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When Chef Sean Sherman reminisces about the progression of his career, he does not brag about prestigious culinary training or upper-echelon European inspirations. When asked about his motivations, the James Beard award-winning chef speaks of the centuries-long oppression of the Native American Community, colonization, and generations of unchecked cultural erasure.

Recently named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People 2023, Chef Sean Sherman is a revolutionary of the culinary arts. Sherman is the founder and CEO of The Sioux Chef, a team of Native American artists organized around the common goal of decolonizing North American cuisine and reviving Native American culture through food. He is also the founder of The Sioux Chef initiative “NĀTIFS” — an acronym for “North American traditional indigenous food systems”— a nonprofit dedicated to promoting awareness of indigenous foodways and Native American food access.

The project that put Sherman on the map was his creation of the award-winning Minneapolis restaurant “Owamni,” a full-service indigenous restaurant that aims to promote accessibility to Native American cuisine and embody sustainable culinary practices.

Needless to say, Sherman is at the forefront of food-related activism and an innovative powerhouse of culinary excellence. But this was not without struggle — Sherman has fought tooth and nail to get to where he is today. In an interview with The Crimson, Chef Sherman spoke to the roots of his mission and the challenges his team has faced in implementing their vision within the modern restaurant industry.

“For me, from the very beginning, it was more about coming from a very poor area. There’s not a lot of family wealth to tap into for business ventures,” Sherman said. “It’s a lot of privilege to be able to raise enough funds to open up something like a restaurant. That was probably the biggest struggle is navigating through the system that’s set out against us.”

Sherman’s passion for the deconstruction of colonial culinary practices is where his expertise really shines through. In his work, he prioritizes “removing colonial ingredients like dairy, wheat flour, cane sugar, beef, pork, chicken”— redefining the American pantry.

Those unfamiliar with the mission of The Sioux Chef may be surprised by the classification of these ingredients as colonial. However, the overprocessed foods often credited with rising rates of obesity and diabetes in the United States are almost always characterized by their overdependence on ingredients purported by colonial foodways. Overprocessed wheat flour, unnaturally derived sugars (including the American favorite cane sugar), and refined oils are all examples of problematic culinary staples ingrained in American culture from the inception of colonial America.

“For almost all native tribes, losing access to the majority of their food and a lot of the culture and knowledge around their foods affected things a lot,” Sherman said. “We see a lot more health epidemics, things like type two diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.”

The heart of Sherman’s work lies in combating this institutionalized culinary oppression. “It’s a broken system that needs to change,” he said.

The Sioux Chef’s most recent endeavor is “Indigenous Food Lab”— a market space that features curated Native food products. “Our goal is to be a regional support center to help any entrepreneurs or tribal communities develop any kind of food production,” Sherman said.

According to NĀTIFS’s website, the Indigenous Food Lab is currently in its second phase of “creating regional and Indigenous food access.”

“We’re already planting seeds to operate food labs in Anchorage, Bozeman, and Rapid City, Sherman said. “The vision is to have these food labs all over North America and eventually beyond, into other countries.”

A key priority of the “Indigenous Food Lab” initiative is adapting to the native cuisines of diverse tribes. “Just in the US alone, there are 574 different tribes that are federally recognized and even more that have lost that status,” Sherman said.

Since Native culinary traditions rely heavily on the environment of their regions, it would be impossible to capture and represent the intricacies of indigenous cuisine in a single restaurant. That being said, the regional quality of this culinary culture, paired with the ever-deteriorating nature of environmental concerns, provides even more urgency for these acts of culinary preservation.

Sherman hopes to expand knowledge surrounding Native cuisine, whether through the outreach of NĀTIFS or the promotion of other region-centric restaurants like “Owamni.” Sherman mentioned restaurants owned by his friends such as Crystal Wahpepah’s Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, California, and Ben Jacobs’s Tocabe in Denver, Colorado, but highlighted that there are “not a lot” of Native-owned restaurants nationally. “That’s why we started the nonprofit, to help other people develop,” Sherman said.

The Sioux Chef remains steadfast in its mission as expansion moves underway. If readers wish to assist Sean Sherman’s advocacy, he urges them to keep an eye out, extend support towards indigenous food situations within their region, and/or provide directly to the NĀTIFS nonprofit.

On March 28, UWSP erected a mural painted by Christopher Sweet, an artist, and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and White Earth Ojibwe tribes, to commemorate the burial ground beneath the campus. It is titled “The Wake and The Healing.”

Sweet’s mural took about two months to complete, and he worked on the panels individually. The painting stands 24 feet tall by 32 feet across at the Communication Arts Center.

In 2016, Dr. Ray Reser, an alumnus, professor, and archaeologist at UWSP, was given an article about indigenous burials from the 1930s. Soon after, he requested and succeeded in asking the Wisconsin Historical Society to recognize the UWSP campus as an uncatalogued burial ground in 2018.

Reser said, “The first step to the mural was finding out there were Native American burials here on campus.” He contacted Tommy Thompson, the former UW System president, to fund the mural.

Thompson allocated $30,000 to support the endeavor.

“I had spoken to many indigenous tribes and individuals, and they all felt there needed to be some monument to remember their ancestors,” Reser said.

According to Reser, formal funerals for indigenous tribes take over a year by tradition, and after the bodies were buried in the stone quarry that is now on campus, their tribal members never got to perform the proper funeral services for them.

