Artist Feature: Noquisi Christian-Smith

Artist Feature: Noquisi Christian-Smith

by Natalie “Lee” Arneson

Noquisi (they/them), is a multi-racial third-year student at Evergreen. They have a focus in history and cultural studies. Their favorite art mediums are ceramics, paper cuts, and darkroom photography. Their current project is a series of paper cuts that are based on important moments and quotes from their cultural studies class.

CPJ: In what ways do you create art? And this can be either in the traditional sense, or more craft person, as well.

Noquisi: Yeah. So I would say that I’m kind of a generalist in terms of art. So, I started doing 3D art, a lot of ceramics, a lot of sculpture, sort of, because my mom would be doing a lot of those things. So I started with clay, and then with cloth and sewing, but where I’ve really found a lot of my passion is in darkroom photography. And then, more recently, in these paper cuts. I’ve never loved drawing to be completely honest, I just have never found myself good at it, and so it’s really hard to appreciate myself when I draw. Yeah, I think I’ve always tended to gravitate towards less technically based forms.

CPJ: That’s a great way to put that though. What is it about darkroom photography that really draws you into it?

Noquisi: So, what I really love about it is that it connects me to one of my parents. One of my mothers taught darkroom photography at this Indigenous art institute where I grew up. And so there’s a lot of history there, and I really love the artwork that she did and kind of the archiving that kind of happened because of that. But also, because I think that it’s when you have a camera, like you get to appreciate the world in ways that people might not normally. There’s something I love about, like, laying down on the ground and looking up at things, or like climbing up in a tree and staring down at things. Also, just the slow extraction process of your photos has some sort of like, ritualistic feeling to it. It’s like a practice or a meditation over the work that I’m doing.

CPJ: Do you think—because you speak very passionately about darkroom photography—does that shape how you tend to view the world around you? Kind of like, how they say poets look at the world poetically?

Noquisi: I think so, yeah. I mean, I haven’t done it in a while just because I haven’t had a studio to really be able to develop photographs. So I think that I’m out of practice in seeing the world in a photographic manner, but there are moments where I stare at something and I think, ‘Oh! I could see exactly how this could be viewed artistically!’ Sometimes I’m like, ‘that would be such a beautiful painting’ or like ‘that would be such a beautiful photograph’ and often I don’t have the means to then do anything with that, but I’m just like, ‘that would be really cool!’ and I move on.

CPJ: What is it that inspires you to do art? And do the different types of mediums you work with have different inspirations?

Noquisi: So a lot of what gets me to do art is actually school, surprisingly enough. I think I don’t often have the means to do art outside of an academic setting, because that’s where I’m spending most of my time. And so, often, my art is not necessarily inspired, but done in place of an academic assignment, or like, it’s something that I want to do for an academic project—like I’m inspired by something else, but I’m able to do it in the context of class. That probably started in 10th grade, or something, when I would do art for a class. And then the different mediums of art just depend on what I have available in that class, or really what I think is the most striking image for what I’m trying to create, or even sometimes just what’s most convenient. I’m like, ‘oh, like, I have paper right here, and it would be packed flat, and I don’t have to bring it around with me everywhere, I might as well do something with paper’, like, just kind of working with what’s available. The other thing that really inspires my art, I would say, is my family, because they are all artists. I grew up from a family of artists, which was difficult and trying to recognize that I’m an artist, because I was always like, ‘oh, you know, artists means this and this and this’ and, yeah, I think I only really started to accept myself as an artist in the last couple of years, actually. But a lot of my style, I think, is inspired by my moms and the way that they create.

CPJ: That’s really sweet. Does that relation with art to your family, does that translate to feeling rooted in a sense of place? Or is it just tied to the people specifically?

Noquisi: My parents always called me a bridge. And I think that what I often end up showing in my art is like that; being able to bridge cultures and bridge identities, because as a multiracial person who’s lived in between their entire life, it’s really healthy for me to then have this art that can bridge the two aspects of my identity—more than two aspects of my identity. But I think it’s less rooted in a sense of place and more in a sense of identity. I mean, my identity can be attached to places, sure, but that’s not really the key piece of it.

