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dg Hatch is a Chippewa artist, flute maker, sculptor, and flute player. He is a tribal member of the Chippewa of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He has been a woodworker for over 40 years. dg makes Native American wooden flutes in a Woodland style. He refers to his significant flute design changes as generations; he’s currently in the 6th generation.

dg resides in Reedsport, Oregon, and is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellow.

Surrounded by thousands of people at the LA County Fair, one sound reached dg’s heart. He moved toward the sound. Paused, listened. Moved again.

He soon discovered the source of the sound in a small courtyard where a man had a table set up with his flutes. dg purchased one and took it home.

“I sat alone and played,” he says. “I wasn’t very good, but it was like a download from heaven. It touched me like nothing had ever before.”

The next day, dg bought the tools he needed to begin a 24-year journey of making Native American flutes.

“It was the first time in a very long time I did something I wanted to do,” dg says. His artist brand features his initials lowercase in the same fashion that he signs his flutes.

At the beginning of 2020, dg was scheduled for a six-month exposition at the Great Law of Peace Center in New York. That was canceled due to COVID-19, but he still made a unique flute that would have been part of the display. He entered the flute in the Coastal Douglas Arts and Business Alliance “Recycle, Upcycle, Reuse” Art Challenge. He posed the question, “What can be done with a piece of rescued firewood, a lonely pinecone, a little stone, a little leather, a little skill, and a little love?”

In the next town up from dg, a tree cutter had a piece of American Holly atop his burn pile. dg asked for it and added it to his collection of random material.

“A lot of times, I feel a pull toward picking up things, but not sure exactly what to do with it,” he says. “After a while, they come together and make sense.”

For this flute, dg incorporated the holly, a pinecone from Sisters, OR, a block of Alabaster stone from Springdale, UT, and elk leather from the Wendake Huron Village in Quebec, Canada.

After a long, loving process to remake each object, dg nestled the finished flute in a bronze hand he sculpted of a man rising out of Onondaga Lake in New York, where the Great Tree of Peace once stood. The flute is being offered as a symbol of peace for the people of all Nations.

Tuned to a six finger pentatonic scale in the key of G, dg’s flute won the art contest and is ready to travel the world and do its work for years to come. Perhaps it too will draw a soul in through the sounds of life, and discover a new purpose.

Lani Hotch (Tlingit) wove a variation of the lightning pattern for her robe’s (blanket) top border.

She keenly felt how all people are compelled on a timeline, being pushed forward as times change. People die, others are born.

This is what the top border of her Generations Robe represents.

In 2016, Lani had started to feel her own mortality. Two elder weavers she knew in southeast Alaska had passed away. They were the same age as her.

“Here I’m thinking I have all this time, and you just never know,” Lani says. She is the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center’s Executive Director, a First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award honoree (2011), and a Cultural Capital fellow (2015, 2016).

“I felt like I had to do a number of things immediately,” she says. “First, I wanted to take on apprentices and teach them how to weave so that the weaving legacy wouldn’t die with me. I had done a few group projects, and some people did know how to weave, but not very many. Nobody other than myself had taken on a full-sized robe project on their own.”

The elders’ passing pushed Lani to work ever harder on preserving and perpetuating history and culture. Through a grant under the National Park Service, she took on an apprentice who began weaving a robe. She also began weaving the Generations Robe in January of 2018.

The sense of urgency she felt in getting this knowledge spread was confirmed in March 2018 when a ruptured appendix nearly took her life.

“My elders are passing, and my generation is becoming the elders,” Lani says. “I felt a keen sense of responsibility towards the younger generation to teach them all I can of what I know so that knowledge won’t be lost when I pass.”

After recovering, Lani began work again on the Generations Robe. She thought through the side borders, another variation on the lightning pattern. There are no clean-cut transitions between generations. In her own family, Lani has nine older brothers, with the oldest being 20 years older than her. A decade separates her in age from his children.

“There’s overlap, and that side border speaks to how our generations intermesh,” she says. “It’s one long continuum, and it’s not clear where one ends, and another one starts.”

In 2019, the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center in Klukwan, a village with a population of less than 100, was awarded a First Peoples Fund Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant. The Center’s dance group typically welcomes thousands of visitors annually who come for their cultural education tours. The youth and elders who participate in the tours wear regalia, but Lani could see the fraying edges, worn moccasins, unfinished tunics, and commercial knock-offs being used because of the lack of authentic regalia. She applied for the funding, in part, to restore their regalia.

“[With the grant] we made a dozen pair of moccasins,” Lani says. “Others worked on upgrading the regalia. That was one of the focuses of the first year of our IAE grant.”

As a result when the Frog Clan House at.oow (clan treasures), including four totemic house posts and a replica of the Raven wall screen, returned to Klukwan in 2019, the youth and elders welcomed them home to the Heritage Center in ceremony, dressed in the restored regalia.

While they were restoring and adding to the dance group’s regalia, Lani wove the Generation’s Robe. The row below the top border features the labret pattern. It honors the legacy of the women who were weavers in the village, and all the women who brought forth generations.

Following the labret is a butterfly pattern — the transition that takes place between generations.

In the center of the robe are hourglass figures.

“The idea behind the Generations Robe was triggered by the death of those two weavers,” Lani says. “At some point, the time runs out on our lives, and the next generation must carry things forward.”

