Wes DeShano (WD): Hi Brittney, thanks for joining me. Today we’re going to talk about a woven tea set that you created, that will be featured in an exhibition at the JMAC in Worcester beginning June 25. To start, why don’t you tell people a little about yourself and your artistic practice?
Brittney Walley (BW): So, when it comes to me naming myself as an artist, that was definitely a process, because when you’re making something that can be used, what are you? Are you an artist? Are you an artisan? Are you a craftsperson? When it comes to local Indigenous creations throughout history, if they were made to be used, they were always also beautiful. So, in learning how to weave, I’ve been able to express myself, I think, a little bit more clearly than with other creations, because I’ve always been really crafty.
WD: The tea set is visually striking. Vibrant blue and white thread, an intriguing title (“T 4 2”), and, on the tea pot, the date 2026. When I saw that, I immediately started to draw connections to the 250th, the American Revolution, and, because it’s tea, to the Boston Tea Party. What do you want people to think about when it comes to those topics?
BW: I think the Boston Tea Party gets really lionized into this thing that, when we think about the reality of it versus what we learn, what we might think about as kids, it’s a very different thing. If we look at the Boston Tea Party, of course, there’s politics going on. But what we don’t often learn is that they, the Sons of Liberty, were disguised. And I say disguised because they weren’t really hiding. You could still tell who these people were. You know that they’re people who descend from Europe. They’re not looking like actual Native people.
Philip Deloria writes about it in his book Playing Indian. Because it’s one of the first times we really see this. 100 years ago, before the Boston Tea Party, there’s so many Native stereotypes that are spinning. And in the 1700s and 1800s, they are making assumptions about what a Native persona is and also what a Native persona symbolizes.
But this is very interesting, because it’s not fully a rejected persona. They take it on. Why? It’s very simple when you look at it from afar. These people are no longer British!
I think a lot of people forget that people living in the colonies saw themselves as British people. They didn’t see themselves as Americans.
So, now they’re taking it on. Now they’re embodying it, a Native persona that they have created. They’re saying: “we’re no longer British.” We want to be different from you. How can we show our difference and our perceived belonging in the place that we are in? (Whether they belong there or not is not the goal of this conversation in this moment.) They take on a Native American persona to become American!
And I think we come very far from that, you know. We’ve seen Indigenous-led anti-mascot advocacy in many forms. One of the most well known results of that advocacy is professional football teams changing their names, but there are still roughly more than 20 public high schools in Massachusetts that have a Native American mascot today.
Native mascotry started a long time ago. The Boston Tea Party begins this very long tradition of further appropriation and further dehumanization of Native people. So when we’re talking about tea, the Boston Tea Party, and what I’ve created, I think there’s a huge entry point to talk about this. I’m a big believer that if you critique something, that doesn’t mean you’re fully against it. I think that there’s a lot of critiquing to be done on all of these historic stories that become our American legends.
WD: Just to build on that idea, I also think that your tea set offers a critique of global trade, capitalism, and the commodification of goods.
BW: What I find so interesting about ceramics is that it has its own long history, and it comes from a specific place, but as you go through time, you see that everyone’s trying to make this thing. It’s so ubiquitous. It’s not just tea sets and plates, it’s patterns you can find on a dress you want to wear to a spring garden party. It’s in the culture. It’s a thing of elevated taste. Where does that come from?
One thread through it all is just the idea of trade. Obviously Native people have experienced extreme violence because of trade and because of European interest in novel things around the globe. So what I kind of talk about a little bit is the people vs. the goods and the commodities. Commodification of everything led to capitalism. That’s why we are where we are, which not everybody loves where we are right now, you know?
It also allows me to bring in other voices. There is a famous note, it’s famous amongst Native people, at least. We understand that it was written by Wawaus, or James Printer. We’re talking about 350 years ago, this Hassanamisco Nipmuc man who set the letters on the first printing press at Harvard, when it was the Harvard Indian School. He’s the printer’s assistant, he is literate. He has a really interesting and complex story that everyone should learn as you look at what many people call King Phillip’s War.
He leaves this note in the middle of the war. This was after Nipmuc people burned Medfield down and took it back. We burned it down. Why? Let’s put it into context. Because we’re trying to preserve our homelands and our way of life, and that’s our homeland. He leaves a note on a tree. Is it his personal feelings? We don’t know. He did a lot of diplomatic writing for leaders, so it could have been from a leader. Anyway, the note basically says, we have nothing left to lose. You, though, the European folks, you have much good things. Cattle, homes, and much good things. That’s what sticks with me.
The last time I publicly talked about this note was in Medfield, and I was bringing an interpretation about the note to the public, so I also brought in my chief, Cheryll Toney Holley. Her perspective on the note is basically that James Printer, Wawaus, he understood that the Europeans did not value Native lives. They just valued their property and their things. They bring the concept of private property to this land, which is the law of the land.
WD: I feel like with the title of your tea set, “T 4 2,” you’re hinting at this idea that people should sit down with one another, and have a conversation about this difficult history.
