Indigenous Voices, Part 2: Reasserting Potawotomi Presence Through Art

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Transcript

1 0:06

Hello, everyone. welcome back for, the first of our afternoon sessions. Thank you so much for coming and attending. we are delighted, to be hosting this again, and thank you for participating. I'm now going to turn it over to the moderator of our next section, Zeta. So, please, Zeta, take it away.

2 0:20

Bonjour, Zeta Balloon Dich Nikas, bode wad min dao, mina pok hagan in a yuk in da bin da gwis mako ot n do dem. Hi, everybody. My name is Ada Valloux. I'm an enrolled citizen of the Polk Hagen Band of Pottawatomie Indians, and I'm a member of the Bear Clan. it's my honor and privilege to welcome you all to the afternoon session. We appreciate you being here. before I, introduce the speakers of today, I just want to say that I always like to introduce myself to audiences. On campus in Bo Wame, because that's something that our university's founder, father Edward Soren hoped to do one day too. In a letter dated December 5th, 1842, less than two weeks after University of Notre Dame was founded, father Soren wrote to Father Basil Morrow, expressing his eagerness and desire to learn the language of the Potawatomi in order to better serve and understand in his words, his dear Indians. Now, I don't know whether Father Sorin ever learned to speak Baudouin Wad Mimlin, but imagine how different campus might look today if he did. And it's my honor and privilege to be the moderator for today's session, Reasserting Pottawatomie Presence in Michiana Through Art. This past year, I served as the Historical Consultant and Cultural Liaison for the Native American Initiative of Notre Dame, which I hope is the longest job title I ever have in my life because it's certainly a mouthful. my job was to research the Native American history of Notre Dame, starting before the founding and continuing to the present. This session couldn't be more in line with my work my interests or more relevant to our campus today, and I'm excited to introduce our speakers. So I'm going to introduce all of the speakers one by one, and then they'll present for about 20, 25 minutes in that order that I, introduced them. And then we'll, have a few questions and open up for Q and A after that. So firstly, David Martin. David Martin is a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Pottawatomie Indians and has used his upbringing in a traditional Native family to influence his art. Proudly self trained, his artistic media include oil painting, beadwork, and tattoo art. David's first venture into a career in art started in the late 1980s doing beadwork and dance regalia for other Native American dancers. Beyond providing dancers with regalia, some of David Martin's completed beadwork pieces and other items have been displayed in Indiana State House in 2011, the South Bend Museum of Art in 2012 and 2018, and the University of Notre Dame's former Snite Museum of Art in 2019. In 1996, Martin started tattooing professionally in the Michiana area. In 2013, he opened Bicycle Tattoo in South Bend. The first tattoo shop to open within the city limits. Over the course of his career as a tattoo artist, Martin has won many national awards, including from one of the nation's largest and most prestigious tattoo conventions. Martin began his focus on oil painting in 2007. His first solo museum exhibition, The Continuation of the Pottawatomie Culture, Paintings by David Martin, opened at the South Bend Museum of Art in spring 2024. His commissioned work can be found in various places across Michigan and Indiana. he has won awards at the Herd Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, at the, Museum of Western Art in Indianapolis, at the Santa Fe Indian Art Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at the inaugural Seneca, Ohio Indian Market in Salamanca, New York. Martin serves on the Indigenous Consultation Committee at Notre Dame's Racklin Murphy Museum of Art, on the Board of Directors at the South Bend Museum of Art. And as the 2023 2024 Artists in Residence at Notre Dame's Initiative on Race and Resilience. Christine Marie Rapp Morsaw, PokéGamban and Potawatomi, is well known for her black ash, basketry, and porcupine quill work. Christine's Potawatomi name is Abakwesh. Cat tail and his wolf clan. Following in the footsteps of her grandmother, mother, and aunt, Christine has become a master black ash basket maker, sharing and teaching her craft within the community. She is also an avid Pottawatomie language learner and teacher. Her commitment to her Pottawatomie identity is also evident in her leadership role on the Pokagon Bands Traditions and Repatriations Committee, where she works to return Pottawatomie ancestral remains to their rightful resting places. Christine's vision for the future is a thriving community where Pottawatomie cultural knowledge is passed down. She believes the tribe's treasures lie in their community's cultural bearers and traditional knowledge keepers, Her efforts have helped ensure that the Pokagon band's language and culture will continue to flourish. Jason Weisau, Pokagon Band of Pottawatomie. is a multidisciplinary artist exhibiting works in ceramics, textiles, works on paper, installations, and traditional cultural pieces. His projects relate stories about the Pottawatomie people's ancient and evolving connection to the land, sky, water, and beyond. He balances being an artist with working in his tribal community as a Pottawatomie peacemaker, and by participating in traditional cultural ceremonies across the Great Lakes. Jason is Pottawatomie, Turtle Clan, and is raising three children near the historic Pokagon Pottawatomie settlement of Rush Lake in southwestern Michigan. His work is in the permanent collections of the David Martin Museum, Indiana, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, the Newberry Library, Illinois, the Racklin Murphy Museum of Art, Indiana, the Indiana State Museum, and the Center for Native Futures, Illinois, among many others. WeSaw is a core artist for the upcoming Woven Being group exhibition at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It has a solo show opening at the Tube Factory in Indianapolis, Indiana in early 2025. please welcome our first speaker, David Martin.