On each side of the hourglasses are tree patterns representing the different generations. In Lani’s family tree, she is the fourth generation of weavers.

The bottom border recalls the lightning of the top border to show how the younger generations will look back to their elders and ancestors for wisdom and guidance.

Lani finished the Generations Robe and added it to the Heritage Dancers’ regalia. She had noticed the robe her brother Jack used was saggy and worn. For 20 years, he has taught boys of the group how to dance in the men’s style. Jack was the male role model they needed, always sparking interest in the boys to do the traditional dancing. Lani wanted to honor him by gifting the robe to the group for him to wear. He will use the Generations Robe as long as he keeps dancing.

“Our dancers are like cultural ambassadors,” Lani says. “They perform for the visitors who come to Klukwan as part of tour groups or off cruise ships. People that come out want to learn about our culture. Our dancers perform new dances and tell history with those performances. They can truly represent the richness of our cultural heritage.”

In 2020, the Heritage Center’s IAE program moved into creating a craft store in the old hospitality house on the grounds. That concept came from an FPF convening that included a session on artists’ needs to access material.

“That’s what gave me the idea that we needed to have a craft shop in Klukwan where people could buy the materials and make things whenever they want,” Lani says. “We’re looking to open between now and the new year.”

Restored regalia. New robe. Generations gone before, generations ahead. Lani and her people are continuing in the flow of time.

She says, “People are always dying, people are being born, and the generations change.”

This month, we welcomed a new team member to First Peoples Fund’s (FPF) staff — Maya Austin. Her abundant passion, experience, and knowledge will undoubtedly contribute to FPF’s mission to uplift Native artists and culture bearers in these challenging times.

Meet Maya Austin (Pasqua Yaqui, Blackfeet, Mexican-American)

Director / Program Weaver

“My sister is such a beautiful artist,” Maya says, claiming her sister got the family’s artistic genes — but Maya found her talent in supporting artists, especially filmmakers, through her former position as Senior Manager for the Indigenous Program at Sundance Institute. She identified and supported emerging Indigenous filmmakers and content creators across the United States and globally.

Maya is carrying this passion for artists into her role as Director - Program Weaver at First Peoples Fund. She will play a central role in integrating the programs of FPF to grow the Indigenous Arts Ecology.

Digesting the wealth of material that goes into the thought behind FPF’s programs, Maya realizes the depth of support the organization offers to Indian Country and looks forward to actualizing the vision of the FPF team and deepening their investment in the Indigneous Arts Ecology.

“As the Program Weaver Director, my goal is to weave all  programmatic strands to create a strong system of support through everything we’re doing so that all the programs and fellowships are representative of these different strands of work,” she says.

“What I love about the Indigenous Arts Ecology is how it’s grounded in community and ancestral knowledge. How do we grow and cultivate our creative arts landscape from there? That’s intriguing to me.”

For three years, Maya served as an Archivist and Grants Manager at the U.S. Department of Interior, Washington, DC, for the national Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Program. A board member of Vision Maker Media and the Cousin Collective, Maya has experience as a film curator, instructor, and trainer. She has a bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Film and a master’s degree in Moving Image Archive Studies, both from UCLA.

“What drives me now is the continued commitment to nurture and invest in our artists,” she says. “The modalities of that through First Peoples Fund is exciting. As Indigenous peoples, we’ve always been expressive and telling stories. But it’s the modality in which we do it that changes and makes us resilient as a people.”

Maya first encountered FPF through her work with Sundance. As part of their programming, she incorporated financial literacy training, which FPF provided. Maya went on to become an Arts Program Specialist with the California Arts Council, a position she most recently held prior to becoming FPF’s Program Weaver.

Maya will be working remotely from her home in Sacramento, where she resides with her husband Tyler and their rescue dog, Wally.

My parents were farmers, and my brother and I would work the horse-drawn plow. I had corn seeds in a pouch, and I would drop each seed behind him as he plowed the earth. I went right behind him and dropped the corn seeds as we went. I’ll never forget those experiences.

Arletta Toland (Diné) illustrated the story of her life through American Sign Language (ASL) during an IndigenousWays Virtual Event — Wisdom Circle, via Zoom. An ASL interpreter on a split-screen spoke the words of Arletta’s life of when she hauled water on her family’s farm; then to the fever that took away her hearing; to growing up in boarding schools, foster homes, and her parent’s farm; to now, her life on the Navajo Reservation as a deaf Indigenous woman. Arletta was among dozens of elders who shared wisdom through a bi-weekly series hosted by IndigenousWays.

IndigenousWays (formally Indigenous Solutions) was founded in 2007 by Natasha Terry (Diné/French/Irish) and Elena Higgins (Maori/Samoa). The nonprofit is dedicated to inclusively promoting to diverse communities living in balance concepts through music and artistic expression outreach and events.

IndigenousWays received a First Peoples Fund (FPF) Our Nations’ Spaces grant in 2020 with plans to use the funding to host their second BeautyWays Music and Arts Festival. But in mid-February, they wondered if the event would go on. When the COVID-19 shutdown came in March, they pivoted their plans and started a bi-weekly virtual series. Through the IndigenousWays Virtual Events — Wisdom Circle and Concert Series, they worked with elders, spiritual advisers, communities, artists, musicians, and guest presenters to maintain connections.

