As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, the life and legacy of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette invites us to reflect on the origins of democracy and the enduring power of transatlantic ideals. Celebrated throughout history as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” Lafayette stands apart not only for his contributions to the American Revolutionary War, but also for his lifelong commitment to liberty and equality on both sides of the Atlantic. His ideals, inspired by the French Enlightenment, the Declaration of Independence, and tested in the trials and tribulations of the revolutions, continue to shape present-day debates on human rights, constitutional governance, and the universal promise of freedom.

My work on projects such as A True Friend of the Cause: Lafayette and the Antislavery Movement, a public exhibition held at the Grolier Club in New York City from 2016 to 2017, have underscored the depth of Lafayette’s moral and political commitments, particularly his early and sustained opposition to slavery. With the latest exhibition Lafayette between France and America: History and Legend, we seek to expand this understanding by bringing together rare documents and new scholarship that illuminate the legacy of this prominent figure.

Presented in a historic partnership between the French National Archives in Paris and Lafayette College, the exhibition and its accompanying international symposium offer a unique opportunity to reconsider Lafayette’s role not only as a military leader, but as a cultural and intellectual bridge between nations. By examining lesser-known facets of his career alongside iconic moments, we hope to foster a deeper appreciation of the shared democratic heritage that continues to unite France and the United States.

Lafayette between France and America: History and Legend, on view from April 1 to July 14 at the National Archives Museum in Paris, showcases an exceptional range of materials that illuminate the breadth of Lafayette’s enduring impact. Manuscripts, portraits, memoirs, printed works, and artifacts drawn from collections in both France and the United States reveal the multifaceted dimensions of a figure who moved seamlessly across military, political, and intellectual spheres. Among the highlights is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, an early draft of which Lafayette submitted to the National Assembly, offering visitors a rare glimpse into the collaborative process that shaped one of the most influential documents of the modern era.

The exhibition situates Lafayette within a broader historical narrative encompassing the American and French Revolutions as well as the ongoing struggle to define and defend democracy. By tracing his involvement across key moments, from his service in the American War of Independence to his leadership during the early years of the French Revolution, Lafayette between France and America: History and Legend demonstrates the continuity of his beliefs even as political circumstances changed dramatically. In doing so, it invites audiences to move beyond simplified portrayals and embrace the full complexity of his legacy.

Complementing the exhibition, an international symposium held in April 2026 invites leading scholars to explore new perspectives on Lafayette’s life and work. Through interdisciplinary dialogue and the presentation of original research, the symposium aims to deepen our knowledge of a figure whose significance extends far beyond the historical moments with which he is most associated. It also reflects the collaborative spirit that this project has embodied from its inception, bringing together institutions, researchers, and audiences from across the globe.

As we commemorate America 250, Lafayette’s story reminds us that the underlining ideals of independence were never confined to a single nation; they emerged from a dynamic exchange of ideas, people, and experiences that transcended borders and reshaped the political landscape of the modern world. Lafayette himself personifies this exchange, moving between France and the United States as a soldier, statesman, and firm advocate of his moral and political convictions. His story illustrates the extent to which the pursuit of liberty has always been a shared endeavor, one that requires both courage and collaboration.

Revisiting Lafayette’s legacy offers more than historical perspective – it encourages renewed participation with the principles that continue to define democratic societies today. His belief in the universality of rights, his willingness to confront injustice, and his dedication to fostering connections across cultures remain deeply relevant. By examining his life through exhibitions, scholarship, and public dialogue, we are reminded that history is not static, but an ongoing conversation. At a moment when the values Lafayette championed are as vital as ever, this transnational dialogue reminds us that history is not only to be remembered but actively engaged.

This February through April, artist Erina Pearl curates Spaces Between Color a group exhibition that focuses on the process of katazome. Four artists—Erina Pearl, Chinatsu Nagamune, mizosasora, and Natalia Siu Munro—display a collection of 13 works embodying the meticulous nature of the technique that helped shape the folk-art movement in Japan. Katazome is a traditional Japanese craft that uses cut-stencil and rice paste resist (a mixture applied through the stencil to block color from penetrating the surface) to develop imagery and design while celebrating the beauty in nature, objects and life. From employing natural dyes on ramie (a strong fiber cloth similar to linen) to vibrant pigments on hanji (traditional Korean handmade paper), Spaces Between Color is a dynamic look at how traditional craft shapes contemporary practice.

