ArtsAlive
Summer 2020
inspiration from isolation
On the cover:
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“Bubbly Fantasia” is a painting by musician Yi-Chun Lin, the founder of Sioux Falls Chamber Music Collective and the principal viola of South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Lin has served as a soloist, concertmaster and viola principal of orchestras in New York, Taiwan and music festivals worldwide. With a curious mind, she never stops exploring different dimensions to bridge music with other art forms, as well as ways for people to experience a piece of art or music. To learn more about Lin’s work, visit yclmusic.com or sfcmcollective.com and read her pandemic narrative on page 7.
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inside
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Dakota artists find 4-9 South inspiration in isolation
Summer 2020 Volume 22, Issue 3
during global pandemic
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Arts Alive South Dakota is published by Arts South Dakota PO Box 2496 Sioux Falls, SD 57101-2496 605-252-5979
Send story ideas, arts photos or article submissions to Thurman & Thurman, Arts Alive editors, by emailing tandt@sio.midco.net. Page 2
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Racing Magpie works to be a good relative
South Dakota Arts Council residency artists create video arts workshops
New videos by Dalton Coffey capture the panorama of South Dakota arts Symphony Orchestra pivots to keep building community through music
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Arts South Dakota Artist Relief Fund helps fill the gap De Smet hosts virtual plein air painting event
South Dakota Art Museum celebrates 50 years on SDSU campus in Brookings
Traditional artist Kevin Locke receives national fellowship
Mailing address change?
Need to change your Arts Alive mailing address? Contact Arts South Dakota directly! Email us at info@ArtsSouthDakota.org or visit the Contact Us page at www.ArtsSouthDakota.org. Please give us the current name and address to which Arts Alive is being mailed, along with all of your new mailing address information.
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
Arts Education Institute carries on—online
his year, South Dakota teachers learned more about online education than ever before, and embraced a new look for the 21st annual Arts Education Institute, sponsored by Arts South Dakota, the South Dakota Arts Council and Northern State University. Held online this year from July 13-17, AEI is still a vital source of professional development and certification credit for our state’s educators. Paired with the annual Band Director Institute, the workshops and learning opportunities of AEI attracted participants from all over South Dakota. This year ONLINE art, choral and theater workshops were offered for all Pre-K through 12th grade educators, with nearly four dozen online participants for the art sessions and another 35 for the band director workshops. The Band Director Institute is an intensive program designed to expose music teachers to the best in current and standard literature in addition to teaching methods and materials. This year’s ONLINE institute included new band literature sessions, master classes and clinic sessions that focused on a wide variety of teaching subjects for band directors. The headline clinician was Robert Sheldon, Director of Band Publications for Alfred Music. “We’re always coming up with new ideas for making the Institutes better and more rewarding for educators, administrators and arts advocates,” said Shari Kosel, Institutes organizer. “This year, adapting to a virtual workshop model has given us some fresh perspectives on broadening our base
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and reaching even more Institute participants next year!” For more about the Arts Education Institute and the Band Director Institute, already being planned for next year, go to www.ArtsSouthDakota.org.
Arts Conference is back on the calendar
Arts South Dakota and the South Dakota Arts Council have rescheduled the 2020 South Dakota Arts Conference for October 29-31, 2020. We are tracking the CDC guidelines for gathering and should have more information about the conference format by August or September. Watch for registration and session information coming soon to ArtsSouthDakota.org. The conference has been revitalized by a hard-working and dedicated Conference Leadership Committee, including Sarah Carlson, South Dakota Arts Council Arts Program Coordinator; Danielle Osloond, GreenInk Designs, Deadwood Mountain Grand; Desy Schoenewies, Rapid City Arts Council; Peter Strong, Racing Magpie, and Kate Vandel, SDAC Grant Specialist and Accessibility Coordinator. Mark your calendar for October 29-31 and be sure to check out all the arts connections you can make during this year’s conference by visiting www.ArtsSouthDakota.org.
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Finding inspiration in isolation South Dakota artists reflect on creativity during a pandemic In this issue of Arts Alive, we share voices of South Dakota artists talking about the myriad ways they have coped, created and collaborated during the months of sheltering in place, observing social distancing and weathering the storm of COVID-19 impacts. Artists from across the state, representing a wide range of ages, disciplines and backgrounds, universally speak of the importance of the arts during this crisis. Each of us has a story to tell of meeting the challenges of the past months. Within the limited space of this issue, we have tried to present individual artists’ voices to remind us all that the arts—and the creative work of artists among us—will be one of the legacies of this historic period in all our lives.
Christine Stewart
Christine Stewart-Nuñez is South Dakota’s Poet Laureate and an instructor at South Dakota State University.
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hen the pandemic began to ripple across South Dakota, I was in Rapid City spending a week at the Dahl Arts Center as a poet-in-residence. I gave a talk and led a workshop about writing from art, and I spent hours observing the exhibits and learning about the permanent collection from director and curator Denise DuBroy. I left a day early, however, as people began to discuss school closures and social distancing. Like many others, my life changed mid-March. I began to teach my classes at SDSU remotely and ensured that my preschooler and 8th grader stayed safe, fed and relatively engaged with their own learning. For several days, I gave up my writing time to focus on this new schedule, and I even gave myself permission to put my writing on hiatus for the rest of the semester if working creatively caused me too much stress. If I did write, I expected to work on the poetry I’d started at the Dahl. Instead, I found myself waking up at 5:00 each morning eager to write before the rest of my household woke up. And I followed the energy in my practice. So often, profound challenges to our lives, and even changes in our routines, drain the time and emotional reserves we use for creating. I gave myself permission to follow the energy—to work on whatever aspect of my writing practice compelled me the most. At the beginning of the pandemic, that meant revising a memoir manuscript. Figuring out what needed to change and how to go about making those revisions stimulated me intellectually. Using that time to write gave me the emotional grounding I needed to focus on my family’s and students’ needs throughout the rest of the day. Whether following the energy of the practice means reading literature by writers I admire, sketching out ideas for a new project, discussing revision suggestions with another writer or actually writing, in difficult times keeping my finger on the pulse of creativity has helped me re-engage more fully when the stress, chaos or pressure has subsided. It also discourages me from judging my productivity and comparing myself to others—both of which dampen the creative process. And flexibility is key. As spring has turned to summer, I’m following the energy of new work and folding more poetry drafting into my writing sessions. Wherever this pandemic takes us, I hope my practice will be a tool to help me get through it.