“Amber Hoy and Hillary Presecan at First Peoples Fund were extremely supportive,” Natasha says. “We had regular meetings, troubleshooting the online aspects, as we had never done this. We were working month to month, sorting and getting out the monthly calendar of the presenters and their information, updating our website and all our social media pages. This is how we have worked in the past, but not at this insane velocity!”

Natasha and Elena launched the Wisdom Circle and Concert Series on April 1. They continued to dig deep daily to produce two newsletters per week and promote on social media.

They took in feedback and worked with First Peoples Fund to make each week. Now 60 presenters and 60,000 views into the series, they’ve developed a format that respects the presenters and their time, honors the land and people of the land, and informs viewers of other IndigenousWays happenings, including relief for Black Mountain, Arizona on the Navajo Nation.

Hit hard during the COVID-19 crisis, Natasha’s home-place of Black Mountain received $25,000 through IndigenousWays’ fundraising. Since the end of May, they have conducted four relief runs to take emergency supplies and hand-washing stations to communities.

“Because of this platform, we’ve been able to bring relief to Black Mountain,” Natasha says. “We’re going on our fifth relief run, 26 miles up a mountain dirt road.”

The Concert Series presenters — musicians and performers — are thankful for the paid opportunity to present their art. Among the hardest hit by the shutdown, performing artists come online to present poetry, music, and storytelling.

“With the [Our Nations’ Spaces] funding, we’re able to pay all presenters and interpreters,” Natasha says. “They [have] made clear their gratitude of being supported during this time.”

One of the largest audiences reached in this series is the deaf and hard of hearing. Every event is teamed with ASL interpreters to make access available for all, and IndigenousWays introduces a deaf Indigenous elder like Arletta every month.  

“We do a split-screen for the interpreter to be on the other half of the screen,” Natasha says. She is also an ASL interpreter and understands the challenges of live streaming. “It’s very accessible visually.”

Having an ASL interpreter for his performance during the series stands out in Wade Fernandez’s (Menominee) memory. Wade is an FPF Cultural Capital Fellow (2015), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow (2012, 2013), Community Spirit Award Honoree (2010), and FPF trainer. He now does 3-4 live streams per week for several venues — doing his part to bring hope.

“It’s like the [ASL] interpreters are part of the art,” he says. “They’re flowing with the music and the words. You’re doing the music, but they’re part of it; they’re jamming with you. I’m glad to be in the series because it’s reaching people that aren’t reached in other ways. That’s such a beautiful point of what IndigenousWays is doing.”

At the end of each virtual event, Natasha or Elena welcome the audience to turn on their mics and cameras to check in.

“Inviting people on is so well-received,” Natasha says. “It allows people the opportunity to be seen, heard, valued, and to have their lives witnessed during this time. Some people have questions for the presenters, and others just want to say ‘hi.’ According to feedback, our platform actually saved people from committing suicide. The intimacy of having people invited onto the platform at the end of the speaker session proved to be healing for a lot of people.”

As the global audience shaped the series, IndigenousWays decided to stream via Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Elders and performers continue to share their wisdom and art through the series while Natasha and Elena seek more funding for it and ongoing relief efforts on Black Mountain.

“IndigenousWays’ ability to transition very quickly has been made possible with the support from the Our Nations’ Spaces grant,” Elena says. “We want to give you all a huge shout out not only for blessing us with the funding but also for your spectacular support. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without your loving support.”

For this series, IndigenousWays also received assistance from the National Endowment of the Arts, National Endowment of Humanities, New Mexico Humanities Councils, NM Arts, Santa Fe City Arts Commission, and individual donors.

Virgil “Smoker” Marchand’s grandmother gave him the name “Spa Poole,” which means smokey or smoke in his Native language.

Smoker (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Arrow Lakes) is a 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipient. We are honoring our CSA recipients with stories each month through the end of the year.

Stationed in the grasslands near Beebe Springs Natural Area in Washington State, a young boy pulls salmon out of the creek; women dig for roots; a young girl puts meat on a drying rack while her mother tends salmon that is baking.

These are steel sculptures that Smoker created to put his peoples’ history and culture as “People of the River” back on the land. This iconic scene — and more — are striking in their size, beauty, and realism.

Graduating from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1971, Smoker tried several art mediums to tell his peoples’ story. In the 70s, he illustrated the legends and coyote stories of his tribe. In the 90s, he illustrated the book, A River Lost. He’s done paintings of numerous tribal people, bronzes, ice carving, and wood carving. A tribal elder described his work as “Bringing our people home.”

“I never limited myself to one thing, but the steelwork was hands down my favorite,”

“I never limited myself to one thing, but the steelwork was hands down my favorite,” Smoker says. “When you’re doing paintings and the like, you have to do what sells, so you’re not always doing pieces you want to do. Soon, you get bored because you want to do your own stuff. I never had that with steel because I was capturing the history and culture of my people throughout Washington state, and I loved it.”

Smoker’s uncle mentored him in making stunning sculptures that now grace public places — from the tribe’s Veterans Memorial that Smoker designed and crafted in 1986 to Bigfoot on US Highway 155 above a rock outcropping. His work is recognized throughout the state.

But the enormous pieces Smoker once produced at five or six per year took a toll on his body. Healthwise, he cannot do the steelwork at the level he once did, so Smoker is searching for an alternative as he scales back his projects. He’s making plans to incorporate a tabletop machine that will allow him to make root diggers, engrave headstones, and generally build an inventory he wasn’t able to before.

