Digging Into The Indian Arts And Crafts Act

Marianne Combs:

Welcome to Filling the Well, a podcast created to nourish, provoke, and inspire artists and arts leaders. I’m independent journalist, Marianne Combs.

Leah Lemm:

And I’m Leah Lemm, citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and a community story sharer. On Filling the Well, we’re talking to creatives living and working in rural areas, and Indigenous culture bearers. Our guests face challenges and celebrate the joys that come with making art outside of a big city and honoring cultural practices in the face of colonization and other historical and current threats. These artists focus on mental health, environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and community wellbeing, and much more. And today we are chatting about a significant policy that affects Native people and the arts world, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. Marianne, how much do you know about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act?

Marianne Combs:

Oh, no, pop quiz. Let’s just say my understanding is that, I don’t know that much, what I believe it was intended to do is to eliminate the practice of non-Native people and non-Indigenous people making money off of the sale of Indigenous and Indian arts and crafts. Is that about right?

Leah Lemm:

Yeah, I think it sums up to truth in advertising. So I’m wondering too, because you’ve covered the arts in Minnesota for decades now, have you ever come across this as an issue?

Marianne Combs:

That’s a really good question. I don’t think I’ve come across precisely this as an issue because I think this is like people who are selling dream catchers, but who are not themselves Native American or who are appropriating images and putting it on their clothing and selling it, even though they themselves do not have Native ancestry. I haven’t had that come up in my work, so I’m kind of embarrassed, but I’m also really curious to learn more.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah, that’s great. And I think that’s sort of the issue with this, it can be really insidious and done under the cover of night, like that is the issue because people are making money off of what looks to be Native art, whereas Native people aren’t getting that business or making money or having the same opportunities for funding that other people are taking, who don’t have that lived experience or that history.

Marianne Combs:

It just sounds like it’d be awfully hard to verify and track down and monitor all of that information to make sure that you’re working with the right person.

Leah Lemm:

And boy oh boy, our guests are ready to talk about that today, so buckle in.

Marianne Combs:

Will do.

Leah Lemm:

So we have two guests today. Christina Woods leads the vision of the Duluth Art Institute as its first Anishinaabe leader. She’s from the Bois Forte Nation and lives in Duluth. And Christina chairs the state of Minnesota’s Capital Arts Committee, she’s the president of the Duluth Public Arts Commission. And Christina is also on the US Senate Curatorial Advisory Board, so she knows what she’s talking about. Got to say.

Marianne Combs:

Wow.

Leah Lemm:

And our other guest, Graci Horne, is a multidisciplinary artist. She’s Lakota and Dakota, and was born and raised in Minnesota, and she holds a degree in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. And Graci is also the curator and story keeper at the Mnisota Native Artists Alliance, and they support Native artists all over the state, urban, rural, res, all of it.

Marianne Combs:

Wow, you have definitely two experts on hand.

Leah Lemm:

I agree. So as part of Graci’s introduction, here she is stating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

So the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale or sell any art or craft product in the manner that falsely suggests it is Indian-produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization resident within the United States. For a first-time violation of the act, an individual can face civil or criminal penalties up to $250,000 fine, or five year prison term, or both. If a business violates the act, it can face civil penalties or be prosecuted and fined up to $100 million.

Under the act, an Indian is defined as a member of any federally or officially state recognized tribe of the United States or an individual certified as an Indian artist by an Indian tribe. The law covers all Indian and Indian-style, traditional and contemporary arts and crafts produced after 1934. The act broadly applies to the marketing of arts and crafts by any person in the United States. Some traditional items frequently copied by non-Indian include Indian-style jewelry, pottery, baskets, carved stone fetishes, woven rugs, kachina dolls, and clothing. So in a nutshell that’s the policy.

Leah Lemm:

We’ll hear more from Graci Horne later in the podcast, but first, let’s hear from Christina Woods about how the Duluth Art Institute, as part of its decolonization efforts, actively implements the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. And in this first clip, she mentions the BIA. And the BIA is the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a United States federal agency that’s responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to Native Americans, among other things.

