Our Blog

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.

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), 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, Artists in Business Leadership Fellow 2015  

‍

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.

‍

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 (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, Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

‍

Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota) is a self-taught artist gaining recognition through her digital vector work. Her art has shown at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis and Red Cloud Heritage Center in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, as well as a solo show at the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota. She’s currently an artist-in-residence at Nawayee Center School in Minneapolis, working with Native students for the Mde Maka Ska festival. Marlena is a 2017 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow.

At the 2016 Horse Nation exhibit, children rushed forward, pulling their parents along, to see Marlena’s vibrant art. In a world of superheroes and computers, digital art is a way Marlena can instill cultural values, knowledge and stories into young people. The children’s attraction to Marlena’s vector art inspired her to preserve the at-risk Dakota language through children’s books.

Marlena’s art has evolved to not only share history but reflect her people’s lives today. Vector art — based on mathematical formulas — lets her create original works that aren’t imitative, even though her artwork is an output of the traditions and stories she learns about her people. She sees how they can update old ways and be relevant to their lives in the modern world. The contemporary tools behind her art become a channel to youth, inspiring them to create a future that connects with their pasts, a future alive with their cultural values.

‍

With help from Dakota elders and language specialists, Marlena is creating e-books, educational posters, flash cards, and coloring/workbooks to make learning the language fresh, accessible, and entertaining for children. First Peoples Fund's support is helping Marlena towards completing the sacred hoop she believes connects us: sharing knowledge of elders and looping it back to younger generations, and in the process rebuilding what was lost, letting youth see the old ways in the same light as superheroes in pop culture.

At that opening reception during the Horse Nation exhibit, Marlena’s eyes were opened to illustrating children’s Indigenous-language books. Books for parents to read to their children, to teach them about their native heritage and reclaim the language as their own. Marlena makes art that belongs to all.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

‍

A space that illuminates the human condition, celebrates cultural differences and promotes human rights is leading two groundbreaking projects with funding in part by First Peoples Fund’s Our Nations Spaces (ONS) grant program. Pangea World Theater of Minneapolis has worked with artists from many communities locally, nationally and internationally to create new aesthetic realities for an increasingly diverse audience.

Founded in 1995 and led by Dipankar Mukherjee and Meena Natarajan, Pangea is a progressive space for transformation. Collectively, their work serves 8,000-10,000 youth and adults annually. Apart from producing and presenting plays, Pangea has created four series and two community-based programs that speak to minority and immigrant cultures and that serve a broad and diverse (both ethnically and generationally) public. Pangea’s education program works with teachers and students to build leadership and capacity for young people, and creates authentic spaces for real conversations.

“We start with acknowledging the land we’re on and its ties to the local Indigenous people,” Meena said. “We start with acknowledging the land we’re on and its ties to the local Indigenous people,” Meena said. With support from their Our Nations’ Spaces grant from First Peoples Fund, they are “Foregrounding First Nations Voices” with a youth theater project and an institute for Indigenous directors.With support from their ONS grant, they are “Foregrounding First Nations Voices” with a youth theater project and an institute for Indigenous directors.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES TASK FORCE’S IKIDOWIN YOUTH THEATER PROJECT

Powerful. Honest. A scene brought to life on stage by Ikidowin youth, a scene set in the reality of their friends and peers that handles the difficult subjects of teen pregnancy and teen parenthood. Pangea World Theater took the opportunity of hosting the opening reception of the 2017 First Peoples Fund fellows convening to showcase a scene from “Wait.” The audience was moved by the young peoples’ emerging talent and courage.

With guidance from Pangea, this play was developed and written by Indigenous Peoples Task Force’s (IPTF) Ikidowin Peer Educators and Acting Ensemble. Supported by First Peoples Fund’s Our Nations Spaces program and in partnership with IPTF Ikidowin youth, Pangea is also developing a new play around the issue of water.

