RAISE
Raise questions. Air ideas. Unite through dialogue. The flag has an important role in our culture to express collective identity, and increasingly we are seeing these objects wielded as tools for division. How can flags be used to unite? To relate? To educate? To comfort? To expand ideas and/or raise awareness? Raise sought artwork from painters, photographers, designers, printmakers, fiber artists and beyond who were either already pushing the boundaries of the flag format in their studio practice or were creating images of experience capable of uniting a group in our divided society.
Raise was a two-for-one call for entry in partnership with Flagpole Gallery St. Pete in which many of the selected artists were invited to have an additional solo flag raising in 2022 at Flagpole Gallery St Pete in beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida. Selected artists for solo exhibitions included: matthew anthony batty, Eva Gabriella Flynn, Katie Huckson, Liz Looker, Catherine Reinhart, Laura Josephine Snyder, Meredith Starr & Sarah Kain Gutwoski, Tiana Traffas, and Jenna Valoe.
Where did the RAISE flags originate? Click the map to see:
Eva Gabriella Flynn
Flag for No Man’s Land I
"Flag for No Man's Land I" features a blue sky with clouds printed on polyester satin. Across the flag, I've stitched the outline of the US/Mexico border in red embroidery thread.
Eva Gabriella is a Chicana interdisciplinary artist. The narratives driving her work are shaped by personal experiences, histories, and political policies of the US/Mexico border. Eva Gabriella is from Las Cruces, NM Borderplex region where she attended New Mexico State University and received a BFA in Studio Arts and a BA in Foreign Languages. Recently, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with her MFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including: the Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL; SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM; Museo del Ferrocaril, Santa Barbara, Chihuahua, Mexico; and Instituto de Lorenzo Medici, Florence, Italy. Eva Gabriella currently lives in New Mexico, surrounded by the landscapes that inspire her work.
Meredith Starr and Sarah Kain Gutwoski
Blackout Poem
Fabric Cyanotype with Poem Written to A Former Lover During Quarantine Blacked Out by the Poet
18x23.25”
2021
$300
Blackout Poem is part of the Every Second Feels Like Theft project. Every Second Feels Like Theft, an extended conversation in cyanotypes and poems, explores the initial pandemic year and the months that followed, uncovering and scrutinizing its effects on the most intimate and vulnerable parts of our lives as artists, mothers and wives. In this cyanotype Starr printed a blackout version of a poem of one of Kain Gutowski’s poems, a visual representation of how a global tragedy brought with it smaller domestic and interpersonal tragedies; how stasis and isolation forced us to confront new and old demons; how coping mechanisms saved or failed us; and how we emerged from our homes wiser and more resilient than before, cautiously optimistic, with new perspectives and new priorities for the years to come.
Meredith Starr
The House Should Clean Itself
Fabric Cyanotype with Debris Collected from the Kitchen Floor After Breakfast One Morning Waterproof Canvas print with grommets available
18”x14”
2021
$200
The House Should Clean Itself is part of the Every Second Feels Like Theft project. These cyanotypes transform the artifacts Meredith Starr unearthed during quarantine. Printed with the sun, they record brief moments of time outside during the year. She is revealing the absurd struggles of motherhood in the pandemic, and finding the humor and joy of forced time with her family.
Meredith Starr is a multi-disciplinary artist living in NY. She has shown internationally in cities such as the Hague, Hong Kong, and Seoul, and nationally in Chicago, DC, Pasadena, and New York. She completed her second Artist Residency in Motherhood during lockdown. She recently exhibited Every Second Feels Like Theft as part of the NYC Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island in New York City and select works from Are You There at Target Gallery in Alexandria, VA. Starr is also a full time professor of visual arts at SUNY Suffolk County Community College and the VP of Membership for FATE (Foundations in Art Theory and Education). She collaborates with poet Sarah Kain Gutowski, former college roommate and photographer Dayna Leavitt, and her family.
Catherine Reinhart
Meek/Weak
$5000
Statement Flag work created from thrifted quilt block, inspired by historical labor union and suffrage banners. The text meek and weak are hand-stitched atop one another on either side, making the text hard to read. This mimics my confusing feelings inherent when embodying these traits as a young mother.
