INTERVIEW: Susannah Papish & Melissa Potter, “Invisible Labors” at Jane Addams Hull House

Image: cover of “Invisible Labors” by Susannah Papish and Melissa Potter, image courtesy the artists.

INTERVIEW
Susannah Papish & Melissa Potter: Invisible Labors
Edition of 100 (50 deluxe with handmade burdock paper inset)
Inga Books, $200 regular edition, $250 deluxe
Book Release at Jane Addams Hull House
800 South Halsted St.
Chicago, Il 60637
Dec. 8, 2022, 5-8pm

By Michael Workman

Inspired by Melissa Potter’s garden project for the 2021 Terrain Biennial at boundary, the art space founded by Susannah Papish, Invisible Labors explores the history of women and in the Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods of Chicago and the adjacent Blue Island, Illinois. Produced by Potter and Papish, the artist’s book explores how “land-stewarding and progressive movements influenced” the work of the area’s early women residents. As well, the artists investigate the overlap of indigenous practices within the evolution of these social service histories, including the early work of Hull House, for example, through Potter’s interview with “basket-maker Kelly Church, Anishinaabe, who carries on the Potawatomi black–ash basket weaving tradition.” Their limited-edition 3-color risograph volume was produced in collaboration with designer / artist Tamara Becerra Valdez and printer Jacob Lindgren’s Inga Books. We sat down recently over email to discuss the project.

How did you and Melissa Potter get together on this project, Invisible Labors? 

Melissa and I met in the Spring of 2021 when she came to a show at boundary (my gallery). After our conversation at boundary, I researched her work and became fascinated with the Feminist Seed Bank and the thematic and feminist gardens she has planted around Chicago. These gardens all had connections to women in some way — reproduction, witchcraft, social justice movements and the like. I have been using the outdoor space at boundary for artists to do projects occasionally and I thought that the upcoming Terrain Biennial would be a perfect opportunity to collaborate.

Can you tell us a little more about the garden installation project for the 2021 Terrain project, and how this translated into the book? 

Melissa proposed a carbon remediation garden where we planted native prairie seedlings and rare seeds. Prairie plants are natural carbon remediators, which is why the loss of the prairies is devastating to the environment. We also used the plants that were already growing in the yard, such as milkweed which is a pollinator plant and vital to the food supply for the Monarch Butterfly. Melissa titled the garden Invisible Labors as a way to recognize that the deep roots of the prairie plants do their work mostly underground. So Invisible Labors is the name of the garden project overall and then there is a Vanishing Butterfly Garden; the title for the butterfly garden is derived from the fact that the Monarch Butterfly is now endangered, and Invisible Prairie Garden is where rare seeds are planted.  

The garden is represented in the book mainly through documentary photographs. Melissa and I also created artwork that is reproduced in the book.

Why specifically focus on the work of Potawatomi Black Ash basket makers, Kate Starr Kellogg sister and artist Alice D. Kellogg? and Louise Barwick, as well?

It was so difficult to narrow down to these four main sections! We also have a short piece about the Morgan Park Woman’s Club to cap off the book. We’ve had such great support from that group and the Club was founded around the same time as our subjects, so we felt it would be a nice conclusion. I should start by saying that we did not set off to write a book! I suggested a sort of french fold out piece about Beverly / Morgan Park & the surrounding areas since I knew there is a history of farming life from before these neighborhoods were annexed into Chicago’s boundaries.  After that there have been Victory Gardens, communal kitchens and today there are folks who have transformed their lots into food and / or native gardens.

So we approached the Ridge Historical Society and we were given a plethora of information. It was truly overwhelming! It was actually Louise Barwick’s work that first drew us in. She was an artist and educator (like us) and lived in Morgan Park for most of her life. We immediately knew we wanted to research her further, because she is still quite obscure. It was suggested to us to also dig into the history of the Potawatomi in the Calumet (southland Chicago) region, since this is their tribal land. Melissa had been in touch with Kelly Church who is Anishnaabe, which is made up of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi Nations in Michigan, and had the opportunity to interview her, and she confirmed that the women in this Tribe were indeed making baskets in this region and the tradition is continuing in the present time. The Field Museum has recently mounted a reconfigured Native / Indigenous exhibition and Church’s baskets are on display. As for the Kellogg sisters, we had sifted through so much information about women related to this topic, but landed on them because their entire family was so interesting. They operated a 70 acre farm in what is now Evergreen Park, Illinois and Beverly and the family was sort of bohemian and all were involved in homeopathy, medicine, the Progressive Era and art in some way. As we dug further, we discovered that Kate Starr and Alice Kellogg were particularly enmeshed in all of these worlds and with Hull House, so that sealed the deal! As Melissa says, “all roads lead back to Hull House.”

In some ways you're illuminating a very Chicago history, going back to Jane Addams and the invention of social services. But I don't think people immediately associate that history with land stewardship, though they probably should. Can you explain how those threads got braided in your project?  

The Progressive Era, among other ideas, examined the idea of holistic education. So gardens and farming were part of the agenda in educating children and, in general, living with this philosophy. Jane Addams and the people involved with Hull House, such as Kate Starr Kellogg, who was an educator and writer, brought this idea into her teaching. There is a school in Beverly named after her, and they keep a pollinator and vegetable garden, so there’s proof of the lasting influence of Kellogg and her generation.

For art work you're producing as part of the project, can you delineate the divisions of labor within your collaboration and if there's specific significance of those divisions for you both? For example, you're using Potter's handmade burdock paper, and I know her work focuses all the way down to gendered seed work, did that figure into the project thinking / discussion as well? 

Yes. Once we were off and running with the book, we thought the handmade burdock paper would be a great way to literally incorporate the garden into the book. Melissa chose burdock because I have an incredible amount of it growing in my yard. The fact that we could use an established plant from the Invisible Labors garden was very exciting to us. It was a labor of love making that paper! Burdock is a very tough plant to break down into pulp. Melissa and Rene Aranzamendez also made lovely sketches of the prairie plants that our designer, Tamara Becerra Valdez incorporated into the design. For my part, I had been making paintings of the garden, especially milkweed for a year or two on and off so I continued to do so and then we selected some of these paintings for the book. We’ve been informally calling these “memory paintings” in homage to Louise Barwick’s paintings, which were informally referred to as “memory paintings.” As far as other divisions of labor, we’ve broken it up into our areas of strength and resources. As others have stepped in such as Tamara and printer Jacob Lindgren (from Inga books) we’ve enlarged our circle of collaboration.

Like what you’re reading? Consider donating a few dollars to our writer’s fund and help us keep publishing every Monday.