Chae Patterson
cpatterson3@zagmail.gonzaga.edu
Jeffery Gibson
Jeffery Gibson is a member of the Mississippi Chocktaw and Cherokee nations who is openly queer. His work, including in this piece People Like Us, uses bold colors and even bolder messages to fight for the right to be seen. The message comes from a print of the same name by Sister Corita Kent. This piece combines traditonal geometric patterning, beadwork, and rawhide along with the bold colors and message that one can't know another person at a single glance. The better you get to know someone, the more you see their true colors
They Choose Their Own Family is also made with beadwork but woven to look like a painting again combining the old with the new. This piece's bright colors contrast the muted off-whites of the text to show that the message may not be as clear to some as to others. This piece especially resonates with the LGBTQ experience as a big event that happens in most relationships is when the LGBTQ person chooses their "family" or the ones to come out to.
Gibson, Jefery. They Choose Their Own Family, c.2020. Roberts Projects
This final piece, entitled Chief Black Coyote, is a good representation of the masking and obscuring the dominant society imposes on both groups. On the right is the clear picture, what life really is, but on the left is what stories from the opressor will tell you. They try to paint you out, distort the picture, and muddle the colors. By again using traditional geometric shapes Gibson again ties the future to the past, and it's open to interpretation if this is a warning to stay vigilant against being erased or a hopefull message going from erasure to freedom and clarity.