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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.”

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.”

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.

Marcella Hadden (Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe) is an Anishinaabe artist and business owner in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, specializing in Native American portraits, nature photography, and descriptive imagery. She is a self-taught photographer who owns and operates a photography business Niibing Giizis (Summer Moon), in addition to her full-time job as the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan’s Public Relations Manager.

In her photography studio, she offers specialty services in newborn, boudoir, pets, maternity, seniors, and holiday portraiture.

Marcella is currently raising her granddaughter, who she mentors in photography, and is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow.

Marcella carefully positioned the tiny newborn Connie on her back, getting her in just the right position before snapping a photograph that will last a lifetime. Newborn sessions are often Marcella’s most challenging, but not so with little Connie. The foster baby was perfect in every pose. Connie’s guardian still brings her in for Marcella’s special sessions, from Easter to Christmas.

The challenge in photographing Connie for her second birthday came with Marcella’s newly acquired skill in white box photography. It’s quite a job.

“I had the box made for $500,” she explains. “I shoot different images inside the box, and then put all of them together. It looks like people are interacting, but it’s really just one person in one box. That was a very difficult learning curve! You have to work through all the layers. I bought the templates and forced myself to do it.”

2-year-old Connie was the perfect model for Marcella to exhibit the trendy box photography style.

Most of Marcella’s shoots this year have been outdoors (due to COVID-19), including the porch shoots where she captured families outside their homes for sessions similar to if they had come into her studio. She was also asked by her tribe to document a parade of elders being honored in her community. She has an exhibit at the cultural center on Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) with portraits of 94 local women.

“For so many years, our beautiful culture had to be hidden; now through my art, I celebrate it,”

“For so many years, our beautiful culture had to be hidden; now through my art, I celebrate it,” Marcella says. “I love going to powwows and community events and sharing my photos with the community. I can take a photograph and in an instant, make a legacy that will last for future generations. I have seen my clients cry at the beauty of a loved one during my photo slideshows. If I can provoke emotions such as tears, a smile, or pure delight, I know I have done my job.”

Banner image: The kahikolu of the MAMo Wearable Art Show: PA'I Foundation's Executive Director and the MAMo Wearable Art Show's Producer and co-emcee, Kumu Hula Vicky Holt Takamine, co-emcee and voluntold entertainer, Kumu Hula Robert Uluwehi Cazimero, and Stage Manager, Kumu Hula Michael Pili Pang.

Native artists who are part of one of First Peoples Fund’s (FPF) Indigenous Arts Ecology (IAE) projects are surviving and thriving through support from FPF grantee, the PAʻI Foundation. Though several large events for Hawaiian artists were canceled due to the COVID-19 crisis, PAʻI has persevered and has plans for an ambitious Fall 2020.

“Our main goal is to help support those artists who have enriched our lives,” says Vicky Holt Takamine (Native Hawaiian), Executive Director of the PAʻI Foundation. “They have given so much to our community through their art, songs, stories, and dances. We want them to know we appreciate everything they’ve given to us in the past.”

"They have given so much to our community through their art, songs, stories, and dances. We want them to know we appreciate everything they’ve given to us in the past.”

PAʻI is a longtime partner of First Peoples Fund and received a 2019 FPF Indigenous Arts Ecology grant. Through the program, they poured energy into preparing their artists for the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture that was to take place in June 2020. From creating bios to telling the stories of their pieces, Vicky wanted to ensure their artists were prepared to exhibit professionally. Though the event was canceled, she knows the training artists received will help them in the near future.

“We’re looking at strengthening our local artists by doing virtual events with our trainers, as well as offering one-on-one technical assistance sessions for some of the artists,” Vicky says.

For 14 years, PAʻI has held the annual MAMo: Maoli Arts Movement Wearable Art Show. This year, the show is taking on a new form with a one-hour TV broadcast and Facebook streaming program to exhibit past years of the fashion show.

Recent college graduates, all former hālau hula (school of Hawaiian dance) students of Vicky’s, came up with their own initiative to capture artists’ stories through interviews. The videos are going up on PAʻI’s Youtube channel, and clips will be incorporated into the fashion show broadcast.

