HEALER, REBEL, TRIBAL
Meet the artists at this Miami residency for BIPOC mothers
Going to an artist residency didn’t seem possible for Shizu Saldamando, a busy artist and mother from Los Angeles. But that changed when she heard of a residency in Miami organized by local nonprofit Fountainhead Arts.
Each month, Fountainhead hosts a new small group of artists at a house in the Morningside neighborhood to work on their art, experience Miami and network with the city’s art scene. The program hosts artists based on a new theme every month. In May, the residency hosted couples who are artists. The theme for June caught Saldamando’s eye: BIPOC mothers.
“The description for this one seemed perfect because I’d be with other mothers that get it, that have very strong critical art practices and who are dedicated to their craft,” Saldamando said. “But also, dedicated to being mothers, too.”
Saldamando joined two other artists, Natalie Ball and Angela Davis Johnson, to create art in a time when motherhood and women’s rights are at the forefront of public discourse. The country awaits a Supreme Court decision that may rescind Roe v. Wade. States like Texas and Florida have tightened abortion access. Parents have been struggling to find baby formula. And now there’s even a tampon shortage.
Among these artists are a healer, a rebel and a tribal council member. Though they have different practices and come from different places, their artwork focuses on communities of color, heritage and family. Since arriving in Miami, they have bonded over air boat rides in the Everglades, trips to museums and homemade meals at the residency.
“This is all about mothers of color really taking time for themselves to put themselves first when so often mamas put themselves second,” said Kathryn Mikesell, the Fountainhead cofounder. The thematic residency, where the artists have something in common, gives them the opportunity to “be surrounded by people that understand them completely and fully.”
At the end of each month, Fountainhead hosts an open house for the public to meet the artists at the residency. This month’s open house is Saturday.
Saldamando, Ball and Johnson agreed that found much more than a relaxing space to work and network. They found friendship.
BIRTHING STORIES AND CHOICES
Angela Davis Johnson comes from a long line of healers and midwives, a tradition she taps into for her work. Though she was born in Orlando, she claims several cities as home, like Atlanta and Philadelphia.
While in Miami, she had been thinking about Black maternal health and decisions about giving birth. She occupied the residency’s front living room as her studio and tacked her colorful artworks to the walls. The pieces were deeply rich, both in color and history.
“I believe in tapping into the times that we’re in and allowing it to reflect in the work,” she
said.
Today, disparities in maternal healthcare disproportionately impact Black Americans. Black women in the U.S. have less access to birth control and prenatal care and are more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women.
Before modern-day gynecology, African American ancestors relied on midwives to help deliver babies and used natural ingredients to abort unwanted pregnancies, Davis Johnson said.
She pointed to a large, abstract collage she made. It depicts a woman holding her womb. A small woven medicine pouch dangles next to her. Inside the womb are old texts describing medicinal plants, like catnip and black cohosh.
“It’s also thinking about how, in our birthing stories, we may not be able to have choices about how we want to have our babies, how we want to bring them into the world or where they want to be,” she said. “Creating these landscapes of different information that trouble and also inspire
is definitely a part of my practice and my work.”
For Davis Johnson, a mother of two, the residency was her “reemergence.” After taking time to rest during the pandemic, the Fountainhead residency was the perfect opportunity to experiment artistically and forge a strong bond with her fellow artists.
“The connection and the relationships that are built during this time is the thing that I was looking forward to most,” Davis Johnson said. “And that’s what I found.”
“AGENTS OF OUR OWN AUTONOMY”
Shizu Saldamando finds inspiration in the punk rock parties, bars and backyard get-togethers of California. She grew up in San Francisco’s Mission district with her Chicano father and Japanese-American mother.
Today, she’s a Los Angelesbased figurative artist who creates detailed portraits of friends, family and strangers on wood, paper and bedsheets. The subjects of her portraits line their
eyes with heavy black eyeliner, wear Ramones band shirts and pout their lips when they pose.
“We exist not just as victims, but as powerful agents of our own autonomy. To have autonomy over ourselves and our bodies,” she said, referring to people from marginalized communities who are underrepresented in fine art. “That’s where the portrait comes out of.”
But not everyone understood where she was coming from. In the early 2000s, when Saldamando was in graduate school, her white classmates said her portraits, which were exclusively of people of color, were problematic. Maybe she should draw more white people, she recalled them suggesting.
Her response was her thesis project. She asked people of color to look at her as if they were looking at a piece of art at a gallery. She drew their inquisitive facial expressions onto stretched canvases “to return the gaze.”
“It’s to call attention to the inherent notion that somehow only white people were the purveyors and surveyors of culture
d art,” she said.
As she dabbled in embroidery d painting on scrap wood, damando said she found suprt among Ball and Davis Johnn. They all just “get” each her, she said.
While sitting on the couch with ll and Davis Johnson, Saldaando opened up about her own ortion last year. When she rned she was pregnant, the ndemic was in full swing, her xiety was high and her toddler eded her undivided attention. e knew what the right decision her was, she said, and she nt to Planned Parenthood.
“To have autonomy over my n body and psyche was someng really important to me,” e said.
Had it not been for her decin, Saldamando said she uldn’t be here making art in ami.
OMEONE WHO FOUGHT”
Natalie Ball is a Black and digenous multimedia artist m Oregon who pulls inspiran from her heritage and tribal tory. She’s a mother of three, e hunts, she gathers and she es her art as a form of activism her community.
Ball is also a newly elected bal council member for the amath Tribes. And she wants eir land back.
“It’s wartime back home,” she d. “And I don’t say that light”
Ball was referring to a bitter, nse and sometimes violent pute over water between the amath Tribes and the white idents of a nearby town. mate change, severe drought d wildfires have only made the uation worse.
Racist discrimination and imidation have escalated, too, ll said. White store owners ve refused to ring her up, cks with American flags whip ound her house and she gets led threats for wearing a Trt that says “Save the c’waam,” an endangered variety of suckerfish that is sacred to the Klamath.
Lately, the tribes have begun the process to sue the Biden administration over treaty violations, she said.
“We’re making moves that hadn’t been done before to protect our water,” she said. “In history, my name will be listed as someone who fought for their territory, who fought for their babies.”
For Ball, her advocacy is part of her responsibility as a mother looking out for her children. That sentiment is reflected in the art work she created in while in Miami.
Ball has been working on her “Deer Woman” series, which represents her life as an indigenous woman, from enrolling as a card-carrying tribe member to joining tribal council as an elected official.
But her time at the Fountainhead residency was cut short, though she’ll be back in time for the open house. Ball and her work flew to New York City to set up her new exhibition “Shed a Tear, Running Deer.” Saldamando and Davis Johnson plan to visit.
IF YOU GO
What: Fountainhead Residency Open House
When: 7- 8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 25
Where: The Fountainhead Residency. 690 Northeast 56th Street
RSVP: www.eventbrite .com/e/fountainhead-residency -open-house-june-tickets332840905107?aff=ebdsoporg profile
This story was produced with financial support from The Pérez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.