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I want to emphasize the belief that we are part of the Pte Oyate (Bufalo Nation.) I want to share an open pride in my heritage.

Gene Swallow (Oglala Sioux) is a fiber arts sculptor and doll maker. Gene’s dolls and fabric sculptures range from playthings to works of art meant for display. He uses fleece, soft faux camel-hair, or light denim. His dolls are made from patterns and are stuffed with poly-fill. He uses brand new quality fabrics and materials for the dolls that are meant to be held and played with by our younger relatives. For his higher end fabric sculptures, Gene has a preference for natural fibers like wool, linen, or cotton, and opts for reclaiming and up-cycling vintage fabrics . Other materials used in his works include leather, embroidery floss, beads, wool roving for hair, and glass beads for eyes. Gene is a 2021 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership Fellow.

Gene Swallow’s soft cloth dolls pass along traditions -- and help smooth life’s rough edges.

For as long as he can remember, Gene Swallow has been creative. “I was always really artsy, crafty,” he said. “I would see some art work and say to my friends, ‘I could do that.’ And then finally one of them called me out on it and challenged me” to prove it.

So three years ago he hauled out an old sewing machine and some fabric his mother Susanna Swallow had given him and made his first cloth doll. On a whim, he entered it into the prestigious annual art show at the Red Cloud School in his home Oglala Lakota Nation. 

The piece was so good the school’s Heritage Center bought it for its permanent collection. A whole new world opened up for the single parent of twin 17-year-old boys and Gene began producing a string of high-end art pieces that were meant to be collector’s items and displayed. “I made great sales and commissions,” he said. “But I heard from younger people or families on tighter budgets who would say they would have to save up to afford a piece. So I started doing affordable baby dolls and youth dolls that were not only accessible, but were durable enough to be held and played with.”

Gene made three types of dolls -- an infant, a child and a teen -- from quality materials that were readily available and inexpensive that allowed him to balance production cost and time with a reasonable price for customers.

Now he’s ready for another turn of the wheel. 

Gene was honored with a First People’s Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow grant this year and has a goal of bringing his dolls to a wider audience -- and using them to help pass along Lakota traditions, language and culture.

“I made the prototypes,” he said, of the appealing yet simple dolls that he now hopes one day are produced by a string of sewers he engages in the community. “I want a consistent brand,” he said, for the dolls he calls “visually beautiful but meant to be hugged.” He wants his soft cloth, culturally inspired dolls to “facilitate language growth, compassion and caregiving, and a sense of identity in Lakota children.” He plans to market them under the “Good Relative” brand.

Which is consistent with major themes of his life that include helping disadvantaged youth and celebrating -- and renewing -- his Oglala Lakota culture.

Gene works as a paraprofessional in the Rapid City, S.D., school district and sometimes helps out kids who have ended up in in-school suspension. “I try to get to know them and encourage them to get back to class,” he said. Usually by tapping into that student’s culture. Many students at his school are Lakota and so he often leans on his heritage to reach out and try to help those kids. “I’m not a fluent Lakota speaker,” he said, “but I try to bring language into my day, every day.”

Gene wants his dolls to honor and bolster Lakota traditions as well. “The dolls will be, first of all, a comforting presence in our young relative’s lives but secondly, the dolls will be a physical representation of  Lakota kinship terms, parts of the body, and descriptive terms based off of whether they’re a boy or girl or if they’re a toddler or a teen,” he said. “My dolls are based on culture and stories and I hope they radiate some sort of educational and emotional identity. I want there to be a conversation on why they have braids or why I decided to incorporate bison horns on all of them. I want to emphasize the belief that we are part of the Pte Oyate (Bufalo Nation). I want to share an open pride in my heritage.”

He’s planning to develop a booklet or a companion web presence to go with the dolls that can pass on these language terms and traditions. And always with an eye toward helping the less fortunate.

Twelve years ago he adopted twin five-year-old boys out of foster care. He remembers that first day with them as if it were yesterday.

“When they first arrived they came with a plastic Wal-Mart bag with underwear and some plastic Happy Meal toys,” said Swallow. “It was so impersonal.” 

Gene envisioned a way to bring more humanity into the lives of children in child protective custody.

“I want to somehow see my dolls in the system,” he said. “I want the kids to have something that is more identity oriented.”

Oglala Lakota Artspace set to open new era for Pine Ridge artists -- and the arts-based economy

Some people look over the vast plains of the Pine Ridge Reservation and see an arid landscape where little grows and the economy idles. But they miss so much.

They overlook a rich ecosystem of resilient Native grasses with deep roots waiting for a little water to leap skyward. And they fail to notice the home-based arts economy, deeply rooted in Oglala Lakota culture, that hums below the surface.

First People’s Fund sees a fertile landscape and for 25 years has supported and amplified the voices in the thriving home-based economy of  artists and culture bearers -- on Pine Ridge and throughout Indian Country -- with working capital grants, training and networking opportunities. Now it’s poised to up the ante and give them something special: a modern creative space of their own.

The Oglala Lakota Artspace (OLA), a $3 million building with individual artist studios, shared workspace for group collaborations, a recording and sound studio, a classroom for art classes and business trainings, commercial space, exhibition space, a performing arts venue that’s perfect home for First People’s Fund’s Dances With Words program for young spoken word artists, Rolling Rez Arts and more, is slated to open this spring. 

Architect Tammy Eagle Bull (Oglala Lakota), of Encompass Architects P.C. and the first Native American woman to become a licensed architect in the United States, designed the building to reflect Lakota star knowledge. The structure announces its presence with clean, geometric lines; corrugated metal and cement board siding that speak to the rugged surroundings; and bold pops of colors. A central courtyard features a trellis clad with an artist-designed sculptural piece to prominently welcome visitors. 

Delayed but not deterred by the pandemic, the new center is a game changer for Pine Ridge artists. And a boon for the reservation economy.

“This is just what we need,” said James Cross who sits on the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council’s Economic Development Committee. “Now our artists will have a state-of-the-art place of their own and the exhibition space and performance space will attract visitors.”

The pandemic postponed the original 2020 target date for a grand opening, but the first safe steps toward opening are underway. Two First People’s Fund staffers, Oglala Lakota Artspace Program Manager Charlie Cuny (Oglala Lakota), and Youth Program Coordinator Augusta Terkildsen (Oglala Lakota), plan to move into their new offices in early May. Six artists -- representing a wide range of Lakota art -- will move into the new space as Oglala Lakota Artspace Studio Artists later during the month.  The artists all plan to host brown bag lunches to welcome community members to their studios but, due to the ongoing presence of Covid-19, those gatherings will likely be virtual to begin with.

