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

Tasha Abourezk (Mandan/Hidatsa), 2017 Cultural Capital Fellow, uses textiles to explore her Mandan/Hidatsa heritage as well as contemporary politics. She stitches culture and textiles together, leaving the viewer to question deeper realities behind the work.

Culture and quilting were important in Tasha’s childhood. Though her two grandmothers’ quilting work differs from hers, Tasha credits them as among her greatest instructors and sources of inspiration.

At her new studio space at Hot Shops Art Center, Tasha is creating new pieces for her first juried art show, Native POP: People of the Plains in Rapid City, SD in July. She resides in Omaha with her husband Rich and their three children.

Rummaging through a box of old fabric, Tasha found a star her grandmother had made. It seeded an image in Tasha that longed to come out, to express itself, to tell its story with thread.

I caught a glimpse.

My grandmother.

Dancing into the old village

lodges all around.

Shawl gently swinging

to our far away sound.

A poem Tasha had written years before to honor her grandmother soon became a quilted piece. Her grandmother walking away, a lone figure to represent Tasha’s loneliness for her. Tasha added the old star to the shawl on the quilt. It was as though she and her grandmother had created the whole piece together.

When Tasha fell in love with quilting as an art form, she set her sights on becoming a full-time artist. She also wanted to help young people experience quilting for themselves.

Living near the Omaha Indian Reservation, Tasha sought a way to introduce youth to the art of quilting and awaken their minds to the possibility of textile art as a career. With support from her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital grant, Tasha partnered with the Nebraska Writers Collective — who founded “Louder than a Bomb: Great Plains” — to help high school students embrace expressing themselves through poetry and a self-portrait.

The project began with poems which they then translated into drawings, and finally, onto quilt squares. Tasha plans to sew these squares together and present the finished piece for the school to hang on a wall alongside the students’ poems.

Tasha’s First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital program has empowered her to grow as an artist and to help others find their path. She recently stitched her first full-sized quilt and plans to name it in honor of First Peoples Fund.

On her journey, Tasha follows her grandmother’s swaying shawl. It leads her down the path of honoring their traditions. Every quilt carries a story wrapped inside it.

First Peoples Fund traveled to the Colville Indian Reservation for a visit with partner Northwest Native Development Fund earlier this month. We held a meeting with community artists to learn more about what they need and what is happening across Indian Country to raise awareness of the importance of honoring and supporting Native artists and culture bearers. Jesse Utz, a writer for The Star in Grand Coulee, Wash., attended. Here's his story about the powerful connections and the breakthrough he made at the meeting.  

Opinion piece published in The Star on June 21, 2017. Reprinted with permission by The Star, Grand Coulee, WA.

By Jesse Utz

I do not consider myself an artist. Yes, I am a writer and an amateur photographer and even have grander ideas about drawing and painting. But I do not consider myself an artist. So when I found myself Monday night in a circle of chairs in the Colville Tribal Museum surrounded by local artists, I felt a little out of place at first. Yes, my wife sat beside me; that was why I was there, but somewhere during the conversation and presentation I found myself actually wanting to do more with my photos and be a part of this group as more than a listening outsider.

First Peoples Fund organized a local artists gathering with the assistance of Northwest Native Development Fund. There were artists whom I knew and some I did not. We learned a lot from each other as we each told our stories. Passion and experiences filled the room as pros and cons were shared, ideas given, failures and successes conveyed. The bottom line of what was shared was this: we need to come together, share resources, lift up fellow artists and mentor the budding fresh faces.

First Peoples Fund’s goal is to sustain culture bearers, promote local indigenous artists and raise awareness. Northwest Native Development wants to help by providing a venue. Last summer, you may remember, there was an art show in the parking lot of Body by Dam. That was them doing their second show. There will be a third this year. Although a date has not been set, they want you to be a part of the show and any other show in the area and across the region.

The artists who gathered there, whom I listened to, well, they moved me. As I thought of how I could improve my work and get it out there, I found myself thinking of my Grandma Nessly and her painting. I thought of my Aunt Micki and her drawings and storytelling. I thought of my Grandpa Utz and his cowboy poems. I thought of Frank Sieker and his artistic talents that were passed on through the generations.

We are all artists, we just don’t call ourselves that. A student that draws intricate designs up and down his arm. An Artist. The person that is doodling constantly on her notebook. An Artist. The ladies at Changes. Artists. The want-to-be rapper. An Artist. The person making homemade furniture out of wood pallets. An Artist.

It is time to let the artist out into the world, and these organizations want to help and they have a track record that proves it. I am excited to start honing my ability and show the world what I see when I look at a Northern Flicker or a Belted King Fisher. It is time for the artists to unite and come together. It is time to gather up our youth and make them the next culture bearers.

You can contact First Peoples Fund at http://www.firstpeoplesfund.org or Northwest Native Development Fund at 509-633-9940.

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

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 BIRD RUNNINGWATER

Born of the Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache peoples, Bird Runningwater was raised on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico.

Since 2001, he has guided the Sundance Institute’s investment in Native American and Indigenous screenwriters, directors, and producers while building a global Indigenous film community. He has nurtured a new generation of filmmakers whose films have put Native cinema on the cultural map.

Before joining Sundance Institute, Runningwater served as executive director of the Fund of the Four Directions, the private philanthropy organization of a Rockefeller family member. He served as program associate in the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts, and Culture Program, where he built and managed domestic and global funding initiatives. Bird currently serves as a patron to the imagineNative Indigenous Film Festival in Toronto.

A recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s National Fellowship in Public Policy and International Affairs, Bird is also an alumnus of Americans for Indian Opportunity’s Ambassadors Program and the Kellogg Fellows Program.

