Naturally, FastHorse’s play satirizes the idea of white “allies” to Indigenous people trying to stage a woke Thanksgiving play; the four characters’ fictional production quickly, and comically, goes off the rails as they brainstorm an assortment of deranged ideas, such as acting out the brutal Pequot Massacre of 1637. There’s even a scene where the four stars kick a handful of severed, bloodied Native heads around like soccer balls, an unsubtle nod to the violence Indigenous people faced during colonization. “I love that there’s a lot of nervous laughter,” says FastHorse. “We shouldn’t fear the truth. When I talk to Indigenous folks, they’re like, ‘Thank you.’ There’s a relief and release in seeing [Thanksgiving] the way it actually happened, and not trying to make it softer or censor it.”

The playwright feels there’s power in using laughter as an educational tool; she wanted to make audience members think twice about celebrating Thanksgiving, but to have fun while doing it. “I don’t enjoy going to theater and being bashed over the head [with a message],” says FastHorse. “I go to theater to have a communal experience, and to learn and enjoy things. Comedy is a really easy way to to force your brain into thinking a different way.”

Take, for example, the interstitial videos projected throughout the production. They show young children singing blatantly racist Thanksgiving songs like “10 Little Indians”—a take on “Twelve Days of Christmas,” referencing just about every Indigenous stereotype in existence. As it turns out, these preposterous songs were all taken from real-life teachers’ Pinterest boards or chat rooms. “These are horrific things that we still have kids do at schools on Thanksgiving,” says FastHorse. “Someone said to me, ‘I don’t think they would do that today.’ And I’m like, have you seen the video of that math teacher in California? This stuff is happening all of the time!”

Photographed by Jingyu Lin

The second annual Page Fine Art Festival comes to John C. Page Memorial Park this Saturday, April 15, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival will feature around 40 artist booths, as well as food vendors, a Native hoop dance performance at 11 a.m. and live music at 1 p.m.  

The festival kicks off this Friday with the Best in Show Art Event at Wahweap Marina from 6-9 p.m. At that event, each artist will display one of their own artworks, and each person who buys a ticket to attend will be able to vote for the best art. Ticketholders will also have the opportunity to chat with the artists, including this year’s premiere artist, Daniel Josley.

Josley is a Diné artist based in Shonto on the Navajo Nation, who specializes in murals and canvas paintings. He is perhaps most well-known for his artwork depicting horned toads, which in Navajo culture represent wisdom, knowledge and protection. 

Josley said he was proud to be chosen as the premiere artist for the Page Fine Art Festival, not only because of his art but also because of where he is from, who he is and what he represents.

“I really believe that as an artist, we’re all trying to get our mind and spirit out there. If this is a way to do it, then my art will speak louder than my words,” Josley told the Chronicle. “If I can climb up the ladder to spread the word about the horned toads and the stories and the relations that we have through my Navajo culture, then I will take that first step. I really appreciate the Page Fine Art Festival for choosing me to represent that.” 

Art has always come naturally to Josley, who remembers doing sketches throughout his childhood and experimenting with pastels and paints in high school. He has always been interested in gathering whatever information he could about art, art history, and the use of materials like acrylic and oil paints.

However, his interest in art was put on the backburner when he left the Navajo Nation after school in pursuit of work in places like Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. He describes that period of his life as being far away from home and “in the system, another father paying his bills with a normal job.” 

It wasn’t until he was working in North Dakota and got laid off that he felt compelled to get back to making art. 

“One day I just picked up a pencil and paper and I sat at the kitchen table and started sketching. That sketch turned into a portrait of my grandfather, John Josley, and I kind of lost myself in what I was doing. I forgot about struggle, the bills, obligations,” he said. 

“I found myself hypnotized in what I was doing and so I shared it on social media, and several months later just started paying the rent with my art. I figured, why not move home back to the motherland in Shonto and continue doing what I’m doing?”

He returned home in 2015, a move that gave him a whole different perspective on life. 

“Coming home was definitely an eye-opener for me. It was like I was finally awake when I came home. I looked at everything different – my family, the canyons, the trees, the community. I wanted to make a difference,” he said.

Just how to make that difference wasn’t immediately clear. At that point, Josley was not yet painting horned toads, instead focusing on portraits, landscapes and mixed-media art as he tried to find his own style and technique through trial-and-error. He was also trying to figure out things for himself and for his family – including his wife, five kids and daughter-in-law.

It wasn’t until after Josley’s grandfather passed on that he started painting horned toads. He was raised by his grandparents, and through them found much of the wisdom, knowledge and protection that horned toads represent in his culture.  

