Awarded Grants

This project will strengthen both my artistic practice and my role as a public historian by expanding my engagement with materials, history, and community. A primary outcome will be the creation of a series of archival-based woven works made from replicas of historical documents. In addition to these pieces, a key outcome will be the development of new techniques for integrating archival paper into my traditional weaving practice while remaining rooted in cultural traditions. Through this process, I will also strengthen my skills in archival research and historical interpretation. This growth is essential as I continue to develop as a public historian with a focus on my community. I will develop ways to interpret paper genocide, specifically how it impacted the Nansemond, for a broader audience. I will also ensure that the knowledge I gain through research is shared with my tribal community through our community newsletter and opportunities to view the finished pieces in person. The completed works will be exhibited in regional galleries, my community’s new cultural center, and other tribal spaces. Each of these venues will provide opportunities for me to refine my historical interpretation skills through public talks and the use of interpretive plaques. Beyond expanding my art, the foundation of this project is contributing to Indigenous-led efforts to reclaim our history. This work centers Native voices and uses community knowledge alongside historical documents to tell our story. It demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge can adapt and respond to historical challenges while continuing to carry our history forward. Through this project, I am not only developing new work and technical skills, but also strengthening my community’s ability to share our history from our own perspective. By the conclusion of the grant period, I will have established a sustainable method for using non traditional materials to address complex regional histories. This will allow my practice to continue growing as both a form of fine art and a tool for cultural education. For future generations, these baskets will serve as physical evidence of our resilience, proving that the very records intended to erase our identity can be repurposed to celebrate our continued presence

By recording the songs, we hope to strengthen our community in a few ways. A complete archive with translation of each songs meaning will be done. The preserved and archived recordings will increase access to the songs in their complete form for current and future generations. Those who access the recordings will strengthen their knowledge on Quechan and Kumia (Kumeyaay) ways embedded in the songs. The recordings can be used to help with language and cultural revitalization. Preston can use the recordings to help supplement his in-person teaching. Learners can also have access to the songs to learn on their own at home, then to gather again and practice together what they learned. We will create select edits of the recorded audio, songs and discussion, and share to the larger tribal community through our low powered FM radio station KUAV 105.1, which transmits across the Fort Yuma Reservation. This will make it available to the larger tribal community. Small tribal cultural gatherings will also provide a way to share and perform what is learned in a holistic and traditional way. Preston has been fighting an uphill battle against the demands of modern society. If we can record the songs, this will help in preserving and revitalizing the songs for generations to come.

This project will enhance the Tribe’s food sovereignty program by growing its composting initiatives, strengthening food and garden education, including training in drip irrigation, pruning, and seed saving, while advancing traditional food stewardship and intergenerational knowledge sharing.

My expected outcome of participating in this opportunity is to commit oli to memory using the correct tone, vibrato, pronunciation and overall deliverance of oli presented at this conference. Participation in this conference will also help me enhance the way I deliver other oli, by learning more about the mechanics of creating sound and accessing deeper levels of knowledge through this exchange. As we are a culture rooted in oral storytelling, the art of oli is important in carrying on these stories that still remain relevant today. There are many sessions in the conference schedule that makes learning oli accessible and welcoming for people of all experience levels. I plan to share the legacy of oli where appropriate, as there are some oli arrangements that are kapu (taboo) and the kumu teaching them are strict on the ways that learners can share these oli. I think it would be appropriate and realistic for me to plan to share with others other aspects of oli like correct pronunciation, vibrato, and tone for oli that are noa (free) for others to learn, as there are many that anyone can engage with--Native Hawaiian or not. I hope that through this I am able to continue promoting the teachings and attitudes of my Kumu, Aunty Kekuhi, in that oli is for everyone and that aloha is the conduit for us all to grow in deeper relationship to our places that we are from and where we live, as these are all extensions of family. When I become adept in my cultural practices and become elevated to a status of teacher, I will share oli with my projected students and ensure that I am perpetuating the teachings of my teacher and ancestors in a pono (righteous) way. This project contributes to indigenous-led knowledge sharing because it is a conference that is unconventional, in the way that it focuses the cultural practice of oli and brings experts across the archipelago to Hilo to participate; regardless of Western accreditations. It promotes cultural values of aloha (genuineness/love) and hoihi (respect) in valuing the genealogy of teachings and honoring that there are, many a-time, many truths/"correct" ways of doing things and that they can be allowed to exist together, too.

This project will support flood recovery efforts in the Village of Moenkopi following devastating flooding that impacted traditional farmlands. Funding will help rescue heirloom corn and traditional crops, protect cultural seed lines, and stabilize agricultural lands.