Based in Los Angeles, Bird serves as the director of Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program. He oversees the NativeLab Film Fellowship, the Time Warner Native Producers Fellowship, the Sundance Film Festival’s Native Forum, the Full Circle Initiative and was recently appointed to spearhead the Institute’s Diversity work across all programs.

Q&A

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?

My Cheyenne maternal grandmother Mariam Mann Twins who raised me for most of my childhood. She was a master beadworker, and I helped her making moccasins and buckskin dresses for family members while growing up.  She instilled in me a sense of love, language, pride, and generosity.

Do you consider yourself an artist? What is your art form? What is your proudest creative achievement?

Yes, beadworking. Making the buckskin dress for one of my female relatives for her Mescalero Apache puberty ceremony.

How did you come to know about First Peoples Fund?

My relationship with First Peoples Fund goes back to my relationship with Lori [Pourier, FPF President and CEO]. I’ve known Lori for over 20 years, and we’ve always been good friends. Lori and I are connected through LaDonna Harris (Comanche) with the Americans for Indian Opportunity Ambassadors program.

How have you been involved with the Rolling Rez Arts Mobile Unit?

I went to the bus on Pine Ridge and brought films to screen. I also brought in one of our alumni fellows, Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné), to talk and show one of her films. [Razelle is a 2017 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow.]

How do you see First Peoples Fund impacting Native artists, including filmmakers?

Storytelling in filmmaking is definitely a growing tradition in Native communities, especially over the past 20 years. I hope First Peoples Fund will support filmmakers, especially coming from the region of the country where the organization is based.

At Sundance Film Festival every year we get a handful of films about Pine Ridge that are trying to tell the Pine Ridge story, but they are being produced by outsiders. None of these films is being made about this particular place or people by people from that community.

Collaborating on the Rolling Rez Arts bus was an attempt to plant seeds of filmmaking and storytelling with local people, to let them know that they should be telling their own story rather than having other people try to tell it for them.

What do you wish people knew about First Peoples Fund?

The breadth and depth of support of Native Artists from the Great Plains and nationally.

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

By nurturing sustainable artist careers, the work of First Peoples Fund is allowing artists to stay in their communities rather than relocating away from home in order to be successful.

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

LAREE'S STORY

College preparation — skill building, how to handle studies, financial education — did not fortify Laree Pourier (Oglala Lakota) for the culture shock of moving away from her home, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, for the first time. Nothing could have prepared Laree, now 25, for the new reality that overwhelmed her when she left for college.

At Marquette University in Milwaukee, she experienced the differences in her story and those of her colleagues — non-Natives who had grown up in suburban environments. The differences were deep, historical. Not only were these her own experiences, but those of her ancestors. The experience uncovered intergenerational pain and strengthened her identity as a Lakota woman.

Before, Laree knew being Lakota in a sense of ceremony and family. College showed her the necessity of knowing truth and history.

Depression came as a surprise, too. To help navigate her experience, she turned to writing and art, though she didn’t intend to become a poet or a painter. It was a way for her to express. It felt natural.

A passion awakened in that process, a passion to return home and cultivate spaces to give young people the opportunity to learn history in a way that included politics, language, and culture through story. She understood the need for physical space, and imagined a community-based facility for young people to learn and to tell their stories, and to be artists who made things that the community responded to and honored.

In her second year of college, Laree’s auntie Lori Pourier (Oglala Lakota), President and CEO of First Peoples Fund, took her and Laree’s friend, Autumn White Eyes (Oglala Lakota), to an Alternate ROOTS Festival in Baltimore.

Autumn, who recently graduated from Harvard University with a master's in arts education, had participated in Youth Speaks’ Brave New Voices poetry slam while a senior in high school on Pine Ridge. Her and Laree’s conversation revolved around going home and doing youth work together. At Alternate ROOTS, they witnessed community artwork that incorporated spoken word, music, and visual arts, all happening in a community-building way. That was Laree’s dream. After college, she was going to go home and do youth work through the arts.

The two-year Youth Speaks Future Corp Fellowship at First Peoples Fund provides Laree just that opportunity.

Through the position, Laree leads the Dances with Words™ program and is helping broaden young people’s experiences and their understanding of themselves — identity, oppression, and resistance. When these young Natives go to the Youth Speaks sponsored poetry slam, Brave New Voices (BNV), they hear young people from all over the world talking about the same issues.

Having the space to activate their own capacity to look at these deep issues and name solutions, to dream of solutions, is empowering. That’s what young people are doing at BNV. First Peoples Fund’s relationship with Youth Speaks provides a platform for young people to meet and build relationships with other artists, poets, and storytellers.

‍FIRST PEOPLES FUND AND THE FUTURE OF DANCES WITH WORDS™

Laree is guiding First Peoples Fund’s creation of a toolkit for Dances with Words with training for mentors and a teaching curriculum developed by the poet Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), who will be part of a new advisory committee for the program. Layli’s curriculum walks poets through first getting to know their own stories and then writing and telling them in ways that feel natural. It introduces them to other Indigenous poets and different poetry and performing formats. By the end of the curriculum, they learn how to facilitate open mics on their own, which creates youth-driven programming.

Laree is also leading the expansion of Dances with Words into other area high schools. The program will include small grants for community mentors to facilitate weekly workshops, using the new curriculum with local youth. The plan is to sustain the program in three districts of the vast Pine Ridge Reservation. Beyond that, FPF will offer the toolkit to communities throughout South Dakota, and ultimately spread the Dances with Words program to tribal communities throughout the region.

GOING HOME

Laree is still on her journey home. Though she lives in Rapid City, which is in He Sapa — the Black Hills — home for her is Pine Ridge. It’s where she feels grounded. She looks forward to moving home to Pine Ridge someday, of raising Phéta, her 16-month-old daughter there.

The Dances with Words poets love Phéta, and she loves them, watching them perform and tell their stories. She goes everywhere with the youth, the youngest member of the Dances with Words family. Laree loves that her daughter is growing up in a community space.