He said, “Around 80 [indigenous] people passed from Scarlet Fever in the Mid-1800s, and Native American bodies were likely put into the old stone quarry that ran from Old Main to the health center.”

The mural pictures four graduates of the tribes: Menomonee, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, and Potawatomi. It has corresponding Native American beading pictured for those tribes represented on each graduation cap.

During his process, Sweet burned sage throughout working on the mural and asked the ancestors to bless him. He hopes the mural will be an awakening for them.

“I want my mural to encourage and inspire indigenous students throughout their careers at UWSP,” Sweet said.

Denise “Dee” Sweet, Christopher Sweet’s cousin, and inspiration for his artwork, wrote a poem for the mural.

Dee’s poem titled “Earth Diver” reads:
“Through chards of pots
And musky tangled roots
We swim the crushed soil
And clumps of clay to wind
our way from the underground.
Our hands reach for the sunlight
Like shimmering arrowheads
Voices emerging, dust to dust.
Still breathing our names
Still singing our songs.”

Karen Ann Hoffman, an alumnus of UWSP, worked with Dr. Ray Reser after her late husband’s passing. Around 2018, she and Reser started advocating for the burial ground to be recognized. She is a beadwork artist of the Haudenosaunee tribe.

“Most of the artwork from this tribe has been erased, both intentionally and unintentionally. As an advocate for Native American art, that bothers me,” she said. 
“I want to think about opportunities to uplift and bring to light other Native American artists.”

She pushed to have a call for art to the Native American artistic community to select a final piece of artwork for a commission to memorialize the burial ground

“[Sweet’s] paintbrush, his knowledge, and community are what inspired the mural. I hope that everyone, after seeing the mural, acknowledges daily [that] they walk over the grave of so many of our ancestors,” Hoffman said.

Following the debut of the mural, a traditional ghost feast took place on April 13 where the ancestors were brought food and drinks to give them a ceremony that they would have received if their burial was done properly. The formal unveiling of the mural is scheduled for May 5.

Delila Lyshik

News Reporter

dlysh541@uwsp.edu

Native American artist Leonard Harmon can tell you precisely the moment his life as an artist changed. He’d been invited to Indigenous People’s Day at the 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati. He’d taken some of the quill art he’d become known for, as well as a couple of mixed media paintings.

“The director said to me, ‘What else do you have?,’” Harmon recalled. “I couldn’t answer the question. I didn’t have anything. They said, ‘You need to get to work.’ I started painting and focusing on just that. By the sixth or seventh painting, they took it automatically and put it in the museum.”

Harmon’s show This One’s For You – Honoring Ancestors opens Friday, April 21, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m., in the Newport Visual Arts Center and continues through May 28. We talked with Harmon about his art, his inspiration, and his move to Oregon. His comments have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tell us a bit about life before Oregon.

Harmon: I was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Washington, D.C., and Millsboro, Delaware. I’m a citizen of the Nanticoke Tribe of Millsboro, and the Lenape Tribe of New Jersey. I come from a long line of artists. My namesake was Leonard Allen Harmon. He was doing his work in the mid ‘70s to early ‘80s. A lot was featured in Native American magazines and also at the Heard Museum. Tragically, he died from AIDs in the mid ‘80s. My father did Native American furniture and he would paint on the tops. He was a big deal in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He took his life in 2007. So, I have all this art in my background. I’m really the last one to carry on that arc in the family. That’s what my art is about, carrying on those traditions in my family.

How have you developed as an artist?

I’m self-taught. I started in my teens as a DJ; I considered that an art. I started taking art seriously in my early 20s. I started porcupine quills in 2011. It just came naturally to me. It’s the same thing with painting. I’ve only been painting for 2-1/2 years. When I picked up a paintbrush for the first time, it just clicked. It’s so embedded in my DNA to be an artist.

What inspires you?

I think my uncle really inspires my work the most. I had a really tight connection with him for the four years I was alive before he passed. The day I was born, my mom saw him in me. That is what inspires me the most.

Where else have you shown your work?

Right now, I have work at 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati for a show called Refuge: Needing, Seeking, Creating Shelter. I have two pieces at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art in New Haven [Conn.] at a show called Truth in Three Colors, and I have a live show coming up at 21c in Cincinnati where I’ll do a live 4-by-8-foot painting.

You’ve been living on the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians’ reservation in Siletz for about three years. What brought you west?

In the early 2000s, I got connected with a Siletz tribal member. I was living in Delaware and I was known for my pine-needle baskets. It’s cool, because basket-making is one of the Siletz tribe’s biggest mediums and one of their oldest. She had seen my work on Instagram. She asked me to make some earrings. I told her we’d make a trade. So, she made something for me, and I made a few things for her. And then we just stayed friends, and I started coming out to visit. I realized this is where I should be.

You mentioned you feel a certain connection to the area.

Sponsor

Newport reminds me of the Ocean City, Maryland, fishing port or Rehoboth Beach. My Uncle Tyrone owned a fishing marina in Rehoboth, and as a kid, I would come from D.C. and work on the docks for the summer.

And there’s also a sort of Rick Bartow connection?

Right. When I went to the Heard Museum, they gave me a bunch of magazines. And in every one, Rick and my Uncle Leonard were together. There’d be a story on Rick Bartow on one page, and on the next page, a story on Leonard Harmon. I have the feeling they knew each other, because my uncle would move up and down the West Coast and visit artists. I would have loved to have met Rick [who died in 2016] and asked if he knew my uncle.