3 6:48

Hey, abujoo. My name is David Martin. I'm Pokhagan Ban Potawatomi. she covered a lot of stuff I thought I was going to talk about. basically, I've been in South Bend my whole life. I was born and raised here. I was very lucky that I was born into a functioning tribe. I never, discovered at some point that I was Native American. I'm a light skinned Native American. I am mixed. for the longest time growing up, I basically lived in two worlds. I've always participated with my culture. I've been dancing at powwows ever since I was a little kid. in my early teen years, I started singing on the drum and, the drum has actually been a huge influence on my life. I want to say that almost everything that's come to me Has come through that drum. when I was a teenager, I was in the upper bound program out here in Notre Dame. if you're not familiar with that program during the school year, you would come out here and do tutoring. during the summer, you would stay in the dorms and take summer school to help you graduate sooner. when we were out here, there was another native that was in Upper Mountain with me. and we would actually bring the drum and be in Soren Hall And the kids thought we were weird because we would go in there and sing our songs because we were practicing for the powwows that we would have to go to. So we'd missed regular drum practice during the week. But traveling with that drum, got me into my beadwork. I've been doing beadwork ever since I was very little. my mom taught me how to bead, but she started me so young. I don't remember her teaching me. I know somebody taught me, but it's not something you're born with. I think a lot of it's just dedication and pushing yourself. But I lived that life traveling on weekends, and then during the week, I would be living in the regular non native world, it was basically all the way up until my twenties when I started tattooing, I just kept everything separate, and a lot of it was because I was light skinned, even today, like, if I go to, Joann Fabrics to, buy fabric for an outfit I'm making, and this isn't discrimination, I don't want anybody to think that this is me being discriminated against. But I would show up and I'm buying all this fabric and ribbon and stuff, and the lady always asks me, what are you making? And I'm a big, scary tattooed guy, and I'm like, this is for the person I imprison in my basement, before I would just try to avoid the question, cause I hate to explain that, that, you know, I'm, I'm native sometimes, even now because I'm light skinned I've never been discriminated against by My native people, I'm well known in the Powwow circuit in my area. every time I've gone to Powwows outside of my area, I'm always, you know, taking care of, but sometimes it's hard to explain to people outside of the native way of life that, some of us are lighter skin colors, you know, I'm, I'm a quarterblood, but I was raised with it. And sometimes it's hard to get them to take you seriously, I'm not talking about natives or non natives and it's not really a discrimination thing. but it's just something that happens. when I started tattooing, I continued on this path, doing my tattoos during the day and on weekends I'd travel with the drum and powwow, I never really talked about it. And like a big thing in the tattoo industry, and some of you might be familiar with this is like, Indian princess tattoos with the big headdresses. And, you know, a lot of times when like the first. Ten years, I'd just be quiet about it and I would just do it for them. again, it's like you don't want to explain yourself sometimes because you feel like you're defending yourself more than explaining yourself. And it's a hard thing to deal with because it's just like the mascots. it's a presenting of something that's what they think we look like, a misrepresentation. And it's carrying on an image of what we are not. And, most of those people, they probably really don't even care. They just want a cool tattoo. for the longest time, I just kind of let that slide. halfway through my career, I started getting more questions, When it started was when I, opened up Bicycle Tattoo, my first tattoo shop, downtown South Bend. there was this big zoning law we had to go through to open up. since I was going before city council, I was wearing a suit and dressing up nice. I was jumping through their hoops to make sure I can make through my zoning and get my business opened. Well, when When I finally won my, my zoning, when we went to go do the ribbon cutting, some of my tribal council came, Pete Buttigieg was mayor at the time. He came for the ribbon cutting and I wore my dance outfit because I was tired of wearing a suit. I think I just reached a limit of, hiding myself, to make my life easier, not having to explain myself. And once the pictures got out locally of me wearing my stuff, People started asking questions when they come into the tattoo shop. They're like, what was that about? What are you wearing? You know, and they would still want some of these crazy tattoos that, you know, like I'm doing them and my conscience is killing me, doing some of these tattoos. at a certain point I realized I'm really doing a huge disservice continuing this, allowing that to happen. I'm never going to go preach to another tattoo artist. I can't prevent what they're doing. the best thing I figured I could do. Was through education. when people come in and they're saying, Hey, I want this Indian princess tattoo with this big. Eagle headdress. I even had a guy one time that he wanted an eagle wearing a headdress. And I'm like, do you want to tattoo your own face with fingernails on your head? Cause that's what that is. It doesn't make sense to me. what I started to do is I started pushing them. They're going to get it no matter where they go. So what I'm going to try to do is when they come in, I'm going to try to. Talk them into something that is at least authentic and real. And so if they were dead set that they wanted like a pinup or a native princess, I'd pull up pictures from powwows and I'd say, well, this is actually what we look like, it might not be, as fancy as you think it is, but this is real, and wouldn't you rather have a real one than going around, like, if you go and run into a native American. how do you think, we're all going to feel looking at this? how do you think I feel doing this? I was kind of surprised at the reactions. pretty much everybody went in on it. from there I started pushing more floral work. Potawatomi were woodland natives and a lot of our art is floral based. We did have some geometric patterns from time to time, but mainly we were floral based. I went from there to just pushing that, and it was working, I felt like I didn't have to explain myself as much anymore and what I was doing, it gave me a little more pride, and it carried over into my paintings. I went to college for art, but I didn't finish, I went for my first semester at Ivy Tech for illustration and immediately got my wife pregnant. So I dropped out of school and went and got a job and I kind of like wrote my art career off at that point. I was going to be working in factories, stuff like that. tattooing actually saved me. even though I was living separate lives with my non native side and my native side, tattooing brought it all back together for me it was my native side that brought tattooing to me also through that drum. when we were singing as kids, we built a lot of bonds. even though we all lived in separate areas, we didn't all live in South Bend. Some of us lived in Niles. Some of us lived in Mount Pleasant. we traveled all over to bring the group together to sing. My cousin, John T, when he was 18, back then, tattooing was illegal in Indiana. he got his, Chicago trust fund money, when he turned 18. And he ended up going to Michigan to get a tattoo. And at the time I didn't have any tattoos. I didn't really think about tattoos. It wasn't on my radar. he was explaining to me, showing it to me, and it's like this panther. You know, I thought it looked like a squirrel, It wasn't done very well. But he's like, man, you know, this guy, he had a line out the door, and he didn't even draw anything. He just copied it off the wall. And, you know, my other cousin, Jesse David Ballou, who's a Zetas cousin, he got his trust fund money that same summer, and he actually went and ordered me some tattoo equipment without asking me out of a tattoo magazine. he was like, here, you can do some practice ones on us. if you like it, cool, you can keep the equipment as payment. if not, you didn't lose any money. So I spent that whole summer, tattooing all the natives. I don't recommend that nowadays. There's more than enough. Shops where you can, apprentice and get proper training in tattooing. back then my sheer drive kept me going it was illegal back then there was nowhere to apprentice. It was the only way to learn. that venue of saving my art came through that drum in my culture. So flash forward, and that tattooing now, it basically fed me. Long enough to where I was able to restart my painting, originally I went to be an illustrator. I thought I was going to be painting, book covers back in the nineties, but it's not even really a thing anymore being able to sustain myself with tattooing and then moving on to my oil painting art, made it a lot easier. I tell a lot of, starting artists, if they're getting, whether they're native or not, you know, if they're wanting to be like a fine artist, like painting or sculpture or something, if they can find like a commercial art for a day job, it'll save them, you know, like I've had, several artists that I talked to. And I'm like, man, you should just, you know, learn how to tattoo, you know, it'll take care of you. You'll, you'll be basically learning on the job, what you're going to end up doing later on. And, you know, some of them will be like, well, you know, I don't want to do what they're telling me to do. And I'm like, well, you're working in a bar, so you're taking drink orders of what they want. you might as well do something that, is going to help you with your future goals. that drum really, Gave me everything. The culture gave me everything and it, it blessed me. It blessed my life. It blessed my art. And so when I approach my art, whether it's tattooing oil painting, or even my beadwork, I just try to think about like, how is it going to affect my people? You know? yes, I need to sell art to make some money, but. Even if I'm going to just do something small to sell it, how is it going to reflect my people, I feel like I have to try harder because I'm privileged. I am privileged. I haven't had to suffer like some of my family members, I have family members who, you know, they're a quarter and they're half. But they're darker than me, you know, and I've seen them get pushed around. I've seen them get called names. I remember being in a Shawnee's in Grand Rapids during a lunch break at a powwow and, Clarence White and Clarence Surrett, elders from our area, the waitress comes through and she's like, you guys got to get out of the way. And what do you do about that? You know, and it wasn't directed at me cause I was light skinned, you know, they went after my uncles, it's been really easy for me. I always felt like I really needed to make sure that everything I do is a benefit, not just to me, but to my people and how it represents my people. And that's pretty much how I'm approaching everything now. a lot of that just comes from being raised with it. maybe sometimes I didn't appreciate it when I was hiding it. but I really encourage anybody who is an artist or, or, you know, a native artist, or even if you're another, you know, Culture, you know, you can, you can be an Asian artist or whatever, you know, just kind of consider about how is this going to affect people when they look at it? how is this going to affect people, when they buy it? how are they going to think of anybody that's associated with it? is it being positive? Is it changing things for you? Is it changing things for the people? I think that's just a really important aspect of art, whether you're making money off of it or not. I'm very lucky that I've made money off of it. But I feel like if I'm making money off it, I need to make sure that I'm responsible in how I present my art. Thank you very much.

2 18:15

All right. next up we have Christine Marie Rapp Morsaw.

