From Youth Poet to Program Manager
Autumn White Eyes (Oglala Lakota/Turtle Mountain Band of Anishinaabe) was raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
In 2014, she graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Native American Studies and Creative Writing. In 2017, she received her Ed.M in Arts in Education from Harvard. Autumn is a spoken-word artist and published author.
Prior to joining First Peoples Fund (FPF) as the Program Manager of Youth Development in January 2021, Autumn was a teaching artist, education consultant, and has 6 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector. Some of the organizations she has worked with include Red Cloud Indian School, Native Youth Leadership Alliance, Art Change US, Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, 3 Generations, and City Year New York.
Cameras and celebrities added to the pop in the air as Autumn walked into the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Los Angeles for the first time. Still a high school senior, Autumn loved poetry but had never seen it presented like this.
“I loved that young people, who were around the same age as me, were being free on the mic,” she says. “I wasn’t writing poetry in the same way, but that inspired me.”
First Peoples Fund supported her trip in 2010 during the early years of FPF’s Spoken-Word Youth Development Initiative. Autumn and Tiana Spotted Thunder (Oglala Sioux Tribe) — now a 2020 FPF Artist in Business Leadership fellow — were Team Pine Ridge members.
That event inspired Autumn to continue poetry, branch into spoken word, and volunteer with FPF in the youth program.
“At Dartmouth College, I joined the poetry group and did spoken word and slam poetry there,” Autumn says. “At the same time, First People’s Fund was starting their youth development work. I helped out long-distance, and in the summertime, we took a group, Waš'aka Howašte (‘strong voices’), back to Brave New Voices.”
FPF continued weaving through Autumn’s life. In 2011, she had an opportunity to go to the Alternative ROOTS Week conference. Supported by FPF for the trip, Autumn witnessed arts, culture, and community come together, and the inspiration sent Autumn on a trajectory in the arts and culture field. She later became an Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) fellow in 2019. ILI is a collaborative effort of First Peoples Fund, Alternate ROOTS, the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture, and the PA’I Foundation that provides a year-long intensive leadership experience for artists, culture bearers and other arts practitioners.
“To learn from arts and culture leaders and cultural bearers across the country doing amazing work was challenging, but rewarding,” Autumn says. “It assisted me on my journey to take on this new role and work with young people in art.”
In August 2018, Autumn was hired as a contractor for FPF’s youth development program. She helped create the curriculum used in the poetry program and recently began teaching that same curriculum.
In her new role as a full-time staff member and Program Manager of Youth Development, Autumn will oversee poet mentors and guide them in the journey of working with young people through programming. Autumn had already begun working with the FPF youth this past October to kick off the new season of programming. In place of the Emerging Poets Fellowship this year, the program’s focus is on workshops and open mics, emphasizing kinship building.
“We also work with partners at the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, Nis’to Incorporated in Sisseton (both in South Dakota), and the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis,” Autumn explains. “It’s exciting to work with these partners. They share [with me what’s going on in] their communities and how our work is translating to those areas. How we can make our program better and reach more young people is something that excites me about the work.”
From that first Brave New Voices event as a high school senior, Autumn’s journey with FPF has blossomed into a career of mentoring and inspiring youth as she experienced both herself.
“I enjoy the community of First Peoples Fund and being part of artists and supporters who are advocating for our large artist community,” Autumn says. “I love being part of that intergenerational community.”
New Cohort of Fellows for a New Year
Although 2020 was a year of overcoming challenges for both visual and performing Native artists, these artists demonstrated their resilience as they pivoted, inspired, and led the way in their communities.
From online storytelling and musical performances to virtual art booths, artists in the First Peoples Fund family forged new paths. And those who were 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership and Cultural Capital Fellows created new ways to utilize their fellowships to serve their communities and fellow artists. Collaborations were born, funds were raised to assist those in need, and new art hit digital shelves. Through it all, the FPF fellows grew as entrepreneurs and in connection with their communities as they created art steeped in their culture.
As we look ahead to our 2021 cohort of fellows, we welcome 11 new Artist in Business Leadership (ABL) and 12 Cultural Capital (CC) fellows artists who hold to their values and embody the same resourcefulness and determination as their predecessors.While the unknown is still before us, the two things we are certain of are the commitment and passion these artists have for their communities, artforms and culture.
Artist In Business Leadership (ABL) Fellows
The ABL program intends to boost the business skills of artists so they can grow as independent, Native artist entrepreneurs who are credible in business and generous in spirit. Many ABL artists rely on their art as their primary source of income. This is especially challenging in our current climate. Thus, we are proud to partner with the following artists in helping them thrive this year.
Cultural Capital (CC) Fellows
The Cultural Capital fellowship’s purpose is to strengthen the Collective Spirit® of those artists who perpetuate generosity, wisdom, and integrity in their communities. We welcome the following artists into the FPF family in 2021 as they work to broaden their impact for generations to come.