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www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
Keith BraveHeart
Keith BraveHeart is an Oglala Lakota visual artist and educator.
hroughout the pandemic, while we’ve been stuck at home, many of us have gained a new appreciation for our teachers, the people who provide food to nourish our bodies and many other individuals who play a huge role in our daily lives. I’ve been thinking a lot about what an important role the arts are playing and will continue to play during this time in history. We now all have the shared experience of being isolated in our homes, only going out for food or medical appointments. Because of that common experience, we can all relate to what it would have been like in quarantine without the arts: empty walls, no music or movies, no instruments, no children’s books, poetry or novels, no drawing or coloring with your kids, no cartoons, crafts or photographs, no video games or television shows—all of these things are created by artists and people working in the arts. We need food and medicine to keep our physical bodies alive, but how depleted would we be without the arts feeding our spirits and minds? Having art hanging on my walls has helped me. Everything has been made by another person’s hands and has made me feel connected to other people when I can’t physically be with them. Around every
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or me, this whole time has heightened and amplified my understanding of the values that have brought me to making art. As artists, our strength is our spirituality, something that makes us think, feel and understand our place in the world. Ask an artist “why do you do art?” and the answer will reflect something that comes from the heart and propels each one. That’s why, right now, it’s important for others to activate their voices in support of artists and the arts. We know that artists are suffering in this pandemic, as things have shifted and platforms and outlets are no longer there. Artists who depend on those markets are hurting. It’s hard to be inspired under those conditions. Our arts organizations are critical at this time. They’ve really picked it up and moved to make a difference for South Dakota artists. Artists’ voices are passionate, and others more articulate need to reach out to those artists and help clarify the resources available to keep them creating. Everyone can provide moral support, commission art and actively listen to the voices of artists. That connection can energize our creativity—and that’s so important now. Artists can see and articulate the new realities of times like these. We will discover what the “Oyate Kin, Defenders,” 2020, by legacy of all this is in our art. Keith BraveHeart.
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Becky Grismer
Becky Grismer resides in Spearfish, working as a sculptor and in a variety of other media.
corner is a reminder of a conversation I’ve had, places I’ve gone, my friends and family, concerts I’ve attended and things that I simply find beautiful. It has given me glimmers of hope and reminds me of the good things in the world. This pandemic has shone a light on our values, injustices and flaws in our social systems, and has been a catalyst for movement and proposed change. What do we value, whose job is important, what matters, who matters? There are a lot of voices that urgently need to be heard right now, and one of the primary roles of the arts is to express important ideas in new and interesting ways. This time in our lives isn’t something we will easily forget, and the arts are getting us through it whether we realize it or not. I hope people of all ages and abilities are painting, writing poetry, making music—creating. It’s important to make whatever you feel like making right now, what your experience is and what stands out to you as being important. Whether it is about a specific issue or not, you are serving as a reflection of the human experience in this historic point in time. Page 5
orvidae – the family of jays, crows, and their allies. Corvid – a series of ink transfer drawings with and without watercolor.
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I am an artist. I don’t know what else to do.
Maybe I’ve always made art because I’m afraid, but I don’t think so.
Mark Zimmerman
I am afraid now, afraid of losing loved ones, great ones, and afraid to die alone without the touch of my lover’s hand and her softly whispered words in my ear.
I am afraid to hear the husky hoot of the great horned owl one last time. I am afraid to hear the frantic beeping of the saw-whet owl, the thrilling song of the meadowlark, the soft twittering of the mountain bluebird, and the cheery notes of the chickadee one last time.
I am afraid to see the beaked hazel and pasque bloom in early spring, to see the wild rose and black-eyed Susan flower in the summer heat, and afraid to see the leaves turn to flame and the last harebell blossom hang on into autumn.
Mark Zimmerman, Deadwood, has been a South Dakota Arts Council roster artist since 1998.
“Corvid 37 - Fallen,” by Mark Zimmerman.
I am afraid to see one last radiant sunrise lift behind Easter Rock, and to watch the wisps of clouds hanging over the valley turn from gold, to orange, to pink at the sinking of the sun behind Valentine Ridge. I am afraid to lose so much beauty.
I don’t know what else to do. I am an artist.
ike others, there have been great challenges and blessings in these reordering of our days. I continue to work as arts program coordinator and artist in residence at Sanford Vermillion Medical Center. Isn’t it outstanding that they consider the arts a necessity for the residents of their long-term care facility? Sharing weekly art projects with our residents, with the addition of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and enhanced infection control measures, takes focus and good humor. My painting studio is one of the places to rest and restore my spirit. The talking stops and the world works itself out in the pictorial form; meandering, ambiguous, narrative and playful. These canvases wait for me, mid-story, until I return to paint week to week. There are two series currently in progress. One is Cowboy and Indian, designed in response to Bob Newland’s photographs of South Dakota rodeos and the traditional content learned through CAIRNS’ En Route: Lakota Lands and Indian Arts Traveling Workshop. The second series features canvases of adolescent kids helping each other through a forested path. I hope for a reconciliation with these paintings by the end of 2020. I’ll mention a final benefit from social isolation during the pandemic. I was able to complete a big writing project, which began with a 2015 South Dakota Arts Council (SDAC) Collaboration Grant. Five years later, with the contributions of dozens of friends and colleagues, including five roster artists from the SDAC Artists In Schools & Communities program, my first book, Creative Care: An Artist in Healthcare and Companion Workbook is to be released soon. I hope it’s of service to my fellow artists and the field of arts in health. New realities? Artists, we are trained to adapt to new conditions and ambiguity. We have the creativity to solve problems in the studio and our communities. Don’t be Detail of painting, (currently) untitled, 2019 - by Ariadne Albright. surprised if you are asked to take a larger role in the solution.
