By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015
Erin Genia is an Olympia-based artist of Dakota descent. With her skills in two- and three-dimensional techniques, she creates mixed media sculptures, drawings, paintings, prints, pottery, and jewelry.

Erin studied art at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Evergreen State College. Her award-winning work has exhibited nationally and internationally. One of her pieces recently won the Honoring Innovation Award at a show at the Washington State History Museum.

A little boy in a ball cap tugged against his mother, straining to stay under the morning stars overhead. All those bright colors of the rainbow drew his attention while light filtered through the 35-foot banner of morning stars.

While still carrying a heavy message typical in her work, Erin created the Dakota Pride — Anpa O Wicahnpi (morning star) — banner to act as a little blessing and a reminder to embrace our differences as well as our commonalities in the shared struggle of humanity. Through this public art piece, displayed at the Seattle Center, Erin shares the resilience of urban Native people even when far from home.

“Something about the colors makes people happy,” Erin said. “When they walk underneath it, their spirits are lifted.” This public art piece came about through a Seattle-based art program which added to Erin’s full life as an artist and mother of five.

She’s become more methodical through her 2017 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership program. Through business training in the program, Erin developed a line of work to support her while she pursues graduate school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall where she’s in the Art, Culture, and Technology program. This “bread and butter” line of work also allows her time to focus on mentoring her son, Samuel, an accomplished young artist with the creative spirit alive in him.

“With knowledge and skill come responsibility,” Erin said. “I must bring others along with me on my journey.”

She also brings the past forward. This spring, through a fellowship with the National Museum of the American Indian (an FPF Our Nations’ Spaces partner), Erin conducted research for her project, “Canupa Inyan: Researching the Carvings of My Ancestors.”

She took the rare opportunity to carefully study designs to pass along the knowledge her ancestors left for her. She recreates pieces in soapstone or clay while she continues to learn traditional pipestone forms. In this way, she brings the pipestone pieces back to her people — and to the public.

Like that little boy in the ball cap, Erin hopes they are drawn to the resilience and hope of her people.

CALL FOR 2018 FELLOWS

Through our Artists in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital Fellowships, First Peoples Fund partners with Native artists and culture bearers to strengthen their business skills and to ensure that art, culture and ancestral knowledge are passed from one generation to the next.

Applications for 2018 fellowships are now open and are due October 31, 2017. Selection notification is by December 1, 2017 with fellowships starting January 2018.

First Peoples Fund is excited to announce new developments in our fellowship programs beginning in 2018.

We will continue our national programs with funding priorities to deepen our work in the following tribal communities: Colville, Pine Ridge, Blackfeet, Red Lake, Citizen Potawatomi, Hawai’i, Bering Strait Regional Corporation, and Cheyenne River.

We are also excited about expanding our Artists in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital fellowships into the Southwest region.

We extend a special invitation to Native performing artists from ALL states to apply for the fellowship programs. Performing artists from most traditional and contemporary art forms are encouraged to apply, including musicians, hip-hop artists, spoken word artists, dancers and performance groups emphasizing cultural tourism and/or sharing and teaching others within their communities.

Twenty to twenty-five artists are selected annually for First Peoples Fund's one-year fellowship programs. Fellows receive $5,000 project grants, technical support and professional training to start or grow a thriving arts business and to further their important work in their communities.

Applicants must be an enrolled member or provide proof of lineal descendancy of a U.S. federally recognized tribe, a state recognized tribe, or be an Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian.

WHICH FELLOWSHIP IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

ARTIST IN BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

The program's purpose is to develop independent, satisfied, and credible Native artist entrepreneurs who are generous in spirit. The fellowship supports artists to pursue specific arts business development goals for themselves and their families. Artists should have attended a Native Artists Professional Development workshop and/or have at least two years of experience marketing, distributing and/or presenting their art.

APPLY TODAY

CULTURAL CAPITAL
The program's purpose is to strengthen the Collective Spirit® of those artists who perpetuate generosity, wisdom, and integrity in their communities. The fellowships are designed for artists and culture bearers who are deeply rooted in their communities and are committed to passing on ancestral knowledge and cultural practices within their tribal communities.

APPLY TODAY

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

Established in 2010, Native American Community Development Corporation(NACDC) Financial Services, Inc. is a tax exempt, non-profit Native community development financial institution  located in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. NACDC is part of a Native-owned and operated community development financing network, and a 2016-2017 First Peoples Fund Indigenous Arts Ecology grantee.  

The audience watched in awe. They had never experienced anything like this. Flashes of color, the heartbeat of the drum, the Native dancers and their fluid movements captured this moment in time for the audience to reflect on for years to come.  

In the expansive Montana country, so few encounter the culture lived and practiced by Native people. But the Native American Community Development Corporation (NACDC) is bringing authentic Native culture back into the world of the annual Western Art Week which takes over Great Falls, Montana, every year in March.