BW: You don’t get the luxury of standing next to your piece every single day and talking to every single person, sharing every single thing that you thought of when you made it. When I make something like this, I’m really hoping this is potent enough where someone’s going to look at this and have a mind meld with me
Speaking of trade, isn’t tea a huge part of that? I didn’t even mean to make a commentary about tea, or about the Boston Tea Party or anything else, but it definitely got there. It’s supposed to also be simple. If you could sit down and have tea with one other person, who’s it going to be? Everyone loves that question. What would you talk about?
“Sipping tea” was one of the runner-ups for the title, because oftentimes we get history delivered to us so dry. But if we talk about it like people, and you kind of frame it this way: “can you believe that they did this?” And you’re kind of almost gossiping about it, I think people retain a little bit more, because the history is really interesting, it is a little entertaining, I guess. But if you tell it the wrong way, it’s just like, “Oh, please, when is this history lesson going to be over?”
WD: That’s an interesting way to frame it! History as gossip. It sounds very interpersonal, and maybe even a unique way to bring emotion into the fold of historical discourse.
BW: I came into the conversation thinking about two of my ancestors on my paternal side of the family who were Revolutionary War veterans. Turns out, it’s five. And, that’s not counting people on my mom’s side. I bring in the word veteran, in a way to hope that people can further humanize Native people from both the 18th and the 17th century, and throughout history.
The thing that I try to bring to people’s attention is that I also come from Native veterans of King Philip’s War. What does that mean? People can immediately recognize a Minuteman. In general, we can understand the U.S. military. You know, you’re serving your country, you’re defending your people, you’re defending freedom, all of that.
But people cannot connect the dots to what it means to look at Native people in King Philip’s War and think of them as veterans. I’ve been privileged enough to be in conversations where we’re discussing, and we are dismantling, the idea of inevitable Native failure. I try to push people to understand, no, it wasn’t inevitable for Native people to lose. In fact, I come from a tribe that won many things.
If you can understand what a Revolutionary War veteran is when you’re defending the idea of this country, of your homelands, you don’t want to be beholden to a different group anymore, you want to be independent, you want your freedom, if you can understand that, you should, in theory, understand why Native people were trying to defend their homelands against colonial people from Europe.
That’s an uncomfortable and difficult thing. But, I think that it is fundamental for all people living in the United States, if we fully understood this history, we would be better off as a group. We wouldn’t be better off immediately, but we would have disinfected the wound.
There’s a well-known revolutionary here in Medway, his name is Ishmael Coffee. We have Coffee Street named after him. We also have the Ishmael Coffee Estates down the street from me. Two years ago, I think it was, there was a bench installed. It’s a mini park. With Ishmael Coffee, he’s a really great example of trying to humanize someone. When we installed the bench, I spoke about him, so I did my research. We wanted to bring something that maybe people weren’t fully appreciating. Because the street is named after him not because he is a Native and Black man. It’s because he’s a Revolutionary War veteran. And that is where people look at every single Revolutionary War veteran as the same thing. It’s like a political cartoon where all the individual people go in the machine, and they all come out the same. I’m trying to reverse that machine and say, let’s look at his uniqueness. Medway warned him out of town. Even when he was a veteran. After that, he was a pauper. He’s poor, and the town does not want him in the town. Now, he would be amazed. Not one street—but a street and a whole neighborhood named after you—in a town that didn’t want you here. That’s how his contemporaries treated him, so I wanted to talk about who he was as a full person, to try and challenge people.
WD: So, throughout the year, I’ve interviewed a bunch of grantees working on “Promises of the Revolution” projects. And something that came up again and again in our conversations was this idea of a simple origin story. Many people shy away from thinking about complex topics, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. But when it comes to history, I feel like you have to engage with the complicated topics and the tensions. You have to ask difficult questions, and reckon with history, in order to learn and grow.
BW: I think it’s really important to bring in another perspective, which is Mingo Pollock. He’s my 6th great-grandfather. He enlisted as a replacement for his enslaver’s son. We look at these people, Revolutionary War veterans, and we see them all as equal. We look at them all today, and we go, “let’s celebrate all of these people.” If we just glaze over it, we will miss the struggles that they went through. And what I am essentially trying to say about Ishmael Coffee is, in his contemporary [time], they were not seen all as equals.
WD: Since I met you two years ago, I’ve learned a lot about weaving and woven arts. Could you elaborate a bit on the practice of weaving?
BW: When it comes to weaving, it really brings all the lenses together so we can get a focused view of what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to honor the past generations, I’m trying to get current and maybe future generations interested in cultural practices.
There are a few different ways we can see in the archaeological record–which is not the end-all be-all for knowledge–we can literally see examples of people weaving with their hands, either going this way or going that way. When I’m weaving, you know, sometimes you’re thinking about things, or maybe you have the TV running in the background, but sometimes you have a moment where you go: “we’ve been doing this for thousands and thousands of years.” It’s a way to also weave myself into this huge context of people who have been making things forever, and will be making things forever, too. It’s just really powerful to be a part of this long stream of consciousness.