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www.ArtsCouncil.sd.gov
Ariadne Albright
Ariadne Albright is the Arts Program Coordinator for Sanford Vermillion Medical Center and a South Dakota Arts Council Artists In Schools & Communities roster artist.
Dr.Yi-Chun Lin
Yi-Chun Lin is Artistic Director of the Sioux Falls Chamber Music Collective and Principal Viola for the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra.
have gone through three stages during the pandemic so far—creation, destruction and re-construction. During the first month of the pandemic, feeling excited about the extra time to myself, I went into a crazy obsessive mode of creating videos and collaborating with artists across the world. “This is the time that we think outside the box to create fun digital projects with anybody in the world as distance becomes irrelevant now,” I exclaimed to myself. Without much sleep for a month or so due to my excitement towards everything I wanted to do, I suddenly dropped into a state of exhaustion. I lay in bed and did nothing for a week. With my husband’s encouragement, I started trying things that are not music related, as I was too obsessed with all my musical projects. When I tried drawing, which was one of my long-lost passions in life when I was little, I started feeling the sense of contentment and joy. This period of feeling lost pushed me to face my weakness of sometimes being tunnel visioned and obsessive over things in life. I slowly reconstructed myself while being more mindful of how I spent my time and energy. I was finally able to feel my motivated self again! The revelations I have had so far during the pandemic include the realization that when the world drives us nuts, it is OK to disconnect ourselves from the outer world, such as social media and news. When our inner world is chaotic, it is OK to take a break to breathe and to stop being chased by our daily tasks. It is also a sign to start exercising as our physical well being intertwines closely with our mental well being. When everything seems hopeless, it is definitely time to think OUTSIDE THE BOX and let our imaginations take us places! It is important to step away from all the things we are dealing with day in and day out once in a while because the change of pace can sometimes bring unexpected joy and inspiration.
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t has been hard and very different to be here with this virus at our door. It has changed a lot of things in our world. For a long time we pretty much stayed at home. Later we realized getting out into the openness of the hills was a good thing. We just kept our distance from others and wore our masks as we still do when we go to get groceries. On the good side we have been doing educational videos for the South Dakota Arts Council and that has opened up some new roads. Substructure of “Ocean Waves.” I have produced a lot of artwork during this stay at home time. I guess if there were a theme in my art that has happened during COVID-19, “Ocean Waves” by Dick Termes. it would be my use of universal geometries that help to tie my paintings together. In art we call it substructures. Why would I be using these geometries? I have used spherical geometries in the past but maybe now it is my attempt to find order in a very chaotic world. We are all longing for some order to get back in our worlds. Now if the scientists will do their job and get rid of this virus we will have work to put into the galleries. We will get through this.
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Dick Termes
Dick Termes, the creator of Termespheres, has a studio and home in Spearfish and is a South Dakota Arts Council Touring Artist.
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Cary Thrall
Cary Thrall is an artist, teacher and community organizer in Lead. Above, Managing Artist Cary A. Thrall, left, works with Artist Assistants Sarah Larson and Michael Ryan on one of two Linking Fences 2020 installations in their hometown of Lead.
make it my business through CAT Scratch Studios, Creative Arts and Therapies, to bring Creative Community Collaborations to life. The pandemic and overdue shifts towards justice in our country have led me to reflect more on the ways communities come together. Thankfully, the arts keep people tethered to each other. I believe creativity is always vital and especially in times of crisis. Providing people with ways to express their thoughts, values and sense of belonging is powerful. Regardless of isolation, that remains critical. Communications have expanded online as a result of isolation. I’ve found it to be a unique and joyful way to grow new relationships in the arts community. I’ve had the opportunity to begin co-facilitating creative online groups. The West River Creatives group, initiated by Racing Magpie, is one that helps artists through the process of shifting business online. Mindful interactions like these make possible our ability to express what is happening, demonstrating thoughtful ways to share through community action. The work I do is about creating a space and giving people a place for their voices to come together. I believe these collaborative, creative avenues will contribute to better future chapters for us all. CAT Scratch Studios is still hard at work. This summer’s schedule is full of opportunities for people to weave community. By designing public art installations on fences, the fence becomes more than a barrier or container. It morphs into a pivotal element for deepening roots through busy hands and heart-centered conversations. These installations foster the seeds of communication through brainstorming and action. Breaking barriers while establishing rich foundations, building a stronger local family, is what I believe can help us all heal. With the vast distance between rural communities, this work also helps us connect one town to another and statewide. By developing our individual potential and being better neighbors, we make it through hard times.
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am a Hunkpapa (Standing Rock) and Dine’ (Navajo) muralist with art works shown from the Dahl Arts Center to Sioux Falls and several states as well as internationally in Taize, France. I have channeled my creativity into creating a design centered around community that tells a story using original Lakota Beadwork Iconography, placing this design on shirts and hoodies through screen printing. I originally started this as a way to provide for my family whilst everything was closed. The story told by the design gathered together people in Rapid City and beyond, truly showing the indomitable spirit of artists and supporters building connectivity through art. I have in turn begun reposting images of the people who have gotten shirts and hoodies to cross-promote their businesses. I have received accounts from other graffiti artists, tattoo artists, fine arts teachers, photographers, police officers, doctors and lawyers—all walks of life. The response has been phenomenal! I created the design with simplicity in mind to honor the way it was done in the time of my great great great great grandparents. The design tells a story in that one meaning of the star quilt is that it represents community. At the peak of every direction is a triangle that is the symbol for home. In between the houses are the symbols for the thunder and lighting signifying the things that strengthen us through adversity—what we as humans bond over just as much as love. Each house has a feather to carry it upwards. The threetiered triangle above the home is the symbol for earth, an acknowledgement that we aren’t above the earth but of the earth. Above the clouds is the symbol for the tuswecha (dragonfly), protector of children as we’re all children. Wrapping around the edges of the circle are stars, a symbol of community.
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www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
Focus Smith
Focus Smith, Creative Director at Thrive Unltd., is a Rapid City muralist, graffiti artist and designer.