“They used to have the Great Falls Native American Art show there, run by Great Falls Native American Art Association,” Darrell Norman (Blackfeet) said. “It went on for about 26 years, a great gathering of Native artists.”

Darrell specializes in traditional and contemporary forms of Blackfeet art, and is a past recipient of the First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award and two-time recipient of the Artists in Business Leadership fellowship. He serves on the NACDC board of directors’ loan committee, and as a general advisor for all things related to Blackfeet culture. He’s exhibited at the Western Art Week since 1985.

“The Native American art show was really missed in the few years when we didn’t have anything during the Western Art Week,” Darrell added.

Through his encouragement, Native artists came back in strength to the Western Art Week by exhibiting within The Great Western Living & Design Show in 2016. The artists were supported by NACDC in part through their Indigenous Arts Ecology program granted by First Peoples Fund. Audiences are once again able to view and purchase work created by Native artists.

“The art week is centered around Charles Russell,” Darrell said, “but a lot of the imagery and paintings depict Native American people, so for us to be a viable part of that Western Art Week was very important since we were the ones being represented so much.”

NACDC Executive Director Angie Main (Gros Ventre) said, “The first year, we only had about eight or nine Native artists, but it grew in 2017. We had 19 artists. They came from Canada, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. Because it’s generating so much interest with the Native artists, we’re going to have our own Native artist show next year. We hope to have 30 artists.”

NACDC covered the expenses of the show with various funding sources leveraged with their Indigenous Arts Ecology (IAE) grant. They also worked with First Peoples Fund to create marketing material for the show.

The relationship between the work at NACDC and First Peoples Fund is layered through many years. It was Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) who helped connect NACDC and FPF. Elouise is best known as the plaintiff in the groundbreaking class action suit Cobell v. Salazar which successfully challenged the federal government’s mismanagement of trust funds belonging to 500,000 individual Native Americans and resulting in a $3.4 billion settlement. Elouise was head of the Blackfeet Development Loan Fund which later became the NACDC. An early activist and leader in the field of Native community economic development, she was also part of an advisory group that formed FPF more than 20 years ago.

Elouise worked for many years on the Harvest Moon Ball with the NACDC, and her longtime friendship with First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier brought the two areas of work together for a partnership that spans time and space.

In 2010, FPF began collecting survey data from the region. After NACDC became a certified Native CDFI in 2012, FPF conducted a Native Artists Market Study (The Artist Landscape: Blackfeet Indian Reservation) examining the needs of artists in the area.

Because of the survey, and an Indigenous Arts Ecology grant from First Peoples Fund, NACDC was able to begin tackling challenges specific to the growth of artist-entrepreneurs. FPF assisted NACDC with developing a line of credit for Native artists, and conducted FPF’s Train the Trainer program with them, certifying local artists to conduct FPF’s professional development workshops. Artists need access to technical and business training, and FPF offered its values-driven Native Artist Professional Development workshops to cover topics like marketing, business planning, and market booth setup.

“It’s a lot of just empowering the artists, to say that they can do it. They can be full-time artists,” said Jeremy Staab (Santee Sioux) FPF Program Manager. “We’re encouraging them, helping them grow as emerging artists to part-time and full-time artists. We see them supporting one another within the region and district.”

Top on the list of challenges is the vastness of the region where the artists live. It is at least a two-hour drive and steep expenses to sell at markets and art shows.

Through the IAE grant, NACDC now takes artists to shows that expand their markets, including the Western Art Week in Great Falls. Some of these artists are current or former FPF Community Spirit Award recipients or FPF fellows like John Pepion. John is a 2017 Artist in Business Leadership fellow, a longtime exhibitor at the Harvest Moon Ball, and one of the artists to exhibit at the Western Art Week.

One of Angie Main’s goals through the IAE grant is to create an economy for these artists to promote their work collectively. “There’s really not a market for the Rocky Mountain area,” she said. “We’re trying to raise the visibility of artists in the Rocky Mountain region, or you could call it Great Plains Native American artists. It would encompass North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, that whole area. There’s still a lot to do to raise the visibility of just the region.”

“There’s really not a market for the Rocky Mountain area. We’re trying to raise the visibility of artists in the Rocky Mountain region..”

— Angie Main, NACDC Executive Director

Taking artists to shows — especially the Western Art Week — expands their market and exposes them to new buyers who may turn into lifetime collectors of their work.

FPF’s Theory of Change — uplifting individual artists who then come together at the community level with guidance from culture bearers, and ultimately gain momentum on a national level — is at work through the NACDC. Artists who are supported through the IAE program circle back to work in their own communities, teaching youth to ensure art and culture continue to the next generation. Several former CSA recipients, like Darrell, guide the work.

This Indigenous Arts Ecology breathes, moves, and interrelates across a broad expanse of time and space. As the weave tightens between FPF and the NACDC, the ecology thrives.