Catherine Reinhart
Unknown
Found fence post, found quilt block, hand embroidered text, spray paint
4’ w x 54”h x 35”d
2020
$10,000
Diptych sculpture consisting of found fence posts and four flags with hand stitched text on both sides; MOTHER - unknown, WOMAN - unknown, LABOUR - unknown, MAKER - unknown. Camouflaged ‘unknown’ text references the common labeling seen on most historical quilts and domestic textiles. This colorful sculpture made from abandoned materials celebrates the countless hours of unseen labor involved in motherhood and art making.
Catherine Reinhart is an interdisciplinary artist living in Ames, IA, U.S.A. Reinhart creates fiber work and conducts social practice with abandoned textiles around themes of domestic labor, connection, and care. She received her BFA in Integrated Studio Arts in 2008 from Iowa State University. In 2012, she completed her MFA in Textiles from the University of Kansas. Her works have been exhibited locally, regionally, and nationally. Catherine is the recipient of numerous grants and residencies. She was recently honored as a 2020 Iowa Artist Fellow, a 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Terrain Residency in Springfield, IL and an inaugural recipient of the Alex Brown Foundation’s Artist-in-Residence in Des Moines, IA (2022).
Tiana Traffas
Always Lonely, Never Alone
Tea, acrylic, baking paper, and thread on paper
11" × 14"
2019
$280
This piece speaks to the duality of touch within motherhood; it can be so overwhelming one moment and in the next, it can be one of the most healing and incredible parts of parenting. I am overwhelmed with love for my child yet, the institution of motherhood can hang heavy over me. As a new mother, I wondered when, if ever, I would have my body to myself again- especially during the extended breastfeeding years. I was navigating a sense of loss and a struggle for my own identity. As a stay-at-home mother, I feel deeply the effects of my isolation even when struggling for moments of solitude. Tea, acrylic, thread, and parchment baking paper were used to represent the feeling of being submerged in, yet at odds with, domestic life, the isolation of motherhood, and the intense demands of the mother-child relationship.
Tiana Traffas is a self-taught artist and mother from the driftless region of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her major sources of inspiration include taboos, emotions, the psychology of motherhood, ancient Neolithic and matriarchal goddess cultures, and archetype. She enjoys good books and music, thrifting and floating in the river.
Laura Josephine Snyder
Mirroring
Watercolor and gouache on paper
22” x 30”
2021
$1,200
Mirroring is part of a series of works on paper titled Signal Flags. This series references maritime port entry symbols. Both contemplative and visceral, these drawings are counterpoints to the signs, rules, and structures that dictate the movements of our minds and bodies within the confines of our society.
Laura Josephine Snyder is a visual artist living and working in Charlottesville, Virginia. In her work she explores memory, emotion and cognition through abstraction and an embodied practice. Her work has been shown recently in the solo-exhibition "Yellow Ochre, Red Clay" in the Gallery at Studio IX in Charlottesville and in the group exhibition and launching of the publication "MALA LECHE" with the Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives (FUCC). She has a Masters of Visual Arts from the UNAM, Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City and a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.
matthew anthony batty
To Be A Bay, Current
To Be A Bay, 3 Feet
To Be A Bay, 6 Feet
To Be A Bay, 9 Feet
digitally printed flags
42"x 36"
2021
$2000 for series, $600 individually
To Be A Bay is a narrative series that looks at the rise in sea levels over the span of the next century specific to the Tampa Bay area. The concrete lines of the archival maps from the 90's are softened by the printing on fabric and dilute perceptions of control over Nature. The activation of the sea breath on the fabric reminds us that the bay is a living thing that hum_ns live among.
matthew anthony batty was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and grew up in and around Florida. they received a BFA in Studio Art at Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL and received the Marcy Murphy Fellowship while pursuing their MFA at Indiana University. they have been selected as an artist-in-residence at The Birdsell Projects in South Bend, IN, and The Weight of Mountains, a nomadic video art residency, temporary site in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. In 2019, matthew was commissioned by the New Orleans Film Festival to create an installation for the festival, which was funded in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation. batty also explores curatorial work as an extension of their art practice. They have curated exhibitions for Spalding University, The Breezeway Gallery, The Fuller Projects, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville, and in 2018 they were an artist/curator-in-residence with Black Vulture Project. matthew anthony batty is currently a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville.
Jenna Valoe
Cloud Peace, Moon Peace
Cotton Fabric with Appliqued Lettering
17" x 31"
2021
$250
Inspired by John Lennon & Yoko Ono's famous bed in, Cloud Peace Moon Peace encourages folks to find peace wherever they can.