5 18:20

Bonjour! Boozhoo. Aba question. Dinish nabi no swin. Meena Christine. Ejna kongoyan. mo wet and do dam. Boda wada meenish nabindao. meena adowa. Meena odawa. pakegnik. Pakegnik. Ndibindagwis. Dwijak, Michigan. Ndochpia. Nishti ngomo. Dopee. Zinba. Odon, Indiana. Ndida. All right. I just said my Indian name is Cattail Woman. My government name is Christine Morsov Rapp. I am a Wolf Clan. I'm from the Pokagon Band of Pottawatomie Indians. This is my home. Dowagiac, Michigan is my home. I live here now. my kids went to South Bend schools, and they're all graduated already, so time flies. I'm a basket maker, I'm a language teacher, and I am lots of other things that I don't even comprehend. But, I do them. So, let's see. My parents, my mother and my dad were both factory workers when I was growing up. I was a little girl. I'm the only child, so I do not know how to communicate with other people. I was always playing by myself out in the country, I grew up out by Silver Creek. which has a Catholic church there, where I was, I was made to go to church there by my mother, which I didn't enjoy, but I went, and mostly I just played out there. Because my grandfather was the caretaker of that church, he would take care of the mowing and the church itself. I got to run around inside the church and play too. I grew up there and our only building for the tribe was down on Town Hall Road in Tehuachac. It's a white building. that's where they conducted their business. All our elders, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. That's And they kept everything going, and they paid the bills, and they had little, little doings on the weekends to raise funds to keep the bills paid and upkeep, because they were always thinking about our tribal sovereignty. it took years for that to happen, but it finally did And then, with that, we expanded, and now we're huge. But, I enjoyed all the fun times I had before we were huge, because it was all family. It was all Pottawatomie family. You know, Jason, and Warren down there. Yup, and I remember them living in South Bend, over by Kroger. So, now we live in South Bend and nobody else does, I live over by LaSalle and it's crazy because we live over by LaSalle and then when we were, my husband and I were planting garden, we were trying to grow corn. We're natives trying to grow corn and, he was like, just think all those little elementary kids in that building. They know nothing that we are natives living right across the street and we're out here. We were out here years ago and we're still out here trying to grow corn and vegetables. and they don't even know that. So their schools should really educate them on stuff like that. well, back to the town hall, that's where the basket co op was first started. And those were a bunch of aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, they started this stuff for us. I was a kid, so I didn't pay attention to this when it was going on, but my grandmother, who eventually ended up teaching me, and my mother and my aunts, I would be running around playing in the woods and near the building, sometimes, I'd come in to eat, and they were busy laughing, and they would be using the language too. So I would never know what was going on, or what they were laughing at. But it probably wasn't very good. It was probably nasty. We're always joking around, always laughing, so that's the fun stuff. I didn't start making baskets until I was in my young 20s. I already had one or two children. finally I just decided because, I was grown up now. I was sitting there commingling with everybody and I'm like, well, I think I'll try it. So they gave me some splints. That's what you call these strips when you take them off the log. And I gotta explain that process because I don't think you know that either. splints, they're just the black ash strips that come off the log. they showed me how to start the bottom. from there I built the basket and she shaped it for me. I finished it and my aunt ended up buying it from me. That was a different one. the whole thing about the basket, the black ash log, is you have to go out and get that tree. You have to find that tree. It's a black ash tree that grows in wet, swampy areas, and you find the best tree that's nice and straight, and you cut it down. Then you have to have the process of pounding all the growth rings off of that log, which is really strenuous. You're taking the back of an axe, and you're hitting every couple of inches down that log. eventually growth rings will pop up sometimes four or five at a time you pull them and then you start pounding where they're still attached. You do that for the whole log, and that's how you get all your strips off the log. some strips are really thick, some strips are really thin. But you want to get them all stripped to the desired, thickness Because when you start a basket, you have to have, tough ones. But not too thick. And then for the ribbons, all the little curly cues that you put on them, they have to be really thin so that they don't break. So once you get learning all the thicknesses and you'll know where to put them. So from there, you just got to scrape, you got to strip, you got to scrape, which I'd use a regular knife. We call those, we call those knives that you just pull out, pocket knife. A little bit bigger pocket knife, but, and you scrape all of the hard, hard things that can give you slivers. You scrape all of that off, and then you do it for all the stuff that's rough. And then sometimes when you're splitting them, they'll be smooth on both sides like silk, so you don't even have to scrape those. And then we just start weaving. Now, I don't know if you've seen me weave over there at the Radcliffe Murphy Museum, but I did this one yesterday demonstrating basket making. for circle baskets, you always start with small skinny strips, once you get your desired size, I only have strips about this long right now, so I make little ones like this. And then this is the practice piece. you can see those. This was another one that I started for a demo. This was one of my grandmother's lids that she didn't like, so she cut it off, but I'm gonna make it into something someday. Lots of people ask me how long does it take from start to finish. Well, if you already have the log, it's pretty easy. I've taught classes on a weekend. Everybody takes their own, tons their own strips off. They scrape them, they split them, they cut them. these two are from classes. These are from students. They made them and then decided to keep it. you can't get them done in a weekend. You get them done in a day. It just takes, consistency. Bracelets. I've started making bracelets because. I don't really have any more materials left, but this is made of black ashtray too. And that's got a bunch of little girlies on it. This one I use for ceremony because it carries all my goodies the one I did for, Snite, and then it got moved over to Rackland Murphy is the one that was showing up here. It showed the whole process. of my laying the eight strips down. I think I used eight. I might use 16 for that one because it's a pretty decent size, you know. And then, I never know what it's going to look like when I start building because all my bottoms start the same. So they all start this way. And then once I get those on, once I start building up, I just start grabbing strips and putting them in there. sometimes it's very rare, but it does happen where I've built them halfway up and then I look at it and be like, it's ugly. I take them all back off and redo it. Then I'll try something a little different. I never know. I think you got that checkerboard one that I thought was wacky. I must have had a bunch of chaos going on in my life at that moment because it started out like checkerboard and then it went to something different. So I don't know, but you've got it now.

2 27:15

Right, miigwech, Christine, and our last speaker, Jason Weisau.