Christina Woods:

I’m Christina Woods. I am part of the Bois Forte Nation and Community. I live in Duluth and work out of Duluth. I am the executive director of the Duluth Art Institute. The way I prefer to support Native artists and the work they’re producing is to ensure that we are representing items that come from descendants or enrolled or BIA-certified individuals. We don’t often show artwork made by non-Native people that is representative of beating traditions or bark traditions or clothing traditions, even if it’s a painting. We are really particular about the narrative being from the true life experience of the Native person and not through the experience of a white person interpreting what they see.

When an artist submits a body of work for a solo show, group show, a juried exhibition, and it is on the topic of Native iconography or tradition, or maybe an item that’s traditional to the community they are hailing from, we do require the artist to have a certificate of blood quantum or proof of enrollment from their community. And this is to make sure that we are working with artists that have done the background work, especially when the art is representing traditional lifestyle. The work that is created by a person cannot be labeled as Native or from a certain community unless that individual is from that community or can prove descendancy even.

And there’s a pretty hefty fine that goes along with breaking or not following the protocols within the act. And so there are colleagues of mine throughout Minnesota that I know of, that work in larger institutions and smaller ones statewide, that have this protocol in place to ensure that the work that they’re showing is actually the lived experience of the Indigenous narrative.

I’m just going to use this weird metaphor. It’s like a double-edge sword. In some ways we need that protection as Indigenous people. We need to know that what we create through the lens of our culture is authenticated in some way, but the big question is how do you that? Because the other side of it is being taken advantage of and seeing what could be ceremonial designs put on high-brand sweatshirts and things that are out there in the mainstream market that is taking advantage of portions of our culture that belong to our communities.

Leah Lemm:

When art portrays cultural, tribal, community meaning, ensuring that it’s done authentically is a part of the process. And that includes, like Christina said, asking for proof of community affiliation.

Christina Woods:

What I found interesting is the first time I talked to artists in our region about this and requested this information, they were not surprised. They’re like, “Yeah, 100%, I got it. We have to send this in all the time.” We’ve not had an Indigenous artist feel offended by this. We recognize that descendancy is very important and we’ll work with an artist to achieve what they need for them to even feel comfortable that what they’re representing is their lived experience. So when we get into the descendancy conversation, there’s a lot of imposter syndrome that gets in the way, but it’s an important story to tell about why somebody can’t be enrolled because enrollment is very colonized. The certification by the BIA is very colonized. We utilize that as a means as we try to decolonize to really legitimize that this person is connected to culture and is able to tell that narrative.

Leah Lemm:

Christina sees the Indian Arts and Crafts Act in action regularly, and it has really solid, legitimate reasons, and at the same time, challenges.

Christina Woods:

What stands out for me about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act is that really, the way I understand it, it’s really about people who want to make anything they want and sell it as long as they don’t say it’s Indian made or from a particular community like the Anishinabe community or the Hopi community, then they can do it. That’s my understanding of the act. It’s really about truth in marketing, which is about labeling. It doesn’t restrict what an individual can create or so, just how they do it. And I think there’s some protection in there for Indigenous creators. There’s some, but it’s more so about marketing and how you advertise your work.

One of the things that we look out for inside of the Duluth Art Institute when artists submit art is if an artist creates a painting or submits a photograph of regalia, we don’t accept it because we need proof that that artist who designed that fashion, that regalia, is giving permission and that the particular pieces of the regalia can be photographed or represented in any other way than being worn at a ceremony or a powwow or whatever it is that they’re doing with the regalia. So we have turned away art based on that.

Leah Lemm:

Can you talk a bit more about the motivation for that line of thinking?

Christina Woods:

The makers of regalia are the artists, and I don’t know exactly what the law is or how it reads, but people are not allowed or they shouldn’t. There’s an ethic there of recreating another person’s artwork into their own artwork. And we know there’s copyright laws that if you change it a certain percentage, then it becomes your own, but in the art world, it is not acceptable on that ethics basis unless you have permission from the artist. So if you’re a visual artist and you’re doing an oil painting, and the oil painting is a representation, shows regalia, and it’s recognizable, we are going to question that.