Chinatsu is a dyer in Leverett, Massachusetts. Her practice in growing indigo, natural dyeing and katazome is a sustained conversation between hand and material—a way to dig through layers of material, self, and surroundings until they become inseparable in the cloth. After becoming a mother last year, her practice and available time shifted, and she learned how to work in fragments. Building the pieces over many sessions, she finds space to play with materials—some stencils carry echoes of hand-stitching on old fabrics and others are born from daily mark-making—and this accumulation of layers becomes her katazome self-portraits assembled from moments in time.

mizosasora is an artist based in Seoul, Korea. She uses the katazome technique and creates images through dyeing fabric and paper. During a trip to Fukuoka, Japan she encountered a collection of works by dyer Samiro Yunoki at a bookstore, which introduced her to katazome. Implementing these techniques allows her to center her work on natural, energetic forms and colors, while expressing joy and pleasure in the subjects close to everyday life.

Born in London to a Nicaraguan-Chinese mother and an English-Scottish father, Natalia’s work reflects this layered sense of identity and movement between cultures. For the past five years she has been dedicated to the study and practice of indigo dyeing and in 2020 she moved to Oaxaca, Mexico to be closer to the source where indigo is cultivated and processed. Her practice in continuing ancestral techniques is central to her work not only as preservation, but as evolution; she is interested in how inherited knowledge can remain alive, adaptable and responsive to the present moment. For Natalia, the katazome process is a meditation on migration, distance, and the space in between, where identity and belonging slowly dissolve into colour. Through indigo, she can explore the transient and the unknown, examining the meeting point between heritage and process. In this space, dye becomes a language for memory, transformation, and the quiet persistence of craft.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN MICHELLE SILVER (GALLERY DIRECTOR, DISTORTION SOCIETY) AND ERINA PEARL

February 12, 2026

MS:  First off, I want to thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into this show Erina, I am honored to present it in our gallery. Can you give us a brief introduction into the history of katazome for those who are new to the technique?

EP: Katazome (型染め) is a Japanese method of dyeing and/or painting fabrics or paper, using a resist paste applied through a stencil. While the stencil-dyeing technique originated for textiles around the 8th to 12th centuries, the specific application of this method to create patterned paper, known as katazome-shi, was developed in Kyoto during the 20th century. These paper products adapt traditional kimono stencil techniques, using persimmon-dyed kozo paper for the stencils to apply pigments.

In the early 20th century, traditional techniques like katazome were waning. The Mingei movement, which advocated for the beauty of functional, everyday objects created by ordinary people, embraced katazome as a quintessential example of Japanese craftsmanship. It revolutionized the Japanese folk-art movement of the 1920s by transforming a utilitarian, mass-produced craft into a respected, personal art form. It provided a bridge between traditional, functional textiles and modern artistic expression, largely driven by the work of artist Serizawa Keisuke.

MS:  That’s fascinating! Thank you for sharing. What was your first introduction to katazome?

EP: I was first introduced to katazome at the Textile Arts Center in Gowanus, Brooklyn. I took a class with Sarah Peterman who taught katazome back in 2017 and instantly knew it would be one of my main mediums. It works hand in hand with natural pigments, and after doing my own research I quickly learned that I could apply it to both fabric and paper.

MS:  It’s so special when you immediately resonate with an artform. What inspires you? What do you use as subject matter in your work?

EP: Gardening is a regular spring-fall activity and has had a large influence on my art and subject matter. 

MS: Yes, you can see that in your work! I love how you presented several different takes on katazome in this show. What are some of the similarities and differences in approach to katazome that each of the artists in the exhibition take?

EP: Each artist brings a slightly different medium to this process, from using Japanese or Oaxaca indigo on different fibers to applying acrylics or natural pigments on paper. The artist’s approach is rooted in tradition, yet their own. Katazome is not a common process outside of Japan, so to have four artists living across the globe studying and using these traditional techniques, but also implementing local resources, allows them to grow their individual approach to this process.

MS: Why did you select the 3 other artists to show alongside your own work for the exhibition?

EP: I absolutely admire all their work and have for many years, but showing these three artists alongside each other also shows the versatility this stencil process carries. We all live outside of Japan and there isn’t really a katazome community outside of Japan. For us to study this process we must travel or research and experiment on our own.