“During our root season, we go out with the elders, have a feast, and do root digging. I’ve done life-sized root diggers in steel,” he says. “Those are cool but hard to do. With the tabletop machine, I can do smaller pieces. I do an elderly woman digging a root. On the stand is a feather with my signature, and people can put it on their desk.”

Though it will be hard to watch a machine work with the steel, it allows Smoker to continue his love for steel that has earned him national recognition.

His friend Kenneth “Butch” Stanger (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), who has known Smoker for 60 years, nominated him for the First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award (CSA).

“Smoker may be local to us, but his talent should be shared with the entire country,” Butch says. “He has done many paintings of our people, tribal leaders — art that depicts our culture and traditions. Everyone deserves a chance to experience Smoker’s art.”

Throughout his art career, Smoker has garnered praise, including winning at a major art show in North Dakota. But he never had full confidence as an artist. The national recognition given to him and his work through the CSA bolstered him.

“You go throughout life wondering if you’re good enough,” he says. “I think artists are like that, wondering where they fit. First Peoples Fund supports them. The award went out there, and people saw my work. I received so many great comments about how beautiful the sculptures are, that they’ve never seen anything like them. It was humbling to have people appreciate my work. Locally, everyone does. But you always wonder what it’s like on the outside.”

Another Community Spirit Award honoree (2000), Elaine Timentwa Emerson (Colville Confederated Tribes), is one of Smoker’s mentors. Elaine suffered great tragedy on the Colville Indian Reservation when the September wildfire swept through and burned her home. She was able to save some of her precious handwoven baskets.

Smoker is assisting Elaine and countless families in the community in his new role as a tribal council member.

“She’s a tough woman,” he says. “When I do projects, I talk to her a lot. She’s been nothing but supportive and helps me with the Indian names of different areas. She’s really a dictionary and gives me information as far as how people lived. We had areas of common ground like Kettle Falls, where tribes gathered. We did things alike, but there were differences, like the languages and some with how they dressed.”

COVID-19 and the devastating fire has Smoker putting his art aside for a time. But his community work remains vast. He donates art pieces to local charities and has done wood burnings on some 400 caskets over the years for families suffering the loss of a loved one.

“His work brings pride to our elders and young people too,”

“His work brings pride to our elders and young people too,” Butch says. “Smoker welded the mascot for one of our local schools, and you should have seen the pride in the faces of our students who know him. It demonstrates that anyone can finetune their gift and make a difference in other’s lives.”

Bernadette “Pelena” Keeling (Native Hawaiian) has been a hula olapa (dancer) for over 30 years. She comes from a hālau (school or group) that has won multiple awards in the competition of hula, and has travelled the world. She uniki (graduated) from her hālau, Na Lei o Kaholoku, in 2012. She has taught youth for the past 7 years, focusing on identity, self-esteem, and confidence using hula.

Pelena is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow residing in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i.

High in the mountains, Pelena instructs her students in a slow squat as they lower their bodies to the earth rather than bending. The movements are purposeful, not only strengthening their bodies for hula but planting another piece of life in their agroforestry project.

Agroforestry is intentionally integrating trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits.

“We’re teaching the kids to grow our own food supply,” Pelena says. “This is where we use hula, too. They have to balance on the land because of the rough terrain. When they plant, we make them squat versus bending over. It’s good for your back, and it also gets them in shape for when we start hula.”

From the plot of land, Pelena and the students look over the ocean far below. Pelena takes them down there as an extension of their agroforestry and hula preparation.

“What is growing natively on the land is growing in the ocean as well,” she says. “We have to teach them how to take care of the ocean because that’s like our refrigerator.”

Pelena has the youth sit in the waves to absorb the ocean’s movement.

“When the current naturally moves you, you feel how easy it flows,” she says. “We tell them to watch the seaweed on the rocks, look at how the ocean goes out and in, and how soft it looks. That is how we want them to flow. That complements how you move with the land and strengthens your legs enough to walk through or plant the land. That’s how you hula, the foundation of where your strength comes from.”

So far, Pelena has 15 youth taking part in the project. But many more parents are asking for the opportunity to have their kids involved in a constructive social activity that connects them with their Hawaiian heritage and homeland during COVID-19.

“If we can get the kids out and doing farm work and hula on the land, get them doing outreach in the community, it allows them to still be kids,”

Once the current plot is finished, they will move on to a 17-acre parcel to transform it with agroforestry — all through the movements of hula.

I’ve literally surrounded myself with the things I want to do and that make me happy. I am able to sit down and create art, whether it be music, visuals, clothing, or editing. My apartment has an art space in every corner.”

Born and raised in Red Rock, New Mexico, Aveda Adara (Dine’/Navajo) is a trans, queer, two-spirit artist. Growing up among artists in her family, Aveda has always had the spirit of art and survival inside of her.

“My grandmother used to make turtles out of beads and leather. And many of my relatives are silversmiths who made jewelry. They always had the means to make something to help them survive. And they were always artistic.”

She is very much the same. “We were dirt poor. So I got used to using whatever I had to make something out of it.” Aveda started altering clothing when she was around 12 years old and started drawing and painting in high school. And she always performed. Today, she lives in Houston, Texas, where she moved ten years ago upon the recommendation of a friend who told her it was easier to get a job there because of the oil industry. She was seeking a new start and a pathway to beat her addictions. At first it was hard for her; she was homeless. But once she started meeting people in the Houston art scene who were really helpful and supportive, Aveda gained a foothold.