Click on each image to learn more about each fellow:
Weaving Generations
Lani Hotch (Tlingit) wove a variation of the lightning pattern for her robe’s (blanket) top border.
She keenly felt how all people are compelled on a timeline, being pushed forward as times change. People die, others are born.
This is what the top border of her Generations Robe represents.
In 2016, Lani had started to feel her own mortality. Two elder weavers she knew in southeast Alaska had passed away. They were the same age as her.
“Here I’m thinking I have all this time, and you just never know,” Lani says. She is the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center’s Executive Director, a First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award honoree (2011), and a Cultural Capital fellow (2015, 2016).
“I felt like I had to do a number of things immediately,” she says. “First, I wanted to take on apprentices and teach them how to weave so that the weaving legacy wouldn’t die with me. I had done a few group projects, and some people did know how to weave, but not very many. Nobody other than myself had taken on a full-sized robe project on their own.”
The elders’ passing pushed Lani to work ever harder on preserving and perpetuating history and culture. Through a grant under the National Park Service, she took on an apprentice who began weaving a robe. She also began weaving the Generations Robe in January of 2018.
The sense of urgency she felt in getting this knowledge spread was confirmed in March 2018 when a ruptured appendix nearly took her life.
“My elders are passing, and my generation is becoming the elders,” Lani says. “I felt a keen sense of responsibility towards the younger generation to teach them all I can of what I know so that knowledge won’t be lost when I pass.”
After recovering, Lani began work again on the Generations Robe. She thought through the side borders, another variation on the lightning pattern. There are no clean-cut transitions between generations. In her own family, Lani has nine older brothers, with the oldest being 20 years older than her. A decade separates her in age from his children.
“There’s overlap, and that side border speaks to how our generations intermesh,” she says. “It’s one long continuum, and it’s not clear where one ends, and another one starts.”
In 2019, the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center in Klukwan, a village with a population of less than 100, was awarded a First Peoples Fund Indigenous Arts Ecology Grant. The Center’s dance group typically welcomes thousands of visitors annually who come for their cultural education tours. The youth and elders who participate in the tours wear regalia, but Lani could see the fraying edges, worn moccasins, unfinished tunics, and commercial knock-offs being used because of the lack of authentic regalia. She applied for the funding, in part, to restore their regalia.
“[With the grant] we made a dozen pair of moccasins,” Lani says. “Others worked on upgrading the regalia. That was one of the focuses of the first year of our IAE grant.”
As a result when the Frog Clan House at.oow (clan treasures), including four totemic house posts and a replica of the Raven wall screen, returned to Klukwan in 2019, the youth and elders welcomed them home to the Heritage Center in ceremony, dressed in the restored regalia.
While they were restoring and adding to the dance group’s regalia, Lani wove the Generation’s Robe. The row below the top border features the labret pattern. It honors the legacy of the women who were weavers in the village, and all the women who brought forth generations.
Following the labret is a butterfly pattern — the transition that takes place between generations.
In the center of the robe are hourglass figures.
“The idea behind the Generations Robe was triggered by the death of those two weavers,” Lani says. “At some point, the time runs out on our lives, and the next generation must carry things forward.”
On each side of the hourglasses are tree patterns representing the different generations. In Lani’s family tree, she is the fourth generation of weavers.
The bottom border recalls the lightning of the top border to show how the younger generations will look back to their elders and ancestors for wisdom and guidance.
Lani finished the Generations Robe and added it to the Heritage Dancers’ regalia. She had noticed the robe her brother Jack used was saggy and worn. For 20 years, he has taught boys of the group how to dance in the men’s style. Jack was the male role model they needed, always sparking interest in the boys to do the traditional dancing. Lani wanted to honor him by gifting the robe to the group for him to wear. He will use the Generations Robe as long as he keeps dancing.
“Our dancers are like cultural ambassadors,” Lani says. “They perform for the visitors who come to Klukwan as part of tour groups or off cruise ships. People that come out want to learn about our culture. Our dancers perform new dances and tell history with those performances. They can truly represent the richness of our cultural heritage.”
In 2020, the Heritage Center’s IAE program moved into creating a craft store in the old hospitality house on the grounds. That concept came from an FPF convening that included a session on artists’ needs to access material.
“That’s what gave me the idea that we needed to have a craft shop in Klukwan where people could buy the materials and make things whenever they want,” Lani says. “We’re looking to open between now and the new year.”
Restored regalia. New robe. Generations gone before, generations ahead. Lani and her people are continuing in the flow of time.
She says, “People are always dying, people are being born, and the generations change.”
A Soul Touched by Sound
dg Hatch is a Chippewa artist, flute maker, sculptor, and flute player. He is a tribal member of the Chippewa of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He has been a woodworker for over 40 years. dg makes Native American wooden flutes in a Woodland style. He refers to his significant flute design changes as generations; he’s currently in the 6th generation.
dg resides in Reedsport, Oregon, and is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellow.