“I’m looking forward to networking with the other groups that are a part of the First Peoples Fund IAE program at the upcoming convening,” Angie said. “It’ll be great to hear how everybody talks about their own regions and how they support their artists.”

Meanwhile, the Native artists assisted by the NACDC are many steps further down the path in their journey to a sustainable art career in the midst of a vast and exceptionally rural landscape.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015  
After several years of working with Sweetgrass Consulting to collect data, First Peoples Fund was ready to further integrate our work via a new in-house position, a Story Tracker/Data Analyst.

“The role is to sort through the extensive data we have collected and compiled since 2004 and begin to weave the story across programs that strengthen the quantitative data,” Marsha Whiting (Chippewa Cree, Sicangu Lakota), Vice President of Operations and Programs, explained. “It is time to get to the heart of our work through storytelling.”

Becky Monnens, previously a program officer at The McKnight Foundation, returned to her home state of South Dakota a few years ago and worked with the Black Hills Area Community Foundation before recently filling the Story Tracker/Data Analyst role at First Peoples Fund. Becky brings an understanding of the value of data and stories to nonprofits, foundations and the field.

“First Peoples Fund takes a holistic approach of paying attention to the heart and the head,” Becky said. “I think our massive database is the head. The challenge is how to capture the heart. It’s there when you start reading trip reports, talking to program staff, leadership, and board members. There’s a lot of the heart there.”

“First Peoples Fund takes a holistic approach of paying attention to the heart and the head. I think our massive database is the head. The challenge is how to capture the heart. It’s there when you start reading trip reports, talking to program staff, leadership, and board members. There’s a lot of the heart there.”

— Becky Monnens, FPF Story Tracker/Data Analyst

Becky grew up on a ranch near Isabel, South Dakota. She did her undergrad studies at South Dakota State University where she majored in Political Science with a minor in Spanish.

From there, she moved overseas and worked at the Unidad Académica Campesina-Carmen Pampa in Bolivia for three years. The college has several partnerships with U.S. universities, including South Dakota State University. Becky’s work there consisted mostly of grant writing and development, and as a liaison with the partnerships the college had. They roped her into teaching a few English language classes as well.

When she returned to the U.S., Becky did her graduate studies at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. She earned her masters in Organizational Leadership.

Becky continued working in international development at small nonprofits in the Twin Cities, and she spent eight years at The McKnight Foundation working in their international program. Most of her work was in sustainable agriculture in a number of South American and African countries.

To be closer to family, Becky decided to make the move back to South Dakota with her husband and son. They settled in Rapid City close to her parents, sister and a collection of aunts, uncles, and cousins. She enjoys working with her hands — woodworking, welding, knitting, and gardening. “I like being connected to the earth,” she said.

In Rapid City, Becky started working with the Black Hills Area Community Foundation, and became acquainted with local non-profits.

Becky’s initial experience with First Peoples Fund was attending the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards (CSA) in the fall of 2016. Through her previous work, Becky knows an organization is more successful when they recognize how people are connected to the place in which they live, and the culture and relationships around that place. She witnessed this at the CSA celebration that honored culture bearers.

“Everything I’ve seen so far goes back to that center,” Becky said. “It’s always where the data is drawing you back to — the culture bearers and being grounded in people and space.”

First Peoples Fund believes a holistic approach creates stronger results and impact. In every level of programs, this balance between head and heart must be present.

Becky firmly agrees. “Studies show that any development program that’s not connected to cultural values is less successful, so you must have that balance and be able to tell the story using that balance,” she said.

From the start, Becky was immersed in the rich culture at First Peoples Fund. “I could describe my first week as taking a deep breath and going underwater all day long and coming up at the end of the day and starting to breathe again,” she laughed. “It’s complete immersion, in learning how First Peoples Fund describes themselves, and in that super rich institutional knowledge that all the staff has. And also an understanding of why things are done certain ways. It was a lot of listening and observing.”

First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota) appreciates having Becky in her new position to learn the process of collecting data for our fellowship programs and how we measure business growth while placing equal value on our core values of integrity, generosity, respect, and wisdom.

“There is the heart-based data and then the more head type — the business side,” Lori said. “Becky is a huge asset. She understands the work we’re doing because she comes out of philanthropy and supporting grassroots communities. And although it was with mainstream communities, it’s all related and connected. Mitakuye Oyasin.”

“The main things that brought me to First Peoples Fund,” Becky said, “was recognizing all they’re doing, and then the opportunity to develop and continue using my skills to help an organization do great work.”

Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer and her mother Lynda Kay Sawyer, both tribal members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, opened their filmmaking and creative writing class for young students at this summer’s Chickasaw Arts Academy with what seems like a simple question: “What’s the first thing you need to make a film?”

Actors, cameras, lights the students guessed.

“The answer,” Sarah explained, “is a good story.”