Dr.Scott Simpson
Scott Simpson is a Black Hills educator, poet, songwriter and musician.
y art has taken shape during this pandemic in an unexpected way. Before the pandemic, my artistic work was mainly filmmaking and songwriting. When South Dakota shut down in March, I lost a lot of video contracts and my own projects were dropped out of safety concerns. The first month in particular was really hard to handle with all of the changes and worries about the future. I am a songwriter, but words couldn’t express what I was feeling and overall I did not feel inspired. After a little while I started imagining these images coming together to express what I was feeling. Video art and animated collages were something I had been wanting to experiment with, but didn’t have an idea until the pandemic. I made my first animated collage, The SMB (freezeframe shown at right), based on how I felt trying to process the changing world through my little pipeline of social media. Soon after, I was inspired to create Moon Friend, also a pandemicrelated piece. I’ve found a new medium that I’ve fallen in love with. I think it brings all of my favorite and familiar mediums together in a very personal way, and it wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic.
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everal people have been writing about that upcoming day when we begin to crawl out of our caves and make choices about our new lives after this collective global experience. This spring, I realized that if Easter means anything, it means resurrection, new beginning, rebirth. Here’s hoping that on that day, and each day after, we all take intentional steps to see one another differently. I hope these days of “distance” can teach us all how much we need ALL of our siblings on this planet to make things go well. I hope our shared time of distancing can draw us together. I wrote a new song to help me remember—maybe it can help you too.
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Anna Robins
Anna Robins is a Black Hills songwriter, composer, multiinstrumentalist and filmmaker.
On That Day
by Scott Simpson There came a day We didn’t hug our mothers. There came a day We didn’t kiss our lovers. And on that day The sun rose like any other, But we watched the numbers grow— Those who didn’t recover. There came a day, There came a day. There came a day We couldn’t leave our houses. There came a day We looked at children and spouses And wondered if they Could be spared and counted Among the saved. There came a day, There came a day. And love still remains, It’s in the stains On the masks and gloves. And love still proclaims, All the names Of those who risk dying for us. And love makes a claim On the heart That cares enough To love, and sing this refrain To remind us We need the human touch. Love and sing this refrain To remind us We need the human touch. There will come a day We will hug our mothers. There will come a day We will kiss our lovers. And on that day We’ll be sisters and brothers And the sun will rise— Maybe we’ll truly see each other. On that day, On that day.
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Racing Magpie works to be
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A GOOD RELATIVE
At Racing Magpie, we center the Lakota practice of being a good relative in everything that we do and focus our work on elevating and amplifying the work that artists and culture bearers are doing already in our community. From our Native gallery to affordable art studios to flexible rental space for community groups and artist-centered programs, our relatives are our first priorities at all times. As the pandemic rolled out in March, we immediately closed our physical spaces to the public and implemented protocols for our studio artists so they could still safely produce their art. This decision remains in effect until we are positive that we can still responsibly protect our community and share space. We also initiated a “West River Creatives” Facebook group and survey to identify artists’ greatest needs and how COVID-19 was impacting them. After learning that the biggest issues were loss of income because of canceled markets and talks and a need for online exposure and sales, we immediately rolled out a Virtual Residency program for six artists and partnered with NAMI South Dakota to offer Wellness Workshops led by five additional artists.
The band Modern Folklore performs in the Racing Magpie gallery at the beginning of “Amplify Black Hills: A Livestream Arts & Music Festival.”
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By Mary V. Bordeaux and Peter J. Strong Both programs offered compensation and extended social media sharing, and center the artists’ stories, processes and teachings as the unbelievable resource that they are. These videos are the first additions to an online repository of videos that will remain valuable to our community for many years to come. Additionally, in late June, we partnered with an amazing local organization, The Cave Collective, to present Amplify Black Hills: A Livestream Arts & Music Festival. This was a six-hour long event that featured seven musical acts and eleven visual artists from around western South Dakota, including an in-person, socially-distanced concert outside our building. As we look to the remainder of the year and into 2021, we will be featuring Native artists by presenting second rounds of the Virtual Residency and Wellness Workshops, continuing the Amplify model at least monthly along with The Cave Collective, and introducing a new program called Winter Camp. Winter Camp will offer ongoing community learning experiences by centering Lakota knowledge keepers, and we will prioritize our community’s safety by presenting the programming online as needed. We will continue to embrace creativity and technology as we strive to be good relatives by creating stages for our incredible artists and culture bearers.
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
he era of the pandemic has eliminated in-person arts teaching, but it hasn’t stopped some artists from getting art to the people. More than a dozen South Dakota Arts Council (SDAC) teaching artists on the 2020 roster switched creative gears by transforming their engaging live presentations into accessible virtual experiences. Each of the 24 videos on the new series’ playlist on the YouTube channel features 30 to 60-minute arts lessons, including a description and materials Nicole Gagner created “DIY Heart Art” for the you can find at home. Some artists SDAC Educational Video Series. Here she stands in front of her handpainted window. created multiple presentations for a more in-depth series of lessons. There are videos for all ages, from kindergarten age to senior citizens. “I always believed I had to have an Nicole Gagner travels and teaches audience or I could not perform,” Scholz in rural South Dakota communities and said, “and the energy would come from contributed to the series. the audience in order for me to give it “We’re dealing with so much and back, but what I discovered was that the By Sarah Carlson, things change so quickly,” she said, “so for energy seems to be in me, too, so that I SDAC Arts Program people to have quiet time where their brains can generate it back out.” Coordinator can entirely focus on mixing paint or designing Impact may not be palpable by the artists, windows can be so healing—a way for us to process but the impact on students may last long past the everything that’s going on.” pandemic. The online video process may be new territory for some “Someone 10 years from now might watch your video and artists who are accustomed to a live, public setting. In creating a learn something from it,” said Mark Zimmerman, a painter and recorded video, there is no real audience responding. SDAC teaching artist who created four videos for the series. “Normally there’s so much interaction and you get live “I’ve been inspired by feedback from my videos and will feedback,” Gagner said. “With the videos you don’t really get to continue to expand my audience in this way,” Gagner said. “It’s feel the impact you’ve had.” never been anything I would have thought was on my path.” Markie Scholz has been a touring teaching artist with SDAC Scholz was already providing live stream instruction early for 49 years, and has been trying new things. in 2020 because of the pandemic, having the teachers in their classrooms helping to instruct. “The economy is hurt and people are dying, but there’s an energy that’s happening that’s going to change the way we do a lot of things—for the better,” she said. “I just remember, ‘this is why I keep doing what I do’—and I’ll do anything to adapt for it.” The roster artist educational video series is free to the public. The playlist of 24 videos (and counting) is available through a link at artscouncil.sd.gov or by searching for South Dakota Arts Council on YouTube.com.
