Curating Your First Exhibition

Leanna Leithauser Lesley, Bo Berry, 2017

Opening my first exhibition was very different from how I thought it would be. I fully expected it to
be difficult, but I never imagined the late nights I’d spend pulling my hair out at the library looking
for information that I thought would be readily available. There is so much that I never thought of
that was part of the process. As well as things that were much more difficult than I thought they
would be. 

The first step in creating our exhibition was to decide what kind of exhibition we wanted to have.
The three of us really wanted to have an exhibition in which we highlighted a local artist. After
deciding this we researched a lot of artists and wanted to choose an artist whose work represented
part of Birmingham. Through this we discovered Leanna Leithauser Lesley. Lesley’s works in
needlepoint to create portraits of musicians, mostly jazz musicians. We were immediately interested
in her work not only because of how impressive it is, but also the strong connection between jazz
and the south. We soon reached out to Lesley and proposed our exhibition to her. Thankfully, she
was very excited to work with us, but she could have easily said no due to the nature of the exhibition
since we were working as students. 

Once we decided the content of our exhibition we began meeting with Leanna. We met twice to talk
to her about the exhibition and about her work. We wanted to make sure we knew her decently
well in order to represent her appropriately through the exhibition. We realized the big responsibility
it was to make sure that we remained truthful to our artist. At these meetings we took notes to later
use in our labels about her and about the history of needlepoint. 

From that point we began doing our own research about jazz and needlepoint. Jazz was of course
very easy to find information on, but needlepoint was surprisingly difficult. We had to use many
sources to find any decent information about the origin of needlepoint because many sources
disagreed. This was probably the most difficult part of the process not only because of the difficulty
in finding information at times, but also deciding what we wanted to include in our final labels.
Originally we wanted to include a lot more about jazz and needlepoint’s connection to the abolition
and civil rights movements, but later decided to reduce how much we focused on that. Once we
had gathered a good amount of information we began writing our labels for the main ideas of the
exhibition. This lead to many more renditions of the labels than I had previously thought would be
needed and it took much longer than I had planned. Label writing was probably the most surprising
part of this whole process. I had always assumed it would be very similar to writing an essay.
Because labels have to be short though, I found it difficult to fit all of the information we had collected
into a format that was easy to understand and read yet short enough to be engaging. 

After we did finally finish our labels though, we began installing soon after. We met with
our artist at the exhibition space at her request so that she could get an idea of the space and a
few days later we began installing all of the pieces. Balancing between what we wanted and what
the artist wanted was interesting in that we had very different ideas of how the pieces should be
hung. We eventually all agreed on a more a-symmetrical layout to make the space a little more
visually interesting. 

The most important part of all of this was making sure that the artist was happy with the end result.
We were lucky to have an artist who was incredibly nice, encouraging, and excited for our exhibition
so being able to create something for her that she was happy with made us very proud. 

Who Owns History?

Protecting cultural objects of indegenous people is absolutely vital to the protection of their
culture. For centuries Europeans have stolen cultures from indigenous people all over the
world. In Canada, Australia, the continental United States, Hawaii, South America, and
anywhere Europeans have sought to colonize. Now that we have taken responsibility for
what our ancestors have done it is important we move towards protecting their culture.
With the increasing study of early people in the Americas The remains of early Natives
as well as sacred objects have been taken without the consent of the tribes they belong
to. With the passing of NAGPRA (National American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act) in 1990, federally recognized tribes are allowed to request repatriation of objects
belonging to their ancestors. NAGPRA also provides grants to tribes, Native Hawaiian
Organizations, and museums to provide documentation of items(1). Repatriation has
become crucial to restoring tribes and they will tell you, it is crucial is curing the things
that ail their society such as disease and suicide. For them returning sacred objects
and the remains of their ancestors is vital to regaining a natural balance that was lost
when the U.S. Government moved Native Americans to reservations and scientists
swooped in to document and stockpile artifacts. 

