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By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

“It’s important for our communities to understand what it takes for us to continue to thrive; it’s in celebrating the knowledge of our elders.” — Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne / Mescalero Apache), First Peoples Fund Board Member Beadwork artist.

Indian corn maker. Storyteller. Culture bearer. Veteran of two wars. 2019 Community Spirit Award Honoree. In all of these roles, George Martin (Lac Courtes Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) has been a steward of his people’s culture. He and his wife, Sydney, live their culture every day, passing on their knowledge to the next generation, strengthening their communities.  

After serving 10 years in the U.S. Air Force, George and Sydney moved back to her homeland near Hopkins, Michigan, in 1969. George’s calendar fills a year or more in advance since he is often called on as Head Veteran dancer at the many powwows and events in the area.

“We live squarely in the middle of Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Potawatomi Indians (Gun Lake Tribe) original territory,” he explains. “We are in the Salem Indian Settlement. I consider my home all of Anishinaabe land.”

George’s mother-in-law, Gladys Sands, also lived with them. She was a black ash basket weaver and knew the old ways of preparing Indian corn to eat. George credits Gladys for teaching him the art. His tools are ears of dried Indian corn, hardwood ashes, a large pot, stirring paddle, handheld sifters, an open fire, cold water, rinsing screen, and tarps to dry the processed corn. Tribes, colleges, and universities throughout the Great Lakes region invite him to teach Indian corn making.  

The dedication to this practice led to a feature of George on The Cooking Channel’s “My Grandmother’s Ravioli” series with host Mo Rocca. They followed George around as he lived the ancient lifeways of Anishinaabe people. He has practiced and shared the culinary artistry of corn soup making and peyote stitch beadwork for over 65 years.

“I believe my mission to become a full-time artist and teacher has been realized,” George says.  

Several large-scale revitalization efforts and food sovereignty projects have utilized George’s expertise to preserve and protect these practices.

“My granddaughter Carly Shananaquet is now becoming well-known in the food sovereignty movement,” he says. “She has watched me all of her life share the art of making Indian corn for a food source. She represents the next generation of our people that will carry forward the ways of our ancestors.”  

George’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren also see him beading every day. His hope is that they understand how beautiful their culture is and try to honor it as much as possible.

“I will be 84 years old this December,” he says. “Being an active elder in my Anishinaabe community shows others to keep going. Keep practicing, keep learning, and keep being involved with our culture and protection of it.”  

“He is a cultural icon, and yet a humble man content to bead, make soup, and share knowledge and stories with his people.”

— Lisa (Tiger) Martin, George's daughter-in-law and nominator for the CSA Award

George avidly practices the artistry of peyote stitch beadwork. He beads traditional dance sticks, talking sticks, coup sticks, moccasin game sticks, wooden spoon handles for ceremonial bundles, teaching sticks, walking canes, Veteran’s medallions, and household items.

“As a beadwork artist, George’s creations are singular and recognizable,” says Lisa Linda Lee Tiger (Muscogee [Creek] Nation). “His signature style of peaks and valleys lit by vibrant colors of greens, oranges, reds, and white dance on every piece he beads. His patterns bring to mind a rhythmic heartbeat, with beauty and emotion that are evident in the flawless landscapes he creates, tying together the past, present, and future into something that is often both beautiful and utilitarian. It’s as if he wishes for his art to be a part of someone’s daily life and not decoration only. His pieces live.”  

Lisa first met George in 2000 when she was selected as the Native American Programs Director for Central Michigan University. She nominated him for the 2019 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Community Spirit Award. “He is a cultural icon, and yet a humble man content to bead, make soup, and share knowledge and stories with his people,” she says.

For George’s Community Spirit Award (CSA) honoring, a misunderstanding led to one of the highlights of the day. Weeks beforehand, Lisa was scheduled to introduce George. Sydney asked her if she’d written her remarks yet. Lisa teased that yes, she was going to say them entirely in the Anishinaabe language.

“I don’t know the language, so I thought it was going to be funny,” Lisa recalls. “But Syd got excited and said, ‘Oh that’s wonderful!’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no!’”

Lisa immediately reached out to an Anishinaabe language speaker and spent the next two weeks practicing. That didn’t wholly alleviate her apprehension of pronouncing the words correctly, but friends at the gathering encouraged her.  

“They told me, ‘Just remember why you’re doing this. It is a gift that you’re trying to present,’” Lisa recalls. “When I went up, I specifically looked at George and told myself, ‘All right, this is why.’”  

“When we honored him with the star quilt, the blanket was wrapped around him and his wife, Syd. He acknowledged how important she has been to his life, and his ongoing commitment to everything Anishinaabe.”

— Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne / Mescalero Apache), First Peoples Fund Board Member

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

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Artists, community leaders, and culture bearers held space in solidarity and reflection on their experiences for the 2018-19 Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) fellowship year. At the final place-based intensive for this ILI cohort in San Antonio during May 2019, some of the fellows expressed how they underwent spiritual and life transformations. Others were surprised at the level of knowledge and development they can take back to their own communities.

Nijeul X. Porter, a participant in the inaugural ILI cohort in 2017-18, was a Core Facilitator and Design Team Member this year. He facilitated virtual cohort convenings and provided direct support for the “Learning Pods.” These pods were smaller break-out teams of 4-5 program participants working together throughout the year to dive deeply into issues they identify around leadership, arts, and culture.  

“Holding this space for ILI 2.0 gives me that opportunity to still grow in my own leadership,” Nijeul said. “I understood that we were building the ship of interculturality as we were sailing it.” One of this year’s ILI fellows, Christopher D. Sims, shared his thoughts for ILI Voices [http://www.weareili.org/voices]. He is an internationally known poet, spoken word performer, and community organizer. He is also a race relations expert and a lay minister who speaks on social justice issues throughout the country.

“I have been around diversity and multiculturalism for most of my life,” Christopher said. “But this experience [ILI] is unlike anything I have taken part in — mostly because of the knowledge, the wisdom, and the ethnic heritage that we possess. The stories that leave the tongues of my fellow cohort’s mouths amaze and mesmerize me. To have listened to everyone, especially in the larger settings, gives me a deeper understanding of who people are and where they come from with their specific work. It is an enriching mosaic of existence and truth-telling.”

ILI is a collaborative program of Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC), and PA’I Foundation. The effort grew from the direct experiences of the leaders of these founding cultural organizations. This 2018–19 ILI cohort underwent three place-based intensives for their Fellowship Year. The initial intensive was hosted by First Peoples Fund (FPF) during September 2018. Held in South Dakota, the five-day leadership immersion brought shared learning, personal exchange, and direct experience with the true history and sacred places in Lakota Territory.  

“There is nothing like going to places to walk the land, breathe the air, and feel the warmth of the sun in a particular place,” Christopher said. “I enjoyed and embraced the dryness, the majestic stars in the night sky, and the animals we shared the same grounds with.”

His roommate was Robert Martinez (Northern Arapaho), a 2012 FPF Artist in Business Leadership and 2015 FPF Cultural Capital Fellow.

“Under the darkest skies, and in the light of the morning, Robert and I would share and discuss our experiences in South Dakota after each day,” Christopher said. “We laughed, we guessed, we appreciated being there, and we looked forward to the next day.”

Hawaiʻi was next on the ILI agenda, the intensive taking place in January 2019. The fellows were immersed in the history and revitalization efforts of Native Hawaiians.  

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PAʻI Foundation hosted this intensive that involved exposure to and practice of the Hawaiian language, a visit to sustainable farms, paddling out to an island and back, and an art museum tour. A cultural showcase at the end of the week provided a stage for ILI Fellows as artists and culture bearers to present their work.

ILI Fellow Liza Garza and former ILI Fellow Eli Lakes form the mother/son musical duo GROW. They performed during the gathering.

“The convenings are showing us that we still have a lot of work to do, but that we are surrounded by others who are ready and willing to do that work together,” Liza said. “That’s love in itself. A lot of what happens in the ILI convenings are very intimate hashing out of difficult things. And then we eat dinner together! There is healing coming out of that.”

The third and final place-based intensive was in San Antonio. The intensive, hosted by the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC), was designed to help the fellows continue grounding their experience in the four core topics addressed in Lakota Territory and Hawaiʻi: “Who We Are, Where We Are, How We Work, Why We Matter.” It allowed the fellows to reflect on and articulate the changes that came about within themselves through ILI, and how they can take those personal qualities back to their communities and put what they learned into action.  

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By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

Marty Two Bulls Jr. (Oglala Sioux Tribe) is an artist, musician, and educator. He grew up under the artistic tutelage of his father, an accomplished artist, designer, and cartoonist. Marty attended college at the Institute of American Indian Arts where he completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts focused in Printmaking and Ceramics.

In 2017, he returned to live in Rapid City, South Dakota, and teaches at the Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He built the Associates in Graphic Arts program, and continues to mentor other Lakota artists.

Crying, laughing, a blank stare, winking. Four of Marty’s glazed ceramic pieces were exhibited at the 2019 Native POP: People of the Plains show this summer. Veering from his typical aesthetics, he is experimenting with abstracts concepts to explore within his life and culture. He created a group of glazed ceramic sculptures — buffalos in cartoon form that won an award at the show.  