“I’m the type of person who needs to have more than one thing to do.”

Aveda truly embodies that variety and versatility as a visual and performing artist. She’s a painter, she hosts a podcast, and is a DJ. And now 10 years later after first arriving in Texas, she is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellow.

“The fellowship has been life-changing for me. A year ago, I had so many things that I wanted to accomplish and so many things that I wanted to do. The fellowship made all that happen. I’ve learned many of the things that I have wanted to learn, including how to edit film and how to edit music using real music software. I didn’t think I would be where I am now.”

Prior to the fellowship, Aveda was DJing at art shows which eventually led to mini-festivals, virtual shows and clubs. But the work was sporadic because she couldn’t afford her own equipment. This year, due to limited in-person opportunities, Aveda records her deejay sets using a green screen and posts them on SoundCloud and YouTube. “I’m definitely making my name as the only American Indian DJ in The Deep South.”

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Over the years, Aveda received inspiration from some of the most unlikely people. “My mother was an alcoholic and she would bring around the most bizarre people. They were the nicest most caring people, but they had addiction issues. Yet some of them were able to turn their lives around, and that inspired me.”

About five years ago Aveda was interviewed on a podcast and by the time it was over the host suggested that she should start her own. So that planted a seed.

For the past two years Aveda has hosted a podcast, The Two Spirit Podcast. Produced monthly, the podcast is geared toward “grasping concepts of inspiration” – a common and recurring thread in Aveda’s life.

“I was always fortunate to have a family that accepted me and allowed me to be who I wanted to be.

“I was always fortunate to have a family that accepted me and allowed me to be who I wanted to be. That enabled me to grow artistically. I've had so many people reach out to me this past year than ever before, telling me how much of an effect I have on them as a two-spirit person and as an artist -- that my art is healing to them, and they are glad I am making my art to show the rest of the world that a Native artist is among them.”

As for what’s next for Aveda, she wants to start making music and eventually become a music producer for other Native artists. And she’s already drawing inspiration from 2019 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow, Talon Bazille Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe) who is a poet, rapper, musician, music producer, and performing artist. “He’s kind of like a big brother to me.”

Although all of the programming for the fellowship this year has been virtual, being a part of something with other artists from many other tribes has been really special for Aveda. “Thanks for taking a chance on me. It set my life in a whole different direction from where it was a year ago. I’m really excited about what the future holds for me, and for everybody else.”

This month, we welcome back a team member to First Peoples Fund’s (FPF) staff — Anna Huntington. Her  abundant passion, experience, and knowledge will contribute to FPF’s mission to uplift Native artists and culture bearers in these challenging times.

Meet Anna Huntington

Grants and Individual Giving Manager

As a two-time Olympic rower and bronze medalist, Anna joined the first all-women team to compete in the America’s Cup in a time when women’s sports were beginning to gain mainstream attention. Anna penned a book, Making Waves, that chronicles her experience.

“I was an athlete my entire life, a competitive swimmer from the age of seven through college,” she says. “I joined the rowing team in college and ended up competing in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. You often hear about the sacrifices people make in order to go to the Olympics, but I honestly felt so fortunate. I would wake up excited to go and row every day.”

Years of dedication to her sport, being a team player, and writing are skills Anna brings to her position as Grants and Individual Giving Manager at FPF. This new and exciting role will expand FPF’s efforts to bring in individual donors. The hybrid position reflects FPF’s need to fill the grant writing/grants management role and add specific individual giving responsibilities as we move toward diversifying our revenue sources.

Anna previously served as First Peoples Fund’s Development Director for three and a half years and has been working with us since early this year to raise significant foundation funding. She also worked for the Women's Foundation of Minnesota and as executive director of Arts Rapid City. Anna has a bachelor’s degree in English from Harvard University and master’s in Journalism from Columbia University. Her freelance journalism about women’s sports appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times to Glamour.

“We’re delighted to have Anna back on staff,” says Sonya Gavin (Diné), First Peoples Fund’s VP of Advancement and Communications. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with her since I joined First Peoples Fund earlier this year. And in this new position, she has hit the ground running with her knowledge of First Peoples Fund’s programs, grants portfolio and strategic framework. We appreciate and deeply value her writing experience and the work ethic she gained as an athlete. She will contribute greatly to growing our resources for our community of culture bearers & artists and the Indigenous Arts Ecology.”

“As an athlete, you have your goals and your single-minded plans for reaching them, and you get up every day and make it happen,”

“As an athlete, you have your goals and your single-minded plans for reaching them, and you get up every day and make it happen,” Anna says. “I learned a degree of focus and concentration from having to practice that for all those years.”

Anna is working remotely from her home in Minneapolis, the home base for her family. She and her husband, Stewart, raised two children. Their son is working his dream job teaching in Colorado while their daughter has picked up rowing in college.

Anna’s own love for the water and being a team player hasn’t faded.

“I love the team at First Peoples Fund,” she says. “Feeling a part of this group of committed people is inspiring. I always enjoy leaning in with a group of people, knowing that I’m bringing my best to benefit the team.”