7 27:19

Hello, my name is Nogizhuk Ndizhnikaz. I am a native of Bodewadmi. My name is Nogizhuk Ndizhnikaz. I am a native of Bodewadmi. My name is Nogizhuk Ndizhnikaz. I am a native of Bodewadmi. in that traditional protocol greeting I told, the other Anishinaabe and Bodewadmi people here, Pretty much everything they would need to know about me, including my spirit name, my clan, where I come from, and also some of the things that I consider myself in life, which more than anything would be a firekeeper. being Bodewatomie, that's what we're taught as young men. Our responsibility is to go they say, sit with your grandfather. Is that, that fire and our relationship to the fire and what that provides to our people and in the sense of a deep and everlasting connection to our ancestors is contained within that fire. So they literally will tell us, you know, go sit with your grandfather because that fire is one of our greatest teachers. in that way, I'm going to kind of get into some of those things as I go through my slides. my work as an artist, I really appreciate the stories that you guys told today. They're really powerful stories. And the thing about myself and David and Christine and many other people of ours. we understand in a really humbling, but profound and deep way where our responsibility truly lies. And that's with our community. So yeah, we come out here and we do things and it's fun to be part of these type of programs or to have opportunities to exhibition work and tell these stories in public spaces, because in that way we get to be ambassadors of our community and we get to perpetuate these stories that we know very well. But we also understand that the general public knows nearly nothing about. And so we wonder, well, how can that be as the original caretakers of this land? How can people not know anything about us? it's troubling sometimes. But we understand that the work of teaching and making relationships in the world around us is something that our elders and ancestors have always had to do. So we're kind of just part of that continuum. David's got some of his daughters here. We all have kids and grandkids at home that we know, our work will never be done. they're going to continue it on for us, maybe slightly different and in their own way. But those things continue. You probably were nervous about coming up here and speaking because I spent a lot of time with your dad, right? And your dad was a man of very few words. But when Christine's father spoke, people listened. My time in going to these institutions for the first time in my late teens and early twenties was with people like Christine's father. we weren't going there to look at artwork or opportunities for artists or telling stories. We were going there to get our ancestors back, and our funerary objects back. there was a time not very long ago, when institutions weren't interested in working with us or acknowledging us, they were collecting us, and harvesting us. through our artwork and, voices, we get to expand that narrative. That work continues of trying to bring our ancestors home and all those objects that tell stories from our communities. But we also, fortunately have different freedoms, and David talked about it a little bit, different freedoms than what many of our elders and ancestors have. With those freedoms to be able to share our stories and use our voice, there is a real sense of responsibility that we take with this work that we do as artists. So let's get into some of my artwork. I approach my work as an artist, in much the same vein as I do my work as a human being utilizing the gifts that Keshem Nadol, the creator, gave to me. to use and share in this world. my art is one of the main ways that I can do that. our identity as Bodewatomi people is so deeply ingrained with this place. there really is no separation. through my work, I'm telling a little about myself, but I try to tell a lot about the culture and community that I come from, but I also really try and encourage people to engage with the land. ThinkND. Because your engagement with the land and understanding what the land might have to teach you your spirit and your body and your heart can understand that language of the land. by understanding your relationship to the land and all of creation, it will help you have better relationships with the people around you in your family your community and indeed out in the world. ThinkND. And I really think we need that nowadays because the world's becoming a scary place and people aren't often kind to each other. But when you get out on the land, it teaches you to take some time and to recognize your true place amongst everything. Because as human beings, we're not at the top. We're simply just part of that circle, but we need to understand that in a deeper way. These traditional clay pieces. What you see in the bottom left is the clay as it's harvested, You can harvest it in your backyard, on the river, in lake beds, but it needs to dry out. It needs to be pounded down and the organic materials taken out the ball to the left has been reconstituted with water and temper added Temper helps the pottery withstand thermal shock of being fired in a traditional pit firing. these are my take on traditional storage and cooking vessels. These ones happen to have flat bottoms. Many of our traditional cooking vessels would have a rounded bottom so that pot could be nestled down into the bed of coals. So here's what they're like when they're coil built and drying out. Here's what the works look like after they've been fired in a shallow pit firing. So you can see that clouding or fuming. That kind of kisses the surface of the pot. Those have been textured and some of the rims have been scalloped. clay helped connect me in a deeper way, not just to our traditional culture, but really to the land and being on the land. that those ideas of reciprocity that come when we're working with the land, because we always bring our tobacco. We always have an offering that we put down first before we take anything, whether that's berries, deer, fishing, harvesting medicines, harvesting clay. our first movement is to offer something so that the land knows that whatever we take, we're going to use in a good way. But my ideas as an artist were, larger than, you know, just wanting to make traditional or historically accurate. Because I know these ideas of black and white and sometimes gray, that's how the community sees us. They see us a long time ago. in black and white photographs. They don't see us in full color as we live today. these pots were important for me to figure out how to do it and to share it with the community and to get myself deeply engaged with the land. But it was always A forward moving progression of where I wanted to take the work, where I wanted to take our stories to let them grow and evolve. This work here is, traditional local clay, coil built, burnished on the outside, whereas these pieces were textured on the outside. You can see that burnishing, which is like a polishing or shining of the surface, but the form has gotten real sleek and streamlined. And there's some porcupine guard here that is ornamented on the front. So my ideas were, we're trying to streamline these pots in a way that they could begin to tell more of a story of who we are today instead of just looking at who we were in the past. from this leaping off point of using, locally hand harvested clays and organic pit firings, I started working with commercial clays using tools like potter's wheels, kilns, glazes, and such, but still using a real minimal vocabulary of symbols, of line, color, but ornamenting definitely being, an essential part of my practice. Emerging from the lids of these pots, so to speak, is usually dyed deer tail, sometimes dyed porcupine hair, sometimes feathers. this series of bird pots I made for a good friend and motivator whose name is Charles King. He owns King Galleries in, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I believe, Phoenix or Scottsdale, Arizona. he encouraged me to make work representative of my Connection and curiosity of birds, but that series, indeed, is the only series that I've ever utilized realistic imagery of the natural world in my work. My work is much more contemplative and sometimes abstract, using a lot of color as, Representations for feelings emotions and, connection to traditional, Bodewatomi and Anishinaabe stories. Because in our ceremonies and traditions, colors play a very important role. And you'll see that quite often in, the way that our people, wear our regalia and the certain colors that are in, family designs that are passed down, applique work, that type of thing. color is really elevated in, the meaning that it has. Continuing down my, Explorations of color and how that can evoke feeling, but also connection to the land and the water, from these vessels that, are probably 16 to 18 inches tall. So they're not real imposing or eye catching, pieces, not like how some, of our sculptors make very monumental work that you can interact with almost as you would another human. These are quite small and intimate and cause you to take a closer look. But from making these three dimensional vessels, I wanted to work my way onto the walls because the walls are how I always saw, fine art being categorized. It had to be something that. Was either in that sculptural realm or it was two dimensional and hung on a wall like all the old European male masters that they tricked us into thinking are the masters. But we're all masters in one way or another. We just all haven't been given the platforms or the abilities to tell our stories Like certain others have. So I wanted to move into these large, like 18 to 20 inch wall platters and using glazes, almost like paints, but in a real minimal way, these two pieces happen to just be renditions of, stories that I've heard about our connection to the night sky. the piece on the right there is about the lunar calendar, 13 moons. There's a beautiful ceremony that the women have. on that full moon, the men don't take part in it unless they need help maybe striking the fire or, doing little chores, but that's a ceremony that the women have where they don't necessarily need us, I've been able to hear them sing their songs and see those things happen and it helps you to understand the balance that's necessary in the world between male, female, elder, youth. History and future. there's so many ways of looking at it. from these ceramic pieces these drawings kind of metamorphosized out of the clay platters, still in that realm of working 2D. the drawings are really important because they set the stage for a lot of the textile and now installation work that I'm really getting excited and motivated by. But these are also delicate and draw akin back to the ceramic work, because with clay you can do a lot with texture. These drawings, oftentimes, it's very subtle, but you can see how areas of the paper are, incised, or it's cut into very delicately, and then copper leaf or silver leaf, sometimes gold leaf, will be put over those areas to kind of help accentuate that area of the drawing. And give her, give it like a shimmer and shine. This really shows, that evolution of me being connected to land and how our traditional stories and our culture indeed is so deeply connected to the land. So this piece on the left is about a beautiful sunrise. The piece on the right is about. where we harvest one of our most important but common medicines. we call it Meskwanguk, but it's sassafras. we use the sassafras tree in many different ways, whether it's the root, the bark, the wood of the tree itself, but it's a really important medicine for us. this drawing here I made about, the place where I go and harvest it with my children. Many Duwanuk is, how we would talk about a spirit hole we have this really beautiful lake that our people know well there's no homes on it but the elders have always told us there's a strong spirit that, that lives in that spring fed lake. So that water's like ever flowing in that way because of the springs. Some pieces about, my connection to. The Midewin Lodge and those beautiful teachings of how we've always been and always will be Anishinaabe regardless of, what governments and religious institutions, the impacts they've tried to have on us. We're always Anishinaabe and our teachings remind us of that. So from the drawings, these are, my transition back into a tangible material. These are all, hand dyed, often hand sewn And ornamented, textile pieces, cottons, linens, duck cloth. sometimes using commercial