Bartow in the frame
Short films celebrating renowned artist Rick Bartow to screen in Newport
The Bartow Project, a collection of three short films celebrating renowned artist Rick Bartow, will be screened at the Newport Performing Arts Center this Friday, June 7.
The result of a three-year partnership between the Wiyot Tribe and theater company Dell’Arte International, all three films were developed by Indigenous artists in the homelands of the Wiyot people and inspired by the life and art of Bartow, who died in 2016. That inspiration is the sole connective tissue. Spanning genres, each film explores and examines, in its own way, various aspects of Bartow’s life and wide-ranging art practice, which included drawing, painting, carving, sculpture and music.
“Work is Ceremony: A Ceremony for Julie” by Michelle Hernandez of the Wiyot Tribe and Samantha Williams-Gray of the Tlingit Nation explores, through dance, the love of Bartow and his wife, Julie Swan. Swan, a musician and basket maker who succumbed to breast cancer in 1999, was married to Bartow for 12 years. The film, set in the coastal beauty of the Wiyot homelands, embraces the joy and melancholy of love and loss.
Nanette Kelley’s “Rick Bartow The Man Who Made Marks” is more of a mini-documentary meets animated music video. Kelley, of Osage Nation/Cherokee Nation heritage, created a delightful mélange of music, images and interviews where the viewer jaunts through stories told by friends and colleagues, underscoring Bartow’s talent and humor. His recorded song “Black Dog” serves as narration in the artist’s voice.
“Things You Know but Cannot Explain,” by Chantal Jung, Inujuk Nunatsiavutimi and Michelle Hernandez, is an 11-minute stop-motion animated short. The title stems from one of Bartow’s early graphite drawings, named after a quote by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Jung and Hernandez have created a lens through which the viewer enters the transformation of spirit, history and tradition that Bartow and the Wiyot people have experienced.
Bartow lived his whole life in Newport, the son of white and Wiyot parents. The Wiyot side of the family had emigrated up the coast from their ancestral lands early in the 20th Century. Bartow grew up deeply influenced by the Native values he encountered in his family and their relationships with the local Native community of the Siletz Tribe. He became a leader in contemporary Native American art. And while his work received international acclaim, he was always an active and integral part of his coastal community, where his legacy is still very much alive.
That legacy is alive, in fact, in a very real way. Bartow’s son, Booker Bartow, has recently rediscovered his love for visual art, and his first solo exhibition, “South Beach Salamander” is on display just a few blocks away in the Upstairs Gallery at the Newport Visual Arts Center. Drawing inspiration from his childhood in South Beach and the freedom to learn, explore, and express provided to him by his parents and the tidal wetlands, Booker depicts the fauna that animated his formative years. Wandering through the pieces, the viewer is invited to feel the rhythms of the estuary and the progression of the seasons. The show is part of the special four-gallery exhibition “Where Waters Meet,” featuring the work of five up-and-coming Indigenous artists.
The Bartow Project films will be shown back-to-back starting at 7 pm, followed by a question-and-answer session with Kelley and Hernandez. Tickets are $10. The Newport Performing Arts Center is located at 777 W Olive Street. For more information, go to coastarts.org or call 541-265-2787.