5 Plain Questions

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. L...

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 (...

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 struc...

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 Creati...

Migizi Pensoneau is a citizen of the Ponca and Red Lake Nations. He was born and raised in Minnesota and attended school at Wesleyan University and received his MFA in Screenwriting at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe NM. Migizi is screenwriter, actor, writer, and producer for film and television, with work for Barkskins, Rutherford Falls, and Reservation Dogs and a founding membe...

Taietsarón:sere ‘Tai’ Leclaire is a Native American actor, comedian, writer. His short film HEADDRESS that he wrote, directed, and starred in premiered at the 2023 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. He was a Story Editor and actor on the NBC comedy series RUTHERFORD FALLS by Mike Schur, Ed Helms, and Sierra Teller-Ornelas. Tai has been selected as a member of the 2022 Sundance Native Lab and was recently awa...

Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Wendy Red Star’s work is informed both by her cultural heritage and her engagement with many forms of creative expression, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance. An avid researcher of archives and historical narratives, Red Star seeks to incorporate and recast her research, offering new and unexpected perspectiv...

Hunter C. Old Elk (Crow & Yakama) is the Assistant Curator for the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wy. Through curation, exhibition development, and teaching, she elevates Indigenous voices in museums and academia. A graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in Cultural Heritage Management, Old Elk holds a BA in history from Mount St. Mary's University i...

Richard West, Jr. is a founding director and Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. Richard West is a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and a Peace Chief of the Southern Cheyenne. He is also a 2021 inductee in the National Native American Hall of Fame. Prior to his time as the Director of the NMAI and the Autry Museum of the American Wes...

Tom Jones is an artist, curator, writer, and educator, where he is the professor of photography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois.   Jones’ artwork is a commentary on identi...

We are on a summer break until June 7th with Tome Jones II and back full time on July 5th with all new episodes to ride us through Season 4. And stay tuned, as HUGE episodes are coming.

Actor, director, & producer Román Zaragoza currently stars in CBS’ award nominated comedy series “Ghosts.” Zaragoza instantly became a fan favorite as Sasappis, a blunt troublemaker who tries to fill eternity by having a little fun & creating some drama. The series debuted on CBS in October 2021 to critical acclaim, with media calling it “charming” (Paste Magazine), stating that a “CBS com...

Orlando Dugi is a Dine fashion designer based out of Santa Fe New Mexico. Self taught and incredibly driven   ORLANDO DUGI is a made-to-order fashion brand located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and lead by designer, Orlando Dugi himself. Dugi’s designs are elegant, timeless, and intricate, often involving many hours of hand-embroidery and embellishing.   Dugi’s been exhibited at the Denver Art...

Gerald Cournoyer: Sending A Voice through September 30th, 2023 https://plainsart.org/exhibitions/gerald-cournoyer/ Northern Plains Summer Art Institute 2023 applications due May 1st 2023 https://plainsart.org/northern-plains-summer-art-institute-2023/ Indigenous Art Fair Saturday, May 13th, 2023

After moving from Mexico City to the United States, Xavier Tavera learned what it felt like to be part of a subculture- the immigrant community. Subjected to alienation has transformed the focus of his photographs to share the lives of those who are marginalized. Images have offered insight into the diversity of numerous communities and given a voice to those who are often invisible. Tavera has sh...

Erin Shaw is a painter of borderlands, the spaces between worlds. As a visual storyteller, the child of an Oklahoma farm, Shaw tills the rich soil of dichotomy through her masterful uses of color, iconography, and story. As a Chickasaw-Choctaw artist, she creates in a state of tension, suspended between two worlds where both solemnity and humor pervade her art. She finds that truths are revea...

Born in Oklahoma, Anita Fields is a contemporary Native American multi-disciplinary artist of Osage heritage. She is known for her works which combine clay and textile with Osage knowledge systems. Fields explores the intricacies of cultural influences at the intersections of balance and chaos found within our existence, explaining that “The power of transformation is realized by creating various...

Princess Daazhraii Johnson (Neet'saii Gwich'in) is a writer/director/producer/actor living on the traditional territory of lower Tanana Dene lands in Alaska. She is humbled to build upon the work of so many other Indigenous creatives that have helped break trail for authentic representation in media. She is a Sundance Film Alum, a Nia Tero Storytelling Fellow, and Emmy-nominated wri...

Kalyn Fay Barnoski (b. 1990, Cherokee Nation enrollee, Muscogee Creek descent) is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, curator, and educator from Oklahoma. Centering Indigenous and decolonial methodologies, their work focuses on self-location, community-building, collaboration, and empathy through the use of music, publication, storytelling, and contemporary craft.  In every endeavor, they...

Diana is the Executive Director of the National Indian Education Association out of Washington DC. Through her passion and enthusiasm for supporting Native students, Diana has been a key driver in expanding NIEA's work beyond the halls of the U.S. Capitol to communities across Indian Country. She has helped shaped broader teacher hiring initiatives, created more opportunities for visits to tribal...

Jonathan Thunder (b. 1977) Thunder infuses his personal lens with real-time world experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his surreal paintings, digitally animated films and installations in which he addresses subject matter of personal experience and social commentary. Jonathan is an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, and makes his home and studio in Duluth, MN. He...

Chef Candace was born in Minnesota and lived on the white earth reservation until she moved out east with her mother in 2005. Finishing her culinary education at the Culinary Institute of America she has worked her way down the east coast and is now home in Fargo ND. She move back to the Midwest to be close to family and her culture. Candace moved home to share her passion for food and agriculture...

(From the Stephen Friedman Gallery) Jeffrey Gibson’s work fuses his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage and experience of living in Europe, Asia and the US with references that span club culture, queer theory, fashion, politics, literature and art history. The artist’s multi-faceted practice incorporates painting, performance, sculpture, textiles and video, characterised by vibrant colour and pattern. Gibso...

Minneapolis-based artist, Maria Cristina (Tina) Tavera investigates the constructions of racial, ethnic, gender, national and cultural identity via numerous mediums including printmaking, installation, and public art. Tavera is a dual citizen with Mexico and the United States. Her artwork focuses on the Latinidad within the United States by examining cultural signifiers determined by our...

Kevin Pourier is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has been carving Buffalo horn on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota for about 20 years. Pourier is one of the only artists in the country working in the medium of incised buffalo horn. The works he produces carry forward Lakota artistic practices for creating spoons, vessels and other every day items of sublime beauty from the hor...