I gave a docent tour at the Frist Art Museum this past Sunday of our current exhibition: Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. It is a beautiful exhibition curated by the Minneapolis Institute of Art which will travel to the Smithsonian in Washington, DC and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK after it closes here in Nashville next weekend.

One piece stood out this past Sunday: Idiot Strings: The Things We Carry by Sonya Kelliher-Combs  an Athabascan and Inupiat artist from Alaska. It is a series of goat and sheep hide pouches attached to strings, forming floating pockets. They cast shadows on the ground, creating an ethereal effect. The piece is, in part, the artist’s response to the suicides of three of her relatives. The strings invoke “the idea of tethering,” she said, “to not forget about these people.”

I talked with my tour group about the empty pouches and how they represent the burdens that we carry with us that we need to empty out from our lives. We have all been harmed in some way whether it is discrimination, relationship difficulties, or being slighted. It may be physical, emotional or spiritual harm, but we have all experienced the difficulties that life brings us.

But which are the ones that we should no longer emotionally carry, not forgetting that they ever happened, but instead recognizing that they make up our past, but they don’t need to harm our future?

My tour group also talked about how our movement and our breath influences the swaying of the empty pouches. Representing how intertwined we are with each other and how we can either provide comfort and nourishment, or tear down others with our words and actions.

And the idiot strings? They are a reference to the string where a small child’s mittens are attached so they don’t get lost. In Alaska, it is important to not lose your mittens!

But the emotional scars that we have, they don’t need to be a burden forever.

Here’s a 1:19 minute video of the installation at another museum in Norway of Idiot Strings: https://youtu.be/WqkL2faAHmI

I plan to carry this image with me through my next week.

What burdens are you carrying? Or what can you do to relieve the burdens in others?

Blessings, my friend,
Agatha