One artist they interviewed was Kawika Lum-Nelmida (Native Hawaiian), hulu (feather) artist, who also studies historical photos and pieces dating back to when Hawaiian royalty wore feather work on their clothing. Kawika’s work is on display around the world. He began learning lei hulu from Paulette Kahalepuna in 1997 at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and hula from Vicky.

Kawika has worked the fashion show for years. “I’ve seen the different artists evolve and refine their work,” he says. “With the fashion shows, it’s given not just a local stage; it’s gained international recognition. Being in the show pushes the artists to be better every year.”

The fashion show has launched numerous Hawaiian artists, catapulting their businesses and lifeways into the mainstream. Vicky and her team hope for even more exposure through the fashion show airing on TV.

“Oftentimes, I think it’s about giving artists a leg up, which is what the work of First Peoples Fund and PAʻI do for our community,” Vicky says. “It’s recognizing talent and offering support to them. Give them a place to showcase their work, test their ideas, allow them to figure out what they want to do, let them flourish in their talent, and then provide a platform. We need to give artists the tools and the opportunity to grow.”

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Another major undertaking of PAʻI’s is creating a website where artists can exhibit their work. Many of them aren’t prepared to fully stock their own website. Most of their energy goes into creating single pieces that make it difficult to market. A central website will allow them to continue focusing on their art as cultural practitioners.

“The Indigenous Arts Ecology grant is filling the gap by providing a central location where artists can put their work and provide a worldwide web presence they would not be able to afford,” Vicky says.

“Technology can be a challenge for some of our artists,” says Kaʻiu Takamori (Native Hawaiian). She is a 2017-2018 Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) fellow, PAʻI Folk Arts Coordinator, and a certified FPF Native Artist Professional Development (NAPD) trainer. “In this climate, we need to help them accept and embrace technology so that they too have the same opportunities to market...especially on a global level. This all brings in to play some important [areas] tabs in the NAPD training, especially marketing and pricing.”

Kaʻiu underwent a mindset shift when the shutdown happened. Accustomed to at least one event per month, she is now pouring her energy into meeting their artists’ needs through online venues. She is keeping the PAʻI Foundation social media accounts active and using them to support their artists by reposting their merchandise. She started #MAMoMonday, where she pulls photos from shows and markets of the past and posts them. She directs their artists to resources like the FPF webinar trainings, and is also working on rolling out E Hoʻi Ke Aloha, a COVID-19 relief fund for artists.

After the TV broadcast of the unique fashion show, PAʻI will be partnering with the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to showcase Native Hawaiian artists through their “Arts Across America” online Facebook series. PAʻI is also collaborating with two other nonprofit organizations to bring hula workshops online for beginning and master classes.

All of these endeavors are building up to be a blowout Fall season that PAʻI hopes will give their artists the boost they need to maintain their lifeways.

Despite the challenges to their artists and the cancelation of their most significant events, Kaʻiu is taking heart in their people’s strengths.

“The most beautiful example of resilience I have seen through this crisis was on a Zoom meeting Aunty Vicky and I had with our artists,” she says. “To see that our artists are still creating even when the market is not there, fanned the flames within myself to want to do more for our artists. I saw them cheering each other on and networking about best practices. I usually see this during our markets, artists talking with each other during downtimes. However, to see them still doing it over this new Zoom platform touched my heart. It showed me that they didn’t lose themselves during this pandemic. Seeing this sense of community still alive has awed me to want to make sure that at the end of the day, I am giving all I can to serving my artists and my community.”

“This is a time we need artists to provide uplifting experiences, whether [it’s through] virtual events or posting new artwork,” Vicky says, “to know we are surviving.”

Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, interdisciplinary artist and poet, and author of several award-winning books. She is the owner of a small business, MehtaFor, a writing services company that offers pro bono services to Native American led/serving nonprofits.

She integrates technology, family archival photos, and performance art into many of her creative projects. She has undertaken poetry residencies with her work being featured at galleries and exhibitions around the world.

Jessica is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow, and a virtual Artists in Residency at Crazy Horse Memorial, preparing for her first commission with Artist Trust (Seattle) for next summer.

