EASTHAMPTON – Easthampton City Arts continues to support visual, literary and performing artists through their studio residency program called Art Workspace Easthampton (AWE) in 2022.

The program offers free, two-month studio residencies at MAP Space in Eastworks and at the ECA Gallery at Old Town Hall. This year they are offering residencies to seven artists; five will be housed at Eastworks and two at The Old Town Hall.

Artists apply for the program and a review committee made up of members of both the ECA Coordinating Committee and members of the public carefully consider each application. This year Easthampton City Arts coordinator Pasqualina Azzerello said they had more applicants for this program than any other opportunities they’ve offered previously. She said “there are so many artists in this area, and actually very, very few residency programs.”

Reminder Publishing had the opportunity to speak with Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz, one of seven artists chosen as a recipient of the program, and learn more about her work and background.

In December 2021, Alkiewicz began her residency at the ECA gallery in Old Town Hall, Easthampton. According to her artist statement, she is a “self-taught artist” who “paints with acrylics, makes digital art, creates Orange Shirt beaded pins, and writes poetry and non-fiction writing.” During her residency, she will be writing and illustrating a childen's picture book. She has a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, moved to Western Massachusetts in 2006, and earned a second bachelor’s degree in journalism and a certificate in Native American Indian studies in 2012. She also earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing nonfiction in 2018.

Alkiewicz said she has always been a creative person and because of that pandemic, she’s had a lot of time at home to draw and paint. “Because I’ve always been a creative person, I just didn’t welcome it – I didn’t try to show it. So, now, I applied for this residency, and I got it.”

Alkiewicz is a beneficiary of Nunatsiavut Government of Labrador, Canada, while she resides with her family in Northampton. She explained the Labrador Inuit are an independent government in existence since Dec. 1, 2005, and her status as its beneficiary is similar to to being “a carded Native” in the United States. She also earned a Native Studies Certificate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a member of the Western Massachusetts Native Community, an intertribal mix of Indigenous people.

“It is my opinion that many people still think Inuit/Natives are extinct and only belong in museums, history books. We are thriving and doing positive things in the world,” she said. “That is why I am thrilled to have a studio residency from Easthampton City Arts. It is a big deal to be recognized by such a reputable organization like ECA.”

Alkiewicz shared that she is a relocated Labrador Inuk and is a child of the “Sixties Scoop.” She said she “was adopted from her homeland” at the age of three months and moved with her adopted family to the North Shore of Massachusetts where she grew up in a home with five other mixed-nationality children and two of her adopted parents’ biological children.

She explained that the “Sixties Scoop” was an effort by the Canadian government to reduce the indigenous population in Canada.” Alkiewicz said, “They took babies from their mothers and adopted them out to white homes, and so I came here because all the time people ask me, ‘Why are you living down in America?’ and that’s because I was taken from my family.”

She said her mother is a survivor of the Canadian residential boarding school program that took place from 1894 to 1996. Alkiewicz spoke of her mother’s experience, “She wasn’t taught how to parent – she had a very hard life, a lot of trauma, so when she had me, it wasn’t a really good situation. So, I am a dual citizen, Canadian American. So, mom didn’t know what she was signing because she’s so traumatized. When I was born between postpartum depression and not knowing what’s going on that she signed the paper, and she didn’t know she was signing me away. When they took me, she didn’t expect that, she didn’t know that I was gone for good.”

Alkiewicz shared that after physically reuniting with her mother in 2017, her mother called her “Ella,” which is her birth name, and she now uses “Ella” as her chosen name.

As for her book, she said she is working tirelessly while having the studio time and is hoping to have it completed by May, and she doesn’t have the details about its contents available to the public at this time. When it is completed, she plans to submit it to an Inuit-owned company in Canada “because I know there’s a need to educate people about Inuit culture and what happened to us.” she added.

For more information about the ECA Artist Residency Program, visit https://www.easthamptoncityarts.com/.