The New (Virtual) Reality at the Santa Fe Indian Market
Banner image: Timeless Medicine (2020) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger paper by Terran Last Gun.
Roaming dirt roads, paddling canoes, exploring the woods, and flinging water droplets in the Great Lakes,
Delina White’s (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) fashion show is vastly different in 2020. Her company, “I Am Anishinaabe,” first hit the runway last year at the 2019 Santa Fe Indian Market’s SWAIA Haute Couture Fashion Show.
She watched her creations showcased under dramatic lights and surrounded by theatre of music. This year, due to the COVID-19 shutdown, Delina, a 2020 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artists in Business Leadership fellow, had to get creative with how she would introduce audiences to her woodland floral Sunrise and Sunset Collections.
Now in it’s 99th year, Santa Fe Indian Market has been a long-standing tradition for nearly 1,000 Native artists and more than 100,000 visitors who annually travel to the small, northern New Mexico town known worldwide for its incredible arts scene and Southwestern beauty. Many of the artists spend a year preparing to showcase and sell their work, reconnect with old friends and gain access to art collectors and buyers from all over the world. For many, this is their highest earning artshow of the year. However, with the spread of COVID-19, the SWAIA leadership converted this much anticipated annual event to a virtual gathering, providing artists with a new, yet sometimes foreign opportunity to participate online. And this time for the entire month of August rather than just for the typical weekend that was always chock full of events including a curated art show, panel discussions, fashion show, auctions, receptions and an awards ceremony.
For the Virtual Fashion Show, Delina pulled together a full crew with cinematographer, hair and makeup artists, and models for a video shoot to present her art.
“We went to a swimming beach down the road from my house,” she says. “Everything was taken on the main road in my community, the Leech Lake Reservation. We went down to the beach, and there happened to be kids from the community swimming. I encouraged them to get in the video, start splashing, and have a good time. Each little vignette is just a couple seconds, but it gives you a good feeling.”
Delina has kept herself busy during this summer market season by developing her business infrastructure through setting up better accounting methods, adding social media links to her website and vice versa, sewing custom orders, and preparing for sales derived through her virtual SWAIA booth.
Terran Last Gun, a Piikani (Blackfeet) citizen and printmaker, is another 2020 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow breaking new ground with his efforts to go virtual.
“I’ve learned so much in terms of how to market myself online,” he says. “After I got laid off in March, I had to think quickly and creatively. I was sort of doing online marketing, but after I really started pushing it, that’s when the purchases started coming in. Free shipping helps, and also knowing your value and worth. How much are you charging for art? Does it work out to do free shipping?”
“I’ve constantly had to go back to the drawing board and think about the long run.”
— Terran Last Gun
Terran is staying busy fielding increased traffic to his website, mostly buyers who visited his virtual booth at the Indian Market. A resident of Santa Fe, this is his second time participating.
“It’s nice to know these new people have found me on SWAIA,” he says. “The person I delivered a work to locally was impressed with my website. That was good to hear.”
He also has solo shows going. The Lloyd Kiva New Gallery at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) booked him for an exhibit in August, leaving him with an ambitious 16 ledger pieces to create. Although the museum is closed, the store is open and allows people to visit and enjoy an exhibit.
The Old Ones Are Near (2020) - Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger paper by Terran Last Gun
Not all artists opted to participate and pay for a virtual booth at the 2020 Santa Fe Indian Market. Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota), 2017 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow, is hard at work maximizing every free and low-cost option for marketing his work. Since the pandemic started, he has plunged deep into digital marketing, creating his own virtual shows. He also presented a webinar for the “On the Road with Rolling Rez Arts” series, demonstrating how to matte and frame artwork.
“I’ve been doing a lot of social media, especially Instagram Live,” he says. “Each art show gets easier and easier. With social media being a free platform, why not take advantage of it?”
It took a few days for his live videos to spark interest, but people began responding with orders. Wade is now shipping his ledger art across the U.S. and into the U.K.
“I’ve done three virtual shows so far,” he says. “The third one, I got together with seven local artists. We met in Red Shirt Table (on the Pine Ridge Reservation) one afternoon to feature music and visual art. It was a good time. I’m just surviving as an artist and what we have to do in this virtual time.”
Wade set up a booth on Instagram Live to debut a new beaded cuff during the week he would have been in Santa Fe.
Jason Brown (Penobscot) is another artist who opted out of the virtual SWAIA experience. A 2016 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow, he and his wife own and operate a jewelry and fashion studio, Decontie & Brown.
“We are taking this opportunity to focus on some other areas of creativity that we normally would not have time to do,” Jason says. “Since the onset of the pandemic, we have been hosting our own live showcases, and they have been very popular!”
Technology and Internet access are significant issues for many Native artists, as they navigate the digital art show and marketing world. Theresa Secord (Penobscot), FPF Community Spirit Award honoree and Native Artist Professional Development trainer, expressed her thoughts in a recent Facebook post:
“I’ll miss being in the storied 99th Santa Fe Indian Market next weekend, though I’m thankful to SWAIA for the virtual market experience! I’m reminded, however, by a recent interview with another artist, how personal I think my work, my interactions/sales with collector friends and visitors [is] to my booth. They like to hold and smell my baskets with the beautiful aromas of sweet grass cedar bark and ash wood, ask questions, chit chat, and reconnect as friends, etc. It’s taking a little time to transition to thinking about my art pieces, lovingly crafted for hours, days, perhaps weeks - being clicked on, dropped into a shopping cart, and mailed off into space without any interaction at all. I’ve heard a number of people say, “Native artists need to get with the times and get with the technology.” Yet I just want to share there’s more to it...many facets involved in this digital transition. We should be patient with ourselves and others, as we continue to move into the e-commerce world and find our own places there. It’s definitely a process for me!”
“We’re all at different stages, needing to find our own spaces in the virtual market place. We should continue to be respectful of those who take their time getting there or who don’t ever go there.”
