An Exciting Month at Montana Artists Refuge during the  American Indian Residency Program

During September, five Native artists and families from around the country creatively spent the month at the Montana Artists Refuge in Basin, Montana as part of the 7th annual American Indian Artists Residency program.

This program has fast become MAR’s signature fully funded residency. The final week of the residency culminated with MAR’s Indian Artists Symposium event bringing filmmakers, poets, contemporary visual artists and historically traditional artists together to participate in sharing cultural experiences and tribally specific work.

Corky Clairmont of Salish Kootenai College Art Department commented, “This year’s symposium was extremely successful.” This was due to the depth of cultural and social dialogue revealing issues of the contemporary Indian experience within an open atmosphere. When the art was discussed contemporary social and aesthetic issues were raised. Topics included language and imagery interpretation to the abuse of methamphetamines and the misconceptions mainstream citizens may have of Indian people and culture.

This was the first year artists from Canada to southern Arizona shared in the dialogue. First time attendee filmmaker Bob Boyer, Métis, felt it “proved to be an inspiring weekend” as did veteran poet participants Vic Charlo and M.L. Smoker.

Residents and visiting artists included; D.G. House, Cherokee; Nicole and Merle Big Bow, Cree; Sherwin Bitsui, Dine; and Rabbit KnowsGun, Crow. The University of Montana was represented by Dr. Angelica Lawson, Northern Arapahoe and Clint Carroll, Cherokee as well as Montana State University by Dr. Bill Yellowtail, Crow. The artists commented on the inspirational impact the month had on their work.

Navaho poet Sherwin Bitsui wrote of his residency, “The residency in Basin afforded me time to revisit my existing project in a relatively isolated place. It allowed me reenter my work to examine them under a northern light. Meeting Native artists from other nations, conversations with local people  and the landscape of Montana all helped to make my residency an valuable experience."

With such exceptional ideas resulting from the connections made at the Symposium, plans are beginning for next year’s festivities and residency.

AMERICAN INDIAN ARTISTS SELECTED
FOR 2007 PROGRAM

The Montana Artists Refuge, located in downtown historic Basin, announces the recipients of the American Indian Artists residencies for 2007.  Expanding awareness of contemporary Indian life, providing and developing useful strategies for cultural survival and supporting art through residential creative space are a few of the reasons the Montana Artists Refuge sponsors the American Indian Artist Program.

September brings four Indian artists to MAR for month long residencies culminating on September 28th-30th with the Indian Artists Symposium. This program is funded by the Lora L. & Martin N. Kelley Family Foundation Trust, The Metcalf Foundation and the Montana Arts Council.

Four exceptional Indian Artists will reside in Basin during the 7th Annual American Indian Residency Program and 3rd Annual Symposium at the Montana Artists Refuge throughout the month of September. The four artists participating in the residency program are Sherwin Bitsui, Navajo – poet /writer author of acclaimed “Shapeshift”; Merle Big Bow, Chippewa Cree – mixed media; DG House, Cherokee- water based paint; and Rabbit Knows Gun, Crow – photography and painting.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Sherwin Bitsui, Dine poet, will become a refugee at the Montana Artists Refuge in Basin, Montana during the month of September. One of four Indian artists at the Refuge, Bitsui is the first to travel from Arizona to attend the American Indian Residency Program in Basin. Sherwin Bitsui is originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation. Currently, he lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is Dine of the Todich'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl'izilani (Many Goats Clan).

Bitsui holds an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program and is currently completing his studies at the University of Arizona. He is the recipient of the 2000-01 Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, the 1999 Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Literary Residency Fellowship and more recently, a 2006 Whiting Writers Award. He has published his poems in American Poet, The Iowa Review, Frank (Paris), Lit Magazine, and elsewhere. His poems were also anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. Shapeshift is his first book.

"Sherwin’s former instructor, Jon Davis, IAIA professor of creative writing, says, “Sherwin’s poetry is obscure and different—deep politics. He has passion and ‘Duende’ present within his paintings and poetry. That is what separates him from other artists.” Duende is the mysterious, passionate power that the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca called ‘the spirit of the earth.’”      Orlando White, IAIA Chronicle

DG House is residing at the Montana Artists Refuge during the American Indian Artists Residency in September.  She is of the Cherokee NE Alabama tribe and she comes to us from Bozeman.  House plans to create a repetitive series of paintings on the buffalo.  She will be using water-based oils, canvas and 30 objects from the buffalo.

