I was honored to attend Ma's House Residency March 23, to April 1, 2022.

I learned a lot about Ma's House, the Shinnecock Nation and the beautiful territory they inhabit.

I was able to create 12 hand portrait mixed media paintings, several hand portrait line drawings on paper for coloring, and four short videos. It was a fruitful and enjoyable residency and below I have the description of the project I created and two galleries, one displaying photos I took during my stay and the second is of artworks that are for sale in support of Ma's House and Artist, Educator & Mother, Elan Cadiz.

 

 

ASHAWAGH: a place between

 

In Eastern Algonquin language Ashawagh may translate to "a place between" and artist Elan Cadiz felt this was the best way to explain the treacherous limbo that the Shinnecock Nation had suffered due the unmitigated colonization and physical and spiritual violence practiced against Indigenous peoples and their land. 

 

Elan believes that these acts of terrorism that keep tribes in poverty will lead ultimately to the detriment of the land and nation. 

 

Like any natural ecosystem where each organism relies on one another in a fine and delicate balance, so is the Shinnecock to Eastern Long Island. But being in a place of uncertainty and corruption the land is torn and without resolve. 

 

ASHAWAGH will be a collection of hand portrait paintings on wood panels and pencil drawings, modeled after the hands of several Shinnecock tribe members. The paints will be a mixture of acrylics, flashe and acrylic medium that will be used to create paint from sands and soil Cadiz will collect outside of the Shinnecock reservation. 

 

Elan's artistic intervention will reunite the earth to its original caretakers to acknowledge the necessary healing and reconnection to the soil, Earth. Each portrait will represent the reinsertion of exploited land into the hands of its rightful cultivators allowing a moment of the "between'' to become the present and possible future. 

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BELOW are 2 Galleries. The Gallery on the left highlights my residency and the Gallery on the right Highlights the art for sale and the process to produce them.