The inaugural OLA Studio Artists are:

Warren “Guss” Yellow Hair (Oglala Lakota): traditional drum maker

Tiana Yellow Hair (Oglala Lakota): recording artist 

Cat Clifford (Oglala Lakota): songwriter, filmmaker, actor, bull rider, painter, leather and tattoo artist 

Helene Gaddie (Oglala Lakota): regalia artist 

Waylon Gaddie (Oglala Lakota): bow maker and regalia artist

Keith Brave Heart (Oglala Lakota): filmmaker, painter and storyteller

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The seeds for the Oglala Lakota Artspace were planted with First Peoples Fund’s work back in 1999 with the Lakota Funds and other partners on the reservation.  This included many conversations, planning and later a series of community meetings to get input from culture bearers, artists and the Pine Ridge Community. From there, the idea grew even more following the publication of a 2013 First People’s Fund survey of more than 100 Pine Ridge-based artists and culture bearers, called Building a Creative Economy: Art as an Economic Engine in Native Communities, that found that limited access to creative space was one of the six resources artists need to succeed.  The new facility also aims to provide access to the other needed resources: business knowledge and training, new markets, networks, supplies, as well as credit and capital.

Why is this so important for Pine Ridge economic development efforts?

The 2013 survey also identified a vibrant sector of economic activity on the reservation. Thirty percent of Oglala Lakota tribal citizens on the reservation identify as artists and forty percent of Pine Ridge households rely on some form of traditional arts for income. And given that nearly 100 percent of the artists surveyed reported they do not have access to space, equipment, supplies and materials to create their art, providing artists with the support and resources they need gives a direct economic boost to a large percentage of Oglala Lakota citizens. That is an economic development home run. 

Elsie Meeks (Oglala Lakota), Board Chair of Lakota Funds, has said that throughout her many years of work in economic development on Pine Ridge and throughout Indian Country it has been evident that artists are a key component of local economies.

“We started out Lakota Funds to help people get into business, and most of the people that were even around the edges of getting into business were artists,” she said. “So the market study published in 2013 really confirmed what we already knew, which was that (many) households on Pine Ridge depend on a home-based enterprise of some kind to provide income. And (the bulk) of those home-based businesses are arts-based.”

All of which makes Lakota Funds a perfect partner in Oglala Lakota Artspace along with First People’s Fund and Artspace, a Minneapolis, Minn.,-based non-profit organization.  

Lakota Funds has been instrumental in bolstering the local economy of Pine Ridge including founding the Lakota Federal Credit Union, the  first banking institution on Pine Ridge. A branch office of the credit union will be housed in the Artspace.

“It means a lot to us at the credit union to be able to take those services out into the community where they’re needed,” said Tawney Brunch (Oglala Lakota) Executive Director of Lakota Funds. 

For Artspace, the leading nonprofit real estate developer for creative communities with over 50 mixed-use rural and urban facilities across the U.S., Oglala Lakota Artspace represents their first reservation-based project.

“Many years of enormous effort have gone into this,” said Kelley Lindquist, President and CEO of Artspace and a member of First Peoples Fund’s board of directors. “It’s a great privilege to be collaborating here on Pine Ridge and collaborating with such extraordinary people.”

The new building, located just across the road from Oglala Lakota College’s main campus near Kyle, S.D., also features a multi-purpose garage, primarily created for First Peoples Fund’s industrious and ground-breaking Rolling Rez Arts mobile arts lab to park when not traversing the 2.1 million acres of the Pine Ridge Reservation to deliver art classes, art supplies, retail, and banking opportunities. The garage, which has a stage at back, can pull double duty as a performance space.

“That’s the nicest garage I’ve ever seen,” said Bryan Parker (White Mountain Apache/Muscogee Creek/Mississippi Choctaw), the Rolling Rez Arts Program  Coordinator. He said he’s excited about what lies ahead. “The classes that are now programmed on the bus can get people gravitated to the new building,” he said. “I’ve been using the word ‘connection’ a lot. Traditional knowledge and contemporary knowledge coming together. People learning from one another. That’s what I’m excited about. Having that new space is a big move. It’s going to be huge.” 

Artists and past First People’s Fund fellows agreed. “It’s hard not to think about what a difference ... this new facility will make in our community,” said beadworker Molina Parker (Oglala Lakota.)  Added painter Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota):  “I just think about if there had been a place like this when I was young, I would have gotten going as an artist a lot quicker. Oglala Lakota Artspace is going to change a lot of lives for the better.”

At the ground-breaking ceremony for the building in 2018, First people’s Fund board chair Sherry Salway Black (Oglala Lakota), shared with the crowd that she wondered how different her father’s career path might have been if something like Oglala Lakota Artspace had existed to nurture his work as an artist when he was growing up on Pine Ridge and said she hopes that the space will provide encouragement to people who want to deepen their artistry.

“Artists, culture bearers, young people –– everyone in the community can come together to share resources, to learn from one another and really look at it as being the foundation of the economy here, the creative economy that’s on Pine Ridge,” she said.

We need creativity now more than ever.

Charlie N. Cuny (Oglala Lakota) comes from the Sunkawakan Mahpiya (Cloud Horse) and Zuya Niskala (Little Warrior) Bands in the Medicine Root district. Charlie is an alumna of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM where she obtained a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts. She has been immersed with Lakota culture and language her entire life which contributes to her journey. This influences her to incorporate traditional Lakota teachings into her modern artwork and fashion. Charlie resides on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where she raises her twin boys and aspires to promote Lakota culture through an artistic lens. 

Háŋ Mitákuyepi, Čhaŋté waštéya napé čhiyúzapi. Čhetáŋ Lúta Wíŋ (Red Hawk Woman) emáčiyapi. Oglála Lakȟóta Wíŋyaŋ hemáčha kštó. Mičhíŋkši núŋpa na hená čhekpápi. Kenai Tokȟéčhuŋ é na Kodiak Wowanglake ewíčhakiyapi. Ináwaye kiŋ Zuyá Ohítika Wíŋ ečíyapi na wašíču čhažé kiŋ Toni Montileaux ečíyapi.

When Charlie Cuny was growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation it seems she was always involved in one kind of art project or another. “Pottery, painting, sewing, beading, jewelry, performing arts,” she said ticking off just some of her pursuits. 

But she always felt a little held back. “We didn’t have enough support when I was a high school artist,” she said. But then a counselor helped steer her to a summer art program at Arizona State University -- which led her to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Sante Fe, N.M., where she earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts -- and the clouds parted. 

“I was like a kid in a candy store,” she said about finally experiencing beautiful studio spaces with ample art supplies.

And now she gets to help bring that magical “aha!” moment to artists and art students back home on Pine Ridge as First People’s Fund’s Oglala Lakota Artspace (OLA) Program Manager.

“I’m excited to move into that building,” she said of the 8,500 square-foot facility near Kyle, S.D., that includes two large classrooms one of which also serves as a computer lab; four artists’ studios that can be divided into eight; flexible co-working and performance space; production studio; kitchenette; administrative offices; programmable outdoor space, as well as a garage for First People’s Fund’s Rolling Rez Arts. “It’s going to give local artists a safe space to call their own.”

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And more. “You can learn to become a business person, an entrepreneur,” she said, thanks to the  Lakota Federal Credit Union that will be housed in the building. “You can take your art and make a business of it.”  Which is something that Charlie does with her art. Currently she is focused on fashion. “My favorite thing now is hat making,” she said, of the original adornments she makes and markets online.