DG was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.  She came west in 1981 to visit Yellowstone Park.  Although she continued to study painting at the University of Dayton, House always returned to Yellowstone and made Bozeman her home in 1988.  House’s work has been exhibited in the Yellowstone Art Museum, Holter Art Museum, Missoula Art Museum and the Paris-Gibson Square Museum of Art in Montana.  She is a native guest artists-in-residence each summer at the Colter Bay Indian Art Museum in Grand Teton National Park and is represented in Montana by Indian Uprising Gallery in Bozeman and in Colorado by Nature’s Visions Gallery in Salida.  DG’s painting and fine art prints are in collections on every continent including the Colter Bay Indian Museum, WY; the DeWeese Gallery permanent collection, and Michael McDonald’s (Doobie Brothers) private collection.  She recently won Third Place at the Great falls Native American Art Show and is feature artist at the 2007 MSU Pow Wow.  DG House has been featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles as well as television documentaries.  She is currently illustrating a children’s book.

Rabbit Knows Gun is residing at the Montana Artists Refuge during the American Indian Residency in September.  Rabbit belongs to the Crow tribe and comes to us from Billings. Knows Gun paints hides, canvases, and drums with acrylic paint.  “Rabbit’s paintings involve creative symbolism.  Four concurrent themes characterize his art:  traditional Crow culture, the natural/spiritual environment of landscape and animals, Catholic religious spirituality, and American patriotism.  He uses colors which are found in traditional Crow art such as geometric and floral beadwork, parfleches and painted hides.  His work is unique, vibrant, multicultural and inspirational”  From: City The Magazine, a quote by C. Adrian Heidenreich, PH.D., Professor Native American Studies and Anthropology, MSU, Billings, Montana.

Rabbit and his two sons will be showing their artwork in the Picture Perfect Gallery in Billings in October with an opening reception on October 5th, 2007 from 5:00 to 9:00.

Merle Big Bow, his wife Nicole and one daughter of three, will be residing at the Montana Artists Refuge during the American Indian Artists Residency in the month of September.  Merle is Chippewa Cree and comes to us from Ronan.

ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM

For the Symposium, additional Indian artists from diverse backgrounds are invited to Basin to network, attend workshops and create temporary exhibitions and installations within a neutral space. Lodging, per diem and travel support will be provided for the first 10 artists to reply. Upon receipt of your application, the Refuge will contact you with details. Download an application form in Word or PDF to participate as an artist in the symposium.

Gallery walks, studio tours, facilitated forums and food highlight the September weekend symposium. The Symposium welcomes the general public and interested people.

Molly Murphy came to the Montana Artists Refuge for a week at the end of March. She created a large scale installment piece involving beadwork and create a series of prints relating to beadwork and abstract native design. Murphy was born in 1977 in Great Falls, MT. A mixed blood descendent of the Oglala, Lakota tribe, Murphy was raised in western Montana and earned a Bachelor's in Fine Arts from The University of Montana in 2004.

Most of her work stems from a combination of traditional Native arts and modern art. Murphy learned beadwork at a very early age as well as hide tanning, sewing and traditional clothing design.

"I consider my work to be narrative on many levels. There are times when I want to tell a very specific story and the pieces become narrative in tone. In other cases I am simply evoking emotional responses to basic elements such as shape and color. Nearly all of my work reflects the issues of politics, cultural identity, and learning to live with the weight of the past."

Molly Murphy currently lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband and daughter.

Marietta F. King – Blackfeet - from East Glacier Park, Montana

Painter Mari King is a member of the Blackfeet Nation, Browning, MT.  Presently she serves as an adjunct instructor to the University of Montana,  School of Curriculum and Education, Missoula, and the Education Department of the Blackfeet Community College, Browning, MT.  She holds a Masters in Human Services: Counseling Psychology, and a BA in Criminal Justice; both from the University of Great Falls, Mt.  She is highly knowledgeable in the field of visual arts, Blackfeet traditional arts, and is the author of  Native American Food is Medicine and its companion Journal, Renewal of Life, (2002), published by J & M Publishers, Fargo, North Dakota.  Mari has served for the past 12 years as the Senior Blackfeet Honorary Advisory Council Coordinator for the Blackfeet community.  She served as the Dean of Academics and as a faculty member at the Blackfeet Community College.  Mari actively participates in and promotes Blackfeet traditional life-ways through education, ceremony, plants, and arts and crafts. More info about Mari at Blackfeet Culture Camp website.

Trevino L. Brings Plenty – Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Eagle Butte, South Dakota.

Poet and Musician Trevino L. Brings Plenty currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon.  Trevino describes himself as an American and Native American; a Lakota Indian born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, SD.  Some of his work explores the American Indian identity in American culture and how it has through genealogical history affected indigenous peoples in the 21st century.  He writes of urban Indian life; it’s his subject.  He has been published in Cold Mountain Review, Alchemy Literary Magazine, Portland Lights: a poetry anthology, Playing with a Full Deck: Anthology, Down in the Dirt, Open Wide Magazine (UK). Visit Trevino's website.

