Courtney M. Leonard, "Breach: Logbook 24 | Staccato", Installation at the University Museum of Art, UMASS, Amherst, MA, 2024, Photos courtesy of UMass Amherst University Museum of Contemporary Art

Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard explores a connection made with a right whale held in the scientific collection at UMass Amherst | The Berkshire Eagle

Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard explores a connection made with a right whale held in the scientific collection at UMass Amherst

The Berkshire Eagle 

By Jennifer Huberdeau

AMHERST — A single whalebone sits perched atop two black poles in the middle of “Courtney M. Leonard: Breach: Logbook 24 | Staccato,” in the University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMass Amherst.

A frothy, bubbling patch in the middle of the rib bone marks the spot where it fractured and healed. The healed bone is evidence that this female North American right whale, Staccato, had survived being hit by a shipping vessel. Years later, another, similar collision would fracture her mandible, cause internal bleeding and days later, end her life.

Staccato’s body would wash up on the shore of Cape Cod in 1999, her bones later making their way to the Natural History Collections of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It is there, in a barn, that indigenous artist Courtney M. Leonard, a member of the Shinnecock Nation in New York, would come to know this once-grand mammal and learn her story.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

More about Courtney M. Leonard HERE

View Courtney M. Leonard BREACH: Logbook 24 | STACCATO  HERE

INQUIRE about Available Works HERE

Courtney M. Leonard, "Breach: Logbook 24 | Staccato", Installation at the University Museum of Art, UMASS, Amherst, MA, 2024, Photos courtesy of UMass Amherst University Museum of Contemporary Art