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Teaching artists are getting off the road and
going online
www.ArtsCouncil.sd.gov
At left is a video screenshot of SDAC roster artist Markie Scholz who created “How to Make and Manipulate A Sock Puppet.”
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New video productions capture panorama of South Dakota arts
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Dalton Coffey filming Dr. Craig Howe for the CAIRNS Takuwe exhibition video.
A set of video works, shot and produced by Dalton Coffey and newly posted on the Arts South Dakota website, brings together many of the unique elements of the state’s creative scene. The five new videos focus on the South Dakota Symphony, the community arts group in Faulkton, Native flutist Bryan Akipa, the Takuwe exhibition from CAIRNS and the voices of pandemicisolated artists working—and creating—from home. “I like working with arts groups,” Coffey said. “They let me be an artist—they don’t hire me, they commission me to create video art.” The project began with conversations between Coffey and leaders at Arts South Dakota and the South Dakota Arts Council. While there were specific topics they hoped to cover in the new video series, the organizations were willing to let Coffey chart his own course. “Great art is made by artists, but discovered by everyone else,” Coffey said. “Everybody has a channel to get to art. I get to use all forms of creative media—music, words, images—and the final product can evolve at every step in the process.” As a long-time string musician with a background in performing bluegrass, Coffey brings a rhythm and a tempo to his video creations. He says his work is informed by music, as he edits to music and sometimes scores the video productions with music he’s written himself. The lyrical quality of the video productions, capturing a wide range of styles and voices from the South Dakota arts community, may arise from the unique time we’re all living in, Coffey said.
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“I want to carbon-date the art from this period,” he said. “We can time-stamp the work artists are making right now, so that it speaks to us later of a very different time.” That concept is especially strong in a video based on conversations with five South Dakota artists on their strategies for staying strong and creative through pandemic quarantine and the loss of traditional audiences and markets. “I went to a dark place as an artist when this all began,” Coffey said, “so I posed the question to the artists on the video, ‘What would you tell Dalton Coffey about coping with all this?’ It was an artist-to-artist conversation, but I want non-artists and other artists to hear and respond to the voices on the video.” While each of the videos evolved in its own way, Coffey said that strong creative moments occurred in each production. “A turning point for me was in Sisseton, where I met with Bryan Akipa,” Coffey said. “The plan was to add Bryan to a larger, community video. Jane Rasmussen mentioned this 150-year-old church where Bryan’s grandmother used to play piano, so we went out there, just sight-seeing.” Akipa took boards off the door and started playing his flute in the center of the old church as swallows swooped in through an open window. “My sound man and I looked at each other and knew we had something special,” Coffey said. “It was a moment. That’s the sense of discovery that makes art so powerful.” You can view the videos on the Arts South Dakota website at https://artssouthdakota.org/panorama/.
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
hen the stages went dark and the musicians each went to their own homes to shelter in place, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra was faced with a difficult question. How does an organization that exists to build community through the power of music—joining audiences together with intense moments of shared experience—continue to serve when each of us is apart? “We knew we had to do something,” said Jennifer Teisinger, Executive Director of SDSO. “There was no model, no established pattern going forward. We were figuring it out as we went along. Music Director Delta David Gier said we needed to just start doing things—creating anything we could physically do—to make music and share it.” Thanks to technology, the creative drive of a large group of talented musicians and an arts organization determined to hold tight to its mission to build community, SDSO assembled a powerful program of performances to share with the world on a virtual stage. “In the midst of crisis, we look to music,” Gier said. “Classical music is an intentional pursuit of beauty that enables us to touch something we may call sublime. We’re better as a community for having experienced music together.” The audience experience came through television performances in The Healing Power of Music, broadcast on KELO-TV and YouTube, along with #SDSOatHome, featuring the symphony’s musicians literally playing from their living rooms and home studios, creating virtual ensembles, solo performances and instructional videos in the Beyond the Stage series. The organization made podcasts, posted to Facebook and Instagram and ramped up every communication vehicle available to SDSO. “We had a responsibility to provide hope and comfort,” Teisinger said. “In March and April, especially, people were scared, facing an invisible enemy. We have to do what we can to help people, even when we can’t do what we usually do.” The symphony also wanted to be a resource to its musicians, giving them an opportunity to grow as artists, share their talent and connect with other musicians. South Dakota Public Broadcasting shot the first video productions of SDSO principal musicians playing together in the Washington Pavilion hallway outside the group’s offices, since no performance venues were available. The partnership with SDPB produced more virtual concerts, available online through www.sdsymphony.org on the Listen Now page. The online collection includes recordings of selected past concerts, impromptu chamber music performances as well as duets, solo performances and talks with Gier and SDSO musicians. “We’re always remembering that the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra is about building a sense of community through music,” Teisinger said. “Until we can perform again on stage, we’re going to do everything we can to make that happen.”
W
www.ArtsCouncil.sd.gov
PIVOTING
to build community with music in new ways
Above, Daniel Kitchens, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra Principal Horn, performs selections from Richard Strauss’ “An Alpine Symphony” in the #SDSOatHome video, “Alpine Horn.” Below, the Dakota String Quartet performs in the hallway at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls.
“Those first productions were done as soon as we could coordinate the musicians and SDPB to film them playing, because we suspected that stronger restrictions for gathering were coming.” —Jennifer Teisinger
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hitting the high notes Arts South Dakota, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, enriches the lives of South Dakotans and their visitors, by advancing the arts through service, education and advocacy.