She added, “We’re all at different stages, needing to find our own spaces in the virtual market place. We should continue to be respectful of those who take their time getting there or who don’t ever go there.”
Theresa’s 1920 Replica Woven Glove Box won “Best of Basketry” at the 2020 Virtual Santa Fe Indian Market.
There are many unknowns still ahead for Native artists, but they are forging ahead with resilient spirits. Delina is already preparing for the 2021 SWAIA.
“Next year, I’ll automatically be accepted [due to this year’s cancellations],” she says. “I guess that’s a positive thing that happened even though it was sad that we didn’t get to go to Santa Fe. But you always have to find that silver lining. And for me, it’s having more time to get the collection done for next year.”
We invite you to visit the virtual booths of all FPF family of artists participating in SWAIA 2020:
From Family Stories to High Caliber Theatre
Header photo: “Bound.” Written and Directed by Tara Moses. Photography by Joe Velez.
Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Muskogee/Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Oklahoma) is a playwright, director, artistic director, and a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Her plays have been produced and developed with companies in New York, Connecticut, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. She is the Resident Artistic Director at AMERINDA, a 2018/19 fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute and winner of the Young Native Storytellers Contest.
Tara is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow and resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma. www.taramoses.com
It was a typical theatre performance of Tara’s play, so she was surprised when a young woman from the audience approached her afterward, crying.
“Are you okay?” Tara asked.
The young woman was a freshman at the University of Tulsa and told Tara how this was the first time she had left home. She was having a hard time finding a community and wanted to be a part of what she saw in that theatre performance. With no prior acting experience, she auditioned for Tara’s next play and landed a role.
“At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities."
“She was so inspired by what she saw on stage that she wanted to be on it,” Tara says. “At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities. The majority of our acting company never performed in a play until they came to us. We put on professional productions, and people don’t know the actors have never identified as an actor until that moment in time. So, I’m excited for her because she didn’t even know she is so talented. We could be kickstarting the next star.”
Rich experiences are part of every high caliber theatre performance Tara produces. She thinks of theatre as a community-building experience, which is at the heart of Native people connecting with one another.
For her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship, Tara gathered stories from her family and community that she has longed to tell and wrote them into a play.
"Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia."
“Whenever we have those moments of feeling [that] we don’t have the strength, we’re able to think back to our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, [and] great-great-great-grandparents who overcame the odds and continued to fight on,” she says. “Those stories are incredibly healing. Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia. And theatre creates this unique feeling of being in a community. Alongside these stories, that gives us strength. It’s another way to share hope and inspiration for generations to come, while also supporting Native people in the theatre.”
Power to the Poets
For Pte San Win Little Whiteman (Oglala Lakota), writing is about her self-journey and her potential career as a poet. She is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Emerging Poets Fellow. Pte San Win joined Dances with Words at its inception in 2014. When she was 14 years old, that poetry program — also facilitated by FPF — allowed her to find her voice in spoken word.
“I was never super outspoken about my poetry. But after joining the program and getting familiar with public speaking, I gained confidence in my writing. The workshops helped with writer’s block when I didn’t know what to write, but had a desperate need to write. The program helps with that and different opportunities, such as steps to make a career out of it.”
— Pte San Win
This was the pilot year for First Peoples Fund's Emerging Poets Fellowship, giving young people a chance to go beyond the skill of writing poetry; it has taught them the business side. The program’s intention is to provide poetry, leadership, and professional development training to young people through the Youth Development Fellowship Curriculum. It integrates poetry curriculum developed by Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), and professional development components created by Autumn White Eyes (Oglala Lakota), inspired by the FPF Native Artist Professional Development curriculum for Performing Artists.
Autumn is the Youth Development Consultant for the Emerging Poets Fellowship, providing oversight, trainings, mentoring, and evaluation for the partners. Augusta (Gusti) Terkildsen (Oglala Lakota) and Sunny Red Bear (Cheyenne River Sioux) served as poet mentors for Dances with Words.
The program included regional partners in the Pine Ridge/Rapid City areas; the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, SD; Nis’to Incorporated in Sisseton, SD; and the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis, SD. Approximately seven poets took part in each region. The program builds on work done by poet mentors and Dances with Words.
Kinsale Hueston (Diné) 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow joined for a session on revising and performing poetry.
Lakota Funds, a Native Community Development Financial Institution, and First Peoples Fund partner, joined the project to provide financial literacy training.
“They explained things about budgeting and finance that are important for a writer,” Pte San Win says. “A lot of poets don’t understand that finance is important.”
The curriculum covered resume building, cover letters, budgeting, how to balance a checkbook, and forming an event budget. In the final weeks of the fellowship, the poets received instruction on creating chapbooks and writing their artist bios, something they struggled with in the past.
The poets put all the training into practice by coordinating and presenting an end-of-the-year poetry reading. With the 2020 shutdown, they shifted their event to live streaming with Zoom and Facebook Live, and included a raffle of donated items from Racing Magpie and Autumn.
While disappointed and lacking the energy of a live audience, the poets made the best of it. Pte San Win found it easier to deliver her deeply personal poem from her bedroom, while another poet, Ashanti Martin (Standing Rock), discovered she was more nervous doing an online event over in-person. She joined Dances with Words in 2018.
“It’s difficult for the audience to react to what you’re saying which usually I like at a poetry event,” Ashanti says. “You hear people saying things as you speak to show they liked what you’re saying or encourage you. At our event, people from First Peoples Fund and the poets’ family members, friends, and others commented favorably. The response was pretty positive.”
“Before Dances with Words, I was incredibly shy and social anxiety was very, very real. I never felt comfortable expressing myself around others. Being in Dances with Words and working within a small group, helped me be more comfortable with those experiences.”
— Ashanti
After the end-of-the-year poetry reading, the poets chatted virtually, praising one another at the success of their celebration.
“They had expressed feeling nervous before the event, and were relieved when it was over,” Autumn says. “We were able to utilize the Zoom chat for them to encourage and affirm one another throughout the event.”
