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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Angie Main, NACDC Executive Director

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NATIVE SUPERMAN.

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

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

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

#KEEPPUSHING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cover image courtesy of Youth Speaks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music by Raye Zaragoza

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

MEET RON MARTINEZ LOOKING ELK

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

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

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

Q&A

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

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

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

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

All of my grandparents:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Richard Higgs (Public Radio Tulsa).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Anna Brown Ehlers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"REZILIENCE" OPEN MIC SERIES

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

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

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

— Marcus Red Shirt, Dances with Words Poet

TIOSPAYE BUILDING

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

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

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

BRAVE NEW VOICES

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

MEET THE 2017 DANCES WITH WORDS TEAM

Cetan Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Lakota, from Kyle)

Ohitika Locke (Hunkpapa Lakota, from Standing Rock)

Marcus Red Shirt (Oglala Lakota, from Allen)

Senri Primak (Oglala Lakota, from No Flesh)

Rose Little Whiteman (Oglala Lakota, from Kyle)

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

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

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

— Rose Little Whiteman, Dances with Words Poet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The art of re-membering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LAREE'S STORY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‍FIRST PEOPLES FUND AND THE FUTURE OF DANCES WITH WORDS™

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

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

GOING HOME

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

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

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

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

Through this series, we highlight the extraordinary people who serve as First Peoples Fund’s board of directors. They are the culture bearers and leaders from national nonprofits within and beyond Indian Country who graciously guide First Peoples Fund and strengthen the Collective Spirit®.

MEET BIRD RUNNINGWATER

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

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

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

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

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

Q&A

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

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

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

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

How did you come to know about First Peoples Fund?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you wish people knew about First Peoples Fund?

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

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

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