When people come out of Jessica’s virtual reality (VR) poetry experience, they all have the same expression — one of overwhelm at experiencing VR for the first time. But through this new technology, Jessica can introduce them to something else unique to them — Indigenous poetry. Her popup VR experience, “Red/Act,” exposes people to poetry in a fresh, accessible way.

Removing the barrier of intimidation around poetry is something Jessica teaches in classes, especially those for women in prison. It was in this place that an innovative form of poetry blossomed.

“I’m constantly looking for new ways to create while integrating immersion and technology into my practice."

Jessica created the antipode, a poem with roots in both reverse poetry and the palindrome, and can be read forward or backward word by word. Creating one is often more like piecing together a puzzle than writing poetry.

“I found that most participants were drawn towards the antipode because it broke down those walls of what they thought writing poetry should be,” Jessica says. “It gives you permission to play with language and make up your own rules in many ways. It permits us to have fun with language. When you’re writing in this strange way, you have to think, ‘How does it sound forward and backward?” Even then, your organic voice is there. I feel it gives us flexibility and permission to explore and make ‘mistakes,’ and see what’s there.”

Jessica’s journey as a poet continues to open pathways for people to embody poetry. When the COVID-19 shutdown happened right when Jessica opened her ‘emBODY poetry’ exhibition, she worked to get the VR experience online. Her YouTube video takes viewers through one of her poems that were on exhibit.The video was featured at the virtual International Human Rights Festival, typically held in Manhattan.

“My art is a form of healing and trauma management,” Jessica says. “I’m constantly looking for new ways to create while integrating immersion and technology into my practice. It takes a certain type of person to pick up a poetry book or attend a reading. However, performance poetry and VR have the power to attract more people to poetry.”

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.”

Banner image: Eagle Hat - acrylic on a hat woven by Judy Helgeson

Multimedia artist X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell (Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska) works in Indigenous language revitalization, Tlingit language teaching and curriculum, poetry, screenwriting, Northwest Coast design, fiction, nonfiction, critical theory, music, and film.

Having practiced traditional arts for twenty-two years, he now creates in electronic media using a tablet, then transfers the designs to wood, leather, fabric, woven hats, and other items that are often made into dance regalia. He shares his knowledge through community workshops, university classes, a YouTube channel, and blog.

A First Peoples Fund (FPF) Cultural Capital fellow, Lance owns and operates his multi-media company Troubled Raven from Juneau, Alaska, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Lance entered Nathan Jackson’s (Tlingit) workshop, a space filled with the fresh scent of wood shavings. Staying with an auntie while finishing his education at the University of Alaska Southeast in Ketchikan, Lance was right across the road from the workshop of this world-renowned artist.

Nathan Jackson, a 2000 FPF Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards honoree, has practiced art for almost sixty years and is recognized for his traditional wood carvings, metalwork, and sculptures. He has created over fifty totem poles, some of which are found in museums in North America, Asia, and Europe.

Nathan welcomed Lance into his workshop. It was the first of many times that Lance would sit in the workshop and sip coffee as they talked about life, culture, and what it means to be a professional artist. All the while, Nathan kept working.

“I would go over in the mornings and show him some of my artwork,” Lance says. “I was always blown away with how productive and professional he is. I talked to him 10 years ago about doing a mentorship program, and he was excited. My [FPF] fellowship is helping bring that into reality.”

In addition to the support from First Peoples Fund for the mentorship, Lance also received funding through the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

With the 2020 shutdown, he and Nathan have not met in person very much, relying mostly on video conferencing to push forward with the mentorship. This comes with challenges on both ends — Nathan doesn’t use technology much, and it’s hard for Lance to see the intricate details of what he’s working on.

Though it’s slowed down the flow of knowledge, Lance is still absorbing critical lessons from Nathan and plans to write a book about his mentor’s life and work.

Lance spends his own life creating and pushing himself to understand the masters of long ago through their art, language, story, and song. He’s developing skills in metalwork and engraving with Nathan’s guidance.

“In my artwork, writing, and music, I want anyone to be able to see it and tell that it is not a mass-produced foreign imitation,” Lance says, “that it is made by a person who is always seeking to improve on craft, space, symbology, and cultural knowledge.”

