5 Plain Questions

Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo/Korean) is a visual artist and co-founding director of exhibitions and programs at the Center for Native Futures (CfNF), a dynamic contemporary art space in the heart of Chicago dedicated to Native artists. Through her artwork and her work at CfNF she is committed to advocating for positive representations of Native people, and providing a safe and welcoming environment for Native artists to gather, exhibit, and be in community with each other.

Website:

https://www.centerfornativefutures.org/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/centernativefutures/

https://www.instagram.com/yepapappan/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/centernativefutures

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=debra%20yepa-pappan

Contemporary Native American artist Kent Estey is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe in Northwestern Minnesota. Kent’s lineage includes many self-taught artists where black-ash basketry, beading, birch-bark, and fiber artistry were everyday occurrences in his home. Kent’s preferred art form is painting with oils, acrylics, and inks. His paintings reflect feelings and emotions through his use of color and movement on the canvas. Kent says, “a lot of the time, the art happens by listening to my feelings. The colors, movement, and elements fall into place, creating something beautiful and intimately meaningful.” Some of his most recent work incorporates rock, metal, and collage on canvas and board. Kent’s work has been exhibited in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Bemidji, Grand Rapids, Duluth, Wahpeton, North Dakota, and other regional exhibitions and galleries in Minnesota. Most recently, Kent was awarded the Region 2 Arts Council Artist Fellowship for 2023-2024 and is serving as board chair of the Manoomin Arts Initiative on the White Earth Reservation. Kent has been an educator for most of his life, living and working in his hometown of Naytahwaush, Minnesota.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Simonson

This year 5 Scary Questions returns with stories from Kevin Pourier, Tina Tavera, Jeffrey Gibson, Princess Johnson, Candace Stock, Jonathon Thunder, Kalyan Fay Barnoski, Anita Fields, Erin Shaw, Orlando Dugi, Roman Zaragoza, Tom Jones II, Wendy Red Star, Tai LaClaire, Bobby Wilson, Dr. Hollie Mackey, Avis Charley, Janie Reano, Michaela Shirley, John Hitchcock, Cray Bauxmont-Flynn, Debra Yepa Pappan, John Isiah Ppepion, Whitney Johnson, Arik Williams, and Melanie Yazzie.

Just an update on the Halloween stories.

Michaela Paulette Shirley (Diné), MCRP, is Water Edge clan, born for Bitter Water clan, her maternal grandpa is Salt clan, and her paternal grandpa is Coyote Pass clan. She is a program manager for the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute at University of New Mexico. Michaela is a PhD student in the UNM American Studies Department. Her areas of expertise include urban planning, community development, and Indigenous planning, with research interests in community-school relationships, biographies of landscape, Diné studies, critical Indigenous studies, critical regional studies, and hemispheric Indigenous comparative studies. Michaela presents at conferences offering keynotes, leading workshops/community engagement activities, conducting content analysis of community engagement work, and serves on conference committees as needed. She has published about Indigenous planning, creative placemaking/PlaceKnowing, and Diné-centered arts management. Michaela’s served 5 years as a School Board Member with the Dził Ditł’ooí School of Empowerment, Action, and Perseverance, a steering committee member of the Planners Network, committee member of the National Tribal Brownfields Networking Group, and co-founder of an artist giving circle, Vital Little Plans.

Links:

http://idpi.unm.edu/about/people/michaela-shirley.html

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-shirley-872760b3

Due to technical issues we are unable to post our episode this week. Stay tuned for the Halloween specials coming up in the next few weeks, and an announcement from host Joe Williams in the coming weeks.

Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota / Diné) is a visual artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Charley is a ledger artist and figurative painter chronicling the evolving Native American identity from pre-reservation period to the present day, from ancestral homelands to the contemporary urban context.

Ledger art was Charley's first art form, as she values bringing a woman's perspective into a male-dominated art form. In time, Charley transitioned to oil paintings, centering Indigenous women within modern settings, reflecting the vibrancy of her people's culture. She creates work for future generations as she captures recent stories and experiences.