“I was looking at ideas around identity and culture and specifically my identity as a Lakota artist, how I exist today.”

— Marty Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota), 2019 Artist in Business Leadership Fellow

The small-sized sculptures might lead to larger pieces in similar form, but not having his own kiln hampers Marty’s abilities. Too often, a batch of work he has taken to fire at a foundry comes out broken.

“The creativity gets stifled by issues of transportation and firing,” he says. “There have been instances when someone else’s piece exploded, and my work was next to it. It’s a real gamble sometimes. I can be working for three months towards a show, and if I lose that work in the kiln, I don’t always have another three months before the exhibition.”

Marty’s 2019 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership grant is allowing him to purchase a 400-pound electric kiln.

“I’m looking forward to being able to increase the delicacy of my work,” he says. Marty explores art in a variety of forms beyond ceramics. When a vague idea or theme comes to mind, he grabs his sketchbook. Inspirations may come from found objects. He displayed two medicine cabinets and ceramic milk jugs at the LUX Art Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, an exhibit he curated in 2019.  

“I like to go to the re-store and find an old chewed up medicine cabinet, something that has a history of use,” he says. “It’s this personal place, and it’s also a brutally honest place. The only time we may see ourselves is in the reflection of its mirror.

“For this exhibition, there were two medicine cabinet pieces. I was looking at ideas around identity and culture and specifically my identity as a Lakota artist, how I exist today. I’m a Lakota artist, but I don’t necessarily make my work towards anyone else’s ideas around what that means. I get challenged sometimes about this work. I like that, it tells me that the person is looking at the work and engaging with it.”

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

In 2007, Molina Parker (Oglala Sioux Tribe) began beading full-time as her primary source of income. In 2016, she received a First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership grant, which enabled her to purchase higher quality supplies and packaging. After the fellowship, she entered and won or placed in several art shows, including the Santa Fe Indian Market (SWAIA).

Molina was awarded a 2019 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Cultural Capital Fellowship to research, design, and etch markers with cultural designs for memorials in the local cemetery. She resides with her husband, Bryan, and their daughter, Bobbi, in Red Shirt, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

“I haven’t had much time to do anything,” Molina told her friend, Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota, 2017 FPF Fellow) when she arrived at a show recently.

Molina started pulling out bags and boxes of her creations for him to see. And more bags and boxes. And more!  

Surprised, she laughed, “I didn’t even know I did all of this!” Things are quiet for Molina in the rural setting of Red Shirt, so far removed from city life. But she finds herself working from midnight to 4 a.m. because living in the country is only quiet at night or when her five-year-old daughter, Bobbi, isn’t home.  

“She is like a force of nature,” Molina says. “This girl is on a level 10 all the time. Yet whenever she tells me that she thinks my work is beautiful, it keeps me going.”

Molina grew up primarily in Rapid City, where she lived with her mother, aunt, brother, and cousin. The two single moms raised their kids with steady attention from grandparents. Molina’s grandmother taught her to make jewelry. Though a drill sergeant of sorts, she was patient.

“My grandmother liked things done very particularly,” Molina says. “If I messed up, she would say, ‘Take it apart, do it again until you get it right.’ I knew she was right, that I shouldn’t be trying to rush. And I think about that even now. There are shortcuts I could take, but I don’t.”

Molina was attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when she and her cousin, Douglas, received the call that their grandmother was fast declining. They drove all night to South Dakota, and the whole family was there to say goodbye.

“My grandmother always did things with her hands,” Molina says. “Art has always been in the family, and now Bobbi does it. She’ll come home from school and bead or paint or color. She’s always doing something.”

You might say Bobbi gets it from her mother and great-grandmother.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

With construction underway for the new Oglala Lakota Artspace in Kyle, South Dakota, First Peoples Fund held several community meetings to hear from the people this space is meant for. From February through this summer in Rapid City, Kyle, Pine Ridge, and Batesland, community members and artists gathered to lend their voices in shaping the upcoming art center.  

“They were excited to see something like this, especially on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” says Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota, First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2017). He is a full-time artist with studio space at Racing Magpie in Rapid City. “The community meetings gave them hope that they can show their work and have it visible in a public venue rather than simply doing art at their kitchen table, or to get gas money, which is fine. But it opened up their minds to, ‘Hey, maybe I can make a living out of this.’”

The community members represented an array of contemporary and traditional arts. Both emphasized the desire for teaching and attending classes from computer animations to brain tanning hides to business training.

“I can’t stress enough about knowledge, the art knowledge from other artists and what it is to sustain yourself from your art,” Wade says.