These artists are truly dedicated to their craft and its visible in their work.

MS:  Yes, you can certainly see the dedication and commitment to craft in all the work – the exhibition is truly stunning. What do you hope folks take away from the show?

EP: I think I want what many artists and craftsman want people to see in today’s world: as the pace of our world continues to speed up, we turn to our ancestors and all those who have come before us that dedicated their time to slow processes and we hope folks are able to understand the importance and value them.

About the Exhibit

Spaces Between Color will be on view at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY through May 3, 2016. The gallery is in the front and is free and open to the public.

www.distortionsociety.com | www.instagram.com/distortion_society

Author’s Bio:

Michelle Silver is the Co-Founder and Gallery Director of a combined art gallery and tattoo studio in Beacon, NY called Distortion Society. She is also a freelance branding and web designer and studio artist focusing on oil paintings that blend abstraction, figurative elements, and emotional landscapes.

www.michellesilverart.com | www.instagram.com/michellesilverstudio

All images courtesy of Michelle Silver and Distortion Society.

This Spring, multidisciplinary artist Evan Paul English curates a group exhibition Inner Excess at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society (Beacon, NY). English’s work explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways in which capitalist consumerism shapes our perceptions of all three. Each artist in this exhibition brings a unique perspective to these themes, reflecting personal ideologies that are often shaped by shared histories and environments. Together, their works form a dialogue that questions value, visibility, and the blurred boundaries between the material and metaphysical realms.

Gracelee Lawrence (she/they) investigates the fragmented, gendered nature of the body by merging their own form with edible plants through 3D scanning and software manipulation. Their sculptures explore the ecological and ethical complexities of bioplastics, offering a meditation on the intersections of technology, consumption, and corporeality.

Similarly engaging with historical and material narratives, Colleen Rae Smiley (she/her) presents a ceremonial apron inspired by the protest garments of Suffragettes. Her work highlights the significance of the table on which the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1848—also later used for séances—suggesting the convergence of activism, spirituality, and the enduring struggle for visibility and agency.

Jared Freschman (he/him) turns inward, illustrating in colored pencil a personal ritual of drawing tarot cards upon waking. The recurring presence of The Empress—a symbol of divine femininity, creativity, and sensory awareness—evokes a spiritual practice rooted in self-discovery and intuitive connection.

Kat Ryals (she/her) interrogates notions of luxury, craft, and mass production by blending the aesthetics of 18th-century European Savonnerie rugs with modern banquet carpets. Her hand-built collages, later printed onto velvet rugs using consumer-level technology, lure viewers with opulent imagery only to reveal compositions of discarded, artificial, and dead materials. This juxtaposition challenges our perceptions of value, questioning the seductive yet deceptive nature of commercial aesthetics.

Sam Reeder (he/him) harnesses the allure of neon to explore digital communication and sexual desire. His neon sculptures expose the tension between visibility and secrecy, using the medium’s provocative presence to bring private longing into public space, forcing a confrontation with what is often hidden from view.

Emma Jackson (she/her) employs painting as a portal to an alternate realm accessed through transcendental meditation. Communicating with a non-human entity, she translates their world into visual form, depicting an alien history marked by cultural and environmental crises that eerily mirror our own. Her work serves as both a warning and an invitation to reflect on our collective trajectory.

Together, these artists engage with the intersections of embodiment, ritual, materiality, and desire, revealing the ways in which personal and collective histories shape our understanding of self and society. Through their varied practices, Inner Excess challenges the boundaries between the physical and the spiritual, the artificial and the organic, the hidden and the seen — asking us to reconsider what we consume, what we value, and what we choose to reveal.

To gain more understanding of the exhibition, the author and Distortion Society Gallery Director interviewed curator Evan Paul English on April 8 this year. Here is an edited version of their discussion.

MS:  Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practices?

EPE: Yes! I’m a tattooer and a painter. I explore themes of domesticity, growing up queer in America is what I always put in my artist statement. As a tattooer, I use a lot of imagery found in vintage textiles, and I translate them into tattoos, which I view as an act of reclamation.

Having grown up in Idaho surrounded by these types of domestic art forms, I’m kind of reusing them in different ways, whether it’s through my gallery work, creating paintings inspired by those same patterns, or making tattoos from the same source imagery. I’m very invested in themes of Americana and what that looks like when you manipulate it and rewrite the narrative around what those images represent.