Surrounded by thousands of people at the LA County Fair, one sound reached dg’s heart. He moved toward the sound. Paused, listened. Moved again.
He soon discovered the source of the sound in a small courtyard where a man had a table set up with his flutes. dg purchased one and took it home.
“I sat alone and played,” he says. “I wasn’t very good, but it was like a download from heaven. It touched me like nothing had ever before.”
The next day, dg bought the tools he needed to begin a 24-year journey of making Native American flutes.
“It was the first time in a very long time I did something I wanted to do,” dg says. His artist brand features his initials lowercase in the same fashion that he signs his flutes.
At the beginning of 2020, dg was scheduled for a six-month exposition at the Great Law of Peace Center in New York. That was canceled due to COVID-19, but he still made a unique flute that would have been part of the display. He entered the flute in the Coastal Douglas Arts and Business Alliance “Recycle, Upcycle, Reuse” Art Challenge. He posed the question, “What can be done with a piece of rescued firewood, a lonely pinecone, a little stone, a little leather, a little skill, and a little love?”
In the next town up from dg, a tree cutter had a piece of American Holly atop his burn pile. dg asked for it and added it to his collection of random material.
“A lot of times, I feel a pull toward picking up things, but not sure exactly what to do with it,” he says. “After a while, they come together and make sense.”
For this flute, dg incorporated the holly, a pinecone from Sisters, OR, a block of Alabaster stone from Springdale, UT, and elk leather from the Wendake Huron Village in Quebec, Canada.
After a long, loving process to remake each object, dg nestled the finished flute in a bronze hand he sculpted of a man rising out of Onondaga Lake in New York, where the Great Tree of Peace once stood. The flute is being offered as a symbol of peace for the people of all Nations.
Tuned to a six finger pentatonic scale in the key of G, dg’s flute won the art contest and is ready to travel the world and do its work for years to come. Perhaps it too will draw a soul in through the sounds of life, and discover a new purpose.
Being the Grandmother She Longed to Have
Roberta (H’Klumaiyat) Joy Kirk (Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, Dine’) is our final 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipient. We have been honoring our four CSA recipients with stories through the end of the year.
When H’Klumaiyat was a young girl, her family suffered a devastating fire. All the regalia her mother’s late grandmother had gifted her became ashes.
H’Klumaiyat’s mother moved them to the suburbs close to Portland, and H’Klumaiyat started working at age six, picking berries in the summertime. At home in the evenings, her two oldest sisters were cooking, beading, or working the loom. She watched them day after day, wishing someone would teach her how to make things. Her mother was always sewing, and H’Klumaiyat learned that skill from her. But no one made H’Klumaiyat traditional regalia so she could dress appropriately for the Longhouse and community ceremonies.
“I always saw the girls my age wearing beautiful dresses that were passed down from their grandparents,”
“I always saw the girls my age wearing beautiful dresses that were passed down from their grandparents,” she says. “My mother was an orphan and raised by her grandmother, who was a medicine woman. Everything that was gifted to my mother was burnt in the home fire. I knew if I wanted anything, then I better learn how to make it myself.”
She did and in the 1980s, as H’Klumaiyat prepared for graduation with her Associates of Fine Arts in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, she tackled her most significant, complex project to date.
“I taught myself how to make a dentalium breastplate,” she says. “It had 50 shells across and was 20 rows long. It was quite large. I already knew how to make dresses, moccasins, and other pieces, but the breastplate was new for me. I used the jewelry tools at the school. I zipped my shells through on a lapidary machine. That was so fast! It cut those shells down in no time.”
Great joy came into H’Klumaiyat’s life through raising her two granddaughters and making sure they have regalia. One is a jingle dancer, one a traditional dancer.
“I’m the grandma I wished I had when I was little,”
“I’m the grandma I wished I had when I was little,” H’Klumaiyat says. “My two granddaughters are always dressed properly when we go to the Longhouse for powwows and ceremonies.”
H’Klumaiyat, residing on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, mentors women in how to create regalia. She recently received a grant from the Evergreen State College to teach high top moccasin making.
“I enjoy teaching students,” she says. “I get called on all the time, even through Facebook. Somebody messaged me the other day and said they were going to make a woman’s dentalium cape and asked me how to do it. I feel comforted to know that this art will continue.”
H’Klumaiyat was also presented a 2020 Governor’s Arts Award, which is in partnership with the Oregon Arts Commission. Her local radio station filmed H’Klumaiyat for the virtual ceremony, helping her to overcome technical challenges. At her rural home, she doesn’t have a cell signal nor reliable wifi.
While she was excited to receive the grant and award, the highlight of H’Klumaiyat’s year was the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award (CSA).
