At Native Arts & Cultures Foundation (NACF), we look at the new year as time to reflect on all that we have accomplished the past year on behalf of Native artists and communities, and focus on giving thanks to all of those who have made our work possible. With advocates and supporters like you, we have been able to support over 340 Native artists and organizations in 33 states over the past ten years, bringing together Native and non-Native communities to promote positive and meaningful transformation and change. We believe in the power, beauty, and resilience of Native arts and cultures. We invite you to read some of our favorite stories that highlight how NACF works to uplift the creativity of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Stay tuned for our annual report for more detailed information about last year’s programming.

NOT FRAGILE: GLASS FORGED BY TRADITION
2018 NACF National Artist Fellow RYAN! Feddersen [Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Okanogan / Arrow Lakes)] is a mixed-media installation artist specializing in interactive and immersive artworks that invite audience engagement. Feddersen creates large-scale interactive installations, and also supports the Indigenous arts movement through her curation work. She recently curated an exhibition at the Portland Art Museum (PAM) in the Center for Contemporary Native Arts (CCNA) featuring artists from across the Pacific Northwest…

NACF BOARD MEMBER ADRIAN WALL SHARES ABOUT IAIA RESIDENCY
On a cold October day in 2016, I made a trip to Chaco Canyon. I hadn’t been to Chaco in more than ten years and I was surprised by how much the landscape surrounding Chaco had changed. The trip marked the culmination of a weeklong artist residency. The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico had acquired a grant to bring together ten Pueblo and Navajo Artists to participate in the residency. We had spent the previous week deep in the collections of the Maxwell Museum and the National Parks Service Chaco Cultural Museum Collections, looking at some of the most incredible material from Chaco…

OJIBWE ARTIST JIM DENOMIE BRINGS NATIVE AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE TO INTERNATIONAL EVENT
In June of 2018, NACF was approached by the Brazilian organization Associação Cultural Videobrasil, which every two years since 1983 has organized a contemporary art festival in the city of São Paulo featuring artists from the global South. Videobrasil was broadening their geographic scope for their 21st iteration and wanted to include indigenous artists from the U.S and other countries. We helped spread the word about their open call and earlier this year when they announced the selected artists we were delighted to see the name of our 2018 National Artist Fellow Jim Denomie…