THE THREE GRACES: Holly Wilson, Sallyann Paschall, and Kelly Church

Left to right: Holly Wilson, Sallyann Paschall, and Kelly Church.  Photo by E. J. Guarino

 

Since antiquity, numerous artists such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Rubens, Antonio Canova, Aristide Maillol, and Niki de Saint Phalle, to name a few – have explored the theme of The Three Graces.  Taken from ancient Greek literature, this motif depicts the three daughters of Zeus, each of whom is described as being able to bestow a particular quality on humanity: Euphrosyne (mirth), Aglaia (elegance), and Thalia (youth and beauty).  Today, Holly Wilson, Sallyann Pascall, and Kelly Church bestow these and many other gifts on humanity through their art.

The Three Graces, fresco from Pompeii, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

 

I am unaware of exactly when I came to think of Holly Wilson, Sallyann Paschall, and Kelly Church as the Three Graces, but perhaps it was when I realized that they not only knew each other but are friends. Each of these three women is a unique artist and, over time, I have been able to add their work to my collection and to get to know them to varying degrees.  As a collector, I find it an added bonus to meet the artist who created a work of art that I found so intriguing that I acquired it.  In a number of cases, the artist has become a dear friend.

I first came to know Holly Wilson quite by accident when I wandered into her booth at the Santa Fe Indian Market a number of years ago.  I was so taken with her work and personality that each year I made it a point to stop at her booth to see her new creations and talk to her.  When Holly came to New York she contacted me, something that became a tradition, and we eventually became good friends.  As we usually do, we talked about art, theater, music, her current projects and, of course, food.  However, I did not have any work by Holly in my collection since I rarely acquire sculpture because of space limitations.

Untitled work from the artist’s sketchbook, Holly Wilson, Delaware/Cherokee, 3.5”w x 5.5”h (2020).  Collection of E. J. Guarino.

           

             On one visit, as we were walking near the Hudson River, Holly took out a small sketchbook, drew something, and simply handed it to me as a gift.  I finally had a piece of Holly’s art in my collection.

Untitled (Cupcake on Plate) by Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation and Cherokee Nation, two pieces; polished bronze, .5“h x .75“w (2022).  Collection of E. J. Guarino.

                   On another of her New York visits, Holly came to dinner.  Shortly after her return to Oklahoma, a package arrived.  Inside was one of her small, but amazing pieces – a miniature cupcake on a plate.

Portrait of Coyote and the Anguish of Mortality by Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation and Cherokee, mixed media, graphite, pastel, conté, charcoal, on Stonehenge Paper, 30” x 22” (2022).  Collection of E. J. Guarino.  Image courtesy of Holly Wilson.

            After years of looking at and discussing Holly Wilson’s art with her, I decided I definitely wanted one of her pieces in my collection.  However, since I  mostly collect pottery and works on paper and rarely acquire sculpture, this presented a problem, or so I thought.  It was at this time that Holly created a number of very powerful drawings.  As soon as I saw Portrait of Coyote and the Anguish of Mortality, I immediately acquired it.  However, I still was not satisfied.  An intuitive feeling kept gnawing at me.  The more I saw of Holly Wilson’s work the more I knew I needed to have more of it in my collection.

Bird Man by Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation and  Cherokee, encaustic monoprint, 22” x 15” (2023)Collection of E. J. Guarino	Bird Man in Red by Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation and Cherokee, encaustic monoprint, 22” x 15” (2023).

 

Another opportunity to acquire Holly Wilson’s work presented itself in 2023 when I saw Bird Man and Bird Man in Red, two visually striking works on paper. Many of Holly Wilson’s pieces feature figures that are masked. Often, these masks resemble beaks, and frequently, the figures wearing them have wings, suggesting that the figures are bird-like and have the ability to fly – to freedom and beyond to the spiritual realm.

In both Birdman and Birdman in Red, the figures sport beak-like masks, and the title suggests their ability to fly.  These strange beings have a mysterious, etherial quality, which captivated me.  It is obvious that the two works are similar, but there are differences as well.  Besides the color red, Birdman in Red has circles above the figure’s head that appear like a small whirlwind.  This could symbolize many things – great intelligence, spirituality, or a unique consciousness.

Red Dress by Holly Wilson, Delaware Nation and Cherokee, encaustic monoprint, 15” x 12” (2023).  Collection of E. J. Guarino

           Shortly after deciding that I wanted to acquire Bird Man and Bird Man in Red, I also chose another work – Red Dress. The artist’s choice of red in this work is important.  Red signifies power; it attracts the viewer’s attention and holds it.  Although the use of red may initially engage the viewer, another element in the work is also intriguing – the girl, like many of Wilson’s figures, appears masked.  But the sense of the inexplicable doesn’t end there. One is left to wonder what that blob-like thing to the right of the figure might be.  And yet, the mysteries continue: Why is the figure masked?; Why does she have such large feet?; Why does she have an indistinct quality?  All of these questions and more are what make Holly Wilson’t art continually seductive to me.

L to R, Wesa, Wilma, and Moosie – the Paschall cats.  Photo by Sallyann Paschall

             Getting to know Sallyann Paschall and acquiring her art was a bit more complicated and took quite a bit of time.  Each year, when I attended the Santa Fe Indian Market, I would stop by Sallyann’s booth to chat.  I was immensely taken with Sallyann, who is extremely personable, and with her art.  Unfortunately, every year by the time I reached her booth I had already spent all of the funds I had saved for Indian Market.  Then, in 2019, Sallyann decided she would no longer participate in the Santa Fe Indian Market.  This was a new wrinkle that threw me a collecting curve.  Clearly, I would have to employ another tack if I wanted to add work by Sallyann Paschall to my collection.

