Emely Taveras 
Sure Things is a vintage shop + studio located at 561 Palisade Avenue, Jersey City. It is also the home base for By the WAYE, a poetry magazine and reading series. Sure Things was also just home to local artist Renelle “Buffy” White Buffalo’s most recent exhibition, MOUNT RUSHMORE. Buffy has made Jersey City home for the past several years, and The Hoboken Girl caught up with her to talk about how her indigenous roots inform her art. Read on for more with Renelle “Buffy” White Buffalo, a Jersey City artist.
The Hoboken Girl sat down with local artist Renelle “Buffy” White Buffalo at the Heights staple Sure Things, the kind of shop that feels half-gallery, half-living room. A collection of abstract paintings that trace lineage and resistance through powerful use of color, MOUNT RUSHMORE was just on view until November 2nd. The star of the show was the featured piece gracing the latest By the WAYE Issue’s cover, marking the continuing partnership between Sure Things and the artist community shaping Jersey City’s creative pulse.
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Sure Things is a combination vintage and art shop, displaying mid-century, contemporary, and handmade furniture, home goods, and books. The space feels carefully curated, and every ceramic vessel, every stack of books, every chair is placed with intention.
Buffy’s work, with its warm tones and organic shapes, felt kismet amongst the collection. Shop owner Marinell moves quietly through the shop as we talked with a calm presence that makes the space feel lived-in rather than staged. She pulls out stunning minimalist blue metal vintage chairs for us to sit at a hardwood table — all for sale — with a stack of By the WAYE Issue No. 2 in front us and Buffy’s pieces on the wall behind her in the distance.
The Hoboken Girl: So, to start, how do you even say the show’s title? Is it “Mount Rushmore”?
Renelle “Buffy” White Buffalo: “I don’t know. I don’t think it was really thought to be pronounced out loud. It’s almost like ‘let’s not say that name.’ If anything, it’d be ‘not Mount Rushmore’.”
HG: So the visual part of the name is actually a part of the art.
RWB: “Exactly. The strikethrough matters.”
HG: Can you tell me a little bit more about what inspired you for the show?
RWB: “It was all kind of centered around a piece called The Movement, which is a painting that I did after I did the cover art for a documentary called Lakota Nation vs. The United States. That is a documentary about the Lakota people and the fight for their land. I’m Lakota, so it really spoke to me. It really resonated with me even long after I did that work for the documentary, so I kept creating pieces based off of different points that the documentary was making. One of those was that Mount Rushmore was sacred land before it became Mount Rushmore. The guy that made it was not a very good person either—it has different parts of the KKK involved and things like that. So I wanted to make a piece that reflected the land prior to it, which was sacred land for the Lakota people. It was beautiful, so I just wanted to reflect that. That’s the starting point of this show.”
HG: In the past you’ve said that your art reflects your Native Identity. How has your relationship to your identity and heritage changed or deepened over time?
RWB: “I didn’t grow up traditionally. I didn’t grow up learning the language. I wasn’t around ceremony and things like that. I was raised by my grandma, and she was a boarding school survivor. I think that had a lot to do with it. So I kind of grew up without that identity and kind of figuring it out. When I moved away, I always say the further away I got from home, which is in South Dakota, the closer I became. I really was able to find my identity when I lived in LA because I was just in my twenties, so people asked questions and I didn’t have the answers. I asked my own self questions and that’s where my art shifted into finding those answers. At first it was a little bit more stereotypical, but then the deeper that I found that connection, the more I made my art a little bit more personal and a little bit more meaningful in my eyes. Even though it’s shifted to abstraction, I feel like it’s even more Native.”
HG: How do you mix contemporary design with Lakota art? How do you find that balance?
RWB: “I had a mentor that said that no matter what I paint, even if I painted a picture of anything, it would be Lakota. I don’t think that it takes any effort for it to just read Lakota because I am Lakota.”
HG: What brought you to Jersey City? What inspires you in Jersey City to create art?
RWB: “I moved to LA after college and I met my husband and he’s from New Jersey. So we moved out here together. I love living in the Heights. I love living in Jersey. It’s so close to the city. I love not having to drive anywhere. I love the conveniences. I love the Heights because of the diversity of people and food and the community that is established here is really strong. It’s just building on it, especially with businesses like Sure Things. I think that they do a really good job at creating that community and creating a space that people feel welcome.”
HG: Is there anything about the Heights or Jersey City or even Hoboken that makes it special to create art here? Do you find that there’s support in the community?