Though the community members were sometimes reserved at first, ideas gradually flowed in a steady stream:

• Traditional art, culture bearers classes

• Wood carving, shop tools and materials, access to all tools

• Business and marketing classes

• Photography classes

• Science classes

• Fashion design, regalia making

• Music recording

• Native Art and Art Appreciation class

• Internet accessibility and online marketing classes

• Dance classes (ballet, hip hop, pow wow)

• Harvesting animals, using all parts of the animal

• Bringing the community together through fun events.  

With the large number of tourists that come onto the Pine Ridge Reservation annually, community members suggested several ideas to create selling opportunities for artists. Some community members proposed a weekly art market, and extended hours during peak seasons. Tourists come from around the world and often cannot travel home with a large piece of original artwork, so there was an emphasis put on creating memento-style pieces that can be sold at markets at the building.

There are studio spaces available for artists, a media room for film and music recording, it is satellite space for the Lakota Federal Credit Union.

A common concern at the meetings was the issue of transportation. While there is a public transit system available on the reservation, it is not always cost-effective. First Peoples Fund (FPF) is exploring the possibility of offering vouchers to ensure as many artists utilize the space as possible.

“People want a space like this where they can go and continue learning, passing on that cultural knowledge,” says Bryan Parker (White Mountain Apache, Muscogee Creek, Mississippi Choctaw). “It’s something good coming near them in the community that everyone will have access to. It will be like a meeting hub.”

Bryan is the First Peoples Fund Rolling Rez Arts bus coordinator and has something unique he is looking forward to with the Oglala Lakota Artspace (OLA). The building will have a garage for the bus to protect it during severe winter months. This will serve as a home base for the bus as it continues reaching out to communities and can lead people back to the building.  

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

Image: Dowa Yalanne, Zuni Pueblo’s sacred Corn Mountain.  

Cast in the vast desert beauty of New Mexico, Zuni Pueblo holds treasured lifeways dating back thousands of years. Handed down from their ancestors, 7,500 Zuni artists practice pottery, jewelry making, beadworking, fetish-carving, and painting.

A First Peoples Fund partner and 2019 Indigenous Arts Ecology grantee, Zuni Pueblo MainStreet, is part of the movement to support and train Native artists. Zuni Pueblo MainStreet was created in 2012 to utilize new approaches and methods, encouraging revitalization of the local economy while continuing to preserve unique traditional and historical knowledge.

The program works with 150 artists, an imbalance with the 7,500 who rarely have access to assistance. The organization’s vision is to reach out to more artists and empower them as entrepreneurs by generating opportunities for them to display and sell their work locally, and enable them to refine their current skill sets and gain knowledge and expertise on how to better market themselves.

With support from their First Peoples Fund Indigenous Arts Ecology grant, Zuni Pueblo MainStreet is helping to develop Ancestral Rich Treasures of Zuni Cooperative — “ARTZ.” This cooperative opened a gallery and gift shop space in an old trading post that stood vacant for years. Now operated for artists and by artists, ARTZ Cooperative also has a photography studio space. Zuni Pueblo MainStreet purchased the photography equipment to allow artists to take professional photos of their work.

Through First Peoples Fund’s Native Artist Professional Development Training (NAPD), Zuni Pueblo MainStreet guides artists in preparing portfolios of their work. First Peoples Fund held an NAPD training in Zuni in 2015, then worked with Zuni Main Street in 2018 with more training. The March 2019 NAPD training, taught by Felecia Freeman (Citizen Potawatomi) and Leslie Deer (Muscogee (Creek) Nation), was well attended.

“We had over 30 applicants, and 27 actually received the training,” says Mario Hooee (Zuni Tribe). Mario is the executive director of Zuni Pueblo MainStreet. He served several years on its board, often as an officer, and holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration in Finance and Masters in Public Administration from the University of New Mexico (UNM).

First Peoples Fund is also connected with the youth program, Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, had staff in a training for poet mentors, and discussed including this organization in the Emerging Poets Fellowship.  

“The artists create wonderful art, yet they’re individuals,” he says. “They have their own mindset, they’ve had small cottage businesses for a while, some for many years. When you put them together, it’s a little bit difficult to get them to focus on one thing and continue that. We have to reel them in once in a while.”

ARTZ Cooperative evolved from ArtWalk , a monthly event in Zuni that allows visitors to tour home studios and other spaces where artists create their work. ArtWalk originated in late 2017 through UNM’s Indigenous Design and Planning Institute with an ArtPlace America grant. They feature artists, like Eldrick and Charlotte Seoutewa, each month. The couple works together from their home, crafting contemporary in-lay jewelry as well as needle-point jewelry.  

