(mysterious music) (upbeat music) - [Matt] Explore the deep rooted significance of trees in Haudenosaunee culture.

Chat with "Metroland Now"'s Erin Harkes.

♪ It's kind of nice ♪ - [Matt] And catch a performance from Erin Harkes.

It's all ahead on this episode of "AHA!"

(upbeat jazzy rock music) - [Announcer] Funding for "AHA!"

has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Matt Rogowicz, and this is "AHA!

A House for Arts," a place for all things creative.

Nature and artistry unite at the Iroquois Museum's Once a Tree exhibit, which explores some multiple ways in which trees are deeply woven into Haudenosaunee culture.

(gentle music) - Haudenosaunee artists are the teachers, are the educators, and they use their art to explain to people who they are.

So we find that much of the artwork that's created today and in the past was to show we're a different culture.

We're amongst you.

We're like you, but they have a whole different cosmology.

They have that kind of things that set them apart.

That's what the art projects.

2025, our special exhibit is called Once A Tree: Creativity, Continuity and Connection.

And what we're trying to show is the long-term importance and significance that trees have for Haudenosaunee people.

In the past, and today, it was used for food.

It was used for baskets, it was used for cradle boards.

It was used for condolence canes, and it still is.

So we still have native artists today creating out of wood.

So what is in this exhibit are items from the museum's permanent collection.

We brought in three Haudenosaunee artists who work in wood to go through our collection and pick out pieces that they thought would represent the sort of breadth of the importance of wood.

You have functional pieces which are like a hammer, or an ax, or what we call a pump drill, which you use to start fires.

And so a lot of these things harken back to the early days when they were what needed to be used for survival.

But yet people still make them as a representation of what was happening years ago.

But cradle boards, cradle boards have been made for years and years and years.

People still make cradle boards.

Babies are still in cradle boards.

They do become a piece of art, which you'll see in some of the pieces in the exhibit are very decorative, and are used as an art piece.

If you make a cradleboard for your nephew or whatever, you would decorate it maybe with his clan animal, maybe with another symbol that's important to Iroquois.

So that art tends to translate, no matter whether it's utilitarian or art.

Bear is one of the clan animals.

There are nine clan animals which represent Iroquois society, which would follow the women's line.

So if your mom is a bear clan, you're a bear clan.

The bear's also very important.

It's good medicine.

So when we started the museum back in the 1980s, we said, "What is our symbol gonna be?"

An Iroquois person who made the bears that are in this exhibit, and some other Iroquois said, "You're doing a good thing, You're teaching about the culture."

It's the good medicine that we wanna kind of attribute to this museum.

So we've used it as our logo since 1981.

And it's the bear that you see in the exhibit, our logo is patterned after that bear.

(gentle guitar music) And then baskets.

Baskets are a big thing that's really traveled from the utilitarian to art.

We have some Mohawk and other basket makers whose pieces are absolutely pieces of artwork and command large prices.

And so many of the baskets that are on this exhibit are extremely fancy, like a painting, you know, different colors, different styles, a lot of curly cues.

They're really beautiful.

Carrie Hill, she came down from Akwesasne, and did a demonstration of her basket making.

And her baskets, again, are extremely intricate, very fancy, beautiful baskets, lots of color.

If you take it from the beginning, from cutting the tree down, pounding the splints, and really, black ash is the tree of choice because black ash splints will be, you can split them very fine.

So some of the little curly cues and stuff that you see on baskets are really, really thin splints.

And so you need that flexibility.

So it's a long process to even get to the point where you're actually making the basket, and then to keep it even, and you know, have everything turn out beautiful.

(cheerful music) It's all just woven.

It's all woven, and it's how tightly you can weave it, because there are some basket makers, you can look at the basket, and you can see the weave is not as tight as some others.

There's a form, there's a basket form that you put it on.

But then it's the technique and the expertise of making that nice and tight and firm.

I think we hope that people will take away, what we hope they take away with every exhibit that we have is that Iroquois people are still here.

Iroquois have a very vibrant, very important culture that works with us, but is separate from us.

And it's understanding that people are different, but we're all in the same world together.

And so we're teaching through the art who the Iroquois are.

- Erin Harkes is a singer-songwriter, comedian, promoter, and the editor-publisher of "Metroland Now."

I'm exhausted just thinking about her schedule.

Jade Warwick sat down with Erin to discover why she paused performing to restart a local art periodical.

- [Jade] Hey Erin, welcome to "A House for Arts" today.

- Hello.

How are you?

- Doing great.

I know you're a comedian, a performer, you have a band, but now you've kind of maybe stepped away a little bit from that to focus on leading "Metroland."