“I was honored to receive that award,” she says. “I looked back at some of the past recipients and see that I stand with a lot of people who aren’t living anymore. The contributions they made towards preserving our culture and tradition has impacted so many of us, and now they’re gone. I’m just honored to be one of the recipients of that same award.”
Though her CSA honoring wasn’t held due to COVID-19, word spread through H’Klumaiyat’s community and nationally. The local tribal paper ran an announcement, and an alumni group of IAIA shared the news. When H’Klumaiyat posted about it on her Facebook, she was amazed at the kind comments and congratulations.
“I got a lot of support and recognition,” she says. “It was humbling.”
The funding that came with her CSA award went toward buying needed supplies for the classes and community work H’Klumaiyat continues to do.
“The different grant funds that I get enables me to buy expensive supplies and put together sewing kits for my students,” she says. “Then they have something they made themselves as they learned this art. They can pass it on to their kids. I enjoy being part of that continuation.”
Executive Director of the Oregon Folklife Network Rachelle (Riki) Saltzman had nominated H’Klumaiyat (Roberta) for the CSA.
“Roberta and I first came to know each other when she was taking part in a Folk Arts in the Park program in 2013,” Riki says. “Besides displaying her handmade regalia, talking about it, and demonstrating her work, Roberta was preparing for her granddaughters’ naming ceremonies in North Dakota. I didn’t know much at the time about this ritual, and she generously explained to me how important it was that she provides traditional regalia and gifts for her family. I believe it is because of her deep cultural knowledge that Roberta is able to imbue her regalia-making with such spirit and devotion.”
At home for most of this year, H’Klumaiyat has kept busy creating projects. Her oldest granddaughter, now 20, helps make regalia on occasion. For years, she has watched H’Klumaiyat sew and teach apprentices. Now she is ready for her turn in making regalia and serving the community.
One of H’Klumaiyat’s parts of being a culture barrier is making ceremonial regalia for someone who has passed whenever a family calls on her. Between herself and her granddaughter, they make everything that a person would wear as an outfit — a buckskin shirt or dress, belt, and moccasins.
“I plan on working with my family and community for as long as I live and am able to still do beadwork and sew,” H’Klumaiyat says.
Her top priority, though, is making sure her granddaughters are properly dressed for events — being the grandmother she wished she’d had.
Tools of the Art
Bruce Cook, III is an acclaimed Haida artist who creates sculptures, silk-screen prints, carved masks, canoes, and painted drums. He began his artistic training under the guidance of his uncle, Warren Peele, a master artist in the Village of Hydaburg, Alaska.
Among his art accomplishments was a commission from the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, for a 20-foot Haida canoe, and a 15-foot pole and the interior decoration for the Islandwood complex on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Bruce banged steel on his Cavalry anvil inside his workshop, forging a new pair of tongs. He and other artists had returned from another session with their mentor where they were assigned work for the week. Their end goal: Making sculpting tools for their art.
“When I started sculpting, that was the biggest hindrance — having my own tools,” Bruce says. “It’s $1,000 just to begin.”
Part of Bruce’s FPF Cultural Capital fellowship was teaching others how to craft tools to lower the cost of entering this art form.
“We’ve inspired people to start making their tools,”
Though Bruce was born in Ketchikan, Alaska, his family soon moved to the Wind River Reservation. He has family from both the Northern Arapaho and Haida cultures. At a young age, he decided to become an artist as he watched his uncle carving a small model canoe.
Bruce begins most of his projects with quiet mornings, a pot of coffee, and a sheet of paper in front of him to create designs. He waits for the “crazy” moments to happen.
“To create in the Haida art form, one has to learn the rules so you can break them correctly,” he says. “Then there are thousands of possibilities in how to create the design or sculpture.”
As Bruce is learning to make his carving tools, he opens the door for other artists who struggle to overcome the financial barrier of purchasing tools. He even has bead workers join in making their own knives.
“Teaching this skill can inspire more Indigenous artists in the community to create, empower, and raise questions,” Bruce says. “They can create more art, which then can influence society, change opinion, instill values, and translate those experiences across space and time. It can bring a community together by reducing isolation and make the people feel safer.”
Inspiration in Unlikely Places
I’ve literally surrounded myself with the things I want to do and that make me happy. I am able to sit down and create art, whether it be music, visuals, clothing, or editing. My apartment has an art space in every corner.”
Born and raised in Red Rock, New Mexico, Aveda Adara (Dine’/Navajo) is a trans, queer, two-spirit artist. Growing up among artists in her family, Aveda has always had the spirit of art and survival inside of her.
“My grandmother used to make turtles out of beads and leather. And many of my relatives are silversmiths who made jewelry. They always had the means to make something to help them survive. And they were always artistic.”
