Writer & Director: Nanette Kelley     Animation: Amy Uyeki     Editor/Oregon Camera: Brian Gee

Cast: 

Lillian Pitt, Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama, artist     James Lavadour, Walla Walla, artist       

Ted Hernandez, Wiyot Tribe Chair     Brian Tripp (Karuk, 1945-2022), artist     Charles Froelick, Froelick Gallery     

Leon-Forrest Caulkins, musician     Karl Davis, Exe. Director Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts     

Peter Walters, Umatilla/Cayuse/Walla Walla, co-founder Pendleton Center for the Arts Rock & Roll Camp     

Seiichi Hiroshima, Master Printmaker     & Richard Elmer Bartow (Wiyot, 1946-2016)

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Nanette was one of 4 Indigenous filmmakers chosen to participate in The Bartow Project, a collaboration between the Wiyot Tribe and Dell’Arte International about the art and life of Rick Bartow (Mad River Band of Wiyot, 1946-2016).

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The film was recently curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo) as part of an inaugural Mark Rothko Pavilion Portland Art Museum exhibit, Rick Bartow Storyteller, which runs through through May 23rd, 2027.

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Illustrating the rhythmic style and transformative artistic nature of artist and musician Rick Bartow, Nanette's film, Rick Bartow The Man Who Made Marks is a mini documentary with a twist of animated music video. 

 

Bartow’s recorded song Black Dog provides the mood, and in his own voice, each verse serves as narration to animation by Amy Uyeki (Searchlight Serenade: Big Bands in the WWII Japanese American Incarceration Camps). Over 100 images of Bartow’s works of art complement the comical and heartfelt storytelling about the artist by his close friends and colleagues.

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The Bartow Project premiered April 2, 2022, at the Da gou rou louwi' Cultural Center of the Wiyot Tribe in downtown Eureka, CA and is currently traveling and screening in museums and other venues. Rick Bartow The Man Who Made Marks will be exhibited in schools, galleries, museums, and film festivals throughout the US. The film was made during Nanette Kelley's 2021 California Arts Council Administrators of Color Fellowship hosted at the Ink People Center for the Arts, CA. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, and James Irvine Foundation. Co-Artistic Directors: filmmaker Michelle Hernandez (Wiyot) & theatre artist Zuzka Sabata and supported by the Richard E. Bartow Trust and the Wiyot Tribe. The film won multiple film festival awards.

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Rick Bartow The Man Who Made Marks Copyright 2022 by Nanette Kelley

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