By Genevieve de Leon
Installation view of To Order the Days / Para Ordenar Los Dìas, the 2022-2023 Georgette and Richard Koopman Exhibition, which took place in the Donald and Linda Silpe Gallery at the Hartford Art School. image: Defining Studios, LLC, Courtesy of the Hartford Art School, Feb. 23, 2023.
As the 2022–2023 Georgette and Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts at the Hartford Art School, I was honored to produce artwork that took as its center the knowledge I received from my studies with Gina Kanbalam Miranda, a Maya Daykeeper.
“Three Generations of Light and Love I” by Anishinaabe artist Courtney Cochran and her daughter Ariel, Mixed Media on Canvas, is the result of de Leon’s collaboration with members of the Native Youth Arts Collective affiliated with Little Earth (Minneapolis, Minnesota). image: Defining Studios, LLC, Courtesy of the Hartford Art School
H Perry Hatchfield, Research Associate at the University of Connecticut and NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Time Progression Images of Simulated Gas Flow at the Galactic Center.” Hatchfield contributed data visualizations to the exhibition as part of de Leon’s collaboration with Dr. Cara Battersby’s Milky Way Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. image: Defining Studios, LLC, Courtesy of the Hartford Art School
A Daykeeper, or Aj Q’ij, is a member of a traditional community that tracks calendrical cycles. Following a practice that dates to ancient Maya civilization, Daykeepers honor sacred days by performing fire ceremonies and engaging in naked-eye astronomy. The parade of constellations across the night sky illuminates story cycles sacred to the Maya.
Miranda is working to recover a set of Maya constellations that align with the Tzolk’in cycle, a 260-day calendar used throughout ancient Mesoamerica and contemporary Maya communities. Inspired by this work, my Star Series paintings represent star maps of constellations that form portions of Miranda’s zodiac.
I also offered my unfolding knowledge of Maya cosmology as a starting point for collaborations with several groups: Hartford Art School ceramics and drawing students; members of the Native Youth Arts Collective based in the Little Earth community of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and members of Dr. Cara Battersby’s Milky Way Laboratory at the University of Connecticut. The resulting work was on view in the Donald and Linda Silpe Gallery at Hartford Art School from February through March 2023.
Genevieve de Leon’s Star Series, “Cosmic Hearth I (Orion Nebula),” Oil on Panel, offers an artistic rendering of the nebula located in the Western constellation Orion. image: Defining Studios, LLC, Courtesy of the Hartford Art School, Feb. 23, 2023.
The exhibition, entitled To Order the Days / Para Ordenar Los Días, intertwined science and art and Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge to embody the concept of “Two-Eyed Seeing,” a phrase coined by Mi’kmaw elder Albert Marshall. According to Darlene Kascak, Education Coordinator at the Institute for American Indian Studies, this concept refers to “learning how to see from one eye the strengths of Indigenous knowledge, and from the other eye the strengths of Western knowledge.” (Kascak, a member of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, sits on the Board of Directors of Connecticut Explored Inc.)
The exhibition is part of a growing movement to uplift Indigenous knowledge systems, allowing Indigenous communities to lay claim to the history of science and its ongoing development. Selected works featured in the show are now on view in the C. H. Booth Library in Newtown as part of the Sky Knowledge Across Indigenous Traditions exhibition.
Earth Moon Vessel by Karley Deets
Genevieve de Leon is an artist and MFA graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art. She was the 2022–2023 Georgette and Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Painting Department at the Hartford Art School.
Explore!
The IAIS Cosmological Exhibition, C. H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street, Newtown, chboothlibrary.org/visit-us/exhibits/
