Biography
Storme Webber is a Two Spirit Sugpiaq/Black/Choctaw poet and interdisciplinary artist. Her work is cross genre, incorporating text, performance, audio and altar installation, archival photographs and collaboration in order to engage with ideas of history, lineage, gender, race and sexuality. Her practice explores liminal identities, survivance and decolonization, and does so in a blues/jazz-based experimental manner, often incorporating acapella vocals. Her performance is described by the artist Laiwan as poetics / jazz.
She has received numerous honors and residencies; including from Hedgebrook, Ragdale and Banff Arts Centre, and recently was honored with the James W Ray Award. Her first solo museum exhibition, “Casino: A Palimpsest”, was presented at Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Minh Nyguyen, in Art in America, wrote: “Rather than erect divisions between personal art and historical archives, “Casino” considered the intangible properties by which art and poetry are connected to family, ancestry, language, and public memory, revealing intergenerational, underground histories of resilience.”
She studied at Lakeside School, and holds a BA from the New School and an MFA from Goddard University.
She is also a curator and has devoted years to foregrounding other marginalized voices, since 2007, via her project Voices Rising:LGBTQ of Color Arts & Culture.
Her most recent book/CD is “Blues Divine. Currently at work on several interdisciplinary projects, including the next iteration of the exhibition, “Casino: A Palimpsest”. Inquiries welcomed at www.stormewebber.com
Most recent work is the permanent public art installation “In This Way We Loved One Another” for The AMP Project. https://theamp.org/artwork/in-this-way-we-loved-one-another/
Artist Statement
As a Sugpiaq/Black/Chahta Two Spirit lesbian artist, I work in multiple disciplines to restore missing narratives of marginalized people and disputed histories. I work in experimental memoir and I tell the story of place by telling the story of people. Working with poetry, memory, spirit and transcendence. Listening for the unsaid.
Statement of Intent
I'm really excited by this possibility. I've been at work on a new body of text and visuals. I have done some printing at residencies and loved it. My intention is to create broadsides, and a book of poetry/experimental memoir/social history/visual art. I see the book as visually striking, composed of texts, prints, and collage experimentation. (I also work with archival documents). The work will be a visual & textual conversation, touching upon ancestral stories and secrets, survivalisms, and visions for transformed futures.