We’re going to ask questions about, “Do you have permission? Even if it is just the backs of people, Do you have permission to use this regalia in your artwork?” And some people will say there’s street art law and if it’s on the street or a public event, you can recreate it any way you want. Or if it’s of somebody’s back, you can recreate that in your artwork. And we’ve just drawn a hard line with regalia or other traditional types of clothing and just said, “No, unless it’s created by that artist or the artist gives permission,” and I will be really-

Leah Lemm:

The regalia artist gives permission.

Christina Woods:

Yeah. I will be really honest. So far it’s been non-Indigenous people who have submitted photos or paintings of people in regalia and wanted that represented. And for me as an Anishinaabe, I don’t know if anything on that regalia is prohibited from being photographed, so I just can’t, because I don’t know if the design is something that shouldn’t be photographed. I don’t know if people are wearing things in their hair that are not meant to be in photographs or painted or represented in any other way. And as a traditional dancer, there’s pieces to my outfit that I’m told, “You don’t get this photographed. You need to wrap this in red cloth if somebody’s taking pictures.” I operate with some rules that I feel help protect the authenticity of Indigenous people and what they’re creating.

Leah Lemm:

Sometimes folks are Native but don’t necessarily have paperwork or I don’t know.

Christina Woods:

That that is our challenge. And so we work really closely with artists, well, I do, to really help them move through that journey in figuring out how to interact with their community or where they’re from or how to connect with family that they’ve maybe just found out that they have. I mean, adoption is a real thing. And there are many artists that know that they’re adopted and they have a tribal community, but it’s really difficult to figure it out. That’s our challenge. And so the answer isn’t no, the answer is sort of twofold. One side of it being, “Where are you at with your confidence in this?” And the second part being, “What can we do to help you find standing where you feel like you belong? How can we help you get there?”

Leah Lemm:

How does that work?

Christina Woods:

Well, I work with an artist who is in that scenario. I really try to help them reframe their focus on their lived experience and being really truthful about where they’re at. Maybe the story is they were adopted, but they know they come from a community and they’re trying to find their family, or maybe they just found out that it makes sense for them. This whole cultural thing is blood memory and it could make sense for someone, but they need to tell that story. There’s a whole spectrum of acceptance that we need to help each other understand, and it doesn’t have to be confirmed or unconfirmed.

There’s a whole spectrum, we’re all victims of removal and all of the genocide policies, and there’s a whole spectrum of lived experiences that we all need to accept and understand, which goes back to our traditional way of not judging people. I’m not going to judge you. I might ask some questions, I might be curious about some things, but I’m going to help you as much as I can. I may not be the help you need, but maybe by having a conversation about it, you can find the help that you’re looking for.

Leah Lemm:

It can get really complicated. I mean, it’s very clear. What’s clear about it is it can be complicated.

Marianne Combs:

What’s clear is it’s murky.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah. So at this point, Marianne, what are you thinking?

Marianne Combs:

Truly, the complexity is kind of overwhelming. And one of the things I’m always struck by is that all of this is happening because of our own colonizing legacy, colonizing, oppressing, and then now suddenly imitating and profiting off of financially? I mean, that that’s a lot.

Leah Lemm:

It is. It feels as though we are being pushed out of existence and romanticized by other cultures, kind of having our art and culture taken advantage of like, “They’re gone now, but here’s a representation of it.”

Marianne Combs:

“And you can pay me for it.”

Leah Lemm:

Right. When that is not true. Full stop.

Marianne Combs:

Yeah. For me it’s eye-opening sort of the mindless consumption and abuse of culture and identity.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I mean, colonizing is colonizing is colonizing. It’s just the same thing with culture.

Marianne Combs:

But at the same time, it introduces the idea of having to ask somebody, “Are you really Native?” I mean, that just feels like such an uncomfortable interaction to have to go through as a curator. I can just feel it being very awkward to actually go through with the due diligence to make this happen.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah. And remember, Christina Woods says that she personally hasn’t experienced an Indigenous artist feeling offended at being asked. And I know for myself too, I’ve had to verify my tribal affiliation. I verify it over and over and over again and it becomes commonplace. It also feels weird because other people don’t have to verify their cultural background or their race.

