The artists in this show create work that explores their heritage and ancestry. 

By sifting through their cultural traditions these artists find grounding in the roots of their identities.

Please contact Gallery@makeshiftartspace.org
for all sales inquires and/or to schedule an appointment for in-person viewing of the show.

Nico Inzerella

Artist Statement:
I'm a Mexican-American/ Jewish American Artist. Preserving my family culture is important to me and I do this through my artwork. My family has been in the US (California and Washington) for 4-5 generations. The first small chunk of my life I grew up in Ventura, California but my family moved up to the Seattle area in the early 1980's. We moved to a small town named Carnation, a community built of farmers and loggers.. It wasn't until college in Bellingham where I grew and started to find myself. After college, I moved to Mexico for 6 months and after that I started to identify as Mexican-American or Chicano. Although I'm not fluent in Spanish I connected with my culture through my art. I started getting into art in high school because my mom was an Arts and Crafts instructor and I used to get into her craft supplies. In college, I initially wanted to major in Painting but I ended up majoring in Graphic Design with an emphasis on New Media (web/ video). Today I am a web developer for Seattle Colleges (North Seattle, Seattle Central and South Seattle Colleges) and I also teach printmaking/ multimedia classes at North Seattle College through Continuing Education. Over the past 20 years I've traveled extensively throughout Mexico and Central America taking thousands of photos. I combine photography, painting, and graphic design to create my final pieces.

Artist Bio:
Nico Inzerella is a Mexican-American/ Jewish-American multimedia artist, born and raised between Southern California and Seattle by a single parent. The themes and images of Nico’s art often reflect Indigenous life and immigration throughout the Americas. He received his B.F.A. from Western Washington University - School or Art. He is a faculty art instructor at North Seattle College through their Continuing Education program. He is also a full-time web developer for the college. His art has been exhibited throughout Washington State and has art on permanent collection with the City of Seattle, Daybreak Star Cultural Center, ArtsWa, RACC City of Portland (Oregon), and the City of Shoreline. He has been recognized by Crosscut Magazine, Schack Art Gallery and Columbia City Gallery. Nico spent a year in Latin America, primarily Mexico, researching fine art, street art, printmaking and artisan crafts.

http://nicoidesign.com/

J D Trejo-Maya

Artist statement/bio:

He is a remnant of the Nahuatlacah oral tradition a tonalpouhque mexica, a commoner from the lowlands from a time and place that no longer exists. Born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico, where he spent his childhood in the small rural pueblo of Tarimoró and wherefrom he immigrated in 1988.  His inspirations include Netzahualcoyotl, Humberto Ak’abal, Ray A. Young Bear, James Welch and Juan Rulfo.  Published in various journals/sites in the UK, US, Spain, India, Australia, Argentina, Germany and Venezuela. Pushcart Prize nominee in 2015; awarded Tercer Premio from El Centro Canario Estudios Caribeños – El Atlántico – en el Certamen Internacional de Poesía “La calle que tú me das” 2016. New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Finalist 2018, 2020 Jack Straw Writers Fellow, Exhibitions at Amador County Arts Council, Museum of Dead Words, Main Street Arts, amongst others. While in ceremony with Chololo medicine men in the Tule River Reservation he dreamt this written prophecy…

Macie Matthews

Artist Statement/bio:

I focus on the continuous dialogue between the past and the present through the coexistence of intergenerational communities within Japanese-American culture. I’ve felt separate from both identities, American and Asian, whether it be in student clubs, classes, or demographic surveys. My work has been influenced by my studies in Japan where I was able to explore the other half of my heritage, knowledge which had been mediated by Americanized appropriation. My fascination with Japanese society stems from my newfound understanding of the complexities within myself; through my practice I can further explore who I am -- as an individual, as part of a community, and as part of my culture as a whole.

Social Media/ Website:

IG: @maciematthewsstudio

Tiktok: @mmillustrated

Website: www.maciematthews.com

Olalekan Oyewole

Artist Statement:

I create the past. The receding glorious past of Africa its people and their way of life.

I am particularly awed by its landscape, the colorful mountains, the lush vegetation to the tropical west, the semi-arid and the arid regions of the Sahara, the beauty and diversity of its culture, the rotund thatched mud huts, the quite slow-moving streams, and the rapid waterfalls.

Artist Bio:

 I am a self-taught artist. and a proud participant at the 2012 Art And Artifacts  Exhibition held at the M.A Odeyemi Museum of Antiquities and Contemporary African Arts, Institute of Cultural Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.

ALL SALES INQUIRIES: GALLERY@MAKESHIFTARTSPACE.ORG

Thayne Yazzie

Jessyca Murphy

Artist Statement:

“According to [Simon] Critchley, your ideal self is the source of your conscience, but it’s also your internal critic. [...] Critchley says the demands of the ideal self can never be fully satisfied. You can never completely live up to it because having that ideal there is part of what gives your mind a structure. He says we are most acutely aware of this split when we feel shame.”
-- Abigail Thorne @PhilosophyTube

This piece is the first in a series of works inspired by medieval shame masks. Shame masks were tools of public humiliation imposed on people convicted of crimes and to warn the general public about their wrongdoings. The design of the mask was also meant to resemble the crime itself. For example, “bad” musicians who refused to stop playing in public were fastened with a flute connected to their nose and mouth, so that they could not breathe without making an annoying sound. There were also spiked metal contraptions that “gossiping” women were forced to place in their mouths, so they would be impaled when attempting to speak. 
While this practice may seem tortuous today, shame (both in its public and private forms) still plays a significant role in our lives and relationships. The shame we’ve been taught to feel about our bodies, our feelings, and our urges, has become a point of fascination for many researchers and commentators. Especially when it comes to public shaming on social media as a means of enforcing morality. 