CPJ: As a fellow multiracial mixed-kid I know, for me, my identity has fluctuated so much over the years, especially as I’ve grown up and come into myself and accepted parts of myself that maybe I was a little hesitant to acknowledge. Has anything similar played out for you? What has your relationship with your identity been? If you feel comfortable talking about that.

Noquisi: I’m comfortable talking about it. It’s always a bit of an emotional topic because it’s like, it really gets down to the core of like, everything that I dealt with, but you know, I think it’s healthy for me to talk about it, especially. Because, as a kid, I always felt black amongst white white kids and white amongst black kids. And there were so few black kids in my town, I was like the only one in my elementary school.The only, like, black presenting kid in middle school and in high school. So it was very tough considering myself an African American person, because I felt so disconnected from the culture. And the way that I kind of—I didn’t actually connect through art to that identity, but I spent like a month with my grandmother in Baltimore, who I only really ever get to talk with through a phone call, and I call her pretty regularly, but it’s still so different to be in person. And I kind of started connecting with my African American roots through food, actually. Because my grandmother is like a soul food cooker. She has all of this delicious food and she does all of it just, you know, by heart. Then also, in senior year of high school, I did a whole cookbook with her where I transcribed all of her stories, and then also did a cookbook. So that was like, kind of one of the main ways that I started to help my multiracial identity really form. And then I think the other thing that really helped me accept who I am and find who I am, especially, was moving out of my parents house. I love my parents dearly. There is nothing that I—well—there are very few things that I think that they could have done better. I do think that I needed space to become my own person, and then accept additional pieces of my identity along with that. So I don’t know if I answered your question. But I went on a rant and now I’m here.

CPJ: And I was 100% with you the whole time? Because no, why have we had such a similar fucking arc?

Noquisi: Your grandmother too, right? I remember you telling me about that.

CPJ: Yeah, I never got to meet her. But it’s also just like, the moving out part was like the huge thing, because I was finally starting to see a couple people who looked like me. And I was also able to kind of step out of how my parents view me—which I feel is sometimes different than how I view myself. Like you said, pick up the new pieces of yourself.

Noquisi: Yeah. And then also, like, I’m still totally dealing with, like figuring out my Native identity, and figuring out my total and complete imposter syndrome with that. Because I am Cherokee. I do have Cherokee blood, I don’t have, like, the…So my great grandfather was full blooded, but he didn’t sign on to the tribal registration, and so it’s very difficult for me to integrate myself in a way that feels meaningful and also respectful to everyone around me. So still dealing with that.

CPJ: You’re gonna make me cry, because that’s exactly how I feel with my Kanaka ancestry. Yeah, because it’s like, how do I respectfully insert myself into this space that I haven’t been a part of? And can’t find my little roots to, you know? 

Noquisi: Are we gonna cry? 

CPJ: I think we are, oh my god. The multiracial kids are fighting too many generational

curses.

Noquisi: Honestly, at the same time fighting to be recognized and also to not be oppressed for that recognition.

CPJ: Do you think all these feelings and this journey with your identity, while not influenced by art, do you think it’s bled out into your art? Even just the art that is produced in these academic settings? 

Noquisi: Absolutely. I do think that my multiracial identity definitely bleeds out into the art that I end up doing. So, the class that I’m currently taking, we’re discussing a lot of revolutionary movements happening in Latin America. And although I’m not Latin American, I’m not Latinx by any means, I do really empathize and feel akin to this revolutionary spirit that I think a lot of the things we’re reading show. And then also, we read this one book by Gloria Anzaldúa called Borderlands that was all about this border land with Mexico, which I grew up in! I grew up in New Mexico, it’s like right there. And so this is one of the places where place really factored into my art, because I share a place with a lot of Chicano/Chicana people. And so I really feel very close to them.