The official opening of the space has been delayed by the pandemic but the move-in date for the first artists-in-residence is just around the corner. And none too soon, said Charlie. “People have experienced loneliness and isolation during COVID,” she said. “We need creativity now more than ever.”

She’s happy to be back home in her Oglala Lakota Nation where she is raising her twin boys and, when not organizing programming at OLA, keeping up with her own creative pursuits while striving to incorporate traditional Lakota teachings into her work. “I like to promote Lakota culture through an artistic lens,” she said, adding: “I’d like to thank First People’s Fund and the Artspace folks for making this building a reality,” said Charlie. “And also Lakota Federal Credit Union. It’s amazing to be part of this project in my home Nation.”

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We strive to represent our strong yet small community, which welcomes and urges humanity to listen with open minds to our stories.

Reed Two Bulls (Oglala Sioux) is a musician and is enrolled on Pine Ridge Reservation, SD. Reed is the lead singer of the band The Wake Singers. She attends blues jams in Minneapolis and sells hand painted jewelry when not working on music. Reed is a 2021 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership Fellow.

The Wake Singers are a recording group of multi-instrumentalists. Their musical journey started when they were teenagers living in Rapid City, SD, playing music in their basement. Art and music were always incorporated into their ideas. After playing in various bands in Rapid City they left to attend art school at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where they were able to experiment with the visual, writing, and musical aspects of their vision. After completing art school, they brought back what they learned to their own communities of Red Shirt Table and Rapid City, SD. The idea of having a recording studio was planted into their mission plan. The Wake Singers has always been a family band. It was in the Fall of 2018 that Reed Two Bulls joined the band. The Wake Singers have performed in many venues, among them the Kennedy Center and the Black Hills Drive-In Covid Relief Benefit.

They didn’t choose the name by accident.

When cousins Reed, Doug and Mike Two Bulls set out to build a recording studio they dubbed it “Pejuta Studios,” using the Lakota word for medicine.

“We want to make our studio accessible to Native musicians who can’t pay for studio time,” said Reed, who sings lead vocals in the trio’s band called The Wake Singers. “We believe there is a lot of Indigenous music that isn’t getting heard due to the lack of access to a recording studio.”

Reed was recently named a First People’s Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow and awarded funds to assemble recording equipment to build a professional studio in Rapid City, S.D. The first goal is to finish an album in the works. “We have a whole array of songs,” said Reed who calls herself the “baby cousin” of the band. “I’m really excited to get started” with the new equipment.

Reed bought a couple of microphones and a pedal tuner in Minneapolis and, with some other gear she ordered online, began setting up in the band’s “basement space” in Rapid City. They hope eventually to decamp into larger quarters where they plan to help other Lakota recording artists such as Welby June and Wahpe Louella put down some tracks. “I’m really looking forward to this opportunity from First People’s Fund.” said Reed. “It’s important for our communities to have a studio that is completely Indigenous owned and operated. ”

Reed grew up in Los Angeles and Minneapolis where she sat in with a number of other bands before joining the all Oglala Lakota Wake Singers in 2018. She bonded -- as cousins and musicians -- with her bandmates last year working in the Pine Ridge community of Red Shirt Table. “We held two recording sessions out on the reservation which brought us closer as a band and helped to refine our sound,” said Reed. “Camping out on the prairie while simultaneously recording some of our album was absolutely a once in a lifetime experience.”

Doug and Mike’s collaboration stretches back farther.  They grew up as close as brothers in Red Shirt Table and Rapid City and began their musical journey when they were teenagers. They each left to attend the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., where they explored both musical and visual expression. Something they continue to this day.

“We were profoundly affected by the protests over the death of George Floyd and decided we couldn't sit idly by,” said Mike. They made prints and billboards that supported Black Lives Matter protests and used music to propel the message as well. “We held several live streams that supported the BLM movement to bring awareness,” he said. All while remaining close to their Indigenous heritage.

“We are actively motivated by our Lakota people and families,” said Reed. “We strive to represent our strong yet small community, which welcomes and urges humanity to listen with open minds to our stories.”

As we celebrate and close out Women’s History Month, we also observe the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic and acknowledge its impact on Indigenous, Black, Asian, immigrant and Trans women.

Despite the year’s challenges, we have seen transformative successes to celebrate such as Madame Secretary Deb Haaland’s (Laguna Pueblo) appointment to serve as Secretary of the Interior in the Biden-Harris Administration. 

In the spirit of Women’s History Month, a Q&A with First Peoples Fund’s Founding President Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota) recognizes the continuum of Native changemakers who have inspired her and led us to this moment. She shares with us what gives her hope. 

FPF: Who are some of the women who inspired you early in your career? 

LLP: I’m a product of all those women from my mother’s generation. My early work with the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI)  was under the leadership of Sherry Salway Black (Oglala Lakota) and Rebecca Adamson (Eastern Band of Cherokee) and they shaped much of my approach to community economic development going forward. Rebecca had worked with my mother, Marilyn Pourier (Oglala Lakota), during the American Indian Controlled Schools movement in the 70s. By the early 1990s, I was invited by the founders of the Indigenous Women’s Network [IWN] to help build the programs of the IWN including the first-ever emerging women’s activist leadership program. It was during a time when we began to see that the majority of the nonprofits in Indian Country were led by women. The women of FNDI and IWN recognized that it was up to us to solve our own problems by working outside the federal systems to make change, and to create alternative development strategies.  

In 1998, I joined First Peoples Fund, and the work focused solely on artists and tradition keepers of tribal communities.  Much of this work was also led by women and we began to honor and support women who founded the weavers’ movements such as the California Basketweavers Alliance, Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance and Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association. These are membership organizations that each started with a handful of people supporting each other as cultural practitioners and business people. They started small and rapidly grew. Women are integral to the leadership of these organizations, and today a huge portion of the members are women, yet you see all generations and all members of the family involved in the work. 

Recently, I was listening to the 50th anniversary celebration of the Oglala Lakota College. This college on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where I grew up, is the second tribal college in the nation. My mother has served as the Director of Development there since 1997. When you talk about significant shifts in Indian Country, you have to start with the Indian controlled schools and tribal college movements. In that generation there were those who worked within the system and those who worked to change it. A handful of them were Native educators who attended Indian boarding schools, went on to higher education and returned home to become the agents for change in our education systems. LaDonna Harris (Comanche) was another leader of that generation. After marrying Senator Fred Harris she went to Washington, D.C. to work on so many initiatives on a national level and later established Americans for Indian Opportunity. LaDonna and her daughter Laura Harris founded the American Indian Ambassadors program of which I am a member of the first cohort. There’s a documentary about LaDonna called Indian 101 and we just honored her 90th birthday! 

Reflecting on my earlier years and thinking about today, it’s important to make those connections and always remember those who came before you. That is what I value about my work at First Peoples Fund. We are intentional about honoring those who came before us. We have to ground ourselves in their teachings, learn their stories and their history and make sure that we are mindful of sharing with the next generation. 

FPF: Who are some of the other Native women who have led us to this moment?