She is very much the same. “We were dirt poor. So I got used to using whatever I had to make something out of it.” Aveda started altering clothing when she was around 12 years old and started drawing and painting in high school. And she always performed. Today, she lives in Houston, Texas, where she moved ten years ago upon the recommendation of a friend who told her it was easier to get a job there because of the oil industry. She was seeking a new start and a pathway to beat her addictions. At first it was hard for her; she was homeless. But once she started meeting people in the Houston art scene who were really helpful and supportive, Aveda gained a foothold.
“I’m the type of person who needs to have more than one thing to do.”
Aveda truly embodies that variety and versatility as a visual and performing artist. She’s a painter, she hosts a podcast, and is a DJ. And now 10 years later after first arriving in Texas, she is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership fellow.
“The fellowship has been life-changing for me. A year ago, I had so many things that I wanted to accomplish and so many things that I wanted to do. The fellowship made all that happen. I’ve learned many of the things that I have wanted to learn, including how to edit film and how to edit music using real music software. I didn’t think I would be where I am now.”
Prior to the fellowship, Aveda was DJing at art shows which eventually led to mini-festivals, virtual shows and clubs. But the work was sporadic because she couldn’t afford her own equipment. This year, due to limited in-person opportunities, Aveda records her deejay sets using a green screen and posts them on SoundCloud and YouTube. “I’m definitely making my name as the only American Indian DJ in The Deep South.”
Over the years, Aveda received inspiration from some of the most unlikely people. “My mother was an alcoholic and she would bring around the most bizarre people. They were the nicest most caring people, but they had addiction issues. Yet some of them were able to turn their lives around, and that inspired me.”
About five years ago Aveda was interviewed on a podcast and by the time it was over the host suggested that she should start her own. So that planted a seed.
For the past two years Aveda has hosted a podcast, The Two Spirit Podcast. Produced monthly, the podcast is geared toward “grasping concepts of inspiration” – a common and recurring thread in Aveda’s life.
“I was always fortunate to have a family that accepted me and allowed me to be who I wanted to be.
“I was always fortunate to have a family that accepted me and allowed me to be who I wanted to be. That enabled me to grow artistically. I've had so many people reach out to me this past year than ever before, telling me how much of an effect I have on them as a two-spirit person and as an artist -- that my art is healing to them, and they are glad I am making my art to show the rest of the world that a Native artist is among them.”
As for what’s next for Aveda, she wants to start making music and eventually become a music producer for other Native artists. And she’s already drawing inspiration from 2019 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow, Talon Bazille Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe) who is a poet, rapper, musician, music producer, and performing artist. “He’s kind of like a big brother to me.”
Although all of the programming for the fellowship this year has been virtual, being a part of something with other artists from many other tribes has been really special for Aveda. “Thanks for taking a chance on me. It set my life in a whole different direction from where it was a year ago. I’m really excited about what the future holds for me, and for everybody else.”
The Movements of Hula
Bernadette “Pelena” Keeling (Native Hawaiian) has been a hula olapa (dancer) for over 30 years. She comes from a hālau (school or group) that has won multiple awards in the competition of hula, and has travelled the world. She uniki (graduated) from her hālau, Na Lei o Kaholoku, in 2012. She has taught youth for the past 7 years, focusing on identity, self-esteem, and confidence using hula.
Pelena is a 2020 First Peoples Fund Cultural Capital Fellow residing in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i.
High in the mountains, Pelena instructs her students in a slow squat as they lower their bodies to the earth rather than bending. The movements are purposeful, not only strengthening their bodies for hula but planting another piece of life in their agroforestry project.
Agroforestry is intentionally integrating trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits.
“We’re teaching the kids to grow our own food supply,” Pelena says. “This is where we use hula, too. They have to balance on the land because of the rough terrain. When they plant, we make them squat versus bending over. It’s good for your back, and it also gets them in shape for when we start hula.”
From the plot of land, Pelena and the students look over the ocean far below. Pelena takes them down there as an extension of their agroforestry and hula preparation.
“What is growing natively on the land is growing in the ocean as well,” she says. “We have to teach them how to take care of the ocean because that’s like our refrigerator.”
Pelena has the youth sit in the waves to absorb the ocean’s movement.
“When the current naturally moves you, you feel how easy it flows,” she says. “We tell them to watch the seaweed on the rocks, look at how the ocean goes out and in, and how soft it looks. That is how we want them to flow. That complements how you move with the land and strengthens your legs enough to walk through or plant the land. That’s how you hula, the foundation of where your strength comes from.”
So far, Pelena has 15 youth taking part in the project. But many more parents are asking for the opportunity to have their kids involved in a constructive social activity that connects them with their Hawaiian heritage and homeland during COVID-19.
“If we can get the kids out and doing farm work and hula on the land, get them doing outreach in the community, it allows them to still be kids,”
Once the current plot is finished, they will move on to a 17-acre parcel to transform it with agroforestry — all through the movements of hula.
People of the River
Virgil “Smoker” Marchand’s grandmother gave him the name “Spa Poole,” which means smokey or smoke in his Native language.