With the popularization (and capitalist appropriation) of “body positivity,” many people express feeling shame about feeling shame. This is what Sonya Renee Taylor calls “meta-shame.” Even when we try to eliminate shame, it somehow manages to creep back into our minds. It’s almost like we don’t need masks any longer. We’ve learned how to humiliate ourselves all on our own.

This particular mask was inspired by my earliest memory of shame. When I was six years old, I had a classmate who always had warts on her fingers. She also wore the same cheap witch costume for two Halloweens in a row. I remember making fun of her to my friends for both of these social transgressions, pointing out the obvious connection. Then one day, I got a wart on my own chin. The doctor gave my mother a painful cream that we used to freeze off the wart and I spent days at home from school. I spent that time tortured by my contradictory feelings of shame. I not only felt shame for my blemish, but also for my moral failings -- that I mocked and judged someone else, especially now that I was experiencing the same affliction. You would think the second might cancel out the first, but it did not.

With this series, I’m not concerned with defining shame as good or bad, but rather I hope to illustrate how shame feels. For as gruesome as those shame masks were, I think there is some weird power in externalizing abstract sensations.

Anony Mouse

Artist Statement: Anubis, Egyptian god of the dead, escorts our souls into the beyond. Anubis judges departed souls by weighing hearts versus the feather of truth and justice. Souls of hearts weighing less than the feather are guided towards a heavenly afterlife. How will your heart fare?

Artist Statement: Sometimes the light at the end of a tunnel is a train. Sometimes it's salvation. Sometimes it's a bioluminescent lure. What if going towards the light is a trap?

frameRateZero

Alli Willis

Christian Anne Smith

Artist statement:

I like to tell stories through art. I love garish and fantastical characters. I enjoy human beings, and my art explores stories of human emotion as well as my passion for costumes, colors, textures and intriguing environments.

Growing up on the coast of Maine, I was surrounded by stories and images of the region's folklore. Seilkies, Mermaids, Ghosts and Pirates were all believably real entities to me. My childhood fascination with monsters and supernatural beings continues and influences the way I choose to portray people.

I also have a need to express with my art. I become inspired, and have worked hard to train myself to go into a sort of a trance that allows what's inside to come out. It's only later that I can look with any objectivity on something that I've created and perhaps get a glimpse of what I was feeling or thinking.

It is akin to the way one might analyze a dream. 

I may start a painting or puppet with a certain image in mind, but I allow the original image to change or even get completely painted over whenever I start to see new things. I am often quite confused about how I am feeling until after I paint, draw, or build things and the truth comes to the surface. This is the way I best communicate with myself.

In this way, I suppose nearly all my paintings are also portraits of my life.

Thank you for your interest in my work. I hope that the world I have created sparks your own imagination and provokes many hours of daydream in the years to come.

Christian Smith grew up in the coastal town of Cushing, Maine. As a child she was fascinated by the region’s folklore. She was also blessed with a creative family that read to her every night and provided lots of crayons to encourage her art.

She learned early in life how much she loved to draw and tell stories through her artworks.

Christian Anne Smith studied illustration at Parson’s School of Design, NYC and has a B.A. in Studio Arts from Western Washington University.

Christian currently lives in Bellingham, Washington where she paints and teaches.

She is a member of the Waterfront Artist’s Collective, The Allied Arts Education Project, and is involved in various projects throughout the community that mix art and people.

Sarah Lane

Corinna Healey-Smith

Frank Belzek

Veronica Major

Tom Yost

Frank Frazee

Charlie Sullivan

Veronica Major

That’s all, folks! Thank you to the artists for all your hard work and our community for your engagement and support. Happy Halloween~

For in-person viewing of the show and all sales inquiries, please email Gallery@makeshiftartspace.org

ABIGAIL FLYNT

Social Media / website @fly.ntclay abigailflynt.com/

JERRY SLOUGH

Social Media/ website: @jhslough jerryhslough.com

INTERVIEW-

1- How did you come up with your idea for creating a representative hug?

So much of how I show love is through giving and receiving physical affection. When covid first started I immediately wanted to think of an adaptor that could be representative of a hug.

2- What patterns or contrast did you notice in how participants interacted with your sculptures?

Everyone interacted with the object really differently! Each video feels like a collaborative journal entry, and in that way, each video is really unique to the participant. It was interesting for me to see how friends that have a dance practice move with the object differently than friends that don't. This project was a lovely way to check in on my friends.

3- Do you find that certain qualities make interactive sculptures more inviting?

I find that the plush nature of the objects makes them really inviting and that the hands also give a small hint of how you can interact with them, that they are slightly human.

4- What surprised you about this project?

Video in general is very new for me! It was a learning curve having so much of the video and sound elements outside of my control. I would mail my participants the object and a flash drive and have them film and record themselves with the project. Once they were done I would assemble the videos.

Make.shift's virtual gallery is proud to present "RECKLESS ABANDON", a collection of artists whose work visually indulges us in movement and full-swing, free rein paintings.

Join us in viewing work from:

Kyle Confehr: Kyle is an ambidextrous artist, designer and friend based in Philadelphia, PA. He grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and spent most of his childhood on a skateboard, playing video games or drawing. As a product of the 90’s, Kyle creates work that blurs the lines between graffiti and doodles, weaving nostalgia and satire together.

Estelle Kael: I am a disabled agender artist and musician, currently living in auburn, WA. I front a noise pop band called BLOOM, and play my own songs under HARMONY CHLORINE, and I live and breathe art. it is all I am here for, and I would like to share it with the world and encourage every single person to create with a reckless abandon, to look at the world with a child's eyes, and to believe that anything is possible, no matter the barriers, no matter the boundaries, no matter who you are. Art makes the world go round, and I'm just trying to make a living with it.