LLP: I met Winona LaDuke (White Earth) when she started the White Earth Land Recovery Project. She invited me to work with them on their marketing strategy for the wild rice and maple syrup enterprise. Winona continues to work as hard as she did when I met her 30 years ago. She continues the work on the front lines to protect our natural resources with the most current being to stop Line 3 at the headwaters of the Mississippi. 

Today, Indigenous women are moving into political positions. This started about 20 years ago when women began serving in tribal government. Cecilia Fire Thunder (Oglala Lakota), who's my huŋká (mother) through ceremony, is one of the women who was on the front end of of tribal women leaders. She was the first woman president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. She co-founded the Native Women's Society of the Great Plains and is a long time member of the Women Empowering Women of Indigenous Nations (WEWIN). She continues to lift up women. A group of the WEWIN women gathered recently to celebrate Madame Secretary Deb Haaland as the first Indigenous woman in history to be appointed to a Cabinet level post as U.S. Secretary of the Interior. And now Colleen Echohawk (Pawnee/Upper Athabascan) is running for mayor of Seattle.

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FPF: How do you see the impact of Indigenous women’s leadership playing out today?

LLP: The liberation movements — Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, and others — have given us strength for Native peoples to stand strong, tell our stories and our truth. We continue to hold that resilience and rootedness. This is the Collective Spirit® that First Peoples Fund practices, that which moves each one of us to stand up and make a difference in our communities or simply extend a hand of generosity to others in the community. We continue to lift up the artists and tradition bearers and strengthen these networks that are important to sustaining culture at the community level.

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FPF: What are some of the changes that are most notable to you today?

LLP: What is different from my generation is today more young women are leaders of their Tribal Nations, their tribal courts and tribal colleges and some are building alternative models or  nonprofit structures. They are holding positions that were primarily dominated by men. They're now influencing policy and changing the cultural fabric of our tribal communities. Because when women lead, it's different. 

Jodi Archambault (Standing Rock), who's from my generation was on the forefront of this work. She became the first Native woman to join President Obama’s administration as the Deputy Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Associate Director of Public Engagement. And I remember her first month. I was at the White House for a national arts meeting and she joined our meeting.  We visited about her role that included working with the 574 Tribal Nations. I was so proud of my Lakota maške (sister).

FPF: What other ways do you see young Native women leading today?

LLP: I see young, Indigenous women filling important leadership roles and building their own spaces, like when I was younger. There are two young Oglala women from home now serving in the South Dakota legislature, Peri Pourier in the House of Representatives and Red Dawn Foster in the Senate. Both are Democrats and have served two terms. There is also a very inspiring group of young language warriors. My Lakota language teacher is Sierra Concha and daughter of my maške, Tashina Banks Rama (Oglala Lakota), Executive Vice President of the Red Cloud Indian School. This younger generation is immersed in our culture, the language and ceremonies. They are embracing our culture in many ways through the language and Lakota ceremonies as are their children. I am so inspired and humbled by them. It is incredible to learn from them.

FPF: How are Indigenous women artists and culture bearers contributing to change?

LLP: They do it through their selfless work in fostering Collective Spirit® within their communities. Some of our Community Spirit honorees — Delores Churchill (Haida), Lani Hotch (Tlingit), Lynette Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota) — are quietly transforming their communities. I am also inspired by women like Donna Tinnin (Cherokee Nation) who I first met through our CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution) work in Indian Country. 

At Cherokee Nation Businesses, she’s quietly leading the community economic development programs supporting artists and culture bearers including the Cherokee Arts Center. First Peoples Fund has worked alongside Donna and her community of artists and culture bearers for some time now.

First Peoples Fund supports these women, builds relationships and makes new relatives in our work on a national level. This work will continue long after me. 

It’s now been more than 4,000 artists that we’ve worked with within tribal communities, including providing 425 fellowships. More than 60% of the artists who come to our trainings are women. But no matter who I get on the phone with, it’s the same messaging and driving passion: Building and teaching ancestral knowledge. You can hear it in their belief and desire to want something different, especially the younger generation.

There are so many young people with a desire to create and make art, whether it's visual art or traditional art forms such as making their first-ever basket or even building a canoe. Finding these ways of expression give us life and foster connection and relationships to our relatives and the land. Our grandparents worked with their hands and on the land. It is how Indigenous Peoples lead. 

What if all peoples could lead in this manner, from that place of deeply rooted knowledge and beauty, from that place of love in all life? 

That gives me hope.

The Anishinaabemowin word for ‘old woman’ is mindimooyehn and when broken down translates to ‘one that holds it all together.’ A mindimooyehn is the foundation of the Anishinaabe family. I like to think that I am an old woman trying to hold it down in a new world, creating art from our Mother, the earth.

Monica Jo Raphael (Grand Traverse Band Ottawa and Chippewa; Rosebud Sioux; Huron and Pokagon Potawatomi) is a fifth generation woodland porcupine quill and beadwork artist and 2021 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Cultural Capital fellow.

In 2018, after working over twenty years inspiring youth to seek the knowledge of their ancestors, Monica Jo Raphael followed her dream of becoming a full-time artist. Monica is known for her craftsmanship and her unwavering dedication to patience. Spending most of her life on the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indian Reservation, Monica now makes her home in the foothills of the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma.

In addition to making jewelry, Monica also creates traditional and contemporary Native attire and clothing.  Well-versed in the traditional arts and culture of the Anishinaabek, she is dedicated to preserving the culture she was raised in and is committed to sharing her knowledge with others to be carried on for generations to come.

Her young daughter’s patience, perseverance and determination to quill, along a multi-generational lineage of traditional woodland quill artists, inspired Monica to learn the traditional art of embroidering porcupine quills onto birch bark. She learned this from master quill artist Catherine Baldwin and her father Joseph "Buddy." Her great-grandmother, Rose Chippewa Raphael, was a master quill worker who made quill boxes for the Work Projects Administration (a public works New Deal project) during the Depression era. Several of her boxes are now part of museum collections, including the prestigious Smithsonian Institution.

After quickly mastering both the flora and fauna designs for which her family was known, flash forward 25 years to when Monica made the decision to leave her full-time job in tribal government to do something that would make change in her community and focus on what she truly wanted to do – maintaining her cultural traditions.

Her journey has been an interesting one. Born and raised on her father’s tribal homelands in Michigan “where birch trees are plentiful and porcupines roam freely,” Monica and her husband decided to move their family to Oklahoma in 2014. In addition to being closer to her Comanche husband’s family, Monica has found community in Apache, Oklahoma. Soon after moving, she learned that some of the tribes who were forcibly removed there as part of the 1830 Indian Removal Act were also Anishinaabe.

“My ancestral homelands were their ancestral homelands. We speak the same language, practiced the same culture, and created the same art.” 

It broke Monica’s heart to know that their way of life was taken from them — leaving them only with pictures of museum collections and artifacts that survived the removal. With this realization, she knew she had to share her knowledge with others. 