dyes, sometimes using organic or collected dyes. This piece is on view at the Newberry Museum right now as part of the Indigenous Chicago Exhibition, which I would encourage you to keyword and, check out. The Newberry has an incredible collection of artifacts and historic documents from every culture around the world. These all spring up from, an ongoing series that I started probably 10 years ago of what I call, Kenomage Waboyan. And that just means a teaching blanket. I had this idea because, today's culture moves so fast and we oftentimes, especially as native people, understand that our traditional culture moves very slowly and it takes time. You have to invest time with our elders and. truly learn, but today's world moves so fast. I think about it with my own children. time is fleeting to teach them the things I wanted to know. like when you get sick and your mom or grandma makes you a nice pot of soup and wraps you up in a blanket and. does everything she can to help make you feel better. I thought about making this series of teaching blankets because I wanted to wrap, my children or young people up in these blankets and whatever teaching was contained in a specific blanket, like this one here, is about our connection to water. So the children could learn almost spontaneously just by being wrapped in that blanket. What they needed to know about their everlasting connection to the water and how special that is or this one on the right hand side is all little transfer prints of different treaties that Potawatomis were signatories to, and there's over 40 of them. we want our people to know their history, but it takes a lot of time and investigation, but what if we could just wrap those young ones up in this treaty blanket and they could learn about that history and the sacrifices that their elders made so that they could stand up and be proud to say, I am Potawatomi. Now these are all Free hanging textile pieces, but there's times when, the textiles are stretched over, stretcher frames and then I make and paint custom frames. this piece here is about our connection to the star world and all of those stories of our creation that come from it. So those are pieces of float copper from the upper peninsula that were, ornamented onto these very simple two shades of linen. you can see some of my inexact sewing there, but it's more about, the feeling that people get from the work. Not that I'm not a perfectionist or always trying to refine my craft, I am, but we're all learning and growing. most importantly, the land is our first teacher. we've talked a lot about, revitalizing or reassessing our culture or the ways that we work together. I like those ideas. but we understand as Anishinaabe people that nothing has ever been lost. Yes, there's aspects of our cultures that are endangered, like our language, or our knowledge of the real old ceremonies sometimes we know that Not enough of our people are engaging with those things, so the load has to be carried by, just a few people, and it wasn't meant to be that way. All of our communities were meant to, feast and sing and dance and pray together. But those things have kind of become fractured over time. Not lost, but just fractured. when you get to feeling that something is lost or that you yourself is lost in the world, everything about our culture originally came from the land anyways. So that's what we have to do. And I don't mean that just as Potawatomi or Anishinaabe people, but as human beings, we have to re engage with the land because the land teaches us everything that we need to know about our place amongst creation. I believe that as the land gets sicker human beings are getting sicker because we're starting to lose that deep, deep connection that at one time our people knew very well. At the time when this university was founded, our people were living a very happy and prosperous time right here in these woods. you don't often hear those stories, from institutions, oftentimes, the way that our people were prospering and living a nurtured, re a life of reciprocity with the land, you don't often hear those stories about us. You hear stories about how we were lost and we were savages and dirty people that didn't have enough to eat, and that just wasn't the case, We knew the way that the land worked, and we understood that through our offerings prayers and living with the land that We could take care of the land, but the land would take care of us too. So the most essential part of my work comes within that realization myself, but also that encouraging of other people that the land is actually our teacher. spending time on land leads me into, you know, drawings in my studios, which leads me into finished pieces that end up in these gallery spaces and. Yeah, it's great to see your name, you know, up on the wall but it might be my hands that are being put to work, but I'm trying to tell the stories of our people. I'm trying to tell all the stories that will remind all of you that we never owned this land, but we were caretakers of this land and we still are. So we want you to remember that. That's why it's so important for institutions to make space for us. Because there's things you need to learn from us that nobody ever told you that you needed to stop and pay attention to. But now, through us, creating works that will resonate with you in 2024, instead of those old black and white pots. In my opinion, one doesn't have more value than the other, but to you, I think it does. if you see our old pottery, you'll be like, yeah, that makes sense. They used to make pottery. They're still making pottery that they used to make. Well, yeah, we do. We do so much more. We do everything that this world is doing today because our ancestors and elders are smart enough that they understood that our culture and our traditional teachings, that they ebb and flow and they are always relevant in the times. So our traditions weren't just relevant Back in the days of black and white and, pre contact, our ways are still relevant to us today. And that's why we continue to practice them because that's what helps us make sense of this world that we're living in. It reminds us of who we are. So transitioning from individual pieces or being an object maker, what I'm really just like really highly motivated of doing is creating these environments that are almost like. An extension of the natural world and trying to build these environments in the gallery space that will be contemplative for other people in the same way that I feel when I'm out on the land and working or just spending time on the land. I want to create places where people can consider their place amongst the earth and amongst all of creation, to be proud of their culture, but also to be open and accepting of other people's cultures, other people's point of view, other people's politics, other people's spirituality and religion. There's room for all of it. Otherwise, Cachem Nadal wouldn't have made things differently. So again, those ideas of ornamentation and colors, ribbons, very simple symbology, but things that I think people can really feel on a deep level. these are works that were down the street at South Bend Museum of Art where they were like, Hey, Jason, you've got this whole room, go ahead and fill it. And so everything that I made, for that exhibition was inspired by the St. Joseph River, Sinájewazíbe that flows just outside, the windows of that gallery space. And so this is what I'm really trying to focus on more now, is Less making objects and more of creating environments or spaces where people can immerse themselves into it. And when they go in there, they can think or feel whatever they want. They don't need to hear specifically about the teachings that we have as Potawatomi people, but I think when they come out of that space, they'll understand that we have this reverence for the land that has, lasted through time because we understand that she takes care of us. Here's the shakers that were installed, all different kinds of shakers, bark shakers, old Calumet cans, rawhide shakers, But it has that sound of the water. I'm finishing up here. objects often have an animacy. They're not just, stable or stale things that don't change through time. This stool was, passed down within my family. It's a relic from the old Catholic church at the settlement. in Rush Lake, just outside of Hartford, Michigan. I thought about how the church had shamed our people and told us that it wasn't good enough to sit by our fires and put our tobacco down as offerings and to pray in the way that, Bodewatomie people had prayed since the beginning of time. they said, no, you can't sit there no more. You need to go sit inside of this chapel or sit inside these, these, these rigid, firm stools. And this is where you're going to learn to pray. This is where you're going to learn to live. this piece had been passed down within my family and had eventually made its way to me. it sat in my storage unit for a long time because I never knew what to do it. But when Deborah had approached me, for the Native Truth Exhibition at the Field Museum, I knew that I wanted to use that stool, that rugged, ugly old stool, and to try and tell a story with it. I went out and, collected clay from, that area of Rush Lake where we come from and where that church was And I made these spikes and I put all those spikes into that chair. metaphorically telling my own people that you don't have to sit in those chairs anymore. our ways are good enough, they've always been good enough. So find your way back to our fire. carry your tobacco on you. Remember who you are and be proud of those things. You don't have to sit there anymore. in fact, on that old stool, you could not sit without piercing your behind and making yourself bleed, just like our ancestors bled. it's a healing journey. sometimes these objects can take us on those journeys. Here's the path that's at the museum now. I purposefully used some of the colors that are, heavy signifiers of the university here, that Kelly green and that gold. But the cones on this teaching blanket were made from clay that came out by the lakes. And it's this beautiful, reddish tempered type clay that is, that is hanging on that blanket there. And, and what the path really is responding to is. this idea that, when the, when the institution was formed here, that, you know, it was sort of like a lonely, desolate woodlands. There's not a lot of acknowledgement of Pottawatomie people, helping the Jesuit Brotherhood make this institution into what it is and teaching them how to live on the land. But it's also a response to us needing to find ways to understand each other better and to continue working together. Not simply acknowledging that, there's been a lot of harm done or there's a lack of acknowledgement of, of who we are and what our place is here, but how do we move forward together in a good way? Because if we don't figure out how to do that, it's, easy to continue bumping heads and to disregard each other. But I think as human beings, that's a dangerous path that we seem to be on. So we need to try and find ways to continue coming together and to open up our hearts and minds to each other. That's really what this work is about even if the history hasn't been fully acknowledged or we don't know the full breadth of what that is, I think there's a path moving forward to which we can figure that out together. That's my hopes. And, at the end of the day, all this stuff that I'm able to do through my art and as an individual, it all really comes back to the time that we spend with the community and the gifts that we share with our own people. So that man that I've got my arm around is my grandfather. He's 93. He's an elder in the community. Boarding school survivor, real quiet, humble Pottawatomie guy. He's always encouraged me in the things that I do, whether it's singing or creating my artworks that he doesn't understand, but he's encouraged me to keep going with these stories. just coming out of the pandemic none of us got to spend time together and feast together and just be a community. So we got our supplies together and taught all these men from the youngest boy to the elders. we all made hand drums and feasted together. Right after things lifted from the pandemic. you can see how happy everybody is because we missed each other. We needed each other. And so for me, I enjoy being an artist and sharing my stories with the world, but it really comes back to, doing what I can do for community. So that's what I've got. We're going to have a great conversation coming up here. so let's get into it.