Board of Directors
Dale Lamphere, Sturgis, Chair Stacy Braun, Aberdeen, Vice Chair Katie Hunhoff, Yankton, Secretary Brian Hildebrant, Brookings, Treasurer Brian Bonde, Sioux Falls, Past Chair Lance Bertram, Pierre Representative Scyller Borglum, Rapid City Richard “Dick” Brown, Custer Julie Garreau, Eagle Butte and Rapid City Senator Troy Heinert, Mission Dr. Craig Howe, Martin Dr. Alan LaFave, Valley City, ND Katrina Lehr-McKinney, Sioux Falls Jim Mathis, Sioux Falls Kenny Putnam, Rapid City Shelley Stingley, Sioux Falls Lynn Verschoor, Brookings Kris Wollman, Pierre
Staff
Jim Speirs, Executive Director jim@ArtsSouthDakota.org 605-252-5979, Ext. 0
Shari Kosel, Program & Communications Director shari@ArtsSouthDakota.org 605-252-5979, Ext. 1 Andrew Reinartz, Community Development Director andrew@ArtsSouthDakota.org 605-252-5979, Ext. 2
PO Box 2496, Sioux Falls, SD 57101-2496 Phone: 605-252-5979 Email: info@ArtsSouthDakota.org Website: www.ArtsSouthDakota.org Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @ArtsSD and YouTube. Page 14
The arts build bridges in a divided society By Jim Speirs, Executive Director, Arts South Dakota As a musician, I’m aware of the unique way that music draws people together. As we play, musicians look out on audiences that are diverse—all ages, races, genders—and yet all moving to the beat of the same tune. The arts do that—bring us together around a single expression of creative inspiration. We don’t all like exactly the same music—yet we all share a common connection to rhythm, harmony and the emotion inherent in all styles of music. Every painting may not reach out to us, touch something emotional within us and make us see the world differently—but we’re willing to consider the possibility. That’s the way the arts work in the modern world. Creativity bridges the gaps between us and helps us understand how much we have in common. Here in South Dakota, we celebrate the rich diversity of our cultural traditions. The colors of the sky, the drumbeat of the rolling thunder, the variety of dialects and accents that blend in our language—these things make us South Dakotans and make us appreciate our heritage and our togetherness. Those connecting points are equally celebrated in our art, from the sound of a red cedar flute echoing across the hills to a painting of the big bluestem prairie. Sometimes it takes an effort, a purposeful reaching out from people to people, and art is there to do that, too. A musician intentionally studies the unique rhythms of other cultures as a way to express new ideas in his own musical traditions. Actors immerse themselves in the words and mannerisms of their subject. A painter puts her vision out there for the whole world to see and share and get lost in. I believe that’s what will always pull us together. Being inclusive in programming and support is vital, as we encourage the artists who can articulate our thoughts, express our emotions and explore our vast common ground. No matter how divided our society can sometimes look, the arts are there, like a familiar tune, to get us back singing together. We all need to see the world a little more like an artist, especially today.
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
Emergency Relief Fund provides gap funding for artists
T
he Arts South Dakota Artist Emergency Relief Fund was created to provide short-term, immediate financial support for individual artists, culture bearers and creative workers within South Dakota who have been impacted by the Coronavirus-COVID-19 health crisis. The creative community has been particularly vulnerable throughout the current crisis. Their work relies on public gatherings and communal spaces, and they often lack employee protections like paid leave or healthcare. The CARES Act has provided important support, but it has gone largely to organizations, and other relief for individuals is taking months to be distributed. This crisis has hit South Dakota creatives hard.
Thank you
to our generous donors to the Arts South Dakota Artist Emergency Relief Fund! Bush Foundation
Lynne & Bill Byrne Dan & Arlene Kirby Jane & John Rasmussen Jeffrey L. Viken Sioux Falls Arts Council Fresh Produce
Brian & Kaija Bonde Mark & Katie Bray Eileen Briggs Dick Brown Janet Brown Susan Burgard Mike & Judy Connor Frank Denton Tony Diem Rodney Garnett Chaya & Ryan Bland Susan Gray Andrea Harstad Brigid Hoffman Dody & Boyd Hopkins Dr. Craig Howe Mary Hunhoff Kristen Jacobsen Scott & Marianne Johnson Cheryl Koch Paula Kurtenbach Alan & Kari LaFave
Dale Lamphere & Jane Murphy Brenda Lanphere Jim & Kara Mathis John Mogen Larry Olson Michael Pangburn Judith Payne Kenny & Linnea Putnam Kay Reinartz Betsy Rice John Rychtarik Jan Speirs Shelley Stingley Jennifer Thom Tom Valentine Kate & Andy Vandel Lynn Verschoor Wadsworth, Thomas & Hayes Investment Group at RBC Wealth Management Kristine Wollman Laura Zabel
“Through the past few months, artists have been there for us—performing virtually to keep us entertained and educating us through workshops and webinars,” said Arts South Dakota director Jim Speirs. “Now it’s time for us to help them and we couldn’t be more excited to provide this support to our most treasured creators.” To address these stopgap funding needs, the Relief Fund provided rapid response grants of $500 to South Dakota resident individual artists. In the two weeks applications were open, 165 artists, ages 19 to 75, from over 60 communities across South Dakota applied for the funds. 60% of applicants are from rural communities and over 25% are citizens of one of our state’s nine Native Nations. All of the applicants have compelling stories and sincerely need help. “This funding would help keep my head up,” one applicant said. “It would give me a chance to bounce back from all this uncertainty we are facing. Even if you decide not to give me funding, I am so thankful for this—artists need support, we need people like you in our corner! Thank you!” Funding for the Arts South Dakota Artist Emergency Relief Fund was provided through the generous support of the Bush Foundation and donors throughout the state, with administration and disbursement by Arts South Dakota. To learn more about the program, visit www.ArtsSouthDakota.org.
