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After starting a successful career in Atlanta, the Cleveland-raised visual artist is expanding his work back home in Northeast Ohio.

A group of young Native leaders reconnected with their ancestral roots through a week-long adventure trip to the Teton and Yellowstone National Parks this August. The trip blended environmental education, intergenerational storytelling, ecological knowledge, cultural preservation, and outdoor exploration.

Thirteen youth from the Wind River Reservation and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota came on the expedition as part of the Indigenous Youth Voices youth group. They were joined by five traditional elders and teachers from the Lakota, Dakota, Northern Arapaho, Eastern Shoshone, and Blackfeet Nations.

The trip was the first of its kind for the group, which partnered with Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and Teton Science Schools. It included kayaking at String Lake, whitewater rafting on the Snake River, and a wildlife tour through Yellowstone.

Lynnette Grey Bull is the leader of the youth group, which she started in early 2022. The group aims to expose young people to connections with the land and to leadership opportunities with conservation and outdoor recreation partners.

Grey Bull said she hopes these kinds of trips help support the next generation of Indigenous environmental stewards and create pathways into jobs and leadership positions in outdoor education, climate change and conservation.

“I want to create more spaces where our Native youth feel comfortable being out with the National Park, with entities like the Teton Science School and other groups out there that work on the great outdoors and work on environmental protection and climate change,” she said.

Grey Bull, who is Northern Arapaho and Hunkpapa Lakota, said there’s an overall shortage of people working in conservation and climate-oriented fields at large – and that Indigenous peoples’ stewardship-oriented traditions and worldviews are especially crucial for meaningful environmental work.

“We are taught at a young age that we use our medicinal plants during our ceremony times – cedars, sage, red willow and other elements – and every tribe has their own elements of what they use for medicinal and ceremonial practices,” Grey Bull said. “So we understand at a young age how important the earth is, we call animals our relatives.”

Even over the course of a few days, Grey Bull said she saw a noticeable change in the group.

“I hear them talking about ‘How can we get jobs in these areas? What kind of school do we have to go to learn more?’ All of them have told me, ‘Make sure you’re calling me on the next trip, you know, make sure to include me,’” she said.

Indigenous people used to inhabit and manage the spaces that have become National Parks and what are now called “public” lands. Yellowstone National Park is no exception – many different tribes interacted with the lands, waters, plants and animals of the area prior to being moved onto reservations by the U.S. government. Their long-lasting legacy of stewardship of the area was also removed from the park’s narrative for many years so that it could be marketed as “pristine” and “untrammeled.”

But despite this history of removal and erasure, Native peoples today continue to have long-lasting and powerful connections to the area – Yellowstone National Park recognizes 27 tribes with historical and contemporary ties to the land and Grand Teton National Park recognizes 24 associated tribes with connection to the lands and resources of the area. An article by Dr. Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke/Crow) on Indigenous place names in and around Yellowstone National Park speaks to a long and rich connection still alive today, and Native artists continue to highlight their contemporary presence in the space through art exhibits like Yellowstone Revealed.

Grey Bull said that, during their wildlife tour in Yellowstone, the group was able to share some of their own knowledge of the area with their wildlife guides in an act of cross-cultural learning.

“It wasn’t just them teaching us – we learned a lot from them, but we also were teaching them that this is our ancestral lands. This land, particularly Jackson and Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park, was our ancestral homelands for the Dakota, Lakota, Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapaho, Nez Perce and Flatheads and a whole plethora of other tribes. We all have ancestral ties here,” she said.

Throughout the week, the elders and teachers on the trip told traditional stories and emphasized the importance of the oral storytelling tradition. Dr. Tarissa Spoonhunter, a professor of American Indian studies at Central Wyoming College, spoke to the students about the intersections of traditional ecological knowledge and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

Dr. Spoonhunter, who is an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and a descendant of the Blackfoot Confederacy, also led the students in an activity practicing spoken and signed words in Arapaho.

