 Ojourno, Venezuela, or Bonanote, come with die. You can go to love in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go love in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German or Turkish or Japanese. But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to love in America and become an American. Welcome back to A Nation of Immigrants, a live, new talk show program featuring the lives of immigrants, knowledge, diversity, and inclusion. Brought to you by Kingsfield Law Office and Think Tank, Hawaii, we invite renowned immigrants to discuss their life stories, immigration adventures, and the contribution to cultural diversity. Today's guest is our good friend, Ellen Schley. Ellen is an artist, curator, and a social pioneer. Currently the Vice President for International Association for Female Art. She has been past president for the Minnesota Woman's Caucus for Art, co-founder of the Wave Gallery in Lower Town, St. Paul, in the early 1980s and on the board of WAN, W-A-R-M. She has shown her work nationally and internationally, including Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, International Design Center in Minneapolis, and had many of her images have been used for such organizations as Partners for Woman Equality, Code Pink, St. Anthony Park Neighbors for Peace, and Celebrity Yourself, her curatorial debut for the Woman and Many Project at the University Minnesota Catherine Nash Gallery, stretch her to a new level. Her work is in multiple private collections throughout the United States, Canada, China, and Africa. Welcome to the show, Ellen. We are so happy to have you on the show. I'm honored. Thank you. Thank you, Ellen. You know, we know each other for a number of years, and I know you are a second-generation Italian and or a Sicilian. And please tell us about your family and how they settled in Minnesota. I came to Minnesota over 40 years ago from Boston as a graduate student's wife. That was another life. I was a young mom. Originally, I was born in Washington, DC, where my parents, both first-generation Southern Italians, my father, Sicilian, and my mother from parts of Calabria, met after World War II. We moved back to my mom's childhood home in Providence, which was intensively settled by Southern Italians in the late 1800s, like 1890s, and very culturally immersed. Family was the bedrock of the community interaction there. And the home that I lived in was a tenement house built by my great-grandfather that extended families in one place in different apartments, where they depended on one another for food, economic, social, and daily interaction. Italian was spoken in that neighborhood and there was a parallel universe in that the culture was dominant. But there was also this theme of assimilation in my family, probably in other families around me, which directed them to become more like the predominant white culture. Wasp is what it was called, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, educated, affluent, and successfully successful by certain standards set by the American culture of the 50s. Most of my mother's family had left that community behind. And my mother's brothers and sisters had attended, in some cases, Ivy League schools and viewed parts of the Italian culture and behavior as contrary to succeeding in the American dream. Well, it's a beautiful American story. Your parents, I think the Sicilians make a pretty distinct distinction between being Sicilian and Italian. So I think you are both Sicilian and Italian and not obviously Minnesota and American. And have you got a chance to visit Italy? I have not had a chance to visit Italy, but ever. Circumstance has never allowed it, but I'm going this year. My cousin just got back last week from finding a villa in Tuscany. And so I'm going to have the opportunity to visit in the fall. And we're all going to converge and then be able to go out from that villa. I'm very excited. Looking forward to that. It's going to be perfect. I'm excited for you. Italy is just absolutely stunningly beautiful. I wrote these a few years ago, in a parallel universe. I really appreciate you mentioned parallel universe. I wrote this in one of my articles. I said in a parallel universe, once upon a time, I was Italian chef in Filance, Florence. I mastered Tuscany cuisine. I turned deceptively simple ingredients, flour, cheese, veggie, mushroom, and fresh fruit into his critically profound art of delicacy, completed by a sip of county tepidari. I have a tremendous affinity for all things Italian. And I firmly believe that I was Italian in one of my prior lives. But what would your prior life be like if you could imagine it? I love it. I love what you're talking about. I think I must have multiple parallel lives because I live in my imagination as an artist. I imagine myself for a long time a dancer as a young girl in kindergarten. My teacher gave me a picture of a ballerina. And I took ballet for about four or five years and received a book about being a ballerina. I then danced incessantly to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. And when I began to do my own process and art, I did multiple images of dancers with my brushstrokes in India, Inc. and devoting myself to a dancer series and doing pieces entitled Pockebel Canon in D major. And I think I did those pieces so I could live as a dancer through them and loving movement and music and the feeling of it seems to touch on the sacredness of life and the tenderness of human emotion across all boundaries. So I love it. Well, beautiful. Beautifully said. Thank you very much. And I believe all Italians are artists, natural born artists. And you are a partying artist. Tell us about your artistic background and what kind of art do you do? So I grew up the daughter of an artist. And so I was immersed in art from a very young age. So by the time I was, I would say, could hold something, my father put a pencil in my hand. We spent hours in museums, putting in museums and galleries in Washington DC, which is where I was born. And on most Sunday afternoons, I drew constantly. And by the time I was in high school and possibly earlier, I was doing portraits of people for money. The pertinent issue was that it was paradoxical at the time because my father could have been suffering from PSTD, which was unknown back then. And he struggled as an artist and died suddenly of a heart attack when I was about 17 years old. And so I was told not to do art. And so my mother's family urged me to major in something else. And I went on to school to major in English. And my brothers even went to the Rhode Island School of Design for a time, which is one of the best art schools in the country. And they were also discouraged from focusing on art, even though all of us were kind of driven by my dad and had it in our blood to do. So