RWB: “I create art at Mana Contemporary, so that’s where my studio is based. I feel like that’s a really great place to do it because it’s just a lot of people like me that are creating art and they have a great program. It’s so close to here, so I can walk there. Being surrounded by other artists and things like that. Also, there’s the JC Print Room, which is really amazing. I think that they create a good community as well. They host figure drawing classes on Wednesdays and then they also do it on Sundays for long form. Not every Sunday, but some Sundays.”
HG: You’re the featured artist for By The WAYE’s second issue. How did that come about? Were you approached, or did you work with them before?
RWB: “I’ve never worked with them before. I was coming to the shop for a while, pretty regularly, because it was on my way back from my workout. I love vessels. I love ceramics. I did ceramics in college. They just have a great eye here. I was picking them up left and right. I introduced myself and they introduced themselves, and we followed each other on Instagram and then it just kind of happened organically from there. They’ve had other artists for the Jersey City Art Crawl. It started with the art crawl and tours and then having a few of my works here during that and then also this is the second publication of the magazine.”
HG: How do you feel your art reflects or builds into the brand that they’re building? Do you see a connection there?
RWB: “I think their strong sense of community is something that I gravitate towards. I come from such a small town, a town of like 600 people… that’s including cats, dogs, and cows too. I always look for places that are very community-focused and local. It’s really important for me to support local shops. My cousin also owns a local shop too, so it’s family. I have a lot of their stuff. I have a few things in my house. I just feel like I’m gravitated to the aesthetic. It’s organic. There’s certain colors in some of the ceramics that are the same exact colors, like color matches, in my paintings and things like that. It’s really organic forms that they have. I think it goes hand in hand.”
HG: The name WAYE stands for “We Appreciate Your Enthusiasm”, which comes from that classic rejection letter. What are some ways that you’ve overcome rejection and used that to grow as an artist?
RWB: “In college, you learn about getting critiques and stuff like that. If you are able to take criticism or rejection, being an artist would be very hard if it’s not hard already. You don’t take anything personally. Every rejection letter or rejection thing that you get, it gets you one step closer to an acceptance. It’s very normal that you get rejected a lot. But that means that you’re applying. So that’s great too.”
HG: It’s no coincidence that this overlaps with Indigenous Peoples Month. I’m sure that was intentional. What does that month mean to you?
RWB: “We’re still here. We are fighting for things that we’ve been fighting for for years. It’s important to know the relevancy of these issues that we have to go through with the Land Back movement, certain types of racism that are out there. It’s just bringing an awareness to current issues and current people and acknowledging the past as well is very important. I think it’s important during Indigenous Peoples Month to look for artists, support Native artists, support Native writers, support Native people. Not only just the creatives, but other types of occupations.”
HG: For people who want to genuinely support Indigenous communities beyond performative allyship — what’s one real thing they can do?
RWB: “Buy. Native. Art.” She laughs. “There are things in your backyard, in your area. There’s a strong Native community in New York that hosts events all the time. There is a small local shop called Relative Arts and they work with Indigenous artists and stuff like that. There’s three or four Native American artists that are showing in contemporary galleries in Tribeca and Chelsea now, in the Whitney and in the Met. So it’s so accessible, and people just need to be aware of that. It’s very easy to support Native people.”
HG: You mentioned Lakota Nation vs. United States. How did that collaboration come about?
RWB: “I did some work for this nonprofit in South Dakota called CAIRNS, the Center of American Indian Research and Native Studies, and they do educational exhibits throughout the Midwest, working with Lakota artists. So they recommended me to the documentary people.”
HG: What did it mean to you to work with people who were talking about these specific issues?
RWB: “It’s so amazing because sometimes the messaging isn’t blatant and it’s not right in front of your face. It’s not going to be just there. You have to look into the art a little bit or look into the statements. The fact that they wanted my art that was not so in your face and that it was contemporary—that was really flattering. I didn’t expect them to work with abstraction. Usually movie posters, book covers and all that stuff, it’s more graphic.”
HG: Last question — what’s next for you after this show?
RWB: “Well, there’s the By The WAYE launch party at a coworking space in Hoboken. There’ll be poets and art and community. But other than that, just trying to create a lot of art because I traveled a lot this year. So I want to catch up on that.”
Learn more about Buffy’s work at rwhitebuffalo.com.
To explore Sure Things’ full programming and shop collection, visit surethingsjc.com.
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