His grandfather used to tell him stories about the horned toad, which also represents family relations, as well as being a symbol of good luck. 

“When I started painting my first still life image of a horned toad, it took me back to my childhood. I never really had that perspective until remembering what my grandfather used to teach me. The horned toad helped me do that, helped bring me back and give me a different perspective,” Josley said.

“In doing so, I started to create a character, which was my grandfather, and I just started to hold different childhood memory of me and the canyons and school, first experiences and travelling, as a horned toad, a grandfather horned toad. So now I do that. I travel here and there, and a lot of people can relate to what I’m doing.” 

So far, Josley has completed nearly 60 murals across the Navajo Nation – in Shonto, Tuba City, Black Mesa, Kayenta and elsewhere – as well as off the reservation, in towns ranging from Page to Farmington, New Mexico.  

For Josley, painting murals is “a little more addicting” than working on canvas. It can also be unpredictable, with the final image dependent not only on his imagination and skill, but also on factors like the location, the weather, the structure, whether it’s indoor or outdoor, and obstacles on the wall such as piping, windows and doors. It all contributes to the “flow” of the finished mural. 

“It’s pretty interesting. Plus, at the same time there’s a lot of traffic that comes through at different times, and there’s that interaction” with the public that does not occur while working alone at home or in a studio.  

Josley believes that murals can enhance public spaces, an idea that takes him back to one of his first murals in Shonto.

“When I came back home to my community here in Shonto, I just saw a lot of profanity and spraypainted graffiti on the walls, and I wanted to change that or cover it up,” he said. 

“I thought maybe this was a free canvas for me to explore my ideas on. So, contributing to the community with mural art has really made a large impact on the surrounding families in the area, as far as their kids getting on the bus and driving by these murals every day. It’s inspirational, and I believe it can benefit a community for the future.”

One of his Shonto murals, titled “Horned Toad and Lightning God,” has also inspired him to start working on a children’s book – which will be published in both English and Navajo languages – about a modern-day horned toad who walks on two legs and travels to different communities telling his own story as well as older traditional tales. It’s a work in progress with no firm completion date. 

“I’m not painting every day. I do things around the house, I go wood hauling, I travel at certain times to schools to give presentations and demonstrations, and to work on murals. It’s a slow project for me, but it’s something that I’m building toward,” Josley said.

He described his efforts to make a living from art and support his family as a “gamble” and an “everyday hustle,” but he’s determined to persist through the hard times – which is why he has named his personal website Persistence in Arts (www.persistenceinarts.com).

“I’ve been telling people time and time again – I think the best of us comes out when we’re going through the hard times. I’ve been down to my last 20 bucks before, and those are the times when my original artwork comes out. They’re because I need to pay the bills or I need to get food or I need to get gas money to travel,” Josley said. “So, appreciate the hard times. They’re stepping stones. That’s all the failures we have, and it’s good to embrace those. It makes you stronger.” 

He also encouraged new and aspiring artists to “just get out there and do it” rather than thinking too much about making art. 

“Most of my murals that I’ve done, they weren’t because I was planning things out, they were because I had an idea. As an artist, if you have a good idea, it’s hard to get that out of your head before you can move on to the next project,” he said. “So that’s what got me started in the first place. Just getting out there and doing it myself. There’s no time and day for art.”

Lynn Cormier, director of community and recreation services for the City of Page, said she was particularly excited about this year’s festival because Josley has been instrumental in invigorating more artists on the Navajo Nation to participate in the event. 

She said it was extremely important to showcase local Native American artists, not only because they are neighbors to Page but also because they have their own stories to tell through their contemporary artwork.   

When it comes to Native art, Cormier said, “We often think of kachina dolls and jewelry and the old pottery, but there’s some pretty contemporary and modern styles that those who have signed up for the festival have given a twist to really show their culture and how they feel they fall into today’s modern world. And I think that that voice needs to be heard. So, we’re excited to have them.”

Cormier said there will also be greater participation from local high school students this year, with as many as 50 participating in the festival. 

“We’re excited to have the high school kids because it’s nice to have something that you can bring the community into,” she said, adding that as far as students go, the Best in Show event will be limited to high-school seniors. “This is something that they can build toward each year, and knowing that in senior year, if they stick with it, they can be part of the Best in Show event.” 

A limited number of tickets are available for the Best in Show Art Event at Wahweap Marina on April 14. Tickets are $25 per person or $45 per couple and can be purchased at City Hall or online at events.cityofpage.org/page-fine-art-festival/.