Athena Rigas: Athena is a painter and mixed media artist born and raised in New York City. A synesthetic, the artist’s senses overlap and even the most mundane of activities can become a sensory overload. She is obsessed with patterns and is drawn to the same folk patterns on textiles and objects that she absorbed in domestic spaces growing up first-generation Greek American. Painting and drawing are very physical and bodily processes for the artist. Athena translates the different colors, sounds, energies, and patterns she has visions of: from her head to her hands, and from her hands to her work. Different energies have different effects even on the ways on which the artist's application of paint to the surface, some make her hands start to tremble.

Garric Simonsen: Simonsen’s artwork captures situations both strange and poetic. Content serves a semiotic function and is obtained through actual events or scouring a large collection of turn-of-the-century Pacific Northwest photography left by his Swedish maternal grandparents.

Garric’s artistic research is rooted in Pacific Northwest history, yet it pulls away from realism, using abstraction to focus on artifact and the qualities of object and image.

Emily Somoskey: My work gives form to the complexity, instability, and enigmatic nature of our lived experiences. Through these mixed media paintings, I explore the simultaneity between the actual and the psychological, the material and the immaterial, the visible and that which lies beyond sight. These works take a look at the connections between play and risk, joy and anxiety, and how we navigate the familiar, respond to the unknown, as well as how these feelings speak more broadly about the complexity of what it means to be human.

-CONTENT WARNING: THE IMAGE BELOW CONTAINS AND CONFRONTS HOMOPHOBIC SLURS.

ARTIST BIOS and STATEMENTS

Emily Somoskey is a 2-D mixed media artist and painter from Northeast Ohio. She pursued a BA in Art Education/Painting at The University of Akron in Akron, OH (2013) and her MFA at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, MI (2020).  Emily is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Painting at Whitman College, in Walla Walla, WA.

Emily’s mixed-media paintings use representational and abstract methods to explore the ways we simultaneously experience physical and mental space. On a material level, her work is largely built through layering paint and various forms of photographic imagery.  These disparate mediums collectively create a complex and nuanced language that weave together moments of clarity and ambiguity. Through her work she references the shifting and overlapping nature of our experience with the sensate and psychological realms; giving form to the complexity, instability, and enigmatic nature of our lived experiences.

Artist Statement: At its core, my work examines liminality and periods of transition: physical or metaphorical spaces that don’t quite feel settled. Through the use of recognizable structures and symbols, my work offers the illusion of security, using playfulness, novelty and imagination to subvert, or even generate, feelings of tension. Recognizable subject matter surfaces amidst an expanse of abstraction, alluding to both the banality and mystery of the day-to-day.  These works take a look at how we navigate the familiar, respond to the unknown, as well as how these feelings speak more broadly about the complexity of what it means to be human. 

Social Media:
www.emilysomoskey.com
IG: @emsomoskey

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Kyle Confehr is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer based in Philadelphia, PA. Kyle’s work blends illustration and graffiti into images evoking positivity, nostalgia and spontaneity.

Kyle primarily works with high saturating inks and aerosols to create incredibly dense compositions made from iconography that’s been absorbed over Kyle’s time in the creative industry.

Kyle’s work has been all over the US in various forms; exhibitions, designs and public installations.

He lives with his boston terrier Oswald and his partner Meaghan in a small apartment in West Philadelphia where he creates the majority of his

Artist Statement: Kyle is an ambidextrous artist, designer and friend based out of Philadelphia, PA. His work blurs the lines between art and graffiti by weaving nostalgia, humor, and personal experience into densely ornate pieces. Kyle’s work can be seen around Philadelphia at the Philadelphia International Airport, Neighborhood Ramen, The Fillmore and HoneyGrow to name a few.

Growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, Kyle spent most of his days on a skateboard, in art classes or playing video games.

Social Media:
IG: @kyle_confehr
Twitter: @kconfehr

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Athena Rigas is a maker born and raised in New York City. A synesthetic, the artist’s senses overlap and even the most mundane of activities can become a rich sensory overload. The artist is obsessed with patterns, and is drawn to the same folk patterns, textiles, and objects that she absorbed in domestic spaces growing up first-generation American in a family of Greek immigrants. By bringing together so many different cultural signifiers, Athena Rigas's vision digests the spectator into domestic chaos. This notion of “in-between” manifests into the artist's use of objectification and how a painting can be both human and object.

Artist Statement: A synesthetic, Athena Rigas taps into the rich world of the vernacular and turns it into a bodily regurgitation of domestic expectations and rituals. When painting people, the artist channels all of her senses; what the person tastes, feels, sounds, or smells like, instead of relying solely on sight. Where there are no patterns she seeks them out and manifests them. Patterns repeat themselves. The artist uses patterns to illustrate the repetitive nature of both domestic settings and the behaviors of her subjects. Patterns in behavior within domestic settings are formed around our rituals with objects in domestic spaces. The artist works with found objects to create both paintings of people on, and also paints directly on domestic objects to create a sense of home wherever she is.

Social Media:
IG @THATSSORIGAS
https://www.ATHENARIGAS.com

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Estelle Kael : I am a disabled agender artist and musician, currently living in auburn, WA. I front a noise pop band called BLOOM, and play my own songs under HARMONY CHLORINE, and I live breathe art. it is all I am here for, and I would like to share it with the world and encourage every single person to create with a reckless abandon, to look at the world with a child's eyes, and to believe that anything is possible, no matter the barriers, no matter the boundaries, no matter who you are. Art makes the world go round, and I'm just trying to make a living with it.

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Garric Simonsen (b. 1975, Spokane, WA) has shown at Bellevue Arts Museum, Jundt Art Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, Platform Gallery, Seattle University, Eastern Washington University, University of Wisconsin Madison and the 2010 Brucennial (NY, NY). 

Other achievements include 2012 and 2014 nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards. 

Reviews and publications of Simonsen’s work are included in; The New Yorker, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly and Art Collector Magazine. Simonsen has also guest written for Hyperallergic art blog in Brooklyn, NY. Projects have been funded and awarded grants from the Vermont Studio Center and The James and Janie Washington Foundation. 