Grey Bull said that creating the space for knowledge to be shared between the different generations who came on the trip was invaluable.

“Not only do we share our language and speak our language, but we also share things that they [the students] probably haven’t learned and won’t be able to learn in school. Some of our traditional and oral knowledge and historical knowledge, as many people know, is not told in the right way,” she said.

Grey Bull said she hopes the trip can be the first of many more opportunities for connections across generations, lines of work, and walks of life.

“I think it’s about time to build those bridges and build those educational spaces so that we can cross-educate and cross-knowledge share,” she said.

TVLSE, Oklahoma – Natives lined up to see Sten Joddi perform at the Venue Shrine in Tulsa. His set list included DJ Lonewolf, Frank Anthony, KickdHopeless, WOTKO, and Frisco featuring HV and MadMatt.

According to Sten Joddi, he carries a relationship with the Shrine organization after hosting the event last year.

“They were really excited with the diversity that I brought to their establishment,” he said. “I brought Indigenous vibes to the venue.”

After the first year, he learned that something was missing. That’s when he called Okie Podcast host/Sun Eagle Media CEO, Russel Sun Eagle to emcee the event, bringing a little comedy to the show.

The first artist Sten Joddi reached out to was WOTKO (Ryan Barnett) to book him for the show.

DJ Lonewolf was the next person Sten Joddi contacted. Sten Joddi uses Lonewolf Entertainment for services every time he is in Oklahoma.

The Shrine added KickdHopless to their set last year, this year he was brought back by Sten Joddi. WOTKO introduced Sten Joddi to Frank Anthony, who was also invited to come perform for the event.

Sten Joddi Visits New Prosper

A few days prior to the show, Sten Joddi visited the Mvskoke reservations’ first Native-owned recording studio, New Prosper Studio.

Sten Joddi booked two hours of studio time to get himself and a fellow artist from Oklahoma into the studio. During that time, Sten Joddi also freestyled with Frisco, HV, and MadMatt.

It was the story released by Mvskoke Media that caught his eye and piqued his interest to work with the New Prosper Studio/400 Waves label.

According to Sten Joddi, he was impressed with the outcome of his track produced by HV, and even left the young musicians with recorded lyrics they could use in up-and-coming productions.

Originally, the three were not on the set list to perform that weekend. However, as the universe would have it, a spot became available. Sten Joddi called his new friends, asking them to perform.

“It was just the universe, all the good energy, and being home that kind of put all those things in alignment for me,” he said. “It wasn’t a big stress, it was all good vibes.”

According to the artist and emcee, the event, the night, and each performance was a seamless success with little, to no interruptions or problems.

“It was great to see all those Indigenous faces,” he said. “Even the non-Indigenous faces who came to check it out and to see them falling in love with all the different music that was presented to them.”

Each artist is different in their own way with one thing in common: each performer was Mvskoke.

As Sten Joddi has reached his current age of 40 years old, he sits back and looks at all the years he spent as a young rapper trying to be a voice for those coming after him.

“I didn’t have anybody to put me on until Sterlin Harjo and Rez Dogs gave me the platform to hear me,” Sten Joddi said. “I want to be able to do that and reciprocate those things to hip-hop and Muscogee people. “

According to Sten Joddi, Native entertainers are the least-paid entertainers in the industry.

“We can’t be afraid to ask for what we’re worth,” he said.

With sold-out shows and hotels across Tulsa that night, the local Native rap community set high standards with mainstream artists.

“We went up against some good competition that night and we packed the house,” Sten Joddi said. “At the end of the day, we are at the same level as other entertainers and we deserve the same opportunities.”

Sten Joddi has been in the music industry for over a decade now. He has won many awards, and recorded seven albums, amongst other accomplishments.

He has come to a point where he can truly enjoy himself and wants to help young artists succeed.

Although Sten Joddi is not sure of what is next, he is currently back home preparing his family for a new back-to-school schedule, producing tattoos in his shop, and making music in his studio.

