Squanto: A Shrine To Nothing

Squanto and friends sew a teepee for Saturday's show.

Why not take the setting another direction, make the gallery a home? It’s all a part of my big picture: smell bad, sweat, dance, get too drunk or stay sober… I want a home for people to do that in. All in all I don’t feel there are enough magical environments out there for people to genuinely celebrate.
—Squanto

I visited Squanto Monday evening, less than a week before “Fun Art Time,” her Thanksgiving solo show at MINT Gallery on Saturday. The show is her first since January, when she contributed a few pieces to MINT’s “Employee Picks” show… but the pieces she contributed were actually leftovers from her solo show at Aurora Coffee the January before that:

Squanto aligns patches.

The art itself was from a show I had at Aurora, and the other piles of things [the Shrine to Nothing which surrounded Squanto's framed pieces] were just from my house. I took things and mashed them all together… the ‘things’ themselves meant a lot, they were things I had made or found and loved—but them being put together wasn’t a plan I had in collecting/making them.
—Squanto

So what does Squanto’s work look like now, almost two years since she last created pieces for a gallery show?

My stuff isn’t really relatable to anything I have seen… so I don’t even try. The word rainbow is usually involved in any description I read. The materials I use: watercolors mostly, and India ink; any National Geographics I can find from before the the very early 80s, and funny textbooks from the 70s through 80s. I use colored pencils sometimes, sequins, feathers, tree limbs… anything. And there is ALWAYS a pretty large percentage of cat and dog hair in all that I make.
—Squanto

At work.

I have a G.E.D. in quitting school—that is the extent of my traditional education. I tried college a few times and never made it past the first month or so. And I never went with the intentions of going for art, but rather a teacher or librarian or something.

Aside from that I am self-taught. I read books and practice, cut things I like out and stash them everywhere. I’m figuring it out day by day—I didn’t realize until earlier this year that I like watercolors more than any other medium of paint.

It’s always a learning process. I draw on anything near me; I always have. I set random little things together until I like them—they are my ’shrines to nothing.’ My mom is the same way. She just puts shit together, and then [sees my work and] wonders where I got it from. On our kitchen table at my parent’s house there is a small rock my mom found outside… she glued two ladybugs to the top of it. My mom probably couldn’t sleep one night and ate a sandwich at the table and then glued two ladybugs to a rock—makes sense to me.
—Squanto

Squanto's exposition.

The teepee, completed.

I found an old book that was published in the 50s at a thrift store called Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims, and reading it cracked me up. The book is STILL published the same way it was from when it was written in the early 50s… which is to say it is completely un-researched and marketed/sold to children as if it were a historical book.

Characters from our country’s holidays include the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause and ‘Indians/Pilgrims.’ The Native Americans are the ONLY true AMERICAN figure that we represent as a holiday character… they existed and were alive, and ARE alive right here on this land… but these people are made to be so fictional and tall-tale-ish. The complete strangeness of the cycle of how our country got to THIS place is why I chose Squanto.

Squanto is the name the pilgrims called a man whose name they couldn’t pronounce, who we now credit to giving us this holiday of thanks—THAT is why it’s my name.
—Squanto

Be at MINT Gallery this Saturday at 8pm for the opening of “Fun Art Time.” ( Squanto sez: “All I require is that all in attendance must dress like rainbows/INJUNS and/or Pilgrims… you can also dress like PUGSLEY from Adams Family 2, when he dressed like a TURKEY and sang the “EAT ME” song.)

Tags: MINT Gallery