www.duluthartinstitute.org

Textile artist Blair Treuer’s portraits of herself, husband and nine children move off the walls with emotional energy. Textures and patterns blend and contrast, creating form; fabric mimicking paint while luring viewers to lean in, to observe, to examine detail. Relationships of the materials emerge, as do the relationships between the artist, herself and her family. Treuer explains, “The portraits are an intimate conversation about my life and the lives of my husband and children. My son’s inability to fit in at school; my daughters struggles with drug abuse, incarceration and the loss of her children; the loss I feel about my severed connection to my ancestors as a Scandinavian transplant with nothing left of my heritage to hold onto.” Treuer continues, “This exhibit is about my life as an outsider, the only non-Native American in my immediate family. My work is about my reflections of standing fixed on the outside, but privileged enough to look in.” 

As Treuer’s children prepared for a ceremony, the only way for her to participate as a non-native was to make blankets for their spiritual offering. She poured herself into them, teaching herself how to sew and discovering a spiritual process that feels to Treuer like “Inspiration channeling through me faster than my fingers can move”.
In Identity, Treuer becomes a storyteller delivering a message, “magic can be created when two people from different cultures love each other and build a life together.” 

For more information:

https://www.duluthartinstitute.org/Upcoming-Exhibitions