Artists have favorite artists too. Artworks they encounter and connect with deeply same as those of us who can’t draw a circle.

Such was the case for Wendy Red Star (Absáalooke (Crow)) with the photography of Kimowan Metchewais (1963-2011; Cree, Cold Lake First Nations). Red Star, a celebrated contemporary artist, first came across Metchewais’ work when friend and Tlingit photographer Larry McNeil posted a remembrance of Metchewais on Facebook

“I was really intrigued because it sounded like this person was very special,” Red Star told Forbes.com. “I looked at his page and his Facebook is like a memorial. I started looking at his posts and his photos and found that I liked what he was doing.”

Kindred spirits.

Native photographers who grew up on reservations in the western part of the continent before going off to college and studying fine art.

Both using historical photographs of Indigenous people in their artmaking.

“There were so many things he was doing (that) I was interested in my own work,” Red Star said. “He had a (series) of Indians and eyewear, and a lot of those photos were of Crow people, I think even my great great grandfather was in there. I thought that was kind of funny for him to focus solely on cataloging different historical pictures of Native people wearing eyewear. Certain things like that, I could tell he was coming at things at a different angle that was refreshing and looking at details within photos the same as I do.”

When Red Star was undertaking a Smithsonian artis’ts research fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian in 2018 and 2019, she serendipitously came across part of Metchewais’ archive housed there on one of her final days. She dug through many of his pictures and some of his journals, exploring his work in depth for the first time.

“From there, it became kind of an obsession,” Red Star admits.

She subsequently met more people who knew Metchewais, saw his work popping up more and more, more people told her what an amazing person he was.

“We probably would have been big nerds together because we’re both looking at ledger drawings, or the way that he talks about North America being a crime scene; he investigates, I call what I’m doing ‘researching,’” Red Star said. “Also for me, I’ve always felt like an outsider, I’ve always been the only Native person in art programs that I’ve been in and knowing that there was another artist out there–that we would just get each other–would have been incredible for me. That does happen, I have other artists I do find that, and it’s an awesome feeling to have people where you don’t have several layers to get through before you’re speaking the same language.”

Red Star’s efforts to raise up the lesser-known First Nations artist comes via “Native America: In Translation,” an exhibition she curated assembling the wide-ranging work of nine Indigenous artists, including Metchewais, who pose challenging questions about identity and heritage, land rights, and histories of colonialism.

The presentation can be seen at the USF Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa August 25 through December 1, 2023.

Kimowan Metchewais

Metchewais grew up on the Cold Lake First Nations Reserve in Alberta and went on to Edmonton to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. At just 29-years-old, he was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, the treatment for which required him cutting his long hair, a source of great pride and identity as an Indigenous man. It left him with a permanent bald spot on the back of his head.

He would ultimately ascend to a faculty position in the art department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the finest universities in the world, but a 2007 surgery resulted in his losing feeling on the left side of his body. He would succumb to cancer in 2011.

In the decade-plus since, Metchewais’ artwork has slowly been introduced to wider audiences. Red Star has helped that progress, as have the countless other artists–Indigenous and not–he influenced.

A monograph of his work, “Kimowan Metchewais: A Kind of Prayer,” was published in 2023. The book reveals his experimental artmaking, particularly his Polaroid pictures, sometimes mundane, sometimes revelatory, in conjunction with his writing.

Here is the opening to his artist statement as published in the book:

“I’ve watched my grandfather anoint the house with sweet grass smoke, protecting us from harm, cleansing our home. Prowled city streets at three in the morning searching for someone to rob. Been blessed with a name that only spirits can hear. Talked with my mother through a prion-glass window. Wore Armani, punched in at nine even though I was up until four tending a sweatlodge fire. Ate dog. Sold acid. Beat up by a commando. A college degree or two. Bad credit. Powwow romance.”

Red Star picks it up from there.

The USF version of “In Translation” features Metchewais’ Polaroids, including selections of a series he did on hand signals, a series Red Star was particularly drawn to.