Garric has two child age girls. He is tenured art faculty at Spokane Falls Community College teaching drawing, painting and art history. In addition, he and his partner manage rehabilitation projects at the family's properties in Spokane's historic South Hill neighborhoods.

https://www.antipainter.com

I envision this colony of mushrooms as one growing community who are all thriving together in one little pot that has become much too small to contain them all.

Some of the mushrooms are growing beyond the bounds of the pot and are spilling off the sides. The tallest mushroom is the oldest and most weathered, it has the same limits that an umbrella has when shielding you from the rain, yet it still tries its best to protect the others below. The mushroom beside the tallest has large shiny spots that resemble sparkling trusting eyes. The outermost mushroom is shot with multiple arrows. It has taken the most hits because it puts itself further out there than the others, yet it continues to grow tall.

There are many unique mushrooms within this seemingly small pot, all beautiful in their own ways who are continuing to grow together as a loving community despite their circumstances or flaws.

I own a custom Jimmy’z screen-printed long- sleeve that lets me feel like a pop star every time I put it on. I can be myself. It’s so oversized and comfy, I tell them

“it’s real velour.”

It acts as a second skin that I can count on to be comfortable in.

All and all, The painting Pop Star tells the story of an article of clothing that empowers the wearer. When I wear this specific shirt I know nothing can bother me. I feel like a pop star. I can dance and point and command the anguish of the world to ooze underground out of sight.

The pop star shirt was designed by my younger brother during his college years, and gifted to me during my college years.

It’s real velour.

Based on season 7, episode 5 of King of the Hill

Some time ago my brother expressed to me that he found a moment within this particular episode of King of the Hill to be quite beautiful. Meanwhile, as I began to paint daily, I gained an appreciation for working on beautifully crafted paper. Thai Garden Orange Flower paper is pleasing to the touch, and elegant in it’s imperfections and earthly beauty. It is the only material I saw fit to portray the captivating nature found within King of the Hill’s “Dances With Dogs.”

I often feel right at home inside my Mustang driving on the open road. Peering out my rear view mirror I can see nothing more than the road I have traveled. Peering out my front windshield I can see the vast changing landscape that is the West Coast and mountains of North America. I can see with my own eyes how the landscape gradually changes from town to town.

Freedom from all worry engulfs me I am reminded just how much more life goes on living out here on Earth compared to my hometown.

In this painting it is not myself who is driving, but instead my Brother, Justin Sitting in the passenger seat right beside him is our family dog, Long Legs, I love them both so much. A small LED screen is giving a happy face diagnostic on the A-pillar of the car, and on the entertainment screen it reads R. E. Villageman’s “Soul Stone” is playing on the radio.

There are many small details hidden within the interior of my Mustang that are all extremely meaningful to me, and this includes the Mustang itself. I wanted to paint one of my favorite moments of joy that also contained the family and things that I hold dearest to my heart.

Masks is a painting of a man with a rockabilly haircut who is seen wearing a couple of masks that are false smiles.

He does not welcome changes in the world that he has come to know with a smile of his own.

The rockabilly man feels that putting on the masks is the best action he can take for the world around him, but really the best he can do for the world around him is to be his unique rockabilly self.

A person who touched a rainbow would certainly be taken by warmth and bliss. Ideas will form and multiply from the point of contact and spread all throughout the body and mind.

Lucky Day was painted to capture the happiness found in optimism. More specifically it is the happiness felt by an individual in the moment they realize that their luck is starting to turn around.

The sensation of reaching through a rainbow and into a pot of gold is compared with feelings of optimism that come hand in hand with gaining new opportunity in life, and reaching set goals.

Representation of the illusion of climbing the corporate ladder to achieve happiness. A bigger hand stretches out the ladder for you to climb between its index finger and little finger while simultaneously stretching its big thumb out in order to give the hand sign for I love you.

There is no reward depicted at the top of the ladder, just the top of the bigger hand. All it takes is for this hand to turn itself over for you to feel like you’re at the bottom again.

The thought that sparked the creation of this painting was to express how malleable an individual human can seem in the eyes of another who possesses influence over any large group of people.

Marc Jordan is a surrealist artist who grew up in Spokane, WA, USA. He graduated from Spokane Falls Community College in 2020 with an AAS in Graphic Design. His artwork puts into practice elements of Design with an emphasis on balancing both the ink used and the paper’s white space.

The subject of Marc’s art deals with his personal experiences in everyday life growing up on the West Coast of the United States. In essence, Marc’s paintings are a visual collection of his feelings and memories.

Click below to watch a recently recorded artist talk

And in That Moment

Dream I

Dream II

Dreams happen in just a few seconds but can feel like an eternity and often haunt me throughout my day. Almost every morning, I wake up disoriented, saying “I had a really strange dream last night”, feeling like my reality has been misplaced. My work is influenced by feminine archetypes as well as mental health issues and is often reflective of my own personal narrative as an artist living with Bipolar and OCD. Treatment is about process, process, process. By constructing sets and performing in my work, I am able to investigate and process how my unfinished thoughts, called day residues, manifest during sleep. Dreams are my signifier that my mind never rests. And in That Momentallows me to materialize my distorted experiences of people, places, colors, and time. This project is not meant to be a literal translation of dreamland as there are often missing pieces and interruptions throughout the night but rather, it seizes the lingering emotions and disturbances released from these ephemeral moments

Dream III

Dream IV

Artist Bio: Residing in the Seattle area, Aunna Moriarty is a photographer and model, with a primary focus on fashion and performance. Her work is influenced by feminine archetypes and mental health issues and is often reflective of her own personal narrative as an artist living with Bipolar and OCD. Aunna uses fashion and set design as a means to investigate the human temperament. She has a deep curiosity of textiles, color theory, lighting, and a love affair with vintage wear. Aunna is a graduate of the BFA in Photography program at Seattle University and is passionate about education in the arts

aunnamoriarty.wix.com/amphotography
@moriartymakingmagic

Explosions in My Heart

Color, motion, and nature- nothing is more familiar than this. Something we’re not all so familiar with is the sudden loss of someone. We’re not taught how to respond, react, and continue with our routines. The combination of organic motion, seasonal colors, and my honest words inspired me to grieve creatively. In doing so, I combined and mixed instant film with other photographic elements that figuratively illustrate my exploration of grief, existence and bring my words to life. The use of these photographic elements and words speaks to the blend of emotions of loving someone dear and them not knowing as their soul departs their body.