Sarah, a 2015 Artists in Business Leadership fellow and First Peoples Fund’s eSPIRIT writer, knows good stories. A storyteller of traditional and fictional tales based on the lives of her people, Sarah, just 31, has published five books. She also works as a freelance copywriter, primarily with Native organizations working in Indian Country.

Sarah’s upcoming book tells the story of the Choctaw code talkers of World War I.

“They were the first tribe to work as code talkers. They used their Native language to transmit messages that brought a quicker end to the war,” Sarah said. “At that point, Oklahoma had been a state for ten years, the Choctaw Nation was no longer sovereign, boarding schools were in full swing and our language was actually being taken from us.”

Sarah spent six months researching the book, now in draft form and due for release 2018 in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of WWI.

At the heart of every good story, fiction or nonfiction, is character transformation, Sarah said. She has brought this key concept of character transformation to her creative writing classes at the Chickasaw Arts Academy for the last five years. The Chickasaw Arts Academy is an intensive two-week learning experience offered free to students across cultures ages 8-18 that provides classes in theater, dance, visual art, music composition, vocal music, creative writing, textile design, photography and video production. The Academy is held on the campus of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.

As an instructor at the Academy, Sarah has witnessed valuable transformations among her students. There were two students last year who entered her class believing that all writers were “hobos.” One of their parents discouraged them from writing, but meeting and working with Sarah shifted their perceptions. This year, there was the “little genius” who wrote poems with perfect meter but not much heart. Working with Sarah, he learned to connect with and convey his feelings.

Most classes at the Academy include Chickasaw culture but don’t focus on traditional art forms. Participants come together at the end of the day for Culture Time to “keep Chickasaw culture in the center,” Sarah said. The Academy culminates with a Gallery Walk and Showcase open to the public.

Chickasaw storyteller Lori Carmichael encouraged Sarah to apply to teach at the Academy after seeing her work with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, where she was honored as a literary artist through the 2012 Artist Leadership Program for her work in preserving Trail of Tears stories. This year for the first time she teamed up with her mother at the Academy to teach a combined class on video production and creative writing.

Sarah said she and her mother, a photographer and filmmaker, “partner on just about everything.” They live together in Sarah’s childhood home in Canton, Texas, and her mother assists Sarah with research and is her first reader and editor.

Sarah said she inherited her love of writing from her mother and also her father, Ara C. Sawyer, a singer songwriter who passed away 5 years ago. “He was a storyteller and a half,” she said. “He taught me that stories make the world go round.”

Read more about Sarah’s work at SarahElisabethWrites.com.

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

Award-winning artist Deborah Magee(Blackfeet) specializes in quillwork. She grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation, and holds a degree in art history and a master’s in education. Deborah is a B. Yellowtail Collective artist and 2017 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital fellow.

Never forgetting the rights and rituals of intricate quillwork, Deborah carries ancient traditions of her ancestors forward to the 21st century. She conducts every phase with respect and gratitude for those who perfected these techniques. “It was like I rediscovered my sense of tribal identity when I started doing traditional work,” Deborah said.

She relies on people letting her know of roadkill where she often harvests the porcupine quills on sight, then leaves tobacco and prayers.

Before she starts a new piece, Deborah browses her collection of books, photos, and other visuals. “My mind starts thinking of how I can apply these images to contemporary life,” she said. “What everyday things do my people use and appreciate now? How will this be appreciated in the future?”

There often isn’t interest in quillwork among her relatives or friends until they see one of Deborah’s stunning pieces. They ask her to teach them. But only if they obtain their rights — preferably from a tribal elder — and pluck their own quills will she begin the teaching process.

This is the approach Deborah took with the new quill worker she’s mentoring through her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital fellowship. After obtaining his rights, 16-year-old Kemuel Bear Medicine (Blackfeet) plucked an entire porcupine and is now creating his own pieces.

Partnering with the Museum of the Plains Indian, Deborah set Kemuel up there to demonstrate, showcase, and sell his work. While learning what it takes to be a professional artist, Kemuel is also becoming a cultural ambassador for their people. Like Deborah, he is bringing traditions forward.

“I feel that I am honoring my ancestors’ struggles,” Deborah said, “and strengthening the ties to the past that keep our identity as a people and culture.”

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

John Isaiah Pepion (Piikani) is an artist from the Blackfeet Nation in northern Montana. He holds degrees in art marketing and museum studies from United Tribes Technical College and the Institute of American Indian Arts. He speaks with troubled youth in public schools to promote the benefits of art as therapy.

John is among the first Indigenous artists to hang in the Wyoming State Museum. That exhibit — “We Were. We Are.” — features the work of six artists from the Northern Arapaho Artists Society and the Creative Indigenous Collective. John was one of the founders of the latter.

John recently had a piece acquired for the Library of Congress’s permanent collection. He is a 2017 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow.

Going to ceremony, John sits and watches the movements, the designs. Ideas turn over in his mind, coming up with the images he will use in his art.