2 57:25

I really don't know what to say. Um, besides Miigwech, thank you so much to each of you for sharing your time and your teachings with us. I couldn't write fast enough and yet I have so much more to learn. thank you so much. I wrote down a few themes that I'd like to just name and then I have a few questions and then we can open it up to the audience. the importance of land as first teacher, the responsibility we have not just to ourselves but to our communities, the importance of thinking several generations at a time simultaneously. past, present, future, elders, children, ancestors, descendants, and then David, I wrote down a quote from you, how is my art going to reflect my people? So all of you come from different types of media or you specialize in different forms of artwork, with some overlap, of course. we have tattoos, black ash basketry, ceramics, textiles, and so much more. this panel was unique because, everybody knows each other, or at least heard of each other. we got a lot of inside jokes, a lot of shared relatives, a lot of, Looks and glances. I was just wondering. What, do you admire about the artwork that your relatives create? What do you admire about, for instance, what Christine does in her work, or Jason in his, or David in his?

3 58:37

I'll go first. I think there's actually a couple different things going on up here. I think Jason and I are closer into what we're doing. and how it affects our people. what Christine's doing is super important because it's carrying on an exact tradition and baskets were actually, a lot of people don't know this, but the, the basket making was instrumental in getting us our federal recognition back. Jason and I, actually sing on the same drum. he's my traveling homie sometimes. we've both kind of almost, I don't want to speak for him, but I'm pretty sure he's going to agree with me. A lot of times I experiment with new things and always try to think of it like you're not reenacting the past. You're trying to respect it and take inspiration from it, but you're also trying to push your culture into the future because we're survivors, all tribes are survivors and we're all evolving and changing. a good example would be like, if you're lighting a fire, I know how to light a fire with flint and steel, but if I got a lighter, I'm using a lighter, sometimes you push things into the future and it advances your people.

7 59:44

Yeah, I'd agree with that. As, I was sitting in the museum last night and doing a lot of chatting with people and really good vibe and stuff. There was a neon sign behind me that said, I belong here. And so it made me think about all the times when. I myself didn't feel like I belonged, in the art world. I know for certain that my ancestors lived in all these communities but lived in the shadows, because we were made to feel like we didn't belong. I respect the work that artists are making today and, love that people are always pushing boundaries, trying to tell these stories and trying to maintain deep connections to our culture and to our elders who, may have taught us certain things about the work we're making. it's always bigger than just us as individuals.

2 1:00:33

what do you admire about the work, the other panelists are doing?

5 1:00:37

Well, I'm kind of like your grandpa. Gary told me this because he went to the South Bend Art Museum when you and your grandpa was there. And he said, yeah, I was talking to him and he said he really doesn't understand Jason's artwork. And I was like, oh me too. I said, but if he explains it to me, then I would understand it. So I do understand it now.

4 1:00:58

Good.

7 1:00:58

I feared I was speaking gibberish

5 1:01:03

And I love the florals. When you switch to florals. The florals are awesome. Any kind of floral work. But I am a tattooist and I will remain that way. For my mom. She never would let me have one, so I'll give her that one.

2 1:01:25

when I was a student here, I graduated in 2019 and when I would introduce myself as Pokagen, even as recently as 2019, very few people knew what that meant or, any instance of that there was a Pottawatomie history of Notre Dame, But in such a short amount of time, I feel like more people than ever before are at least somewhat familiar, at least here, with the Pokagon Band of Pottawatomie. I was wondering, what role do you think artwork has done, either yours or other people in the profession, in facilitating these conversations or in thinking more critically about the history of the land that we're on?

7 1:02:01

There's a lot of, conversations that can be extremely difficult to have with people that are different from you or have, different ideas or don't agree with you about things. But art is a beautiful, easy doorway into deeper understandings that we can try and gain between each other. I'm super thankful for Jared and Joe, giving me the trust to work as a Pottawatomie artist. This new museum's being built. We want you to build the piece that that you want to make to be represented in there. art can really push forward these difficult conversations and, just make it a little bit easier and find common ground for trust.

3 1:02:38

I want to add on to that too. being that it's a gateway or a doorway. A lot of times art is discussed when you see it, like if you see it and it moves you a certain way, or you don't understand what's going on, or you want to know more about it. especially if it's like culture art, it, it gives the non natives a chance to engage with you. They're coming to you instead of you going out there to them. being that I sing and dance, there's always been this thing where you have to go to schools every once in a while and do a dance presentation or, a singing demonstration and explain your culture. And I have no problem with that. it's awesome. When they come to you, I feel like there's a better engagement because they're already interested in knowing what you're doing, why you're doing it. And it's building almost like a friendship. once you have a friendship, you can understand each other better. And I think that's one of the really important parts about art, if you do it right and do it in the right spirit.

7 1:03:39

I was on a Zoom, a Zoom call, maybe like, six months, nine months ago with, with a woman that I had only met on that Zoom call. That Zoom call was for a project we were doing with Indiana University. Well, the Zoom call went fine. I ended up getting a package in the mail a couple weeks later. This woman had found a black ash basket that was from your grandmother in an antique shop outside of St. Louis. And so she had recognized that that name came from our community, and she was the only person from our community, that she knew, so she mailed me that basket. And so these things, they have a life force, right? these objects, these beautiful works of art have this life force that has the ability to connect people, That basket came back home to us, and it's just a small, dainty little basket from your grandmother, but it's a beautiful piece, and so if you can imagine how important every little piece is to our community, and those are the things that we're trying to put back together, through working with institutions. We want objects to be able to come back home, because there's pieces missing from our story of who we are as a people. sometimes it's okay if they're in these places so that you all can learn about them. But this idea of collecting and holding all of our items really needs to end because Those items have deep, deep connections to our people and we're trying to put ourselves back together. So we can't figure everything out for you guys too at the same time. we're trying to do it for ourselves after hundreds of years of being kicked and beaten around. Have a little compassion, you know what I mean? the artworks bring out a lot of compassion in people because they see the beauty and stories in it.

8 1:05:25

This question's about your basketry. I heard you say last night and mention again today that the ash that you have is all that you have. I wondered if you could speak a little bit more about why that is. And when you come to the end of it, how might your basketry evolve?

5 1:05:44

I don't know if you're aware of the emerald ash borer insect that came from, Japan but, it's a really pretty looking beetle, but it's infesting our trees, our black ash trees, and it's ruining them so that we can't have nice long straight strips. it gets into the bark moves around and you can tell which, where it's going because it's just moving. It leaves these little squiggle lines inside. Now I have worked with some of those pieces before, but it's where the little limbs start to come out at the bottom is what messes up the nice, nice straight strips. We tried to save some. I don't know how successful that is in our DNR area because I don't speak to DNR. But we've had members like Pigeon Save the seeds and He's grown some in our community center. I don't know if those went back out into the woods and they're being protected and growing now, but there are systems in place to try and save some trees, It's going to take a long time before we can even harvest those. Not I, or even my grandkids probably, but they're there. as for me making any more baskets, I've kind of stopped because I'm just using what I have. That's why my little baskets are little. That's why I've switched to bracelets instead of baskets. I'm just trying to think of anything else, maybe earrings or something that I can do with what little pieces I have left. It's sad because I don't know what I'm going to do. I know there's trees up north, but, it's just having the time. So we'll see. Time will tell if I can get any more strips, but hopefully the ones up further north where it's still colder. Hopefully they'll stay safe.

7 1:07:30

If I could add to it though, the land is our teacher, right? So how did we figure out of all the hundreds of trees out in the woods that it was that one particular tree that you could make these beautiful baskets with? And when the weavers dry out that that basket doesn't just implode or start falling apart. There's special properties Within that black ash tree that other trees don't have. And so that ecological knowledge is passed down generation to generation, but it really comes from. Anishinaabe people having these deep, deep relationships with the land. you have to pay attention to what each plant, each tree is teaching you, because They don't all have the same uses.

9 1:08:11

Thank you for these really interesting contributions. this is a question for David. you mentioned your evolution as a tattoo artist. Encouraging your patrons to, get tattoos that are more respectful and authentic. But I'm wondering how you feel, more generally about Giving tattoos that authentically represent your culture to non native people. Is that something that you are comfortable with? Is something that you still struggle with? Or, or how do you think about that?

3 1:08:35

lately, a lot of my, I mean, a lot of my non native clients, they, they've been seeing all the floral work I've been doing with the floral tattoos over the last couple of years. they've started to ask for them and I do them. part of it is I feel like they understand that it's something authentic. but I also kind of joke that it's like reverse colonizing them. Yeah, like I said, they're going to go get it somewhere that that's just the nature of tattooing, you know, there's people that get racist tattoos and I won't do those, but they're going to get them somewhere, if somebody is coming to me, they're respectful, and they understand what it is a lot of times they're afraid to ask me cause they'll see my social media posts and see I'm active in my community So they know I'm just going to do native style tattoos. I actually have backing, to it. I would rather do it and it's kind of like the same, philosophy that the Japanese take with Japanese tattooing. A lot of people don't know this, but like Horiyoshi 3 is one of the most important modern day Japanese tattooers. That's not even his original name. he was apprenticed over the other. Horiyoshi over history. That's just a name that's traditionally passed down to these Japanese tattoo artists. They actually encourage their tattooing to go out into the world and be done. Cause they, they look at it as it's like, it's spreading their culture. a lot of their tattoos have significant meaning, like if the koi fish is pointed a certain way, certain dragons, certain, spiritual deities. and as long as it's being done right, they encourage it. I had a friend, that I used to work with in Battle Creek, Michigan. He went to Japan for a year to study hand tap tattooing. while he was there, they were glad he was there. I'm sure there's somebody that doesn't want it. just like, I'm sure there's some natives who probably don't want me to, to be doing that. and I get it, But at the same time, your culture has to be living and it has to get out there. if. We're all doing ceremonies by ourselves, you know, and I'm not talking about bring, let's bring everybody in, but like if you're, if you're by yourself in your own little area and you're not getting out there in some way, shape or form, you don't exist, right? Maybe somebody is okay with that, but if you don't exist, you go extinct. I just really find that if I do it, I'll do it right. I make sure they understand what they're getting and why we're doing it.