Artist Bio:

Stephanie Lara is a photographer based in Seattle. She received a BFA in photography from Seattle University and has earned an Associate’s degree in Journalism from Fullerton College. Her work is inspired by visual storytelling with a focus on the preservation of culture, nature, and the combination of organic and authentic expression and performance.

StephanieLara.com
@StephanieLara.Photo

JOHN FEODOROV: SOLO EXHIBITION

Artist Statement:

I am a multi-media artist working in painting, drawing, assemblage, installation, video and music. My most recent work addresses themes surrounding assimilation, identity and the enduring ramifications of colonization. 

While it has been at least 20 years since I last visited my grandparent’s land in New Mexico, it is still very much a part of who I am. It is embedded in my memory and in how I connect with the world. And yet, I am also disconnected from it, both physically and spiritually.

The works in this show (or more accurately, the images on your computer screen) are reflections of this ongoing sense of connection/disconnection. Perhaps they are efforts at resolution that will never achieve their goal? Or maybe they are more playful, a making-lemonade-from-lemons sort of thing? 

Yet perhaps these works also demonstrate your own disconnection? You cannot share the same physical space as them. You are looking at digitized images of tangible artworks. Without belaboring the point, visiting with family members, friends, or even viewing artworks via Zoom and the internet are also states of simultaneous connection/disconnection. And so, I suppose we are all exiled at this moment in time to varying degrees. 

While these works may demonstrate my own thoughts and reflections, I also hope they encourage you to begin considering your own. Perhaps it is time to make some lemonade?

“I’m An Indian, Too”

2021

Series of 10 giclée prints, approx. 24 x 16 inches each.

Often times I find myself conflicted about my own artwork. The mid-to-late 20th-century urban Native experience is one of confrontation, with both culture and self. Assimilation into dominant society comes at a cost to one’s identity. Or perhaps more accurately, it can end up defining one’s identity.

When popular culture becomes more influential than our grandparent’s stories, language, rituals, teachings, myths, etc., the danger is that its loud and ever-present voice happily tells who we are. And when that voice gets into our heads, it spells trouble.

For this series, I did a Google search for Native American costumes (try it yourself, it is depressing). I chose ten images to recontextualize. I then superimposed these images over well and lesser-known photographs of various Native people during the late 1800s and early 20th century, taken by photographers such Frank Rinehart and Edward Curtis. At first, the overlayed front image was transparent so as to display the “real Indian” underneath. However, I decided I did not want to implicate these ancestors, and instead chose to impose the fake Indian images as they were photobombs, the equivalent of a young child screaming “Look at me!”, therefore obscuring the person behind them. Of course, many of these so-called “authentic” photographs were taken under very in-authentic circumstances, with the figures posed within a staged scene inside the photographer’s studio. While I like the complexity of this situation, I must admit that these images make me want to laugh and weep simultaneously.

This series was also inspired by the Irving Berlin song, “I’m An Indian, Too”, from the 1946 musical, “Annie Get Your Gun”.

Content Warning: The words and images below contain and confront racist stereotypes.

Pricing:

“Gods Of Industry” $13,500

"Gospel of the Red Man" $900 each or $3240 for all four

"Snake map" $900

“Black Snake Comes To Navajo Land” $2,500

"Two Figures" $13,500

“I’m An Indian Too” prints $900 a piece, unframed, or $8100 for all 10. (There is an edition of 10, beginning with the first edition)

All work is sold unframed. Sales tax and shipping not included.

Contact Gallery@makeshiftproject.com for inquiries.

Artist Bio:

Of mixed Navajo (Diné) and Euro-American heritage, John Feodorov grew up in the suburbs of Southern California in the city of Whittier. As a child, his family made annual visits to his grandparent’s land on the Navajo Reservation. His time spent there continues to inform his art.

Feodorov both engages and confronts the viewer through questioning assumptions about Identity, Spirituality and Place within the context of consumer-driven culture. Recently, his work has focused on the exploitation and degradation of indigenous lands by governments and corporations, and its potential impact on identity, connection and sense of Place.

Feodorov has been featured in several publications, including, Time and Time Again by Lucy R. Lippard, Art + Religion edited by Aaron Rosen, and Manifestations edited by Dr. Nancy Marie Mithlo. He was also featured in the first season of the series, “Art 21: Art for the 21st Century”. He is also co-founder of Animal Saint, an Interdisciplinary art collaboration with composer/musician Paul Amiel.

Feodorov served as an Arts Commissioner for the City of Seattle from 2000-2003 and holds the position of Associate Professor of Art at Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University in Washington State. 

johnfeodorov.com/

Make.Shift’s Virtual Gallery presents “Home-Sick,” a reflection of domesticity, the homes we carry in our hearts, and the objects that create our material worlds. We are proud to feature work from Ellie Bacchus, Corinne Barber, Neil Berkowitz, Lindsay Breidenthal, and Mackenzie Carter. 