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Stepping into the light By Patrick Baker, Director, South Dakota Arts Council A state agency of the Department of Tourism
Kristi Noem, Governor James D. Hagen, Secretary
South Dakota Arts Council
Mary Bordeaux, Rapid City, Chair Laura Diddle, Brookings, Vice Chair Dohui Kim, Sioux Falls, Treasurer Brian Bonde, Sioux Falls Lynne Byrne, Sioux Falls John Mogen, Sioux Falls Jane Rasmussen, Sisseton Lee Ann Roripaugh, Vermillion Nan Venhuizen, Sioux Falls James L. Walker, Bath
Staff
Patrick Baker, Director
Rebecca Cruse, Deputy Director
Kathryn Vandel, Grant Specialist & Accessibility Coordinator
Sarah Carlson, Arts Program Coordinator Anne Hatch, Traditional Arts Program Manager
711 E. Wells Ave., Pierre, SD 57501-3369 In-State Toll Free: 1-800-952-3625 Email: sdac@state.sd.us Website: www.artscouncil.sd.gov Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @SouthDakotaArts
South Dakota Arts Council receives support from the State of South Dakota, through the Department of Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
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On behalf of the South Dakota Arts Council, I want to let all members of our statewide arts community know that our thoughts have been with you as our state, nation and world continue to reel from the adverse effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The COVID-19 health crisis has crossed all sectors, threatening the health of billions and the economies of most nations, and without a doubt it has struck at the heart of the arts in South Dakota. I’d like to update you on some of the steps we’ve taken to try to help the statewide arts community gain its footing in the wake of the crisis. Below are some of the things the South Dakota Arts Council (SDAC) has done to address the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis since Gov. Kristi Noem’s March 13 State of Emergency declaration: ● One of our top priorities is continuing to support the field through our grants and programs, so we kept to our grant timeline and have Council approval for our FY2021 grants budget (July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021). Anyone who applied for an SDAC grant by the March 1 deadline will have received notification of the outcome sometime in June. And we are going to allow flexibility with the grant projects that were submitted. If you receive one of our grants and your project has been affected by the pandemic, we’ll work with you to allow adjustments to your timeline or plans and make sure the arts in South Dakota can continue to thrive while we find a way forward. ● Along those lines, we allowed similar adjustments to grant projects and events in the last fiscal year, when all kinds of performances, events and workshops were being widely canceled in the spring and early summer. For example, we extended the end of the FY20 grant period by six months, allowing grantees to complete those projects by December 31, and we’re allowing for changes to them, such as switching to a virtual format, adjusting the timeline and budget or re-envisioning the remainder of a project. ● We are grateful to have received an allocation of $422,800 in CARES Act funds from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as $70,551 from Arts Midwest to help our state’s arts and cultural organizations survive this crisis. SDAC created its Emergency Assistance Grants program in response, including three phases of funding based on need along with the special Residencies for Recovery program, allowing artists to work with organizations to help them recover or reimagine themselves. More information is online at artscouncil.sd.gov. Since the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve seen other national tragedies not only surface, but form a wave of protest that has crisscrossed our country and reached nearly all shores across our world. While 2020 has certainly presented many challenges, it’s heartening to see people coming together to engage in meaningful discussion, listening to each other’s voices, opinions and concerns. We believe the arts provide a universal language, allowing people the freedom of self-expression and creating the framework to continue these dialogues in a profound way. It’s in that spirit of communication that we started the SDAC Water Cooler Chat series, allowing us to answer questions and engage in informal dialogue every Thursday at 3 pm CDT. As the South Dakota Arts Council begins developing its strategic plan to help guide us through the next five years, we want to continue this dialogue so we can better support you. We’ll continue our virtual check-ins until we can get back on the road and meet with people face to face. One way or another, we hope to talk to you soon!
www.ArtsCouncil.sd.gov
Artists can restore our perspective, help us view the future By James D. Hagen, Secretary, Department of Tourism
A
mong the resources that make South Dakota great and help attract visitors to our state is our creative community—the thousands of artists who call this place their home. The intricate tapestry of South Dakota’s culture helps define who we are as a people, connecting our past to our future through the efforts of artists working today. This process of making art that helps us understand ourselves and our surroundings has never been more important than it is right now, in the age of global pandemic. Technology has helped to bridge the gaps during the past few months, but nothing connects us like the expressions of real emotion that come to us through shared works of poetry, striking paintings, expressive sculptures or music that moves us. As we have socially distanced from each other, the need to reach out, to find new ways to explore this new normal is in all of us. We want to find some perspective on the world as we find it today, and artists can help us
discover that perspective. South Dakota artists have been thinking, working, collaborating and creating during this time, distilling their vision and emotions into works of art and finding new ways to share that art. I believe that those works of art, which we will see and hear in the months and years ahead, will help us all make sense of this shared experience. South Dakota artists are our neighbors and friends, and their grounding in the soil of our state intertwines with each cultural touchstone in their lives to produce something we can relate to, and which can help us recover from the pandemic’s jolt to our lives. Their work will be an integral element of the South Dakota story we share with visitors and future generations. Through new art, we can restore our emotional and spiritual perspective and prepare ourselves to view the future with optimism and a new resolve. Art can do that— South Dakota artists can do that—for all of us!