“Looking at the hand gestures, they’re poetic, they’re simple, and they remind me very much of the Plains Indian sign language,” she explained. “These are my own projections, we don’t know exactly what Kimowan’s thoughts were. Some works he does have amazing artist statements for, but in some cases not.”

Live Relics

His most detailed artist statement for a singular work is shared in “A Kind of Prayer” and focuses on a photograph titled Cold Lake. Examples from the series are shown at “In Translation.”

Describing the image, Metchewais introduces his novel concept of “live relics.” Hidden meanings embedded in the work.

“They are relics because they are like trace elements from memory, history and culture,” Metchewais writes. “They are alive because they continue to transmit influence to this day.”

He goes on to detail 19 “live relics” within the single photograph. The first is how he dipped the paper in water colored by tobacco, tobacco being sacred to his nation and many others across North America.

“Tobacco is a handshake,” Metchewais writes. “It signals honesty and honorable intention. Cold Lake is a kind of prayer.”

Reading Metchewais in his own words describe the piece while looking at it in the book gives a feeling of the artist being there with you, speaking from just out of view.

He further details artistic liberties taken with visible figures, the actions they’re engaged in, the materials he uses, its size and on and on and on. An epic in a single image. Multiple layers of meaning revealing a staggering complexity of thought, imagination and intention.

All of which, naturally, appeals to Red Star, whose works similarly consist of layers of meaning; her own “live relics.”

“Him dipping paper into tobacco-colored water and then the paper itself having that tint acts as an aesthetic, but also a very spiritual, personal, Cree thing to do,” Red Star said. “Things like that, as a Crow, really resonate with me; somebody outside of the cultures won’t get that same sort of power of what that gesture is about.”

But a viewer needn’t be Indigenous to appreciate Metchewais work.

“There has to be a universal approach that everybody can appreciate, and I think that’s what’s so beautiful about visual artworks, they can be appreciated by different people, different cultures,” Red Star said. “Anybody will get something special from Cold Lake. They might find it beautiful. They might like the aesthetic quality, but there’s multiple layers and depending on who you are, you get access to some of those layers that somebody else coming in won’t.”

When viewing Cold Lake, think of your special place.

“Cold Lake was his place, a very powerful place on his reserve; he talks about going into the water and then popping up and kind of cleansing himself in a powerful way,” Red Star explains, reminding that, “we all come from somewhere,” we all have places special to us, our lives, our families our backgrounds.

For Metchewais, that was Cold Lake. For Red Star, it’s Pryor Gap and the Pryor Mountains in Montana.

“I’m always returning every time I go back to my reservation,” she said. “I always make a trip out to Prayer Rock, it’s called Baahpuuo, and that’s where the Little People live, and we always leave things (for them.”

What is yours? What does it mean to you? How do you feel when you’re there?

Feel along with Metchewais when viewing Cold Lake. He’s giving a piece of himself to you. Appreciate that. Honor it.

“When people walk in and try to put a Native American theme on (Native American artwork), I think that does an injustice to all of the artists and show, that’s just one thread of the exhibition,” Red Star said.

Native American photography

Joining Metchewais in the exhibition are Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe, Lac Seul First Nation), Nalikutaar Jacqueline Cleveland (Yup’ik), Martine Gutierrez (American), Koyoltzintli​ (Ecuadorian-American), Duane Linklater (Omaskêko Ininiwak from Moose Cree First Nation), Guadalupe Maravilla (American), Alan Michelson (Mohawk, Six Nations of the Grand River) and Marianne Nicolson (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations).

The USF Contemporary Art Museum has programmed a robust schedule of events to coincide with the show, including on online conversation October 4 between Red Star, Marianne Nicolson and Koyoltzintli moderated by USF Curator of Public Art and Social Practice Sarah Howard. The event is free, but advance registration required, and it will be available on Zoom as well.