LINDSAY BREIDENTHAL

Artist Statement:

Spending more time at home has been a real journey in self-discovery. The theme for this show, ‘Home Sick’, helped direct my painting process toward a real hot spot. The focus has been brought home and I see relationships with family and neighbors representing how I relate to the rest of the world and to myself. Lately, my imagery has included female figures, often dressed in a blue waitress or service uniform, doing some task in a surreal domestic scene. The blue dress has come to represent a more or less constant state of service a lot of women find themselves in both in the workplace and at home. How much of this work is necessary? Does this quiet, invisible labor resemble the same labor that built my cheap goods and conveniences? How can this place of safety, rest, and love also represent something I want to set on fire? Will I always resent the imbalance of domestic responsibility?

The creative process allows time to boil down the big issues, letting the details evaporate and leaving the elements of an emotional response to come through in the work. I hope to make something that evokes a response in you as well.

Thank you.

Bio:

My name is Lindsay Breidenthal and I am a painter from Wenatchee, Wa. I have been creating and exhibiting my work for over twenty years. My subject matter usually includes the figure or other animals, storms, fire, and pattern. I build up the foundation for my pieces with thin, transparent layers of imagery, pattern, and tinted washes creating a dreamy, atmospheric quality. I leave hints of the complex underpainting as a reminder of the process of discovery.

The ideas behind my work start out feeling very personal, often focusing on ‘women’s work’ or my perceptions of stability, safety, and instinct. What starts out as a personal response to say, dirty dishes, evolves along with the development of a painting to reveal how I feel about broad concepts like imbalances in our value system or the power of a million small decisions to affect big change. This transformation is one reason I continue to make art. 

lindsaybroadvalley.com

ELLIE BACCHUS

Artist Statement:

My paintings explore themes of memory, nostalgia, childhood, and the difficulties of growing up. In the works I present a personal history, with some of my own belongings starring in the compositions alongside universal objects. A well-loved Beanie Baby lays next to an empty pack of birth control pills. A cherubic porcelain figurine is jarringly placed next to a Suboxone wrapper. I am interested in the false dichotomy between childhood and adulthood. In truth, these lines are often blurred due to premature childhood exposure to the harsh realities of the adult world, through the media or a direct lived experience. Instead of a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood, the transitions through life can leave a messy trail behind on the psyche of the still-forming individual. 

In my paintings, areas of thickly applied paint jut off of the surface and contrast with thin drippy rendered objects that nearly disappear into the background. Some items are believable, and others are rendered with a childlike crayon scribble. These conscious formal decisions serve as a visual exploration of memory. Our memories of our childhood and adolescence evolve as we age. When we reflect on the past, do we tend to remember the good through rose-colored glasses, or do we focus more on the traumatic? This series is an attempt to see both sides at once; the good and the bad memories, the forgotten and remembered moments, the innocent and mature, all through a carefully curated archive of personally symbolic objects. 

Bio:

Ellie Bacchus is an oil painter and mixed media artist currently living in Bellingham. She grew up on Vashon Island, a community with a thriving artistic community, and pursued a BFA in painting and a minor in Arts Enterprise & Cultural Innovation at Western Washington University, and graduated in 2020. In her work, she explores themes of memory, nostalgia, trauma, and childhood, often through still life or studies of personal keepsakes. While much of her work has roots in her own personal experience, she hopes that the visual metaphors she uses and some of the more recognizable motifs in her work give the viewer a bit of a universal access point to understanding her work and allow an emotional response to it.

elliebacchus.com

MACKENZIE CARTER

Artist Statement:

As of late, the idea of “home” has been burdensome.  Private dwellings are no longer a place for friendly gatherings.  Social anxiety and other mental illness weigh heavy on much of humanity, most of it dealt with within the walls of our homes.  Carter’s interior illustrations study living spaces where friends and family of hers resided through the initial lockdown of COVID-19.  The illustrations have a human quality but are void of the people who inhabit them.  Originally beginning the project as a meditative practice, Carter is interested in creating a visual “memory” for viewers and a joyful fresh take for the people these homes belong to.  The highly personal work invites the viewer to spend time in someone else’s private space, something we’ve been unable to do for quite some time. Despite this, a sense of longing still exists.  The empty rooms still lack the thing we truly crave: human connection.  

Bio: 

Originally from upstate New York, Mackenzie is an emerging artist and illustrator living and working in Bellingham, WA.  After obtaining her Bachelor's degree in Photography and Digital Media from SUNY Albany, Carter moved in an analog direction in all areas of her life, which included picking up painting again.  Mackenzie resides with her partner and dog and works part-time as a Bartender. She likes to spend time outdoors, learn new things, and grow food.  

mackenziecarter.net

CORINNE BARBER

Artist Statement:

“Instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the supernatural, old buildings are haunted by their memories: memories of those who once inhabited them, and the memories we bring to them. We’re conditioned, after all, to conflate memory and physical space.”

 -Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, 2014

As a mentally ill and chronically ill artist, my home has always been my main environment and so has had to become my primary site for creative exploration. This excess of time spent at home has made it integral for me to create a space that I find beautiful and has led to an obsession with artifacts of the home, specifically the textiles that make up our lives: our clothing, quilts, towels, and upholstered furniture, as well as precious little objects like keys and charms and saved childhood drawings. When I work with these items, I feel they imbue my pieces with a special spirit granted by the decades they lived before coming to me. They are evidence of life and of play. I feel connected to the daily rituals of the people who held these objects dear and to our greater human story. 

I combine discarded fabric and sewing notions with collected photographs to create fabric collages that map my personal experiences. I work intuitively and let the pieces take on a life of their own, honoring them as a kind of heirloom. In stitching together these forgotten fragments, both fiber and image, I feel I am preserving the holiness of the everyday.