The outcomes I hope to achieve from this project are a better and more robust understanding of the designs, methods, historical context, and ceremonies associated with azhaasowin, or traditional tattooing, as well as the growth of a network of traditional tattooers and the creation of a modern tattooing bundle. I plan to share what I have learned through an instagram account dedicated to spreading information about azhaasowin according to protocol, through discussions with other tattoo practitioners, and through the continuation of an apprenticeship for Awanigiizhik Bruce. I hope our work reaches the Turtle Mountain and Little Shell communities both urban and on the reservation, and this will be done through travel, sharing and visiting, conferring with elders, and utilizing social media to reach diasporic community members online. This project contributes to Indigenous-led knowledge sharing by taking back control of the narrative around our tattooing practices from white scholars and focusing on our traditions, protocols, and meanings, by us and for us. It also contributes to the revitalization of a craft and ceremony that has been sleeping for over a hundred years, something that inherently ties us to a place and a people through visual markers on our skin.

Through the support of the Acorn Fund, I hope to see these ancestral patterns move out of museum storage and back into the hands of our living community, broadening the possibilities for what Catawba pottery can be. By reclaiming the tools and textures used by those who came before us, I am working to ensure our tradition isn’t just a narrow set of shapes, but a vibrant practice that remembers its full history. This project is about giving our community more ways to express our identity through clay, rooted in the knowledge of our ancestors. The primary outcome will be the reintroduction of the paddle-impressed cooking pot and funerary urn into the community’s cultural repertoire. By creating these vessels and documenting the process, I am providing a roadmap for other potters to follow. I plan to share this knowledge through active transmission. Rather than just writing a report, I will: - Engage Youth: By teaching a stamping class, I show youth that they have the ability to create impressions on their pots to expand their creativity. - Empower Knowledge Holders: By teaching paddle-making to adult potters, I am providing them with new techniques to use in their own practices, diversifying the artistic output of our entire community. - Open-Access Research: I will provide the Catawba Cultural Center with digital patterns created during my time at UNC and NMAI, ensuring that any tribal member can access these ancestral designs without needing to travel to a museum. This project contributes to Indigenous-led knowledge sharing by moving the “authority” of the archives back into the hands of the community. It shifts the role of me as a Native artist from “producer of objects” to “researcher and teacher,” ensuring that the knowledge I gain is not held by me alone, but is woven back into the fabric of the Catawba Nation for generations to come.

Post travel to Ocmulgee Mounds (Georgia) and Moundville (Alabama), I plan on hosting workshops within my community and surrounding communities about River Cane, its traditional uses, and the techniques I use while processing it. This will include opportunities for harvesting, shared discussions, shared meals, demonstration of freehand burning designs, story sharing, and community growth. As a result, I’m hoping to encourage others to connect with the land, find a plant they feel connected to and really get to know it. The plants have so much to teach us. I look forward to my growth as an artist so I can continue to share the Mvskoke culture through my designs, with all who are open to learning about it.

My mission is to keep the spirit in the pahu. That means keeping the connection to the ancients, to the woods and materials, and keeping the Hawaiian people in touch with the making of the pahu. That's an important relationship that you don't get when you buy one from far away, made in factories in places like Indonesia or the Philippines. That spirit of connection to place and ancestry will strengthen as we share our experience with the ancient pahu we see in the museums. My students will learn something new, because they don't know about these ancient, hidden artifacts. When we go to the archives I can take pictures, and I can bring that information to them: photos, descriptions, and memories from the archives that even their grandparents don't know. When I show pictures of the pahu carving workshops I taught over the years, it blows peoples’ mind, seeing how many community members made drums. This will be like that but more, because they can feel the presence of the older pahu and the knowledge of the ancestors. This is our time as an ʻohana to check it out, to go do research so we can share the knowledge and the relationship with the pahu. Over the next two years, I plan to teach pahu carving workshops through the Luce Fellowship in Kohala, Miloliʻi, Hilo, and Kona (all on Hawaiʻi island), plus on Kauaʻi and Molokaʻi. I will put together an album and presentation boards on the ancient pahu that I can share personally with groups in my workshops and at cultural festivals. I reach hundreds of people this way, and also by working in public at the beach parks and talking with people who stop to see what I’m doing. Not too many cultural practitioners work in public. The good thing about doing it is that Hawaiians, locals, and newcomers see Hawaiian work in action. This is my indigenous knowledge-sharing. I touch many people by introducing them to the culture in a friendly, down-to-earth style. The outcomes of all of this are more pahu, more traditionally based or inspired designs and techniques, more kumu hula using pahu they created or found the tree for or put an ancient or recent ʻohana design on. More hula, more chants, more history brought out in public by these kumu hula. More indigenous knowledge sharing through the sounds of Hawaiian drums connecting us to our ancestors and our future generations. Touching the ancient drums will touch the spirit of me, my ʻohana, and all the people we work with.

Support for the Hupa Language Immersion Nest, which is cultivating a new generation of Hupa language speakers.