Many of the paintings in This One’s for You feature a strip of red. What is the significance of that?  

The theme of the show is connecting with my family’s past and looking toward the future. The red signifies the bloodline that runs through us as human beings, not just being an Indigenous person and those types of lines, but the root of it all, where we all come from.

Every month, hundreds of galleries add newly available works by thousands of artists to the Artnet Gallery Network—and every week, we shine a spotlight on one artist or exhibition you should know. Check out what we have in store, and inquire for more with one simple click.

About the Artist: A native New Yorker, Ethel Schwabacher (1903–1984) spent much of her career steeped in the vibrant and dynamic art scene of the city, and she is today recognized as an important and influential member of the Abstract Expressionist movement. While current art historical scholarship frequently investigates the work of women artists who have been overlooked, Schwabacher is significant in that she was quite well-known in her time. She was represented by the famed Betty Parsons Gallery, a hub of avant-garde art in the 1940s and ’50s, and moved in the same circles as artists like Willem de Kooning, Kenzo Okada, and José Guerrero. Arshile Gorky, an artist credited as a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism, was a close friend and mentor of Schwabacher, and she ultimately wrote and published Gorky’s biography in 1957. Gorky introduced Schwabacher to automatism in the 1930s, a mode of artmaking that emphasizes the subconscious mind, which in conjunction with prevailing abstract trends in the art world, led the artist to develop her own distinct and inimitable artistic style. Her work is held in numerous important collections today, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., among others.

Ethel Schwabacher (ca. 1920s). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

What You Need to Know: Opening tomorrow, April 20, with a reception from 6–8 p.m., and on view through May 26, 2023, Berry Campbell in New York presents “Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s),” the gallery’s first show on Schwabacher—and the artist’s first solo show in New York in 30 years. Berry Campbell has developed a specialty in significant women artists from the 1950s, and Schwabacher is a fitting addition to the gallery’s roster. Many of the works on view have not been exhibited since they were included in one of the artist’s five solo shows with Betty Parsons Gallery, counting the present exhibition’s large-scale cornerstone Prometheus (1959). Accompanied by a 26-page exhibition catalogue containing an essay by Dr. Joan M. Marter, the exhibition offers an exciting opportunity to see one of Abstract Expressionism’s more prominent woman artists.

Ethel Schwabacher (ca. 1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

Why We Like It: Schwabacher’s vivid and gestural compositions within the exhibition at Berry Campbell illustrate the confluence of influences and inspirations she employed. While each painting contains its own inherent logic and balance, the unencumbered brushstrokes and free use of color convey a sense of immediacy and vigor. Works such as Seasons and Days: July (1955) offers a tantalizing glimpse into her world and vision, evoking the sense of a landscape or window view filtered through her own finely honed abstract style—and evidencing the continued influence of automatism. Later in the decade, Origins I (1958) eschews any hint of the representational, and embodies total abstraction. Though Schwabacher established a presence and career for herself in her lifetime, her oeuvre has still not garnered the same academic or critical attention as her male counterparts. This exhibition presents the opportunity not only to bring Schwabacher’s work back to the spotlight, but also initiate a renewed interest in her work within the art world at large.

See featured works from the exhibition below.

Ethel Schwabacher, Seasons and Days: July (1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

Ethel Schwabacher, Steps of the Sun (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

Ethel Schwabacher, Return No. 3 (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

Ethel Schwabacher, Origins I (1958). Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York.

Ethel Schwabacher, Prometheus (1959). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.

“Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s)” is on view at Berry Campbell, New York, through May 26, 2023.

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A festival promoter told Delbert Anderson he didn’t present as Indigenous enough. The trumpeter and his group, DDAT, showed up to the State Fair of Texas in what he calls “the Native American section” — filled with dancers in traditional garb, among other signifiers. DDAT, for their part, donned suits. 

“They immediately assumed that we had some type of traditional feather show,” Anderson, who is of Diné and Navajo descent, tells GRAMMY.com. “They probably thought we were going to show up in regalia or something.”

The promoter asked Anderson whether or not DDAT played traditional music. “No, we don’t,” he responded. “But there are a lot of melodies that are inspired from that.” The promoter didn’t comprehend this — so much so that she went up to Anderson mid-set and shoved a turquoise necklace around his neck. 

Anderson was shocked. “I kind of stopped and said, ‘Excuse me,'” he recalls. “And she just sort of said, ‘You don’t look Native enough.'”

Read More: Meet Delbert Anderson, A Native American Trumpet Master Interweaving Navajo Melodies With Jazz

Ever good-humored, Anderson brushed off the harassment and tossed the necklace around his white bass player’s neck. Still, he can’t get the incident out of his head. “That’s one of the first times anything like that has happened to me,” he says. “They expect that kind of back-to-the-roots, traditional type of music from anyone who uses the words ‘Native,’ ‘Indigenous’ or ‘tribal.'”

He’s not alone: Many musicians of Indigenous ancestry in his circle — and outside of it — have felt the micro- and macroaggressions come fast and hard. And othering those who identify and market themselves as Indigenous isn’t exclusive to jazz.

Even though Indigenous peoples have been here longer than anyone, they face tension, discomfort and/or unadulterated racism in a slew of genres understood to be American — from country to blues to gospel to hip-hop.