In addition to “A Kind of Prayer,” those interested in Indigenous photography will enjoy another book published in 2023, “Project 562,” an effort by Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip) to photograph members of every Native tribe in the United States.

On the museum side, this October at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, “In Our Hands: Native Photography, 1890 to Now,” features more than 160 works from an array of historical and contemporary Native artists.

NOTE: Visitors to the USF Contemporary Art Museum and Tampa from outside of Florida should be aware that the NAACP has issued a travel advisory for the state noting, and warning, that under its current governor, Ron DeSantis, Florida has “engaged in an all-out attack on Black Americans, accurate Black history, voting rights, members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, women’s reproductive rights, and free speech, while simultaneously embracing a culture of fear, bullying, and intimidation by public officials.”

Luverne Seifert is a Twin Cities actor and acting teacher. He recommends going to see “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” from Dark & Stormy Productions.

In this edgy production, set at Marcia Blaine School for Girls in 1930s Scotland, the lessons are less about math and reading than they are about love and sex. “It’s a very provocative play,” Seifert said. “And at times I think your jaw will drop.”

The cast consists of University of Minnesota students making their professional stage debut, and the production runs through Sept. 17 at the Gremlin Theater in St. Paul.

Duluth filmmaker Khayman Goodsky, of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, loves a good book. That’s why Goodsky suggests going to the “Meet the Artist” series at Two Loons Gallery in Duluth any time, but especially on Aug. 26, when Thomas and Betsy Peacock are the artists in question.

The two co-own Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing, which specializes in Native written and illustrated books. “Everything they’ve put out has been researched and carefully developed, so, I mean you can’t go wrong with reading their books,” Goodsky said.

You can meet Thomas and Betsy Peacock, Saturday, Aug. 26, at Two Loons Gallery, 2025 W. Superior St., Duluth.

Luis Fitch is a Mexican artist, designer and creative entrepreneur based in Minneapolis. His recommendation is “Immigrant Roads,” a solo exhibition of largescale paintings exploring the legacy of Mexican-born families who built the Santa Fe railroad in the early part of the 20th century.

“What I’m excited about in this exhibition is the hope that the artist brings to restore some of the stolen dignity from Latinx workers,” Fitch said.

“Immigrant Roads” is on display through Sept. 22 at the CLUES Latino Art Gallery, 797 East Seventh St., St. Paul.

Robert Martinez is a celebrated Northern Arapaho and Chicano artist with roots on the Wind River Reservation. The artist blends historical imagery and modern themes to create evocative, powerful pieces that speak to contemporary Indigenous issues and challenge assumptions of what Native people and Native art “should” look like.

Martinez is the featured artist for the 2023 Ed & Caren Murray Art Series at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne. The series is an annual event at the college that brings new art and artists to the campus through gallery shows, presentations, workshops and public receptions. Martinez’s work is currently on display at the college until September 8th.

Martinez grew up in a family of talented beadworkers, painters, and creatives. For the artist, his work is a reflection of his rich multi-cultural heritage.

“I find that my artwork is also mixed, much like myself. So I tend to use the themes of the past and present, and I tend to use materials that are both classical and contemporary,” he said.

The exhibition includes some of Martinez’s painted works, which feature his signature vivid hues and eye-catching imagery. Martinez said the high-contrast color palette is a direct response to the sepia and black-and-white historic photographs of Native people.

“I paint in the bright colors to combat the idea that we’re a vanishing and dying people – I want us to be bright and vibrant, and have you not miss us,” he said.

In addition to his painted airbrush acrylic works, Martinez also makes mixed media drawings that combine imagery of the past and present to combat outdated stereotypes. For these drawings, Martinez creates in the long tradition of ledger art – a genre of art developed by Plains Indian tribes when they no longer had access to bison hides as a result of federal government bison eradication programs.

Ledger books were full of lined paper used to record accounting transactions, and the art form is part of a long tradition of Native people documenting their history on their own terms.