Bulletin report

The Doña Ana Arts Council (DAAC), 230 S. Water St. downtown, is hosting “The Spirit Within – A Gathering of Indigenous Artists,” an exhibit of contemporary native artists, in its main gallery through Friday, April 28.

“We are honored to welcome these artists,” DAAC Executive Director Araceli Solis said. “This exhibit is an opportunity in Doña Ana County to experience the gathering of outstanding Indigenous artists of New Mexico, coming together to celebrate their indigenous heritage and spirit.”

Artists in the exhibit include Marcy Angeles, Ramona Angeles, Ishkoten Dougi, Aaron Freeland, Amado Peña, Saba, John Suazo and Michael Toya.

“Some of the names of the exhibiting artists should be recognizable in Las Cruces, such as Saba, who is known for his murals; Freeland, who is known for his monoprints; and Suazo, who has a sculpture outside The Adobe Gallery in Las Cruces,” DAAC Gallery Manager Penny Peace said. “But the work of Dougi, Peña and Toya is less well-known here, and they, in fact, will exhibit for the first time at DAAC.”

Also on exhibit at DAAC in April is the work of 25 aspiring young artists from the Doña Ana Community College Film and Digital Media Arts Program, DAAC said.

DAAC is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, plus noon-5 p.m. on Second Saturday, April 15.

Contact Solis at 575-523-6403 and director@daarts.org. Contact Peace at gallery@daarts.org.

Faint melodies of mariachi music float on the air like pied pipers, luring outsiders to a corner building in an obscure section of Dallas’ Design District North. Opening the door, the staccato beat blasts the ears as the eyes fill with shades of indigo, terra cotta and forest green. It’s the premiere of Lone Gallery.

Owners J.P. and Erin Hossley created a 2,000-square-foot space to showcase some of their favorite artists in the front section of their retail furniture business, {neighborhood} Showroom. They have featured art for 13 years, J.P. said, ever since they opened their original location in Bishop Arts. They moved three years ago to the Design District.

“We’ve always loved to pair the art with the furniture,” he said, talking over the music, “but then we needed a space where we could just have an exhibition.”

And a party. Erin said the featured artist Cruz Ortiz from San Antonio wanted something lively, “a throw-down like you’d have in your backyard.” Nuevo cumbia soon replaces mariachi. Cranked up, the band draws a crowd. More people arrive.

A West Texas vibe links all the artists in the exhibit.

“We love Marfa in West Texas,” J.P. said. “We started going out there about 20 years ago, and we just haven’t been able to stop.”

Ortiz said he met the Hossleys in Marfa. He’s shown his art from Los Angeles to the Louvre, San Juan to the Smithsonian and all over Texas. His oil canvases fill the main gallery.

“Danza de los Cosmicos” at Lone Gallery is his first major Dallas show. “For me,” he said, “it’s all about understanding community, understanding placement, understanding about what the voice of Texas is and the different variances of the voices. Showing here means so much because it’s kind of like coming back home.”

The native Texan said he painted all the work in the past year after the Uvalde shooting.

“I think after that it really sent me into this different—not direction—but like implosion,” he said. “The only way to figure that out was to really dig into the artwork of it. Like, how do we function as humans?”

This episode and the state’s political and social changes are things that churn inside him “all the time,” Ortiz said. “This is probably the most political show I’ve ever done.” His artwork is more than just illustrations of cowboys and Mexican abstract images.

“The show’s about attention span,” he said. “It’s about paying attention to who and where you come from. And understanding what harms we have done.”

He said he questioned how he and other artists can “talk about humanity through paint. We’ve got to paint and paint a lot. And just don’t think. Just paint,” he said then paused and added with a wry smile, “Like Yoda stuff.”

His wife Olivia helps him with his artistic process. She is recognizable as his muse in many of his paintings throughout the exhibit.

Three women artists also intertwine their visual stories of Texas in the gallery.

El Baker

El Baker of Austin posts her work on Instagram, and that’s where the Hossleys found her for the gallery exhibit.

Baker said her West Texas landscapes are inspired by camping trips with her husband to Big Bend. She’s eager to share those experiences with her two small children, 1 and 3 years old.

She said she’s painted throughout her life and started professionally three years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic. “So, when the 3-year-old was napping, that’s when I was painting.”

Layla Luna

Layla Luna, based in Fort Worth, explores nature, home and storytelling with her landscape paintings and illustrations. She said she credits her daughter for rekindling her own inner child and the joy of being an artist. Besides painting, Luna has also written children’s books.

Luna’s love of the desert “made me believe that certain places and objects hold hauntedness within them,” according to her website.