Pte San Win performing at the end-of-the-year poetry reading. Watch the full poetry reading on Facebook.
As the program looks ahead to this next year, program staff and poet mentors are taking into consideration feedback from the poets and partners. One thought is recruiting young people in Dances with Words to take on leadership roles in the program or within the fellowship. Someday, they might become poet mentors themselves.
“I would enjoy helping fellow youth poets understand their poetry; to understand that poetry doesn’t have to have a specific algorithm,” Pte San Win says. “I want them to have a good idea about what opportunities there are for them that I didn’t have when I was their age.”
There is also discussion of expanding the Emerging Poets Fellowship into a two-year fellowship. This would allow poet mentors and the young people to focus on the skill of writing poetry while the second year could focus on the business and financial side of becoming a professional writer.
“Whenever I thought about a career in poetry and writing, I imagined it was just something you did at home,” Ashanti says, “sending out cover letters to get published and things like that. That’s what I envisioned in my head, nothing more. The fellowship helped allow me to know what else there was. And one of the former mentors for Dances with Words got me into another local gathering. I performed at that event, which was neat.”
“The fellowship not only touched base on different forms of writing and how to write different forms of poems,” Pte San Win says, “but also how to further your poetry, how to make it more than writing on a piece of paper and make a career out of it.”
We fight this war together,
Future and Past
We’re both stubborn,
But, pain will never last.
You’re only 12 years old,
There’s so much I wanna say,
So much I wanna do.
But, I should end this letter.
Love, You.
— Pte San Win Little Whiteman, “Beat of Our Soul” poem excerpt
the negative thoughts and words from others are slowly melding with my own thoughts
i hate that
so easily influenced
my thoughts are pessimistic
negative and draining
being me is so exhausting now
im no longer physically repulsed by myself
no longer do i desire the features of others
i see myself and feel content with my outer shell
but exhausted inside
so exhausted
i want to self destruct but i can’t
i won’t
— Ashanti Martin, poem excerpt
Mastering & Teaching the 3-Drop Gourd Stitch with Blue Dots
For over 16 years, Cynthia Masterson (Comanche Nation of Oklahoma) has beaded traditional objects for ceremonies and powwows. “Our Stories Are Mixed” was her first juried art show, held at the “In the Spirit” event at the Washington State History Museum.
Cynthia carries the name of her great-great-great-grandmother Cynthia Ann Parker, mother of Quanah Parker, one of the last Comanche chiefs. She is an enrolled member of the Comanche tribe and a Titchywy descendant. Born and raised in Oklahoma, she lives with her husband Bret in Seattle, Washington.
Cynthia reached for a blue dot bead and added it to her design. A bead weaving technique that is done one bead at a time around cylindrical objects, the traditional 3-drop gourd stitch is difficult to master. When Cynthia feared making mistakes, she often did the only thing she knew — a row of blue dots, the only element that would fit her unplanned design.
“When I’m feeling lost and don’t know how to begin or end, a round of blue dots always comforts me,”
To learn the 3-drop gourd stitch while living in Seattle, Cynthia watched a series of VHS tapes produced by someone in her church back in Oklahoma. It was challenging, but through the years, Cynthia started mastering the form, and people asked her to teach it. This developed into presenting workshops and teaching at every opportunity.
Cynthia was on the cusp of launching her art as a business with help from a 2015 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artist in Business Leadership fellowship. But a few days after the FPF fellows convening in Santa Fe, she was hospitalized and faced two surgeries and months of bed rest. Later, she suffered from shoulder issues and more surgeries. It was a long road to recovery, one that inhibited her ability to bead.
But she found her way back. In 2019, Cynthia participated in a catalyzing show at King Street Station in Seattle though yəhaw. Yəhaw is a project series of collective of Indigenous creatives providing interdisciplinary cultural, art, and design services. The show opened new doors and gave her beadwork the recognition it needed.
Cynthia was selected to receive a Cultural Capital Fellowship and made plans to fly home to Oklahoma to present workshops. Due to the national shutdown, she had to switch to online teaching, finding herself in the difficult position of once again dealing with video instead of hands-on mentorship. However, she’s found ways to explain and demonstrate when a student has done a stitch incorrectly, showing it to them by live video.
Today Cynthia runs her own website, Blue Dot Beadwork, where she sells her creations and offers workshops and video tutorials.
“There are so few people who do this unique style of beadwork,” she says. “I want to change that. I struggled to learn, and I want to ease the way for others.”
In Solidarity, Justice and Freedom
Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota) and Carlton Turner share heart thoughts on current events and how the Intercultural Leadership Institute allows them to embrace shared experiences and interdependence.
In response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others before them, and the nationwide protests over the past few weeks, I find myself, as many of us, experiencing a full range of emotions from outrage, anger, and grief to an overwhelming empathy for each of the families who have lost their loved ones.
It has also spurred me to reflect on the work across communities of color that I’ve done for three decades and the numerous experiences when I’ve engaged in deep conversations on racism in America. One of my early experiences was in 1992. I joined Tia Oros Peters, Executive Director and Chris Peters, President, of the Seventh Generation Fund at an anti-racism workshop, Undoing Racism, presented by the Peoples Institute on Race which today has become one of the most reputable coalition-building anti-racism organizations directly addressing structural and historic racism in America. I had limited knowledge of how large a part government policies have played in the systemic racism imposed upon Black communities, some of which were already thriving. At the time, it was a struggle for me to hear a narrative that did not include Native peoples, because we too had been deeply impacted by destructive policies and my own family had been affected.
As one example, the Urban Relocation Program that began in the 1950's was designed to remove Native peoples from our homelands and to assimilate us into mainstream society. My parents were uprooted and sent to Dallas, Texas where they were promised housing and employment, but when they got there they were left on their own in the middle of an urban city. My mother recalls when she was homesick she would sit on the steps of a Black Baptist church and listen to their choir sing, as a way to bring herself some comfort.
