By Sophie Young for Mirror Indy.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Mirror Indy-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

Robert Montgomery was only about five years old when his father, legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, died of a heart attack at age 45. He doesn’t remember much from that time.

“His death really shook me,” said Robert, the youngest of seven siblings, and it wasn’t until he got older that he began to listen to his father’s music. 

“I remember going to my mother and saying, ‘Mom, Dad was really good,’” he said. “And she goes, ‘Of course, you blockhead. Of course he was.’”

Now, Robert, 62, is one of his father’s biggest fans. 

“To me, nobody plays as good as he does,” he said. “You know, not just because he’s my dad. Because I’ve listened to guitars, and they’re great. But they’re not Wes.”

Wes Montgomery, who was born in Indianapolis in 1923, was an innovator on the guitar, creating a new sound by playing with his thumb instead of a pick — a style he created so he wouldn’t disturb his family or neighbors while practicing at night after working long days at a factory. He got major record deals, won Grammys and toured. 

Even though his music took him across the world, his home was always in Indianapolis. He was recognized on March 6 with a public dedication of a historical marker on what would’ve been his 101st birthday.

The Indiana Historical Bureau, which runs the marker program, has had Wes on its wishlist of people to recognize for years. Wes left his mark across the city, so it wasn’t easy to decide where the marker should go.

It could have gone on Indiana Avenue, where he played in jazz clubs. Instead, it will be at 10th and Bellefontaine Streets, near the Indianapolis Cultural Trail. The marker is close to where the Montgomery family home stood on Cornell Street before it was razed to build the interstate. 

The decision for the location aligned with Wes’ priorities. He wanted to move to the West Coast to pursue music, but he stayed in Indianapolis for his wife, Serene, and their kids. Wes and Serene were 19 years old when they married in 1943 and were together until Wes’ death in 1968.

“The music was second. We were first – and my mother,” Robert said. “He was really truly a family man. At the very heart of being a family man, the love for us was impeccable.”

It wasn’t easy to capture Wes’ 45 years – his family, his work, his music – on a historical marker. Each side of the metal sign can only hold 372 characters, including spaces. And the text can’t include superlatives like “best” or “first;” everything has to be factual and backed up by primary sources. 

“You had to really think about, ‘Okay, how do we talk about this person and not connect my emotional feelings and inspirational things that he brought to my life and music?” said Rob Dixon, a saxophone player. “That was a challenge, but it was rewarding.” 

Dixon is the artistic director of the Indy Jazz Fest, and he was part of a team that helped with the application process. 

The research was led by Scott and Katie Taylor, who met Robert’s siblings while applying for a marker for John Hope School 26, an initiative led by the Oaks Academy to pay tribute to the history of the school it had purchased. From there, they became interested in Wes’ life and legacy. 

All the research fits in a thick, heavy binder full of newspaper clippings, advertisements for shows and more. The book ends with pages of articles about Wes’ legacy and influence.
 
Wes died on June 15, 1968, and 2,400 people showed up at his funeral, including Julian “Cannonball” Adderly, a renowned saxophone player who “discovered” Wes in 1959 at the Missile Room on North West Street. Adderly and other jazz stars were in town for a show at the Indiana Theater, according to IndyStar reports from the time. 

After the public dedication ceremony for the marker on March 6, the Bottleworks Hotel hosted a private reception where Robert and other family members, and musicians and friends from across the country came out to remember Wes. 

Serene Miles Montgomery-Woods, who later remarried, died in 2020 at age 96. Robert shared a story his wife told about riding in the car with Serene when she was in her 80s.

“This song came on – Freddie Jackson’s ‘My Lady.’ And my wife thought maybe she didn’t want to hear it, so she turned it down,” he said. His mom said, “‘No, turn that up.’ And she said, ‘Wes used to say that about me all the time. I was his lady.’”


Sophie Young wrote this article for Mirror Indy.


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By Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

In a self-portrait titled “First Aid Kit” by DarRen Morris painted in 2019, the artist clutches a large, abstract object with fanned white bristles. At first difficult to recognize, the object in his arms is a giant paintbrush. Incarcerated within the Wisconsin Correctional System since the age of 17 and serving a life sentence, Morris clings to art as a survival tool, emphasizing that without it, he would not be able to endure the conditions of imprisonment. 

“Art Against the Odds: Wisconsin Prison Art defines art making as not only a creative pastime but a life-saving tool of self-definition for those who are removed from society,” opens the preface of the exhibition’s catalog. The wide-ranging group exhibition, most recently on view at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, brings together work by artists incarcerated within the state’s correctional facilities as a way to counter assumptions about imprisoned individuals and the prison system itself.

Debra Brehmer, director of Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, and curator of Art Against the Odds, traces the genesis of the exhibition to a very different project, yet one also focused on the impact of art-making where access to art is often scarce. The program, called On the Wing, met every Tuesday at the House of Peace, a local community center, to draw in sketchbooks.