Zuni Pueblo MainStreet works with both the ARTZ Cooperative and ArtWalk, who are focused on the professional development of Indigenous artists. After ARTZ was incorporated, the Zuni Pueblo MainStreet’s Indigenous Arts Ecology (IAE) work plan and budget were adjusted to assist the new co-op. Since ARTZ is a registered legal entity devoted to the professional development and welfare of artists, Zuni Pueblo MainStreet is assisting them with their new start-up. Located on the Main Street corridor, the ARTZ Cooperative facility held their grand opening in August 2019.  

“One of our focuses is helping community artists,” Mario says. “About 80% of our households either do artwork for their sole employment, or they subsidize their income with art. We’ve been working to help them become more professional, and have their artwork more as a business than a hobby or something they create and sell just to get by each day.”

While the arts and crafts industry is an essential asset to the Zuni community, those involved in arts production are not well woven into the economy or supported by training. An economic assessment report was produced in 2014 by the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business and Economic Reports in which various artist needs were identified. Zuni Pueblo MainStreet is working to fill gaps of those needs, such as with marketing authentic art to tourists.  

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

Keith BraveHeart is an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Lakota Oyate and grew up in the community of Pejuta Haka (Medicine Root; Kyle, South Dakota). He attended the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute at the University of South Dakota and was introduced to contemporary tribal fine arts. He graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2006 with a BFA, and received his MFA in 2018 from the University of South Dakota (USD).

Keith serves as art instructor for the Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and is a 2019 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow.  

Strokes of blues, a swirl of deep red, and the buffalo skull begins to form. Gathered in an art room, Keith leads youth, adults, and elders in painting buffalo head designs. Each individual’s multicolored piece is a unique expression of their creativity through 2D art. Once the designs are finished, Keith helps transfer them onto t-shirts for the participants to take home their art created during his “Buffalo Nation: Creating Community” project.  

“This is about overcoming boundaries within the art world as far as, how do we all enjoy and take part in art?” Keith says. “I think it was something very much aligned with a tribal perspective, and definitely my Lakota perspective of how I view art. It’s not only individuals; it’s about everyone.”

Keith’s project is building community and breaking barriers in the art world, making it accessible. The first project collaboration took place in Minneapolis between Keith, the Native community, All My Relations Gallery, the Native American Community Development Institute, the Northern Spark Festival, the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute at USD, and Minneapolis/St. Paul-based artists.

“With the art workshops, I’m trying to have the community understand that the intention is to uplift artists as being more than able to produce a commodity or an object,” he says. “These are people who are instilled with intergenerational knowledge.”

“Buffalo Nation: Creating Community” demonstrates a living practice of Lakota significance, and recognizes the “relative perspective” (Mitakuye Oyas’in) as a connector between art and community. Keith partnered with the Oglala Lakota College and several districts on the Pine Ridge Reservation, then expanded to Rapid City.

“I do feel motivated and inspired as an artist by my relatives and our cultural significance,” Keith says. “I live my life as an artist, instructor, student, and viewer. I see art in my community and as my identity, and I hold a responsibility in encouraging others to see it also.”

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By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015  

Featured in several publications, including “Montana Americana Music: Boot Stomping in Big Sky Country,” Joseph Running Crane (Blackfeet) represents a new generation of Americana musicians. His early influences were hard rock, though his recent songs have taken on a more wistful tone with an acoustic sound.

Joseph resides in Browning, Montana, and is a 2019 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow.  

Tucked inside the walls of an old skateboard park with live music blasting, they were simply kids, free from the pressures and negative realities of their lives. In Browning, Montana, 300 kids had shown up to hear Joseph’s high-school rock band perform.  

“To be near the center of that celebration made me realize the power my art had and set the tone for the following decade,” Joseph says. “Music for me has always been characterized by community, however small. Any opportunity I’m lucky enough to share my music with a community is a reward. Accolades and recognition are nice, but performance is where I reap my rewards.”

After high school, Joseph spent a decade collecting equipment, stories, and, most important, knowledge. His music has evolved to a punk-influenced Americana style.

Making the shift from hard-edged rock ‘n’ roll of his early years hasn’t been easy, but it is coming together. Joseph now travels solo with his guitar and luggage.

“Performing solo came from a desire to litmus test myself, to strip away all the distortion and theatricality to words and a simple melody, and see if there was any substance to what I was screaming about in those old punk bands,” he says. “I put an exhaustive focus on lyricality and storytelling, which has yielded pleasantly surprising results.”

Joseph recently released his first full-length record: “ Dog Winter ,” a collection of songs he wrote that was kickstarted by an unexpectedly long stay in Browning during the winter of 2015-2016.  

Browning — the reservation, the landscape, and the people — all serve as primary influences on this record. Addiction, heartbreak, family, post-traumatic stress disorder, wanderlust, and stray dogs are recurring themes throughout but seen through the lens of a modern-day Indian on a modern-day rez.