So what brought you to reviving this publication?

- Oh, a lot of things, honestly.

As somebody who has performed in the area for over two decades now, I've definitely learned a lot about the intricacies of promoting yourself and the ins and outs and how it shifts and changes every time, like every time you get, you know, acclimated with something, the game changes.

So you have to always be ready to do the next thing.

And I felt like as an artist, there weren't a lot of options for me.

And so I wanted to try and create an option, which ironically, now I don't use to promote myself.

(Jade laughs) I feel weird doing that, but at the same time, I'm just not performing as much anyway.

So it just kind of, in a way, happened organically, but I felt like we needed something for arts and entertainment specifically.

- Yeah, and what about the "Metroland" specifically got you hooked?

- When I first had the idea to do something, it was just gonna be like an online calendar, maybe like a cooperative with other artists and other musicians.

And I thought the best thing would be to bring back something that had already happened years before or something like, you know, proctors had the collaborative that they had put out, and I reached out to them, and I was like, "You ever think about bringing that back?"

And there was something that was already existing that I thought might have needed a little infusion, and I'm impatient, and nobody got back to me, you know, within four seconds.

And so I was actually having dinner with a couple of friends, former staff members of "Metroland" down in New York.

I see them every time I go down.

And I said it completely joking.

I was like, what if I brought "Metroland" back?

And they both went, (scoffs) "Okay, like good luck."

(Jade laughs) And I was like, "Hmm."

And I just let it marinate, and then I was talking to somebody else, and they said, "It's too bad we can't just bring 'Metroland' back."

And I was like, "Why can't we?"

- Yeah, I know.

It's like even being like a woman within like the publication world, and even within the arts in general, I know you were also trying to like seek a safe space or a space of support where you and other artists and female artists feel really supported in.

So with the "Metroland," is there anything you're trying to do to make sure all contributors, regardless of gender, regardless of artistic background, feel supported and safe?

And then how do you do that with the "Metroland?"

- I think it helps that we are all artists, we're all creatives.

Everybody on the staff is.

So we all kind of started it together, and we're kind of following each other's lead.

I think, as an artist, I realize how easy it is to exploit artists, because you'll kind of put yourself in a lot of precarious scenarios just at the off chance that it might lead to something else.

And some people call that like taking a chance, and you know, and sometimes it's not the best chance to take.

And I think knowing the difference from having been through it, particularly for females, especially when they're younger, just a lot of things that I've gone through and learned the hard way that I could really impart to other people.

I'm coming to terms with being a boss of something like this.

(Jade laughs) And so I know my management style as it applied to being a band leader is different.

You could be like, "I don't like the shirt you wore, you're fired."

You know, and it's like, (Jade laughs) I can't do that now.

We have conversations about it, but I'm just surrounded by some really great people.

We have really open and honest communications, like, "How can I support you, and what can you do to support me?"

- That's where that for artists, or by artists, for artists comes as a real strength, because you're coming from that perspective, and you know how the industry could really be.

And you're like, "I don't wanna be like that."

- Mm-mm.

- So you've done a lot, and a lot of folks who are very successful within their fields, they tend to flitter away, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia.

But you stayed here.

So what is the power in staying local and committing to local within the media arts?

- When I was in college, I was working on my first album, and my music professor said, "Find a small city and try to dominate it."

And I had been coming to Albany by default, 'cause it was the closest like major city to where I grew up.

And I mean, I cut my teeth here.

I met some of the most incredible people here.

I think it's really overlooked outside.

People don't realize what we have to offer here.

I think there's a lot of the aspect of like, you know, big fish, small pond.

I also got kind of a late start to taking everything seriously.

I am going to be 15 years sober next month.

And so really focusing on it and doing what I needed to do to try and, you know, quote-unquote "make it," I got a little bit of a late start, and I just wasn't up for, you know, going back in time and doing the things like, you know, eating ramen and sleeping on a friend's futon, and you know, (Jade laughs) I had a little bit more realistic, and I wanted to live comfortably, so I didn't want to be that starving, struggling artist.

And I had already kind of made a name for myself.

So some of it might be complacency, but a lot of it is just, this is home.

And whenever I think that, I don't think that you have to be in a major city to really make big things happen, especially in this day and age.

I mean, people go viral all the time.

- [Jade] Oh yeah.

- And so for me, I was like, if this isn't the place to be found or the place to make things happen, then create the opportunities for yourself, and then make those opportunities for other people, like, you know, producing comedy shows or getting original music showcases and things that, you know, I mean, they already existed, but just trying to make more of them, so it feels like a major area.