Laree’s Youth Speaks fellowship lasts through December 2017. She hopes for the possibility of continuing the work beyond then. For now, Laree feels fortunate to be home in He Sapa, doing her dream work.

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

Poet, writer, and educator Tanaya Winder was raised on the Southern Ute Reservation in Ignacio, Colo. An enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe, her background includes Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Navajo, and Black heritages.  

A winner of the 2010 A Room Of Her Own Foundation’s Orlando prize in poetry, Tanaya has taught writing courses at Stanford University, UC-Boulder, and the University of New Mexico. Tanaya is the director of the Upward Bound Program at the University of Colorado Boulder and an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. She created Dream Warriors Management, an Indigenous artist management company and collective. Tanaya is a 2017 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership (ABL) fellow.

The art of re-membering.

A mosaic of memories, the way the mind protects from pains of the past. Tanaya knows someone has to dive headfirst into this muck and darkness to bring forth hope and beauty. She pieces together memories to answer questions in life, to re-member and to explore healing words through poetry. She writes from a place of love.

The way schools teach poetry often intimidates. It stifles creativity. But Tanaya shows people — from youth to elders — how to write their stories and express their hearts freely through poetry. It becomes a tool for them to re-member the journey of their lives.

Years ago, the direction of Tanaya’s life story took a sharp turn. She lost a dear friend from her reservation community to suicide in college. Shaken with grief, she questioned who she was, what she was doing. Who did she want to serve and help in this lifetime?

The journey brought her together with poetry — spoken word performances, singing, teaching, and founding Dream Warriors, a Native artists management company. The performing artists in the company understand the gifts they’ve been given. They take action and will stop at nothing until they are living their dreams, passions and goals. Most of all, “a Dream Warrior does not step on others in order to reach his/her destination, but rather uplifts others in fulfilling their life paths.”

Tanaya plans to strengthen this collective with her ABL fellowship. Gathering the Dream Warrior artists — which includes FPF fellows past and present: Frank Waln, Mic Jordan and Tall Paul — Tanaya is coordinating a retreat to collaborate on new work, envision the future and video their own stories to inspire others. They’ll take all this back to their communities individually and as a collective.

Tanaya re-members. Through poetry, she is piecing communities back together.

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

Dances with Words™ — a youth development initiative of First Peoples Fund — works with young people, adult mentors, high schools and nonprofit partners on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to empower students and community leaders through literary, spoken word and other art forms.

Move around the room, change the pace, make eye contact, don’t make eye contact. Feel the emotion — anger, sadness, joy. Where is it coming from? What part of you? Allow it to move you.

Diné artist Reed Bobroff, an alumnus of Brave New Voices, spent a weekend this month at a poetry retreat coaching the Dances with Words poets as they prepare for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival in San Francisco in July. Collaborating with the Heritage Center at Red Cloud, the Dances with Words mentors and poets hosted Reed for this special poetry retreat.

The transformation over the weekend showed the poets’ dedication and their willingness to be uncomfortable — in a good way — and put themselves into every word. When it came time to perform their poems the second day, Reed encouraged them to recall where they felt that strong emotion during the movement exercise and to speak from that place.

After his time of growing up in Brave New Voices, Reed went on to graduate from Yale University and become a fellow at the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts program. He’s researching historical trauma and how poetry and spoken word are methods of healing for youth. He came to Pine Ridge for workshops with Dances with Words at the poetry retreat.

“Their performance was transformed during the retreat,” Laree Pourier said. “Even Reed commented on the young people’s rapid growth with minor feedback. I think a lot of the poets feel more confident in their performances now.” Laree Pourier is a Youth Speaks Future Corps Fellow at First Peoples Fund.

“Their performance was transformed during the retreat. Even Reed commented on the young people’s rapid growth with minor feedback. I think a lot of the poets feel more confident in their performances now.”

— Laree Pourier (Oglala Lakota), Youth Speaks Future Corps Fellow and Dances with Words Program Manager

When young people first go to Brave New Voices, they are relatively new to spoken word. It was important for the Dances with Words youth to spend time with Reed, to know his history, to know Native poets went before them to Brave New Voices.

The Dances with Words program encompasses more than BNV, though.

"REZILIENCE" OPEN MIC SERIES

A large piece of Dances with Words is the monthly open mic night through a partnership with the Cloud Horse Art Institute in Kyle, South Dakota. “These powerful open gatherings bring together young people from across the reservation and Rapid City to share their stories on the mic through traditional poetry, spoken word, written word, music, hip-hop, and comedy,” Laree said.

The performance part of the Dances with Words program has a deep impact on young people. “Before I started the (DWW) program, I was not a serious artist,” 18-year-old Marcus Red Shirt (Oglala Lakota) said. “I was also very shy and just on a bad path in life. After years of getting exposed to constant dialogue, poems, and writing exercises I began to come out of my shell. I also got pushed to take opportunities that presented themselves through my spoken word performances. Opportunities that have taken me away all summer traveling by myself and getting commissioned by other arts non-profits to perform and to talk about activism.”

“I was also very shy and just on a bad path in life. After years of getting exposed to constant dialogue, poems, and writing exercises I began to come out of my shell. I also got pushed to take opportunities that presented themselves through my spoken word performances. Opportunities that have taken me away all summer traveling by myself and getting commissioned by other arts non-profits to perform and to talk about activism.”

— Marcus Red Shirt, Dances with Words Poet

TIOSPAYE BUILDING

The DWW programs are structured to include time solely for kinship-building and emotional expression, aspiring to build a strong, supportive tiospaye (“family” in Lakota) in which everyone is safe to be their authentic selves. In this vein, Dances with Words holds monthly Tiospaye building days. At the request of the poets, they have visited several of the Sacred Sites in He Sapa (Black Hills) during these weekend gatherings.