This is despite the fact that all these genres have deep Indigenous roots. Jazz household names Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk had Native American ancestry. Same with blues musicians like Howlin’ Wolf, Charley Patton and Martha Redbone. In classic rock, you’ve got Jimi Hendrix and Robbie Robertson. The list goes on.

Renata Yazzie. Photo: Darklisted Photography​

Despite this, Diné classical pianist Renata Yazzie says moving through her world is a “scabrous” experience. “The greatest difficulty is not only teaching ignorant people, but willfully ignorant people who refuse to recognize how the elitism of classical music has affected historically underrepresented groups,” she tells GRAMMY.com.

Why do musicians who identify as Indigenous, like Anderson, Yazzie, Mali Obomsawin, Adrian Wall, JJ Otero, James Pakootas, Julia Keefe, Warren Realrider and Raven Chacon — all of whom spoke to GRAMMY.com for this story — experience such tension, both from within their communities and in the wider world?

The answers are manifold, varying wildly between artists and their tribal affiliations. Here are some of the ways that artists of Indigenous descent have experienced unease in the American music landscape — and how they overcame it.

Howlin’ Wolf. Photo: Gilles Petard/Redferns​ via Getty Images

Considering The Course Of History

Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have developed an impossibly broad array of musical traditions. And with the arrival — or invasion, depending on who you ask — of European settlers came trade, fighting over boundaries and the introduction of European instruments.

At mission schools, Europeans taught Native Americans to compose on European instruments. This led to students composing Indigenous usic with those tools and methods. Works like 1845’s Indian Melodies featured traditional Native tunes composed with European notation.

In the back-half of the 19th century, the primordial stew of Black American music was percolating — the one that would give the world jazz, blues and other idioms. And the pervasive invisibility felt by Indigenous peoples meant they had a point of commiseration with Black musical communities.

“Black and Indigenous people have been in community with each other since the beginning, since Black Africans were forcibly brought here for slavery,” jazz bassist Mali Obomsawin, who is affiliated with the Odanak Abenaki First Nation tribe, tells GRAMMY.com. “I think people tend to forget that many of the founding blues and jazz artists were both Black and Native.”

This confluence of heritages and traditions has been obscured by what Obomsawin calls a larger obfuscation of Indigenous identity — coupled with anti-Blackness. “If someone like Thelonious Monk, who was Tuscarora, was to be like, ‘I’m Native American,’ everyone would be like, ‘No, you’re Black,'” Obomsawin says.

“It was not desirable for Natives to be higher in numbers, whereas it was desirable for Black folks to be higher in numbers because they were considered property,” she continues. “That means that slave owners and human traffickers had more property value. Whereas the more people that were Native, the more people the government was accountable to.”

Mildred Bailey. Photo: Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images

Julia Keefe, a jazz vocalist and enrolled member of the Nez Perce tribe, is acutely aware of the crossroads of Blackness and Indigenousness in early American music.

“There is a historical precedent for Native Americans in jazz,” she tells GRAMMY.com, citing Indigenous people who learned European music in boarding and residential schools. “Around the same time that jazz was taking off in the ’20s and ’30s, there is evidence of Native people forming their own big bands.”

One lesser-known early Indigenous jazz musician was Mildred Bailey, a singer of Native descent from the Coeur d’Alene tribe.

“She was the first one to sing in front of a big band,” Keefe notes. “You think about all the female vocalists — Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan — who got their start singing in front of big band, and it was because there was such an appetite for that sound by Mildred Bailey singing in front of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.”

Oscar Pettiford. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images

But Bailey is just the tip of the iceberg in this regard. Besides Parker and Monk, there’s a lengthy list of jazz artists of Indigenous descent — including saxophonist Jim Pepper, bassist Oscar Pettiford and trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry.

And jazz is but one piece of the puzzle: Indigenous artists can be found in all genres. But at times, proudly broadcasting their heritage in these spaces has proved difficult in the face of divisive politics.

Navigating Political Divides

While Anderson can only speak for his local scene near Farmington, New Mexico, he has a clear vantage on what it’s like to market oneself as a Native American musician.

“I think as time progressed from the ’80s until now, there were a lot of stronger Indigenous voices that came out,” he says, citing activist causes like the American Indian Movement. “The moment you try to take any stand for Native American something, people tend to take those words as ‘You’re a hardcore activist.'”

“I mean, I could go outside right now and say, ‘I stand with Standing Rock,'” he adds. “Immediately, people are going to think of me as a negative force here.”

And while that scene comprised a healthy variety of perspectives and genres, it attracted judgement from the outside. “I think a lot of the people who were involved didn’t really realize what they were creating,” Anderson says. “It really looked like they were making some type of coalition — or Indigenous organization — that’s going to fight everything that goes in their path.”

Delbert Anderson. Photo: Maurice Johnson

This atmosphere weighed heavily on Anderson’s career in 2013, when DDAT began to market themselves as “Native American jazz.” (James Pakootas, their MC, is Indigenous; bassist Michael McCluhan is white; drummer Nicholas Lucero is Hispanic.)

“We immediately got thrown into this pool of musicians that were stirring up this big group or organization,” Anderson says. “The moment we said ‘We are Native American jazz,’ they immediately assumed we’re part of this Native American music scene, and it lost us gigs because they thought we were there to lecture the audience.”

Anderson saw his more militant colleagues as refusing to compromise, acting as if rules didn’t apply to them. “There’s a lot of that showing up in musicians today,” he says. “The moment a venue says something that they can’t do, like, ‘Oh, you can’t burn cedar here before the show,’ or anything like that, they’ll throw a huge, huge fit.”