“It was about gathering, drawing, experimenting, sharing stories, conversing, and building relationships across the divides of poverty and race,” Brehmer says. “Many conversations at the table touched on incarceration. My eyes were opened to the fact that if you are Black and poor in Milwaukee, you’ve had a friend, son, or relative in prison. It was shocking to me that this was such a normalized part of existence.”

Around this time, Brehmer began working with an incarcerated artist named M. Winston to exhibit his work in the gallery. Portrait Society works with artists who have been marginalized, ignored, dismissed, or discriminated against. “M. was a point of entry into the larger carceral world,” Brehmer says. “Exploring art made in Wisconsin prisons felt like a good COVID project, and so many inmates at that time were really suffering during lockdowns.”

Reconstructing a Sense of Being in the World

Winston, who grew up in Mississippi, is currently serving a 30-year sentence at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution and has since become a friend and guide to Brehmer during her research. He makes vibrant acrylic paintings of landscapes, buildings, and abstract color fields, and his sculptures of miniature houses often evoke real places around Milwaukee, made with materials like paper, food boxes, and paint.

Numerous letters that the artist wrote from his cell, which are included in the exhibition catalog, elaborate on his love for walking, a grounding practice in Zen Buddhism, and observations of daily life separate from the outside world. In one letter, dated March 26, 2022 he writes: 

This jail is a slave ship without the water. Do you know I have nothing but my mind to keep me going. I have art that may and may not tell my story. I do try hard to tell it. I think that art is something of a person’s soul, our days and nights come and go. But I can do a painting and tell why I did it and what I think it is and that will last forever. If you view art I have done over these long 20 years, you can bet I wasn’t here in the mind. I must do art each day. On some days, because of the size of the painting/drawing, I will do up to six. There’s so much I want to talk about, and I will in time. Let’s see where this ship takes me tomorrow.

Letters play a core role in the show, with an entire wall dedicated to handwritten notes—a small selection of hundreds sent to the gallery during the process of organizing the show. The display is accompanied by a table and an invitation for visitors to write a letter back to an artist from the show. Audio clips of the letters being read aloud are streamed on a loop through the gallery, a poignant backdrop to artworks that delve into each individual’s personal stories, challenges, and reflections.

An Emotional Outpouring

In January 2023, the first iteration of Art Against the Odds opened in the galleries of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. “I can only say that the impact of the MIAD show was shocking,” Brehmer says. “We did not expect the attendance: 7,000 people in seven weeks. We did not expect the emotional outpouring. The gallery became a safe space for public conversations that people could not have otherwise.”

Brehmer, who curated the show with Portrait Society Gallery Manager Paul Salsieder, attributes much of the success of the show to the fact that it revolves around accomplishment in addition to the deeply important—yet often dismissed—role that art plays within society. “Art heals and focuses the maker in a space of meditation,” she says. “These artists who turn to art in prison—with no formal training for the most part—find rather quickly that it not only soothes their anxiety but takes them on a journey of expression and self-knowledge, and it builds pride and esteem.”

The visibility afforded to the artists in Art Against the Odds is significant because while the carceral world is hidden, it affects an incredible amount of people in society, from victims to family members to prison staff to social justice system workers and more. The U.S. currently has one of the world’s top incarceration rates—in 2018, it was the world’s highest. Today, approximately 531 of every 100,000 people are in a prison or jail. “Most of these individuals will be released back into the community,” Brehmer says. “If they lack self-esteem and skills, this transition will not be successful.”

Art Against the Odds provides a new lens through which to view the prison system and those living within it. “This is not to deny the pain inflicted by crime, nor the lingering impact on victims, but to privilege redemption and the potential expansiveness of the human spirit,” the catalog introduction continues. “This provides space for hope. Without hope, there is no humanity.”


Kate Mothes wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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The Wind River Water and Buffalo Alliance is looking for a graphic artist to develop a logo.

Before Europeans arrived, some 60 million buffalo roamed North America.

After the animal was slaughtered, in part to extinguish tribes that lived alongside buffalo for centuries, just 23 remained by 1900.

Wes Martel - senior conservation associate with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition - said the new logo should convey a message of hope and power, as the alliance works to restore buffalo and other key elements of indigenous culture.

"So now we're seeing a revival," said Martel, "we're seeing a new energy, we're seeing our young people now becoming educated in the modern technological ways and scientific ways that we need to protect what we have. And that's all we're trying to do, protect a way of life."

Artists are encouraged to submit logo designs by email to media@greateryellowstone.org by May 15. The top entry will be awarded $2,500, second place will receive $1,00, and third place gets $500.

Details on how to apply and the design specifications are online at greateryellowstone.org.

The alliance - based on the Wind River Indian Reservation at Fort Washakie, Wyoming - uses a community-centered approach to support food sovereignty, river restoration, buffalo restoration, advocacy, and education.

Martel said the reservation's landscapes are ideal for protecting the Indigenous way of life.

