Ashley Hairston Doughty | Kept to Myself

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KEPT TO MYSELF

KEPT TO MYSELF ASHLEY HAIRSTON DOUGHTY

Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art University of Nevada, Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada August 17, 2020–October 16, 2020

Ashley Hairston Doughty holds a BFA in Visual Communications from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has received awards from the Caxton Club, the College Book Arts Association, and Arion Press. Currently an Assistant Professor of Art at UNLV, she uses her business, Design Kettle, to create design projects with an emphasis on meaningful storytelling.

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The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is proud to present Kept to Myself, a solo exhibition by Las Vegas artist and designer Ashley Hairston Doughty. Doughty is a visual storyteller whose practice engages with socio-economic, racial, and gender-based issues, particularly those relating to cultural misconceptions and the development of personal identity. Kept to Myself introduces us to a substantial range of her work in different media, including video, fiber art, and illustration.

Augmenting the exhibition space with her personal poems, written thoughts, and anecdotes, Doughty uses art and text to lead us through her experiences as a Black woman in contemporary society. Feeling the weight of others’ expectations, she remembers a surprising “proclamation of solidarity” and considers the morality of bringing a child into a world “where people are shot for praying / while black / while Jewish / while Muslim” and “natural disasters get / stronger / bolder / more devastating.” Through printed textiles, she shares her discomfort at the unsolicited comments she receives from people in the street. “How you doin on this fiiiine day?” a purple cushion croons.

Working through a rush of impressions, the artist gives us a glimpse of her life that touches on both her interior individuality and her presence as part of a greater whole.

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ASHLEY HAIRSTON DOUGHTY STOPS KEEPING IT TO HERSELF New solo exhibition at UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art tells stories of race and womanhood.

UNLV News Center. Author: D.K. Sole It started with the catcalls and other remarks as Ashley Hairston Doughty walked down the streets of Chicago in 2010. Some were sexist. Some racist. All were unwanted.

Doughty, a Black woman, felt targeted. “There’s this crazy stuff that’s happening to me,” she remembers. “I’m just going to start typing it down on my phone. And initially it was just the quotes themselves, things that I’d overheard or things that were said to me.

Then, eventually, I started to take what I was doing when I got back to my apartment and write responses.”

Now the UNLV art professor has turned those experiences into artwork for her first solo exhibition. The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art opened her show in August and it runs until Oct. 9.

Shelves along the museum’s walls support pillows in a rainbow of colors with remarks from the catcalling strangers printed across the front. “How you doin on this fiiiine day?” asks the text on a purple pillow. Nearby, a yellow pillow shouts, “Hey!” More phrases on deeper layers of pillowcases are faintly visible through the cloth. Run an app across the QR code stickers on the shelves below the pillows then this deeper layer of context begins to open up.

Above the pillows, stylized images of Black women’s faces are painted on the wall. These are the stereotypes Doughty imagined the strangers were holding in their minds as they looked at her. One she calls “Miss Priss.” Another: “Video Vixen.”

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A block of writing on the wall takes us through the frustrated thoughts that ran through her mind as she reflected on the experience afterward in the safety of her apartment.

This sets the tone for the rest of the exhibition, an interdisciplinary mingling of design, sculpture, and personal writings that give us an insight into the open-ended complexities of the artist’s life.

Her approach to art and text was crystallized by a creative writing class she joined while she was studying for her MFA in Studio Art and Visual Communication at the Art Institute of Chicago. In that class “I made whole new words based on what a word sounds like.

I started playing more with the text on the page and used its location to help describe who was saying what and varying the weight of the text.”

Now text appears on her paper sculptures. A poem turns one side of the gallery’s freestanding wall into a giant page. Her attention to the nuances of what people are saying is visible in subtle touches, like the inclusion of a comma on a yellow pillowcase.

It reads, “Miss,” — that comma appealing to our imagination. What was said next?

