Herne Sue

Indian Time Vol 31 #17
May 2, 2013

An installation titled "Mohawk Samsonite" by Sue Herne Includes her own treasured objects, new and old, that are personal yet also illustrate our history.

Photo by Mark Brandenburg

Indian Time Vol 33 No 7
February 19, 2015

Sue Ellen Kononwa'tsh'en:ri Herne's HOME-Made, an Autobiographical Exhibit opened at the TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) Center in Canton, NY on Thursday, February 12, 2015. Regardless of opening during one of coldest nights of the year, the TAUNY Center gave off the warm glow from a room filled with family, friends and art lovers. It is an expansive room filled with fine examples of traditional arts, and the decidedly homespun, homemade, home-grown exhibit of Sue Ellen Herne's art installations, basketry, poetry, paintings and a visual and tangible view of her childhood. For all of the "Home "-ness of this exhibit, the exhibit wasn't about being domestic or any sense of that; instead it's an artistic record of
her intimate and familial connection between her Ista, her grandmother, and her Aunties. Some of the stories, which are as important in this exhibit as the artwork itself are classic; parents did what they could with what they had at the time and in her family line of women, they did it creatively. Looking back through this exhibit gives a clear sense of where she came, even when she was searching herself at the time. In sharing this intimate, yet strangely familiar exhibit, she also gives those of us from the same generation a notion of where we came from.

This exhibit doesn't stop at her childhood, the viewer then glances into the next generation of her sons and where it takes on a more "urgent meaning" for her. Her sons, Tehonwenniserathe (Levi) and Rohonwa'kiehrha (Logan) and their friend Tehnerahtatenies sang several traditional songs for the attendees. It was the bond that held everything and everyone together for the evening.

Herne is a 1982 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design in painting and a 1978 graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.