Today Monica mixes complex designs and traditional art of techniques with bright modern colors, creating a modern twist to a timeless art form. This approach has quickly become her signature style, winning her awards almost immediately at the Woodland Art Market, Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market, Santa Fe Indian Market and the Eiteljorg Museum. Perhaps Monica’s biggest source of pride is a recent work titled Debwaywin, regalia celebrating the right of passage to womanhood, which won Best in Division in Beadwork and Quillwork at the 98th annual Santa Fe Indian Market in 2019. The piece has since been acquired by the National Museum of the American Indian to become part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Monica first joined the First Peoples Fund family when she attended a Native Arts Professional Development workshop hosted by the Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation, a long-time partner of First Peoples Fund. And it was through that workshop and the instructor Leslie Deer (Muscogee), 2016 Artist in Business Leadership Fellow and trainer, that she first learned of the Cultural Capital Fellowship, something that not only aligned with her core ancestral values, but also was an opportunity to scale up her business and enhance her impact.

As a 2021 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow, Monica is using her funding to purchase some equipment that will enable her to more professionally deliver her workshops, market and sell her work more online, purchase supplies for students who will be participating in her classes, and make new pieces of her own as she prepares to participate in upcoming markets and shows. She will be working with Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation, the Wyandotte Nation, and the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma on outreach to target their tribal members for her classes.

As the winter months transition to spring and renewal, Monica is getting excited about and looking forward to being able to travel back to Michigan to source all of her artmaking supplies. But today because of climate change, there are some added challenges beyond making the long trek up North. “The once strong and bountiful birch trees are often small and weak, sometimes not healthy enough to share their bark,” Monica says, ‘’and the porcupines have also become a victim to environmental changes and urban growth.”

But Monica will still make the trip and do her best, relying on the traditional ways and teachings of her ancestors, to source only what she needs in a meaningful and respectful way.  

Read more about Monica Jo Rafael and follow her work across social media here:  https://www.firstpeoplesfund.org/monica-jo-raphael

What inspires me is the idea that being Indigenous is Beautiful. My mission and values as a creator are to celebrate our way of life, our language, songs, dances, ceremonies, our storytelling, and our cooking. We can turn anything into something beautiful. And we have a sense of humor!

Rebekah Jarvey (Chippewa Cree, Blackfeet) is a fourth-generation sewing and beadwork artist from Havre, Montana. Her modern twist on Indigenous fashion uses thread stitch and various beadwork styles such as beaded ropes and beaded medallions.

Her specialty masks are hand-sewn cloth with added beadwork. The type of cloth can vary, from vintage leather to velvet. She uses a unique blend of ribbon work and appliqué to create ribbon skirts that can be worn in both traditional and public settings. In 2017, she coordinated the first ever fashion show for her tribe’s Native American Week celebration. In 2018, her designs were featured in the Stand Tall, Walk Proud Fashion Show at Wild Horse Casino in Dulce, New Mexico. Rebekah has also modeled for two different Indigenous fashion designers from Montana: Della Big Hair Stump and Bellinda Bullshoe. Rebekah is a 2021 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artist in Business Leadership fellow and was recently featured on Tribal Business News as one of the Native artists driving innovation in Indian Country. 

Before Rebekah Jarvey starts any project, she smudges her studio and her sewing machines to get into the mindset to create. She then lays out the cloth ribbons and decides which colors she will use, opting for bold, bright, and neon colors. Rebekah sees her process as weaving in the joy, positivity, and rebelliousness that she associates with being Indigenous.

Being entrepreneurial runs in Rebekah’s family. Her parents had a small shop called Past Time, located in the heart of their reservation. Her mom and aunt ran that store for 17 years and it is where she first learned all the ins and outs of a small business. Rebekah understands first hand the challenges that Indigenous people have faced setting up and maintaining their own small businesses, and she learned a lot from her mother and aunt. She remembers that they had to build their credit and have the support of a bank. It was a time when the working woman was becoming stronger. 

“Things weren’t easy for Native women in the ‘80s and ‘90s and that little shop supported the whole family,” Rebekah says. “Now that I’m an entrepreneur and I have my own small business, I understand much better what they went through. This gives me fuel and motivation.”

When she was younger, Rebekah attended her local tribal school, which offered a few business classes. She took all of them, enrolled in additional business classes independently, and began attending conferences on her journey to learn as much as she could as a young entrepreneur. 

She then attended college and became a first generation college graduate on both  sides of the family. During that time, she started using her skills in sewing and beadwork to make a living, which has led to her successful journey as an artist and creator. Rebekah has a 15-year-old son and she’s been teaching him the traditional arts since he was the age of five.

“I’m proud to say that I’m a fourth-generation beader. My great grandma taught my grandma, my grandma taught my mom, and she taught me. Now, my son is carrying forward the traditional way,” Rebekah says. 

Rebekah modernizes tradition with her signature bright and neon colors to reach the younger generations and help young people remain connected to their culture.

“My family has two sets of family colors. We always had to use the family colors in our beadwork and our dancing outfits. I used them for a long time. Now that I’m older, I use bright, bold colors and neon in my work out of rebelliousness to my mother!” Rebekah says. “I incorporated my own style to the traditional practices that my grandmother and mother taught me. I use my cultural history as a foundation, and I take it a step further. I’m making it modern by using bright and neon colors that attract the attention of young people. My hope is that it inspires the new generations to learn our traditions.”

This past year has been hard for many creatives. And Rebekah is no exception, this pandemic has been an emotional time for her. As an artist, she has used her energy to continue creating bright and bold apparel items that reflect our time. Wearing many hats, she balances being a creative entrepreneur and designer, her job with the Chippewa Cree Tribe, and being a mom. That is never an easy feat, but a signature of the many roles that Indigenous women have in their lives. And Rebeka’s resilience during this pandemic has proven strong. 

“My brand Rebekah Jarvey is my side hustle. As for my day job, I work for my tribe as the Human Resources Generalist,” Rebeka says. “I focus on making sure employees are supported during the pandemic, helping them feel good about returning to in-person work, making sure people feel safe. It's been a year now of us being told to stay at home and stay away from the people we love. That is very hard for Indigenous people because for us family is central to everything. It was a very big culture shock. That was hard emotionally for me.”

Rebekah took this past year to create new work with new meaning. And she made a big statement with her “Night and Day” mask, which she designed and created using Louis Vuitton purses from thrift stores.

“The ‘night’ represents last year. In the evenings, my mind was running through the uncertainties, the unknowns. I knew in my heart that our lives were forever changed,” Rebekah says. “Then, I'd wake up, ground myself into my traditional roots. When you wake up, you smile, you're thankful that you're still here, you're thankful for another day. That represents the ‘day’ on my mask. I focused on making this during the pandemic and now, a year later, I reflect on the journey. I think about where I started and where I am at right now.”

During this time of physical distancing, Rebekah says she’s one of many Indigenous people connected on Facebook through a group called the Social Distance Powwow. A quarter of a million people are part of this group now and Rebekah was nominated as Artist of the Year by its members. Rebekah continues to make waves across media platforms. She was featured on Indian Business Today as one of the “Indigenous Artists driving innovation” and was  recently interviewed by Indian Country Today.

Roxanne L. Best (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation) is a portrait photographer, yoga instructor, small business consultant, and trainer.