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Raised primarily in Colorado, Anna Kahalekulu (Native Hawaiian) is the daughter of a Hawaiian father and Caucasian mother. Her dad took the family home to Hawai’i often so they could reconnect. Hula was Anna’s first cultural art medium that she learned. In 2007, she moved home and settled on Maui, where she began learning fashion and traditional weaving.

Anna’s brand, Kūlua, made its debut in 2015 at the MAMo Wearable Art Show hosted by the PA’I Foundation. She has shown collections annually for five years in the Maui show and twice in Honolulu. Kūlua has part-time and full-time employees, seven wholesale accounts, a storefront, and an online shop.

Anna is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership (ABL) fellow and lives in Wailuku, Hawai’i, with her family.

“A garment isn’t fully finished until it comes to life as it is worn,”

At a Maui Arts & Cultural Center event, Anna was standing in line at the bar during intermission when a tall woman caught her attention by the confident way she carried herself. With a start, Anna realized the dress the woman was wearing was one of her own creations — a combination of fabric, texture, form, and flow. And now, movement.

“A garment isn’t fully finished until it comes to life as it is worn,” Anna says. “It’s always my aim that the woman who wears my creations will walk a little taller, feeling connected, grounded, and beautiful.”

Anna danced hula from a young age, but when she started a family of her own, hula took on a different role in her work in fashion. There is always a story behind her print designs and colors. They mirror what Anna learned through her hula life, telling her people’s stories through dance and music.

“Beyond that, there’s a larger context to the work that I’ve chosen to do,” she says. “It’s hugely important to have Hawaiians creating and making, then also being in public spaces and having storefronts. That brings products and bearing to the community because we not only exist within ourselves, but we exist in the larger society.”

The color story of Anna’s creations comes from an earthy palette. Even her brighter colors are subtle, never loud or bold. But they make people look twice, like Anna did herself when she saw the woman at the Cultural Center. The fabric designs are personal to Anna, but she leaves room for the wearer to define and express the final meaning themselves.

Banner image: Timeless Medicine (2020) Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger paper by Terran Last Gun.

Roaming dirt roads, paddling canoes, exploring the woods, and flinging water droplets in the Great Lakes,

‍Delina White’s (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe) SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) fashion show is vastly different in 2020. Her company, “I Am Anishinaabe,” first hit the runway last year at the 2019 Santa Fe Indian Market’s SWAIA Haute Couture Fashion Show.

She watched her creations showcased under dramatic lights and surrounded by theatre of music. This year, due to the COVID-19 shutdown, Delina, a 2020 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artists in Business Leadership fellow, had to get creative with how she would introduce audiences to her woodland floral Sunrise and Sunset Collections.

Now in it’s 99th year, Santa Fe Indian Market has been a long-standing tradition for nearly 1,000 Native artists and more than 100,000 visitors who annually travel to the small, northern New Mexico town known worldwide for its incredible arts scene and Southwestern beauty. Many of the artists spend a year preparing to showcase and sell their work, reconnect with old friends and gain access to art collectors and buyers from all over the world. For many, this is their highest earning artshow of the year. However, with the spread of COVID-19, the SWAIA leadership converted this much anticipated annual event to a virtual gathering, providing artists with a new, yet sometimes foreign opportunity to participate online. And this time for the entire month of August rather than just for the typical weekend that was always chock full of events including a curated art show, panel discussions, fashion show, auctions, receptions and an awards ceremony.

For the Virtual Fashion Show, Delina pulled together a full crew with cinematographer, hair and makeup artists, and models for a video shoot to present her art.

“We went to a swimming beach down the road from my house,” she says. “Everything was taken on the main road in my community, the Leech Lake Reservation. We went down to the beach, and there happened to be kids from the community swimming. I encouraged them to get in the video, start splashing, and have a good time. Each little vignette is just a couple seconds, but it gives you a good feeling.”

Delina has kept herself busy during this summer market season by developing her business infrastructure through setting up better accounting methods, adding social media links to her website and vice versa, sewing custom orders, and preparing for sales derived through her virtual SWAIA booth.

Terran Last Gun, a Piikani (Blackfeet) citizen and printmaker, is another 2020 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow breaking new ground with his efforts to go virtual.