James D. Hagen
Harvey Dunn plein air event goes virtual
It takes more than a global pandemic to slow down De Smet’s Harvey Dunn Society. The group’s popular summer plein air painting event will be held online August 7-9 with a theme of Paintings on the Prairie 2020. “We have the opportunity to be plein air event pioneers as we conduct one of the first virtual plein air events in South Dakota,” said Rita Anderson of the De Smet Development Corporation. “The only bad news is that we won’t be able to be together physically. We are planning to use available web sites, social media and apps like Zoom and Facebook Live to see each other at workshops and social hours.” As in previous years, all artists, experienced or beginners at painting outdoors, are encouraged to join in the event, preserving the Harvey Dunn painting heritage with their own paintings of prairie landscapes and landmarks. The virtual plein art event is a way for artists to paint outdoors at locations safe and convenient to them instead of everyone having to come to De Smet. Artists will share images of themselves and their work in online galleries and be virtually connected with the other artists. The event will wrap up with a virtual Zoom meeting for all participants, giving everyone a chance to contribute to the conversation and to present their work and for sponsors to present awards and make announcements. “We hope artists all across South Dakota will help us spread the word,” Anderson said. “As always, there are no registration fees—and this year, people will not need to take off work or make room reservations. This year’s event will certainly be new and fun—and we’ll all learn together!” For more information, contact Anderson at rita@desmetsouthdakota.org or visit www.desmetsd.com. Page 17
M
ay 31, 2020 marked the 50th anniversary of the first day that the public streamed through the doors of the museum then known as the South Dakota Memorial Art Center. The South Dakota Art Museum was built by community, built to serve and celebrate community and is still vital and vibrant because of the support and involvement of the communities and individuals it serves. The museum is also a testament to the spirit of the people of the state and the virtues of dedication, determination, resourcefulness, innovation, aspiration, humility and civic service. After being closed during the spring to keep staff and visitors safe, the museum will reopen August 17 with two exhibits chosen in celebration of the anniversary. All Dunn: The Harvey Dunn Collection assembles
Above, Harvey Dunn’s “Woman at the Pump,” oil on canvas, n.d., South Dakota Art Museum Collection.
Archival photo above right is the South Dakota Memorial Art Center dedication at South Dakota State University, 1970. Photo courtesy of South Dakota State University , Archives and Special Collections, Hilton M. Briggs Library.
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South Dakota Art Museum
celebrates 50 years with two special exhibits By SDAM Interim Director Jodi Lundgren
all the SDAM Harvey Dunn works together in one gallery. The incredibly popular exhibit, first staged in 2015, includes massive salon-style groupings of Dunn’s work presented in a new form, with new works, and an anticipated tally of 145 works on extended display in honor of the 50th anniversary. 50 Works for 50 Years: Collections Retrospective brings together acquisitions from each of the 50 years the South Dakota Art Museum has been in existence, sharing the breadth, quality and significance of the museum’s permanent collection. The work of the SD Art Museum began long before the building was dedicated. It was seeded in the rich artistic traditions and cultural values of Oceti Sakowin communities, who have long been and remain integral partners to the museum in serving people through art. It was cultivated in the pioneering efforts of South Dakota State University’s first Art Professor, Ada Caldwell, who sparked a community interest in and appreciation of visual art across South Dakota in the early decades of the 20th century and encouraged a legendary artist named Harvey Dunn. It was galvanized in the South Dakota Federation of Women’s Clubs, who dreamt of a center to house the state’s artistic treasures, and convinced the South Dakota State Legislature to charter a museum to “honor the creative nature of mankind and serve as an inspiration to the people of South Dakota.” It was animated by South Dakota State University President H.M. Briggs, who committed the university to making the dream a reality. And it was finally manifested through the focus of prominent local businessman Elmer Sexauer, who was enlisted by Briggs to carry the ball across the finish line and worked with singular dedication to secure the final funds necessary to build the museum. The transformative, grounding and elevating power of visual art to deepen and enrich ourselves and our communities is both the foundation of the museum and its focus today. Serving people and strengthening communities through all art has to offer is both our tradition and our aspiration. The South Dakota Art Museum is proud of all it has accomplished in its 50-year history, all of the efforts that built up to that first 50 years, and is excited to bring so many more fruits of art to the people it serves in the next 50 years. Visit www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-art-museum to learn more.
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org
Locke awarded fellowship for creative achievement By Anne Hatch, South Dakota Traditional Arts Program Manager
“I feel a great indebtedness to the older generations that were able to carry the traditions forward and I work hard to continue that work as well,” Kevin Locke said. And his most recent award from the United States Artists organization in Chicago recognizes and supports his effort. South Dakotans are familiar with the visionary Hoop Dancer, preeminent player of the Indigenous flute, traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist and educator but may not know that he has been awarded with a 2020 United States Artists Fellowship. Locke is one of 50 artists from across the country and all artistic disciplines to be honored for their creative accomplishments this year. These awards aim to promote the work of visionary practitioners to a broader public while allowing them to decide how to best support their lives and pursue ongoing artistic and professional development. Locke joins 2007 awardee Chris Eyre, a Native American filmmaker from Rapid City, as the second South Dakota recipient. “This award is super prestigious and an honor to receive,” Locke said. “It will go a long way to help me increase awareness of our priceless heritage and traditional arts, specifically the Indigenous flute.” Locke tightly connects his art to his Lakota and Anishnaabe heritage and beyond by using folk arts to emphasize universal themes that are integral to all peoples. He believes that we each can draw from our individual heritages to create a vibrant, evolving global civilization embracing and celebrating our collective heritage. Since 2006, United States Artists has awarded more than 600 artists and cultural practitioners with over $30 million of
direct support in all disciplines including architecture and design, craft, dance, film, media, music, theater and performance, traditional arts, visual art and writing. “We are proud to offer this unrestricted award to encourage artists to explore the possibilities of their practices and support their livelihoods,” said United States Artists President and CEO Deana Haggag. “Our annual, unrestricted awards celebrate artists and cultural practitioners who have significantly contributed to the creative landscape and arts ecosystem of the country.” Locke said this fellowship could not have come at a better time. “With COVID-19, I have lost 100% of my income,” he said. “I am using the funds from the US Artists Fellowship to put my programs online by creating videos on my phone and figuring out a platform to make them available.” Aware that his generation is now the one responsible for carrying these artistic traditions forward, Locke hopes his videos are the next step in accomplishing that. Educational programming and performing for student groups has been an important part of Locke’s work to preserve Native traditions.
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Arts South Dakota
PO Box 2496 Sioux Falls, SD 57101-2496
Arts South Dakota, a nonproďŹ t, nonpartisan organization, enriches the lives of South Dakotans and their visitors, by advancing the arts through service, education and advocacy.
Join us in our efforts to keep the arts strong and vibrant today and tomorrow. Your donation to Arts South Dakota will enable us to continue our work for the arts—and will keep Arts Alive coming directly to your mailbox. Please join Arts South Dakota today. Give securely online at
www.ArtsSouthDakota.org to help grow the arts in our state.