Mary Black Bonnet – Rosebud Sioux Tribe, South Dakota.

Writer Mary Black Bonnet lives in Vermillion, South Dakota with her husband where she received her BA in English at the University of South Dakota.  Mary has been writing much of her conscious life and won a young authors award in the seventh grade for a fiction story.  While in college she began writing nonfiction and ethno-historic essays.  She has published Poetry in Nagi-Ho Journal, Tribal College Journal, Potomac Review, and the Native Law and Policy Textbook: Native Women Surviving Violence. Her Essays have been published in Frontiers: a Journal of Women’s Studies, and Genocide of the Mind: New Native Writing.

CONVENIENCE STORE RELATIONSHIP
by Mary BlackBonnet

You walked back into my life today,
    the bell didn’t sound your arrival.
Then came my role,
    serving you.
I stepped up to the counter,
    pulled flowers from my voice.
You browsed the aisles of our past,
    overlooking the expired label of our relationship.
I ask for a price check,
    reality check.
I must know,
    where do all the unaddressed cruel words go?
You seem to have put them in the proverbial cooler,
    stuffed in with other issues,
        that remain open 24 hours.
I stand at the checkout
    all smiles and trust.
As you return to being crazy bag lady,
    pushing your baggage around.
You ask for a refund,
    I ask for the receipt.
I register you as family
    accept it in whatever tender I can get.
Despite the debt you leave me in.
But I have no more room
    for coupons.

        (c) Mary BlackBonnet

Victor A. Charlo – Bitterroot Salish, member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai, Dixon, Montana

Writer Vic Charlo lives in Dixon, Montana and is the great-great grandson of Chief Victor Charlo of the Bitterroot Salish.  Through lineage, he is recognized as a spiritual leader.  He was born and raised in Evaro, Montana on the Flathead Reservation and attended high school in Missoula.  He then entered the seminary and studied to be a Jesuit for seven years.  After leaving the seminary he became passionately involved in Native causes through a variety of social justice venues, most notably The Poor People’s Campaign.  While pursuing further education at the University of Montana he met and befriended famed regional poet, Dick Hugo.  He received his Masters degree in Curriculum from Gonzaga University and returned to the Flathead reservation to co-found and principal the first all Indian Grade School, Two Eagle River School.  

Vic has spent the past 15 years in collaboration with Zan Agzigian co-writing contemporary Native American Plays under the auspices of the Open To All Native Acting Troupe of North West Montana. 

Poem by Vic Charlo

Bad Wine

You can love a dying Indian
but when he drinks bad wine
and breaks your best glass
you give him to the wind.

2005 Residency

(The following article was reprinted from MAR's Winter 2006 newsletter. It's a big file and can take a while to download.)

During October 2005, the Refuge hosted the fifth American Indian
Artists Residency, wherein Indian artists are offered a month in
Basin to develop their work, network with each other, and develop business acumen, as well as build a larger market (including museum
collections) for their art. The resident artists this year were Mary Lou Big Day, a doll maker and Heywood Big Day, Sr., Crow historian and story teller; Derek Big Day, who works with hides and beads, making saddle bags and parfleche; William Big Day, oil painter; Heywood Big Day III, bead artist; and Debra Magpie Earling, poet and fiction writer.

During their residency, Mary Lou and Heywood offered two daylong
workshops for youth at the Holter Museum of Art. The residency ended with the first Symposium on contemporary and traditional Native American art. There were temporary installations and gallery shows, workshops highlighting the place of American Indian artists and their art in our lives, our culture and our economy, readings and slide shows. Indian artists from all over the state who joined the resident artists for the weekend symposium included Vic Charlo, poet and playwright; Jenesse
Hilton, painter; Valentina La Pier, painter; Carl Cree Medicine Sr., bone
carver; Dwight Billedeaux, multi media artist; Robert Gopher, painter; Chris
Comes Up, print maker and oil painter; Molly Murphy, three-dimensional bead artist; Lydia Hooper, painter; Rabbit and Alan Knows Gun, painters; and Chick and Del Bear Medicine, bead artists.

The Montana Artists Refuge was honored to have so many “first
Montanans” in our midst and to fully experience their art, a gateway to their
culture. The atmosphere in Basin was charged with excitement and laughter, mutual appreciation and gratitude, respect and trust.

Funded by the Kelley Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Foundation, the Montana Arts Council, and the Montana Community Foundation Fund for Tolerance, this program, particularly the Symposium, broke new ground in bringing about increased understanding among Indians and non-Indians, as well as the potential for greater visibility and economic viability for contemporary Indian artists.