Artists' Bios

Dugan Aguilar
My name is Dugan Aguilar, and I am Maidu, Pit River, and Paiute Indian, with Irish thrown in-hence the name, Dugan. One of the first questions people ask me is, "Why do you photograph?" I can only say that the photographer wolf has bitten my heart and is deep within me. I have a passion for taking pictures-beyond that, I don't have a full answer. The next question asked is "What kind of photographer are you?" My answer would be that I do "environmental portraiture." However, like the all-around cowboy, I would like to be considered an all-around photographer. My path as a photographer has led me to try to document the native peoples of California and Nevada-my heritage.

Muriel Yvonne Antoine
Muriel Antoine draws on her traditional background to create highly emotive, symbolic personal statements about Lakotas, native peoples and human experience. The Lakota philosophy of respect for all living things and the four sacred colors of people are celebrated in her works and offer a way of being in the world which is sorely needed today. She is a great-grandmother of 16, a Korean War veteran, pipe keeper, and a traditional spiritual person. She holds a masters degree in educational administration from the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. A prolific writer using the pen name Anpetu Winyan (Day Woman), her varied experiences infuse her writing and inspire her audiences. She confounded an organization called Wicozani (the well being of each individual from birth to death). She also confounded the first women's domestic shelter on a reservation in 1971. Philosophy: Reflecting on my place in this universe, I add my dedication to preserving the harmony of this country's insight by embodying my art (masks) and poetry as a bridge between the logical thinking and paradox. The masks bring their own power of suggestion that need no words or explanation. This artistic utilization as an indirect teacher is a powerful source of unconscious communication. It touches that part of one's self that responds to the ancient use of symbols from the distant past, giving each mask its unique character.

Lorenzo Baca aka Chief Goldfish | website
I am a visual, literary and performing artist of Apache and Pueblo descent...

Virginia Benavidez
Viewing life in all it has to offer as part of that life and offering is what I share with you today as an artist

Jennifer Fox Bennett | website
Jennifer has had poetry, short fiction, and essays published in anthologies (Resist! {AK Press}), magazines ("Red Ink" {University of Arizona Press}, "Atlantis" {Mount Saint Vincent University}, "Other" {San Francisco}), online journals ("Oregon Literary Review" {Portland}), and zines ("Specious Species" {San Francisco}). Jennifer received her B.S. from Cornell University. Her first chapbook, Left To Shatter (Monkey Book Press {San Francisco}) is out-of-print.
Comments: Wikwemikong First Nation (Ontario, Canada); Bad River Band of Ojibways (Wisconsin)

Richard Castaneda | website
Richard Bluecloud Castaneda is a member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian community in Scottsdale, Arizona and resides in San Francisco, Ca. In 2003, Richard received his Associates of Fine Arts degree in Two-Dimensional Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the spring of 2007 he received his BFA degree in Advertising/Illustration Photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Castaneda is presently a graduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute, pursuing his MFA degree in Fine Art Photography.

Celeste Conners (deCoy99) | website | video of her performance in 4 Directions
A working artist since I was in my grandmother’s care (she was a beader and painter) when I was a young child, I have continued to explore and produce works diligently and abundantly throughout my life. My grandmother was also a major influence to my writing disciplines. My mother and aunt’s great love of music and dance inspired my interest in these areas, as well as costuming, also at a very early age. There after I have worked continuously in written, visual and performing areas. I have attended and completed studies at four private art colleges in the San Francisco Bay and Santa, New Mexico Areas. Trained extensively in dance and voice privately and have had training with my tribe (Chiricahua N’de ((Apache)), Fort Sill Group, in the beadwork of our culture. I have self-instructed - diverged and invented on my own in tandem with all this. The first hybrid in my particular extended family, with a father who was from Utah, whose background was primarily Irish and a primarily Chiricahua N’de mother from dustbowl Oklahoma (where our tribe was relocated and held prisoner of war), I was raised between where our tribe was located in Oklahoma and Mescalero; and San Francisco’s until I was about twelve. I spent the next ten years exclusively in San Francisco. San Francisco’s cultural variety, experimental environment and openness feature greatly in my own wayward approach to art and life. Moving to Santa Fe for a decade, I found myself immersed in Native culture, art and traditions. My experience was once again rounded out. I returned to the Bay Area, Oakland/Berkeley where I found myself, my works re-invented by the surprising, explosive and experimental culture of this area and time. This life, my life has been diverse, my work reflects this. I have been blessed with many talents and gifts, and presented many challenges. These are thoroughly and tirelessly explored, examined and document through my works. I have always felt that my survival has been my most important “performance piece.” I hope my experience through my work inspires others to courage, curiosity and a greater understanding of the native America/hybrid experimental experience and their own lives.

