Black Well Red Thread Collective

Black Well Red Thread Collective Members

From the Collective’s website. Learn more about this powerful group of artists at https://www.blackwellredthreadcollective.com/

About the Black Red Well Thread Collective

We have been in community and conversations for years, and our relationship has become a kinship. Over the last two and a half years we have been meeting specifically to workshop our individual art practices. We are mothers, partners, teachers, and creatives who work in multiple disciplines. Within our circle, we have found many layers of commonality that feeds and drives our work. This has gifted us with a depth of collective engagement when approaching each other's work. Within this container, we have formed a collective and installed our first collaboration as Black Well Red Thread Collective. A huge part of our praxis is community engagement and place-based practice; whether that takes place in the future, in honoring our ancestors or within the various intersections we walk. Our hope is to create pathways to new possibilities, remedies, and the future - in collaboration.

Artist Shameka Gagnier

Shameka Gagnier presently resides with their partner and family in the unceded traditional territories of The Nisqually, Puyallup and Squaxin Island Peoples. They carry bloodlines from Central (Pure’pecha) and Northern (Cherokee Nation) Turtle Island, Africa (Northern and Western), and Europe (Ireland, England, Spain); many stories and names have been lost due to exploitation, foster care, and adoption. They are committed to working within those intersections to create and support spaces that center art, food, and nourishment for black and indigenous communities. Currently, they are a first-generation student working towards their undergraduate degree at The Evergreen State College, where they are focusing on Indigenous Studies, Multicultural Communications, and Art.

Artist Aisha Harrison

Aisha Harrison has roots in Olympia, WA going back four generations. She studied abroad in Spain during high school, prompting her to be a Spanish major as an undergraduate. She loved studying Latin American literature because of the ways in which the Indigenous people used Spanish stories and images, subverting them and intertwining them with their own, to ensure that Indigenous peoples, images, and stories survived. These camouflaged acts of resistance reminded her of ways that she navigates being of African American and European American mixed heritage in predominantly European American spaces. Aisha uses the body and sculpture as a site for exploration of the lived experiences of racism, ancestral (human and non-human) learning and connection, and the blend of histories held within her body. Her work shows reverence for real bodies (often her own) while also incorporating elements that are physical manifestations of the intangible.

Artist Cholee Gladney

Artist Cholee is Dean of Inclusive Excellence and Student Success at The Evergreen State College.