CPJ: So you said that you’ve been called a bridge. What are your thoughts on that? Would you like to expand upon that? And I don’t know what the meaning held when it was first told to you, but is there meaning it holds for you now?

Noquisi: I think the meaning it holds now is very close to what it meant originally. So, I think that it was just a way of a white mother telling their kid that they’re multiracial—they embody, they encompass, they are between—but also are connected to both of those places. And so I think that the term ‘you’re a bridge’ is trying to give a sense of belonging to multiple places in a way that I think it still does really beautifully. It’s one of my favorite ways of describing myself to people. I think that I probably in my college essay called myself a bridge. Like that’s how I got into college. They were like, “we like that multiracial girl. She’s a bridge and she knows it.” Yeah, the two things that my parents called me, well, first they called me a ‘swirly girl’, which I also love. Isn’t that adorable? You can call yourself a swirly girl. It’s a community term now. But then they also called me a bridge, which they started doing that when I was starting to do that journey of accepting my identities. That was also about the time that I started doing artwork in school projects, and I was doing a whole project on women of color as revolutionary voices. Wow! It all ties together. Oh my god. Anyways. So it all kind of accumulated, I guess, and now I’m here doing a very similar thing and making art about it.

CPJ: The ways in which history repeats itself. I really admire that a lot of the artwork that you produce comes from these academic settings, because I feel like art gets described a lot as something that you do, almost recreationally, or as inspiration strikes, but I feel like, especially nowadays, and with young people in our demographic, especially a lot of kids who are in college, it’s like that free time is minimal. And usually needs to be reserved for other things, such as taking care of oneself. And while art can be self care, at the end of the day, it is still something you have to sit down and do. So, what has it been like, creating art in an academic sense, and for, like a class that you’re taking, rather than just waking up and being like, maybe I’ll draw today?

Noquisi: Yeah. Um, I think that it’s both a good thing and a bad thing, I think that it shouldn’t exist alone. So like, you know, I do little doodles in my free time. I don’t really spend much time outside of class doing art, in all honesty, because of, like, what you said, taking care of myself and things like that. But, within an academic setting, I think that it is really great, because it gives you a deadline, it gives you a point at which you say, this is good enough. And I think that for me, especially, I need that. I need someone or something to be like, ‘it’s done, you have to stop now.’ Because I would just keep working on it and keep working on it and keep working on it. Eventually destroying it in the process, probably. So, also, on top of giving me a moment to stop, it also gives me a moment to start, which is important, especially because I didn’t consider myself an artist for so long. And so I didn’t really feel the opportunity or the necessity to do art. As a person who didn’t consider themselves an artist, it’s like ‘why?’ y’know? So, the academic setting was necessary to get me to start the work, and then end the work as well. So that’s what it’s been like. 

CPJ: I love that. What kind of art have you produced in your classes and in the programs?

Noquisi: So more recently, it’s been these paper cuts that I’ve been doing. I’ve been using my really nice sketchbook paper because, again, I don’t draw very much, and I got an exacto knife from the bookstore, because it’s been so long since I’ve done one. I don’t remember what inspired me to start doing that, but the first time I did it was through—this is going to open up a whole other can of worms, oh my god—through the circus program that my mother ran for, probably, 30 years and it was based in community artwork and trying to create social change through artwork, that’s where it started. So the two things that really shaped my artistic personality were giant puppets. So like creating a base of clay, usually a face, and building a paper mache mask basically from that. And then also shadow puppets, which is where I get like the paper cut prints from. So in 10th grade, the first time that I kind of was doing art for a class, or I was doing art at home for a class, I was creating a giant puppet, actually. I created a whole mask for that project about black women in revolutions. And I created a whole costume for her too, and then that kind of expanded. And so more recently, I’ve been doing ceramics. I took a ceramics class last quarter. In this class, we’ve been told to do a commonplace, so it’s a call to do whatever you want with an image, or a quote from each week’s readings. And so I’ve been taking an image each week from a reading that particularly inspires me or something that’s really poignant, or really important to me and I’ve been creating an image out of it. So that’s been the most recent developments. 

