NEW FACES: ALYSSA HINTON

By Linda Martin/Atlatl, Inc.

Using layers of lush greenery, woodland textures and indigenous imagery, Tuscarora and Osage artist Alyssa Hinton celebrates her connection to the land and people of North America in organic-themed collages. She composes rich visual narratives that talk about the path she took to finding her cultural identity and a restored sense of communal belonging.

Although she's based in Carrboro, North Carolina, this painter and mixed media artist was raised on a farm outside of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Alyssa owes her affinity for the land and family history to her parents' diverse background. Her mother is of Tuscarora and Osage ancestry, and Alyssa describes her Anglo father as a high-tech, earth friendly farm consultant, whose connection to the land influenced her art work.

As knowledge of her Indian ancestry emerged, Alyssa recalls, she wanted to know everything about her family in North Carolina. Yet due to her ethnicity and frequent brushes with racism, she was encouraged to downplay her ancestry. So, the quest to learn more about her Southeastern roots remained dormant throughout most of her young life.

Alyssa has drawn avidly since childhood. By 17, she had studied traditional Chinese painting at the Central Art Academy School in Beijing, China. She continued her international studies in fine art at Parsons School of Design in Paris, France. After receiving her Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Alyssa divided her time as mother, artist, and art educator, specializing in multicultural teaching strategies.

In 1995 Alyssa's lifelong search for cultural connectedness was finally realized by a chance reunion with a distant cousin. While attending a women's traditional singing circle in Philadelphia she met Tuscarora singer Pura Fe. When both noticed a strikingly close resemblance to each other, Alyssa recalls, they compared notes on family history and then "we both knew we were related." This prompted her to move to North Carolina to research her family's ancestral lands and to reestablish family ties.

For Alyssa, the rediscovery of family signaled a monumental spiritual blossoming that she passionately describes as an awakening from a slumber. "My work has always been about my roots, my culture and where I come from," she says, adding that reuniting with family has given her a sense of rebirth and reconnection with her ancestors. "Dreams make sense when you start digging. Family mysteries make sense." This has given her a "sense of strength and freedom in the soul and mind."

Alyssa's response to this ancestral awakening takes form in layers of indigenous peoples' memories that emerge through the found imagery of her collages. Using photographs and cutouts that are refined by computer enhancement, painting and drawing, her continuing series of collages each pay homage to thousands of years of indigenous life ways. Several of her titles, "Ancestral Plane," "Slumber," "Ancient Fire" and others will soon be available in gift cards. Each characterizes the essence of Native civilizations that exist underneath the surface of modern civilization-Indian mounds and temples-to emphasize that "we're still here. We're one with this place."

Alyssa is active in The Spiritworks! group, an organization of eastern North Carolina Native artists and elders dedicated to preserving southeastern indigenous art and culture. Her work is included in a Spiritworks! traveling exhibition, "Keeping the Circle: Expressions of Eastern North Carolina Native Americans" and will be on view through June at the Fayetteville Museum of Art in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

You can view Alyssa's work and "Keeping the Circle" on the World Wide Web at: http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum or call (910) 521-6282 for additional information.