Smoker (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Arrow Lakes) is a 2020 Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award recipient. We are honoring our CSA recipients with stories each month through the end of the year.
Stationed in the grasslands near Beebe Springs Natural Area in Washington State, a young boy pulls salmon out of the creek; women dig for roots; a young girl puts meat on a drying rack while her mother tends salmon that is baking.
These are steel sculptures that Smoker created to put his peoples’ history and culture as “People of the River” back on the land. This iconic scene — and more — are striking in their size, beauty, and realism.
Graduating from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1971, Smoker tried several art mediums to tell his peoples’ story. In the 70s, he illustrated the legends and coyote stories of his tribe. In the 90s, he illustrated the book, A River Lost. He’s done paintings of numerous tribal people, bronzes, ice carving, and wood carving. A tribal elder described his work as “Bringing our people home.”
“I never limited myself to one thing, but the steelwork was hands down my favorite,”
“I never limited myself to one thing, but the steelwork was hands down my favorite,” Smoker says. “When you’re doing paintings and the like, you have to do what sells, so you’re not always doing pieces you want to do. Soon, you get bored because you want to do your own stuff. I never had that with steel because I was capturing the history and culture of my people throughout Washington state, and I loved it.”
Smoker’s uncle mentored him in making stunning sculptures that now grace public places — from the tribe’s Veterans Memorial that Smoker designed and crafted in 1986 to Bigfoot on US Highway 155 above a rock outcropping. His work is recognized throughout the state.
But the enormous pieces Smoker once produced at five or six per year took a toll on his body. Healthwise, he cannot do the steelwork at the level he once did, so Smoker is searching for an alternative as he scales back his projects. He’s making plans to incorporate a tabletop machine that will allow him to make root diggers, engrave headstones, and generally build an inventory he wasn’t able to before.
“During our root season, we go out with the elders, have a feast, and do root digging. I’ve done life-sized root diggers in steel,” he says. “Those are cool but hard to do. With the tabletop machine, I can do smaller pieces. I do an elderly woman digging a root. On the stand is a feather with my signature, and people can put it on their desk.”
Though it will be hard to watch a machine work with the steel, it allows Smoker to continue his love for steel that has earned him national recognition.
His friend Kenneth “Butch” Stanger (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation), who has known Smoker for 60 years, nominated him for the First Peoples Fund Community Spirit Award (CSA).
“Smoker may be local to us, but his talent should be shared with the entire country,” Butch says. “He has done many paintings of our people, tribal leaders — art that depicts our culture and traditions. Everyone deserves a chance to experience Smoker’s art.”
Throughout his art career, Smoker has garnered praise, including winning at a major art show in North Dakota. But he never had full confidence as an artist. The national recognition given to him and his work through the CSA bolstered him.
“You go throughout life wondering if you’re good enough,” he says. “I think artists are like that, wondering where they fit. First Peoples Fund supports them. The award went out there, and people saw my work. I received so many great comments about how beautiful the sculptures are, that they’ve never seen anything like them. It was humbling to have people appreciate my work. Locally, everyone does. But you always wonder what it’s like on the outside.”
Another Community Spirit Award honoree (2000), Elaine Timentwa Emerson (Colville Confederated Tribes), is one of Smoker’s mentors. Elaine suffered great tragedy on the Colville Indian Reservation when the September wildfire swept through and burned her home. She was able to save some of her precious handwoven baskets.
Smoker is assisting Elaine and countless families in the community in his new role as a tribal council member.
“She’s a tough woman,” he says. “When I do projects, I talk to her a lot. She’s been nothing but supportive and helps me with the Indian names of different areas. She’s really a dictionary and gives me information as far as how people lived. We had areas of common ground like Kettle Falls, where tribes gathered. We did things alike, but there were differences, like the languages and some with how they dressed.”
COVID-19 and the devastating fire has Smoker putting his art aside for a time. But his community work remains vast. He donates art pieces to local charities and has done wood burnings on some 400 caskets over the years for families suffering the loss of a loved one.
“His work brings pride to our elders and young people too,”
“His work brings pride to our elders and young people too,” Butch says. “Smoker welded the mascot for one of our local schools, and you should have seen the pride in the faces of our students who know him. It demonstrates that anyone can finetune their gift and make a difference in other’s lives.”
Indigenous Performances and Wisdom Permeate Internet Airways
My parents were farmers, and my brother and I would work the horse-drawn plow. I had corn seeds in a pouch, and I would drop each seed behind him as he plowed the earth. I went right behind him and dropped the corn seeds as we went. I’ll never forget those experiences.
Arletta Toland (Diné) illustrated the story of her life through American Sign Language (ASL) during an IndigenousWays Virtual Event — Wisdom Circle, via Zoom. An ASL interpreter on a split-screen spoke the words of Arletta’s life of when she hauled water on her family’s farm; then to the fever that took away her hearing; to growing up in boarding schools, foster homes, and her parent’s farm; to now, her life on the Navajo Reservation as a deaf Indigenous woman. Arletta was among dozens of elders who shared wisdom through a bi-weekly series hosted by IndigenousWays.