Bio:

Corinne Barber is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Bellingham, WA. She received her BFA in Studio Art from Western Washington University in 2018. She stitches together discarded fabric, found objects, and photographs to explore themes of childhood, lineage, home, and illness. She is inspired by nature, folklore, and antiques. 

corinnekenlybarber.wixsite.com/mysite

NEIL BERKOWITZ

I wanted a setting more than a story, a situation laid out for viewers to build their own meaningful narrative about relationships, the parameters of domesticity, and the making of lives within them, and how public appearance interacts with that domesticity. I hope that I have put enough into the piece so that attentive observers can connect to it with narratives more complex than its surface might suggest since any beauty there may be here is the beauty of mining joy out of the real and the challenging.

Artist Statement:

My art is driven in conception, execution, and presentation by how we shape understanding from our unique connections made between the new and the known. So my current work uses layers of my own imagery to present opportunities for the observer to draw those new connections into their own stories. The layers are most often photographic but may also include traditional printmaking and collage. Layering expands aesthetic possibility in transparency, texture, and color that would be unattainable in most single-layered work and inserts intentionality into the process earlier and more critically than is usual with photography. This helps me balance social and artistic considerations in the work. 

Increasingly in presenting my work I use presentation to enhance the observer’s options for incorporating additional connections through the work. I have used several approaches to achieve this, such as adding a spatial or temporal dimension to the experience of the work or to offer observers to recreate the exhibition. I have taken the former approach with two works in this show “Fresh Air” and “Welcome, Have Some Fruit.” Both are two-sided prints that are intended to be suspended 16” from a wall, with a sheet of slightly larger reflective acrylic hung on the wall.

neilberkowitz.com

Inspired by KCJ Szwedzinski’s original piece, “Saccharin(e) Shrines”  became an open-call for creative uses of glass art. The exhibition has now expanded to encapsulate works of translucent and delicate materials, as well as new takes on traditional stained glass and mosaics. We are proud to present work from artists KCJ Szwedzinski, Carrie Grey, Kevin Hallagan and Matthew Lazure.

KCJ SZWEDZINSKI

“Saccharin(e) Shrines” imitates the aesthetics of glass, in truth, this reinterpretation of leaded light remains highly subjective to its environment and will begin to distort as humidity levels rise. Stained glass windows, historically serving as a means of education for the illiterate, made from sugar implicate a culture that preaches from an early age that consumption will bring a kind of deliverance. ”Saccharin(e) Shrines” sits at the intersection of belief and consumption, with implications towards systemic power structures.

Juif means Jewish in French. It is written that during WWII all of the Jews living in Paris voluntarily signed Jewish registries and had Juif stamped on their ID cards. This enabled the Germans to lawfully select Jews for transportation to concentration camps and execution. This piece illustrates the strong notion that many Parisians had that their national identity came before their religious identity.

The pages of this book are fused together, making it nearly impossible to read the story. However, it is possible to see the different pages through the layered sheets of glass. This book presents the idea of the difficulties of emotionally accessing history.

The Seder Service is hidden on the underside of the dinner table commenting on the history of hiding religious and cultural traditions in times of persecution.

Artist Statement:

My practice questions the authenticity of history and perception.  I am interested in not only what we remember, but how we remember and how we pass information to successive generations. I probe personal familial narratives and established power structures to consider methods of indoctrination. I am interested in how we choose to embrace or deny our inherited legacies and how these choices manifest intergenerationally to shape belief and identity. 

 This investigation began by learning about my personal inherited legacies. I investigated the intersection of Jewish legacy and lived experience by questioning, imagining, and reinterpreting Jewish law and traditions.  Judaism interests me due to its unique attributes of debate and argumentation as mechanisms for expounding on ambiguous passages and laws. Secondly, Judaism manifests very differently across history and the globe while still maintaining a distinct essence. As a result of its multicultural and geographic differences, Judaism is difficult to categorize. It probes categorical markers and feels to me like the progenitor of identity politics. There is a tradition of debate and interpretation in Judaism called midrash. I consider my work to be visual exegesis that continues this practice and a methodology for synthesizing seemingly disparate bodies of knowledge- historic Jewish tradition and my own lived experience.

 Recent projects have included “The Ordeal of the Bitter Water,” and “Saccharin(e) Shrines.” 

“The Ordeal of the Bitter Water” rebinds the eight books of the Talmudic tractate, Sotah, with glass pages that are screen printed and fused together. The narrative becomes only partially readable, with the layered pages obscuring one another. This work considers sexism in rabbinical literature and the difficulty of accessing these ancient texts from a modernist or feminist perspective. 

“Saccharin(e) Shrines” imitates the aesthetics of glass, in truth, this reinterpretation of leaded light remains highly subjective to its environment and will begin to distort as humidity levels rise. Stained glass windows, historically serving as a means of education for the illiterate, made from sugar implicate a culture that preaches from an early age that consumption will bring a kind of deliverance. ”Saccharin(e) Shrines” is at the intersection of belief and consumption, with implications towards systemic power structures. 

 By reinterpreting common objects in unexpected materials, compositions, or relationships, I create a new context that subverts expectation and elicits the need for further investigation. In the end, the effort of looking is amply rewarded and the work reveals to the critical observer its nuances. I believe arts most powerful function is its ability to create spaces for dialogue, introspection, and connection. My goal is to create work which demands active participation in the construction of "reality," and which requires an attempt to reconcile expectation with what is seen.

 Bio:

 KCJ Szwedzinski was born in Charleston, South Carolina, but moved frequently up and down the Eastern seaboard growing up. As an interdisciplinary artist, Szwedzinski’s work addresses social and cultural indoctrination and edification and the nature of belief and perception. Her recent work investigates the intersection of Jewish legacy and lived experience- asking questions about what we choose to embody, embrace, or deny from our inherited legacies. 

She was the 2018 recipient of the Mary Alice Hadley Prize for Visual Art and spent part of the year traveling to do research at the Holocaust Center and The Jewish Contemporary Museum in San Francisco. 