She has a Bachelor of Science in Sports Management and a minor in Business with a specialty in the SCUBA Diving Industry, an Associate of Science in Culinary Arts, and a 200RYT Yoga Certification. She serves on the board of Confluence Gallery, a nonprofit art gallery and gift shop representing the artists of Okanogan County in Washington state, where she curated her first art show in 2020.

Roxanne is a 2018 First Peoples Fund (FPF) Artist in Business Leadership fellow, certified FPF Native Artist Professional Development (NAPD) Trainer, Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards photographer, and 2021 FPF Cultural Capital and Business Leadership fellow. She recently completed work with the Northwest Native Development Fund for an “Our Nations Spaces” project in partnership with First Peoples Fund.

Roxanne operates her business, Roxtography, from where she lives in Okanogan, Washington.

Roxanne was in tears as she listened to a mom on the other end of the phone gushing in excitement over the gallery of images from her son’s senior photoshoot. The young man always disliked having his picture taken, but during the three-hour shoot with Roxanne, he let her capture angles and emotions that will last a lifetime.

Moments like these are what bring Roxanne happiness as a photographer. It is in capturing the unexpected, of finding just the right shaft of light on a face or a flower, a detail people wouldn’t expect. Nothing quite replicates the bubble of emotions she has when capturing images, freezing time in unexpected ways.

“My heart is in creating beauty and capturing things that aren’t mainstream,” Roxanne says.

She took many wrong turns when starting as a photographer, so she wants to concentrate on passing along lessons she’s learned to younger photographers. Guiding youth around pitfalls and developing their mindset and expectation for professional rates are the focuses of her Photography Camp, supported by her 2021 joint Cultural Capital and Artist in Business Leadership fellowship.

“The purpose is to take young, potential artists and teach them the skills that are involved in being an artist in business from the creation of their art to the sale of it,” she says.

Excitement is building for the project in her community and has opened discussions with other artists about expanding the concept into other art mediums and regions.

“Some of the feedback has been that we could build this into something where it isn’t just photography,” Roxanne says. “We could do different options for the youth where we’re bringing local artists in and having it be an annual camp. It could even be a traveling group of artists. It opened my eyes to that vision. There isn’t enough out there that gives a true-to-life experience to learn what being an artist in business means. This camp will be one step in that direction.”

Rachael Nez (Navajo, Diné Nation) (they/them) is a documentary filmmaker, academic, and teacher. Born and raised on the Navajo reservation, Rachael is passionate about media technologies, heritage languages, and working with Native communities. Rachael holds a Ph.D. in Native American Studies from the University of California, Davis.

Besides academic work, Rachael has served as an associate professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, teaching courses in video production, cinema history, and storytelling, and has also collaborated with tribal communities throughout the United States, Canada, Hawaii, and Australia, working with tribal elders to produce learning language materials, film projects, and digital stories in their Native languages.

Rachael was recently named First Peoples Fund (FPF) Program Manager of Fellowships, working remotely from Davis, California.

Rachael stood before a classroom of elders who stared back with that deer-in-the-headlights look. The elders had brought family photos and stories to the community workshop. Rachael was guiding them through capturing their narratives in digital media. 

At the moment, the elders could not imagine comprehending all the complicated technical jargon. And could they possibly do this in the allotted 4 days? 

Rachael encouraged them and let them know that it was indeed possible, and by the end, their stories were in video—family photos and cultural traditions to share with their communities and classrooms.

“They wanted to be able to show [the community] their stories, and have them see and hear them,” Rachael says. “The workshop consisted of many different ways of working with the material they presented and asked, how do we create special meaning out of this? When the projects were completed, we had a screening for them. They watched in amazement. They were so gracious and appreciative. Going through that process was amazing.”

Rachael’s community work led into the world of academia.  As part of dissertation work, Rachael looks at how Indigenous language workers use media, storytelling and theater to sustain Indigenous languages. Rachael’s work was often through digital storytelling workshops with elders, the ones who hold the most knowledge about the languages. But their unfamiliarity with technology presented a challenge they aren’t sure how to overcome. Rachael took the time to explain the terminology, introducing them to a new language as they preserve their ancient ones. 

“Through these digital storytelling workshops, I was able to share my tech knowledge with language educators, community teachers, and elders who were interested in preserving, maintaining, or strengthening their languages using technology,” Rachael says.

As an artist, First Peoples Fund has always been on Rachael’s radar, admiring the work FPF does in elevating Native artists and supporting Indigenous Arts Ecologies. When the opening came for Program Manager of Fellowships, Rachael dug into the details of the position and applied. 

Now settling into the new role, Rachael is prepared to work with Native artists through the Artist in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital Fellowship programs. Rachael will work collaboratively with the entire Programs Team to ensure that community partner outreach, project placement, support of artists, and training activities support the overall program outcomes and FPF’s work to build the Indigenous Arts Ecology,  our theory of change which is the ancient relationship-based, collective system of local and regional arts ecosystems rooted in ancestral knowledge and inclusive of environment, spirit, people, and lifeways.

When Rachael saw and heard from the 2021 fellows during their orientation, the mixture of visual and performing artists was striking.

“I was amazed by the creativity of the artists, blown away by the things they could do and how they were doing it,” Rachael says. “One of my passions is working with Native communities and assisting them with the skills and tools I have to help elevate their talents, whether it be arts, language, youth, or mentorship. I’m looking forward to working with the individual Native artists.”

Rachael has always worked with Native communities to strengthen and uplift the people in them. Rachael often starts these relationships by sitting down and listening to the peoples’ stories, developing a heart for this during years of growing up on the Navajo Reservation.

“My elders and my mom instilled upon me the values of being respectful, listening and helping, of being kind and courteous,” Rachael says. “Helping communities with these tools I've obtained through my educational and life journey is my way of keeping true to those values.”

Rachael’s mother taught them to always listen to the words of grandparents, to the stories they were telling, even if scolding. 

“‘Pay attention to that and listen,’” Rachael says. “She taught me this idea of listening, listening, listening, and then helping community, and being respectful and appreciative of the things given to you.”

Sarah Agaton Howes is an Anishinaabe artist, teacher, and community organizer from Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota.

She was an artist in residence through the Minnesota Historical Society for 2019, and is the recipient of grants for spoken word, writing, bulrush mat research, and Ojibwe moccasin tutorials from the Jerome Foundation and the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. 

Sarah is a 20 Under 40 Award Recipient for her work in community leadership. She was the Artist in Residence for the Duluth Children’s Museum and Madeline Island Museum in 2016-2017. Her work has been featured in the Duluth News Tribune, Portland Art Museum, PBS Native Report, and Indian Country Today.

Sarah is a 2021 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership (ABL) fellow residing in Cloquet, Minnesota.

In a moccasin-making class, Sarah guided students through the process of learning the art of their grandmothers. They poked themselves with needles and tried to hide their frustration as they struggled through the intricate work. But the moment was coming when Sarah knew their expression would change.

It did. Sarah told them to turn their moccasins right side out. That was the moment the students became their grandmothers. 