10 1:10:53

I just wanted to thank all three of the panelists. this was so fantastic and I learned so much and I respect your practice so much. I wanted to ask if you could talk about, you've said the kind of relationship you don't want to have with museums, right? Where they're collecting. things like artifacts and thinking about Native people as something of the past. But what kind of relationship would you like to have? What do you see as a future with museums or what would you like to see?

3 1:11:28

I think one thing that a lot of people don't realize is a lot of the stuff that's like artifacts. There's no need for the museum to have it, because usually there's artists still making something just like it, almost identical, a lot of times the newer stuff probably has more value because it represents us more, We're constantly evolving and living. I think having more modern representations, I mean, I know history is important, but like I said, if you really want something authentic, you can find somebody making something exactly the same and you won't be able to tell the difference. and that pretty much eliminates the need to have a lot of these things. what are you really going to learn from it? If somebody else is still out there making it, then it just becomes a collectible. It's just a collectible. collectibles. That's like a hobby and am I a hobby? you don't want to be a hobby. I understand there's some cultures that don't exist, but we exist, we're here, Almost everything up there, is something that is made today. you can look at Dana Warrington's, cradleboard, it's traditional, but it's modern and it's amazing. that should definitely be in a museum. Maybe like an older cradleboard, might not be appropriate, you know, maybe that's something that's more spiritual or attached to a family and, you know, what does that family think about their stuff being a collectible,

11 1:12:45

you know,

3 1:12:46

the way Dana's stuff's displayed up there, it's a piece of art and it's a representation of who we are and what we are.

7 1:12:53

That's a great answer. I think I'm most interested in developing relationships that are going to continue. I don't really want to do exhibitions that are just going to be a one off, because as individual artists, or as collectives, we put everything we have into that. So if it's just a two or three month run, and we may never hear from the institution again, The older I get, the less likely I am to invest my time into those type of things because I just don't have a lot of time left. How many more pieces am I going to make? How many exhibitions am I going to be able to put together? It's finite. So I'm really interested in working with people and institutions that at the heart of the work that they're doing, they're trying to learn. They want to develop ongoing relationships. They want to have these conversations where we're equals, not where native artists are clamoring for this opportunity at this esteemed place. that's really what I'm interested in is these long term relationship building.

5 1:14:04

Mine is a little different because since I'm not making any art. I agree with you, but since I'm not really making anything right now, because this basket that I made now that we're talking about was made for Snite, and that was quite a while ago. So I'm still riding the coattails on this Snite basket, which I'm enjoying very much. But my thing about institutions are the ones that have my ancestors in them. I'm not going to be happy until I get. Our funerary objects back, our ancestors bones back. I'm not going to be happy until that is finished. So that's where I'm at because I work for NAGPRA, I'm a NAGPRA representative and I'm trying to work to get our ancestors back. With a whole bunch of Michigan tribes, we're all doing the same thing under MAGPRA. that's how I feel about some of these institutions that have our people.

3 1:15:03

I just want to add I'm on the indigenous consultation committee at Racklin, and I was stunned, at how hard the people there are trying to be compliant with NAGPRA and making sure items get back. it was refreshing but also shocking and unexpected. I remember leaving the first meeting and I was like, holy smokes, I've never, Really experienced that. It's always been like a fight. I remember there was a, a time when NAGPRA was first passed and I can't remember where it came from. I want to say it came from the Grand Rapids museum, but they just sent us a crate full of children, there wasn't really a lot of care that was my experience of dealing with that, then when I came here and Jared and them, just seeing the work that they were putting into to make sure that these things are getting back to the tribes. It was just super refreshing. And I just wanted to make sure I gave that shout out because I want people to know that the Racklands, like really from a Native side, I can see that they're really working hard to make sure things are done right. NAGPRA.

7 1:16:09

It's a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. it's a very legal thing, but Sometimes You meet people in institutions that just understand in their heart that these things aren't right. we're not going to use the legislation to try and stonewall you. We're going to use this feeling in our heart through vibing and meeting with you and working with you, and we're going to do what we can to, not just uphold our legal obligations, but to get these things back to your communities where they belong, where they should have always been.

12 1:16:49

thank you all very much for your, talk this afternoon, I I'm over here. I'm sorry. You're like, where is it? Who's talking? I, in each of your talk in different ways, you kind of spoke about this progression from either being overlooked, your culture being overlooked, or maybe the art not being recognized as artists. There's different ways that, people were expressing it, but. it seems like there's a shift from an earlier time of not being acknowledged quite as well to maybe a more hopeful or positive future that seems to be emerging I was wondering if you could tell a little bit from your own perspective, how you've seen the development of more attention or care. about learning about various aspects of your culture from an institutional perspective, specifically?

7 1:17:40

I think it's going to take some time to really tell, like, give it another decade and let's see if, Native artists and communities, if our relationships to institutions are still withstanding. Or if native art is just this flashpoint kind of hot thing in the art world right now. Just as everybody's got their land acknowledgements and museums and institutions are really wanting to reach out and work with us. I want to see if that's going to be sustained. I think we'll do our part. because we understand what it means to be a part of something long term because these ways are passed to us from our elders and we have to do our work. Then we have to pass it on to the younger ones for them to continue. But I want to see institutionally if this momentum is going to go anywhere. I'm hopeful that it will, but I think it's too small of a case study to be able to say that. I don't think we've made it yet. it's going to take some time.

3 1:18:39

I think on our side too, a lot of it's, encouraging the next generation of artists to keep going because nothing changes overnight, even here at the university, there's been a lot of starts and stops depending on who's in charge or working on something. you'll have an ally work here for a while and then they might not be here in a couple of years, then communication stops, and you're waiting for somebody else to come in, you know, who's interested in it and they, they start working with you again. I think right now, I've been out here about as long as Zeta has. I was here last academic year and I was shocked at how many allies were out here Like trying to help us get out there and get education out there. the funny thing about my residency too, part of the agreement was I was supposed to have studio time and there was such a demand for people to talk to me about the culture. that I hardly got any painting done. It was like every class I was just going to, but at the same time, when am I going to have that opportunity where I'm actually on campus and can have a legitimate conversation with people that want to hear about what I'm doing and my culture, some people, they're just fine watching a Ken Burns documentary and they're good, but that's all presentation to how we are in the past, when I was out here, anytime somebody wanted me to talk, I just went and did it and I knew eventually I'd be able to paint again. but they're asking me about it. So at least they're seeing what I'm doing. they're seeing what my culture is about.

2 1:20:02

Could you, David, talk a little bit about the project that you were working on as artists in residence with the initiative on race and resilience.