Similarly, to keep language, culture, and history at the center of and guiding the work, an upcoming DWW advisory committee will include an elder, Philomene Lakota. Laree shared with Philomene how she wants to be intentional about incorporating Lakota language into the program because that’s what the young people want.

“She’s a storyteller, she’s an unci (grandma), that’s natural to her,” Laree said. “So having her there in that way is important, especially in relation to learning about our place, our history. She shares not only the stories that our ancestors carried and how they influenced our relationship to land and home, but also how that moves us as people.”

BRAVE NEW VOICES

The 20th Annual Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival will convene young poets from around the world for four days of workshops, slams, showcases, community service, and civic participation events from July 19-22, 2017 in San Francisco.

MEET THE 2017 DANCES WITH WORDS TEAM

Cetan Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Lakota, from Kyle)

Ohitika Locke (Hunkpapa Lakota, from Standing Rock)

Marcus Red Shirt (Oglala Lakota, from Allen)

Senri Primak (Oglala Lakota, from No Flesh)

Rose Little Whiteman (Oglala Lakota, from Kyle)

When preparations began, the mentors had a conversation with the team to discuss what stories the group wants to take to the international platform. Being the only Indigenous team attending, they asked themselves: “What do we want to represent, and what do we feel responsible to represent?” They asked each other more questions such as: How do they be honest about hardships without validating stereotypes? How do they represent joy, happiness, and resilience?

Though a first timer to BNV, Rose Little Whiteman has been in DWW for over three years. “After joining the poetry group, I was writing about my depression and struggles with it,” Rose said. “A few years go by, and I started writing more about hope and love. Not because I felt it constantly, but because I wanted to search for it. Dances with Words is a very friendly and outgoing group. I love the people in it so much.”

“A few years go by, and I started writing more about hope and love. Not because I felt it constantly, but because I wanted to search for it. Dances with Words is a very friendly and outgoing group. I love the people in it so much.”

— Rose Little Whiteman, Dances with Words Poet

The DWW mentors are committed to these young poets. An alumna of the program, Santi Yellow Horse (Oglala Lakota) is among the mentors and brings invaluable knowledge of spoken word and the Brave New Voices event to the team.

The other two mentors for the trip are Josh Del Colle (teacher at Red Cloud High School, and a Tȟéča Wówapi Káǧa Okȟólakičhiye mentor) and Golnesa Asheghali (English and history teacher at Rapid City High).

On July 15, the weekend before BNV, the Dances with Words poets will perform at Native POP: People of the Plains. The Native art market and cultural celebration takes place in a public square in downtown Rapid City and draws thousands of people from the area.

“I’m really excited for that,” Laree said, “because it’ll be a chance for our community and our relatives, our people here, to be able to see what stories we’re taking to BNV. And also to see the depth and beauty of the stories our young people are telling.”

Header Image: Cyril Lani Pahinui with a 5th Grade Class. Image courtesy of artist.

Two of First Peoples Fund’s Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award honorees, Chilkat weaver Anna Brown Ehlers (Tlingit) and slack key guitar master Cyril Lani Pahinui (Native Hawaiian) received the 2017 National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship, which were announced last week.

When we reached out to Cyril, a 2013 Community Spirit honoree, to congratulate him, he sent back the beautiful message below filled with aloha, love and community spirit, which we share with you. A post about Anna is coming soon. Cyril has been battling health issues and working composing and teaching from a hospital bed for more than a year.

Mahalo nui for your message of aloha. ʻO wau nō me ka hoʻomaikaʻi. I cannot thank First Peoples Fund enough for your past years of support for my music and projects. Without your support we would never have been able to implement our mentorships and educational programs and the video projects that have kept us active during a long hospital stay and health struggles. Your support most likely gave us the edge with the NEA decision. It is amazing how far a small grant and the feeling that someone believes in the value of his work can take an artist. To you I say, mahalo, mahalo, mahalo. First Peoples Fund has made receiving this highest of honors possible.

Receiving the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship is one of the most amazing achievements in my life. To imagine that the music I learned from my kupuna in the back yard in Waimanalo could carry me around the world and to such an honor as to be recognized with this award is inspiring and humbling.

When my dad and my other Master instructors told me "Stick to your Hawaiian music", I could not imagine that it would take me so far and so I am not alone in receiving this honor. This honor is for all of them. Without them I could not be here to receive it today. I always feel their presence with me when I play and when I teach. Especially my father, Gabby Pahinui who opened the doors for me and for many who play Hawaiian music today. His love for Hawaiian music and his way of making it fresh was critical to holding the interest at a time when so many worldwide influences brought change to our fragile language, traditions, and music. I cannot thank him and the others who trusted me with their knowledge and heartfelt love and for this gift that they gave me.  Honoring them by receiving this award is a dream come true. When I first walked on stage at Carnegie Hall, I saw my dad there on the side of the stage in front of me. I heard myself saying out loud, "Pops we made it." And that thought comes to me again with this award. For all those who came before and encouraged me to learn and to always honor my culture and kupuna. This is for them and for those who now carry my teaching forward to the next generation.

Today we go day by day and spend much of our time just getting through each day one at a time. With this funding I can now see my next dream, the Live From Waimanalo webisode become a reality. This award gives voice to the Hawaiian values of kuleana (responsibility) and Alaka'i (leadership) that also come to my mind. With the funding that goes with this award, I can continue to coach, guide, mentor and care for my students. And I can demonstrate with actions that connote support to them and encourage them to lead with initiative. I believe it will also help me to inspire them to continue their learning and teaching and demonstrate the importance of what they have received, give them hope and to have a strong belief in the power of possibility.

Aloha am e, I invite aloha to all of you at First Peoples Fund and pray for your continued success and generous support for the value and unique talents of traditional artists.