Nizhoni Ellenwood | website
Nizhoni Ellenwood is of the Nimi’ipuu (Nez Perce) and Apache nations and is based out of San Francisco, CA. She works in many art mediums, but is currently focusing her creativity in dance, performance, film, and photography. She is co-founder of Red Lotus Belly Dance and is part of performance groups Lapsus and CoRE. She also is the founder of the Indigenous Nations Student Coalition which she is in the process of organizing and recruiting. To view more work by Nizhoni and to get in contact with her, go to her website at: www.nizhoniellenwood.com

Jennifer Foerster | website
Jennifer Elise Foerster received her MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of the Union Institute and University (July 2007) and her BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (2003). Recently accepted as a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University beginning in September 2008, Jennifer has been the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship, the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony Ataa’xum Fellowship, and the Vermont Studio Center/Mill Atelier Native American Fellowship. She has also received fellowships to attend Soul Mountain Retreat, the Naropa Summer Writing Program, and the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program. Jennifer’s poetry has been published in Oregon Literary Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Passages North, The Cream City Review, Red Ink Magazine, Tribal College Journal, Atlantis Women’s Studies Journal, Alehouse Press, the Oregon State University’s To Topos: Indigenous America literary journal, and Many Mountains Moving (upcoming). Of German, Dutch, and Muscogee descent, she is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, and lives in San Francisco.

L. Frank | website
my art is cultural maintenance. i am the art janitor.

Scott Fulton

Reid Gómez | website
I am a Navajo writer and independent scholar. I focus my work on language, sovereignty and class. My stories and images deal with the memories and migrations we, the tribal, the detribalized, and the descendants of slaves, make and the relationships we forge in light of those migrations. I can be reached at reidgomez@yahoo.com.

Michael Horse | website
Michael Horse, of Zuni, Yaqui, and Mescalero Apache descent, is an internationally known award winning jeweler, artist, and actor. As a master jeweler, he creates both traditional and contemporary jewelry in 14kt gold and sterling silver – using the best stones available. He is also a ledger painter, using watercolor, pen, and ink on authentic antique documents of the mid-1800's to early 1900's. The paintings depict Native American life during the reservation period of the 1800's to early 1900's. As an actor, he has worked on many feature length films and television series including "Twin Peaks," "Passenger 57," "North of 60," "X-Files," "Lakota Woman," and many others. His paintings are jewelry are available at Kiva Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gathering Tribes in Berkeley, California, the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Two Feathers Gallery in Palm Springs, California.

Ras K'dee | website
Ras K'dee's music reflects the cultural blend of his black father, whose ancestral roots are in Kenya, and his Native American mother, who is a member of the Ha-Bi-Da, Makamo Mahilicano and Kashaya clans of the Pomo Nation, located in Geyserville, Point Arena, and Stewarts Point Calif. His musical influences include Bob Marley, Gil Scott Heron, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield. His two previous self-financed and released albums are "Daily Bread" and "Transcendental State of Music," which appeared on a top 10 list of music critic Johnny Ray Houston, in The Village Voice in 2003. Now more than ever, Ras K'dee's lyrics vocalize the struggles of indigenous people and a collective hope for a brighter tomorrow, while encouraging young people in their quest for power and freedom.