"We have everything at Wind River that Yellowstone has, except Old Faithful," said Martel. "All of the buffalo, and grizzlies, and wolves, and bighorn sheep, and elk, and deer, and antelope - and all these other relatives that we have on this earth, are with us at Wind River."

The project is an Indigenous-centered organization of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes working with elders, young people and tribal leaders.

Martel said he hopes the new logo can capture the sentiments and energy felt when tribes are blessed with buffalo, their spiritual connection, and the power they bring to lodges, ceremonies, and overall well-being.

"This whole movement that we're seeing now, of restoring buffalo and restoring our heritage and restoring our energy, our spiritual strength," said Martel, "that's really powerful."




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By Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

In Norway, the hardingfele, or the Hardanger fiddle, is deeply woven into the nation's cultural tapestry. From the earliest known iteration made in 1651 by Ole Jonsen Jaastad, the instrument originates from its namesake region, the western district of Hardanger, where it was traditionally used to play wedding music, dances, and other songs.

A Hardanger fiddle looks at first glance like an intricately ornamented violin, with a fingerboard and tailpiece often inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, or bone. It is more lightweight, however, with four slimmer strings, ink decorations on the wooden body, and the scroll at the end often carved into the likeness of a dragon or wild animal.

Another key element of a Hardanger fiddle is the addition of sympathetic strings, which sit in a layer below those that the bow touches, vibrating when the instrument is played and adding a richness to the sound. "You are playing, generally, two notes at once whenever you play a Hardanger fiddle," says luthier Robert "Bud" Larsen, a side effect of the instrument's flat bridge.

Larsen, who is based in Brainerd, Minnesota, was introduced to the art of fiddle-making and restoration with the help of local violin-maker Gunnar Helland. Helland had emigrated to the U.S. from Norway in 1901. After stints in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, he established a shop in Fargo, North Dakota, to carry on his family's craft tradition.

"Our family moved into the same building where Gunnar had his shop," Larsen says. "We hung out a lot, and I was very interested in what he was building. When I was in the seventh grade, he gave me an old violin and helped me through the process of restoring it."

Larsen's lifelong love for the instrument was born. Over the next several decades, he would build at least 40 Hardanger fiddles and restore more than twice that many.

Preserving, and Evolving, Tradition

Troyd Geist, state folklorist of North Dakota, is a big fan of traditional culture and history. He focuses not only on the heritage of traditional arts but also sees the potential for craft to contribute to health and a sense of wellbeing. He heads an apprenticeship program where a master artist is paired with a younger person in order to pass along knowledge.

Geist is fascinated by how U.S. makers have gradually evolved the Hardanger fiddle over time. Though the instruments have maintained many of their recognizable features, their designs have become distinctly American.

"For instance, the fiddles in Norway would have different rosemaling designs and different flowers that they really focus on," Geist says. "And the head above the fret is often carved, in Norway, like a lion or a dragon. They do that here, too, but they also carve, instead of a lion or a dog head on the end of it, a buffalo head."

Larsen and others in the community who are passionate about the Hardanger fiddle liken the craft to being similar to language.

"We know that a language that is not willing to change will soon die," says Larsen, who was a linguist in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years before turning to fiddle making. "If people say a language should be prescriptive and you should write it the way the dictionary tells you to, and speak it that way, then the language will die out because it can't change. And that's the same with Hardanger fiddle music. Because new music is being written, and it's being used in different genres as well, it will stay with us for a long time because the music has learned to adapt to people's interests and cultures."

Both Geist and Larsen agree that it's important to continue to teach others how to make the fiddles, which can sometimes take a novice apprentice up to two years to complete. Some makers seek to protect their secrets, but "if you're not willing to share broadly and freely, the tradition is going to die," Geist says.

A Generational History

First comes the making of a fiddle and then, of course, comes the playing. Arts Midwest's GIG Fund recently supported an event at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCS) where more than 220 people attended a concert performed by the Fargo Spelemannslag.

A spelemannslag is a group of folk musicians, often dominated by fiddles.

The wintertime concert featured a song written two centuries ago by Eirik Medås. "Eirik's direct descendant, a high school student named Elsa Ruth Pryor, played a new song that she wrote herself, on a Hardanger Fiddle that she made herself," says Markus Krueger, programming director of HCS.

"Minnesota and North Dakota are the two most Norwegian states in America. For a lot of people in our community, this is the music of their childhood that they remember their parents and grandparents playing," Krueger says, reflecting on the significance of the event. "It's a symbol of Norwegian culture and heritage, and even more than that, it's a symbol of Midwest culture."

The concert featured performances by Bud Larsen and Loretta Kelley, the president of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. It was a meaningful showcase of a living tradition, passed down through generations.

"The immigrants brought their fiddles with them, and they kept playing them in America, says Krueger. "They kept making them in America. We still make them and play them today."


Kate Mothes wrote this story for Arts Midwest.