Marianne Combs:

And I know she says people are generally, they’re not uncomfortable, they’re happy to be asked. And like, “Hey, of course I am. Look at me, I’ve got papers.” But as you were saying, it’s still like asking for people’s papers is icky.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah, it’s funny. I feel proud to show my papers or my ID, but also to have somebody demand them also feels weird, so it’s a sticky point. Yeah.

Marianne Combs:

Well, and then there are those people who don’t have it verified because they aren’t a tribal member. What’s that like for them too, to be like, “I’m Native but I’m not Native enough”?

Leah Lemm:

Yep. So I had to ask, what would be a better Indian Arts and Crafts Act? If Christina could change anything, how would she improve the IACA?

Christina Woods:

I think the language is vague, it’s kind of vague, it’s hard to understand. A person could look at that act and bring it up and say, “I’m not sure if this is what it means, but I don’t know that you making this type of art is ethical.” It gives a platform to be at the table to talk about the ethics of being an Indigenous creator, an artist, and the authenticity of that work, so it’s slight. It definitely needs to be bolstered, it needs to not be just truth and advertising. What I hope is that more and more curators and gallery directors will find the ethical understanding of representing Indigenous artists and give them the same access to resources because there’s an inequality as well in what dominant-culture people will share with Indigenous artists.

I’m working with three right now who are like, “I can’t get any gallery to help me come up with a business plan, but they’ve helped white artists come up with a business plan.” I’m like, “We can do that.” And I sat down with artists and helped them come up with a business plan or set up an S corp or an LLC for their art business so that they have a business. So there’s inequality in that, and it’s hard to find people who are willing to share their resources at the same level with Indigenous people in general versus, well, we’ll just say dominant culture. Because you can be Indigenous and in the dominant culture, and that’s how you live your life, but it’s less likely that people are going to share information with you.

Leah Lemm:

Any final thoughts that you’d like to share about maybe a summary?

Christina Woods:

Yes, if somebody wants to get together and get paid by the BIA to redo this whole thing, I’m in. I also want to see Native people get paid for this kind of work to make these changes, to add their voice. I’d love to see some strong networking among all of us, Indigenous people, whether we’re enrolled or certified or descendants or not. There’s been kind of a strong movement or a group of people who are making lists of pretendians, and I just feel like that’s so destructive. It’s like, “Why don’t we band together and get to know each other and help clarify some of these things through a relationship and networking versus being white and practicing white supremacy culture, and being offended, and setting those really strict boundaries without designing some kind of opportunity to educate people?” I think it’s a missed opportunity. We all need to just network and support each other.

Leah Lemm:

You’re listening to Filling the Well. I’m Leah Lemm.

Marianne Combs:

And I’m Marianne Combs.

Leah Lemm:

We are chatting about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. That was Christina Woods, who leads the Duluth Art Institute. Amazing person, very knowledgeable. What do you think, Marianne?

Marianne Combs:

I’m so impressed by how thoughtful she is in her process in going about this work. And also just really thinking about the notion of ethics being so primary to the execution of good art that you actually really need to sit and think about, “Who am I impacting? Am I hurting anybody in the process of making this art? And is there somebody else who should be doing this instead of me? Am I the right person to be doing this art?”

Leah Lemm:

Exactly. And our next guest, Graci Horne, also reflects on all of those topics as well.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

Hello, my name is Graci Horne. My people are the Sisseton Wahpeton Nation based out of South Dakota and the Standing Rock Nation based out of North Dakota, as well as my great-grandmother who was Sioux Valley Dakota from Canada. And currently I reside in Southside, Minneapolis. I am a Dakota woman and mother, I am a multidisciplinary artist, I work within Minnesota for an organization called the Mnisota Native Artist Alliance. We have been in existence for a little over a year, but have been the dream child, so to speak, from the Native artist community here in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. And the whole, I guess, point for this dream was to come up with a way to connect artists rurally and who live on the reservation and also within the city and all throughout Minnesota, so my job is really the advocacy level. A component of it is the advocacy level and working with artists.