A descendant of Mountain Chief, a Blackfeet leader, John does pictographic Plains art, incorporating traditional design elements into contemporary illustrations.

“When I do my ledger art, I’m continuing to find out who I am as a person, who my family is, especially being Blackfeet in Montana,” John said. “But I also like to tell the world who we are and our story from our perspective.”

There’s always a story behind every piece he creates. The designs and colors mean something.

NATIVE SUPERMAN.

In this piece the Native character, dressed in traditional regalia, does the Superman trick on his bike. It represents two worlds: the Indian world and the new world with computers, bikes, cell phones. With skill and a little humor, John bridges that gap, bringing two worlds together.

“Honestly, art led me back to my reservation community,” John said. “I’ve been a part of my culture about six years now. Before that, I never knew about our ceremonies, about our rights. I don’t think I would have come back home or been a part of my culture if it wasn’t for art.”

A constant encourager to fellow artists, especially through social media and his hashtag #keeppushing, John said, “I believe in sharing my story with the world. It’s a learning process, and I’m still learning.”

#KEEPPUSHING

Cover image courtesy of Youth Speaks.

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At the at the 20th Annual Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam Festival in San Francisco earlier this month, there were three-minute poetry performances by 600 young poets from around the world that were all at once heart-breaking, angry, angst-ful, joyful, and hopeful. There was loud music, dancing, high fives and other expressions of love and support across the room before the bouts began. There were chants of  “You fly,” “Art not ego,” “Don’t be nice, be nasty,” and “Go poet,” along with finger snaps, “mmmmm’s” of approval and lots more loud music before, during and after the bouts.

Poems were performed individually and as a team of three or four. Lines of poetry were fierce, funny and fearless such as, “This woke ain’t free. Is it OK to break free from the revolution?” from the Atlanta team; “This tongue, it sings the song of our ancestors,” from the Los Angeles team; and, “To Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos. We are all here because the arts have provided an escape,” from the Stockton team.

“It’s was an amazing experience, hearing people who come from different backgrounds and places in the world, hearing how other people navigate their lives.”

— Marcus Red Shirt (Oglala Lakota from Allen, South Dakota), Dances with Words Poet

“It’s was an amazing experience, hearing people who come from different backgrounds and places in the world, hearing how other people navigate their lives,” said Marcus Red Shirt, (Oglala Lakota from Allen, South Dakota), one of five exceptional young Native poets and three devoted coaches who traveled from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to San Francisco to represent First Peoples Fund’s Dances with Words team at Brave New Voices.

“I always look for similarities between my experience and the people on stage. I don’t want to be ignorant of other people’s experiences in this politically charged environment. We need to listen to each other,” said Marcus. They are a senior at Red Cloud Indian School who was at their fourth Brave New Voices festival with the Dances with Words team and will be attending Oglala Lakota College in the fall.

Other Dances with Words poets who made the Brave New Voices team and traveled from the Pine Ridge Reservation to San Francisco include: Senri Primak (Oglala Lakota, from No Flesh), Ohitika Locke (Hunkpapa Lakota, from Standing Rock), Rose Little Whiteman (Oglala Lakota, from Kyle), Cetan Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Lakota, from Kyle), and alternate Hannah Reddest (Cheyenne River Lakota, from Crow Creek).

The week-long event featured workshops, open mics and spontaneous performances in addition to the competition schedule, and culminated in a 3,000-strong sold-out crowd at the San Francisco Opera House for the Final Slam. The Dances with Words team stayed on the campus of San Francisco State University along with the other teams during the week, traveling into Berkeley and Oakland for early rounds of competition.

The Dances with Words poets focused several of their poems on the water protectors at Standing Rock and Dakota Access Pipeline. Their poems include lines like, “I see people use my problems for their pleasure. I am from Standing Rock. I represent my people. My people’s problems are not a romantic tragedy,” from Ohitika Lock (Standing Rock Sioux), and “We are the hope our ancestors dreamed of,” from Marcus Red Shirt.

The bouts are scored by a panel of judges, and Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota), First Peoples Fund’s president and CEO, served as a judge during the Final Slam. The team from Baton Rouge, Louisiana won the competition, but the festival, a project of the San Francisco-based Youth Speaks, de-emphasizes the scores. The rules, read before each competition, state, “It’s about speaking truth to power, sharing our stories and supporting each other along the way. It’s about honesty.”

The Dances with Words team was the only Native, rural-based team at the festival, and their coaches said they saw a lot of growth among their team this year.

“Being a Native artist, a Native writer, there is often a pressure to tell the tragic side of things or a pressure to educate non-Natives constantly,” said Santianna Yellow Horse (Oglala Lakota, Diné and Hopi), a coach and former Dances with Words poet who traveled with the team to San Francisco. “One of the main things I brought with me was wanting the poets to stay true to their own narratives. Native youth are forced to grow up so fast. It’s important to balance the heavy poems with the happy ones.”