Twenty some years after the Undoing Racism workshop, I found myself in the Peoples Institute training again, as part of an arts and social justice working group. While engaging in a critical analysis on systemic racism in America, I was again confronting my personal struggles -- what seemed to me was the repeated invisibility of our 574 Tribal Nations who are still here, many of whom still remain in their own territories. My reaction was to stand strong in my own identity, my Lakota values and my own reality on the topic of race.
Fast forward to 2016 when First Peoples Fund joined with Alternate Roots, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Organization and the PA’I Foundation to launch the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI). (ILI translates to “skin” in the Hawaiian language.) The common experience that brought us together was that as leaders within our own organizations, we repeatedly found ourselves in spaces where we were faced with having to fit into mainstream white organizational models of sustainability. Built on a foundation of trust, ILI allowed us to embrace our shared experiences and interdependence. While each leading our respective organizations, it was an important time for us to create a mutually-shared space, not only for critical analysis and action, but one in which we could build upon our collective intellectual and cultural knowledge.
Over the past few years I have started to acknowledge that even in trusted spaces like ILI, I have felt a tension between my Black peers and American Indians, especially on the topic of Anti-Blackness. I’ve come to recognize that, while holding on to my Lakota values and my concerns around invisibility and erasure of Native peoples, I have become shortsighted in acknowledging the reality of Anti-Blackness and how pervasive it is.
As I continue to grow and learn, I am reminded of the words of my brother, First Peoples Fund board member and founding ILI partner, Carlton Turner from Utica, Mississippi that he shared at ILI Lakota in 2018. “When Native Americans pray and smudge and they speak in their language, it is very apparent that it is not from the mainstream. Yet when Black folks sing those are the same songs and language of the oppressor. Our rituals and our ceremony are not seen as ceremony because they didn’t come in the same types of packages.”
Carlton is speaking his truth when he talks about Black peoples’ loss of connection to their languages and African roots making it easier for others to discount their rituals and ceremonies as sacred. Today, I have come to challenge my own biases and will make it my practice to honor and respect their sacred spaces as much as I do my ancestral homelands. The blood of each of our ancestors is rooted in these lands. Their ancestors survived slavery in America and through prayer and song they were given hope, faith and remained resilient even in the darkest times.
Although we are in a dark time in America, I have faith that First Peoples Fund and our ILI partners will hold ourselves accountable to our Black brothers and sisters across this nation. We must lift each other up and be the good relative that our Ancestors would expect of us.
First Peoples Fund was founded on the principle of Collective Spirit, “That which moves each one of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity.” It is time that we extend a hand in humility and of shared resilience and stand with our Black relatives in the fight for freedom and justice.
—Lori Pourier
For the first time in my memory the nation paused for a moment on Friday, June 19, 2020 to celebrate Juneteenth, the day the last group of enslaved people of African descent in Galveston, Texas learned of their freedom. However, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, more than two years before this date. The fact that Juneteenth is even a thing is an appropriate metaphor for the delayed freedom that African Americans have experienced under this government. This delayed justice is demonstrated in many facets of American history. It is a hallmark to the concept of separate and unequal, a foundational principle that stains the very fabric of American ideas. This delay allowed a constitution that states that all men are created equal to be written by white slaveholders that considered African descendants to be three-fifths of a person and considered our Indigenous family to be godless savages.
White supremacy contaminated the root of the American experiment from the very beginning. A plant growing in such circumstances is unable to produce healthy fruit. What we see today in the streets of Minneapolis, New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta is not the response to the murders of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or Amaud Aubrey as an isolated or series of events. What we are seeing is the response to the death of the ideathat the possibility of freedom and justice could ever be attainable in the country’s current configuration. People are protesting because they have lost all hope in the system to be able to correct itself. They are now placing their faith in people, regular people like their neighbors and friends.
This moment is a confluence of a global pandemic, one that is adversely impacting Black and Indigenous communities; an economic crisis that is further widening the wealth gap between Black, brown communities and our white counterparts; and a rise in extrajudicial police killings of Black people. Things are dire, so much so that my son, a 2020 college graduate asked me, “Is this the beginning of the end of the world?”
I answered with a resounding yes and, well, no.
Yes, this moment marks the ending of the world as we knew it pre-COVID. A world that just accepts oppression and injustice as the norm. And no, the world will continue. I tell him, here is the caveat, we have the opportunity to shape what comes next. Our ability or inability to work together to build new systems and structures based on values of love and reciprocity, or not, will determine the world that you raise your children in.
In order for us to build the world we deserve we have to build on a foundation of trust. The type of trust that has led to multi-cultural coalitions like the Intercultural Leadership Institute. The type of trust that is founded on mutual respect, global indigenous knowledge, cultural competency, and a willingness to lean into our growing edges together. It is this trust that extended me an invitation to become a First People’s Fund board member. The same trust has brought me, time and time again, to the Lakota ancestral lands to break bread with Lori and her family. It is this trust that has allowed us to strategize for more than a decade on how to advance Indigenous sovereignty and anti-racist worldviews to the US cultural sector.
The work Lori and I do together is part of our commitment to each other. Our commitments to each other are deeply tied to our individual commitments to our families and a deep respect for the legacy of liberation that we were each born into. I consider my work with First People’s Fund to be more than board service. I consider the work done in FPF’s name a practicum in the liberation of my own family and community. The work we do together is not theoretical, our lives literally hang in the balance.
—Carlton Turner
Honoring the Memory of a Lifetime Passamaquoddy Basketmaker
Surrounded by family and loved ones touched by her lifetime of basket making, Molly Neptune Parker (Passamaquoddy) passed peacefully in June 2020. The matriarch of four generations of Passamaquoddy basketweavers, Molly left behind footprints for future generations to walk in. She was a 2008 First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Awards (CSA) recipient and lived a life dedicated to the preservation of Passamaquoddy traditions and values.