3 1:20:09

I had this big project I was supposed to finish, but then I couldn't cause I was talking to everybody. I have a project that we're actually working on a finalized date. the exhibit's going to be sometime around the beginning of 2027 and to 2028. in 1837, there was a non native artist who was following the Potawatomi and the Miami around. his name was George Winter. this was down in Lafayette when we had our encampment down there. he would just follow us around draw us and paint us. And he didn't just follow the natives. he did landscapes and everything that, you know, most artists do. but his drawings, he wasn't like the best, like photorealistic artist, but he was, he was very accurate in how he depicted us. So, you know, if feathered up and dancing, that's how he drew us. But if we were sitting on a log, smoking a corncob pipe with some overalls that's how he painted us. I think that's very important because it shows that we're a living people. We're just not like how. People imagine we were, but the flash forward, 1837, 1838, that's, that's the time period where everybody's getting removed. And while he was down there, he was present at several events that were like the last things to happen for our tribe, before the removals. one of them was what we would call a powwow nowadays. It was more of just a social dance back then. He had a diary entry and while he was drawing all the dancers there's like hundreds of natives and even some non natives. So he's sitting on the side watching what's going on. the men are coming around one side and the women are going around the other side. There's a fire pit. there's even a drawing of a drummer. He's got a water drum and we don't even use those socially anymore. Those are more for ceremonial use now. The drawing itself, he thought he was documenting something that was going extinct and it was us singing and dancing. The general consensus in the United States back then was, we're all going to get removed. We're all going to get assimilated and this way of life isn't going to exist anymore. And it was singing and dancing. a lot of people don't realize this, but singing and dancing was against the law until 1978 and that's within my lifetime. I was born in 1973 and admittedly it was, being enforced differently in different parts of the United States. it was still on the books. So here he is lamenting, he's thinking he's documenting this last. Gasp of our culture. Shortly after that, he was present to draw our last mass that we had with the fathers that were sent to work with our people. Then he did a drawing of, the last meeting with the department of the interior before they removed us. And then he was literally on the side of the road drawing us as they marched us out of town. he never actually finished the paintings. these drawings were meant to be paintings and some of them actually have multiple versions, or there might be a larger finished sketch. you could see there's smaller sketches where he was trying to work out the details before he did the whole composition, but he was present at all these events that were really important to our people. the original vision for the work was, to reproduce the first drawing, the dancing sketch. Pocahagens, our tribe actually owns the original sketch. so it's a little, you know, a little over 180 years old. I didn't want to just blatantly copy the image. because I don't think that would really serve a purpose. I saw the sketch when we first received it in 2013. And, it struck me, but I didn't know what to do. I didn't have a reason to finish it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I think every native fits in a certain aspect of the culture that's drawn to them. some are singers, some are focused on the language or they might be focused on a ceremony. I've always been a dancer and a singer and I kept thinking it was against the law. and how he was, when he was drawing us dancing, he was thinking, well, this is it. This is the last time you're dancing. flash forward and you have all these Native Americans who've been removed to different areas. They might not be in touch with their culture. Maybe their tribe was temporarily disbanded. Then they got back together, Maybe they were adopted out, but there was a large percentage of natives that didn't know their culture and didn't know anything about it. when powwow started up, what we would consider a modern powwow, that was a gateway for most natives to find their way back singing and dancing, I wouldn't say is the most important part of our culture, But it's definitely been one of the biggest pieces of bringing people back, even if they don't sing and dance, they'll hear about a powwow, and they'll come and check it out, they can sit and watch, and go in at whatever level of participation they want with no problem. If they want to get out there and dance, they can,

11 1:24:55

you know,

3 1:24:56

they don't need to be dressed up. if they just want to sit in the stands and watch, great. They're still participating. And a lot of times, no matter what they do, it hits them, it brings them back. I thought it was ironic that this guy's painting what he thinks is the end of us, but it ended up being one of the things that brought us back as a people in general, like all Native America. What I'm doing is I am going to duplicate those four images, how he did them, How he originally intended to do them. each one is going to be about 12 feet by six feet. And the one that I was originally working here at Notre Dame is going to be the final piece for the whole series. it's going to be a reinterpretation of the original sketch, but how we are now, because we've survived. he was documenting all these things that it was like the end, and even he was depressed, you could tell he wasn't happy in his journal entries, about what he's seeing, he thinks this is the end and here we are dancing and, celebrating. it's going to be the last time we do it, but it's the thing that brought us back and it made us stronger. And so through this series, it's going to be a survival series or how we survived. I have a good friend named Joe Surrett, and I actually had him, give me a name for the show. It's going to be called Extinction and Existence. the extinction is. On the surface level, what you think it's about, but it's really not. It's about existence. Sometimes you have to go through those trials to exist. I have an uncle that told me one time that we're actually a lot stronger than the generations before us now, because we're the ones that survived. they sacrificed themselves and now we're the stronger generations because we're still here. And that's kind of what I want to express with that series of paintings.

2 1:26:34

That's so beautiful.

13 1:26:35

One of you said, talking about equals and for years I've never felt that we are equal to you because we all need to learn. your knowledge and we are the ones that are behind. back in the 80s, I wanted to know if this would make you happy or if it would bother you. I went to Culver Academy, Woodcraft Camp and they have council fires. So at the age of 10, I was enthralled with anything that had to do with your cultures. They taught us, beading painting and basket weaving. we had council fires on Saturday nights and they would use traditional costumes and act out a story. And I've just always from that age been so interested in finding out more information, which brings me here today. I sit on the board at the Radcliffe Murphy. I was so happy to hear that Joe is wanting to get, as much work through you all, bringing more work into the museum, having things like this symposium today, to raise awareness and to just get your stories out. So I would love nothing more than to attend a current powwow, to sit and actually participate as an adult. Does that bother you or do you welcome it?

3 1:27:59

it's all open to the public. the MC that runs the powwow or does all the announcing, he'll even tell you when there's times that you can come out and dance with us

13 1:28:07

Is that in Hokagen or?

3 1:28:08

actually throw two powwows a year in our area. They're both in Dowagiac. We have one Memorial Day and one Labor Day. The one in Memorial Days is a smaller, more intimate. It's like more of a traditional powwow. Labor Day weekend, we have a contest pow wow. And that one's, I usually try to tell people to go to that one. Cause, usually we'll get like really good drums from out of town to come. a lot of times you get like really good dancers from outside our area it's not a show at all. we're not there to dance for entertainment This is just what we would be doing, whether you were there watching or not. I just try to make sure that people understand that we're not setting up an event just to entertain people. This is just part of our culture,

11 1:28:47

you know,

3 1:28:47

what we do. they're completely open to the public. They're free. they put billboards up, and there's a couple of them within driving distance in Michigan that are really good Seuss or Saginaw, Chippewa, Mount Pleasant. They got a really good one up there. I want to say, West, not Western, Ann Arbor Powwow at the college up there. That's a really good one, too. I'm okay. I'm afraid to say anything too much about dancing because Data's here and he's like a world champion dancer. I'm gonna embarrass myself. Yeah, go ahead.

2 1:29:18

All right. So I think we only have five minutes left. I just wanted to ask one last question and then I think you'll stick around a little bit for people if they have more questions. what's next? What are you working on? what are you working toward now?

5 1:29:32

Right now, I'm not working on anything. Except, I'm going to be watching my new grandbaby. Oh, yeah.

7 1:29:40

Yeah, family's important. That's awesome. They were at the museum last night, so we can feel that wheel's turning and, the young ones. A couple of our elders were at the museum last night, too, and having your granddaughter there, helps us keep that perspective of, the part of the circle that we're in. I've got a couple exhibitions that I'm working on. One will open in Chicago in February 2025. Another in Indianapolis in February, March 2025. Some other things that are, that are kind of out there, but I'm really focusing on my work in our community to coordinating the peacemaking program. We're making a lot of relationships outside of the tribe with. other people interested in restorative justice, other court systems realizing that the way that police and courts are dealing with it simply is not working. So, you know, in a lot of ways, not just through the arts, people are looking at Tribal communities and being like, Hey, you know, those people have a few things figured out for themselves. So maybe we should talk to them and see what they're doing. And if some of that might be implemented into our way of thinking or dominant society. I'm fortunate to have a good balance between art world, tribal world, family. So I'm a happy guy.

3 1:30:57

I I'm still working. I'm just kind of switched focused a little bit, the focus a little bit. some people are aware of this already, but I started, tattooing drums. I'm starting with, the buffalo hide and then tattooing it, we're making drums out of them and art wise, besides the exhibit I'm working on, that's pretty much the focus of my art. my daughters and grandchildren are dancing now. this whole summer I've been teaching them how to do beadwork if I'm not working or they're not working, we're all just sitting in the living room working on their beadwork so they can get dancing. I think that's going to be the focus for the winter. there's a new year's powwow at Battle Creek. I'm trying to have all my descendants ready to go. You know, they're going to do the job so they can get out there and dance. I feel like I've been, paying too much attention to my own stuff and, I want to make sure that they're squared away.

2 1:31:40

Please join me in thanking our panelists.