Charley's work is in the permanent collections of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Native American Art.

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota Nation) is an award winning writer and 2020-2025 MacArthur Fellow. Her satirical comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, made her the first known female Native American playwright on Broadway at the Helen Hayes under the direction of Rachel Chavkin. Her new plays in 2023 are Wicoun (Cornerstone Theater Company), Democracy Project (Federal Hall), Fake It Until You Make It (CTG Mark Taper Forum), For the People (Guthrie), and the national tour of Peter Pan (Networks). Selected past plays include What Would Crazy Horse Do? (KCRep), Landless and Cow Pie Bingo (AlterTheater), Average Family (Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis), Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: a Class Presentation (Native Voices at the Autry), as well as numerous productions of The Thanksgiving Play, making it one of the most produced plays in America. Larissa created the nationally recognized trilogy of community engaged theatrical experiences with Cornerstone Theater Company; Urban Rez, Native Nation, and Wicoun. She and her collaborator, Michael John Garcés, spend years on each project in an Indigenized community engagement process. “The engagement itself is the art form.” These projects have earned them national funding and an appointment to Arizona State University. Larissa’s company with Ty Defoe, Indigenous Direction, recently produced the first land acknowledgement on national television for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC and continues to consult for them. They also consult for the largest theater organizations in the country. Larissa also writes in film and television, most recently as a creator for NBC, Disney Channel, Dreamworks, Muse, Netflix and others. She is based in Los Angeles with her husband, the sculptor Edd Hogan, and represented by Jonathan Mills at Paradigm NY. She is especially honored to follow in the footsteps of the last known Native American playwright on Broadway, Lynn Riggs.

Photo credit: Conor Horgan

Website: http://www.hoganhorsestudio.com/

https://www.guthrietheater.org/shows-and-tickets/2023-2024-season/for-the-people/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/larissafasthorse/

Dr. Hollie Mackey (Northern Cheyenne) is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at North Dakota State University. She recently served as the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities.

Her scholarship empirically examines the effects of structural inequity in Indigenous and other marginalized populations in educational leadership, law, and public policy using multiple critical frameworks and methodologies. As an experienced policy consultant, public speaker, program evaluator, and community educator, she seeks to use her experiential knowledge as an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne nation coupled with her research, teaching, and service experience to bridge theory and practice as a means of addressing complex social issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Dr. Mackey holds degrees from Montana State University-Billings (BS, MS), University of Oklahoma (MLS), and Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D.).

Website:

https://holliemackey.com

Bobby “Dues” Wilson is a Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota artist, dad, and comedian based in Phoenix, Arizona. Bobby was born and raised in the Twin Cities, back when you could still smoke at Ember’s Family Restaurant. Bobby’s family bounced around motels, apartments, Powwows and shelters through his childhood but there’s an olde saying amongst the Siouxan nations: shit happens.

Wilson attended the Creative Arts High School where his interests in painting and poetry were heavily encouraged. He participated in youth art programs COMPAS arts in St. Paul, then rode the 16 (94 if you’re cashy) to Minneapolis where he trained mural painting like a champ under Roger and Peyton at Juxtaposition Arts. He painted several murals around the Twin Cities and enough graffiti to catch a couple cases. His visual art work can still be seen at the Minnesota Historical Society (I think) and the Chippewa Tribes building on Franklin. 

After some heavy life changes that we won’t get into it here (go watch Smoke Signals or something), Bobby found himself alongside the 1491s comedy troupe, traveling all accrosst Indian Country making fun of himself for money.

Now Bobby works as a writer/producer on television series like Rutherford Falls, Echo (some MCU stuff?), and the Peabody award winning series, Reservation Dogs. He lives with his family, surrounded by the O’odham nations and urban Navajos who make really good tortillas! Did you know O’odham homies call frybread, “popovers?!” What even is that?!