one of the most pivotal times when I started and began my own art, because I was doing portraits all the time, was when I came and moved out of my comfort zone of Providence and came to Minnesota. And during that time, I developed my own practice, which was a style that I had dabbed with in college, but never pursued. It was ink and brush. And it was an easy choice to overcome, because, frankly, it was economic. They were the tools I could afford, so a bottle of ink and brush. And I liked, but I began to like the simplicity and feeling of stretching this medium to the maximum of expression. My dad, he always talked about painting more than the eyes could see. And there was this quote that I think really influenced me, that he said, in art, I believe in art, what is important is not said is more important, if not more so, than what is explicit. I apologize for that. A detailed portrayal of the subject matter is of less importance to me than the emotional content or inner perception. So that really impacted me. And it's almost like I had to leave providence in order to get back to the authentic part of myself as an artist and also in understanding my identity as an Italian-American, both of which I felt like I had to dismiss in order to survive. That makes sense. Well, please elaborate that, that dismissal in order to survive. When we talk about assimilation or the inclusion, the question of assimilation inclusion. As a Chinese-American, I feel I don't need to dismiss my Chinese identity because I was trained as an artist in college as well. And you'll remember that. And then later, I went to law school in the United States. There are only two things that can bring me close to tears. There's Chinese literature and American law. And I see absolutely no conflict between these two. And because I'm a linear descendant of the Chinese-Arthur literature tradition, and at the same time, I'm proudly Asian-American. So I can understand why you see that identity is vitally important for an artist and an Italian-American artist. And please tell us more about your feeling and how do you think about this inclusion and assimilation issue? Well, I think that this is a really poignant issue because I spent so much time denying myself to be the artist that I really wanted to be, which was the path that my father was. I also, at the same time, was denying my own heritage of being Italian because at the time when I was younger and I was growing up, we were told not to speak Italian. We didn't learn a dual language. They told us to speak English because we were American. And so we really had a lot of pressure not to connect ourselves with our ancestry or our roots. I think that was just the culture of the 50s. That's changed now, which has actually allowed liberation for many of us who have spent so much time denying ourselves of the things that we're very much we have an affinity for. Food, one thing. The things that make us who we are as Italians, just the things that we relate to and connect ourselves to. For a long time, it was almost like we had to subdue it in order to survive. So it kind of recognized that the liberation of many of the cultural liberation that's happening for many immigrants and for Native Americans and for African Americans who have endured much more than I could ever imagine or believe could happen. I think it's been an unleashing for all of us of things that allow us to be more ourselves and be more authentic. And so I feel almost liberated by it. Absolutely. I agree with every word you just said. It's one of my friends who is a Chinese-American and who couldn't speak a word of Chinese because her parents prohibited her to learn and speak Chinese at home because they wanted her to be part of the simulation, to be assimilated, totally into the American society. Yeah, so I just by pure serendipity came to this country when I was already an adult. I came to this country 28 years old in 2000. And I'd just been lucky to come to this country at the right time in the right place and now in Minnesota. But I really appreciate that I can imagine the difficulty and the hardship you have endured and the cultural identity you try to build for yourself. Well, make sure that you're being recognized and valued. So and you are a partying artist. I'm always curious about, you know, everybody have a favorite artist, but I'm always more interested in asking a partying artist, a real artist like you, or who is your favorite artist? Well, I'm thinking of the artists that I have many of them. When I stirred first and because my father was so immersed in art and had many art books, I grew up looking at the books of Da Vinci or the art of Da Vinci and the Renaissance period. So that was part of my kind of inculturation initially into art or introduction into art. But I started to begin to search out women artists because I wanted to kind of understand it. I had started a collection of Georgia O'Keeves. And so I got very immersed in Georgia O'Keeves because she started talking about how when she was in art school, she developed her style of art through doing the masters. She kept thinking, how can I improve on the masters? They've already done it. And so she began to do her own art and then is what spoke to me. So I started to believe in myself and believe that I could develop my own art and that the only way that I could really perfect myself was by being myself and doing my art. And so I did it initially in a closet. I always say I did art in a closet because that's about all the space I had for it. But then I started to begin to do images that people were, and I did it with this ink and brush and people, it started speaking to people and people started wanting to have the pieces of which always surprised me. But it was really my process. So I started doing these black and white images and then another pivotal point was when I went to Boulder and those particular pieces were in the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art as in a response to 9-11. I got there about a week or two before 9-11. And so the idea is that these pieces speak to the, one is it takes a village and spirit of community, but the idea is that we are trying to, in this day and age, develop a way of communicating with each other. And the pieces that spoke through me were about community and connection and the power of being able to work. If you look at the African saying it takes the village to raise a child, it means that we all kind of work together, which is how I grew up. So I realized that my art was really speaking through me at that particular time. And it was during that time that I then developed the ancestor series, if you could say that take the next piece of art as I added color to the work. And this is about, and the mountains in Boulder spoke to me, the environment spoke