“I’ve learned so much in terms of how to market myself online,” he says. “After I got laid off in March, I had to think quickly and creatively. I was sort of doing online marketing, but after I really started pushing it, that’s when the purchases started coming in. Free shipping helps, and also knowing your value and worth. How much are you charging for art? Does it work out to do free shipping?”

“I’ve constantly had to go back to the drawing board and think about the long run.”

— Terran Last Gun

Terran is staying busy fielding increased traffic to his website, mostly buyers who visited his virtual booth at the Indian Market. A resident of Santa Fe, this is his second time participating.

“It’s nice to know these new people have found me on SWAIA,” he says. “The person I delivered a work to locally was impressed with my website. That was good to hear.”

He also has solo shows going. The Lloyd Kiva New Gallery at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) booked him for an exhibit in August, leaving him with an ambitious 16 ledger pieces to create. Although the museum is closed, the store is open and allows people to visit and enjoy an exhibit.

The Old Ones Are Near (2020) - Ink and colored pencil on antique ledger paper by Terran Last Gun

Not all artists opted to participate and pay for a virtual booth at the 2020 Santa Fe Indian Market. Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota), 2017 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow, is hard at work maximizing every free and low-cost option for marketing his work. Since the pandemic started, he has plunged deep into digital marketing, creating his own virtual shows. He also presented a webinar for the “On the Road with Rolling Rez Arts” series, demonstrating how to matte and frame artwork.

“I’ve been doing a lot of social media, especially Instagram Live,” he says. “Each art show gets easier and easier. With social media being a free platform, why not take advantage of it?”

It took a few days for his live videos to spark interest, but people began responding with orders. Wade is now shipping his ledger art across the U.S. and into the U.K.

“I’ve done three virtual shows so far,” he says. “The third one, I got together with seven local artists. We met in Red Shirt Table (on the Pine Ridge Reservation) one afternoon to feature music and visual art. It was a good time. I’m just surviving as an artist and what we have to do in this virtual time.”

Wade set up a booth on Instagram Live to debut a new beaded cuff during the week he would have been in Santa Fe.

Jason Brown (Penobscot) is another artist who opted out of the virtual SWAIA experience. A 2016 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow, he and his wife own and operate a jewelry and fashion studio, Decontie & Brown.

“We are taking this opportunity to focus on some other areas of creativity that we normally would not have time to do,” Jason says. “Since the onset of the pandemic, we have been hosting our own live showcases, and they have been very popular!”

Technology and Internet access are significant issues for many Native artists, as they navigate the digital art show and marketing world. Theresa Secord (Penobscot), FPF Community Spirit Award honoree and Native Artist Professional Development trainer, expressed her thoughts in a recent Facebook post:

“I’ll miss being in the storied 99th Santa Fe Indian Market next weekend, though I’m thankful to SWAIA for the virtual market experience! I’m reminded, however, by a recent interview with another artist, how personal I think my work, my interactions/sales with collector friends and visitors [is] to my booth. They like to hold and smell my baskets with the beautiful aromas of sweet grass cedar bark and ash wood, ask questions, chit chat, and reconnect as friends, etc. It’s taking a little time to transition to thinking about my art pieces, lovingly crafted for hours, days, perhaps weeks - being clicked on, dropped into a shopping cart, and mailed off into space without any interaction at all. I’ve heard a number of people say, “Native artists need to get with the times and get with the technology.” Yet I just want to share there’s more to it...many facets involved in this digital transition. We should be patient with ourselves and others, as we continue to move into the e-commerce world and find our own places there. It’s definitely a process for me!”

“We’re all at different stages, needing to find our own spaces in the virtual market place. We should continue to be respectful of those who take their time getting there or who don’t ever go there.”

She added, “We’re all at different stages, needing to find our own spaces in the virtual market place. We should continue to be respectful of those who take their time getting there or who don’t ever go there.”

Theresa’s 1920 Replica Woven Glove Box won “Best of Basketry” at the 2020 Virtual Santa Fe Indian Market.

There are many unknowns still ahead for Native artists, but they are forging ahead with resilient spirits. Delina is already preparing for the 2021 SWAIA.