“I hate to say it,” Anderson says, “but it kind of ruined it for the rest of us who don’t participate in that ceremony.”

To avoid these associations, DDAT eventually decided to pivot away from “Native American jazz,” describing themselves as a funk/jazz group inspired by Indigenous melodies. “People started to see us as not being activists, or the rowdy ones,” Anderson says. As a result, the group immediately started getting offered more gigs.

Julia Keefe. Photo: Don Hamilton

Braving Inner Conflict

This dissonance isn’t limited to sociopolitical factions, or a conflict between musicians and promoters — although Anderson could certainly share other horror stories. Even so-called enlightened spaces, like jazz workshops, have left Indigenous musicians second-guessing themselves.

“At gigs or at workshops or what have you, people will come up and be kind of aggressive about it — almost offended,” Keefe says. “Like, [Flustered voice] ‘What does that mean? What do you mean you are a Native American jazz vocalist?’ ‘Well, I’m Native American and I sing jazz. That’s what I do.'”

“With that confrontation of my identity,” she adds, “there’s been tension within myself of, ‘If I’m going to claim my Native heritage on my business card, should my music be more influenced by my Indigenous heritage?'”

But even if an artist defines what Indigenousness means for themselves, it’s bound to create friction with others’ preconceptions or stereotypes. “That’s something that Natives come up against in any sort of art form,” Obomsawin says.

Adrian Wall. Photo: Shondinii Walters​

Adrian Wall, a flutist and guitarist with roots in the Jemez Pueblo tribe, experiences dislocation just by announcing who he is to the world.

“Once you play the Native card, you’re kind of stuck being a Native musician when you’re actually playing music that’s accepted worldwide just as American music,” he tells GRAMMY.com. “Once you call yourself a Native, all of a sudden you’re playing Native music.”

Raven Chacon, a Diné composer who works in the experimental and noise scenes, has had to push against assumptions that his work would be stereotypically Native — or adjacent to new age. 

“There was an assumption it was going to involve flutes or drums or something,” he tells GRAMMY.com with a laugh. “Even from people should know better, there have been assumptions.”

Raven Chacon. Photo: Jamie Drummond

To fellow experimental musician and sound sculpturist Warren Realrider — who is Pawnee and enrolled with the Crow Nation of Montana and makes music akin to John Zorn, Pauline Oliveros and Merzbow — the solution lies in creating a music industry framework that accurately represents Indigenous creators.

“These systems of music, distribution, performance, whatever — they are built on a world that’s not the Indigenous world,” he tells GRAMMY.com. “You’re always going to have to work against that in some way.”

Plus, as a representative of his background in the insular noise space, Realrider’s work has become bigger than him — he feels inordinate pressure to not let his tribe down.

“A lot of Indigenous artists don’t lose that aspect,” he says, considering the arc of his life and career so far. “That’s something you carry along with you, and you present yourself that way.”

Addressing Language Barriers

Sometimes, the criticism comes from within Indigenous communities themselves. JJ Otero, a Hopi and Diné singer/songwriter inspired by bands like Counting Crows and Pearl Jam, had to deal with the finer points of language — even one he knew backward and forward.

“I didn’t use the Navajo language in my music for the longest time,” he tells GRAMMY.com from his home on a Navajo reservation. “The white guys in [my first band, Saving Damsels] said, ‘You should write a song in Navajo that we can play.'”

JJ Otero. Photo: Unek Francis

Despite being a fluent Navajo speaker, Otero wanted to be careful that he said things exactly right. “I don’t want my songs to just be a lazy utterance of words in Navajo,” he says. To thread the needle, Otero enlisted his father to vet his lyrics for inexact grammar and syntax.

“I do believe that sometimes our own people can be our toughest critics,” Otero says. “We can take that criticism and be mad and upset about it, or we can dive deeper into why those criticisms exist and understand the foundation of why Navajo is sacred.”

Facing One’s Own Community

As a rapper and motivational speaker who spits bars in DDAT, James Pakootas operates by what he calls “a very deep awareness of protocol.”

“A lot of times, Native artists in contemporary music want to meld the two worlds, but it seems like sometimes they’re taking away from the culture. It’s not done with care,” Pakootas tells GRAMMY.com. “It’s like sampling a powwow song, putting it on a hip-hop beat and calling it good.”

James Pakootas. Photo: Maurice Johnson

To avoid this sort of mishandling, Pakootas works with collaborators to tell his stories as considerately as possible, preferring to bring in a drum group and analyze together how the story could be told.

“A lot of songs I know are ceremony songs,” he adds. “There’s not going to be any of those that I share because there’s a protocol in place to keep that sacred. There’s a time and a place for that song to be sung or that melody to be used.”

Reaching Harmony From Dissonance

How can music fans right these wrongs and push against the othering of Indigenous artists? Maybe the first step is realizing that Indigenous music is all music.

“Native people are very much seen as mythological creatures, as the villains in Westerns, the mascots that you love to hate, or whatever,” Keefe says. “So, I can see why [musical discrimination] would be a thing because so often we are perceived as a figment of someone’s imagination.”

Warren Realrider. Photo: Shane Brown​

For Obomsawin, this necessary shift begins with education — and by listening to the stories of her elders. In her case, that teacher is Pura Fé, a Tuscarora and Taino vocalist and activist related to Thelonious Monk.