Born in Indian Township, Maine, in 1939, Molly would sit and watch her mother make baskets. Molly gathered leftover scraps of ash and sweet grass from her mother's work and played with them.
The basket making process began with her dad pounding ash trees with the bottom of an ax to loosen each ring around the tree. Going from one end of the tree to the other, he loosened upwards to 20 rings. Molly's mother, and the other women of her family, stripped and split the ash into the correct thickness for basketweaving, depending on if they were making work baskets or fancy baskets.
Instead of going outside to play like the other children, Molly fooled around with scrap material, her interest growing with age. She soon began picking out useable material from her mother's little basket to weave, starting a 75 year journey of making baskets.
In her early twenties, Molly married a truck driver who hailed from a family of basket weavers. In the off times of work, together with a few others, Molly and her husband made 100 baskets per week to sell to fish factories.
Molly gravitated back to fancy baskets in the early '70s. She developed her signature acorn basket that features an ash flower on top, a design used by her mother and grandmother.
It wasn't long after that Molly began selling fancy baskets at craft fairs. Every time she sold a basket, she put the money in a special account, eventually saving enough for a downpayment on a home.
Molly rapidly gained recognition in the art world, though for Molly, her craft was about looking forward and also looking back to her ancestors, determined to carry on their traditions. She studied and handled baskets from present to past, up to 200 years old, from several tribes. She even had an opportunity to see a basket made by her great-grandmother.
"When I hold a basket of someone who has gone before, I am holding part of them, and it is a link to the future and all the hands that will hold it."
In her 2008 CSA application, Molly said, "When I hold a basket of someone who has gone before, I am holding part of them, and it is a link to the future and all the hands that will hold it. Art is both a way of healing by learning the discipline of basket making while being a means of expression."
Nominated by First Peoples Fund CSA honoree and Native Artist Professional Development trainer Theresa Secord (Penobscot), Molly's CSA award acknowledged her leadership in the resurgence of basketry in Maine. On Molly's passing, Theresa wrote:
"Molly Neptune Parker of Indian Township, Maine, was a natural leader in the resurgence of Wabanaki basketry among the four tribes; Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Micmac, and Maliseet. Like a few other elders keeping the tradition alive, she continued to weave and teach Passamaquoddy basketry, during the times in the last century before there were higher prices and awards for doing so. She is credited with helping to save the endangered (at the time) ash and sweet grass basketry tradition in Maine. During Molly's nearly 20 year tenure as president of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, the average age of basket makers decreased from 63 to 40, and numbers increased from 55 founding members to around 150, bringing forth a new younger generation of ash and sweet grass basket makers. Some of these basket makers have gone on to win national acclaim for their artistry and earn viable livings through their practice, ensuring the art form will survive."
"As Gal Frey (Passamaquoddy basket maker) said upon her passing, 'Molly's loss represents the end of an era of Wabanaki basketry, where people grew up learning their traditional basketry and speaking their language in the home.' There are strong efforts currently underway to save and revive these practices thanks to the hard work and steadfast commitment of people like Molly. She is sadly missed by her family, the Passamaquoddy tribe, and the entire Wabanaki community."
The National Endowment for the Arts recognized Molly as a National Heritage Fellow in 2012, the nation's highest honor in the arts, a lifetime achievement award. Molly earned numerous awards and recognition in her lifetime, but it always came back to mentoring the next generation.
She had ten children — six natural and four adopted — and taught basket making to the ones who were interested. When her grandchild, Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy) was four years old, they asked their grandmother if they could sit with her and make baskets. They now create their own designs, staying with traditional, yet incorporating their own style into each basket they make.
Molly was a conduit between the past generations of basket makers and future ones.
"There are more people today making baskets then there were in the '70s," Molly said in an interview with the National Endowment for the Arts. "They realize the value of the work, not only for money but to continue the tradition. They're finally realizing how important it is to carry on the tradition our forefathers started.”
"Art is both a way of healing by learning the discipline of basket making while being a means of expression."
Native Artist Professional Development and Rolling Rez Arts Go Virtual
“A lot of the artists are expressing that they thought they were alone in this struggle, that they were the only ones having a hard time.”
—Leslie Deer (Muscogee), NAPD Trainer
When a cascade of canceled events started in March 2020, First Peoples Fund (FPF) heard directly from artists, community members, and relatives who shared their greatest needs, from income loss to lack of human connection.
In response, Hillary Presecan, FPF Program Manager of Community Development, reached out to Native Artist Professional Development (NAPD) trainers to discover what they felt was most critical to share through training.
“The NAPD trainers stepped up to a whole new level,” Hillary says. “Our trainers are part of our community, and they are artists to the core. It’s great that I’m able to say, ‘Tell me what you think people need. I want you to educate me on how we need to use our platform as an Indigenous organization.’”
Together with NAPD trainers already committed for the annual First Peoples Fund fellows convening and NAPD trainings across the country (all cancelled due to COVID), Hillary found ways to address the community’s needs. One of the challenges was shifting the NAPD curriculum to virtual training. Out of that developed the online “Resilience Webinar Series.”
Knowing it would be difficult for people to sit in front of a screen for eight hours straight, FPF chose drip feed training to break down the topics and allow people to get a taste of what the NAPD has to offer. One of those topics was “Planning the Artist Calendar,” drawn from the Marketing section of the manual.
Leslie Deer (Muscogee) — 2016 Artist in Business Leadership Fellow and NAPD trainer — led that session from the sewing studio in her home in Holdenville, Oklahoma.
“It’s important in these times to know how to plan for the future,” Leslie says. “[Continuing to learn] keeps people’s minds focused on what’s next. What can I be doing, or what opportunities are available? What are other artists doing? How is everyone coping? It is beneficial to network with others, and I think the Resilience Webinars Series is really, really important for artists.”
Hillary’s colleague, Rolling Rez Arts coordinator Bryan Parker (White Mountain Apache, Muscogee Creek, Mississippi Choctaw), knows it is critical to share inspiration. He launched “Saturday Art Live,” a vibrant, upbeat mix of performing and visual artists to bring a light of hope and inspiration to relatives around the world. The sessions include a 10-minute performing arts segment and an artist demonstration, offering both kinds of artists a platform to showcase their work.
