Featured Artists: Angela Yarber & Shelly Batha
Featured Cover Artist: Angela Yarber
Rev. Dr. Angela Yarber is the artist, author, professor, and executive director of the Tehom Center, a nonprofit organization which teaches about revolutionary women through art, writing, retreats, and courses. With a PhD in art and religion, she has been a professional artist for more than a decade, and creates folk-feminist iconography and mixed media collages featuring revolutionary women from history and mythology. She is an award-winning author of seven books, which overlap with the subjects of her artwork.
Since much of her research and teaching focuses on decolonizing feminism, she wanted her move to Hawai‘i Island five years ago to be as responsible, respectful, and pono (righteous) as possible. So, Angela and her wife, an ethics professor, dedicated a lot of time to researching Hawaiian history, cosmology, and endeavored to abide in solidarity with both the movements for Hawaiian sovereignty and aloha ‘āina. This research, partnered with friendships and deep listening with kanaka (native Hawaiians), informed Angela’s painting of women from Hawai‘i’s pantheon, such as Papahānaumoku, Pele, NāMaka, and Poli‘ahu, in addition to the ways she incorporates live, local plants into her collage art.
In 1999, when the American embassy in Russia was bombed, Angela was hunkered in an orthodox church gazing at the brooding, whitewashed faces of countless male icons. She wondered, “Where are all the women?” Several years later, upon riding a camel up Mount Sinai, she was face to face with the oldest collection of Christian icons in the world, and could only spot two women among them. She continued to ask, “Where are all the women?” In the temple of 1,000 Buddhas in Thailand, she searched the scene with no women to be found. That’s when Angela began to create art—her attempt at corrective action.
Women and other marginalized genders are not altogether absent in history, religion, and cultural leadership. Rather, their lives, legends, and legacies have too often been strategically erased. Angela’s painting, writing, teaching, and collage seek to uncover these lost stories and to shine an excavating light on the revolutionary women too often forgotten, excluded, and ignored; particularly black, indigenous, women of color, and/or queer women. In painting, collaging, and writing about such women, she hopes to inspire and empower marginalized women to occupy more space in the world.
Angela lives in Kea‘au with her wife and two young children. Her art can be found at Wild HeArtist Gallery in Hilo and on her website, along with her writing. All art sales fund her nonprofit.
For more information: tehomcenter.org
Table of Contents Artist: Shelly Batha
Shelly Batha is a Hawai‘i-based fused glass/mixed media artist. Her style blends a fresh and colorful island palette with multilayer designs, resulting in unique and vibrant wall murals. Everything Shelly creates is one-of-a-kind, fired in her kiln, and handcrafted with aloha.
Shelly lives in Waimea, and draws much of her inspiration from the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains and ocean. She shares her home and family farm with her husband, son, daughter, and pets. As a full-time artist, Shelly also enjoys long ocean swims, yoga, hiking, and surf time with family and friends.
Her art is available at several unique galleries from Kona to Hilo.
For more information: shellybatha.com