Me ka aloha pumehana. Me ka ha'aha'a, Cyril Lani Pahinui, June 25, 2017

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

Multi-award winning artist Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota) was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, though he grew up in an urban environment. Wade earned a Bachelors of Fine Art from Black Hills State University in South Dakota, and has been an Artist in Residency at Crazy Horse Memorial. He currently works and mentors in his studio space at Racing Magpie in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Nothing like it in the Indian art world. Wade Patton is establishing a style of his own, his voice that he found after leaving home. Working in Boston doing high-end framing, Wade handled modern works where he prepared gallery pieces for places like Manhattan, London, Miami, and Los Angeles.

But he kept in mind how he wanted to do his own work, to someday become a full-time artist. He began drawing landscapes and clouds. What Wade missed most from home came to life on ledger pages: the beauty, the splendor of the Black Hills and the skies of South Dakota.

He sent work home — pieces reflecting his memories — where it was well received. Awards. Shows. He finally made the leap.

Wade has become part of the thriving Native art scene in Rapid City, motivating him to push his art to new places. Now full-time, Wade is learning to manage opportunities as they flood in: Santa Fe Indian Market, Red Cloud Indian Art Show, wrapping up illustrations on a children’s book, preparing for the University of South Dakota’s Native Arts Indian residency, and mentoring youth.

Through the Cheyenne River Youth Project, in partnership with the Rolling Rez Arts Mobile Unit, Wade traveled to Eagle Butte for the first time last month and taught 13-17 year olds. They toured the mobile unit, then Wade taught them the history and meaning of ledger art and how to prepare their work to enter a show. Continuing on the Rolling Rez, Wade taught youth and adults in Oglala Lakota County, stopping at six sites in three days.

The First Peoples Fund Convening in Minneapolis was a solidifying experience for Wade, who is a 2017 Artists in Business Leadership fellow. He made lifelong friends with other working artists, their connection visual in the circle where they tossed their nametags at the end of each day. The tags connected, just as the artists did.

It took moving away from home for Wade to discover his voice. But he’s bringing a little of the East Coast scene into traditional Lakota art, a breath of fresh air to open people’s minds to modern Native art. He hopes others get something out of it that lasts a long time as he continues on his journey as a full-time artist.

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

“When we started Lakota Funds, it was the artists who understood the Circle Banking model before anyone else. First Peoples Fund’s focus on the arts is a focus on the culture and the traditions, which are central to the survival, growth, and integrity of our Native communities. Artists are always closest to the values and the culture. They are always more likely to want to work together.”

— Gerald Sherman (Oglala Lakota), Founding Executive Director Lakota Funds, now retired from a career in banking and finance.

LAKOTA FUNDS AND THE NATIVE ARTS ECONOMY-BUILDING GRANT PROGRAM

The Circle Banking model. This idea of microloans and peer support began with the Grameen Bank, a Nobel Peace Prize winning Bangladesh model developed by Dr. Muhammad Yunus in the 1970s. It involved a cluster of women supporting one another with a pool of money, enough for one loan. When the first one paid off her loan, the next one received the loan.

That circle-thinking model translated into a foundation for the idea behind Lakota Funds. Visionary leaders in the community realized that in order to break the cycle of poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, they needed to focus on key roadblocks to economic development: access to capital, technical assistance, business networks, and infrastructure. With assistance from Oglala Lakota College and First Nations Development Institute, Lakota Funds was established in 1986 as the first-ever Native American community development financial institution (CDFI) on a reservation. They began work to break through the roadblocks.

But Lakota Funds had a hard time finding a way into supporting the Indigenous Arts Ecosystem on Pine Ridge, the right entry point to work with Native artists, artists who represent an economic engine on the reservation. With the right kind of support, these informal, home-based art businesses are positioned for dramatic growth and the potential to impact other people beyond themselves. Artist entrepreneurship can offer a path out of poverty through innovative thinking, cultural healing, greater economic stability, and strong families and communities. Yet many artists have trouble making the connection between creating their art and running a business.

“We’ve been hesitant to work with artists, until we started working with First Peoples Fund,” says Tawney Brunsch (Oglala Lakota), executive director of Lakota Funds.

Their partnership began at the inception of First Peoples Fund when Elsie Meeks, then executive director of Lakota Funds, was a part of strategy sessions that launched First Peoples Fund in 1999 and at the time a fund under the San Francisco based Tides Foundation. With blessings from the founder, Jennifer Easton, FPF spun off in 2003 after obtaining its 501 c 3.

While First Peoples Fund has developed unique expertise in providing entrepreneurial training tailored to Native artists, Native CDFIs like Lakota Funds have the ability to provide affordable capital for Native artists who need this specialized approach. As one of our longest partnerships, Lakota Funds has worked with us for years through the Native Artist Professional Development Training program to increase the capacity of its staff to meet the needs of reservation-based artists.

In 2013, a market study, initiated in part by First Peoples Fund with another longtime partner Artspace Projects as well as Colorado State University (CSU), showed the exceptional economic development potential of supporting artists on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The study, Establishing a Creative Economy: Art as an Economic Engine in Native Communities, demonstrated that 30% of the community’s population identifies as artists and highlighted the six things artists need access to in order to be successful: markets, supplies, credit and capital, business knowledge, informal networks and creative space.

Following the study, Lakota Funds took a close look at its role in addressing these needs, and in 2014 applied for First Peoples Fund’s then newly launched Native Arts Economy Building Grant program. (First Peoples Fund recently redesigned and renamed this the Indigenous Arts Ecology grant program.) The grant continues to build on the strong relationship between Lakota Funds and First Peoples Fund.

The NAEB grant program provided Lakota Funds the capacity to launch pre-micro loans to Native artists who had little or no collateral and no credit history. The loans, up to $500, give artists the boost they need to purchase supplies, cover travel costs to shows, and pay booth fees. When the loan is repaid, it circles out to another artist.