“Cultural arts are a gift from our ancestors to us,” Sarah says. “We are building Anishinaabe competencies, positive self-identity, and strong community. For me, when I develop one ‘maker,’ I have helped 3 or 4 generations of this family have their own access to the work of our grandmothers.”

Sarah has taught over 700 youth and adults how to bead, make moccasins, and about Ojibwe floral designs in making custom Ojibwe floral beadwork, regalia, and quilts.

“I want to utilize our roots, our values, and our stories to create both beautiful Ojibwe art and teach about the values behind it,” she says. 

In 2013, Sarah became an Inspired Natives collaborator with Eighth Generation, making her dreams of what was possible for her own business and cultural arts grow to include the world of digital art and design. She is currently collaborating with two other artists for a public art project — a large installation — at the Springboard for theArts building in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is managing the project and currently drawing the design on the front of the building.

This project interweaves with her 2021 ABL fellowship project to learn about digital art — how to take traditional designs and translate them into contemporary projects.

Like all Native artists, the 2020 COVID shutdown forced Sarah to pivot her business, Heart Berry, to focus on website sales. She also moved to teaching cultural arts via Zoom. “It’s not the same and I don't love it, but it's really nice to connect with people,” she says. “I wish I could teach in person, but it’s better than not doing it at all.”

“I am determined to keep my business and employees above water through this time,” she says. “I believe as Native folks, we are truly well-versed in adaptation. This is the gift of our grandparents. We will continue to strategize on how to stay healthy while building our art and business.”

My love for my relatives [has resulted] in a lifelong community engagement to make sure art is an available necessity in every Lakota community. Whatever the creative desire, my actions as a Lakota artist are always meant to strengthen the concept of community. — Keith BraveHeart

Keith BraveHeart (Oglala Sioux Tribe) developed a passion for art in high school. He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he received his bachelor’s degree. He finished his Master’s of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of South Dakota (USD).

Keith calls himself a contemporary, or modern, Native artist. His art takes a strong influence from his Native American cultural background. It is important for him to see what happens during the process of creating art, leaving it open for things to shift or change around, allowing the time for chance to happen.

As an Indigenous creative, Keith navigates through multiple mediums and diverse practices. Notably, he co-curated the “Horse Nation of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Exhibition” with the Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School, and produced the documentary (of the same name) featuring the exhibition. The documentary is set to release in 2021.

Keith is a 2021 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award honoree, selected for his dedication to Native art and community.

“There is greatness amongst Indigenous artists.” Keith firmly believes this and seeks to make space and opportunity for it within his community by passing wisdom and knowledge on to younger artists. He wants them to recognize the different avenues that are available through the arts and how art is connected to culture — the foundation that makes them who they are as tribal people.

One of the ways Keith does this now is through his full-time job as an artist and arts instructor at the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. After graduating from USD with his MFA in 2018, he returned home to teach at the Oglala Lakota College (OLC), where he is working to develop the arts program.

“I'm helping [to] bring in new opportunities for the arts, specifically centered on Oglala Lakota arts,” Keith says. “We're looking at establishing programs that involve how we can not only cherish and honor artists in our community, but also give them financial support. I think of it as a paradigm shift of how we can acknowledge artists with an hourly wage.”

His job at OLC aligns with Keith’s passion for community work — making everything connect and building community by using art as the vehicle to reach new destinations. 

Keith’s home community is Pejuta Haka, “Medicine Root,” also known as Kyle, South Dakota.

“I grew up in this community living with my father and large extended family,” he says. “Our family structure reflected Lakota lifestyle through a tiospaye [extended family] system. My Lakota identity was instilled through engagement with relatives — at first family; next, extensions of kinship; then community overall.”

Keith left his home community for a time to earn his bachelor’s degree at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. It was there that his Community Spirit Award nominator, Dyani White Hawk Polk (Sicangu Lakota / Rosebud Sioux) of Shakopee, Minnesota, first saw Keith’s work.

“We didn’t know each other well while at IAIA, but his exhibition left a strong and lasting impression on me,” says Dyani, a 2015 FPF Artist in Business Leadership fellow. “It was among the strongest work I had seen during my three years at IAIA.”

Years later, while working together at the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute — a two-week immersive art program offered to Native high school students through the University of South Dakota — Dyani began to truly understand the depth of maturity and cultural knowledge Keith held.

“I started to see what a unique individual he is and how much he gives of himself to ensure the health and happiness of Lakota people and Native artists,” Dyani says. “When we think of our elders, the qualities that we admire in them, the generosity of spirit and knowledge that they so graciously share with others, the unwavering care, gentle spirit, wisdom and insight they offer that feeds our spirits, the stability in character, this is what I see in Keith. As I watched him interact with the students and his peers, I realized I was witnessing an elder in his youth.”

The swirl of intense work and community engagement filling Keith’s life makes him appreciate the moments of creative bliss he experiences when he’s able to do his own art. He gravitates to painting for its simplicity and accessibility, and advocates for contemporary Native voices in the arts.

One project Keith is in the process of developing is the Lakota Arts Council. It acknowledges Oglala Lakota artists, though he hopes it grows to include other Native artists and communities.

A central focal point for Keith’s current and future art and community engagement is upcoming in the form of the Oglala Lakota Artspace (OLA), a multifaceted arts facility developed to nurture and support the Indigenous Arts Ecosystem of Pine Ridge. Oglala Lakota Artspace is a partnership of Artspace, Lakota Funds, and First Peoples Fund. 

“Through the new artspace, more greatness will emerge that I've known was here,” Keith says. “In all types of tribal communities, there is always something that's significant, that’s unique to who they are. But you need to have resources, such as tools and space. To have that right in our community is going to open more doors.”

Keith’s ongoing art project, “Buffalo Nation: Creating Community,” invites participants to interact with their culture in fresh, hands-on ways. A community-engaged arts initiative that focuses on Lakota arts, culture, and communities, “Buffalo Nation: Creating Community” was inspired by ancient Lakota identity — Pte Oyate (Pte — “female buffalo,” Oyate — “nation”). 

“Buffalo Nation” includes a variety of art practices, workshops, activities, and events, as well as creative community conversations. Keith’s Community Spirit Award (CSA) is going toward supporting this program, a project that contributes to his life’s work.

“The monetary reward is very much appreciated,” Keith says. “Many times, we do this work with whatever we have. We make things happen even when we don't have resources, so to have these awards come in makes us feel a bit more comfortable, like we can sustain our work.”

The recognition of this national award also touched a part of Keith’s life he didn’t realize he needed to unpack.

At first, Keith was hesitant to apply for the CSA. Previous recipients of the award seemed far beyond the years of his own life in their journey. But after lengthy discussions with his nominator, Dyani, Keith consented to the nomination. 

“If young Native artists can see a leader they readily identify with, receive deserving support such as this, they too can see their own potential,” Dyani says. “Keith utilizes the artistic gifts he has been given to make strong contributions to the history of painting and Native art. I strongly believe contributions that strengthen community trickle outwards, contributing to the health and well-being of our world.”

Keith adds, “Everything I do should have the intention that it’s going toward my relatives, my community, and those who come into this synergy that is our arts and culture.”