IndigenousWays (formally Indigenous Solutions) was founded in 2007 by Natasha Terry (Diné/French/Irish) and Elena Higgins (Maori/Samoa). The nonprofit is dedicated to inclusively promoting to diverse communities living in balance concepts through music and artistic expression outreach and events.
IndigenousWays received a First Peoples Fund (FPF) Our Nations’ Spaces grant in 2020 with plans to use the funding to host their second BeautyWays Music and Arts Festival. But in mid-February, they wondered if the event would go on. When the COVID-19 shutdown came in March, they pivoted their plans and started a bi-weekly virtual series. Through the IndigenousWays Virtual Events — Wisdom Circle and Concert Series, they worked with elders, spiritual advisers, communities, artists, musicians, and guest presenters to maintain connections.
“Amber Hoy and Hillary Presecan at First Peoples Fund were extremely supportive,” Natasha says. “We had regular meetings, troubleshooting the online aspects, as we had never done this. We were working month to month, sorting and getting out the monthly calendar of the presenters and their information, updating our website and all our social media pages. This is how we have worked in the past, but not at this insane velocity!”
Natasha and Elena launched the Wisdom Circle and Concert Series on April 1. They continued to dig deep daily to produce two newsletters per week and promote on social media.
They took in feedback and worked with First Peoples Fund to make each week. Now 60 presenters and 60,000 views into the series, they’ve developed a format that respects the presenters and their time, honors the land and people of the land, and informs viewers of other IndigenousWays happenings, including relief for Black Mountain, Arizona on the Navajo Nation.
Hit hard during the COVID-19 crisis, Natasha’s home-place of Black Mountain received $25,000 through IndigenousWays’ fundraising. Since the end of May, they have conducted four relief runs to take emergency supplies and hand-washing stations to communities.
“Because of this platform, we’ve been able to bring relief to Black Mountain,” Natasha says. “We’re going on our fifth relief run, 26 miles up a mountain dirt road.”
The Concert Series presenters — musicians and performers — are thankful for the paid opportunity to present their art. Among the hardest hit by the shutdown, performing artists come online to present poetry, music, and storytelling.
“With the [Our Nations’ Spaces] funding, we’re able to pay all presenters and interpreters,” Natasha says. “They [have] made clear their gratitude of being supported during this time.”
One of the largest audiences reached in this series is the deaf and hard of hearing. Every event is teamed with ASL interpreters to make access available for all, and IndigenousWays introduces a deaf Indigenous elder like Arletta every month.
“We do a split-screen for the interpreter to be on the other half of the screen,” Natasha says. She is also an ASL interpreter and understands the challenges of live streaming. “It’s very accessible visually.”
Having an ASL interpreter for his performance during the series stands out in Wade Fernandez’s (Menominee) memory. Wade is an FPF Cultural Capital Fellow (2015), Artist in Business Leadership Fellow (2012, 2013), Community Spirit Award Honoree (2010), and FPF trainer. He now does 3-4 live streams per week for several venues — doing his part to bring hope.
“It’s like the [ASL] interpreters are part of the art,” he says. “They’re flowing with the music and the words. You’re doing the music, but they’re part of it; they’re jamming with you. I’m glad to be in the series because it’s reaching people that aren’t reached in other ways. That’s such a beautiful point of what IndigenousWays is doing.”
At the end of each virtual event, Natasha or Elena welcome the audience to turn on their mics and cameras to check in.
“Inviting people on is so well-received,” Natasha says. “It allows people the opportunity to be seen, heard, valued, and to have their lives witnessed during this time. Some people have questions for the presenters, and others just want to say ‘hi.’ According to feedback, our platform actually saved people from committing suicide. The intimacy of having people invited onto the platform at the end of the speaker session proved to be healing for a lot of people.”
As the global audience shaped the series, IndigenousWays decided to stream via Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. Elders and performers continue to share their wisdom and art through the series while Natasha and Elena seek more funding for it and ongoing relief efforts on Black Mountain.
“IndigenousWays’ ability to transition very quickly has been made possible with the support from the Our Nations’ Spaces grant,” Elena says. “We want to give you all a huge shout out not only for blessing us with the funding but also for your spectacular support. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without your loving support.”
For this series, IndigenousWays also received assistance from the National Endowment of the Arts, National Endowment of Humanities, New Mexico Humanities Councils, NM Arts, Santa Fe City Arts Commission, and individual donors.
Introducing Maya Austin
This month, we welcomed a new team member to First Peoples Fund’s (FPF) staff — Maya Austin. Her abundant passion, experience, and knowledge will undoubtedly contribute to FPF’s mission to uplift Native artists and culture bearers in these challenging times.