“She is so intimately aware of those dual legacies — the Black and Native lineages of jazz,” Obomsawin says. “I just hope that more air time is given to the elders in the jazz and blues community who know those things. I think it could really help to unearth some of those stories as really important parts of American music history — as well as our history in general.”

Mali Obomsawin. Photo: Nolan Altvater​

As for Yazzie, she believes significant change won’t occur until we give sovereignty to Indigenous artists — so they can decide who their audience is, why they perform their music, what their music sounds like, where they want their music played, and how they want it to be perceived by the rest of the world.

“I always maintain that Native music is Native music because a Native person is outputting it,” Yazzie says. “But on the flipside, you don’t want to limit people to where all they do is Native music. I think you have to be really careful to not use the Native music label as a way to put people in a specific box. Because Native music is still also blues. It’s still jazz. It’s still country. It’s still hip-hop. It’s still classical music. [Indigenous] people are in those genre-specific spaces and they’re doing amazing things.”

When considering this subject, Anderson always returns to Don Cherry, who remains one of his idols. “In one of his interviews, he said, ‘Hey, it’s about meeting other people. It’s about having relationships with your friends,'” he says.

“I think everyone just needs to go back to their original state, going back to just being a human and recognizing that we’re all humans here,” Anderson adds. “Approach each other as human beings with our minds or our thoughts.”

Anderson is bringing Cherry’s openhearted philosophy to his next endeavor — collaborating with the American Pops Orchestra for a Bureau of Land Management project. This has been a laborious process, with no shortage of fine lines to navigate.

“Bringing this orchestra onto the Indigenous lands is going to be a real struggle because of all the racial division going on in the world,” he says. But in the end, Anderson believes all the work is going to be worth it.

“Having these two different identities on that land, I’m hoping the land can really heal the group that’s there,” he says. “I mean, if the land really heals, we’re going to put the land to the test.” 

Because it’s happened before on this soil: Indigenous people and those of so many other backgrounds have come together to make great American music. Sure, it’s been a rocky path to get there — sometimes a troubling and treacherous one. But Anderson and his colleagues aren’t afraid to tread it.

Commonalities, Subtleties & Purpose: 7 Musicians Pushing Ancient Asian Instruments Into The Future

The Ucross Foundation invites the community to meet the artists and curator behind the Ucross Art Gallery’s current exhibition, “Field Guide: Teresa Baker + Anthony Hudson + Jessica Mehta + Eliza Naranjo Morse,” during an artist talk and reception on Friday, May 5.

The exhibition features art by recent recipients of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists program that supports the creative process of contemporary Indigenous artists through a month-long residency at Ucross, the opportunity to present work publicly and a monetary award. The featured artists include Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa) of Los Angeles, California; Anthony Hudson (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Siletz) of Portland, Oregon; Jessica Mehta (Cherokee Nation) of Portland, Oregon; and Eliza Naranjo Morse (Santa Clara Pueblo) of Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico.

The program starts with an artist’s talk at Sheridan College’s Kinnison Hall at 11 a.m. Guest curator Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo), who serves as chief curator of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will moderate a conversation among Baker, Mehta and Naranjo Morse, discussing the artists’ work and creative process, before inviting questions from attendees. At 6 p.m., the Ucross Art Gallery will host a reception, which will include an artist meet-and-greet, exhibition tours and refreshments by Ucross Chef Cindy Brooks. Tickets to both events are free and available at ucross.org.

“The art in ‘Field Guide,’ which was created by the 2020 and 2021 recipients of our Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, is an excellent reminder that the scope of contemporary Native art is deep and wide-ranging,” said Ucross President William Belcher. “We are proud that several works in the show were created while the artists were in residency at Ucross, which is a further testament to the freedom of time and space we provide artists here in Sheridan County.”

In the exhibition, the four artists explore diverse cultural traditions while forging new personal identities and investigating topical issues, such as the diasporic experience, resilience and autonomy. Offering a complex view of the present and past, “Field Guide” engages in contemporary Indigenous discourse through art ranging from sculptures and paintings to video installations to a mural spanning a gallery wall.

“Field Guide” is on view at the Ucross Art Gallery, located at 30 Big Red Lane in Ucross, through July 30. The gallery is open with free admission Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

ONTARIO —Cathie Jamieson was among four Indigenous women based in Ontario that were commissioned to design a player of the game stick for players at the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship this year.

Originally from Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, the 32-year-old Manitoulin Island resident is one of four Indigenous artists selected to create the artwork that would circulate at the championship that concluded Sunday, April 16, in Brampton.

After each game, a stick was presented to the player of the game from each team.

The other artists include Cree-Ojibwa artist Shawna Grapentine of Rainy River, Angela Jason, an Ojibwe from Sheshegwaning First Nation and Shenoa Simon of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.

Like the other artists, Jamieson entered the call and submitted her design and description of the concept, and was given notice that she was selected. This put her to work as Jamieson had to paint 25 sticks over a two-week period, sometimes spending 12 hours a day working on the project.

Much of Jamieson’s work involves painting with oils, acrylics, watercolour, and drawings, and sculpture and photography. She also creates pow wow regalia, ribbon skirts, and beadwork.

This is not the first time Player of the Game sticks have featured Indigenous designs at Hockey Canada-hosted events.

Alberta-based artist Jason Carter created designs on the sticks handed out at the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship in Edmonton and four Indigenous artists from Atlantic Canada were called on to design the sticks at the 2023 World Juniors in Halifax and Moncton. 