“Before, the Rolling Rez Arts bus was limited on where we went, what community we provided resources to,” Bryan says. “Since everything was going virtual, my idea was to send the Rolling Rez out everywhere, virtually, and to utilize our fellows more with the program.”
2015 Artist in Business Leadership fellow Micheal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota) got creative with his visual art session on printmaking, reimagining how he could share with a wide audience in a simplified way. He chose cyanotype printmaking as the most accessible for people, especially youth, to follow along as if they were at the bus, doing the project hands-on.
“You don’t need a lot of material, and what you need is relatively easy to find,” Micheal says. “It was great to have Bryan because while I was working, people would ask questions in the comments, and he would facilitate it. So it was a nice flow.”
The online interactions often continued with people private messaging or emailing each other. One thing viewers latched onto was that many of the artists were presenting from their studios.
It was the first time Micheal had opened his newer studio, located in his basement, to other artists.
“These times are hard, but there is some light,” Micheal says. “You get more access to artists with them streaming from their studios, talking through their processes.”
“It’s very relatable,” Bryan says. “When you see somebody else’s studio that may be set up similar to yours, it doesn’t make you feel as lost or helpless, in that you don’t have all the tools you want. You see somebody who’s making it work with what they have, and you think, ‘If they can do it with minimal resources, so can I.’”
“By sharing these cultural practices and cultural history, hopefully, we’ll be able to move forward in a more positive light,”
The Resilience Webinar Series, Saturday Art Live, and On the Virtual Road with Rolling Rez Arts, led by FPF artists and trainers, help meet the needs of artists, community members, and relatives with inspiration and training to keep them focused on what’s next.
“By sharing these cultural practices and cultural history, hopefully, we’ll be able to move forward in a more positive light,” Bryan says. “My whole idea with the video series is to inspire people, and to celebrate arts and culture.”
Kindling the Fire for the Grandchildren's Dance Society
An award-winning artist and culture bearer, Kelly Looking Horse (Oglala Lakota) shares Lakota stories and makes and performs art through traditional dancing, drumming, singing, leather and wood work, beading, quilling, and painting — to enhance, reinforce, and illustrate the stories.
Kelly founded Lakota Red Nations, a family-owned and operated enterprise specializing in traditional Native arts, crafts, and Oglala Lakota history. He and his wife, Suzie (Pomo of the Robinson Rancheria Band), live in Batesland, South Dakota. He is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow.
Children entered the room, most of them hesitant and uncertain. They were there to learn what it means to become a powwow dancer. Kelly and his wife, Suzie, welcomed them and explained the significance of the journey they were embarking on. By the end of the orientation for the Grandchildren’s Dance Society, the children’s shyness had melted away.
“Both the parents and children are excited about it,” Kelly says. “When you become a dancer, you’re in a position for people to call upon, whether you dance performances for somebody or contribute to a powwow. When you show up in your regalia, the organizers get excited because you’re a dancer. You become a special person.”
With the global shutdown, the Dance Society has been put on hold, but Kelly and Suzie are keeping some part of it alive by posting moccasin makings virtual workshops on the Oglala Lakota College website. One of their dance students watched the workshop video then went to buy needles. Suzie offered to give the student everything else she needed to start beading moccasins with the help of her parents.
“They are excited about the day they can see their child coming out in full regalia and dancing,” Kelly says. “We got the fire started at the orientation, and the parents are doing a good job keeping it going.”
Kelly is using funds from his First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship to purchase materials a little at a time for the rest of his fellowship project. He hovers over the hides and drum shell in storage for the big powwow drum project he plans to do with students. He battles the temptation to put it together himself. But he is patient, wanting everyone to have a hand in making the drum.
“We want to encourage people [to come] together and see the children learn to dance. It’s an inspiration for the community.”
“The [fellowship] project is more than a workshop or trying to build our dance group,” he says. “We want to encourage people [to come] together and see the children learn to dance. It’s an inspiration for the community.”
“Once they hear the stories about the origin of where the dance bustle came from, or what the proper definition is of a moccasin, they get excited, and it makes us excited, too. One day, when we’re not here, the people we taught will carry on these stories. These stories will live and continue on into future generations.”
Art Echoing the Voices of His People
Stanley Goodshield Hawkins is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and has been practicing his craft for nearly 30 years. Raised in San Jose, California, Stanley moved back to the Rapid City area in 1969.
He launched Black Hawk Creations in November 2014, and today, his business has multiple lines, including wood products, Native jewelry, and regalia.
In 2017, Stanley earned a bachelor’s degree in Business and an associate’s degree in Arts in Lakota Studies from Oglala Lakota College and currently teaches classes on traditional arts. He is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow.
Stanley traced the rawhide X on the back of the hand drum, showing his work to the KEVN- Black Hills FOX news camera. The buffalo hide drum he crafted echoes the voices of his people, as does each handmade piece he creates. The TV news feature captured a brief glimpse into Stanley’s artistic life.
After 28 years in the electronic field, he longed to reconnect with his peoples’ culture. He’s put his engraving and woodworking skills to use by making pool cues embellished with traditional designs. He also makes men’s and women’s breastplates, shields, earrings, chokers, turtle rattles, bracelets, and necklaces. A box of buffalo bone ribs showed up at his studio one day, and he turned those into a men’s breastplate.
“I produce what I consider traditional style, but I leave some room to create my own style in the design,”
“I produce what I consider traditional style, but I leave some room to create my own style in the design,” he says. “I only use the best and close-to-time period components available. My work is as close to traditional as I can get, with old-style beads and other supplies becoming scarce.”
Being as correct in his materials and processes as possible, Stanley regularly consults elders and artistic peers like Kelly Looking Horse (Oglala Lakota), also a First Peoples Fund fellow. Stanley has learned to approach each piece with a right attitude, smudging, and a prayer.