“Being an artist requires honesty, and I’ve taken every step and made every sacrifice to ensure that I’m being as honest in my work as I can,” he says. “Frugality, determination, and integrity are all the do-it-yourself punk rock values instilled in me over a decade in basements and bars. But honesty is a value instilled in me over a lifetime of being Blackfeet. This fellowship serves to promote the honest story of who we are and where we come from, with the hope to further humanize us to the outside world.”

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

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“Go talk to Joe.” This is a common phrase in the community on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in northwestern Minnesota.  

“Joe” is Joseph Allen (Lakota/Ojibwe), project coordinator for the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator. Gizhiigin (“grow fast”) is a project of the White Earth Reservation Tribal Council’s Economic Development Division. Gizhiigin is also the recipient of a 2019 Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant from First Peoples Fund.  They work with culture bearers in their community to foster growth, promote local artists, assist with skill development and marketplace goals, and provide artists with space and resources for entrepreneurial development.

When emerging artists are starting out, they are often referred to Joe and the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator. Whether a phone call, text, or Facebook message, Joe is always open to coaching artists. “

We assist them with their careers,” Joe says. “We help them take photos of their work and teach them how to take photos of it, and connect them with markets or opportunities for exhibitions.”

One such artist is Rick Kagigebi (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe), who makes ceremonial star quilts and other blankets. He never viewed his creations as art, they were just something that he did.

In the small community of 1,500 people, where everyone knows everyone, Joe was familiar with Rick and his wife’s art. Penny Kagigibi (White Earth) is a talented birch bark and quill box maker. One of her quill boxes was exhibited in the Anishinaabe Arts Initiative Grant Recipients exhibition Gizhiigin hosted. The couple works together in their art mediums.  

“They are getting close to retirement age, and they want to do this full-time,” Joe says. “Rick is starting to sell now. He’s learning to make things for market, going through that process of deciding what it is you’re going to sell and what you’re not going to sell.”

Through Gizhiigin, Rick connected with galleries and is now exhibiting regionally. He recently won best in show in a juried art show at the Watermark Art Center in Bemidji, Minnesota, and is gaining recognition as an artist — publicly and for himself.

Indigenous Arts Ecology Projects Growing Fast

Joe is the project coordinator for the 2019 Indigenous Arts Ecology (IAE) grant from First Peoples Fund. He was a First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow in 2012 and has stayed connected to First Peoples Fund’s work over the years. After reading First Peoples Fund’s 2018 report, Investing in the Indigenous Arts Ecology , Joseph urged his community to deepen their work with artists and helped completely change the local strategy for economic growth.

Now, using the IAE grant, Gizhiigin is helping materialize the tangible elements of that strategy. Joe has spent this year creating new market opportunities for artists in his area. They began holding pop up markets inside Gizhiigin on the first Saturday of every month. Young artists exhibit their beadwork, paintings, star quilts, and baby quilts.  

Joe is also developing relationships with businesses that want to buy from Native artists. One of these is the Sanford Center, a 4,700-seat multi-purpose arena and convention center located in Bemidji. Home of Bemidji State University hockey, the center is purchasing Native art for halls of the venue concourse areas and outside their suites. The presence of Native art in such a high-traffic public space is raising awareness of Native arts and helping overcome one of the greatest challenges for artists in the region.

“The biggest issue right now is lack of knowledge of Indigenous art in the art buying market,” Joe says. “Indigenous art is not commonly recognized as part of Minnesota.”

Without public support and awareness, Native artists struggle to keep their art forms in practice.

“With the lack of a viable market, the quality of the art has diminished,” Joe explains. “Things are getting lost because artists can’t make a living. We’re trying to revive those arts, but there has to be someplace where they can make money. Teaching these traditions is where a lot of our artists are supplementing their income. We try to connect the artists to organizations that want traditional artists to come in and teach.”  

Gizhiigin also regularly hosts classes and open studios. Last fall, they focused on black ash basket making, and have noticed interest in these kinds of classes increasing. One of the students was mentored by 2000 First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Awards recipient Clyde Estey, Jr. (Minnesota Chippewa) in Gizhiigin’s Traditional Arts Mentorship program.  

That student is now an instructor. 22-year old Courtney Olsen (Ojibwe), a recent graduate of the White Earth Tribal and Community College, was the lead artist in Gizhiigin’s Black Ash Basketry Open Studio Lab.