Leslie Cottrill

This is Leslie Cottrill‘s first time exhibiting in Dallas. She met the Hossleys in Marfa, where Erin bought one of her pieces.

She’s the only artist at Lone Gallery using a different medium—hand-sewn chain-stitched embroidery. The Austin artist said she learned it about 25 years ago when she was a girl. She picked up the craft again eight years ago because a very expensive vintage embroidered jacket caught her eye.

“I thought to myself, I wonder if I still know how to do that,” she said. She was at her day job, so she practiced with a needle and thread on a piece of paper.

Now, she designs chain-stitched patches, as well as wall and wearable art, on all kinds of fabrics—antique, vintage, denim and other unique choices.

“The white fabric,” she said, pointing to the wall, “my fiancé found it on the side of the road.”

The Hossleys are already planning Lone Gallery’s next exhibit, featuring the work of Tom Jean Webb, a Southwest landscape artist from Austin, opening May 13, 5-8 p.m. Live music will be provided by Denton country singer and family friend Isaac Hoskins, who has been featured on the TV show “Yellowstone.”

J.P. said the gallery’s partition walls are moveable and can be painted to complement an artist’s color palette. Ortiz collaborated on the color of the walls for his exhibit.

“Different colors for different artists,” J.P. said. “Different bands and different music to really bring out the spirit of what the artist is trying to convey.”

On April 21, the closing event of “Danza de los Cosmicos” features an artist talk by Ortiz at 5 p.m. and a screening of the documentary “Sons of Mezcal” at 6:30 pm. A mezcal tasting, along with tacos and burritos, are provided by Las Almas Rotas. And, of course, there’s music.

The Hossleys and Ortiz will multitask, creating the VIP space for the Dallas Art Fair, J.P. said. The event happens April 20-23 in the downtown Dallas Arts District.

Lone Gallery, 2532 Converse St. in the Dallas Design District is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

• April 21, 5 p.m.—“Danza de los Cosmicos” closing event includes an artist talk with Cruz Ortiz, a screening of the documentary “Sons of Mezcal,” a mezcal tasting, tacos and burritos
• Through April 29—Ortiz’s exhibit “Danza de los Cosmicos” in the main gallery
• May 13, 5-8 p.m.—exhibit opening with art by Tom Jean Webb and live music by Isaac Hoskins

“We want to bring that energy, that power and that art up here,” he said. “I think Salt Lake City needs something like this, to have the Native Americans voice who they are now. We’re still here; the Native Americans are still here. We’re still thriving, we’re teachers, astronauts, baseball players, designers and artists.

David Garneau had to sit for five months with the news— “I didn’t even tell my own mum!”—that he had won the Governor General’s award for Outstanding Contribution in the arts.

“It’s been like carrying this secret, almost like a big stone under my shirt…and then when the announcement came it was like the rock was out of my shirt, but now I’m wearing a disco ball on my head and getting way too much attention,” said Garneau.

On March 28, Garneau was announced as a winner, receiving $25,000 and a bronze medallion. The Outstanding Contribution Award is given to artists who have made an exceptional contribution to visual arts, media arts or fine crafts in a volunteer or professional capacity.

The acknowledgement and the resulting attention have been “just a little embarrassing,” said the Edmonton-born Métis visual artist, curator and critical art writer, because he’s all about collaboration.

While Garneau does work solo in his studio, for many of his projects he’s part of a group.

He points to the Tawatinâ Bridge project he undertook in Edmonton two years ago. There are 540 paintings installed on the underside of the concrete Valley Line light rail transit deck, which also serves as the ceiling of the pedestrian walkway.

While Garneau designed all the artwork, he had a team of a dozen painters, many Indigenous but others racialized Canadians, helping out.

His curating has also gone to collaboration. Over the past eight or nine years, the exhibitions he has curated have been as a member of a team, working with one or two Indigenous women, he says, “and we tend to balance out our positives and negatives and come up with something that neither one of us could have done on our own.”

Much of Garneau’s work, whether it’s his personal art, curating or writing, examines the complexities of being First Nations or Métis and the compromises that must be made.

“I’m really interested in how living right now, 2023, what does it mean to be Indigenous?” he said. “What can we learn and bring forward from the past because the alternative way, the dominant mainstream way, is so destructive to the environment. So that can’t be the right way. How do we negotiate these two things? That’s what I’m really interested in…how other folks deal with this very difficult idea.”

Garneau highlighted this theme in the exhibition “Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound,” which he co-curated with Kathleen Ash Milbury in 2017 at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. The works of 10 Indigenous artists were presented.