Jenna Valoe is a self-taught fiber artist whose fascination with connecting people to their environment, themselves and each other informs her artwork. She currently lives in Saint Francis, WI and is playing with the healing potential of art through the use of color, shapes, text and the exploration of secular prayer.
Katie Huckson
Unflags (impossible/necessary)
Digital prints on chiffon
34 x 42 inches ea.
2018
$250 ea.
These works, "unflags (impossible/necessary)", are part of a larger installation/body of work that is a contemplation of my own mixed ancestry and my relationship to the land and landscape I live with/in/on. As someone of mixed settler/Metis/immigrant ancestry raised on the Great Lakes in Northern Ontario - how authentic is my connection to this place? How am I implicated in larger narratives around national identity, land ownership, resource extraction and colonialism? I tease out these thoughts using (borrowed? stolen?) imagery sourced from vintage photo books produced by the national parks. The images, removed from their source texts and liberated from the masculinist, colonial tone of the books is then manipulated, reprocessed, printed onto various organic fabrics, and sometimes re-installed in the landscape as a gesture of returning what has been taken. This feels to me an impossible but necessary task.
Katie Huckson graduated with a BFA from Algoma University and an MFA from the University of Windsor. She is currently an instructor of studio art and art history at Algoma University while pursuing a PhD in Communication and Media Art at McMaster University. She has exhibited, screened, and performed artworks across Canada and abroad and has participated in residencies in Colorado, Italy, and Vietnam. Her video, Normal Disorders, won Best Picture at the Lights, Camera, Take Action Film Festival at the University of Colorado in 2018. She has earned creation and exhibition grants from the Ontario Arts Council (2018, 2019, 2020) and Canada Council for the arts (2020).
Liz Looker
Upper Level Management
Ink and collage on paper
10” x 8”
2021
$200
Upper-Level Management is a mixed media piece created with collage and by using my breath through a straw to manipulate ink across the paper. The process to make the piece left me breathless, which mirrors the physical sensations of stress and chaos that many workers experience in capitalist organizations.
Liz Looker was born in 1987 in Upstate New York, USA. She has exhibited nationally in group and solo shows, including at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York; Philadelphia Sketch Club in Philadelphia; Plastic Club in Philadelphia; and Karen Aqua Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2020 she founded a national collaborative group, the Emerging Artists Monthly Meet-Up, which she continues to facilitate. Liz earned a BA in Studio Art, Sociology, and Education from Hampshire College; an M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from Suffolk University; and has studied at the University City Arts League in Philadelphia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Student Art Association, Skidmore College, and the New York State Summer School of the Arts (School of Visual Arts). Liz lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Nuveen Barwari
The Love Between Land and Dreams
Deconstructed Kurdish dresses, thread, needle
84 x 85 inches
2021
$3,000
Nuveen Barwari
Stripes
Found denim, velvet, deconstructed Kurdish dress, latex paint, thread
80x83 inches
2021
$2,500
Barwari received a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from Tennessee State University in 2019 and is a 2022 MFA candidate at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Barwari has worked with and completed projects with the Frist Art Museum, Oasis Center’s Art and Activism Series, Coop Gallery, and McGruder Social Practice Artist Residency. She has exhibited in numerous locations such as Kurdistan’s first Fashion Week (2018) in Erbil, Kurdistan region of Iraq, the Frist Art Museum (2019) in Nashille, TN, the University of Michigan (2019), Sugar Gallery (2019) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Zg Gallery (2020) in Chicago, 21c Museum Hotel (2021) in Nashville, Tennessee, NGBK Gallery in Berlin Germany (2021) and Duhok Gallery (2021) in Duhok, Kurdistan. Barwari is represented by The Red Arrow Gallery in Nashville, TN.
about the curator:
Molly Evans
Molly Evans (she/her) is an experimental quilter, fiber arts curator, and educator residing in St Petersburg, Florida. Her curatorial focus of fiber arts at the boundaries of tradition are in line with her personal fiber arts practice of creating experimental quilts and soft sculpture which aim to advance the medium. She received both a BFA and an MFA in Fiber Art at Savannah College of Art and Design and Indiana University, respectively, and currently teaches a wide range of 3D media at the University of Tampa.