to me. So I started to add some color and this is about bound in green. And I started to begin to think about my dad and that was the first time probably in 40 years. It was like, again, the art and the environment was speaking through me through art, where I started to begin to do a process that was speaking from my center. And so I began to, so as far as my, I'm kind of skipping around talking about artists and my own process in connection with each other. I've really always focused on artists that speak to me in my art and my art process, like Kathy Colwitz was another artist who worked only in black and white. And then there was Kira Walker and who did a show at the Walker, whose work was in paper cutouts, black and white, and who spoke about slavery through that. So I very much connect to artists who work very personally, which connects to whatever is going on in their environment. I would say that's essentially what my process is. Yeah, wonderful. So I was stung by Kira Walker for a time I saw her work. And for the record, I'm a big fan of Kandinsky and Nishikawa. And for the Kandinsky is for the music, because the first time ever I realized that you can watch artwork and hear music that I hear that when I watch Kandinsky. And for Shikawa, obviously it's for the spirituality. This is absolutely faithful, but it's also a little bit of humorous in that. To be honest, I see music in your artwork as well. I see music and I see spirituality. But instead of Shikawa's playful humor, I saw a profound courage. And the subtitle of today's show is Creativity Takes Courage. I really appreciate your courage to make art and to make certain groups voice her. And I understand you're the vice president of the International Association for Female Artists, IAFA. And they are other artist organizations and you have the president of Women's Caucus for Art. And could you tell us that what distinguish IAFA from other artist organizations? So IAFA is an international, I'm sorry, international organization, the only one in the world that seeks to give artists a platform to be heard and now seen. And with the advent of the incredible virtual tools that we are now available, that are now available to everyone. And I say that with the recognition that no matter how hard we try, there will always be those that we can't reach. However, we believe and seek to give voice to everyone that we can. Artists of all media, performers, writers, photographers, playwrights, dancers, and so on. We have established several vehicles to do this and that have become popular, talking about current issues that encompass social justice and inequality. The world has been transformed even in the last few years with the pandemic to push us to new realities that we never thought would exist. And so he have been changed in a way by this. And I think that IAFA will be ahead of the curve in this way as we leave the local communities to establish their community connections created by their creativity. We are bringing this virtual world that we are coming to know and trying to raise consciousness and create a voice that unites people everywhere through art and the women artists that bring them that voice. Wonderful, thank you so much. I look forward to see more art events with IAFA and look forward to know more about your work and artists you represent and work with. We have a question from the audience from Tom. Tom said, you spoke of repressing your identification with the Italian-American heritage and of a liberation that followed. Is there an event that sparked or precipitated your liberation? That's a very good question. An event, one event. Is there a turning point? There are probably multiple, I think there are multiple turning points and one of the things that I recognize really has been in Minnesota. I've developed a community of people, of very diverse people that has helped me with this process in recognizing their own voice and in accepting and believing in themselves helped me understand that I had my own unique gifts at coming from the place that I came from. So I think it's hard to pick out one particular event. I could probably spend another half hour telling you about the multiple events that I did, I have experienced. Yeah, I agree. For me, there are multiple events as well and sometimes they're big turds. zig-zag is not just the most highway ride. And we have only a minute left but we normally end up our show with two questions to our distinguished guests. One is if you were given a sign of vice to yourself in your 20s, what would you say? A second question, any particular recommendations for both movie and you would like to share with our audience? Sure. This was a hard question about looking back at the 20s because I would like to sit down for about five hours with that person, but I think I would tell myself to be less hard on myself and to have more self-acceptance. And in Buddhism, I would say one of the sports, the blind attitudes, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity and equanimity is considered the most important and that is remaining calm and even the most challenging situations of which I know many people and I've watched people and that have to do that and learn from them. So I would say that would be what I would say would be something that I would like to tell my 20-year-old self would be more self-acceptance and less judgment. And I would say as far as books and movies, I know we only have about a second left. I have a couple of books that I, well, I read Sid Hawthor right away and was totally attracted to that journey. And two of my favorites books are, one is a play and one is a book, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Raisin in the Sun, which is very, very meaningful. And, but I would say that I love anything philosophical and have always been attracted to the readings of Tick-Nop Pan and to Rumi's poems and things that enlighten and raise the spirit that is the most important thing to me. Great recommendation, absolutely right. And my recommendation will be simple, everything Italian. Italian food, Italian movie, Italian books. And go to Italy, you will feel that you're, I think everybody be in Italy, you will feel like this is home. And particularly you will feel like home because I felt like home. Well, we run off the time with a great honor and the pleasure to speak with you, Ellen. You know, Ellen, Italian American artist. Thank you. Vice President of International Association for Female Artist and her recommendation would be raising the song and to kill a Mockingbird or anything philosophical. Thank you so much, Ellen, great pleasure. I look forward to see more of your art. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, I love you. Ciao. Ciao. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawai.com. Mahalo.