“You are never supposed to start anything if you are in a bad mood,” he explains.
In 2007, he began making regalia and jewelry for relatives and friends. In 2014 he launched Black Hawk Creations.
“I started out of pocket and later looked for funding,” he says. “Lakota Funds stepped up and gave me a loan. It took several years of creating before I started making a profit.”
He opened a studio at Racing Magpie in Rapid City, South Dakota, and has three apprentices working with him: two grandsons and a niece. His work in wood, leather, feathers, and stones has become recognized in the community for its authenticity and craftsmanship.
“This inspires me because I want this practice to be continued by future generations.”
But Stanley feels he is always learning, continuing to consult elders as he creates art that echoes the voices of his people. “This inspires me because I want this practice to be continued by future generations.”
Adapt, Preserve, Keep Stories Alive
Kinsale Hueston (Diné) is a 2017-2018 National Student Poet and a sophomore at Yale University. An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, Kinsale’s work centers on personal histories, Diné stories, and contemporary issues affecting her tribe. She is the recipient of the Yale Young Native Storytellers Award for Spoken Word/Storytelling, the J. Edgar Meeker Prize (May 2019, Yale University), and three National Scholastic Gold Medals for poetry and dramatic script. In February 2019, she was named one of “34 People Changing How We See the World” by Time Magazine in its Optimists Issue.
Kinsale is a 2020 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Cultural Capital Fellow and a national Mellon Mays scholar.
As she performed spoken word poetry in Los Angeles, a familiar face in the audience caught Kinsale’s attention. It was one of her former writing workshop students from Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, California.
After the performance, Kinsale connected with him and his two friends who had come to hear her perform.
“He told me that our workshops at his school had changed his outlook on art and poetry,” she says. “It was now something he was pursuing seriously as a writer in the LA area and was encouraging other Indigenous youth to pursue as well. It was a wonderful moment.”
This is a part of who Kinsale is as a poet — working with Indigenous youth to draw out their talents. One of the ways she shares with others is by holding community workshops to communicate Indigenous values and stories through poetry and spoken word.
“Most of the time we focus on finding creative ways to write about ancestral lands, ancestors, and key figures in our lives,”
“Most of the time we focus on finding creative ways to write about ancestral lands, ancestors, and key figures in our lives,” she says. “At the end of a series of workshops I usually collect work and produce a chapbook for participants and their home communities that can be displayed or shared.”
Kinsale has taken this a step further by launching Changing Womxn Collective with support from her FPF Cultural Capital Fellowship. Kinsale’s team helps her monitor social media and curate the writing.
“It’s been a lot of fun to see different women of color, Indigenous women, submit work and see their reactions when it’s published,” she says. “For a lot of them, it’s the first time they’ve been published. We don’t have the same selection processes of other literary magazines. We have a very fast turnaround, so I think it creates much more of a community feel than a literary magazine in the traditional sense.”
Much of the inspiration for Kinsale’s writing comes from stories her maternal Diné family passed down. She says, “To properly function as culture bearers and those who will pass on our knowledge to future generations, we must find outlets and ways to adapt, preserve, and keep our communities’ stories alive.”
SOUTH SHÁDI’ÁÁH
In beauty I walk Hózhóogo naasháa doo
God translation spoken in Diné
Open throat upturn hands
Trail marked with pollen
Naasháa doo I will have a light body
I will be happy forever Shideigi but I am only saying words
Hózhó náhásdlíi’ my words will be beautiful
But only if I remember His name Shideigi
hózhóogo naasháa doo open mouth open hands
I walk home in beauty
-Kinsale Hueston
Banner image: Urban Rez, 2016 by Kevin Michael Campbell
Arts at the Intersection of Culture, Economy, and Place
Kawerak, Inc., a regional non-profit Alaska Native corporation, provides services within the Bering Strait Region of northwestern Alaska which covers about 23,000 square miles on the Seward Peninsula. They serve approximately 7,400 Alaska Native residents from twenty federally recognized tribes located throughout sixteen communities.
Kawerak is headquartered in the hub community of Nome and employs 230 individuals. One of their missions is to advance the arts community within the Bering Strait Region. Through its Community Planning and Development department, Kawerak provides technical assistance to approximately 30 artists in the region per year.
“You start[ed] your parka, and I want to see you finish it,” Aunt Adeline said.
When Lydia Apatiki (Sivuqaghhmii) wanted to learn how to make bird skin parkas, her aunt became her mentor. Partway through the difficult project, Lydia wanted to give up, but her aunt wouldn’t let her.
Lydia did finish. Learning the traditional stitching and eventually mastering it, she has now completed several parkas. But she isn’t keeping the knowledge to herself.
Partnering with First Peoples Fund (FPF) and Kawerak Inc., Lydia created a curriculum to share her cultural knowledge.
“Lydia and her husband Jerome participated in one of the FPF Native Artist Professional Development [NAPD] Trainings in Gambell,” Alice Bioff (Inupiaq) says. Alice works in Kawerak’s Community Planning and Development department as the Business Planning Specialist. “We’ve built a relationship with Lydia and Jerome. Lydia had this amazing mission to create a sewing curriculum. Through her enthusiasm and commitment to the project, she was able to complete it with the support of First Peoples Fund.”
Kawerak, Inc. received an Indigenous Arts Ecology (IAE) grant in 2018. They used it in part to host NAPD trainings, reaching out to rural artists like Lydia who had received a 2017 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital fellowship. The region it serves includes St. Lawrence Island, King Island, Little Diomede Island, and the communities along the eastern and southeastern shores of Norton Sound. Three culturally distinct groups of Indigenous people — Inupiaq, Central Yup’ik, and St. Lawrence Island Yupik — have lived in the region for thousands of years.