Gary Kinson | website
Gary’s works of art are greatly influenced by his Native American cultural heritage. With art he invites you to experience a connection to the sacred . His use of colors ,shapes and movement to depict events, story or myth transcending the obvious to the unseen energy that he believe binds all things. You are invited to the ceremony! As Gary works he tells the story as he works to bring life to the piece. He invites viewers enter the sweat lodge to sing with the drummers and to dance with the dancers. In this process he believes his art is a ceremony and the viewer are connected to the event.

Niki Lee | website
Niki Lee is Arikara and Caddo. She is a traditional beadworker and contemporary painter. These pieces come from a body of work addressing violence against women, American Indians, and our land. More of her work can be seen at www.nikileestudios.com.

Bradley Marshall

America Meredith | website
America Meredith is a Swedish-Cherokee artist who blends traditional styles from Native America and Europe with pop imagery of her childhood. She is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and a hereditary member of the Red Paint Clan. The Cherokee language and syllabary figure prominently in her work. She works in drawing and printmaking, but her primary focus is painting – in acrylic, egg tempera, gouache, and watercolor. Splitting her time between Oklahoma, Santa Fe, and San Francisco, America earned her MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and her BFA from the University of Oklahoma. She has shown throughout the United States and in Canada and Europe in the last thirteen years and has won awards at the Heard, SWAIA's Indian Market as well as at numerous competitive shows. She won the IAIA Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence in Contemporary Native American Arts in 2007 and was voted SF Weekly’s Painter of the Year in 2006. America's work can be found at Standing Buffalo Indian Art Gallery in Norman, OK; the Seminole Tribe's Okalee Contemporary Art Gallery in Fort Lauderdale, FL; and the IAIA Museum Store in Santa Fe, NM.

Istuyee Montez
I'm Blackfeet from Northern Montana, I was born on our Reserve in 1981. I grew up partly in Montana and partly in oakland california. I started writing at a young age in an effort to understand and heal myself. I am have studied acting at UCB, ACT SF and SFIDF. My Mother and Father are artists themselves and have raised me to appreciate the world with eyes of a child.

Emmanuel Montoya | website
Some 45 years in the SF Bay Area. Studied printmaking at City College of San Francisco and received MFA from SF State University in 1991. Practicing artist for over 30 years has taught art at all levels for over 15 years. Finds his true passion as an artist in a slab of linoleum or a plank of nicely grained wood. As an artist of Lipan Apache and Chicano backgrounds, it is important to me to create work that speaks of indigenous America.

Sean Levon Nash (Choctaw/Creek/Brulé Lakota/Comanche)
Sean has living, creating and teaching in San Francisco’s Mission District for over the last 10 years. Born in Oakland, he spent much of his youth between East Oakland, Indiana, and Iowa. Of Choctaw, Muskogee Creek, Brulé and Comanche descent, his frequent relocation has afforded him a unique view of current America and it’s effects on mixed Indians. Sean’s interest in pre Columbian linguistics and meso-american glyph decipherment began at UC Davis while studying Studio Art. He continues to apply his mastery of medium to create educational and historically relevant paintings through which he successfully contextualizes ancient indigenous iconography. Currently, he is studying at San Francisco Art Institute, working on a Masters of Fine Art in Painting and Film. Sean gives lectures, assemblies and workshops in a number of subjects, including History, Chicano Studies, and Native American Studies, specializing in colonial history and Indian-White relations. He makes paintings in a range of Native styles, including Northwest Coastal, Southwest, Aztec, Mixtec and Mayan, spanning the West coast. Having stumbled into animation and now film making, he was honored to have his first animated short get recognition at Sundance and other film festivals.

Joaquin Newman | website
Mr. Newman lives and paints in Oakland, California, where he was born in 1973 - the son of an artist mother and a scientist father. Mr. Newman's mestizo heritage of Yaqui, Mexican, and European ancestry has fueled his creative endeavors his entire life. After studying fine art and digital design at Cabrillo College and the University of California at Santa Cruz, Mr. Newman now works as a painter, muralist, graphic designer, and illustrator. He taught at the Academy of Art College, held workshops at the Oakland Museum of California, and presented to classrooms across the nation. His murals and paintings can be found on many walls and galleries. His most recent paintings examine the delicate balance of nature and technology, spirit and reason, and contemporary cultural fusion.