Meet Maya Austin (Pasqua Yaqui, Blackfeet, Mexican-American)
Director / Program Weaver
“My sister is such a beautiful artist,” Maya says, claiming her sister got the family’s artistic genes — but Maya found her talent in supporting artists, especially filmmakers, through her former position as Senior Manager for the Indigenous Program at Sundance Institute. She identified and supported emerging Indigenous filmmakers and content creators across the United States and globally.
Maya is carrying this passion for artists into her role as Director - Program Weaver at First Peoples Fund. She will play a central role in integrating the programs of FPF to grow the Indigenous Arts Ecology.
Digesting the wealth of material that goes into the thought behind FPF’s programs, Maya realizes the depth of support the organization offers to Indian Country and looks forward to actualizing the vision of the FPF team and deepening their investment in the Indigneous Arts Ecology.
“As the Program Weaver Director, my goal is to weave all programmatic strands to create a strong system of support through everything we’re doing so that all the programs and fellowships are representative of these different strands of work,” she says.
“What I love about the Indigenous Arts Ecology is how it’s grounded in community and ancestral knowledge. How do we grow and cultivate our creative arts landscape from there? That’s intriguing to me.”
For three years, Maya served as an Archivist and Grants Manager at the U.S. Department of Interior, Washington, DC, for the national Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Program. A board member of Vision Maker Media and the Cousin Collective, Maya has experience as a film curator, instructor, and trainer. She has a bachelor’s degree in History with a minor in Film and a master’s degree in Moving Image Archive Studies, both from UCLA.
“What drives me now is the continued commitment to nurture and invest in our artists,” she says. “The modalities of that through First Peoples Fund is exciting. As Indigenous peoples, we’ve always been expressive and telling stories. But it’s the modality in which we do it that changes and makes us resilient as a people.”
Maya first encountered FPF through her work with Sundance. As part of their programming, she incorporated financial literacy training, which FPF provided. Maya went on to become an Arts Program Specialist with the California Arts Council, a position she most recently held prior to becoming FPF’s Program Weaver.
Maya will be working remotely from her home in Sacramento, where she resides with her husband Tyler and their rescue dog, Wally.
Introducing Anna Huntington
This month, we welcome back a team member to First Peoples Fund’s (FPF) staff — Anna Huntington. Her abundant passion, experience, and knowledge will contribute to FPF’s mission to uplift Native artists and culture bearers in these challenging times.
Meet Anna Huntington
Grants and Individual Giving Manager
As a two-time Olympic rower and bronze medalist, Anna joined the first all-women team to compete in the America’s Cup in a time when women’s sports were beginning to gain mainstream attention. Anna penned a book, Making Waves, that chronicles her experience.
“I was an athlete my entire life, a competitive swimmer from the age of seven through college,” she says. “I joined the rowing team in college and ended up competing in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. You often hear about the sacrifices people make in order to go to the Olympics, but I honestly felt so fortunate. I would wake up excited to go and row every day.”
Years of dedication to her sport, being a team player, and writing are skills Anna brings to her position as Grants and Individual Giving Manager at FPF. This new and exciting role will expand FPF’s efforts to bring in individual donors. The hybrid position reflects FPF’s need to fill the grant writing/grants management role and add specific individual giving responsibilities as we move toward diversifying our revenue sources.
Anna previously served as First Peoples Fund’s Development Director for three and a half years and has been working with us since early this year to raise significant foundation funding. She also worked for the Women's Foundation of Minnesota and as executive director of Arts Rapid City. Anna has a bachelor’s degree in English from Harvard University and master’s in Journalism from Columbia University. Her freelance journalism about women’s sports appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times to Glamour.
“We’re delighted to have Anna back on staff,” says Sonya Gavin (Diné), First Peoples Fund’s VP of Advancement and Communications. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with her since I joined First Peoples Fund earlier this year. And in this new position, she has hit the ground running with her knowledge of First Peoples Fund’s programs, grants portfolio and strategic framework. We appreciate and deeply value her writing experience and the work ethic she gained as an athlete. She will contribute greatly to growing our resources for our community of culture bearers & artists and the Indigenous Arts Ecology.”
“As an athlete, you have your goals and your single-minded plans for reaching them, and you get up every day and make it happen,”
“As an athlete, you have your goals and your single-minded plans for reaching them, and you get up every day and make it happen,” Anna says. “I learned a degree of focus and concentration from having to practice that for all those years.”
Anna is working remotely from her home in Minneapolis, the home base for her family. She and her husband, Stewart, raised two children. Their son is working his dream job teaching in Colorado while their daughter has picked up rowing in college.
Anna’s own love for the water and being a team player hasn’t faded.
“I love the team at First Peoples Fund,” she says. “Feeling a part of this group of committed people is inspiring. I always enjoy leaning in with a group of people, knowing that I’m bringing my best to benefit the team.”
