Indigo Arts Alliance

In honor of Juneteenth, we’re sharing a special episode of Voices + Visions: The Podcast featuring Stephen Hamilton ’25 Mentorship AiR. 🎙️ In this episode, he discusses the enduring relationships between material culture, memory, and lineage, bridging contemporary Black American experiences those of their African ancestors. This series spotlights the rich intersections, perspectives, and experiences of Indigo Arts Alliance’s alumni Artists-in-Residence (AiRs).

Stephen Hamilton is a mixed-media artist, arts educator whose work blends figurative painting and drawing with resist dyeing, weaving, and woodcarving. His practice explores elements of Black American identity through time and space, using traditional techniques and materials native to West Africa to reclaim ancestral knowledge dissociated from Africans in the Americas, during the transatlantic slave trade. By examining the diverse philosophies and aesthetics shared throughout the African diaspora, Hamilton’s work magnifies the complexity and richness of Black artistic expression.

During his residency with us in 2025, Hamilton worked extensively with natural dyes and textiles. Tune in to WMPG FM 90.9 FM at 1 PM EST to listen in full or visit the link in our bio. 🎧
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Voices and Visions: The Podcast airs every other month on WMPG FM 90.9 FM. All episodes can be heard on indigoartsalliance.me/voices-and-visions, wmpg.org, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Voices + Visions: The Podcast is produced by Florence S. Edwards, DDS.

Last summer, Indigo Arts Alliance’s Co-founder and Artist Director Daniel Minter unveiled “In the Voice of Trees,” a site-specific installation commissioned for Deconstructing the Boundaries: Tending to Communities, the final symposium in our multi-year partnership with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens centering Black, Brown, and Indigenous relationships with the land.

Both monumental and intimate,“ In the Voice of Trees” continues Minters exploration of trees as vessels of resilience, healing, and interconnectedness. Symbolizing the African proverb, “Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable,” the sculpture features sixteen red pine trunks stripped of their branches and bound together, as a meditation on unity and endurance.

Draped across the sculpture incorporates numerous hand formed clay beads that were made by participants in 20 workshops held in collaboration with community partners across the state of Maine. The beads represent the prayers each maker had for the next seven generations. The trunks, standing together, are both guardians of memory and pillars for the future.

You can experience “In the Voice of Trees” on the grounds of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, now open to the public for their summer season. To learn more the work and deconstructing the boundaries, visit: https://indigoartsalliance.me/deconstructing-the-boundaries/
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Join us on Friday, June 26 at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens for a conversation and interactive walk with June Mini Mentorship AiR Folayemi Wilson ’19 and plant biologist Dr. Beronda Montgomery. Together, we’ll explore the intelligence, interconnectedness, and wisdom of trees, and consider how forests can serve as allies in Black liberation. Visit the link in our bio to learn more.