The Barrick exhibition has given her an opportunity to change the way she presents these works. Previously she exhibited the pillows in a group. Now the separate shelves turn each remark into an individual event — events that come one after another after another.

The solo show of multiple works gives visitors a sense of how multifaceted her concerns are — how her self-critique isn’t aimed at just one thing, like her inability to respond Ashley Hairston Doughty

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instantly to catcallers. The same attitude travels through her series of logo-like illustrations and into a line drawing that evaluates parts of her body like a specimen. It infuses the poem-like writings on the walls, leading us around a corner to a set of sculptures shaped like cootie catchers, the folded paper toys that flip open to reveal your fortune.

In Doughty’s hands, the fortunes are all meditations on the idea of having a child, something she’s been turning over in her mind recently. Some of the fortunes are positive while others predict disaster. The fears she voices are sometimes comically exaggerated — one imaginary attempt to have a child ends when “a meteor hits the Strip. We all perish” — but more often, the phrases are genuine and intimate.

Is she ever afraid she’s revealing too much? How does it feel to have this private information out in public where anyone can read it?

“A lot of the topics I hit on are things I keep seeing in the media,” she says. “These are all things I know other people out there are dealing with. I’m just dealing with them all at once and putting them all in one spot. Knowing that there are people out there who may understand aspects of it made me feel comfortable.”

She mentions the in-person feedback she receives at opening receptions as another important source of support. Due to pandemic regulations, Kept to Myself had to open without a reception. Entry to the exhibition is free, but visitors are asked to make a booking in advance so the museum can monitor the number of people in the gallery.

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How does she connect with people in the age of COVID? She uses her Instagram account a lot, though she notes that, since most of the people following the account are already friends, it’s perhaps not the most balanced way to gain feedback.

The exhibition hasn’t been up for long but she’s already thinking about new ways the artworks might change in the future, bringing her audience even further into the context she values. What if the information from the QR codes could be embedded in the fibers of the colored pillows? What if that information somehow included the sensation of holding the pillows, so that those textures (hard and scratchy or soft and light) could give you a sensory understanding of each phrase? What if the show traveled to other states and she added new texts wherever it went?

“This is the ninth city that I’ve lived in,” she says. “I wrote a lot in Chicago because there was just crazy stuff that happened there. When I lived in Nashville, I didn’t write very much; in Houston, I didn’t write very much.”

And Las Vegas?

“Las Vegas is just such an interesting place. It’s not like anywhere else that I’ve lived before. Writing came a bit easier to me here. And I think that started with the fact that I could wear a tank top and walk around and not get whistled at. And I don’t know exactly why that is. I don’t know if it’s because everybody is used to people doing what they want, expressing themselves, but experiences like that are unique to here.”

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ASHLEY HAIRSTON DOUGHTY PRESENTS KEPT TO MYSELF The Scarlet & Gray Free Press. Author: Michael Spencer Ashley Hairston Doughty, an Assistant Professor of Art at UNLV, is showcasing her solo exhibition, Kept To Myself, in the Center Gallery of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Her exhibition focuses on socio-economic, racial and gender-based issues through the analysis of statements, stereotypes and reflections of her past.

Kept To Myself is available for viewing until October 9, 2020. Contact the Barrick Museum to make a free appointment.

Doughty is a visual storyteller who utilizes mixed mediums to create an immersive experience. Doughty wrote in her portfolio, “My distinctive perspective has grown through residing in nine different cities throughout my lifetime, mostly in the southeastern, midwestern and southwestern United States.”

She continued, “Although trained as a graphic designer, my artwork often crosses multiple media, including typography, illustration, writing, fiber and materials and book arts.”

Throughout the exhibit, there are paper fortune tellers, poems, graphics, pillows and painted icons. The different pieces are grouped by similar themes and separated by colored walls.

A number of the pieces were initially made to be held. However, due to COVID-19, adjustments had to be made. To preserve the physical nature of her art, QR codes were added under the pillows and fortune-tellers that lead to Doughty’s portfolio for an interactive experience.