“Next year, I’ll automatically be accepted [due to this year’s cancellations],” she says. “I guess that’s a positive thing that happened even though it was sad that we didn’t get to go to Santa Fe. But you always have to find that silver lining. And for me, it’s having more time to get the collection done for next year.”

We invite you to visit the virtual booths of all FPF family of artists participating in SWAIA 2020:

• ‍Beverly Bear King Moran
• ‍Carol Douglas
• ‍Cliff Fragua
• ‍Darby Raymond-Overstreet
• ‍Deborah Jojola
• ‍Jeremy Frey
• ‍Kelly Church
• ‍Lauren Good Day
• ‍Leslie Deer
• ‍Linley B. Logan
• ‍Mark Fischer
• ‍Nanibaa Beck
• ‍Robert Martinez
• ‍Shirley Brauker
• ‍TahNibaa Naataanii
• ‍Terran Last Gun
• ‍Theresa Secord
• ‍Thomas Haukaas

Header photo: “Bound.” Written and Directed by Tara Moses. Photography by Joe Velez.

Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Muskogee/Mvskoke/Creek Nation of Oklahoma) is a playwright, director, artistic director, and a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Her plays have been produced and developed with companies in New York, Connecticut, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. She is the Resident Artistic Director at AMERINDA, a 2018/19 fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute and winner of the Young Native Storytellers Contest.

Tara is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow and resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma. www.taramoses.com

It was a typical theatre performance of Tara’s play, so she was surprised when a young woman from the audience approached her afterward, crying.

“Are you okay?” Tara asked.

The young woman was a freshman at the University of Tulsa and told Tara how this was the first time she had left home. She was having a hard time finding a community and wanted to be a part of what she saw in that theatre performance. With no prior acting experience, she auditioned for Tara’s next play and landed a role.

“At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities."

“She was so inspired by what she saw on stage that she wanted to be on it,” Tara says. “At my theatre company, we pride ourselves on community and giving people access to opportunities. The majority of our acting company never performed in a play until they came to us. We put on professional productions, and people don’t know the actors have never identified as an actor until that moment in time. So, I’m excited for her because she didn’t even know she is so talented. We could be kickstarting the next star.”

Rich experiences are part of every high caliber theatre performance Tara produces. She thinks of theatre as a community-building experience, which is at the heart of Native people connecting with one another.

For her First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellowship, Tara gathered stories from her family and community that she has longed to tell and wrote them into a play.

"Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia."

“Whenever we have those moments of feeling [that] we don’t have the strength, we’re able to think back to our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, [and] great-great-great-grandparents who overcame the odds and continued to fight on,” she says. “Those stories are incredibly healing. Experiencing family stories in such a unique way is reminiscent of the storytelling we’ve done for a millennia. And theatre creates this unique feeling of being in a community. Alongside these stories, that gives us strength. It’s another way to share hope and inspiration for generations to come, while also supporting Native people in the theatre.”

For Pte San Win Little Whiteman (Oglala Lakota), writing is about her self-journey and her potential career as a poet. She is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Emerging Poets Fellow. Pte San Win joined Dances with Words at its inception in 2014. When she was 14 years old, that poetry program — also facilitated by FPF — allowed her to find her voice in spoken word.

“I was never super outspoken about my poetry. But after joining the program and getting familiar with public speaking, I gained confidence in my writing. The workshops helped with writer’s block when I didn’t know what to write, but had a desperate need to write. The program helps with that and different opportunities, such as steps to make a career out of it.”

— Pte San Win

This was the pilot year for First Peoples Fund's Emerging Poets Fellowship, giving young people a chance to go beyond the skill of writing poetry; it has taught them the business side. The program’s intention is to provide poetry, leadership, and professional development training to young people through the Youth Development Fellowship Curriculum. It integrates poetry curriculum developed by Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), and professional development components created by Autumn White Eyes (Oglala Lakota), inspired by the FPF Native Artist Professional Development curriculum for Performing Artists.

Autumn is the Youth Development Consultant for the Emerging Poets Fellowship, providing oversight, trainings, mentoring, and evaluation for the partners. Augusta (Gusti) Terkildsen (Oglala Lakota) and Sunny Red Bear (Cheyenne River Sioux) served as poet mentors for Dances with Words.