So pretty much whatever they say is a need, I respond to that need. And it’s been a crazy need, and it’s kind of a timeless need because the thing lately that we’ve been asked for assistance is appropriation and stopping appropriation, and this was a big ask from the Native arts community. And so initially we started our work with taking photographs for Native artists of their artwork, doing product shots and for their portfolios, and grants, and proposals. They’re the artist entrepreneur endeavors. And then it really just took a hard turn into helping non-Native organizations, galleries, institutions, being compliant with Indian Arts and Crafts Act, as well as educating Native lawyers about the Indian Arts and Crafts, and as well as, I guess, educating Native artists well and where their rights are. So that has been all within this year, so we’re growing at high top speeds right now.

Leah Lemm:

And this topic is very important to Graci. Here’s Graci talking about how this became a significant issue for her.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

When I was about 18 years old, my parents started this awareness for stopping cultural appropriation and exploitation of sacred sites. So this was like 2004-ish, and I was a youth that was attending these meetings with just Lakota, Dakota, Nakota tribal members that were talking about what was happening within the community as far as exploitation. And this was right after the sweat lodge incident in Arizona where many people died of heat exhaustion and was like the dead of summer, and they all passed away. And so this was kind of a response to that incident, but when that had happened, there was other things that were being reported for vulnerable women and children that were also being, I guess, perpetrated by Native and non-Native pretendian chiefs and medicine men.

And so when I was 18, that was kind of the foundations of my life, really. It was where I was kind of coming into my own individual purpose, and I started to really listen to elders that are gone now about their opinions and protecting women and children that are Native and non-Native, and I realized that for reconnecting Native people, this puts these people at risk for anything because they’re trying to reconnect and they’re trying to find somebody, and they don’t know who to really trust. It also affects non-Native women and children because they think that they’re getting this service of awareness and awakening, inner awakening, and instead it’s just more trauma for them. So I guess that’s kind of where it all really started for me. And then I started to do a lot more research on how appropriation looks and who were the people that were doing this and what type of income they were getting.

Leah Lemm:

So we know that there have been many instances of artists taking opportunities from Native artists extending into areas that they have little or no understanding and getting funds, and of course writing that narrative over people with the history and experiences who could better represent their own history and experiences.

Marianne Combs:

Yeah. And I have to say, first off, I had never heard the term pretendian until talking to you, Leah. I think you’re the first person to use it in a conversation with me. And since we’ve began talking about this episode and this concept, I have seen so many instances of it being reported in the news. It kind of blows my mind how frequently this happens.

Leah Lemm:

Yep. Arts, literature. Yeah.

Marianne Combs:

I’m really excited to hear more of what Graci has to say.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

The Native artists and Dakota artists that I grew up with were doing exactly the same thing, but from their own perspective, and getting zero attention and getting zero really appreciation for any of these institutes. So I’ve kind of just grown up with this in both cultural land exploitation, sacred sites, as well as the arts. And I guess instead of feeling horrible about it or thinking that nothing’s ever going to change, I feel like my work with the Mnisota Native Artist Alliance proves that wrong, that it’s just like it’s a collective effort and that we can do this collectively through just having people being compliant of our rights and understanding there is a difference between appropriation and appreciation.

Marianne Combs:

So who’s in charge of determining all of this and making sure that people are actually following the rules?

Leah Lemm:

That is exactly what I asked our guests as well. And there really isn’t official oversight, and it’s up to our communities, Native communities, to keep a lookout for these violations and report them.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

I think it’s really just been on the shoulders of the Native community to kind of advocate for each other and one another, but then there also is this pushback of somebody that has maybe come into the fold from their community. I feel it’s been on the Native community that’s been looking out for each other, but it’s also that we kind of make our own mistakes as well, where we kind of give passes to our friends and adopted family members that appropriate, and we don’t necessarily want to hold these people accountable. And I guess I feel like the other part of this is that when it does come to actually trying to stop somebody, we are doing it in the way of our colonizers, their judicial system. So their judicial system says that it’s on the victim to prove that there’s been a wrong.

And what I’ve noticed that this is really affecting the Native community where you got to say, “Where’s their family lineage? Let’s contact the tribe, let’s figure out their family tree, let’s figure out their enrollment status, let’s figure out…” Because the other part of our work with the Mnisota Native Artist Alliance is that we also try to help artists claim descendancy too, because we want them as well to feel comfortable and confident in their lineage because all tribes have their own constitution and all tribes have their own definitions of what blood quantum is. But I think the everyday Native Joe Shmoe will know this. A non-Native will not know any of this, they don’t know blood quantum, they don’t know BIA, they don’t know anything. So they get confused with blood quantum and get confused with fraud.