A Large majority of the more high-profile NAGPRA cases focus around human remains,
but a lot also surround sacred objects. These sacred objects in many ways can hold
just as much value as remains and are incredibly important to Native American people.
They believe the return of remains and sacred items will return the earth to a balance
that was destroyed when the items were removed from the spiritual sites they were
meant to live. One of the more interesting of these cases occurred in 1991. The Zuni
people spent thirteen years trying to have sixty-seven Ahayu:da figures across thirty- five
museums and collections, returned to them. The Ahayu:da are the twin gods of war
created by Awonawilona, the sun god, to protect the zuni people from their enemies(3).
The twins are known as Big Brother and Little Brother by the Zunis and are sacredly
carved only by the Deer and Bear clan members each winter. It is carved from a single
tree that has been struck by lightning, the weapon of the Ahayu:da, while singing, dancing,
and praying occurs around them. Once it is finished the Bow Priest, a high ranking spiritual
leader, sets them at a special altar to look over the land of the Zuni and protect them. The
figures are cylindrical with a pointed head and abstracted features. The brow bone, nose
and chin are prominent while the eyes are simply lines. They are often painted and then
decorated with feathers and carved emblems. Each year the Ahayu:da are “retired” and
placed in a natural area to erode and return to the earth. When a person steals one of these
figures from its rest it is believed they have also stolen the soul of a brother as well as
disrupting a balance which could lead to war and natural disasters, among other things(4).
When the sit in museums or private collections they can not do their job of protecting
the Zuni people and they are disrupted from their rightful rest. 

Powell, John Wesley 1834-1902

The Zuni people believe in asking for something politely four times before resulting to
force and following that belief they never sued to regain possession of any of the sixty-seven
Ahayu:da(5). The figures were returned through a ceremony that was attended by both
the Zuni people as well as representatives from the museums. Since NAGPRA, Native
Americans have formed a strong relationship with museums. They plan exhibitions and
have formed their own museums(3). They are no longer owned by museums and this is
what has strengthened their relationship. Their input is valued and their items are honored
rather than stolen.  This early case set a precedent for repatriation and allowed museums
and collectors to come to their own conclusions about the ethics of holding on to sacred
items. The repatriation of the Ahayu:da opened doors for other repatriation cases in the
future by opening the minds of museums to ownership and who truly deserves it. 

“NPS Archeology Program: The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior.

 M. Jane Young : "Morning Star, Evening Star : Zuni Traditional Stories", p. 94, n. 3. In :- Ray A. Williamson & Claire R. Farrer : Earth & Sky : Visions of the Cosmos in Native American Folklore. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1992. pp. 75-100

Merrill, William L., et al. "The Return of the Ahayu: Da: Lessons for Repatriation from Zuni Pueblo and the Smithsonian Institution [and Comments and Replies]." Current Anthropology 34, no. 5 (1993): 523-67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744272

 Michael Haederle, "War Gods are Finally at Peace" (Los Angeles: LA Times, 1991) 

Curating an Exhibition

Wow! That was so much harder and even more rewarding than I thought it would be. Curating, or co-curating in this case, an exhibition was a whirlwind. The time it takes to conceptualize a theme is probably the hardest part. Once we found our artist, the ball really started to roll quickly. From writing the text panels and deciding how large they should be and what exactly they needed to say was its own hurdle. Then the labels for the actual works of art were a lesson in patience and a crash course in making them the way that I wanted them to look aesthetically. Did I mention research?

Researching the history of fiber arts, needlework, and finally actually needlepoint proved to be a much heftier task than I could have possibly imagined. Scholarly sources on needlepoint are few and far between. Learning all about jazz, it’s history and impact, and the artists who make, or made, the music was a fascinating journey. Getting to hear our artist, Leanna Leithauser Lesly, tell us about jazz greats and why she loved them was an experience that I won’t soon forget. Taking a studio tour of her work space, which also happens to be in her lovely home, was eye-opening to how much material and time it takes to make each needlepoint portrait. Her actual studio is a bedroom that is filled with various colors and shades of yarn, some of her finished works, a sewing machine, and other odds and ends for perfecting her works. She also has an even larger back stock of yarn and stacks upon stacks of frames waiting to host their musician.

Leanna Leathauser Lesley, Dr. Frank Adams, Needlepoint, Photo courtesy of the artist.

              Hanging the show was an exercise in voicing my opinion and learning the difference in curating a show versus facilitating an artist. We worked together to make compromises on symmetry, placement, and theme on each wall. We planned the locations for our text panels and labels. We met with Leanna to chose planters to use to put floral arrangements in for the opening, scheduled a band, and had snacks.

The absolutely amazing experience of seeing all of our hard work displayed so beautifully and to have an artist who was totally thrilled with the finished product was absolutely amazing. It cemented my desire to work as a curator and help choose what to share with the community, why to share it and how it impacts art history, the community, and the world. Choosing a subject that I knew very little about was risky, but I think that it absolutely paid off. I learned so much about two different art forms and gained innumerable respect for the artists who produce works in needlepoint and jazz. I am very excited to start my career and jump right into curating more shows.