However, the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship is the first championship where all participating artists, many of whom are self-taught, are women. 

As pictured, inspired by the movement of hockey players, Jamieson’s work depicts for a large eagle at the end of the blade facing towards the shaft of the stick.

In front of the eagle is a series of colourful circles and a floral arrangement, which was explained to represent the life cycle. 

CUTLINE:

ONTARIO — Four Ontario women commissioned to design player of the game sticks, a unique keepsake, for players at the 2023 IIHF Women’s World Championship. Among the four selected is Cathie Jamieson, of the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation. Photo submitted.

Golga Oscar intends to explore different forms of the Yup’ik collection ranging from headwear to footwear and capture them through the lens of photography. 

Golga Oscar of Kasigluk and Tununak and Nicolette Corbett originally of Bethel are two of seven artists that have been named grantees for the Museums Alaska, the state’s museum association, first round of the new Access to Alaska Native Collections (AANC) grant with $21,000 awarded to Alaska Native artists and museums across Alaska.

This year, Museums Alaska has begun managing a new grant program for The CIRI Foundation that provides travel funding to Alaska Native artists so they can visit Alaska Native collections in museums.

One of Museums Alaska’s goals has been to provide resources to the field that help build stronger relationships between museums and Alaska Native communities. Providing this grant program to the Alaska Native artist community and museums is one way to do so.

“When The CIRI Foundation approached us about managing this new program, we were excited for the opportunity,” said Dixie Clough, director of Museums Alaska. “Museums are honored to care for and steward Alaska Native belongings, but many of these collections are far away from the communities that created them. This fund makes the collections more accessible to Alaska Native artists across the state who may not otherwise be able to visit them.”

The grant program is supported with funding from the Journey to What Matters program at The CIRI Foundation, which seeks to add Indigenous stories, perspectives and voices in exhibition and collection spaces, and provide community members better access to the material belongings that museums hold.

“Historically museums have collected, exhibited and cared for materials without much involvement from Alaska Native communities,” said Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, program director for Journey to What Matters. “Thankfully, we are in a period where this is changing as museums become more aware of the importance of working with Indigenous community members.”

“Our hope is that this grant program will provide Alaska Native artists access to material culture that can inspire and teach new generations important information about cultural heritage, design elements, aesthetic principles, construction techniques and technologies,” Jackinsky-Sethi continued.

Through this grant program, artists will receive grants of $2,500 or $3,500 to visit museum collections this summer. The museums also receive a stipend to cover the expenses of the visit.

In total, seven artists have been awarded grants to visit six museums and cultural centers. Further information on these visits can be found below:

Nicolette Corbett has been awarded a grant to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center to study the piluguk/kameskak collection. Photos courtesy of Museums Alaska

● Nicolette Corbett has been awarded a grant to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center to study the piluguk/kameskak collection from the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta Region. Since starting her sewing business, Sew Yup’ik, in the summer of 2015, it has taken off. In addition to creating and selling qaspeqs, bags of various sizes, and other small sewing pieces, Nikki has taken on a new role teaching qaspeq workshops across the state of Alaska. In the last year, her focus has been to work on skin sewing projects and especially those that are of the lost art, like piluguks/kameksaks (hard sole bottom shoes). She is hoping to learn the art so that she can share that knowledge with others and keep Yup’ik traditions alive. Learn more about Nikki and her work at https://sewyupik.com.

● Golga Oscar has been awarded a grant to visit the Anchorage Museum where he intends to explore different forms of the Yup’ik collection ranging from headwear to footwear and capture them through the lens of photography. A self-taught artist with a huge passion for his culture and tradition, Golga enjoys revitalizing traditional designs with careful observation. Through revitalization, he observes the material, technique, and significance behind the clothing with a goal of bringing back what was once discontinued since the impact of westernization. Golga’s goals are to pursue cultural awareness teaching and get into the fashion industry. He aims to showcase the Yup’ik cultural art and bring recognition of Yup’ik clothing and traditions to the “American” mainstream. Follow Golga on Instagram to learn more: https://www.instagram.com/quki92/?hl=en.

● X̱’unei Lance Twitchell has been awarded a grant to visit Ketchikan Museums to study with Nathan Jackson while continuing to document his life and work through video and photo. He will work closely with staff of the Totem Heritage Center and the Tongass Historical Museum to organize visits with the intention of documenting both the work and Nathan Jackson’s comments on the artwork. X̱ʼunei will also photograph the collections in the Totem Heritage Center and the Tongass Historical Museum for both individual artistic study and teaching at the University of Alaska Southeast and in workshops with the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation and Sealaska Heritage Institute. These visits will greatly increase X̱ʼunei’s ability to continue to grow as a visual artist and to produce new works in design, sculpture, fashion, regalia, and more. Learn more about X̱’unei Twitchell at https://troubledraven.com.

● Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Athabascan and Inupiaq) has been awarded a grant to visit the University of Alaska Museum of the North. Erin is a carver, an interdisciplinary artist, and is expanding her practice to include other artforms and more complex narratives. She is currently pursuing her MFA, and the visit will allow her to engage in museum collections to ground her work in that of the Indigenous artists that have come before her. Erin hopes to visit a variety of collections including historical cultural belongings, photographs, carved objects, animal representations and animal specimens that are culturally connected to her many homelands and Indigenous heritage. You can learn more about Erin and her work at https://ggaadimitsivalu.com.