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Despite the mixed mediums and moving parts, the overarching themes of race and womanhood create a consistent narrative throughout the gallery.

The right of the gallery, which is filled with pillows, is focused on things that have been said to Doughty. Whereas the opposite side, near the fortune tellers, is filled with more recent works that focus on things Doughty thought to herself. The juxtaposition created by the two sides of the gallery adds to the impact of the messages presented.

Upon entering the Center Gallery, there are nine square prints with each displaying different messages and images about Doughty’s identity. One print reads, “You have to work three times as hard as someone else.” Another reads, “She talks like a white girl.”

These two statements are often echoed throughout Black communities.

In an interview with Doughty, she explained, “The center wall represents a self-analysis in trying to sort through all of these experiences I had growing up and how those feed into how I look at myself now.”

Unlike the center wall that represents Doughty’s self-perceptions, on the right side of the exhibit, there are pillows embellished with unsolicited comments from strangers accompanied by painted icons and QR codes that share the date, time and location of the initial interaction.

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One pillow reads, “Uppity Bitch” with a QR code leading to Doughty’s portfolio where she wrote, “Feb. 2011, On the Eastbound 72 (Ashland) bus at Milwaukee/Division stop, Chicago. Stereotype: Miss Priss”.

The pillows focus the viewer’s attention on both Doughty’s womanhood and Blackness through the lens of strangers. The first round of pillows was made in 2010, but Doughty has since remade and added on to the collection.

While explaining the origin of the pillows, Doughty said, “During the time, I started dating my now-husband who’s white, and I started receiving these comments out in public referring to our relationship and it was all from other Black people. I experienced catcalling, but people of my own race blatantly pointing out my relationship was something I had not experienced before”.

Kept To Myself transforms Doughty’s everyday experiences over the past 10 years into art pieces. She analyzes what it means to be a Black woman from the view of others and from the view of the self.

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Acknowledgements Kept to Myself was produced in collaboration with the Las Vegas Womxn of Color Arts Festival (WoCAF). The exhibition would not have been possible without the support of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art staff: Chloe Bernardo, Paige Bockman, Dan Hernandez, LeiAnn Huddleston, Emmanuel Muñoz, D.K. Sole, and the Museum’s Executive Director Alisha Kerlin. We would like to acknowledge the hard work of the Marjorie Barrick’s volunteers and interns: Jessica Walesa, GA Marie Reff, Anne Savage, Sophia Ho, Sean Patrick, and Trevor Ganske. Ashley Hairston Doughty’s vinyl wall text was produced with the technical assistance of RC Wonderley and the rest of the staff and volunteers at the UNLV Lied Library Makerspace. The contributions of Shahab Zargari (film) and Lonnie Timmons III (photography) were deeply appreciated. Thanks to Cate Weeks at UNLV News and the UNLV Scarlet & Gray Free Press for giving the Museum permission to reprint their articles about the exhibition. Further thanks to the UNLV College of Fine Arts.

Photograph credit: Lonnie Timmons III, UNLV Creative Services. Endsheet (detail), p. 6, 7, 12, 13, 20, 21, 28, 30, and 31.

Chloe J. Bernardo. p. 23, 24, and 25.

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MARJORIE BARRICK MUSEUM OF ART Located on the main campus of one of the most racially diverse universities in the United States, we strive to create a nourishing environment for those who continue to be neglected by contemporary art museums, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ groups. As the only art museum in the city of Las Vegas, we commit ourselves to leveling barriers that limit access to the arts, especially for first-time visitors.

To facilitate access for low-income guests we provide free entry to all our exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community activities.

Our collection of artworks offers an opportunity for researchers and scholars to develop a more extensive knowledge of contemporary art in Southern Nevada. The Barrick Museum is part of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).

Alisha Kerlin Paige Bockman DK Sole LeiAnn Huddleston Chloe J. Bernardo Emmanuel MuĂąoz Dan Hernandez

Womxn of Color Arts Festival

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