Santianna, who goes by Santi and is a student at Oglala Lakota College, was joined by three other coaches who have been working with the young poets since January to prepare for the festival, including Josh Del Colle, teacher at Red Cloud High School and a Tȟéča Wówapi Káǧa Okȟólakičhiye mentor, and Golnessa Asheghali, a language arts teacher at Rapid City High School.

Youth Speaks, the organizing body behind the festival, has partnered with First Peoples Fund for the past three years to support the Dances with Words program through funding and technical support. Youth Speaks’ funding for the program ends this year, and First Peoples Fund is looking for partners to match a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of Dances with Words.

If you would like to support this valuable program, please follow this link.

As Marc Bamuthi Joseph, one of the founders of Youth Speaks who is a poet, playwright and MacArthur genius grant recipient, said as he emceed the Final Slam, “Change does not happen quietly. Bring the noise.”

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

Cary Morin (Crow/Assiniboine) crafts an inimitable style often characterized as acoustic Native Americana with qualities of blues, bluegrass, jazz, jam, reggae, and dance. He has composed and performed music for over 30 years. He’s toured across the US and around the world.

Cary recently won the Manito Ahbee Indigenous Music Awards for Best Blues CD. In 2013, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Fort Collins Music Association.

A full-time artist, Cary was awarded a First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership Fellowship, enabling him to hire a publicist for the first time to help promote his newest album, Laid Back. He and his wife Celeste, also his manager, live in Fort Collins, Colorado.

“A man and a guitar, a lot of soul, and an understanding of the history of soulful men with guitars in American music can sometimes achieve this kind of timelessness in their work…”

— Richard Higgs (Public Radio Tulsa).

Some call it Native Americana. A master storyteller in music, Cary weaves a tapestry of words, styles, and soul into an experience that brings life full circle. His sound is a product of every musician he’s worked with or listened to. He’s a musician with something to say, and he knows how to sing it with his gritty, lived-in voice and nimble yet soulful finger style acoustic guitar picking.

Under the lights on stage, sounds come to Cary and flow out as new music. He explores in the moment, and sometimes his creations are for then alone and gone forever. He strives for those moments.

When he can recreate them, they become his next CD. “I’m happiest with recorded material when it mirrors the live performance,” Carey said. “The songs are created in stages, lyrics in the moment matched with guitar melodies created either during rehearsal or in front of the audience. The lyrical content of the songs vary. Some discuss my native heritage, some my current surroundings, and some are fictional ballads.”

Human emotion is the root of song and the result of song. Cary wants to move the audience, for the song to evoke emotion, to bring tears to them and him.

Cary’s Crow heritage isn’t always obvious in his lyrics, but he’s learned the importance of heritage, how people need a story and a homeland. He wants to discover what makes people happy or sad, what creates moments that are only there for a fraction of time yet live forever in memory. “I feel a sense of accomplishment when all I have learned and created over the years gives the listener a moment of reflection,” he said.

Cary Morin performs Cradle To The Grave, the title track to his 2017 release. For more info please visit CaryMorin.com

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer (Choctaw Nation), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015
Through this series, we highlight the extraordinary people who serve as First Peoples Fund’s board of directors. They are the culture bearers and leaders from national nonprofits within and beyond Indian Country who graciously guide First Peoples Fund and strengthen the Collective Spirit®.

MEET RON MARTINEZ LOOKING ELK

An international award winning artist, Ron Martinez Looking Elk is a traditional potter from Isleta and Taos Pueblos in New Mexico. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, his expertise includes 20 years of community and leadership development, specializing in building sustainable economic development in Indigenous communities globally. Ron has worked and trained with Indigenous artists, leaders, and organizers from many countries including New Zealand, Japan, Greece, South Korea, Africa, Bolivia, Peru and with tribes throughout the U.S.

Ron is affiliated with national and international networks where he worked or participated as a fellow. A few of these institutions include School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe, the Leadership Institute in Santa Fe, East-West Center in Honolulu, Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C., and the Aspen Institute.

A trained facilitator, Ron is currently a lead trainer at First Peoples Fund. He owns and operates Creative Community Consulting. Ron also works with high school students creating leadership development with organizations like the Brave Girls at the Santa Fe Indian School, the Native American Community Academy, the Summer Policy Academy and is the director of an arts-based program called the Arts and Archeology Academy. He also represents over 300 Pueblo artist through his Pueblo Arts Program at the Isleta Resort and Casino.

Q&A

What is your art form? What is your proudest creative achievement with it?

I am a traditional artist. I love all aspects of how our Indigenous ancestors made very functional daily things in works of art. Our expression of what is aesthetically beautiful has given us a cultural worldview that is undeniable.

We have a unique outlook on life and as an artist, I feel I am contributing to the cultural life-ways of Indigenous thought and perspective. I am a traditional Pueblo potter but love to bead, paint, do ledger drawings and dance in my Pueblo community, pow-wow, and hula. My greatest achievement is knowing who I am because of my artistic ability to appreciate my culture.