“We believe this particular program with Indigenous youth is very important because, in spite of their challenging background, the youth have come through as strong participants and creators,” Meena Natarajan said. “We are engaging with the youth with the current water project, advising on script, helping with staging, directing, writing some of the scenes, dramaturging and also planning a future piece. It’s a ground up program — we are activating and creating original work with youth over a period of time so that we see the growth of these youth into leaders engaged in finding their own voice. More importantly, these shows are seen by other Native youth in different reservations and high schools which is impactful both for them and the communities they perform in. Some of these communities — both in urban and reservation settings — have never seen Native youth perform their own stories.”

“We are activating and creating original work with youth over a period of time so that we see the growth of these youth into leaders engaged in finding their own voice. More importantly, these shows are seen by other Native youth in different reservations and high schools which is impactful both for them and the communities they perform in. Some of these communities — both in urban and rural settings — have never seen Native youth perform their own stories.”

— Meena Natarajan, Pangea World Theater Executive/Literary Director

The roots of Ikidowin began in 1990 when executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force (IPTF) Sharon Day started a young peoples theater (Ogitchidag Gikinooamaagad). The theater is still going strong as Ikidowin Peer Educators and Acting Ensemble. This led to a longstanding and sustained relationship with Pangea World Theater, and recently, Sharon, who also serves on Pangea’s board of directors, invited Pangea to teach the IPTF’s Ikidowin youth theater skills and to create a play.

The Ikidowin youth — 12 to 18 years old — are Ojibwa, Lakota, Dakota, and some have parents indigenous to Mexico. The youth are often inspired to apply for Ikidowin when they see their peers and the older students perform. They see the way they are treated, how they are accepted.

The program affects their lives in many ways, a catalyst for opportunities and future careers. The long-term impact from this program shows in former students who are now filmmakers, national poetry slam winners, actors, and a children’s hospital innovator. Even as youth, they are sought after in the community when organizers need young adults to be involved in presentations, speaking, and poetry readings. They are exposed to professional artists and creative people from dance to painters.

Their plays are not skits — they are theater performances. Their diverse audiences of youth, parents and community members number up to 500. With the Ikidowin plays, Natives began to realize theater is for them after all, that it’s simply another form of storytelling.

Sharon says she loves working with Pangea, now collaborating with them for the First Peoples Fund’s Our Nations Spaces program to write and perform an original play with the IPTF’s Ikidowin youth.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR DIRECTING AND ENSEMBLE CREATION

This summer, Pangea will launch the National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation as part of their Our Nations’ Spaces grant. An important focus of the project is bringing together Native directors to begin to build a curriculum for Indigenous artists and offering scholarships for Native Next Generation participants in order to strengthen the voice of First Nations directors and ensemble leaders.

CIRCLES OF TRANSFORMATION

“This has been a year of working with Indigenous community in our space,” Meena Natarajan said.  Pangea believes in impacting in circles of transformation, to build relationships that are transformative — socially, politically and culturally, and to impact the times.

“Pangea believes in impacting in circles of transformation, to build relationships that are transformative — socially, politically and culturally, and to impact the times.”

— Meena Natarajan, Pangea World Theater

On the Ikidowin youth play and work with Indigenous people, Meena added, “In that circle, First Peoples Fund’s leadership and presence shapes our thinking and artistic grounding. Over the years, Lori Pourier has been an advisor and we feel that we have built this relationship based on mutual respect. We are honored to have this close relationship and learn from FPF’s practices and share what we know and have done. We are grateful that FPF has stepped in to resource this imperative work we are doing with Ikidowin youth.”

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

‍

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.

A heartfelt thank you to the New York Times for highlighting the importance of the National Endowment of the Arts funding for Lakota Country. If approved by Congress, the national budget proposal would mean the elimination of NEA grants to Native artists and the organizations and institutions that support them across Indian Country.

In 2016 alone, the NEA awarded 2,400 grants that provided support to dancers, musicians, writers, filmmakers, weavers, beaders, painters and others throughout the country. Many of these grants funded activities in rural tribal communities where access to arts and cultural activities and other resources is extremely limited and loss of NEA support would be potentially devastating.

As described in the Times today, NEA funding supports First Peoples Fund’s Rolling Rez Arts bus, enabling us and our partner Lakota Funds to work together to bring art education by Native culture bearers, business training customized for Native artists, and mobile banking and financial literacy training across the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Rolling Rez Arts reconnects residents to their cultural assets and helps them build financial assets based in their unique culture and values.