The main focus of the IAE grant for Kawerak was completing an artist survey that would be developed into a report, “Arts of the Bering Strait Region.” The study illustrates the intersection of art with the culture, economy, and place of rural artists. One-on-one interviews with artists in their homes, along with three focus groups, revealed how artists are vital contributors to their communities’ existing economic landscapes. According to the study, “…hunters and gatherers combine subsistence harvesting with the cash economy to offset the high cost of living in rural Alaska. Families must navigate this new landscape, and the sale of art plays a critical role in the balance. Today, artists are economic drivers within their communities.”
“Working with our partners, we are looking at developing a program to support the arts in the region,” Alice says. “Utilizing the data to support that effort, we can show why the support is needed.”
The focus groups gave Bering Strait artists the opportunity to voice their suggestions on strengthening the practice of traditional arts and crafts forms in the region:
- Establish dedicated arts-and-crafts workplaces in communities.
- Increase education and awareness about ivory ban issues, their potential implications, and action-steps.
- Promote education about and develop opportunities for advertising and selling works online.
- Build a network of art dealers who pay equitable prices for work.
- Encourage youth interest in art.
- Provide educational opportunities to learn traditional arts, including ways to learn skills requiring use of legally protected materials (e.g. walrus ivory, baleen).
- Explore ways to support insurance and shipping costs associated with sending artwork to purchasers.
- Encourage grassroots organization around arts sales, such as supporting small groups of people transporting the work of multiple artists to conferences.
- Promote intergenerational teaching and interactions about art and crafts (particularly within families).
The study also affirmed much of what Lydia was already experiencing, especially when it comes to the transference of cultural knowledge through the generations — critical, yet often not readily available.
“It broke my heart when a young lady wanted to learn how to make a bird skin parka but had no one to teach her,” Lydia said.
Lydia’s traditional sewing curriculum is now on her website for educational programs and individuals to download for a small fee.
“There’s a direct connection between our subsistence activities providing for the family, food security, and the arts,” Alice says. “It’s all interwoven, all connected, and having access to those resources and advocating for that is important.”
Note: Kawerak, Inc. would like to thank the following organizations and individuals for their contributions to this study:
All artists and crafters who participated in the survey, focus groups, and interviews.
Randall Jones, Isabelle Ryan, and all tribal offices that helped distribute and collect surveys.
Artists who agreed to be photographed and have their photos used in the report.
McDowell Group for developing the report.
Dartmouth Interns Tia Yazzie and Shelby Fitzpatrick.
Photos by Taylor Booth Photography; Katie Miller; Alice Bioff, Nome; Huda Ivanoff, Unalakleet; and Danielle Slingsby, Nome.
Kawerak, Inc. (Danielle Slingsby, Donna James, Julie Raymond- Yakoubian, Vera Metcalf, Patti Lillie, MaryJane Litchard, Rose Fosdick, Carol Piscoya, Alice Bioff [Project Lead].
Beyond Learning to Speak the Language
Northern Arapaho and African American poet CooXooEii (pronounced Jaw-Kah-Hay) Black grew up with family in close proximity on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. His mixed-race heritage and his family heavily influence his poetry. Over the past few years, he has focused on learning the Arapaho language and ceremonies. The language and ideas surrounding their ceremonies are an inspiration for most of his writings.
CooXooEii is currently attending Colorado College, graduating in the spring of 2020 with a degree in creative writing. He is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow.
“I believe [readers] will get an idea of how poetry can pass on ancestral knowledge and lead to self-discovery,”
“Am I saying this right?”
Last summer, CooXooEii sat with his grandmother in her house on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Language worksheet in hand, he practiced his daily lesson with her. They went through fluctuations and the hard-hitting syllables.
But CooXooEii was discovering more than the proper way to speak the language. He connected with his grandmother and who she is.
“I always knew she was a fluent Arapaho speaker,” he says. “But until last summer, when I started practicing with her, hearing her speak it, I realized how powerful the language is and how powerful she is.”
CooXooEii’s goal with his First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship is to create a book of 50 original poems that pass on knowledge of his people. As he learns from his elders, people will learn from his poetry.
“The Arapaho language is a descriptive language,” CooXooEii says. “Instead of calling an item what it is, the Arapaho language describes it. For example, ‘coffee’ is woo’teenowuu’ and it is translated as black water or black liquid. The translations sometimes won’t be perfect, but it’s been amazing learning our language because it’s a different way to think of the world. I’ve been focusing more on detail in the things around me. I wonder how an item might be described or understood through imagery. This was powerful for me to learn because I had already used imagery in my poems. So not only has it given me a new way of interacting with the world around me, it’s aided my writing as well.”
Poetry has also been a way for him to engage with his experiences as a racially mixed person living in an Indigenous community.
My Grandpa Speaks Arapaho
when arapaho fills my mouth
my spirit craves to speak
with my grandpa the way he did with his parents.
i'm not fluent.
english tastes bitter when it brushes against arapaho words
and tells them how to work if they want to be in its structure.
i want to speak as if our language wasn't forced from our land
and drowned in bloody-beat knuckles in boarding schools.
our land
our land.
i imagine my grandpa,
my grandpa's grandpa,
and the land that held him.
the same land so crucial to parks
and to hot springs swimming pools.
my grandpa tells me
you have it easier
you have everything you need.
in some ways, i believe him
but it's hard when you realize how much has been lost
what's it like to lose something
you've never completely had?
i've been told if you know your language
you know yourself.
sometimes i'm not sure if i know myself
i've read books on our tribe and never finished them,
have so many questions and never asked them,
ceremonies i have yet to learn,
things i do not recognize
blood i don't know
grandpa, who am i???
don't worry grandpa,
i'm learning our music,
i'm learning our dances,
i speak
whether it's one word or two words,
i'm not fluent,
i've seen our land,
And i still have my hair —
—CooXooEii Black
“I believe [readers] will get an idea of how poetry can pass on ancestral knowledge and lead to self-discovery,” he says. “As I’m teaching my fellow tribal members to process their situations through writing, and teaching them about their heritage, we will all be empowered.”