● Elaine Kingeekuk has been awarded a grant to visit the Alaska State Museum for three days of collaboration with conservator Ellen Carrlee on gut conservation and care. Elaine will also spend time in collections storage, freely opening cabinets and drawers to see and handle dolls, sewing tools, jewelry, toys, footwear, garments, and any other items in the museum collection that may promote her artistic and teaching goals. Elaine has been sewing dolls, baskets, clothing, boots, toys, and other small items since her childhood in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. She learned sewing and its cultural values from her mother (Ruthelle) and grandmother. Elaine has been working with scholars and museums for nearly 20 years. In addition to visiting the collections, Elaine is considering hosting a public program at the museum, and getting the word out about a teaching studio she would like to open in Savoonga. Elaine will also take time in Juneau to connect with old friends and the land through berry picking and other cultural activities.

● Chloe Bourdukofsky and Carter Price have been awarded a grant to visit the Museum of the Aleutians where they will visit the archives and pieces that include their family history and art. Qaadax Chloe Bourdukofsky was raised by her grandparents and great grandma who taught her how to speak some Unangam Tunuu, to crochet, about traditional foods, and an Unangax way of life and community. To this day she wishes to continue to teach others about traditional Unangax dance, sewing, foods and community life as her relatives did for her growing up. Carter Price over the past 2 years has begun creating Unangan model Iqyaxs (kayaks) to connect with his culture. More recently his art medium has taken form in ivory. He grew up connected to his culture, but only surface level. Since diving into the connection with culture and art Carter’s overall well-being has increased. His goal for the future generations is to provide a space separate from school, to connect, educate, and create whatever their passions are. Chloe and Carter hope to photograph artwork—like basketry—to learn from and share with their fellow Unangans in Unangam Tanangin who do not have this opportunity to visit. The visit will also provide a wonderful opportunity to visit with relatives on Iluulux (Unalaska) to gain oral information on Unangax history, stories and art to also connect with the local Unangans on the Island. Learn more about Chloe at https://www.qaadax.com/about-me.

The Yakima Valley has plenty to offer in the way of natural beauty and good eats. But if what you want is a local business to support that will also make your social media feed pop, look no further.

From a blast-from-the-past video rental store in Wapato to eye-catching mosaics in Tieton, here are five places to check out if you want your trip to be #memorable.

Tieton town square

Between Tieton Avenue, Maple Street, Wisconsin Avenue and Elm Street in Tieton

The town of Tieton is no stranger to internet fame. The story of its transformation from a struggling farming community to an arts hub had been well documented online. It’s a must-visit spot for those with a heart for art.

The best place to check out the community’s famous mosaics — which are based on fruit labels — is in the town square. The regal Royal Purple Brand Apples mosaic is a background fit for a king or queen. While you’re in town, check out the local artisan spots associated with business incubator Mighty Tieton or grab a snack at Santos Bakery.

The Alignment Co.

12 S. Second St., Yakima

Calling all crystal lovers! The Alignment Co. is one of Yakima’s newest small businesses. Owner Dimitri Ray grew up in Yakima and spent over a decade working in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles.

Ray’s goal is to create a beacon of positive energy in Yakima, and the shop is curated accordingly. The Alignment Co. sells a kaleidoscopic array of crystals from around the world, as well as plants, books and apparel. Visitors can even look at mastodon teeth and ancient Roman coins.

Ray said he wants his store to be a place where Yakima’s youth feel comfortable, and he stocks some low-priced options, including crystals for under $5.

Sip on 1st Espresso

615 S. First St., Yakima

This one’s for everyone who loves pictures and videos of mouthwateringly beautiful food. Sip on 1st Espresso is a drive-thru spot that offers smoothies, lemonades, flavored Red Bulls and other drinks topped with candy and fresh fruit. The Tropic Island Breeze jar, for one, is sweet, refreshing and bursting with flavor.

The full menu has more than 200 options and you can create your own combinations. Prices range from $7 for an individual drink to $60 for a family-sized platter.

Owner Yaritza Aguilar also uses social media to bring in business. She posts short videos showcasing her eye-catching creations and has amassed over 20,000 Instagram followers.

Saint Jack’s Video

614 W. First St., Wapato

The dream of the ’90s is alive in Wapato at Saint Jack’s Video. A true movie lover could spend hours weaving through the aisles of thousands of DVDs for rent. If you get hungry, the shop offers real movie theater popcorn along with other throwback snacks. The Rocky Road candy bars are a local favorite, longtime employee Adam Decker said.

Those with streaming fatigue may enjoy searching for a unique movie that the algorithm could never dream of delivering. Something like “Sharkula,” perhaps, which was on the new releases wall.

Rose’s Native Designs

202 S. Toppenish Ave., Toppenish

In the heart of downtown Toppenish, “Where the West Still Lives,” Rose’s Native Designs stands out with its brilliant turquoise storefront. Inside, the store is stocked with practically every Native craft you could think of, from moccasins to earrings to medallions to dolls to polished abalone shells.

Many of the crafts come from local Indigenous artists, including store owner Rose Samson. She and her husband, Ralph, have welcomed visitors from as far away as South America, Europe and Asia into their shop.

The store is certified by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board.

Be sure to check out some of Toppenish’s murals while you’re in town. There’s one featuring a horse and wagon just across the street from Rose’s storefront.