Leah Lemm:

All right, Marianne, I want to sit on this a bit, have a little discussion.

Marianne Combs:

Okay. Yeah.

Leah Lemm:

I know these are sort of those questionable areas that I think broader society may have a little less of an understanding with may grasp a little less. So Graci talks about blood quantum and how that’s not necessarily what we’re talking about when we’re talking about being Native. We’re talking about transparent, authentic representation of who’s Native, who’s a tribal citizen, who’s a descendant, and how a tribe chooses their citizenry.

Marianne Combs:

So if I get this right, the idea is that I can practice my art and not violate the IACA if I am either a member of a tribal nation or a descendant of a tribal nation. And they have deemed that I am a descendant of a tribal nation, so it’s not that I’m claiming them, I’ve looked up my ancestry and I say, “Oh, I’ve got 1% over here, therefore I’m saying I’m a Native artist. It’s that they have claimed me as a Native Indigenous artist and therefore I can practice this work.”

Leah Lemm:

Yes. But if you say you’re Native and are portraying Native art, then that’s where we get into the area of needing to show citizenry, enrollment, or descendancy.

Marianne Combs:

I can see how that would be really complicated for people to understand. They’re like, “Why is my nationality tied to my making of art? Why isn’t it about the history of my family and who I come from that determines my art?” But it sounds like politically it’s important for these nations to have the final say over who is and who is not a member of their nation or a descendant.

Leah Lemm:

Right. Tribal sovereignty is one of those things that we hold near and dear and is important to tribes to have, to have that self-determination, to have that nation-to-nation relationship with the United States, per the United States Constitution.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

So it’s on the Native people that are trying to say, “Hey, this person is not enrolled, this person is appropriating.” People start to feel like, “Oh, well, my identity’s coming into play and I can’t get enrolled because I don’t have enough blood quantum,” when that’s not even the issue. The issue is fraud. It’s that this person exploited something that they had no rights to exploit, and they pretended to be something that they’re not. And they outright lied, and it was on that community to prove them wrong. But to a non-Native, they’re saying, “Oh, well, they just didn’t have enough blood, or this blood quantum, what is this? That’s so horrible.” So that’s the hard thing is it’s really on Native people who are on fixed incomes, or a little to no incomes, to prove something that they’ve been wronged.

Leah Lemm:

And a part of that gray area, a part of that nuance is that blood quantum isn’t always a way that a tribe determines citizenship.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

I am half my mom and half my dad, and so I’m half Sisseton Wahpeton and half Standing Rock. So that means I’m just a quarter Sisseton. And as it is right now with my tribe, I think the cutoff is a quarter. And after that, it’s like descendants. And then what we’ve realized in researching all of this is that every tribe has their own laws about blood quantum and enrollment, and it’s all different. There are some that are, like the Cherokee Nation, where because of the Dawes Rolls and the Dawes Act, they have a descendancy if you can tie your lineage to that, and you’re an enrolled member forever in perpetuity. With other tribes, there’s a definite cutoff in trying to work with Native artists to make sure that they’re recognized as a descendant. We’ve found that it’s really kind of having communication with that tribe, and I’ve seen more successes with that than no, this is not possible.

I haven’t really come across a scenario where the tribe won’t recognize somebody because they’re not enough. I know some tribes, well, their cutoff is like first and second generation descendants. So before this work, I had no idea what that even meant, first and second generation descendants, and the cutoff was second generation descendants. I didn’t understand it because it’s like a gray area for me. Go figure. My aunt is my tribe’s enrollment officer, so I’m like, “I didn’t know about that.”

Leah Lemm:

There’s this spectrum of cultural and tribal connection on purpose or not.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

I’ve seen a lot of our youth not know what tribe they come from, and I will make a mural with them or do a project with them, and then I’ll ask them like, “Well, what’s your tribe? Where are you from?” And a lot of them, I would say 90% of them would say, “I don’t know.” And then I would say, well, their parents are probably my age. So I’d say, “What does your mom say? What does your grandma say? What does your grandpa say?” And they’d say they don’t know either. And I guess for me, my heart hurts because I come from a background where my mother really put in a lot of effort to connect us to our Native identity.

