Colville Children Curate (title to be determined by co-curators)

Curated by children of the Colville Confederated Tribes, Bailey Placzek, and Nicole Cromartie

Exhibition Background Development

While working as an instructor at the Washington State College Fine Arts Department, Clyfford Still assisted in founding a summer art colony for WSC community members and became one of its first instructors in the summers of 1937 and 1938. Instructors held classes in Nespelem on the Colville Reservation and Toppenish on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington. The Clyfford Still Museum collections include three paintings on canvas, over 85 drawings and sketches on paper, nearly 20 documentary photographs, and other archival ephemera documenting Still’s time in the area. These objects reveal how Still’s experiences with the Colville community profoundly impacted his work for years.

While culturally distinct and diverse, the twelve bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation—Chelan, Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce, Colville, Entiat, Lakes, Methow, Moses-Columbia, Nespelem, Okanogan, Palus, San Poil, and Wenatchi—share cultural practices and 1.4 million acres of land. Though CSM has focused past exhibitions and programs on Still’s work from Nespelem since 2013, this exhibition seeks to extend and deepen CSM’s relationship with the Colville Tribal community.

Co-curated with children in the Colville Confederated Tribes in northeastern Washington, this exhibition explores Clyfford Still’s work through the perspectives of children, some of whom are direct descendants of individuals Still portrayed in his art. Colville Children Curate centers young Indigenous voices by engaging them to collaboratively develop an exhibition that builds upon previous evaluation, research, and CSM exhibitions, including Clyfford Still: The Colville Reservation and Beyond, 1934–1939 (2015), Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind (2022), and You Select: A Community-Curated Exhibition (2022). Extending successful strategies for co-curation with children established in Young Mind’s development, we turn our focus now to deepening that engagement. Like Young Mind, Colville Children Curate prioritizes the exhibition’s development process and engages co-curators in artwork selection, interpretation, and design. This time, however, co-curators also contribute to the conception of the exhibition’s general theme(s) to amplify our collaborators’ vision and address the questions most relevant to their lives. In so doing, Still’s artworks—depicting their home, family, and everyday life, as well as Still’s larger, abstract canvas works—become refracted through their experience.

Exhibition Special Features

Stay tuned! We are currently working with community partners to create and finalize possible special features for the exhibition.

Exhibition Goals

This project acts on the shared desire of leaders of Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and CSM staff to bring youth perspectives to bear in museum practices.

Curatorial Partners

• Nespelem School, Nespelem, WA (three classrooms: 4th, 6th, and 7th grades)
• Colville Head Start, Nespelem, WA (three classrooms, ages 3–5)
• Gathered Hearts Montessori, Omak, WA (one classroom, ages 6–12)

Thank you to our partners who will make this exhibition possible.

School partners:

Nespelem School

Nespelem Head Start

Supported by: