The Creativity Project Week #32: Gina Adams

Gina Adams is an artist of Native American descent who uses quilts to tell the story of her heritage and its complicated history with the United States. Her “Broken Treaty” project includes the reuse of antique quilts, to which she appliqués hand-cut letters depicting the language of broken treaties between the United States government and Native American tribes. Gina’s work is exhibited extensively throughout the US and resides in many public and private collections. The noted international art critic Lucy Lippard wrote the introduction on her artwork for her Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition “Its Honor Is Here Pledged”, which introduced her Broken Treaty Quilts to a new contemporary-art arena in 2015, and helped to launch her career as an artist. In 2016, Gina was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow (SARF), and had “Its Honor Is Hereby Pledged” exhibitions in Boulder, Colorado at Naropa University’s White Cube Gallery, where she is a Faculty in Visual Arts. In the summer of 2017, Gina presented and exhibited at the American Indian Workshop (AIW) Conference at Goldsmiths College, University of London, England. Gina’s work is currently exhibiting at the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Design in Atlanta. At the same time, she is finishing an  Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College (which includes a Solo exhibition), and this summer she was a visiting artist in residence at the  Kohler Arts Center.  Among other exciting events, Gina has an upcoming exhibit at the Minus Space Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Welcome, Gina!

How would you describe your quilting style/aesthetic?

Gina: I am a Contemporary Hybrid Artist and I choose which medium to use with each idea. I have been using quilt making in my Broken Treaty Quilts as it is the best medium to give the message. I learned how to quilt from the women in my family and I see the needle and thread as being another tool in my toolbox. For me, choosing to hand cut the letters of broken treaties in calico fabric is extremely important. In doing so, I can talk about history, about what has transpired, about the history of craft and how it fits within assimilation practices in the United States history. Every step is very deliberate and important. The hand cut letters refer to the labor that my ancestors endured in order to survive. The letters themselves and their style refer to the letter press wood block letters from the Indian Wars newspapers. The calico fabric is also important as cotton calico was the first milled commodity created in the United States for export to other countries. It was also the fabric that was promised to Native Americans within almost every one of the treaty documents.

How would you describe the creative environment in your home as a child?

Gina: I was always provided with arts and crafts. I seemed to have an affinity towards almost any kind of creative endeavor and my parents supported me to be artistic. Making was everything in my childhood and I remember sitting under my mother’s sewing chair, needle and thread in my hand, making little dolls and things with her fabric scraps. I remember making dolls and small sculptural objects when I was five to nine years old. When I was eight I started learning about quilt-making from my aunt, and I continued learning from her and making small quilted projects until I was 15. When I was 16, I made my first full sized quilt.

What artists and makers do you most admire or have an influence on your work?

Gina: I have been greatly influenced by the quilts of Gees Bend and Faith Ringgold. I love the contemporary quilts of Sanford Biggers, Hank Willis Thomas, Denyse Schmidt, Saya Woolfalk, and Elizabeth Duffy (to name just a few). I am personally inspired by the conversations and discussions I have been fortunate to have with several contemporary quilt makers whose work reaches across a cultural divide to speak of narratives that are relevant to all of us. These artist include Aaron MacIntosh, a fourth generation quilt maker whose work “explores the intersections of material culture, family tradition, identity-shaping, sexuality and desire in a range of works including quilts, collage, drawing, sculpture and furniture”. I look to contemporary Indigenous artists whose work weaves together oral tradition, history of colonization and assimilation practices, and strong identity of being Contemporary Artists who are willing to step beyond the norm of what society expects them to create. This group of indigenous artists includes fiber and weaving, and the work of Marie Watt, Shan Goshorn, Natalie Ball, Merritt Johnson and Nicholas Galanin. Throughout my undergrad education at the Maine College of Art and graduate school at the University of Kansas I immersed myself in thousands of artists work. It was important to know why others create in order to understand what is individually important in your own work. I have been very fortunate to have many artistic and spiritual mentors in my lifetime.

Do you consider yourself a “quilter”, an artist, or some combination of both?

Gina: I consider myself a Contemporary Hybrid Artist who is also a fourth generation quilt maker.

How would you define “making with intention”?

Gina: I believe in having ideas that are greater than one’s self and seeing them into fruition.  As a Contemporary Hybrid Artist I have many ideas that are based on the research that I do in museum archives and historical libraries. As I process the research, my ideas start to form on the body of work that will be created. It may take several months or a couple of years to see this work develop, and once it has done so I may work on it for several more months or years in the studio. I have been creating my Broken Treaty Quilts for four years now and I consider them to be my life’s work.

Do you think that having a craft makes us more compassionate? If so, then how?

Gina: The compassion and self-love that occurs when you consider what comes out of your heart and mind and is transformed into an object that is made with your hands is very powerful. My craft and artistic practice has been instrumental in helping me heal from my inherited trauma. My process in the studio has opened doors where I feel I can be a role model of healing to others. Teaching in the Visual Arts is how I give back to college-age students who are searching for their own answers while finding new forms of studio art making.