By integrating Lakota Funds into the flow of First Peoples Fund’s programs, tailored and targeted services such as specially designed micro-loans can be provided to support emerging artists as they develop into small-business entrepreneurs. Lakota Funds is a catalyst for long-term, systemic change on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in part through its commitment to supporting the local Indigenous Arts Ecosystem.

“Through that microloan product, we’ve had a reason to reach out to artists, really encourage them to work with us, and also taking away some of the risk concern that the Lakota Fund board had,” Tawney says. “We were able to satisfy both those criteria with this program grant.”

Along with the funding, First Peoples Fund instructed a Lakota Funds staff member in best practices for working with Native artists. Through the Train the Trainer program Jeremy Staab (Santee Dakota) worked with loan officer Yolanda Clifford (Oglala Lakota). She became a success coach for the artists Lakota Funds serves through their products. “We work with a variety of clients: retail, grocery stores, seeds stores. So working with artists is very different from what we’re used to,” Yolanda says. “Doing things like entrepreneurship training, working with artists, showing them how to properly mark up their products. It’s different.”

Because of this program, Yolanda works with artists and helps them move toward online marketing, including website building, Etsy and Facebook. Older artists tend to be uncertain about putting their information online. For ones who aren’t ready to fully expand to those markets, Lakota Funds created an artist directory where potential customers can contact them. Yolanda adds, “We’re just helping them build trust in working in these different programs, and at least giving it a try.”

Some artists are reluctant about dealing with an institution. Tawney explains, “Artists are very hesitant to work with banks. Any formal institutions are pretty scary places, honestly.”

But Lakota Funds is bridging that gap and forming relationships.

Even established artists may not keep track of all their financials to determine if they are making a profit. With coaching from Lakota Funds, they now file all their paperwork, making them eligible for other business loan products.

Still, it’s hard for many of the artists to make the trip to the branch in Kyle from wherever they are on the vast Pine Ridge Reservation. Lakota Funds was a critical partner in the creation of the Rolling Rez Arts Mobile Unit.

Now the Rolling Rez takes Lakota Funds and its partner, Lakota Federal Credit Union, to every corner of the vast reservation. This mobile unit brings the credit union to artists, connecting many of them to online markets and banking options for the first time. The Lakota Federal Credit Union (LFCU), originally sponsored by Lakota Funds, goes out on the Rolling Rez Arts monthly, offering their full suite of services and always ready to open first-time savings accounts or deposit checks. Launched in 2012, the LFCU is the only federally insured financial institution serving the Pine Ridge Reservation, which spans over 2 million acres. Its membership is already over 2,000, and growing rapidly.

“Partially due to the work we’re doing on the Rolling Rez Arts, we have a bigger presence now across Pine Ridge,” says Tawney, who also serves as the board chair for the Lakota Federal Credit Union. “It’s usually by word of mouth that news of products gets out to anyone.”

Native artists are taking advantage of the pre-micro loans. One artist needed equipment to begin screen printing custom designs. Other artists use the loans to purchase materials like beads and rawhide.

Word is spreading about this opportunity for artists. They are experiencing success, and now more are coming to Lakota Funds for guidance, propelling the program forward.

“There’s just a lot of potential,” Tawney says. “We look forward to doing really impactful things for the community here in the future.”

As First Peoples Fund’s long-standing partnership with Lakota Funds strengthens through the grant program and Rolling Rez Arts, we are establishing a model for building thriving creative economies — and the larger Indigenous Arts Ecology — in tribal communities across sectors.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Artists in Business Leadership Fellow 2015  

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A colorful bus roams the remote and vast landscape, a vehicle in search of ways to bring economic and social change to Native artists where they live and work on the Pine Ridge Reservation. These artists have six needs, needs that are steadily being helped by our Rolling Rez Arts Mobile Unit. Native art is key to sustaining culture at the community level, though these artists are often overlooked.

First Peoples Fund coordinator of the Rolling Rez Arts, Bryan Parker (White Mountain Apache, Muscogee Creek, Mississippi Choctaw), is passionate about his work and telling the story of the mobile unit. He says, “There is so much unknown, unrecognized talent out there. It’s crazy. But those are the people we are targeting, those who don’t have the resources to learn about grants or how to apply to artist markets or what materials to use to better their art, to better the talent they already have.”

Rolling Rez Arts (RRA) is out serving artists, meeting their needs where they live and work. Economic engines capable of catalyzing true social change, Native artists’ six primary needs are being touched by the Rolling Rez Arts this year. First Peoples Fund focuses on these needs, helping us to think in terms of the greater Indigenous Arts Ecology.

THE SIX NEEDS OF ARTISTS

1. Access to Markets

When there’s a chance of being stranded in Rapid City if art sells are low, many artists stay on the reservation and market their art locally. This abundance of art among few buyers drives down the value, even below the cost of materials.

The Heritage Center Gift Shop at Red Cloud Indian School sells artwork by more than 250 Lakota artists through a retail store in the Heritage Center and an online store. With monthly buying days, artists who can come to the store wait in line and hope there is time for their artwork to be seen. Some of the artists hitchhiked to get to the Heritage Center.

But now, buyers from the Heritage Center’s gift shop climb on board the Rolling Rez Arts once a month to bring a market to the artists. Artists look forward to these buying days on the RRA. Their faces show excitement, masking their nervousness and anticipation when buyer Carmen Little Iron (Oglala Lakota) and director Mary Maxon of the gift shop arrive.

The artists wait to see if their work is picked up. Much of it is. Carmen sometimes offers critique, helping the artists know what they can do to improve their work and how to get fair prices. The gift shop has discovered new artists through the RRA.

