Residency: Newberry Library

2023
Camille “Katahtu’ntha” Billie (Oneida), Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi) were hosted as the Newberry library's first artists in residence. Artists had access to the library's collections and received a prompt to create a work that shared her experience as a native person living in Chicago for the final exhibit "Indigenous Chicago" from September-January 2024

Intro:
"Of Stone and Husk" is a regalia that exists to represent the experience Camille has had since moving to Chicago from Oneida Nation, WI 5 years ago at the time. This piece represents how she felt both hyper visible and invisible while existing as a single being at one time. To be an unthought of foundation for the ever happenings of American society and also grounded and comforted by her found community and folk back home. Her regalia will show what it means for her to be steadfast, but also ever vulnerable.

Context:
Camille is Haudenasaunee and her nation is the Onyota'a:ká, People of the Standing Stone. Her traditional name is Katahtu’ntha, which translates to “I vanish myself”. There are stories about how each time her ancestors did a move, a large standing stone became present amidst their physical community space until the next large move. She related to this as a way of showing chapters in one’s life. Necessary experiences and spaces that are needed to be lived in longer than the way one may consistently move forward and does not pause; which she has felt is more common in a capitalist society. Being from Oneida and learning from her community has taught her the values of being patient, timeful and to pay close attention to her surroundings. When relating this back to Of Stone and Husk, she uses the memories associated with these lessons to bring her regalia to life. Accents in cool greys and blues flicker behind her eyes. The tinted greens of her reservation is also present overlooking Chicago. Glazed brick along Lakeshore and sea glass blue windows and skylines. Charcoal streets and stone grey Skyscrapers mimic the bluffs and caves of Wisconsin that she found a quiet mind inside when she journeyed home. Encased to heal.
To be a husk of one seems one would be hollow. To be of husk is to say one came from them. One who was within husks, was sheltered, nurtured, and held in them. Camille has experienced this feeling and in a way has seen the husks become her exterior public self. She finds comfort in their dried hues of sand, beige and yellow-greens. Oneida’s traditional white corn has been a staple in her diet even when far from home, it’s kept her grounded and the husks find new ways to live in her home. Her travels to and fro between Chicago and home are painted in the tones of corn and stone. Although Chicago is more stone than corn, she has found a home despite her homeland being more corn than stone.
She’s experienced what it’s like for people to see her but not her culture, her values or her mind. Camille has found herself only sharing a surface level amount of knowledge about herself and her community, but enough that she’s found kinship in some who see and safety from those who may see her openness and willingness to bare her roots as an invitation to extract what she has to share. She does not want to share within the terms of extraction, and has found ways to express herself and share her spirit and energy safely especially in the medium of sewing in art.