How does creating feed your soul/spiritual purpose?

Gina: My ancestral memory, and the oral stories told to me by my family have imprinted my soul map and created who I am today. Learning to tan deer hides traditionally came from a place of wanting ancestral knowledge….learning to make coil pots came from the same yearning to recreate the past in order to grasp a sense of identity for the future. This work is about prolonging life….this moment…this breath…the eternal heartbeat….as even though I may not have those who have come before, I do have the continued remembrance of the words and the longing of what once was. You never lose the longing, it only grows stronger, and its heartbeat beats in yours ears and mind like an alarm waking you out of deep sleep. For me this work is about survival of the spirit, of my spirit and that of my grandfather’s people and their heartbeat that pulses within my own body, mind, and soul.

Are there any rituals that you perform to prepare/ground yourself in your work?

Gina: I meditate once a day, I believe in long walks and hiking in nature, and I surround myself with friends who have a research based creative practice. I also love to spend time with my family making meals together at home.

What is the support system you have in place for creating your work?

Gina: The forced integration of millions of natives is a truth that their descendants have come to know and deal with. My history of assimilation and my grandfathers forced boarding school experience at the Carlisle School is not unique.  The feelings that have been passed down are now part of our genetic heritage. My current studio work deals with my ancestor’s many stories of assimilation. With each new body of work, I find it necessary to carefully choose each medium and material for each as a statement intended to bridge abstract ideas and bring them into concrete forms. The ceramic body represents the idea of craft that would have been passed down to me by my ancestors if  their way of life and well-being was not purposely divided and conquered. To ancient peoples, clay was a means of survival. Here, I purposely use it to signify a survival that continues, despite the Dawes Act and the assimilation practices that occurred. The encaustic material on its surface is me replicating my Ojibwa heritage with its beadwork patterning and birch bark “bitten” notations.  I chose to start building the traditional coil pots made by my ancestors as a way of honoring what came before. To my people, necessary change does not happen intentionally, unless we honor the traditions passed on to us by our ancestors. I take my studio projects and its research very seriously, as I am doing this not only for myself, but for the thousands of others who have a similar story to tell. In my studio process, I am deliberately looking to describe, to enact, and to translate creatively what it looks like to be from a perspective of Indigeneity. We are as a people at the cutting edge of understanding what it means now to be of an Indigenous cultural heritage.  I think about these characteristics while developing my work: reclaiming history, renaming, educating, decolonizing, activating thought, recognizing perspectives from an indigenous center, and the recognition of indigenous pedagogy, and Indigenous intellect. I believe that we as Post-Colonial peoples have a responsibility to hear these ideas and move forward in creating an environment that leads toward a future that creates a foundation of respect and enduring understanding for all peoples.

How do you deal with comparison to / envy of others? Can you describe a time when you used comparison/envy/admiration to push yourself in your own work and self-discovery?

Gina: I am a firm believer in neither comparing myself nor being envious of others. This practice only detains us from being the very best of who we can be as artists, makers, and thinkers. Having a daily meditation and contemplative practice helps to ground my energy and it stops my mind from wondering into self-doubt or criticism of others. I also read books of spiritual leaders and my favorite is a simple little book with enormous wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements.

What was the most challenging thing you ever made?

Gina: Right now I am finishing a Scribe Blanket Chest that I started in 2009. I brought it to graduate school in hopes of finishing the interior, and did not get to it. I created it before I had even the slightest idea that I would be creating my Broken Treaty Quilts. It took me nine years to have an idea of what the interior of the blanket chest would hold, but now I have a clarity and a will to finish it in the next couple of weeks. It will be installed in an exhibition I have this September and October, in a three indigenous woman exhibition with Marie Watt and Maria Hupfield at Minus Space Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

What does it mean to you to work in a traditionally domestic medium that historically has been regarded as predominately female (aka “women’s work”)?

Gina: I know that women seemingly have dominated the field of quilt making for generations, but I know that there have been many men in this field who have never been given consideration to their craft. My friends Aaron MacIntosh and Steven Frost are challenging this belief with their quilted and sewn creations as is Jeffrey Gibson, Sanford Biggers and Hank Willis Thomas. I want to be considered as part of a craft heritage that brings artists from all binaries of creative genius into the fold.

How do you see your current work in the context of quilting history?

Gina: I see it as a social political statement that has the potential of creating long lasting change for Indigenous people of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

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Thank you, Gina!  The stories and intention in your work are truly inspiring! For more about Gina, visit her website, or connect with her on Instagram. Would you like to be featured in The Creativity Project? Reach out! I’d love to hear from you! Contact me. Want to participate, but not necessarily be featured? You can do that! Click here to take the survey! The Creativity Project can be found on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or Bloglovin’. Or check back here every Friday of 2018!