Cultivating Indigenous Talent: North Dakota Council on the Arts Launches Fellowship Program

Empowering Local Creatives Through the Indigenous Artists Growth and Development Fellowship

Sacred Pipe Resource Center and the North Dakota Council on the Arts are nurturing Native creativity with the new Indigenous Artists Growth and Development Fellowship, welcoming five Native artists from around the state to its first cohort.

With a flurry of applications flooding in from across North Dakota, the selection process was no easy task. Cheryl Kary, the Executive Director of Sacred Pipe, said 22 artists applied to the 18-month-long fellowship. Rising to the top of the competition for the $5,000 fellowship were Maria Cree, Stewart James, Frankie Morin, Melanie Schwab and Bill Brien. The artist’s skills range from music, animation, and graphic design to traditional cultural practices. 

“I’m really excited about the fact that they’re very different,” said Kary. “It’s a diverse and unique group.”

Bill Brien, a construction worker turned digital cellphone artist and clothing designer, never anticipated making art into a career. But when his wife Geri was diagnosed with cancer, he began drawing and sketching. After Geri died, he continued creating art representing Native womanhood, inspired by her and other strong women he knew. Brien’s vibrant women’s clothing and prints pay homage to his Turtle Mountain Chippewa roots. He sells his work through his company, Bountiful Rei’s, online and at Indigenous events across the country. 

Brien found out about the fellowship after a friend of his emailed him a link to the application, encouraging him to sign up. Once Brien realized he was accepted into the program, his initial reaction was excitement. The funds from this fellowship will help Brien take that next step in his work –– first by improving his company’s website design and then upgrading his digital art space for when he sells his work at powwows.

Meanwhile Melanie Schwab, the founder of The Modern Sioux, is on a mission to preserve traditional practices through her photography and art. When Schwab first began learning beadwork and traditional tanning of hides, she said, “I found it very difficult to find out how to do these things living off the reservation.” 

During the artists’ first meeting on March 1, they shared stories of their personal and professional experiences. Schwab spoke of her lack of exposure to her Standing Rock Sioux Tribe culture growing up, and how she had to relearn that side of her lineage as an adult. Fortunately, she found a great aunt who was willing to teach her, though she was in poor health.

Worried about her great aunt passing away during their projects, Schwab decided that she needed to begin documenting their cultural practices. While Schwab enjoys creating privately in her home, she wants to create work in public so others can learn the process and she can foster a positive and inclusive learning environment. 

“That kind of just made me aware of how important it is to learn these traditions and not just hold them to myself,” Schwab said. 

For his part, Brien thrives in an environment where he can share ideas with other types of artists. “It’s always good to have a roundtable because we aren’t all good at the same stuff,” said Brien. “It was cool to have a different avenue of artists. And it was really good to hear from their perspectives.”

Schwab acknowledged that everyone from their cohort is starting in different places as artists. “I don’t know why but I was extremely nervous,” said Schwab. “I didn’t really know what to expect. But it went great.” 

During the second half of the meeting, the artists wrote down different resources to learn from in terms of financial planning, marketing and business startup information. “It was really exciting to see everyone else who is receiving it [the fellowship] and hearing what their goals are for their funds,” she added.

The meeting focused on clarifying the purpose of funds the artists are receiving and suggestions on how to use it. With guidance from the Sacred Pipe Art Council, they mapped out their plans for the coming months, eager to dive into their creative endeavors. In June 2025, the artists will present a capstone presentation that will be open to the public. 

“We want to showcase that growth and what a fellowship can do,” said Kary, “because the North Dakota Council on the Arts has a passion for helping artists.”

With the funds granted, Schwab wants to create time-lapses and tutorials so future generations can continue learning traditional American Indian practices, such as beadwork, porcupine quillwork and tanning hides. “My biggest goal in the world would be to get some sort of tiny house on wheels and go to Western North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, to show people how I work an entire hide from start to finish, then how I bead and quill on it,” Schwab said.

While the funds from the grant won’t get her as far as a tiny house on wheels, it’ll help her lay a foundation to reach her goal in the next five years. For now, this opportunity will allow her to record cultural practices with equipment she will buy with the grant money and begin to build a following online. 

Schwab’s first video will feature herself making a Sioux woman’s traditional dress. She’ll be fully beading the entire top half of the gown before putting together the underneath, which will be made out of hide from a deer she shot and harvested herself.

“I think it’s important for myself to make sure these traditions that I’m learning aren’t lost and that they are coming from our own people rather than the eyes of someone else,” Schwab said.

While this is the first year of the Indigenous Artists Growth and Development Fellowship, Sacred Pipe staff and members of the North Dakota Council on the Arts hope to continue providing this opportunity to more Indigenous artists in the future. 

“I’m looking forward to this cohort being able to pave the way for other artists to follow in terms of how they can develop professionally and how they can grow in their art forms as well,” Kary said. 

Sourcing & Methodology Statement:

Indigenous Artist Growth & Development Fellowship. North Dakota Council on the Arts. (n.d.). https://www.arts.nd.gov/grants/individual-artists/indigenous-artist-growth-development-fellowship 

Dateline:

BISMARCK, N.D.