“The next generation is already teaching,” Joe says. Courtney is long familiar with her people’s art, being upheld by her grandmother and also her mother, Melissa Widner (White Earth). Courtney nominated her mother for the 2019 First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Awards. Melissa’s honoring was held at Gizhiigin, where she teaches sewing classes.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

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Maile Andrade (Native Hawaiian) is a multi-media artist and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Hawai’i-Månoa. She has participated in several Indigenous Symposiums/Gatherings in New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Longhouse in Evergreen State College, Washington. Maile has been an artist-in-resident in New Zealand, at the Alaska Heritage Center, and SAR School for Advanced Research, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She serves as an Affiliate Researcher at Bishop Museum and has presented all over the world.

In the art classroom, Maile breaks chunks of alaea — dry red clay — into smaller and smaller pieces, then crushes it to powder. Adding water, she uses a brush and mixes it into a thick paste. She dips a bamboo stem in the mixture, taps away the excess, and presses it on the kapa (bark cloth). By repeating this over and over, she creates a design.

From a young age, Maile’s parents recognized her talent as an artist. It was how she saw the world, how she expressed herself. Over decades of practice, she mastered multiple disciplines and is now finding herself in the position of being the older generation, the one who holds all this knowledge. She shares it as a professor at Kamakakukalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai’i-Månoa, where she teaches in a Native Hawaiian Creative Expression Program.  

But if she walks away, who will pass on Hawaiian arts to the next generation?

There is currently no one to take Maile’s place when she retires, no one to give clear direction in running the fiber arts classes.

“I created these classes, and enrollment is high,” she says. “That tells me it’s important, the students want it. I have several people I’ve been training who are the next-generation down. But I find that, while they understand it, they can’t facilitate a bigger discussion around the cultural aspect because they lack a broader base.”

The generation above Maile is gone; the one coming behind her hasn’t mastered all the arts. But rather than despair, she is using her 2019 Cultural Capital Fellowship from First Peoples Fund to create a solution.

Maile is reaching out to others with her level of knowledge to record what they learned, as she did when she apprenticed with a master weaver in 1989. She is creating workshop curriculum, training young weavers, making sample weaving patterns for use in future instruction, and documenting the designs and patterns of master weavers for a database, or possibly a book.

“There are different master weavers, and I want to honor the lineage of each,” she says. “A lot of young weavers don’t see the differences in the detail, but hopefully as they gain experience, they will see the subtleties in the masters.”

When Maile does walk away, she wants to leave clear footprints for others to follow.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

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Kalani Pe’a (Native Hawaiian) writes, arranges, and produces Hawaiian, Contemporary, and Soul music. He won his second Grammy® at the 61st Annual Grammy® Awards for Best Regional Roots Music Album. He is also an illustrator and has published five Hawaiian language children stories for immersion programs statewide under the direction of the Hale Kuamo’o Hawaiian Language Center at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo.

Kalani has a B.A. in Public Relations/News Editorial from Colorado Mesa University and took M.A. courses in Early Childhood Education. He uses his college degree as an independent music owner. His 2019 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship helped support his recent “Music For The Soul Tour” which included Portland, Eugene, Berkeley, Folsom, Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Irvine.

Between Kalani’s parents and the mall’s security guard looking for the lost four-year-old, it wasn’t long before they found Kalani standing in front of a mannequin, serenading it.

His parents were shocked. Kalani — a child diagnosed with a severe speech impediment — was standing there singing out words clearly. Kalani’s parents immediately recognized the importance of music in his life.

“My dad came from a musical family,” he says. “My mom introduced new music material for me to learn while getting vocal training. They saw me compose music at age ten and noticed my stammering and stuttering stopped. Music helped me enunciate and emphasize words and phrases.”

Kalani entered and won numerous talent and karaoke competitions from age eight throughout his college career, singing in choirs to now taking his music around the world.

“Music and singing saved my life,” he says. His family spoke their native language at home. Kalani and his siblings attended Ke Kula ’o Nawahiokalani’opu’u, an immersion school where every subject was taught in Hawaiian. His original songs consist of music composed in Hawaiian.

Kalani shares his art internationally, selling out shows in Hawai’i, the U.S., and Japan.  

“Hawaiian music defines and describes my people, providing the listener knowledge of where we come from, how we think in a Hawaiian perspective and how we live day to day as people of our land,” he says. Kalani is passing on the gift of language and music to youth, hoping it impacts their lives as it did his.

“You can sing R&B, opera, rock-n-roll, or rap in the Hawaiian language. It’s possible while maintaining your cultural values and practices. My long-term goal is to encourage every young child to feel that Hawaiian music tells their story.”

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015  

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Set against the backdrop of a grove outside Gizhiigin Arts Incubator, Melissa Widner (White Earth) posed in her handcrafted ribbon skirt. The grove’s rich green grass and trees allowed the skirt’s vibrant colors — yellows, reds, blues — to pop during the sunny day on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in northwestern Minnesota this summer.