Gilberto R. Oliveros | website
Ernesto Hernandez-Olmos was born and educated at the highly respected Autonomous University, “Benito Juarez” in Mexico. He has captivated viewers with art, music and dance presentations at prestigious cultural events in the United States, Canada and Mexico since the early 1990’s. His art exhibits lit-up walls from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the De Young Museum in San Francisco. He has also been honored to display at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco; the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, in the United States. In Mexico he was chosen to display his artistic creations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico City; the Delegación Benito Juarez in Mexico City and the Oaxacan Institute of Culture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Ernesto is regarded as a stimulating and interactive teacher, his desire is to educate youth and adults about native cultures as they create enjoyable art with a message. As an inspiring bay-area artist, Ernesto shares his honor of native traditions from the Americas, through various mediums… painting, sculpture, music and dance. He has many ways to convey what he cannot say with words. The spirits of his people motivate him to share his deepest and most human feelings, through his artistic creations, the culture and values of his ancestors are expressed in today’s life.

Ernesto Hernandez Olmos | website
Ernesto is a multi-faceted artist who works in many media, including painting, sculpture, music and dance. He contemporizes the traditional music forms from Oaxaca in addition to creating his own compositions and makes instruments based on Meso-American design including flutes, drums and whistles fashioned from wood, clay, gourds and bone. His music/dance group, Besh Beni (Jaguar of Light) creates Toltec, Zapotec and Mistec inspired performances for schools, cultural events and traditional gatherings throughout California and internationally. Ernesto is a stimulating and interactive teacher; he educates youth and adults about native cultures as they create enjoyable art with a cultural message. He is an inspired painter and has created hundreds of paintings in oil, acrylic, pastels – virtually any media that he can find he enjoys exploring. He has created three murals in Oakland, including one at the MacArthur Bart Station specially commissioned by the City of Oakland. He has been based in the Bay Area since 1997.

Paul Owns The Sabre
Paul Owns the Sabre, a Lakota Hunkpapa artist, has been a Bay area artist for decades. His watercolors evoke the Lakota traditional warrior, and also often address the lives of Indian people living on the edges of society in urban locales. He has been an activist for decades, and is currently on his second Longest Walk, having participated in the first one 30 years ago. He has donated his work to many different organizations, and continues to paint and create work as he has the time and facilities available. This portrait piece was commissioned as a gift for Janeen Antoine, and depicts her grandfather, Lawrence Antoine, aka Mni Wanca, as a young man aged 19. The piece was lost by Ms. Antoine and recovered by Paul 12 years later at a friend's house, who had purchased it on the street from someone for $10. Janeen had commissioned Paul to redo the piece and he showed up the next day with the original after he showed a photo of the piece to his friend, who recognized it as the piece hanging in his bedroom. Creator's work...

Pennie Opal Plant | website
Pennie Opal Plant is a "Mestiza" of Yaqui, Mexican, Cherokee, Choctaw & European ancestry who was born in 1958 and raised in San Pablo, California. She has been writing poetry and short stories since she was a young girl. She is also a jeweler and an artist, working in watercolor, pen & ink, and acrylic. She owns Gathering Tribes, a Native American gallery store in Berkeley, and has been an activist on environmental, peace and Indigenous issues for over 25 years. She is currently working on a children's book with her partner, Michael Horse.

Eric Paul | website
I am a free-spirited artist who enjoys all styles of music and mediums.

Mark Rivera
I studied throughout the winter of '07. My mediums include pencil;water color; colored chalk and charcoal. I am a photographer and a musician. My passion is travel by bicycle throughout California I photo journal myself as I travel.