MS: You know I’m a huge fan of your work, thanks for sharing. In the curatorial statement for Inner Excess, you mention that your work, and the work in this show, explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways capitalist consumerism shape our perceptions of all three. Can you speak a little about how that plays out in your own work, and why you chose the work that you did for this show?

EPE: Yeah, so as I said, I think tattooing can be a form of reclamation; getting a tattoo can be an act of transformation and a form of reclaiming your own body. So, that to me is a very spiritual act. I think art making in general is very spiritual; making art feels like a form of spellcasting.

You’re creating something new that you’ve never seen before that you want to put out into the world. And it sort of has this ripple effect through your community and potentially even larger than that. So, my art practice is very personal and it’s a way of creating a story about myself that I’m in control of. It’s like tattooing and seeing how my body has changed through getting tattoos and liking the way I look – feeling strong in my body. It’s in essence the same process through painting.

MS: I love that! One of the most compelling aspects of this show is the varied materials and processes each artist presents: we have a 3D printed mobile, a 7 foot figurative neon wall sculpture, a suffragette-era textile banner, an 18th-century inspired rug, a transcendental painting and two vibrant color pencil drawings. There is palpable tension between themes – physical vs spiritual, artificial vs organic – and how the materials exist near one another – hand-drawn vs mechanical, soft textiles vs neon light. Can you speak a bit about this?

EPE: I was interested in the different artists work because they were so varied, but they had a similar thematic undertone. I feel like they all work with these concepts of spirituality in the body and are working in these sorts of consumer level art mediums like colored pencil, for example, or these 3D printed plastic pieces. Neon is something that we interact with on a daily basis, just in a different context. So, in relationship to consumerism, that was how I selected the works for the show.

There’s also an inwardness to all of these – they all have a tenderness and a reflectiveness. That appealed to me, or I guess I resonated with me and my own practice. So, whether they’re illustrated bodies or a spiritual practice like tarot card reading or like in Colleen’s work, the ceremonial apron that has an image of a table where seances were performed, there’s different spiritual elements in each of them. I think even neon could relate to spirituality, like light as a medium. And when I think of light as a medium, I think of stained glass in a church or the presence of light, of color. Light is just very alluring and provocative.

There’s tension between the works and different things being explored, but they’re all very colorful and they’re all really fun, too, which I think ties back into this idea of consumerism, right? Like, why are we attracted to certain things? Is it the materiality? Is it the colors? What about something makes us want to have it and feel like we need to have it? So that was something I’ve been thinking about.

And then the title of the show, which I wanted to touch on, is Inner Excess. I think we all, as Americans especially, consume a lot of information every day through our phones. Everywhere we look, there’s an advertisement. And as a result, I feel like that excess excessiveness on the exterior, on the outward, we consume it, and it kind of becomes our inner worlds, and it changes the way we think about ourselves and things. We’re downloading all this information and then we’re making art, you know, as artists, and it’s like, what do we choose to make and why? And how has the consumerism outside of us shaped the way we think about ourselves and the art we make and what we want to do with our lives?

So, that was sort of the idea. And I think as queer people too, just to speak for myself, I don’t feel like a church is somewhere I can necessarily access my spirituality. The place that I do is when I’m alone or looking inward.

MS: I also access my spirituality by looking inward. This all really resonates with me! Do you find that after working on this show these themes have infiltrated your personal work in a new way?

EPE: Yeah, I’m interested in working in more mediums – seeing people who are very good at what they do is inspiring! Haha, but seriously I think it makes me recommitted to the themes that I’m interested in. When I was curating the show, I just felt so strongly about having each of these artists work here. And that’s a process of self-investigation too: why am I so drawn to this? What does that say about myself and where I’m at in my life right now?

MS: Ah, good point! What do you hope people take away from the show?

EPE: I hope that people have a little bit of pleasure from the show, a little bit of escapism. I think because the work is so colorful and vibrant and fun to look at, I hope that there’s joy. With art shows, it’s like a big party, you’re seeing a lot of your friends and sharing art and sharing passion with each other. I think that the importance of art right now is finding community and pals to share a little joy with.

Inner Excess will be on view at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY through June 8, 2025. The gallery is in the front and is free and open to the public.

www.distortionsociety.com | www.instagram.com/distortion_society