Melissa’s daughter, Courtney Olsen (Ojibwe), soon joined the fun with smiles and laughter. Courtney wore a ribbon skirt, as well, that she made.

Courtney and her sister, Megan Bunker Olson (Ojibwe), had nominated their mother, Melissa, for First Peoples Fund’s Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award (CSA).

“Growing up I would attend ceremonies and pow wows with my mom,” Courtney says. “I didn’t realize how lucky I was that she would handcraft me and my sisters’ regalia and beadwork. She raised me with our traditional ways and has taught me so much, not only about regalia, but about beadwork, our Ojibwe language, ceremonies, pow wows, and our traditional foods.”

The CSA not only gave Courtney and Megan the opportunity to acknowledge their mother’s contributions to the community, but to have a moment to celebrate everything they had learned from her. Continuing to showcase their handcrafted ribbon skirts, Courtney and her mother posed for the event photographer, Roxanne Best (Confederated Tribe of the Colville Indian Reservation) who worked hard to capture the heart of Melissa’s art form — sewing for her community.

“I look at fabric, colors, styles, designs and immediately in my mind I put together a unique piece,” Melissa says. “I oftentimes get so inspired I sit for hours and days just sewing.”

She learned to sew from her grandmother, whose techniques and admonishments keep Melissa on the right path.

“My favorite materials are neons, bright patterns, and fun colors,” she says, “but in keeping with my grandmother’s teaching, I make sure the regalia I create also is traditional in cut, pattern, and style. My grandmother makes inward of 100 ceremonial quilts each year that are taken to our big drum ceremony in our village. Although I love the contemporary flair, my grandmother reminds me of the traditional side, and that I must incorporate these things into my work.”  

After the photoshoot in the grove, Melissa and Courtney went inside Gizhiigin Arts Incubator where the CSA honoring was held. Roxanne took more shots with the family around the displays of Melissa’s fabric art pieces, and of the people gathered to celebrate Melissa.

“The honoring meant a lot because my community showed up,” Melissa says. “I’m usually a quiet type. Being up front and center is really not my thing, but I was honored.”   Melissa’s colleagues, childhood friends, current students, and First Peoples Fund (FPF) staff sat in a circle in the open space. One of the youth, Opwaganse (Puggy) Goodwin, a close family friend, sang an honor song for Melissa. “

He’s doing so many great things in our community,” she says. “He’s an inspiring young leader.”

“It’s so nice to see our youth stepping up and being able to sing honoring songs and tribal songs,” Courtney says, “and participate in ceremony the way he does.”

After the honor song, people impacted by Melissa’s work began sharing stories and offering words of praise. Taught by her grandmother, Melissa has been sewing and beading for 30 years.

“Everyone that knows her knows they can reach out to her, and she will help them,” Courtney says. “She is efficient and selfless. I can genuinely say, as one of her seven children, that she has done everything she can for us, and our community. She is a true Anishinaabe woman.” Melissa teaches a weekly class alongside her sister, who is the Domestic Violence Culture Coordinator.

“As a Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist, I have incorporated regalia making for those in need, hurting, bored, learning, lost, and in recovery,” Melissa says. “I always try to have an elder in each class, and my grandmother often volunteers her time.”

One project very close to Melissa’s heart is the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) sewing class she started at Gizhiigin. While getting ready for an MMIW march one day, she sat down at her sewing machine to cut a new ribbon skirt.

"As I started sewing and cutting and creating this piece, I thought, ‘wow, this skirt is beautiful. What could I add to it to represent the MMIW?’” she explains. “I cut a tiny red dress appliqué piece out, sat and looked at it for a long time and finally stitched it on my skirt. The emotions were overwhelming.”

At the time, there was an MMIW exhibit in the gallery at Gizhiigin. On the last day of the exhibition, Melissa brought her skirt to show in a class. The emotional response launched the MMIW Skirt class she now teaches in addition to her other community work.

“We were really attracted to her commitment to community,” says Amber Hoy, First Peoples Fund’s Program Manager of Fellowships, who attended the honoring. “Melissa often referred to her grandmother, who couldn’t be there that day. She kept directing the conversation back to giving praise to and uplifting the elders who came before her.” The time came to wrap Melissa in her CSA star quilt. Melissa’s love of bright colors was incorporated into her custom-made quilt to celebrate her dedication.  

“Community Spirit Awardees are the unsung heroes,” Amber says. “Younger kids might not recognize their importance. We’re traveling there to affirm the importance of their work, of keeping these ancestral traditions and practices alive.”

“I enjoyed hearing what everyone had to say about my mom,” Courtney says. “I’ve known her my whole life as my mom, but to hear how other people view her and how they have such high opinions of her was special. It was so nice to see all that love coming from different directions.”