“There’s just extraordinary things going on that are more than traditional, and yet when you look at what they’re doing it’s all embedded in language, in Raven’s (Chacon) case, or concerns about the environment, in Marianne’s (Nicolson) case. There’s such a range. But the idea that they’re working in these new media, electronic media, shows it’s an example,” said Garneau.

Also of interest to his curator persona is how to reconcile having Indigenous objects and artifacts in museums.

“Some objects want to go home…so repatriation is important. But not everything should be repatriated,” he said.

Some museums have opened themselves to protocol, recognizing that smudging is important before viewing some of these objects still in their possession.

For his own art, Garneau says, it “is about storytelling and it’s about people getting together and talking, using the art objects to tell our stories.”

In May, Garneau will be leading walking tours of his work on the Tawatinâ Bridge. In collaboration with Elders, they will give the stories of the artwork’s life through oral storytelling instead of the written word.

That interaction with the public is also driving his exhibition “Métissage,” which is at the Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary until April 22. The show’s curator, Mary-Beth Laviolette, leads tours of Garneau’s 53 pieces of artwork produced over 20 years.

“That’s really important to me. Paintings are the on walls, but they don’t speak for themselves. You have to speak with them…My work is full of ideas. It’s not just images. They’re tied to complex history,” he said.

Garneau said Laviolette had included “lots and lots” of text in the show and he was surprised at the general history she was conveying.

But when he led a show himself, he said people asked “very basic questions,” which he was pleased to answer. He said that level of discussion is necessary before the more complex issues can be broached.

Over the years, Garneau’s work has strayed from focusing on creating Indigenous-only spaces.

“Sometimes you want to be among your own. We’re working things out. I call this ‘irreconcilable spaces of Indigeneity’… You’re not always explaining everything. You’re getting on with it,” he said.

But then there are the times when “it’s not just about Indigenous content. It’s about what does it mean to be a scholar? What does it mean to be a human who’s careening towards death? Then a mixed company is important.”

He says many Indigenous artists appreciate that broader base.

“They like being invited not just because they’re Indigenous or Indigenous showcased but their ideas and their feelings are put in context with other people from other walks of life,” he said.

In 2025, Garneau will begin touring a collection of still life paintings called “Dark Chapters.” The paintings will be accompanied by a book that will include poetry and writings on each piece.

“Most of (the writers) are racialized. Not all but most of them… I don’t just want an Indigenous reading of these paintings. I want them to come to life for all different walks of life,” he said.

Garneau recalls a conversation he had with First Nations artist Alex Janvier, a member of The Indian Group of Seven.

“He said his biggest regret was that nobody took his art seriously. Although he had been showing it all over the place, nobody had been writing about it critically,” he said.

Surprised at the comment, Garneau looked at the notes in the back of the Indian Group of Seven book where he found comments on how well-loved the work was, but no evaluation or critiquing.

“Indigenous art is serious on the world stage when…there’s critical reviews,” said Garneau.  

This subject was the topic of one of his pieces as a critical art writer.

“We’re getting more and more (critical reviews) but mostly we’re still in the showcase model,” he said.

However, he’s hopeful that is beginning to change as Indigenous people move out of producing for the “white marketplace” and start producing work for other Indigenous people regionally and also internationally.

“We’re part of this international network now of just Indigenous people making things and they’re being considered by other Indigenous people. That’s very, very exciting. That’s a big change and that’s why it’s worthy of that notion of a renaissance, of a rebirth,” said Garneau.

Garneau’s career has taken him as artist, curator and keynote speaker to almost every continent.

Never, he says, did he expect when he was spending most of his time around the Sir Winston Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton, bouncing between the public library on one side and the Art Gallery of Alberta (free admission at that time) on other side, and playing chess and learning card tricks in the square with unhoused people, that he would accomplish so much.

“I never thought I would write something that would end up in a book that would be in the library,” he said. “I always thought I’d get into the Edmonton art gallery. I really did think that I might get a show someday, but I only thought regionally.”

Garneau anticipates the Governor General award will allow people to “put all the pieces together” about him: Curator, artist, writer.

“Hopefully people will read an idea I had in a paper and find it useful, and they’ll use it. That’s probably the greatest honour, when I see someone cite my work or they’re moved by a painting. That’s the greatest honour to me,” he said.

Garneau’s work will be part of an exhibition of the Governor General arts winners in November in the National Art Gallery in Ottawa.

“The wonderful thing about art, for most of us, our artwork persists. I’m going to die at some point. My works will carry on,” said Garneau.

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