“After we were pushed onto reservations and we couldn’t hunt buffalo, as they [the U.S. government] were exterminating them, we would trade for or were given already-filled-out ledger books, and we would paint and draw over the text in those,” Martinez said.

The exhibit also includes three-dimensional mixed media works, which combine tin and metal and wood and glass. Martinez said the mixed media pieces speak to contemporary issues in Native communities, including sovereign nation rights, water and mineral rights, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis, and the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Martinez said one of the central messages he tries to communicate through his artwork is that Indigenous people are current and present, rather than a people existing just in the past.

“We’re not just a historical fact –we’re a modern fact. And we’re here and we’re modern, we’re contemporary,” he said.

For Martinez, his work gives him opportunities to communicate and act as an educator, helping others learn about issues they might not have known about before. But the education goes both ways – the artist said he also often finds himself being a student and learning about where others are from as he travels and attends different art shows.

“There’s a lot of give and take when it comes to art. And I think that’s the main thing – communication between one human and another human,” Martinez said.

The artist is currently part of the touring group exhibit “Grounded” and “Our Other Brothers and Sisters” at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper. Martinez is also helping to organize the first-ever Indigenous Art Market in Wyoming at the end of September in Jackson.

Additionally, Martinez’s work has been included in the permanent collections of the Wyoming State Museum, The Brinton Museum, The Plains Indian Museum at the Cody Center of the West, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Martinez was also a recipient of the Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award in 2019.

The art exhibition in Cheyenne will be on display until September 8th in the Esther and John Clay Fine Art Gallery, located inside the Surbrugg/Prentice Auditorium. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Music, food and art from nearly 100 countries will be represented at the International Institute of St. Louis Festival of Nations event this weekend at Tower Grove Park.

The festival will feature performances from award-winning artists from around the world, including Indian singer Ricky Kej, Dominican rapper MelyMel and South African singer Nomcebo Zikode. Festivalgoers can also vibe to St. Louis rapper Mvstermind.

Institute officials say the festival lineup reflects some of the region’s fastest-growing communities, said International Institute of St. Louis President Arrey Obenson said.

“We are trying to bring out those populations that are here, by giving them an opportunity to be part of the festival, to feel included, to feel welcome and to feel at home,” he said.

Besides international musicians, the festival will feature cultural groups from the St. Louis region, among them the St. Louis Flamenco Society and the St. Louis Modern Chinese School.

Festivalgoers also will find familiar foods, cultural dances and wellness activities.

New immigrants have a sense of pride in their countries, but now that they are residents they also want to make St. Louis home, and seeing their culture represented in St. Louis helps, Obenson said.

“Immigrants like myself will travel to different parts of America, to watch performances from our country, because we have large communities in those parts of America that have the ability to invite performances from our countries,” said Obenson, a native of Cameroon. “That doesn’t happen too often in St. Louis.”

To help newly arriving Indians — St. Louis’ largest growing foreign-born population — adjust to life in a new country, the institute commissioned four popular Indian artists performing at the festival.

Indulging in Indian culture at the Festival of Nations helps young Indian immigrant students make the decision to stay in St. Louis instead of going back home or to another state, said Arindam Kar, a lawyer.

“It really helps with the ability to retain those families, those students who may graduate and say, hey, you know, this is where I want to start my professional career, because I have everything I need,” he said.

Kar moved to St. Louis from Iowa with his Indian immigrant parents in 1994. He remembers how in those early years, St. Louis did not offer much that reflected the Indian community.

“Like any foreign-born population, once they come to the states, they’re always looking for signs of home, and things that remind them of home,” he said.

But now Kar and other children of Indian immigrants or newly arriving Indian immigrants have access to grocery stores with Indian foods and even access to entertainment.

“My cultural background is important to where I live, and that I don’t feel isolated … going back to India to visit family and things like that, that’s a significant investment,” Kar said. “I think on a number of levels, if you’re a young, single international student, it’s that connection to your community and for a family, it’s a great way to showcase your cultural background to your kids.”