Who taught you the values you hold closest? What role did that person play in your life and what lessons did you learn from them?

All of my grandparents:

Mom’s dad (Louie) taught me the value of tradition. He was a farmer and spiritual clan member. I know what identity is because of his Pueblo philosophy on nature and spirituality.

Mom’s mom (Sophia) taught me about the value of family/community. I would sit in the kitchen while she was cooking and she would tell me stories about the village and all the people I am related too. I know my 5th and 6th cousins because of her.

Dad’s dad (Joe) taught me to love pow-wow and my Taos culture. He would sing for me, and I would dance. I grew up hungry for more of the Plains culture that Taos Pueblo has embraced over the decades. This is where my creativity and artistic skills come from.

Dad’s mom (Betty) taught me the value of leadership. She was the first Pueblo woman to direct health care programs in the state of New Mexico. We always traveled with her and learned how to interact with local communities.

Each one of them influenced my life and gave me my medicine, my personal strength.

What professional accomplishment do you believe says the most about who you are and what’s important to you?

Being an ambassador in the Ambassadors Program for Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) is what stands out the most. I have gained a tremendous amount of professional development because of my participation in the Program and working for the organization for the past 18 years.

Because of the mission and dedication to tribal and global Indigenous communities, I have been able to create meaningful changes in all areas of social, political, economic and leadership development for our Indigenous brothers and sisters that support the traditional values, culture, and identity. This has led me to branch out and work with many Indigenous organizations who are also committed to sustaining the lifeways and beliefs of tribal communities, programs, and leadership.

How long have you served on the First Peoples Fund board and why did you get involved with this organization?

I have been on the First Peoples Fund board since 2011. I got involved with FPF because of my relationship with Lori (Pourier) through the Ambassadors Program. [Lori was also an Ambassador.] The values of AIO and FPF have strengthened the bond and values of all the participants who have gone through the Program.

I was an International Community Development Specialist at the time with AIO. Lori knew of AIO’s values, the 4-R’s (Relationships, Responsibility, Reciprocity, and Redistribution) and asked me to come and speak about how values are a core part of developing a good business plan. Since that time with FPF, I saw the direct impact FPF and its programs had on their fellows, and I knew this organization, mission, and values were amazing. All I wanted to do was be a part of it.

What do you wish other people knew about First Peoples Fund?

I wish people could understand and appreciate the amazing philosophy and importance of building a strong, personal, and professional community around traditional values. Most folks see them as separate things, Indian and non-Natives alike.

Our greatest contribution in Indian country is how we bring our traditional values to the forefront of professional arts development and create a strong foundation to build a sustainable economy for the family, tribe, and the greater American economic system of exchange.

How do you see First Peoples Fund changing lives and communities?

I have seen FPF and its programs bring new life into places where it seems like things are in darkness. Many tribal peoples do not feel they have the capacity or understanding of how to be good entrepreneurs.

We have reminded them that our ancestors were amazing economists and produced many life-supporting items that the global community still benefits from today. This kind of impact is based on individual achievement and growth from a micro level. This builds and creates substantial benefits for the economic, social, and political growth of the community.

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

Matika Wilbur (Swinomish/Tulalip) is unique as an artist and social documentarian in Indian Country. As one of the Pacific Northwest’s leading photographers, she’s exhibited extensively in regional, national, and international venues.

Apartment cleared out and belongings packed into her “war pony,” Matika set out on an epic adventure to capture the tenacity, richness, and contemporary beauty of every tribe in the United States. “Matika” means “messenger” in her tribal language, and she is living up to her name through Project 562. Her goal is to photograph positive indigenous role models and shift the narrative in mass media from stereotypical to true representations of Native people today.

“There is an open space that is yet to be filled — that space is authentic images and stories from within Native America,” Matika said. “My work aims to humanize the otherwise ‘vanishing race’ and share the stories that Native Americans would like told.”

The most widely accessible way to share the beauty of Native cultures and magnitude of lasting traditions is through the Project 562 website. Other funding sources, including the Surdna Foundation and individual donors through Kickstarter, keep Matika on the road. She’s using her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship for the website development. In order to maximize impact, it’s essential Matika release new portraits and stories as they are collected.

She especially wants to give children the opportunity to see themselves differently and imagine a life that includes equality, justice, hope, and beauty. These are the stories that live within Project 562. Matika has photographed over 350 Native tribes to date.

She captures the photos on traditional black and white film shot in the zone system, a method developed by Ansel Adams to increase tonal range. After development, the image is printed on silver gelatin fiber where Matika hand colors it with oil paints. Her process honors the traditional artisanship of black and white photography.

With national and international exhibitions, an active social media following, speaking engagements at major universities across the country and TEDx talks, a book and a collection of videos — the reach of Project 562 is incalculable, and growing.