- It's like a movement in a way.

- Yeah.

- You know, creative movement, making sure everybody just like feels included, and that you don't need to go to like Hollywood or New York City to live the lifestyle that you want.

You can do that in the Adirondacks if you want.

You know?

(laughs) - Exactly, I mean, I see comedians in New York, and they've been, you know, putting out their own specials, and they've been putting out their own albums, and I was like, "I can do that."

- Yeah.

- I can do that here.

- And you can show others how to do it too, which is really important.

- Exactly.

- So you put on nonprofits, and show nonprofits a lot of love in "Metroland."

Why is it important for you to uplift local nonprofits within this publication?

- The nonprofit community, like, I thought we had a really great, you know, like artistic community and it really is wonderful, but the nonprofit community, and getting involved in it, and being part of it for the past year, like I get emotional, like they are some of the best people I've ever met.

There's just no quit in any of their game, and they're up against it all the time, you know?

- All the time.

- And it's like, they just, they power through.

And my office is at the Blake Annex in downtown Albany, which is a co-op, co-working space for other nonprofits.

And you just walk past these people, and they might have been denied for a grant that they were praying for.

And they're still like, "How's it going?"

And you know, (Jade laughs) and I talked to this one in particular.

His office is right next door to me, James Mitchell.

- I love James.

Great.

- Yeah, and I told him, I was like, because sometimes, you know, you just feel like, and he goes, "If you ever feel that way, you come find me."

And he means it.

- He does.

- And they're the ones, when they reach out for support from "Metroland," or for me specifically, there's never like a quid pro quo.

It's just like, "Hey, if you get the chance, do you think..." And it's like, absolutely.

It's never, because they're taking what they're doing and they're helping so many others as opposed to somebody who's a little more like self-serving, which is fine too.

I mean, you gotta promote yourself, you gotta get yourself out there.

But they're like, "Hey, give me this so I can then give it to all of these people."

And it's just the most beautiful humans I've met in my lifetime.

- Exactly, I will say the capital region, like creative nonprofits, I absolutely love how they all like work together, and are all about just uplifting and amplifying each other's voice, because that's pretty rare sometimes.

- Yeah.

- Depending on where you're at.

So it's a very beautiful thing we have going on locally.

- Yeah.

- So I know you're open about your sobriety, and I wanted to ask you like, what has that taught you about community, collaboration, and leadership?

- I think like a lot of the things like in the step work of AA, of getting sober, they always impart that you don't have to do it alone, nor should you do it alone.

And that's always, especially when there's people like, you know, they say like, hyper-independence is rooted in a lot of trauma, and even if it feels really uncomfortable for you, you're kind of forced to ask for help, and you're taught how to ask for help, and you get to see the results of what asking for help yields.

And then when you get to a position where you're solid or more solid, you know, it's a marathon, not a sprint, part of the steps is helping other people with what you've learned and leading by example.

And I am very vocal about my sobriety, because I think that sometimes people feel like they're not gonna have a life, or they're not gonna have a good life, or they're gonna be bored, and especially in this industry, and it's not accurate.

And so that's why I'm vocal about it, 'cause I'm like, no, I can still go to a bar, and I can still play.

It's not for everybody, but you can still do that.

And I think when people reach out, and they're like, "I've been thinking about this," you know, ask me for my advice or try to get help, and me getting out of my own way to help somebody else helps me, even if I don't see it in the moment, just, you know, helping anybody else when they ask as best I can.

And then for a second I'm like, "Wow, I wasn't even thinking about my own nonsense for a few minutes," (Jade laughs) and it's great.

- Yeah.

So how can folks get involved with the "Metroland?"

- We have a lot of people that have been asking, and I think we have a lot of contact info on the website, and people are very impetuous.

They just clicked like the first thing, and so they're sending like, you know, a resume to our calendar, email, and stuff like that.

So if you just like take a beat, you'll see like who you can talk to, and you know, we try to get back to people as quick as we can.

I usually just ask people that they don't reach out to anybody like outside of the "Metroland," 'cause we keep everything in one place.

And then I'll get people that'll like message through like one of my social media platforms, and it goes into some junk folder, (Jade laughs) and then they see me out at a show, and they're mad at me that I didn't respond, and I'm like, I don't- - So send it to the one email.

- Yeah.

- Go on the website.

- I have 17 ways of getting in touch with me.

If you could just put it in the one, (Jade laughs) we'll figure something out, but- - Awesome.

Well, thank you, Erin.

- Thank you.

- Folks, definitely get involved with the "Metroland."

Erin's an amazing person and amazing publication.

