This is the beginning of a series around the U.S. Residential Schools which I hope to bring awareness to the public addressing this issue through art. Indigenous children were forced to go to these schools, "to kill the Indian, save the man." These schools ran from 1860 up until the last one closed in 1978. Children were forced to abandon their language, beliefs, heritage and culture. their hair was chopped, their traditional clothing burned. It was a place where many endured physical, sexual and mental abuse And it wasn't that long ago.

---

• This is the beginning of a series around the U.S. Residential Schools which I hope to bring awareness to the public addressing this issue through art. Indigenous children were forced to go to these schools, "to kill the Indian, save the man." These schools ran from 1860 up until the last one closed in 1978. Children were forced to abandon their language, beliefs, heritage and culture. their hair was chopped, their traditional clothing burned. It was a place where many endured physical, sexual and mental abuse And it wasn't that long ago. 

• Lozen 
• (c. 1840-June17-1889) a warrior and prophet of the Chihenne Chiricahua Apache

• Block print on silkscreen background
  The text is a silkscreened collage made up from Here's Audacity, written by Frank Shay and illustrated by my grandfather, Eben Given. This book is a series of tales about inspiring and amazing men who lived audaciously. I chose this as my background to represent the stories that are told again and again that have become the background of our society and history. This project is to bring to the forefront the images of remarkable indigenous women whose stories are seldom told but who should be celebrated and stiudied. 
  The blue, cut out section represents two things:
  1. the holes in our history. Whose stories get told and whose do not
  ​2. It represents a space to let the energy and spirit flow freely through






• ​

L

Lozen

​​

Zitkala-Sa
 (1876-1938)
Sioux Yankton Indian Reservation
Dakota Territory

Writer, Musician, Activist, Teacher, Editor, 
Founder and council’s  president the National Council of American Indians​

Co-composed the 1st American Indian Opera 

• Block print on silkscreen background
  The text is a silkscreened collage made up from Here's Audacity, written by Frank Shay and illustrated by my grandfather, Eben Given. This book is a series of tales about inspiring and amazing men who lived audaciously. I chose this as my background to represent the stories that are told again and again that have become the background of our society and history. This project is to bring to the forefront the images of remarkable indigenous women whose stories are seldom told but who should be celebrated and stiudied. 
  The blue, cut out section represents two things:
  1. the holes in our history. Whose stories get told and whose do not
  ​2. It represents a space to let the energy and spirit flow freely through

Buffalo Calf Road Woman
Cheyenne
(1844-1879)
Warrior, Saved wounded brother warrior, Fought alongside husband in the Battle of Little Bighorn, Struck Custer from his horse before he died

• Susan La Flesche Picotte 
  (June17, 1865-September 18, 1915
  Omaha Tribe
  ​One of the 1st Indigenous people to earn a medical degree. Campaigned for public health.

​

• Block print on silkscreen background
  The text is a silkscreened collage made up from Here's Audacity, written by Frank Shay and illustrated by my grandfather, Eben Given. This book is a series of tales about inspiring and amazing men who lived audaciously. I chose this as my background to represent the stories that are told again and again that have become the background of our society and history. This project is to bring to the forefront the images of remarkable indigenous women whose stories are seldom told but who should be celebrated and stiudied. 
  The blue, cut out section represents two things:
  1. the holes in our history. Whose stories get told and whose do not
  ​2. It represents a space to let the energy and spirit flow freely through

 

​

---

Hattie Tom 
Chiricahua Apache
Her Portrait was a commission.
Her story is a sad one. She was photographed c. 1898 for the U.S. Indian Congress of the Trans-Mississippi and Internationale Exposition . She was 13yrs old and later placed in a residential school where she died. 
I have included her with this series, because she represents the holes in our history, stories left out. 

Black, Indigenous, Women of Color
A quilt to remember those who lost their lives too soon. A celebration of role models and change makers. 

​

Mourning Figures
stoneware
They mourn the children who died in Residential Schools.
The names of hundreds of children who died in these schools are inscribed on the cloaks.