“It’s a good vehicle to do stuff on the rez that we couldn’t otherwise do,” Mary says. “With that little bit of help, you can just get it done.”

Michael Cooper, a reporter from the New York Times, witnessed the Rolling Rez Arts in action on a buying day. He experienced the impact that bringing a market to the community is having. It was a cultural exchange, a chance for someone from the East Coast to take home a look at life on the reservation and see Lakota culture in a positive light.

2. Access to Informal (Social) Networks

Traditional Native arts instruction is informal through peer learning and family rather than an institute. On the mobile unit, professionals who were once where they are train emerging artists. It gives them an opportunity to learn among their peers, to build self-worth and confidence. Artists are joining the network created by the Rolling Rez Arts.

This kind of networking led to Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné) finding two Native youth interns. Razelle is a 2017 Artist in Business Leadership fellow who recently taught filmmaking on the RRA. “The experience I’ve had with the Rolling Rez Arts Mobile Unit was totally rewarding,” Razelle says. “The youth these days are so bright and it really made me thankful I was able to help the young people in a way that I yearned for when I was young.”

In partnership with the Cheyenne River Youth Project and RRA, Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota) — also a 2017 Artist in Business Leadership fellow — taught art classes to students in Eagle Butte. Bryan Parker led the students on a tour of the mobile unit, showing them how its purposes weave together and the reasons behind it.

In January, the RRA joined Community Spirit Award recipients Phillip Whiteman Jr. (Northern Cheyenne) and Lynette Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota) for the annual Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run, taking the bus alongside the youth runners, furthering the network and reach of the mobile unit.

3. Access to Credit and Capital

Native CDFI Lakota Funds and their supported Lakota Federal Credit Union provide critical support to artists, but they weren’t easily accessible. Until now. Through an initiative led by Lakota Funds, the Lakota Federal Credit Union boards the RRA monthly to conduct invaluable services in the communities. They cash checks, make deposits and work on loan applications in the mobile unit.

“We partner with First Peoples Fund to share the services that help artists develop their businesses and make a living from their art,” says Tawney Brunsch (Oglala Lakota), executive director of Lakota Funds. “With the Rolling Rez Arts, we’re able to reach even more people and help artists address the issues that stand between them and successful entrepreneurship.”

Oglala Lakota College offered access to hard ground wiring on their campuses to help with secure banking transactions. Oglala Lakota College, the tribal college on Pine Ridge, operates campuses in each of the reservation’s nine districts. The RRA often sets up shop in their parking lots.

4. Increased Business Knowledge

Teaching art is important on the Rolling Rez Arts, but along with that comes the practical business side of training artists in the rudimentary basics of financial management, Internet use, pricing and marketing. The instructors — professional artists themselves — share their knowledge and experiences to begin transforming the emerging artists’ careers into sustainable ones.

Full-time artist Wade Patton joined the RRA to teach in Oglala Lakota County, stopping at 6 sites in 3 days. He wants to see fellow artists learn how to take a creative piece and get it gallery ready in a short time to hit deadlines. He wants to help them along their way in business.

5. Access to Supplies

Getting affordable supplies is still a challenge on a reservation roughly the size of Connecticut. While the RRA doesn’t sell supplies, we do have everything the artists and instructors need for the free classes. Artists take some of these supplies home with them.

6. Creative Space

The Rolling Rez Arts is a physical space where artists create art, connect with others, get feedback, and discover new opportunities. It’s equipped with everything classes need. The tables were retrofitted and are removable to make room for easels. If a larger space is needed for something like a sculpting or tanning class, we can move outside under the protection of the attached canopy.

Artists coming into this space are often experiencing First Peoples Fund for the first time. Some are curious; some are college students who happen to be out of class and stop in. Students of former RRA coordinator and artist coach/trainer Guss Yellow Hair (Northern Cheyenne/Oglala Lakota), an instructor at Oglala Lakota Artspace, come to the unit as well. They receive extra class credit for their time on the RRA. Many of the participants are unknown artists ready to take the skills taught on the unit and apply them to their art career.

GROWING AN INDIGENOUS ARTS ECOLOGY

The Rolling Rez Arts mobile unit continues to roam the vast landscape, its colorful herd of painted buffalo becoming a recognized sight on the reservation. The unit embodies what it takes to build a creative economy in an expansive space. There’s not enough critical mass in any one location to make it happen otherwise. The RRA is a pollinator in growing this ecosystem, seeding the many partnerships of organizations, artists, and individual in a vibrant Indigenous Arts Ecology. Rolling Rez Arts is a shining example of how moving parts working together can create art and grow businesses.

With warmer weather settling in, Rolling Rez Arts has miles of creative pursuits ahead. There’s the upcoming RedCan Graffiti Jam, classes with FPF artists, mobile banking, art market buying, and more.

Founding FPF board member, Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) once said, “Art is the greatest asset Indian people have in our communities, yet it is the most underdeveloped.”

Rolling Rez Arts has set out to change that.

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

Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Dine’) is an emerging independent filmmaker in her last year of BFA studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Her films have shown internationally, and garnered multiple awards at the Santa Fe Indian Market and the New Mexico Film Foundation’s Student Showcase. She is an alumna of the 2012 Sundance Institute Native Filmmakers Lab and the 2015 Native Short Film Production Grant for I Am Thy Weapon.

When the sanctity of a sacred site was threatened, Razelle Benally grabbed a camera and unwittingly found her calling in life. For years, she had longed to tell stories visually. She wasn’t a talented artist like the rest of her family. But during that time of running a camera, of editing a story about the sacred site, Razelle discovered her art.

Born in eastern Oregon, she grew up and graduated in Rapid City, South Dakota. Razelle built her self-identity based on ceremonial and traditional values. This changed her perspective on life; she wanted to do more for her people.

