This is ongoing work. My life's work around ancestors and death. This work is about giving folks a space to reconnect with their ancestors, to honor death as a part of life and to open to the power, strength and complexity that we touch when we- Remember our dead.
The first year was an installation I created in the Library Gallery at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA. It was a series of altars dealing with my personal history as a person of European decent, dealing with Indigenous realities and colonization and honoring the place of death and cycles in our lives.
The installation included a community ancestor altar where folks were invited to leave the names of their ancestors or beloved dead in exchange for small hand made clay skulls. I collected 111 small cards from the altar. People poured their hearts out on those little cards. After reading each card aloud, I burned the cards to release the names. This aspect has been the most powerful for me and has remained central to the work each time.
The second year I did the installation at a local gallery in Olympia, WA. I invited a group of artists including Jennifer Shafer, JuPong Lin, Therese Saliba, Damon Cooper and Venus Herbito to create altars of their choosing.
The following year I received a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Council for the Arts in Minneapolis with Erik Esse and Allison Herrera for a public arts project. We created community ancestor altars and placed them in various public locations including- The American Indian Center, Resource Center for the Americas, Birchbark Books, Barnes and Noble’s, Ginkgos Coffee House, Hard Times Cafe and The Phillips- Powderhorn Cultural Wellness Center . The Altars were up for two weeks inviting people to leave the names of ancestors in exchange for small hand made skulls. We also held free workshops at several of these locations for people to make their own small ancestor altars. The project concluded with a community gathering to read aloud all the names gathered at the altars and an exhibition of all the ancestor altars made during the workshops.
In 2002 I did the project again as an installation at The Babylon Art and Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN- it was a shared exhibition with my mother- the painter M.K. Glover.
I always return to this work because it is so woven into my daily life and I am always amazed at what comes of it for me and those I collaborate with.