Kanyon Sayers-Roods | website
My name is Kanyon.... I live in the Canyon (Indian Canyon).... I am Native American and proud. My name is Hahashkani (Chumash even though I am mainly Costanoan-Ohlone and Chumash); it means "Coyote Woman." I write a lot of poetry and I know many native songs. One of the songs most well known is a Chumash grandmother song.... I have sang it in front of many audiences for the sake of welcoming the grandmother ancestors.... I sang at the opening of the De Young Museum, the Immigration Rally in San Jose in front of thousands...and many other places.

Kimberly Rose Shuck | website
Kim Shuck is a mixed Tsalagi, Sauk/Fox and Polish educator, writer and weaver. She has an MFA in fine arts, weaving from San Francisco Statue University. Shuck has had myriad jobs, which include writing math curricula, frothing cappuccino, teaching at the university level, and being the parent of three. Greenfield Review Press published her book Smuggling Cherokee in January 2006. That manuscript won the 2005 Diane Decorah award.

Summer Shuckahosee (Kickapoo Tribe of Kansas)
painting, assemblage

Monique Sonoquie | website
Chumash, Apache, Yaqui and Zapotec Native Educator. I work with recycled materials, bought, found, or tossed. I always take the opportunity to educate people regarding Native Issues, Rights and Responsibilities.

Kathleen Rose Smith
Kathleen Rose Smith was born in Santa Rosa, California, February 12, 1939 - the seventh child of Steven Smith, Jr. (Bodega Bay Miwok/Goat Rock Pomo) and Lucy Lozinto Smith’s (Dry Creek Pomo/Portuguese) nine children, and the first child of these two hard-working, loving individuals to be born not at home, but in a hospital. She grew up in and around the northern California agricultural community of Healdsburg. From early childhood on, she passionately loved drawing and painting, and never seriously considered having any occupation but that of an artist. In the course of fulfilling that ambition she has had a number of jobs, from park naturalist at Point Reyes National Seashore and Native American Art Instructor at Sonoma State University to archeology field technician. Kathleen graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1977. She did postgraduate studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. She has served as a Foods Columnist and Contributing Editor for the quarterly publication News from Native California. She is a painter and traditional craftsperson whose art has been shown in several galleries in Central California, and traditional demonstrations seen in regional and national parks, and museums in New York, Connecticut and California.

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie | website
Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie was born into the Bear and Raccoon Clans of the Seminole and Muscogee Nations, and born for the Tsinajinnie Clan of the Diné Nation. Exhibited nationally and internationally, Tsinhnahjinnie claims photography and video as her primary languages. Creating fluent images of Native thought, her emphasis is art for Indigenous communities. She has been a recipient of the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, a Chancellor’s Fellowship at the University of California Irvine, the First Peoples Community Artist Award, and a Rockefeller artist in residence. She is currently Director of the C.N. Gorman Museum at University of California Davis and Assistant Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at University of California Davis.

Morningstar Vancil | website

Edward Darrell Willie
My family comes from Pomo, Paiute, Wintun and Walaiki stock. I happily in participate Native California activities throughoutNnorthern California. I have four children. I have been a preschool teacher for over 20 years. I do oil painting, chalk painting, sculpture and graphic art. I do nature based subjects and people. I am also a basketweaver and regalia maker.

Links

Advocates for California Language Survival

American Indian
Contemporary Arts

Bay Area
Indian Calendar

Bay Native Circle Radio
Wednesday 2pm, KPFA 94.1 fm

Crows on the Nose
surf maps, ocean art, and
the work of L. Frank

Honor the Earth
a voice for the earth.. a voice
for those not heard

Impacted Nations
Native American artists
respond to energy
development on tribal lands

Institute of American
Indian Arts
Santa Fe, NM

Neshkinukat
California Native Artists Network

Northern California Indian Development Council

San Francisco Art Openings
Photographs from art shows

San Francisco Arts Commission

Shumup Ko Hup
California Indian Arts & Crafts,
San Diego, CA

SOMARTS
South of Market Cultural Center

Speaking from the Earth
Recent art show exploring cultural diversity and biodiversity

Transparent Passion Trance
/ Real Faces
installation and performance at SOMARTS by deCoy99