In August 2022, Sallyann Paschall was kind enough to invite me to visit her studio.  I was in collector heaven.  A bonus was meeting Wilma, Moosie, and Wesa, Sallyann’s Bengal cats.  After looking at numerous works at Sallyann’s studio, I acquired eight.  Among them were Bally Castle Sonnet I and II, and Collage Exploration.

BallyCastle Sonnet I by Sallyann Paschall, Cherokee, oil & cold wax, 12“ x 8“ (Nov. 2021).  Collection of E. J. Guarino

BallyCastle Sonnet II by Sallyann Paschall, Cherokee, oil & cold wax, 12“ x 8” (Nov. 2021).  Collection of E. J. Guarino

 

I was immediately intrigued by BallyCastle Sonnet I and BallyCastle Sonnet II, a pair of works in which the artist employed oil and cold wax.  The term cold wax was unknown to me, and I became intrigued by this artistic process in which the artist combines a wax medium (usually beeswax) with a small amount of solvent and resin and then mixes this amalgamation on the palette with each individual oil paint color.  The end result is applied to the canvas or paper employing a brush, knife, or other tool.  The end result is that the cold wax gives a sense of mass, intensity, and transparency to the oil paint, creating a heavily textured surface.

Curious about these to works, I emailed Sallyann.  “I drew the colors from these two pieces from the niches of stone walls that I saw in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland,” she replied.  “I tend to pick up on snippets of the landscape and internalize what I see. I used to draw and paint the broad sweep of a landscape but I have now honed down to the small parts of things, which many times are more complex. I love the stone walls in that part of the world and am fascinated by the color and texture changes therein. These two pieces were produced with an oil and cold wax technique, which lends itself to the complexities that I observe.”

Collage Exploration by Sallyann Paschall, Cherokee, collage, 15“ x 11“ (circa 2010).  Collection of E. J. Guarino

                       Collage, as an artistic technique, is something that has always interested me because I am invariably curious about an artist’s mental and creative process.  How does the artist decide what pieces to apply to the paper?  Does he or she start with a preconceived plan or is the creation of the collage partially or even totally spontaneous?  When it comes time to choose, where does the artist extract the elements that will be included?  Is there a collection of disparate items saved over many years from which the artist selects?  I am sure that the answer to each of these questions is different depending on the artist, but viewers and collectors alike often wonder about such things.

In Sallyann Pascall’s Collage Exploration there is a piece of what may be an Asian graphic novel; what looks like a piece of cloth but is actually paper; other bits of paper and part of a handwritten personal letter written in Pawnee, Oklahoma, dated April 19, 46, with a salutation that opens the letter with “Dear Children Four.”  Part of the letter is placed on the page upside-down.  In this work the artist is exploring the genre of collage and states so in the title.

“I absolutely love love love collage,” Sallyann wrote in the same email.  “My work, unlike many collages, only tells a visual story of pattern and color. This one includes an old letter, which should only be taken as an aside, not at all a major part of the work. Elements here are drawn from torn papers such as wallpaper, Oriental newspapers, pieces of old prints, and scrap paper. I place the scraps where they seem to want to be.  It’s a very intuitive process.”

Bracelet by Kelly Church, Gun lake Band Potawatomi, Odawa, Ojibwe, black ash and copper, 8”L x .5”w (2017).  Collection of E. J. Guarino

 

Bracelet by Kelly Church (detail).

 

Although I greatly admire Kelly Church’s art and have rhapsodized over it for years, I was hard-pressed as to how one of her pieces would fit into my collection, which had basically narrowed to Native American ceramics and Native American and Inuit works on paper.

I kept seeing Kelly at the National Museum of the American Indian Native Art Market in Manhattan, which is held each year in early December and, finally, in 2017 I bought one of her bracelets.  However, I was still not satisfied.

 7th Generation Black Ash Basket by Kelly Church, Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe, white vinyl blind, ribbon, and two strips of black, 7“h x 5“ in diameter (2022).  Collection of E. J. Guarino.

                       Eventually, I got to know Kelly, and I learned more about her work each time I attended the Santa Fe Indian Market.  Still, I was unable to conceive of how Kelly Church’s work could be integrated into my collection. Then, at the 2022 Santa Fe Market, the problem was resolved when I saw the artist’s 7th Generation Black Ash Basket.  At the time, I had recently encountered the concept of Indigenous Futurism and I was considering how I could incorporate works that reflected that concept into my collection.  Kelly’s piece was a unique take on the idea.

Among Native American artists, Kelly Church’s approach is extremely pragmatic.  Faced with the complete destruction of the natural materials she uses to create traditional baskets by the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive species, she devised an innovative solution: vinyl window blinds.   The baskets the artist now creates are constructed using human-made materials, but she also weaves two strips of black ash bark into each basket to indicate the scarcity of this traditional material.  The artist refers to this new type of basket as 7th Generation Black Ash Baskets to indicate what traditional baskets may look like in the future unless the problem of the Emerald Ash Borer is addressed and solved.  Kelly Church is painfully aware that, although basket-making techniques can be taught to future generations, the traditional materials and the ways of identifying, harvesting, and processing them may soon be lost forever.

It has been a wonderful experience getting to know these three artists.  Seeing the many manifestations of their artistic impulses has been an education for me as a collector and, more importantly, as a person.  Each of these three artists creates art that is grounded in, but not limited by, her Native culture.  In her own unique way, Holly Wilson, Sallyann Paschall, and Kelly Church have widened the boundaries of Native American art while at the same time expanding the parameters of mainstream American art, which is no mean feat.