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In a two-day residency, she will meet with students and deliver a public talk. Her works will be on view in the Grossman Gallery
Native American artist Kay WalkingStick will meet with Lafayette student artists and deliver a public lecture during a two-day campus residency March 10 and 11.
WalkingStick is the College’s Grossman Visiting Artist for 2008-09. An exhibition of her works on paper from 1981 to 2000 will open in the Grossman Gallery, Williams Visual Arts Building, on March 7 and run through April 11.
She will speak on her art and career at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, in Room 108 of the Williams Center for the Arts. The talk is free and open to the public. She will dine with art students and faculty Tuesday, March 10, and will speak with students in art classes on both days of her residency.
WalkingStick was born in Syracuse, N.Y., to a Cherokee father and a non-Native mother. Her work deals with issues of mixed ancestry, the balance between land and space, and the relationship between the physical and spiritual self. She joins a distinguished group of artists, representing the highest standard of American contemporary art, who have served in the Grossman residency since its founding in 1992. The Grossman Artist-in-Residence and Exhibition Series was established by Richard Grossman ’64 and his wife, Rissa, to provide opportunities for intensive interaction between students and major artists. The series also supports presentation of significant exhibitions.
“The Grossman residencies give students the opportunity to meet major international figures in art,” says Robert Mattison, Metzgar Professor of Art. “They not only get to see the artist give a public lecture, but work with the artist in a personal context: in small lecture classes, in a seminar, one-on-one, even at dinner. Students will have lots of one-on-one time with him.”
WalkingStick was a visiting artist at the College’s Experimental Printmaking Institute as part of the innovative two-year Master Artist/Master Printmaker project that paired eight internationally renowned artists with eight master printmakers. The Master Artist/Master Printmaker portfolio, which includes 16 works created at EPI, has been added to the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art. In addition to WalkingStick, the artists were Emma Amos, Richard Anuszkiewicz, David C. Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Grace Hartigan, Bodo Korsig, and Faith Ringgold. The printmakers—from workshops in Pennsylvania, Maryland, England, and Japan—were John Phillips, Robert Beckman & Ian Short, Holton, Wayne Crothers, Jean Paul Russell, Quentin Mosely, John E. Dowell Jr., and Allan Edmunds.
“My paintings take a broad view of what constitutes Native American Art. My wish has been to express our Native and non-native shared identity. We humans of all races are more alike than different, and it is this shared heritage, as well as my personal heritage, I wish to express,” writes WalkingStick on her web site (kaywalkingstick.com).
“I want all people to hold onto their cultures – they are precious – but I also want to encourage a mutual recognition of shared being. My goal has always been to paint about who I am as a 20th-21st century artist, and also as a Native American. My thoughts on our native history filled my work for many years. Today, I deal with feelings and thoughts common to all. I would hope that these paintings encourage the viewer to see our shared humanity in all of its gritty, frightening, awkward, sexy, funny, and beautiful commonality.”