The program included regional partners in the Pine Ridge/Rapid City areas; the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, SD; Nis’to Incorporated in Sisseton, SD; and the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis, SD. Approximately seven poets took part in each region. The program builds on work done by poet mentors and Dances with Words.

Kinsale Hueston (Diné) 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow joined for a session on revising and performing poetry.

Lakota Funds, a Native Community Development Financial Institution, and First Peoples Fund partner, joined the project to provide financial literacy training.

“They explained things about budgeting and finance that are important for a writer,” Pte San Win says. “A lot of poets don’t understand that finance is important.”

The curriculum covered resume building, cover letters, budgeting, how to balance a checkbook, and forming an event budget. In the final weeks of the fellowship, the poets received instruction on creating chapbooks and writing their artist bios, something they struggled with in the past.

The poets put all the training into practice by coordinating and presenting an end-of-the-year poetry reading. With the 2020 shutdown, they shifted their event to live streaming with Zoom and Facebook Live, and included a raffle of donated items from Racing Magpie and Autumn.

While disappointed and lacking the energy of a live audience, the poets made the best of it. Pte San Win found it easier to deliver her deeply personal poem from her bedroom, while another poet, Ashanti Martin (Standing Rock), discovered she was more nervous doing an online event over in-person. She joined Dances with Words in 2018.

“It’s difficult for the audience to react to what you’re saying which usually I like at a poetry event,” Ashanti says. “You hear people saying things as you speak to show they liked what you’re saying or encourage you. At our event, people from First Peoples Fund and the poets’ family members, friends, and others commented favorably. The response was pretty positive.”

“Before Dances with Words, I was incredibly shy and social anxiety was very, very real. I never felt comfortable expressing myself around others. Being in Dances with Words and working within a small group, helped me be more comfortable with those experiences.”

— Ashanti

After the end-of-the-year poetry reading, the poets chatted virtually, praising one another at the success of their celebration.

“They had expressed feeling nervous before the event, and were relieved when it was over,” Autumn says. “We were able to utilize the Zoom chat for them to encourage and affirm one another throughout the event.”

Pte San Win performing at the end-of-the-year poetry reading. Watch the full poetry reading on Facebook.

As the program looks ahead to this next year, program staff and poet mentors are taking into consideration feedback from the poets and partners. One thought is recruiting young people in Dances with Words to take on leadership roles in the program or within the fellowship. Someday, they might become poet mentors themselves.

“I would enjoy helping fellow youth poets understand their poetry; to understand that poetry doesn’t have to have a specific algorithm,” Pte San Win says. “I want them to have a good idea about what opportunities there are for them that I didn’t have when I was their age.”

There is also discussion of expanding the Emerging Poets Fellowship into a two-year fellowship. This would allow poet mentors and the young people to focus on the skill of writing poetry while the second year could focus on the business and financial side of becoming a professional writer.

“Whenever I thought about a career in poetry and writing, I imagined it was just something you did at home,” Ashanti says, “sending out cover letters to get published and things like that. That’s what I envisioned in my head, nothing more. The fellowship helped allow me to know what else there was. And one of the former mentors for Dances with Words got me into another local gathering. I performed at that event, which was neat.”

“The fellowship not only touched base on different forms of writing and how to write different forms of poems,” Pte San Win says, “but also how to further your poetry, how to make it more than writing on a piece of paper and make a career out of it.”

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We fight this war together,

Future and Past

We’re both stubborn,

But, pain will never last.

You’re only 12 years old,

There’s so much I wanna say,

So much I wanna do.

But, I should end this letter.

Love, You.

— Pte San Win Little Whiteman, “Beat of Our Soul” poem excerpt

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the negative thoughts and words from others are slowly melding with my own thoughts

i hate that

so easily influenced

my thoughts are pessimistic

negative and draining

being me is so exhausting now

im no longer physically repulsed by myself

no longer do i desire the features of others

i see myself and feel content with my outer shell

but exhausted inside

so exhausted

i want to self destruct but i can’t

i won’t

— Ashanti Martin, poem excerpt

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