Lenny Knight Three Affiliated Tribes

TakeMeasIAm

Colored pencil

Healing is a messy process that's sugar-coated with face masks and tea time. In reality, healing can mean being pissed off at the world and discrediting self-worth. It is also growing as a person and recognizing one's own mistakes. TakeMeasIAmis a visual ode to sexual assault survivors, mentally ill people, and people in marginalized communities who are healing. Everyone deserves to be loved, even the parts that are 'broken'.

Cassandra Komanekin Mohican

Untitled

Pills, pill bottle, paper, markers

I created a pill bottle of antidepressants and pieces of paper in the shape of all sorts of things food, body parts, books, and more. I put them inside the pill bottle on top of the medication and put the cap back on. I made this because I struggle with anxiety. I was always told that I had to get diagnosed and medicated, and I tried it for a while. However, taking a pill every day to feel better or to be "normal" just wasn't for me. Everyone has a different opinion when it comes to using any form of medication in general. Although no perspective is 100% wrong, I want to bring awareness to the fact that there are alternative ways to improve your health.

Alexia Moon Skokomish Tribe

WearestillHERE Photography

I took a digital photograph of myself in my traditional regalia from my reservation in Washington State. Itʼs difficult to see, but I am wearing a button blanket made out of red and black felt and abalone shell beads. It has a moon with black and shell lining in a coastal style design, and at the bottom is a Root Digger woman. It was made by my Mom, Lea Miller, and it has aspects of my Plains and Coastal side. I am also wearing a cedar woven cap with shells and a beaded feather attached. The cap was woven by my sister Aliyah G rover who wove it just for me out of cedar. The beaded feather was given to me by my dad who had it made for me. Overlaid is the famous Curtis photograph of Chief Joseph. I chose to mix these two photographs together because Curtis at the time thought he was doing something positive for Native people by photographing them but he was also spreading false information, using incorrect regalia, and wrong names which isnʼt right or ok. In a lot of ways, his images have come to eclipse who we really are. We become difficult to see clearly.

Therann Moore Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

TheCherokeeWomenWithinMe

Digital collage

I created an image that honors and represents all the Cherokee women in my family of the Wolf clan, from the first names all the way to the most recent. Meryl McMaster is the artist who inspire d me to make art this way.

Edgar Nickols Mississippi Choctaw

AFinishedProduct: AmIBeautiful,AmIHappy?

Faux flowers, foam mannequin head, wooden dowel, green foam, sea-themed bead collection, googly eyes, random plastic gem collection, p ill bottles, white out, paper tags, hot g lue.

This assisted readymade sculpture is an homage to idol making with non-traditional materials. I was inspired by the helmets and genderless, placeless garments made by Jeffrey Gibson. In the work we can see resemblances of traditional idol s from all over the world totems, European marble statues, busts, heads on spikes, and perhaps most importantly, trees. The use of sea-themed beads on a green foam base suggests different landscapes in which we are all grounded. Pill bottles act as stabilizing agents below that we either do not notice or we choose to ignore.

Like a tree, we do not see all that goes into what makes the complete organism; we do not see what all it has seen.

Celesta Osceola United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma

PrincessGrandma

Digital collage

I found an old photograph of a Cherokee woman on the internet, and transformed it by replacing the original face with my own and then adding car toons and other imagery. I blended my face into the original photograph, but left the cartoon imagery in color.

Iʼve heard many non-Natives claim their great-great-great grandmother was a “Cherokee Princess.” As a member of the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, I find it offensive as well as comical. IDreamedofBeingaWarriorby Rosalie Favell i s my inspiration, as Favell says, “I am interested in exploring the space that has developed for aboriginal image‒makers who dare confront stereotypes.”

Sober

Blacklight, cardboard, paper, acrylic paint

SOBERis inspired by the 1992 painting “Columbus Chronicles” by Carl Beam. With my painting, I explore the dark world of substance abuse. Everyone has seen a family member, friend, or co-worker who has suffered from substance abuse. It eats them away, leaving them a shell of who they once were. I know this personally as my grandfather abused substances in his life causing harm to his kids and his life. I wanted the pictures and the distressed surface of the cardboard to represent a person who has deteriorated from substance abuse. I also show how, in the black light, only crosses are il luminated, as many people look to their faith to heal from addiction. The painting is dirty, brutal, and honest, as this is how it is out there in the real world. The title is a nod to the song “SOBER” by TOOL, which talks about drug abuse.

Paige Primeaux Cheyenne and Arapaho TheRedHand

Digital Art

The MMIW movement advocates for the end of violence against native women, an epidemic that is affecting many native communities. It is an epidemic that should not be happening at such an alarming rate. The borders of white around the red hand print are names of native women who have gone missing or were murdered. One name that was the inspiration for this image is Leah Masheet , our sister. Leah was 16 years old when she went missing from Geary, Oklahoma. A week later her body was found in a field 7 miles away from her home. To this day my family has zero answers to what happened to her. Leah had her whole life ahead of her.

Evan Puryear Nenana and Minto tribes of Alaska

Untitled Pen

I studied the "Indian Head Nic kle" or “Buffalo Head Nickle" by James Earl Fraser. The nickel was minted between 1913-1938, and Fraser once said that it is considered “one of the most beautiful coins ever produced in the United States Of America " Researching Fraserʼs artwork inspired me to draw my own Buffalo Head and Indian Head coins. This process reminded me of how I used to have a big coin collection growing up as a child.

Carly Strauser Johanning Fort Peck Tribes, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, and Cuthead Yanktonai

The People of the Seven Council Fires (Oceti Sakowin Oyate)

TakeaPictureofaRealIndian

Photography, ledger paper, ch icken feathers

Nothing is original. We pull our creations from a compilation of our muses. When viewing photography, performance art, paintings, or drawings, I take bits of those pieces with me and put them into my own creations. Wendy Red Star, James Luna and Sherrie Lavine have inspired this mash-up using photography and ledger paper.

In TakeaPictureofaRealIndian,I wanted to draw attention to modern Native girls. These girls are the future of our Indigeneity. Yet, without context, you would never know it. We often acknowledge their “Nativeness” only when surrounded by physical symbols such as a headdress, a tipi, or a bow and arrow. When I asked non-Native people what they thought of when they heard the term “Indian Girl”, I mostly heard “Disney Pocahontas” or “the little Indian girl being tied up and submerged in water in Peter Pan.” I wanted to let the world know that the future of Native femininity IS present, itʼs modern, sometimes itʼs blonde, itʼs feminine, masculine, gay, and most importantly, itʼs strong.

Brianna Whitehorse Navajo

YellowCorn

Mixed media

The meaning behind this rug design is what makes me who I am and how I was raised. While the white corn is for the young man, the yellow corn, in the Navajo way, is for the women to use to grind at their puberty ceremony to make it known to our ancestors and creator that we are changing into young women. This is also where we get our taadadiin , the corn pollen we use during ceremonies and blessings.

Marlon Whitlow Cheyenne and Arapaho

Untitled Graphite on paper

For this drawing, I studied the work of ledger artist George Levi. I wanted to create something that was familiar to me, and thatʼs ledger art. G rowing up, my grandmother had ledger paintings all over her house.