Cultural richness lives within those who have dedicated themselves to practicing and teaching priceless ancestral knowledge and lifeways.

For the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Awards (CSA) each year, First Peoples Fund selects exceptional culture bearers from among a national pool of applicants who are nominated by their community members.

The compassion and generosity of Community Spirit Award recipients enrich the lives of many now and for generations to come. We are so pleased to introduce you to our 2021 CSA honorees!

KEITH BRAVEHEART (Oglala Sioux) Kyle, South Dakota

Students of all ages fold sheets of paper origami style as Keith instructs them. Each fold tells part of a story as they create a buffalo skull.

The paper creation begins the narrative that Keith is conveying through his “Buffalo Nation: Creating Community” project, developed in part for the South Dakota Change Network and now supported by Keith’s CSA award. The initiative focuses on Lakota arts, culture, and communities while collaborating with other Native artists. “Buffalo Nation” includes a variety of art practices, workshops, activities, and events.

“I view this dedication as more than only means of building a project, but rather, as conducting a portion of my life’s work,” Keith says. “How I manage creativity may differ, but the responsibility of being an artist is always the same — to find the best expression, media, or practice to supplement the transference of our knowledge and life.”

2015 Artist in Business Leadership fellow Dyani White Hawk Polk (Sicangu Lakota / Rosebud Sioux) nominated Keith for the CSA. Since 2012, Keith and Dyani have worked in various capacities on a wide range of projects, and are currently collaborating on an upcoming exhibition led by Keith titled “Creation.Story.”

“He has worked tremendously hard to make space for and to support the development of Native artists through curatorial work, public art projects, exhibitions, and instruction in and out of the classroom,” Dyani says. “As I watched him interact with the students and his peers, I realized I was witnessing an elder in his youth.”

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KELLY CHURCH (Gun Lake Band) Hopkins, Michigan

Traversing the swampy areas around Michigan, Kelly searches for black ash trees. After she finds one with bark growing straight, she checks the growth rings, looking for ones with a nickel’s width.

She isn’t alone in her quest.

“Black ash basketry teaches us to work together, as you cannot safely harvest a tree alone,” Kelly says.

After the tree is down, she takes the backside of an ax and pounds one end of the log to the other. The growth rings begin to release. Kelly splits the growth rings for basket material.

“Each skill from start to finish requires strength, patience, community working together, and a good heart,” she says. “The traditional teachings that my elders have so generously shared with me are used in our everyday Anishinabe lives. We use baskets to hold our pencils and paperwork in our offices. We use black ash winnowing baskets to shuck our corn. The traditional teachings I share are those that we have been so fortunate to have from thousands of years ago through today.”

Kelly’s nominator, Chris Pappan (Kaw Nation) (2016 Artist in Business Leadership fellow), shared how Kelly works with other basket weavers to exchange knowledge amongst several Indigenous communities

“She is the kind of person who treats people as relatives, even when she first meets you,” Chris says. “Through her teachings, we learn about her and her community and the importance of conserving those things that are precious to us all.”

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‍GORDON ʻUMIALILOAALAHANAUOKALĀKAUA KAI (ʻUMI KAI) (Native Hawaiian) Honolulu, Hawai’i

Learning to make cordage from tree bark, cutting wood with a stone, making a fish hook from bone, making a basket out of leaves, boiling water in a wooden bowl — these simple tasks aren’t as simple as they appear. ʻUmi understands this well.

“Realizing how much effort and preparation goes into these things teaches us appreciation for our natural and cultural resources, and to value the ‘ike (knowledge),” ʻUmi says. “It instills in us a sense of pride for our ancestors and each other.”

ʻUmi holds the title of ‘Olohe Lua, a master of lua (Hawaiian martial arts). He was among a small core of dedicated practitioners who kept this practice alive. ʻUmi is also a carver of mea kaua (Hawaiian weaponry) and other tools used for fishing, war/fighting, games, food preparation, dance, ceremonies, ceremonial structures, and adornments. When possible, he uses native woods, bone, shell, ivory, and teeth.

“Most people create for beauty,” ʻUmi says. “But the creation needs to be functional, so my push now and going forward is to teach functionality to students.”

Nominator Kapulani Landgraf (Native Hawaiian) has known of ʻUmi Kai for over 20 years and, in 2012, invited ʻUmi to teach a Hawaiian Art class at Kapiʻolani Community College.

“He became our kumu (teacher/source) and advisor as a Hawaiian Cultural Practitioner and master artist within our community,” Kapulani says. “ʻUmi is a staunch traditional cultural practitioner in several art forms and embodies the Hawaiian values, beliefs, and customs into his teachings and the passing on of ancestral knowledge.”

KATERI MASTEN (Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk) McKinleyville, California

At six years old, Kateri peered over at her great-aunt, watching her weave a mat. Her auntie took notice of Kateri’s curiosity and handed her sticks and roots. She showed Kateri how to do a basic start on a button.

Now, Kateri often sits on a stool in the shallow edge of a river with her materials and weaves. She is connected with the water as she works with willow and hazel sticks, willow roots, spruce roots, grape roots, bear grass, woodwardia, maidenhair ferns, buckbrush, alder bark, and Oregon grape root.

Kateri is a part of the Native Women’s Collective, a grassroots nonprofit that focuses on the continued revitalization of Native arts and culture. Her community extends to the many tribal nations in the region. She helps lead basket weaving retreats and cultural arts workshops, connecting with people from across the region, the state of California, and internationally with other Indigenous peoples.

“Weavers amongst our community are known to be kind, patient, knowledgeable, and nurturing,” Kateri says. “Our qualities greatly contribute to the health of our people, our territories, and our ceremonies with every stitch we weave.”

Assistant Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University, Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy (Hoopa Valley Tribe), nominated Kateri for the CSA. Cutcha says, “Kateri is a powerhouse and not only has continued to develop her master artist skills throughout her life; she has also prioritized community outreach and education.”

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‍GLADYS THUNDER HAWK-GAY (Oglala Lakota) Kyle, South Dakota

Years ago, Gladys organized a run in Porcupine during a Tiospaye gathering for her grandson, who had completed the Los Angeles Marathon. The prizes for first, second, and third at her run were star quilts. One young man ran his heart out for 5 miles and took first place. He later explained he ran to win a star quilt to give to his grandfather, who was battling cancer.

“The quilt itself brings a sense of healing to the person receiving it during a troubled time,” Gladys says. “When a star quilt is wrapped around a person, they feel loved and cherished.”

Gladys is a passionate quilt maker who reflects her Lakota values of generosity, humility, and virtue. In her young married life, she began sewing quilts for the Mediator Episcopal Church Women’s group. At that time, the church was a central gathering place for the American Horse community, where Gladys raised her family and offered her time, leadership, and teachings to the church.

Archivist at Oglala Lakota College, Tawa Ducheneaux (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), nominated Gladys for the CSA.

“She has joked about retiring from quilting, but never says no to anyone, and often donates her quilts,” Tawa says. “Gladys would be considered to have ‘napé waketa,’ fine hands that create art. She is a Lakota treasure.”