But there is still a long journey ahead in the multi-year project. That’s okay. As an elder shared with Matika, “Our stories can’t be told overnight. It takes a lifetime.”

Matika is the messenger carrying and telling these stories as she walks the path her ancestors fought to pave. She believes her work is their answered prayers.

Wednesday July 19, 2017. Day 3 of Canoe Journey. We acknowledge that the canoe journey is not an only an act of revolution, but instead a call for transformation. As we spend full days immersed in the water, waking with the tide, pulling in synchronicity with it’s flow, and feeling it’s ebb, we can also feel it’s suffering.

Music by Raye Zaragoza

Anna Brown Ehlers (Tlingit) remembers the moment when she first dreamed of becoming a Chilkat weaver. She was four, Alaska had just become a state, and her uncle was dancing in his traditional Chilkat blanket during a community celebration.

“I saw that beautiful design and those rich colors. I watched the fringe gracefully moving back and forth as my uncle danced, and I knew I hoped I could do that someday,” she said.

Fifty-eight years later, Anna has been recognized as among the country’s foremost artists by the National Endowment for the Arts through a National Heritage Fellowship. The awards were announced in June. In 2001, First Peoples Fund honored Anna through a Community Spirit Award for her work to revitalize and pass on Chilkat weaving, an art form that was nearly lost in her lifetime.

“The traditional style of Chilkat weaving is one of the most complex techniques of traditional weavings and today has become highly valued because of the handful of women like Anna who continue the tradition of this rare artform, said Lori Pourier, FPF president and CEO. “Anna has been part of First Peoples Fund’s family for many years, and we are delighted that the NEA has recognized her exceptional artistry and invaluable contributions as an Alaska Native culture bearer.”

“Our blankets say who we are. The designs include our tribal crests and our relation to the land. When you wear it, it connotes your ancestry and people know who you are. It’s not about ownership, it’s about relationship,” Anna said.

“Our blankets say who we are. The designs include our tribal crests and our relation to the land. When you wear it, it connotes your ancestry and people know who you are. It’s not about ownership, it’s about relationship.

— Anna Brown Ehlers

Anna credits several people with helping to revive Chilkat weaving. Her primary teacher, Jennie Thlunaut, was considered one of the last living Chilkat weavers in the late 1960s. Anna traveled for many summers from her home in Juneau to Jenny’s in Klukwan to learn from her. Jennie received a National Heritage Fellowship in 1986.

“She was a pretty tough woman. She would only speak Tlingit to me, and her teaching methods included pinching my arm and kicking me under the table,” Anna said, laughing. “But she was wonderful. She worked hard and never took breaks. When I got invited to the Folklife Festival [in Washington, DC] years later, she was 90 already, but she came with me. She told me, ‘I know I only have this much life left in me, and I want to come with you.’”

Many other apprentices followed Anna to Jennie, including the acclaimed Tlingit weaver Clarissa Rizal, also a former First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow and NEA National Heritage Fellow, who passed away last year.

Anna believes it is her responsibility to continue to pass on the traditional knowledge she learned from Jennie and other teachers, and estimates that she has taught Chilkat weaving to more than 300 people.

Anna is a previous Artists in Business Leadership fellow and Cultural Capital fellow through First Peoples Fund. In 2006, she received the United States Artists award. “I used this money to honor my father,” she said. Working more than 5,000 hours, she created a 7 ½-feet-wide by 6-feet-long blanket in 17 sections for her father’s Potlach. During the ceremony, in accordance with her father’s last wishes, she cut the blanket into pieces and gave them away to his surviving friends.

Her decision to cut up the big, beautiful blanket was controversial, Anna said. “I’ve never cared too much about controversy,” she added.

Lori Pourier and other representatives from First Peoples Fund traveled to Anna’s community to celebrate with her, her family and her community in this historical moment. “You could hear a pin drop when Anna took the scissor and began cutting the weaving,” Lori said.

Anna wove another large-scale blanket featuring the profile of a killer whale carving design. She designed the blanket to be the length of a killer whale at birth — 7 feet. “I used enough materials for two full blankets, it’s the biggest in the world, and it took me 8,000 hours,” she said.  

Going large is not Anna’s only innovation to traditional Chilkat style. After her daughter Maria told her about a dream she’d had featuring a Chilkat weaving that included carvings and gold thread, Anna spent years researching how to incorporate gold thread into her blankets. Now gold thread, along with small carvings by other Tlingit artists, are a hallmark of her style.

Anna said she has many years of projects in the planning and idea phases. Being awarded the National Heritage Fellowship “will give me time to do the work I want to do,” she said. “What a wonderful surprise. It’s been 16 years since I was first nominated for the NEA fellowship. I guess I just had to get to the golden age,” she added, laughing.

(Anna is one of two First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Honorees to receive the NEA National Heritage Fellowship this year. Slack key guitar master Cyril Lani Pahinui (Native Hawaiian) also received the award and was featured in last month’s eSPIRIT.)