacan, Mexico but grew up in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California. They are currently the Assistant Dean for Diversity and Inclusions at Pacific Northwest College of Art. This is V.’s first museum show despite their work being recently purchased by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the Portland Art Museum. 

Their current work is a response to identity. Much like many of the other exhibitions on display this fall, these paintings speak to figuring out oneself in the face of conflicting boundaries. V. is using these paintings to take control of their own design. The exhibition is entitled: Excerpts From a Book I’ll Never Write. The paintings are expressing all the things V. would rather express through their first language of visual art. The show is a reconsideration of the identities and boxes that have confined them in the past, and in turn becomes a visual history of who they have been and who they are now. 

Our society begs people to put themselves into boxes and define every aspect of their being as either one thing or another. Maldonado has faced the conflicts of their identity: indigenous, Mexican, masculine, feminine, immigrant, American, as well as navigating being an artist in all situations. More recently, they have decided to embrace the conflicts of all parts of their identity, this work has been the output of that decision. V. said we are all products of design; everything has been designed by someone so essentially why can’t we design the future the way we want to. 

Maldonado holds a level of personal honesty that is important to becoming an unapologetic version of oneself. It is those people who have had to face more in the pursuit of their own identities who show a certain strength that can be so powerfully translated into their work. These paintings represent an expanded sense of self for V., they embrace everything in their past and who they are in relation to it. Maldonado is fighting the system through art and personal expression, their own form of activism. 

Victor Maldonado: Excerpts From a Book I’ll Never Write will be on display in the Heiter Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019.

Artist Spotlight
Wendy Red Star

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Representation becomes a complex issue when someone’s art is considered to be both a personal and cultural statement. Wendy Red Star makes art that is unique to her experiences as a member of the Crow Tribe. Often, artwork by indigenous artists is labelled as something inherently political and non-contemporary simply because of common misconceptions. While Wendy’s artwork has political undertones, it is the simple fact of being an indigenous artist making artwork about identity outside of the colonial framework that creates political perceptions of her work. Filled with vibrant colors and patterns, Wendy’s work captures her experiences as a Crow woman as well as a contemporary female artist. Subverting the pressures of being a representational force, her art tells viewers what it’s like to be Wendy Red Star. 

On display in the Schneider’s Main Gallery are a series of Red Star’s prints. Wendy uses the Crow fair as a connecting thread throughout many of these prints, an element of her upbringing that brings forth a feeling of history both personal and otherwise. The Crow Fair is an annual county fair started in 1904 with the intention of forcing the Crow tribe to conform to modern colonial society. In order to encourage participation, the government relaxed its strict policies about dances and ceremonies, allowing native rituals at this one event. Crow fair has become a yearly celebration of Crow culture, featuring parades, dancing, and the dawning of traditional regalia for more than a hundred years now. Wendy uses images from Crow Fair in three of her Main Gallery prints, the first of which, “lilaalee = car (goes by itself) + ii = by means of which + daanniili = we parade” shows a string of cars decorated in Pendleton blankets, a Crow obsession according to Red Star. The cars in the image are dressed up in the style of horses and set to the background of patterns taken from mass produced Pendleton blankets. This is just one example of how her work within her own personal landscape is reflective of the changing nature of modern indigenious culture. 

In her print “Apsaalooke Roses” Red Star uses images of herself and her daughter at Crow fair when they were around the same age. This piece captures the matriarchal nature of the Crow tribe as it features aspects from four generations of women. Red Star uses her grandmother’s rose patterns as the backdrop to the images of herself and her daughter. In addition her mother did the embroidery on the purse her daughter is wearing in the print, tying together the familial background of roses and the generational ties between the women of her family. Although times are changing the traditions of Crow culture carry on, not only through the presence at Crow fair but also the bonds and traditions passed down through a family. 

The Winter Exhibition Two Generations: Joe Feddersen & Wendy Red Star will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR until March 14th, 2020.

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.

Artist Spotlight
“Los Four” and Self Help Graphics & Art

By Tyler Noland, SOU ’21

Represented among the works of Self Help Graphics & Art (SHGA), in the Schneider’s Treehaven Gallery, are “Los Four” members Judithe Hernandez and Frank Romero. “Los Four” was an artist collective founded in the early 1970s whose members included Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, Robert de la Rocha, Gilbert Lujan, and Judithe Hernandez. These five Latinx artists were making art at the start of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement and have been credited with bringing Chicano art to the attention of mainstream art institutions. After Judithe Hernandez joined the collective they did not change their name from “Los Four” because at the time they wanted to leave the group open for more members to join. Together the group had a show at Self Help Graphics & Art in 1974, and that relationship with SHGA has stayed strong into today. 

Judithe Hernandez was the fifth and only female member of “Los Four”, officially brought into the group in 1974 by Carlos Almaraz. In the past, as one of the heads of the artistic Latinx Civil Rights Movement of the 70s and 80s the focus of her work had a greater emphasis on racial identity and injustice. In more recent years, she has expanded her focus to embrace several types of activism. In one of her latest series entitled “Luchadoras”, she takes the masks inherent of traditional male Mexican wrestlers and puts them onto women. One of these prints, “Eve Awakening” is featured in the current exhibition; it displays a woman in a Luchador mask with buck horns laying in a sea of koi fish. This series brings items associated with the inherently masculine and puts them in female settings. Hernandez is arming women with the tools of men, simultaneously creating images that are both incredibly tender but undeniably strong. The anonymity and intention behind the masks gives these women a power beyond their looks and takes back the faceless strength and respect that men are afforded. Hernandez is putting her experiences as a female artist of color into her work, and the results are striking. The single piece on display with Self Help Graphics & Art illustrates the strength and beauty of her artwork.

The works of Frank Romero take on a different aspect of Latinx identity that holds a special connection to Southern California. Raised in East Los Angeles, Romero was also brought into “Los Four” by Carlos Almaraz. Over the course of his career his artwork has been heavily influenced by the experiences and landmarks inherent to Southern California. Cars, architecture, freeways, and ugly palm trees have populated his paintings and been the backdrop for his Latinx experiences. He grew up seeing Los Angeles from the back of his father’s car and that imagery has stuck with him. The print featured in the Fall Exhibitions “Untitled (Cityscape)” illustrates a Los Angeles freeway scene in Romero’s signature step back from reality. The bright vibrant orange and blues that accompany the freeway overpass show Romero’s unique perspective on the place he grew up. Romero’s artwork makes a statement about how the Latinx community shaped Los Angeles and continues to make their mark. He sees driving as an elementary part of L.A., this is shown by the way the freeway overpass towers over the rest of the print. Part of what his pieces do so well is documenting someone’s sense of home, Romero captures his version of Los Angeles and reflects his experiences back at the viewer. The use of color and large brushstrokes leaves realism behind, viewers enter a world in which history is shown in vibrant colors and one is asked to consider what it means to belong to a place. 

Prints from Self Help Graphics & Art will be on display in the Treehaven Gallery at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, OR from October 24th to December 14th, 2019.

 

Tyler Noland is a junior Creative Writing major at Southern Oregon University. She is originally from the Bay Area, and this is her second year at the Schneider Museum of Art. While not working on her writing she enjoys thrifting for her newest funky outfit.