Razelle wants to inspire youth the way she was inspired. Along with workshops in Oregon and New Mexico, she has taught on the Rolling Rez Arts mobile unit on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The students were bright and ready to learn about writing, directing, and camera work. Razelle is thankful she can mentor young people in ways she yearned for early in life herself.

Now she’s involving Native youth on a real film set. With support from her 2017 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellowship, she is producing a catalyzing short film, a turning point in her career. With a handpicked Native crew of trusted friends, filmmakers, and two youth from Pine Ridge as interns, they are producing Césniyé, a short narrative on the sensitive topic of trauma.

It’s a tough journey, but Razelle is committed to reclaiming Native voices in cinema. She lives for that moment of crossing into unchartered territory and recreating an old idea into something new. Her universally-themed stories represent Native people in a way non-Natives can understand.

Razelle spent much of her life believing she didn’t have artistic talent. Now, with the art of filmmaking, she tells stories to show how all people are connected through common struggles. She works hard to represent what it means to be creative, a digital storyteller, and an American Indian in the 21st century.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

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First Peoples Fund held our 2017 Fellowship Convening earlier this month in Minneapolis. The convening is an extended professional development opportunity, balanced with time for sharing, reflecting and creating new bonds. "My biggest takeaway from the convening were the connections I made with the staff and fellow artists. I got to know my support network there and met new collaborators,” said 2017 fellow Paul Wennell (Anishinaabe/Oneida), a hip-hop artist based in Minneapolis.

The convening kicked off with an evening of connecting and building community among the fellows at Pangea World Theater. Pangea, dedicated to presenting international and interdisciplinary theater, is a longtime key partner to First Peoples Fund. Their welcoming and dedicated directors, Meena Natarajan and Dipankar Mukherjee, led the group through movement and theater exercises and served a delicious dinner. Sharon Day (Ojibwe) from Indigenous Peoples Task Force and a member of Pangea’s board, opened the evening with prayer. It was the perfect beginning to an instructive and invigorating gathering.

The evening also served to recognize how Pangea — and performing and presenting arts — intersect with First Peoples Funds’ work across the country. Spoken word, hip-hop, folk songs. Melodic and visual, performing arts have become an even more integral part of First Peoples Fund’s work to support Native artists over the last several years with support from the Mellon Foundation. These art forms were well represented among the 2017 fellows at the convening: hip-hop recording artists Mic Jordan (Ojibwe), Tall Paul (Paul Wenell Jr., Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), and Gunner Krogman (Rosebud Sioux Tribe); folk music singer/songwriter Annie Humphrey (Anishinaabe/Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), and spoken word poet Tanaya Winder (Duckwater Shoshone, Pyramid Lake Paiute, and Southern Ute).

Inspired by breakout Native hip hop artist and former FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota), Tanaya Winder is now a fellow herself. She travels widely, helping build the growing Native hip hop and spoken word movement, and has even attended FPF board meetings. A strong advocate for youth, she is the director of the Upward Bound Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She created Dream Warriors Management, an Indigenous artist management company and collective that includes FPF fellows past and present Frank Waln, Mic Jordan and Tall Paul.

The convening continued the next day at Open Book for a full day that began with a welcome and prayer. Then came the “Artful Introductions,” a chance for artists to share their stories with paper, pencils, clay and more. They created visual representation pieces of art to introduce themselves to the cohort, a powerful way to show how the artists became artists — and how family tradition or a means of healing guided the direction of their lives.

“The artists are all so talented, humble and supportive of one another. I was deeply moved by each person’s story,” said Marsha Whiting (Chippewa Cree Tribe and Sicangu Lakota), FPF vice president of operations and programs.

“The artists are all so talented, humble and supportive of one another. I was deeply moved by each person’s story.”

— Marsha Whiting, FPF Vice President of Operations and Programs

The 2017 artist cohort covers a broad range of mediums: filmmaking, mixed media sculpting, singing, songwriting, graphic design, printmaking, drawing and painting, poetry and spoken word, textiles and sewing, wood carving, quill and beadwork, photography, and storytelling. They came from all over the United States, from Alaska to Oklahoma to right next door in Minneapolis.

At the convening, our staff was dedicated to fulfilling the mission of First Peoples Fund, while the speakers and instructors shared years of wisdom and experience. Lori Pourier (president, First Peoples Fund) spoke about Indigenous Arts Ecologies. Rooted in the traditional values of generosity and respect, humility and fortitude, First Peoples Fund uplifts the Indigenous Arts Ecology — relationship-based ecosystems that strengthen Native arts and culture grounded in ancestral knowledge.

Marsha Whiting built enthusiasm about the future direction and growth of First Peoples Fund and Program Manager Jeremy Staab (Santee Sioux) led a roundtable discussion for the artists. FPF trainer and PA’I Foundation Folk Arts Coordinator Kaʻiulani Takamori (Native Hawaiian) presented how FPF’s field work unfolds in Hawaii.

The rotation sessions were customized for the fellows. With peer learning and hands-on work, the fellows engaged with professionals in the field on topics from how to use a smartphone for professional images to getting their digital marketing questions answered to the finer points of copyright and trademark. Working in small groups allowed them to share collective knowledge for personalized learning. Performing arts is being weaved into the training curriculum to serve the unique needs of these artists.

“We are in the final stages of adapting our Native artist professional development curriculum to be more inclusive of performing artists,” Lori Pourier said. “We’ve gathered input from our key partners Pangea and the PA’I Foundation in Hawai’I, and well established performing artists from our family of artists including Wade Fernandez, Jennifer Kriesberg and Pura Fe. It’s going to literally rock!”

Steve Wewerka, whose work has appeared on the cover of Life Magazine, and in Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated and the York Times, led the photography session. FPF Program Manager Jessica Miller led the session on Digital Marketing. Artists rapidly gained skills they can use to create and promote their work.