Blog Category: public programs

Hugs all around by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

You may be in for a fun day when you find a hawk feather coming in to work. You may be in for a fun day when your first visitor in the studio asks great questions and listens to the answers. It's been a fun day when a mom tells you that you 'made everyone happy' with some oil pastels and butcher paper (grinning kids and interesting drawings and all).

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Art Reality Check by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

Ok, so we aren't always brilliant are we?

Michael and I needed to be at the gallery to give an interview this morning at 10 am (for those not keeping score that would be a full three hours earlier than normal, not complaining, just updating). Ok, 10 am. What does that mean? It means that I did less sleep than normal so I could do prosaic household things. Also it means that I didn't have all of my accustomed caffeine. I am a tea junkie ok? AAAAAAAAAA!

I wanted to get a rank of feathers done today. Did I? Did I nonsense? I got half of one done, and lucky at that.

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"Hot" by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

We only had a very few folk in today, so we both got a good deal of work done and talked about bad Native themed movies. Well, we talked about different kinds of movies, but we talked most about what I call 'Bad Indian Movies'. These would be films with glaring cultural errors, stereotypes or other faux pas. It was a hoot.

Way too hot for museums today I guess. We saw more people coming through the gallery to get to the loo than we did folk coming to see our work. Hard to take it personally when it's just stunning outside.

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"Trancing Out" by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

Last Friday I did a poetry reading elsewhere, so I had not yet experienced the gallery on a Friday evening. Wow. Just wow.

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How do we learn to do these things? by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

After questions about my background, my religion and alternately about my inspiration and vision, the most commonly asked question I've had in the gallery so far is 'How did you learn to do this stuff?' I'm sure that other Native artists have other answers to that question but here is a bit of an answer for me. I use a number of different beading techniques in my work. In order of most to least common as of this week: bead applique, flat peyote stitch, flat round peyote stitch, cheyenne brick stitch and loomed beading. Now to take them utterly out of order...

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Colors in Beading by Kim Shuck, June Artist-in-Residence

Someone asked me today where I got my beads. I have two stores I like to order from online. I have one place I like to go and poke through.  I have a serious bead collection myself. When community members see me bead they often donate things they think I'll like. Finally, I am  often given collections of beads from people who have passed. None of this helps the fact that seed beads come in certain colors and not really others. Glass is a picky substance.

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