I think the good thing about being in a grad program right now, where we look back historically in understanding what makes Native art has helped me to be super critical of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. And so critically, being a Native artist myself and looking at the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, the first part of the Indian Arts and Craft Act says it is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian art. To me, as a Native artist, that reads, we are collectors, private collectors collecting Native American art, and we need to have paperwork on the art that we are collecting. That’s what it reads to me. I don’t necessarily see the Indian Arts and Crafts act as being the savior in any sense at all. It’s just for collectors.

And I guess I would say that’s my right to look at it. I feel like Native art is whatever the Native artist is creating. All of these laws would look completely different had it been written by a Native person. And I feel like within the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, somebody can literally still profit and make money off of making Native art and will not be Native and will be blatantly not Native and not claim it, and still can get away with it legally.

Leah Lemm:

So there are these situations in which one can create art and have it hint at being Native, and still get away with making it because they’re not saying that they are Native.

Marianne Combs:

Can you give me an example?

Leah Lemm:

Yeah. So like dream catchers, these sort of major mass-produced items that are sold all over the place. I mean, very much cultural items that are kind of just overlooked now as an acceptable form of cultural appropriation. And this affects the Native art economy because Native art artists are up against these mass-produced items or these well-backed produced items. So it’s hard to break into that industry or really be able to sell at cost even.

Marianne Combs:

So wait, so dream catchers are… I thought that was the whole point of the IACA, was to stop people who are not Indigenous from making things like dream catchers.

Leah Lemm:

That’s true, but what are you going to do? Who’s holding them accountable? So there are dream catchers being sold at tourist shops all over the place, and they’re not necessarily Native people sitting there making them in a culturally appropriate way by hand, putting good thoughts into the work, but they’re being mass produced.

Marianne Combs:

And the Native person who is making dream catchers, she on her own or he on his own, cannot go about chasing down, finding out who are these people. They don’t have the resources to go after the competition, which is being made for less, is not authentic, and is dominating the ecosystem, the market.

Leah Lemm:

Yep.

Marianne Combs:

Wow.

Leah Lemm:

Yeah, and this dream catcher example is a really common one, and we touched on it, we got to the basics of it, but there’s so many examples out there of similar appropriation for financial gain.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

I think that’s the larger thing that needs to be looked at, is how it affects these families that have little to no income. I think it’s a common thing with Native people where you have somebody in your life that’s saying like, “I need to make a car payment, so I’m making these earrings, or I’m beating a medicine pouch.” And I remember the first time I ever heard that was maybe when I was 19, and my mom’s friend had just bought a Durango and she was sitting there just beating all these earrings, and I was asking her, I’m like, “What are you doing?” And she’s like, “I need to make a car payment.” And I was like, “Dang, okay.” But I guess at the time, I wasn’t just like that sad. I was like, “Yeah, you got a brand-new Durango going and you’re just making earrings to make that car payment.”

Leah Lemm:

Exactly.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

I was kind of like, “Teach me your hustle. Let me know how I can make some car payments.” So yeah, I feel like that’s the victims in this, that’s who you take away from, and we already don’t have much.

Leah Lemm:

So I’d like to take a moment and mention, you know and I know that non-Native people don’t have to appropriate Native art. There is a unique story behind every artist, a unique history that informs them and inform their work and how can they celebrate their own history, their own culture, background and experiences instead of appropriating somebody else’s? Because I think artists from other cultures are fascinating. Or even what would suburban art look like? I grew up in Anoka. Like suburban art, what would that look like if they were authentically representing themselves instead of trying to appropriate another culture’s art? I just think it’s so cool to celebrate who we are, that you don’t need to pretend you’re something else.