Szwedzinski exhibits her work nationally and recently received merit and juror awards for the 10 x 10 x 10 show in Tieton, Washington and The Blue Grass Biennial in Morehead, Kentucky. Recent exhibitions include In the Hot Seat at KMAC Museum in Louisville, KY and the Glass Art Society + Refract NW Member Showcase at Gallery Mack in Seattle. KCJ is cofounder and executive director of Project Chance, a non-profit that raises and trains service dogs for children with autism and other disabilities. She has studied and assisted at Penland School of Craft and Pilchuck Glass School and has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. Upcoming, she will be an artist in residence at the Chulitna Research Institute in Alaska. KCJ received a BA from the University of North Florida and an MFA from the University of Louisville. 

KCJ lives in Seattle, Washington with her partner, dog, and guinea pig. She sometimes moonlights as a dog trainer.

www.kcjszwedzinski.com

MATTHEW LAZURE

My mosaic work explores themes of rescue, caretaking, despair, intimacy, and fragility. I combine vintage photographic images from water safety and first aid manuals with materials including broken shards of glass from holiday ornaments and miniature pieces of colored eggshell in order to inspire and invoke an emotional and empathetic response. Applying metaphor to the vintage imagery, an instructional image depicting steps to treading water tells a story of perseverance, an image of drowning expresses a sense of hopelessness, and an image of medical assistance reveals a deeper level of intimacy through connection and touch.

Artist Bio:

Matthew Lazure is a skilled mosaic artist and as an award winning scenic designer. A graduate from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Matthew has spent most of his career in the Boston area designing, fabricating, and painting scenery and properties for theater and is a multiple recipient of the Boston Theatre Critics Association Elliot Norton Award for outstanding design.

Additionally, Matthew has been an active member of the Brickbottom Artists Association and Gallery, one of the country’s first and largest artist-developed live-work buildings, dedicated to preserving and expanding the arts in the greater Boston area. Since 2007, he has contributed as guest juror, gallery assistant, and participating artist.

A recent relocation to Washington finds Matthew seeking new opportunities and developing new relationships with Seattle area galleries, theaters, and other arts organizations.

www.matthewlazure.wixsite.com/artist

www.instagram.com/mtlazureart/

CARRIE GREY

Artist Bio:

A work of art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament. 

- Emile Zola

It's been exactly two years since I sold my home and moved into the Old Rainier Brewery in Seattle, Washington. Two years since I decided to let light in through two huge windows and to make art a priority in my life. In the past two years, I have produced no less than 100 windows of various size, shape, and color. I have pushed the boundaries of glass. I have honed my skill as a master craftsman. I have refined my sense of design down to its core elements. I have succeeded. I have failed. And I have persevered.

Color and flowers are what inspire me. They can't be bold or bright enough. I am also a minimalist. To deconstruct a scene down to its barest of essentials is my goal. A still life, a field of poppies, Monet's garden... this is what I set out to realize every time I pick up my glass cutter.

I hope you enjoy my particular facet of nature.

Artist Statement:

There is something about the arts that resonates in our collective soul.

From the first cave paintings, a period when only our most basic needs were met, art has been used to unify a community of individuals. It is through the arts that we realize we all have something in common. That although we may interpret the visual experience differently, it still causes a reaction that impacts us. A reaction that we can then share, compare, and contrast to help us find our place among our people.

Currently we are experiencing great injustice and intolerance in our society. We need the arts more than ever to help bring our hearts together so that we can start having difficult conversations about gender and race.

In a time where we are now one step removed from one another, a space where tensions are amplified because we are physically contained, we need to continue to discover new ways to foster a sense of belonging. It is through this sense of shared connection that we both find our similarities and celebrate our differences.

www.coolgreyglass.com

www.instagram.com/coolgreyglass

KEVIN HALLAGAN

‘Forest Spirit’ is an expression of the peaceful and curious spirituality of the North American White Tail Deer. This sculpture consists of steel, moss, wood, bone, and glass. ‘Forest Spirit has been exhibited in Santa Clarita California and Los Angeles California.

My ‘Galaxy Series’ is a collection of sculptures made with glass, resin, and alcohol ink, many of which have bases made from dyed and stained concrete. This series began as a chance evolution from pieces of previous projects and experiments coming together to become something new. It expanded from there into what is currently my largest series of work.

‘Nonbinary’ is an interactive video installation which explores the spectrum and concept of gender. In the center of the installation is a large cluster of suspended mirror shards. Each shard can rotate independently and will be affected by the movement of air in the room as viewers move around. On opposite ends of the exhibition space are two projectors, facing each other, and projecting stereotyped imagery of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ respectively. As the images collide with the mirrors, they are shattered and sent mixing around the space as the mirrors rotate.

This installation is site-specific and needs to be adapted to each new exhibition space. ‘Nonbinary’ has been featured in Camarillo California and in Seattle Washington.

Artist Statement:

As an artist who works in multiple artistic disciplines, I am constantly adapting and developing new skills as I explore each new idea. I hope to foster a sense of discovery and imagination, and to enable others to tap into their own creativity. With each project I try to relinquish an element of control, whether to the materials, the process, or the viewers. In this way I am always creating in conversation with something, and  each of my projects takes on their own life beyond my direct input.

Earlier in life I was always comparing myself to other artists, and because my art didn’t look like theirs I felt as though becoming an artist was simply not in my cards. It is through the joy of exploration that I found my creative voice, which has been incredibly empowering. I want people to know that being an artist means something different for everyone, that creation can be as much about the process as it is about the product, and I hope to empower people to find their unique voice.

Artist Bio:

Kevin Hallagan is a multidisciplinary artist whose goal is to empower others to tap into their own creativity and imagination. With his foundations in experimental cinema and installation art at SUNY Binghamton, Kevin’s art is heavily rooted in a process of exploration and experimentation. Each piece in his portfolio influences the next in a rapidly evolving body of work which has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and has been featured in a number of art publications.

https://www.kevinhallagan.com/

https://www.instagram.com/kevin_hallagan_art/