CPJ: That’s awesome. Do you have a piece that you’ve ever done that you’re most proud of? Like, out of all the class projects, out of all the photography, out of all the textile stuff that you’ve made, what have you been proudest of? 

Noquisi: I think that I’m proud of pretty much everything I produce because, again, like, it comes from a place of not believing in my own identity, right? So like, everything that I put into the world that I find beautiful, which now I’m coming to see more of my things as beautiful at this point, but I’m so proud to put things into the world that can be seen and felt by other people. You know? I think that one of the first things that I was super, super duper proud of was actually a piece of photography that I did as part of a summer camp. So it was an arts summer camp, and I was taking a photography class in that, and I took this one picture of a totem pole. I laid down on very wet ground as far as I remember, and I stared up at this totem pole—I was in Sitka, Alaska—and took this picture. And when it came out, it was just a moment of like, really intense pride. And I don’t know why that one in particular spoke to me, but it was just a really good moment.

CPJ: That’s beautiful. And I like what you said about, just, you’re proud of all of it, which I think is so great. And you definitely should be. I also really appreciate everything you’ve shared about your identity and your journey with that because it’s hard, there’s not a guide book to being biracial, let alone multiracial. People are just getting used to biracial kids, and then they’re like “now you got three?” But, I really just appreciate your openness talking about it. It’s at once, within the mixed kid community, it’s at once a very generalized feeling that people can relate to, but it’s also so specific to each individual, like, not even siblings with the same two parents will have the same experience. And, it’s hard not to feel cast in limbo, so I’m glad that your moms gave you that metaphor so early on, that you are a bridge. That you get to be this point of meeting.

Noquisi: Exactly.

CPJ: Does going home, now that you’ve had this space to gain this consciousness of your identity and the view you now have of yourself, does it ever feel off-kilter? Not in a bad way, but like ‘oh, change has happened.’

Noquisi: No, because even though I didn’t find a way to really appreciate my identities and share my identity in my childhood doesn’t mean that I didn’t find home. It was still my home, I still feel super connected and super appreciative of the place I grew up. It was just that I didn’t get to explore this additional piece of my identity, so now everytime I go home it’s like I return with additional knowledge. It’s like I’m returning with spoils of war, like ‘look at all of this stuff that I have! Look at all of this identity.’ So, yeah, I don’t think so. I think that I just absorbed different culture while I was there. It wasn’t necessarily the one that I “belonged” to, but I belonged to it in a different way. I think that the main thing about returning home right now is straddling that line of child and adult, but it could be a lot worse, so.

CPJ: So, a question I like to ask, particularly near the end is, what does art mean to you? And you can take that any way you want, it’s fully whatever you think.

Noquisi: I think that art, to me, is an appreciation of my surroundings oftentimes. It’s a way to ground myself in time and space. It’s a way to remember. I really love thinking of art in a very traditionally Indigenous sense of, it’s tradition, it’s a way you pass down your stories. It’s archival work. And so, it’s like pictures on a fridge, y’know? It’s like remembering your past and where you’ve been, and all of the cool things you’ve done. I think that’s what it means to me. It is a way to remember the places I’ve been.

CPJ: Obviously, it’s Black History Month, and I know that the theme for the month is Black Resilience. Would you want to talk about what that means to you in your own life, as someone who is a mixed Black person, but still a Black person who holds that identity.

Noquisi: I think for me in this time and place, Black resilience and my own resilience is about holding myself in a place of respect and valuing myself and the things that I do in the face of everything around me. Which is hard, sometimes. Like, letting myself be emotional because I think that a lot of what’s been happening, these really intense things that’ve been happening in the world, it’s all about holding yourself. It’s about being okay with where you are in the moment.