In 2016, four of the NEA’s nine National Heritage Fellows were Native artists. Two former First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award honorees, Tlingit ceremonial regalia maker Clarissa Rizal and Penobscot basket maker Theresa Secord were among the 2016 fellows.

Since the beginning of the National Heritage Awards in 1982, 71 of the fellows have been Native, and seven have also been Community Spirit Award honorees. These culture bearers carry and connect their communities to the ancient knowledge, traditions and lifeways of our ancestors.

The NEA’s recognition honors their contributions as critical agents of cultural equity for tribal communities. First Peoples Fund honors our partnership with the NEA.

“The federal government must uphold its trust responsibilities to tribal communities. The elimination of the NEA represents an abrogation of these responsibilities to Native artists and culture bearers who are deeply rooted in their tribal homelands,” says First Peoples Fund President and CEO Lori Pourier. “For centuries, art and culture have been the heart of Native communities, and they are what will sustain us going forward.”

“For centuries, art and culture have been the heart of Native communities, and they are what sustain us going forward.”

— Lori Pourier, President and CEO

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE LINK

‍

Join us on the Rolling Rez Arts mobile unit next week, April 24 to April 26, on the Pine Ridge Reservation for a free arts workshop, Oil Pastels, Matting & Framing with Wade Patton, 2017 Artists in Business Leadership Fellow.

Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota) is most known for his oil pastel and ledger work and is skilled in most mediums. He is a graduate of Black Hills State College with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. Wade has had a professional experience in framing priceless works of art by Warhol, Chuck Close, and Edgar Degas to name a few.

EVENTS SCHEDULE

APRIL 24

9 am - 12 pm // Pejuta Haka OLC Campus (Kyle)

1 pm - 4 pm // Eagle Nest OLC Campus (Wanblee)

APRIL 25

9 am - 12 pm // LaCreek OLC Campus (Martin)

1 pm - 4 pm // Pass Creek OLC Campus (Allen)

APRIL 26

9 am - 12 pm // Pine Ridge OLC Campus (Pine Ridge)

1 pm - 4 pm // White Clay OLC Campus (Oglala)

GET TO KNOW THE ARTIST

Take a listen to this short interview with Wade Patton about his upcoming workshop on the Rolling Rez Arts, his work and why he is excited to be back home working and teaching.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, Artist in Business Leadership Fellow 2015

Paul Wenell, Jr. is an Anishinaabe and Oneida hip-hop artist who performs and records under the name Tall Paul. The music video for his bilingual track titled “Prayers in a Song” reached over a quarter million views on YouTube, opening several media and performance opportunities. He’s enrolled in the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in northern Minnesota, and he’s an artist with Dream Warriors Management and a 2017 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow.

Paul’s first concept album, G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time), is inspired by the Sac and Fox tribal member Jim Thorpe, a Olympic decathlete and pentathlete and arguably the greatest athlete of all time. Surrounding the hip-hop songs Paul composes are music videos and vlogs — video blogs — he plans to shoot in places that honor Thorpe’s legacy. All this to capture the essence of Jim Thorpe’s greatness on camera with a musical rendition of his life.

In his time, Jim Thorpe, who also played professional football and baseball, demonstrated how Natives are still here — alive, competent and well, the embodiment of Indigenous excellence. Now Paul wants to share that spirit with his own generation. It’s important for him to perform music to the best of his ability and honor the same principles of hard work Jim Thorpe lived.

Paul is using Indigenous artists for the production and graphic artwork. The audio-visual project will speak of the capabilities and talent within Native people, illuminating their value and dismantling stereotypes.

The G.O.A.T project, supported by Paul’s First Peoples Fund fellowship, marks a turning point in his career. This career began with downloading beats from YouTube to create his own songs, to now a string of upcoming shows in Germany. The project is furthering Paul’s economic goals to sustain himself and his family by attracting new event organizers and fans.

But above that, the theme of Indigenous excellence throughout the project will raise esteem in his community and beyond. Paul’s music evokes substance and soul. His creative role in the world is one he chooses not to take lightly. The G.O.A.T. concept album and music videos challenge Paul to be the greatest artist he can be.