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Tiana Spotted Thunder is an Oglala Lakota recording artist from Oglala, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She is a vocalist of many genres but specializes in traditional round dance, powwow, and hand game songs. She travels throughout North America to powwows as a backup singer for drum groups and performs solo for powwow audiences. Her vocal abilities range from a soft serenade to an empowering hail, soaring above in a unique way that reveals the pride of her identity as a Lakota woman.

Tiana stood beside the magnificent rock formation, Stone Mother, on Pyramid Lake — a sacred place to the Paiute people. The calm waters reflected the pink and teal of the sky at sunset. Tiana began to sing a prayer song for her father. Her cousin, Wakan Waci Blindman (Paiute), recorded the moment.

Tiana's até (father), Charles Warren, is her inspiration to sing. He was a singer at powwows and for sun dances in his time, and when she was young, he recorded songs for her to learn.

"He gave me my Lakota name from a vision he had which predicted that I would sing (Tasiyagmuka Ho Waste Win, 'Good Voice Meadowlark Woman')."

"He's always been my number one fan," Tiana says. "He gave me my Lakota name from a vision he had which predicted that I would sing (Tasiyagmuka Ho Waste Win, 'Good Voice Meadowlark Woman')."

That moment at Pyramid Lake, on the day before Tiana's birthday, came a month after her father's passing.

When her dad had gone into home hospice care with cancer, Tiana drove from Montana to Nebraska to stay with him. On the way, she composed a song that told of his life. She sang it over and over on the way down.

"I asked if he liked the song, and if it could be his song," she says. "And he agreed."

That time, and song, is making its way onto Tiana's next album, supported by her 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellowship. Tiana had planned to finish the album earlier this year, but with most of her singing career on pause and her father's illness, the project was delayed.

But she knew it was still on the right timing when, a few days after her dad's passing, she took a break from a sweat lodge to make a call, and a bird landed behind her. It looked at her and allowed her to pet then pick it up. She realized it was a female meadowlark, inspiring an idea for the cover art on her album.

"It helped me release built-up grief I was carrying," Tiana says. "That was a blessing in itself because if I had rushed this album and gotten it out at the beginning of the year, I wouldn't have had all this to make my album so much more meaningful."

Her purpose with this album is to promote cultural pride and the Lakota language. Through the project, the strength of Tiana's spirit and voice will echo over Pyramid Lake long after her singing the prayer song for her father.

Her Pomo name is Pikha-bthum-day, which means “basket-flowerwoman.”

This is who Corine Pearce (Redwood Valley Rancheria Little River Band of Pomo Indians) is and what she does.

Corine is a 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipient. We are honoring our CSA recipients with stories each month through the end of the year.

Feeling to make certain the sliver of sedge root was flat and even, Corine rubbed her tongue over the material clenched between her teeth. The hardest part of the tiny basket was the very first knot. Once she had it going, it looked like a spider. Patiently, Corine worked the material, using a miniature elderberry wood-handled awl a friend made her to pierce the material. She used a beading needle to weave the basket small enough to fit on a dime.

Corine has done basketry weaving for 30 years and has gained speed with decades of practice preparing material and weaving. In the last two years, she put extra effort into regrowing material lost in the recent  California fires.

“I work with many different species of hand-tended, hand-collected and hand-processed local plants,”

“I work with many different species of hand-tended, hand-collected and hand-processed local plants,” she says, “including willow, redbud, sedge, tule, cattails, and dogwood; materials that are impossible to procure from a store, and are culturally and geographically specific. I source all my raw materials by harvesting and tending individual trees, grasses, ferns, bulrushes, and other plants and their habitats within my ancestors’ land base. In nature, these species don’t grow perfectly for basketry. They require training.”

Corine resides in Mendocino County in the center of several “tribelets” that come together for community support, spiritual practice, and ceremony. She is one of the only traditional basketry teachers in her area, which spans three counties, covering over seven thousand square miles. The Redwood Valley Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, where she lives, contains 30 acres of usable land with 30 houses, an education building, tribal administration building, and her basketry garden.

Receiving a 2020 Community Spirit Award (CSA) touched Corine, acknowledging that her work is critical and encouraged her to keep on. She recently hosted a group from a neighboring Rancheria for a willow harvesting class. She was impacted by the story of one woman struggling with mental health and expressed how the class was the only thing the woman had to look forward to.

“I told my mom, and I started crying,” Corine said. “I keep getting signs that this is the right path. We’re doing the right thing.”

Two years ago, Corine was asked to participate in the local school system’s cultural program and then asked to take it over. Once she was in charge of the program, it went from two schools to all five elementary schools and the high school. She cherishes the opportunity to normalize Pomo culture for Native and non-Native students.

This year, she has done virtual show-and-tell sessions for the students. In one class of 5th graders, Corine was struck with a sudden realization.

“It was on that same weekend, when I was nine years old, that I learned about basketry,” she recalls. “I made my first willow basket when my teacher took us on a camping trip in the Marin Headlands. An Ohlone park ranger showed us baskets and taught us a little bit of how to weave. Then, 35 years later, I’m teaching nine-year-olds about basketry on the same weekend.”

Corine learned to weave by trial and error and from studying family and museum artifacts, traveling the country to find Pomo baskets held in private collections. She discovered a quote from 1580 made by a Russian describing the beauty and intricacy of beadwork on Pomo baskets. The Pomo people made their beads from clam shells then. During the California gold rush days, there was something known as the “basket rush.” When people found there wasn’t much gold, they decided to remain in California and build a life there. A part of that life was collecting beautiful and intricate Pomo baskets. That craze spread with prominent families from the East Coast collecting baskets.