Marianne Combs:

It does make you ask the question, what is going through this person’s mind when they’re deciding, “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to sell these because they’re going to make a lot of money on the market, even though I have no personal connection to this. I just think it’s cool.” It just feels like there is not much thoughtfulness going on there. I wonder how aware they are when they do it. Is this an intentional like, “I’m going to take advantage of the market because I can, or is it just like I’m just obsessed with Indigenous culture I find it fascinating, and so I’m going to practice it and sell it for money”?

Leah Lemm:

Yeah. “Hey, it’s trendy right now. Let me just jump on that trendy train.” It’s hard to believe, but here we are, and Graci Horne speaks to this.

Hapistinna Graci Horne:

People have different backgrounds from all over the world, and it has equally beautiful artwork that they could be representing fully and truthfully. And I think about, “Well, they have economies too. Mexico has economy, Canada has an economy, so does the US.” And the Native people here, when you are coming into our economy, it’s like taking it away from the people that are from here. I feel like not many people look at that and how this really can cause harm to these families. And I’m a part of that, those families too. I’m a part of it myself. My art is based off of my identity and my connection to my community.

And when somebody comes in to Minnesota and says that they are from a Dakota background and they exploit it, I take it personally because then I think of my grandmother, who was a boarding school survivor, whose mother died giving birth to her, who was kind of just tossed around between family members to be raised, and was very much Christianized and didn’t have any connection to our way of life, and passed away not having any connection to our way of life. I guess I feel like that takes away from me. I have this important thing to say about that, how it feels to be reconnecting, how it feels to be unseen and underrepresented in your own home or your home lands.

And when somebody else is using that, or even worse, if they’re picked over me, that to me is crushing. It crushes you in a way. And you think that it doesn’t, but it does, because then you’re still being told like, “You’re not enough.” Where this other person can very well pretend that they’re the best.

Leah Lemm:

So Chi-Miigwetch to Graci Horne and Christina Woods, I think this is a really important conversation. Again, we are talking about it in a way that it’s like the tip of the iceberg and it’s a very in-depth conversation. I don’t want to pretend like we hit every single point today.

Marianne Combs:

Oh gosh, no.

Leah Lemm:

But I think this is a great introduction and hopefully pretty helpful.

Marianne Combs:

Yeah, I find it fascinating. And I’m just curious because you went out and you did all these interviews and as somebody who is aware of it, what did you learn in the course of talking to these folks? Were there any surprises for you or revelations for you?

Leah Lemm:

What I found really interesting when listening back to Christina Woods and Graci Horne, and thinking about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, I started to think about who was this act written for? Was it written for Native people or was it written for galleries, for art vendors? I zoomed out in a sense to try to see if it was serving Native people or if it was serving those buying and selling Native art.

Marianne Combs:

And what did you come to with [inaudible 00:52:13]?

Leah Lemm:

I wonder how many Native people were actually involved in creating the act. There are holes in it that I feel like we can get together. Like Christina says, we can get together and create something better with Native input, Native artist input, curator input, to create something more robust and nuanced for our communities to get behind.

Marianne Combs:

Something to work on.

Leah Lemm:

It’s something to work on. It really is. And I’d hate for something written 30-plus years ago to be set in stone forever, so how can we take what we know decades later and apply it to a new act?

Marianne Combs:

Beautiful.

Leah Lemm:

How about you, Marianne?

Marianne Combs:

I have a newfound appreciation for the effort it takes to go about making, presenting, and selling Native American art in a way that is ethical, transparent, and fair to everyone involved. I had no idea how much work is behind this in terms of doing it right. Thank you so much, Leah, for taking the time to sit down with Graci and Christina and to just sort of lay this all out for us. It’s a complex topic, but you’ve done it in a really beautiful way, and I feel like I know a lot more now than I did before.

Leah Lemm:

Yay. Excellent. Thanks, Marianne.

Marianne Combs:

You’ve been listening to Filling The Well. I’m Marianne Combs.

Leah Lemm:

And I’m Leah Lemm. Tune in next time when we talk about using art to create a sense of belonging in rural communities.

Marianne Combs:

This podcast was produced and edited by Emily Goldberg and mixed by Eric and Amanda Romani, with original music by Dameun Strange.

Leah Lemm:

Filling The Well is a podcast of Arts Midwest, amplifying the power of Midwestern creativity. Find out more at artsmidwest.org.