“Some Birthday, America”
Exhibit on Display: June 27 - July 19, 2026
CUSP Gallery presents "Some Birthday, America," a new solo exhibition by multi-disciplinary artist Tracy Weisman, featuring conceptual mixed media works that act as an unflinching reflection on the United States during its 250th anniversary. The exhibition is on view June 27 – July 19, 2026.
Cusp Gallery Hours:
Drawing from Weisman’s long-standing engagement with visual metaphor, textiles and found materials, the work in Some Birthday, America examines inheritance, responsibility, and national identity at a time of monumental change. With its overt political commentary, the exhibition occupies a space between affection and unease. The mixed media works range from a presidential “portrait” composed of various four letter words and a vintage fishing net containing local quahog shells stamped with historical quotes to an American flag cut and stitched with golden zippers and a flag collaged out of name patches from workers’ uniforms. These familiar symbols are recontextualized with precision and sarcasm, suggesting a nation shaped as much by individual choices as by historic proclamations.
Throughout the work in the exhibition, collaged surfaces, disrupted seams and unexpected materials reference historic craft traditions while carrying a psychological and moral weight that extends beyond the personal. The works read as individual stories and ask viewers to slow down and contemplate their own place in America’s narrative, especially given CUSP Gallery being located in a historic Newport home.
Weisman’s exhibition features a fundraiser inspired by George Washington’s 1790 letter to the congregation of Newport’s Touro Synagogue (within walking distance from CUSP Gallery) in which he promised that the new country would give “…to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Those words, replicated on hundreds of scavenged local quahog shells, adorn a vintage fishing net, a nod to Rhode Island’s motto “The Ocean State.” The sale of the shells —plus other handmade patriotic ornaments—will benefit Newport’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center, a central service provider to at-risk individuals, families and seniors.
“When I was a child in 1976, I watched the parade of Tall Ships sail into Newport Harbor for the bicentennial and felt a shared sense of great national pride. But our 250th? That’s a different story.” – Tracy Weisman
Weisman grew up in Rhode Island and participated in the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. She recalls the communal sense of pride watching historical tall ships sailing into Newport Harbor, a sharp contrast with her feelings about this year’s 250th anniversary. Some Birthday, America is her attempt to bridge the delta between 1976 and now, between the intimate and the collective, reminding viewers that the future of our proud yet fragile democracy rests entirely in our hands.
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