Pomo basketry became a source of pride as the Pomo people perfected every weave and size. The largest known Pomo basket can hold four women standing. The tiniest is held at the Sutter’s Fort Museum in Sacramento, displayed next to a grain of rice. The design is only visible with a magnifying glass.

Along with miniature cradle baskets, Corine makes full-size ones the month a baby is due and is always booked months in advance. When her 15-year-old daughter expressed interest in making a cradle basket for her mentor, Corine was amazed at how naturally her daughter took to weaving. But then, she has watched Corine make baskets all of her life and helped her harvest materials.

Corine’s Rancheria is currently surrounded by fire and is on evacuation watch, but she continues to weave and teach. This month, she and fellow weavers launched a Pomo Basket Weavers Circle. She is also starting a virtual apprenticeship class where she put together kits to send out to create a weave-along experience.

“I’m always driven to perfect what I do because it honors the skill of my ancestors to try to do what they could do.”

“My goal for the new year is to encourage new weavers,” Corine says. “I’m always driven to perfect what I do because it honors the skill of my ancestors to try to do what they could do.”

Corine’s older sister, Jacqueline Graumann (Redwood Valley Little River Band of Pomo Indians), nominated her for the CSA.

“Corine feels it is her duty to volunteer as much time as it takes to ensure that the Pomo basket weaving tradition does not die,” Jacqueline says. “She has practiced and shares her knowledge of Pomo history, traditional dancing, and basket making with at least three generations of local California tribes. Corine is a blessing to our tribe, our community, her students, and our communities’ future.”

"Weaving heals us as a tribe because most people in my tribe have no baskets. We are reclaiming our culture through our basketry."

“When I read the recommendation letters that people wrote, it made me cry,” Corine says. “I thought, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you were thinking that.’ It meant a lot to me to be validated in that way. Earlier in the year, I was still trying to plan my CSA honoring. I talked to everyone, and they said, ‘Of course we’ll come. Everybody will be there. This is important.’ That was great to hear. Weaving heals us as a tribe because most people in my tribe have no baskets. We are reclaiming our culture through our basketry.”

Dennis M. Williams (White Earth Nation-Pillager Band of Ojibwe) is an artist that works in several mediums that involve the modern-day powwow. Dennis does grass dancing, chicken dancing, oratory stories, beading, and regalia making. He founded a dance troupe, “Naamijig” (The Ones Who Dance). He is a 2020 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artist in Business Leadership fellow, residing in Little Cormorant near Audubon, Minnesota.

Dennis handed over the shoebox for his auntie, Ivy Ailport (White Earth Nation-Pillager Band of Ojibwe), to peer inside and see his work, a pair of fully beaded moccasins. She gasped in pleasure and said, “Oh, nephew, you have a fancy style. I love your fancy style. Don’t ever change it.”

Since that day, Dennis has kept his style of beadwork in regalia-making for others in the powwow world, but foremost, his own family. His dance troupe, Naamijig, is comprised of primarily his family. Dennis beads most of their regalia while his wife, Dana Goodwin, sews the pieces.

From the beginning, I wanted the dance troupe to help educate people about our beautiful culture through song and dance.”

“We were going to contest powwows in the mid-2000s when I was asked to do a dance exhibition for the White Earth Early Childhood program,” Dennis says. “My family and I agreed to perform for them, and that was the start of ‘Naamijig.’ From the beginning, I wanted the dance troupe to help educate people about our beautiful culture through song and dance.”

Dennis is pursuing a degree in Art Education at Minnesota State University Moorhead. That is on hold until the COVID-19 crisis has passed, but he isn’t slowing down. People want Dennis to make regalia for them, and he hopes to expand his bead working into a career, along with other art mediums.

“I like to mix traditional and contemporary materials to create my work,” he says. “This can be anything from leather, velvet, ribbon, fabric, fur, bone, cut beads, rhinestones, mirrors, paint, dye, metal, laser etching, and computer design.”

His latest work was for his daughter’s wedding. Dennis made her a pair of pucker-toe moccasins with floral design, and a matching set of earrings, barrette, and a fully beaded bowtie for the groom, made in colors to match their wedding.

When Dennis’s auntie passed, he and his wife adopted his auntie’s daughter into the family and are also caring for his sister’s five girls. With Dennis and Dana’s twins at home, there are ten in their household. Dennis’s art career is continuing with help from his FPF fellowship and the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator, an FPF Indigenous Arts Ecology grantee. Gizhiigin supports his work in multiple ways, including professional photography of his pieces and connecting him with international press. The dance troupe and Dennis’ fancy-style art are becoming a recognized brand.

“I will never forget my auntie’s traditional teachings she gave me and her approval to also let me be contemporary with my art.”

As a versatile Textile Artist, TahNibaa Naataanii (Navajo) creates weavings and hand felted products between the earth and sky. She is a 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipient. We are honoring our CSA recipients with stories each month through the end of the year.