And thank you for stopping by today.

- Well, thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

(Erin laughs) ♪ You wouldn't ask me to run if I were walking with a limp ♪ ♪ Speak on your behalf if I were talking like a simp ♪ ♪ Would you ask me how I'm feeling ♪ ♪ When I'm oh so clearly numb ♪ ♪ That's dumb ♪ ♪ I'm not looking for attention ♪ ♪ That I wanna be left alone ♪ ♪ Make Band-Aids for the cuts ♪ ♪ Just cleanse for broken bones ♪ ♪ Make nothing you can wear to show your human from within ♪ ♪ That's all of a sudden ♪ ♪ Maybe I don't wanna let you know ♪ ♪ Maybe it is time I hope you're out on your own ♪ ♪ If I held my breath and waited for you to get a clue ♪ ♪ Then I'd turn blue ♪ ♪ I could go to call and post ♪ ♪ And only focus on the tale ♪ ♪ And miss the acting people ♪ ♪ Couldn't tell you how it went ♪ ♪ Would I lie to you and say that I had the best time ♪ ♪ Just to see how ♪ ♪ Sometimes I don't know who I am ♪ ♪ I know who I am not ♪ ♪ And I feel like I am not enough ♪ ♪ I feel like I'm alone ♪ ♪ I'm oscillating back and forth ♪ ♪ Between trying to be true ♪ ♪ And not by you ♪ ♪ Maybe I don't wanna let you know ♪ ♪ Maybe it is time I hope you're out on your own ♪ ♪ If I held my breath and waited for you to get a clue ♪ ♪ Then I'd turn blue ♪ (upbeat soft rock music) ♪ I'd make a damn good criminal ♪ ♪ I'd rob you blind ♪ ♪ And give myself to you ♪ ♪ From inside I'd blow your mind ♪ ♪ And I'd pick up all the pieces ♪ ♪ And make way with all the clues to best speak to you ♪ ♪ This honesty is rewarding and I'm slowly going rogue ♪ ♪ Some lives like these are tragedies ♪ ♪ And mine is just a joke ♪ ♪ But you give away the punch line ♪ ♪ And you spoil it every time ♪ ♪ I know mine ♪ ♪ Maybe I don't wanna let you know ♪ ♪ Maybe it is time I hope you're out on your own ♪ ♪ If I held my breath and waited for you to get a clue ♪ ♪ Then I'd turn blue ♪ ♪ Maybe I don't wanna let you know ♪ ♪ Maybe it is time I hope you're out on your own ♪ ♪ If I held my breath and waited for you to get a clue ♪ ♪ Then I'd turn blue ♪ ♪ If I held my breath and waited for you to get a clue ♪ ♪ Then I'd just stay here ♪ (upbeat jazzy rock music) ♪ Sometimes I do things the wrong way ♪ ♪ But if I could just start over ♪ ♪ It'd be easy ♪ ♪ Sometimes I do things the hard way ♪ ♪ But if I just took one step back ♪ ♪ I'd be free ♪ ♪ I'm as stubborn as they come ♪ ♪ Once I have become ♪ ♪ I'm finishing good or bad ♪ ♪ In the thick of it, time's been had ♪ ♪ If you look at it, it's not so bad ♪ ♪ It's kind of nice ♪ ♪ I have never been on time ♪ ♪ I lost my balance on the line ♪ ♪ I bring clarity ♪ ♪ I chased all this down my door ♪ ♪ And I might not get out just like you want me ♪ ♪ I'm as stubborn as they come ♪ ♪ Once I have become ♪ ♪ I'm finishing good or bad ♪ ♪ In the thick of it, time's been had ♪ ♪ If you look at it, it's not so bad ♪ ♪ It's kind of nice ♪ (upbeat jazzy rock music continues) (upbeat jazzy rock music continues) ♪ I can't just take it easy ♪ ♪ Slowing down feels like dying ♪ ♪ I know it sounds extreme ♪ ♪ Whoa, I can't just keep on milling ♪ ♪ I won't always be in it ♪ ♪ Wanting to chase some silly dream ♪ ♪ I'm a-finishing good or bad ♪ ♪ In the thick of it, time's been had ♪ ♪ If you look at it, it's not so bad ♪ ♪ I'm a-finishing good or bad ♪ ♪ In the thick of it, time's been had ♪ ♪ If you look at it, it's not so bad ♪ ♪ It's kind of nice ♪ (dramatic music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more arts, visit wmht.org/aha, and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Matt Rogowicz.

Thanks for watching.

(dramatic music continues) - [Announcer] Funding for "AHA!"

has been provided by your contribution, and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.