I often think about the things we pass down between generations. I was lucky to grow up learning to make Iroquois crafts from my extended family of traditional artisans. I look at my hands when braiding cornhusk and consider how my fingers and their movements are shaped by women's hands working in the same way over thousands of years.
My work with traditional materials, mainly corn, also ties me to my lineage. My mother was known for her traditional cornhusk skills, and she is the one who taught me. I believe that these materials and ways of working share non-verbal knowledge and stories about life and healing sent through time from my ancestral mothers.
Stories are important, and not just ones found in craft. I grew up hearing all kinds of them, stories of Flying Heads, Rock Giants, and women who fall from the sky. Fantastical, outrageous, funny, scary stories that varied slightly with each storyteller. Sometimes Sky Woman was pushed by her jealous husband (a scandal with a hot lacrosse player); sometimes she lost her balance and fell because she was curious; and sometimes she willingly jumped through the hole in the clouds to the watery world below.
In the end, though, the result is always the same: the world is created, the moon appears at night, we live, we love, we die.
As I grow older, I appreciate the changeability of the oral traditions. I love that there is room for personal nuance even in old stories, as long as the outcome is (more or less) accurate. I love that very old stories are told alongside stories from last year without skipping a beat, stories that then get repeated until they, too, become old stories.
The story I am telling, through my craft-based work, is one that is revealed to me as I go. I am exploring issues of identity, healing, soothing, mourning, mitigating loneliness, aging, and love. A modern day Indigenous fever-dream story of intergenerational relationships, and the desire to be seen, heard, and connected. The longing to belong.
It is about how we experience the same things differently at different ages. It is about how we can be brave and thrive because our own lives are proof that our ancestors did. It's about knowing you can do hard things-because you already have.

Bio

Erin Lee Antonak is a visual artist and curator. She is a Wolf Clan member of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York. A graduate of Bard College (Annandale, NY) and SUNY New Paltz (New Paltz, NY), Erin has studied at Lacoste School of the Arts (Lacoste, France), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT) and isa Morse College Fellow at Yale University (New Haven, CT). She has held head curatorial positions at both the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art (Biloxi, MS), the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans (New Orleans, LA) and has been the Board Chair of the Indigenous Women's Voices Summit (Hurleyville, NY). She has also developed and curated shows in Europe, Asia, and North America.

erinleeantonak@gmail.com
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https://www.connecticutartreview.com/blog/2019/3/20/studio-visit-erin-lee-antonak