Under the shade of an aspen tree, TahNibaa watched her sheep graze in a patch of lush green grass in the Chuska Mountains. She had taken them out at 8:00 am from the corral near the cabin where she and her family spend summers for traditional rotational grazing. TahNibaa herded them up the mountain, carrying her lunch, water, and gun in case of cougars or timberwolves. Sometimes she takes a knitting project, her journal, or an article to read. And sometimes, she sits and observes nature around her, the air scented with Ponderosa pines.

“It’s like a university, a wealth of knowledge when you get out into the environment,” TahNibaa says. “It’s another life up there.”

As a 5th generation Navajo weaver, TahNibaa received a 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award (CSA) through First Peoples Fund. Dr. Robert Hill, Professor Emeritus of the University of Georgia, nominated her for the award.

“She is a community animator, art-practitioner, and cultural ambassador."

“Tahnibaa stands out as a quintessential model of someone who carries, and thus diffuses, cultural values and traits,” Robert says. “She is a community animator, art-practitioner, and cultural ambassador. Tahnibaa’s life dedication to weaving has taken her to the four corners of the globe. In 2014, she shared knowledge and exchanged practices in Laos in a project of Three Generations of Cultural Exchange. Her mother and her daughter were participants. In 2017, she participated in a Japanese Weaving Guild Workshop [in Japan] as an honored guest. In 2018, Tahnibaa was a guest in Croatia participating in a project, Woven Messages, sponsored by the Croatian-American Art Society.”

As a young girl, her paternal grandmother gave TahNibaa her Navajo name: TahNibaa Atlo’igii — ‘TahNibaa the Weaver.’

"I began experimenting with weaving patterns, each one liberating my creativity to step into another creative path. Today, I am exploring color and design elements.”

“When I was seven years of age, I came home from school and my mother, Sarah H. Natani, had a loom set up for me and said, ‘Today you are going to learn how to weave,’” TahNibaa recalls. “I started with simple designs and gradually began to do complex patterns. After high school, I joined the U.S. Navy, and my weaving ceased momentarily. After my active duty tour, I began weaving once again, but this time it was different. I began experimenting with weaving patterns, each one liberating my creativity to step into another creative path. Today, I am exploring color and design elements.”

Being a sheep rancher like her parents and grandparents is an art form itself — paying attention to the grass forage to ensure her heritage breed sheep, the Navajo Churro, eat well while learning their behaviors daily. Few people ranch the way TahNibaa does, following the traditional rotational pattern of taking the sheep away from the desert heat and into the mountains each summer. It’s challenging and consuming work, but the only way TahNibaa would do it.

It is how she is teaching her daughter, Winter Rose, who went up in the mountains with TahNibaa to search for what Winter Rose dubbed “patches of paradise.” Sometimes TahNibaa’s grandfather is with the sheep, sometimes her mother throughout the summer.

“As I started walking the Chuska Mountains more and more over the past ten years, I got familiar with the land,” TahNibaa says. “I take the sheep to different areas. Sometimes they get spooked by a fallen branch or a porcupine or a deer, and they’ll take off. If you know the mountain, you can take shortcuts to get to where they’re headed if they outrun you. As a pastoralist, you have to walk with your sheep and know them. That’s the part I like.”

Raising Navajo Churro sheep and shearing them is the first piece of TahNibaa’s process for weaving. She washes the wool, cards, hand spins, and dyes the wool if necessary. She does her weaving on a traditional upright vertical loom.

The warping is a figure-eight technique with designs created using vertical interlock, dovetail stacking, and diagonal stair-step. She explores “wrapping” around the warp technique, creating texture. The warp/weft material combines organic fibers: sheep, goat, buffalo, silk, hemp, rabbit fur, and feathers. She also spins novelty yarn that incorporates beads, feathers, assorted color wool, and silk.

“My fingers get sore when weaving, as does my wrist,” she says. “But my mind seems to be beautifully guided as I lay down the different strands of weft. I often weave a story that will educate our community. I wove a pictorial weaving based on the ‘Navajo Code Talker’ theme that now resides in the collection of the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe. This knowledge of knowing our military and U.S. history strengthens our community, providing pride in who we are as a people.”

TahNibaa selects a special Navajo Churro ram to breed her sheep every 2 to 3 years to ensure wool quality, and provides meat for her family, ensuring their food source even in a crisis. She manages a herd of 16 - 26, about a fifth of the size of herds from times past.

“Because the land is so barren, we have to manage them in that way,” she explains. “I believe I’ve become an example for my community that I can downsize my flock, yet still be very traditional and continue the weaving traditions.”

As Fall approaches, TahNibaa is bringing her sheep down from the mountain where they will enjoy sweet corn treats and winter at Table Mesa on ancestral lands in the Sanostee community where she has a house. Next summer, TahNibaa will make the trek again to the Chuska Mountains, a two and half hour drive.

“As a matriarch in my small community, and as a person having livestock as my grandmothers and my grandfathers did before me, the Community Spirit Award affirmed that I am walking a very sacred path,”

“As a matriarch in my small community, and as a person having livestock as my grandmothers and my grandfathers did before me, the Community Spirit Award affirmed that I am walking a very sacred path,” she says. “The responsibility I have as a sheep rancher has been a rough road. Even though this pandemic happened, we still have to keep going. I couldn’t say, ‘We can’t go to the mountains.’ When June came, we took the sheep up. I get so close to wanting to put my hat down and say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ But being recognized and telling my story to First Peoples Fund helped affirm that this lifeway is important to keep.”