Collective Spirit Podcast

S2E13: Adam Avery (Ojibwe)

• First Peoples Fund • Season 2 • Episode 13

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Embark on an auditory journey through the vibrant heart of indigenous art as 2023 Cultural Capital Fellow and Ojibwe artist Adam Avery shares his profound connection with ancestral craftsmanship. From the delicate intricacies of beadwork to the sturdy elegance of birch bark canoes, Adam unveils the rich heritage woven into each creation, illuminating the significance of these traditions within his community. He passionately recounts the evolution of his skills, initially honed to craft his own regalia, and now, as a beacon of generational knowledge, he alongside his wife, teaches these skills to ensure their survival. The resilience required to master these crafts, the challenges faced in seeking mentors, and the deep-seated desire to sustain cultural practices form the crux of our discussion.

Speaker 1:

I think there's a big reason why now teaching here to become so important to my wife and I, because it doesn't do anybody any good to keep these skills to yourself, and the whole purpose of knowledge is to share it. And if we want to keep all of these things alive and going, you have to teach as many people as possible.

Speaker 2:

First People's Fund presents the Collective Spirit Podcast. The Collective Spirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity. The Collective Spirit Podcast features Native artists and culture bearers who discuss the power of indigenous art and culture.

Speaker 1:

Bonjour, nauakwa'i'i'zik indigenous cars. I'm Isiké Endodom, mount Pleasant in Dondjibah. My name is Adam Avery. My Ojibwe name, nauakwa'i'i'zik, means Noonday Sun. I am a descendant of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe and I live on the Isabella Indian Reservation in Mount Pleasant, michigan.

Speaker 1:

My primary artistic medium is beads, although I also make black ash baskets, I make birch bark canoes, I do porcupine quill work and a lot of other things, but beadwork is the thing that cones me, gives me my center, so that's my favorite thing to do. I was raised making black ash baskets with my grandparents and my family. Like when we were young, growing up, that's how we supported ourselves. We also had a family dance group that traveled around. We traveled all over the United States and Canada and performed at various events schools, museums, town festivals, as well as dancing at powwows and ceremonies and different things. But at a young age I got into the regalia side of it and wanted to be able to make my own regalia. So I started at first teaching myself how to do beadwork and then, once my grandmother saw that I had an aptitude for it, then she started teaching me little things and then throughout the years I've mentored with natural fiber artists. Renee Dillard was on, also mentored under Ron Pawkin. Through with him I learned to make porcupine coil boxes, birch bark containers and also birch bark canoes and I've been making canoes with him for the past 12 years. And so it started basically out of necessity for me, because I wanted to have nice regalia. But once I started doing it then other family members were like could you help me, could you do this for me? And it just kept growing. And then other people in the community started to ask me and it's just kept growing.

Speaker 1:

I started off just basically by myself trying to figure things out, but my family because we were raised making black ash baskets. We also did a lot of other things, like my grandfather car totem poles, we made drums, hickory bark rattles and the list just goes on and on. But you acquire the skills to do those things and then you want to do something else and then you realize a lot of those skills are transferable. And then even my neighbor taught me how to knit crochet, how to do needle point and a lot of those things helped me with my beadwork. Figure out how to get my beadwork flat and to make it so that it would last for a long period of time If I'm going to do it, I want the pieces to last, and a lot of them like.

Speaker 1:

I've got pieces that are almost 30 years old, that have been passed through my family and have maybe been worn by seven or eight different people throughout their lifetimes dancing, and they still look like they did when I made them, when they're still being used by family members. And all the different mentors I've had throughout my life have given me those skills, native and non-native, because my neighbor lady was a native. My grandfather, all my aunts and uncles wasan Ron Paakhan those are just a few. I also learned to do quill wrapping from a Lakota lady named Janita, so all of those people have helped me on my journey and given me the knowledge that I need to be able to do what I would like to do Now. Alisa and I have, over the last five or six years, we've dedicated ourselves to starting to teach these skills to other people so that we can help people in the community, and we've even started working with three other communities in Michigan to try to keep these skills going and, instead of it just being one or two people that do it, spread that out so that every community has their own group of people that are doing these things. I'm inspired by my family, but my family is really like the community and I just I want to be able to leave something behind and I want people to remember me for what I did. If Lisa and I go to a powwow now here almost any powwow in Michigan I can usually pick out at least 30 or 40 people who are wearing something that I've made or Lisa's made or both of us together, and that's an awesome feeling and that's how I want my kids to remember me and I'm hoping my kids will come back to this. They've dabbled in things and some of the skills, but they've stepped away from it to go to college and to earn degrees. But I'm hoping at some point in their life they'll come back to this stuff and then they'll keep it going too.

Speaker 1:

When I was younger, one of the big challenges were one, finding somebody that knew how to do the things that I was looking to learn, and then two, them also being willing to teach, and when I was especially when I was younger there were a lot of people who maybe had these skills but they kept them close to the chest or they didn't want to share, and so some of these things I started figuring out on my own and just sitting down with the materials and saying, okay, how do I get from here to where I want to go? And I tried several different techniques, failed at a lot of my first things, but kept trying. When I started figuring out, then some of these people who maybe didn't open up to me before started to open up and discuss like how I was doing it and maybe give me a tip on how they do it, and then my base of knowledge started to expand. But I think there's a big reason why now teaching has become so important to my wife and I because it doesn't do anybody any good to keep these skills to yourself and the whole purpose of knowledge is to share it. And if we want to keep all of these things alive and going, you have to teach as many people as possible.

Speaker 1:

The way First People's Fund came on my radar was really Ron Pawkamp, and in the past 12 years that I've been working with him, him and his wife have been mentoring us as far as the things we're making, but also other things that we can do to help subsidize and grow what we're doing so that we can do it on a larger scale, and they were the first ones to talk to us about First People's Fund and when they first mentioned it to Lisa and I, we weren't even sure if it was something we wanted to do or even felt like we deserved. So we thought about it for it was probably like at least a couple of years before we actually, you know, decided that we were going to try to apply and we applied for it and we were accepted. And since that has happened like this past year has been crazy. I came home from the convening and it's just been go. We've done two community birch bark canoe builds Ron and I and we have two more canoe builds scheduled and then those things are on top of all the beadwork and all the regalia pieces that I produce. I'm going to buy an enclosed trailer so that we can keep all that stuff separate and if I won't have to pack, unpack, move things around, restack, so it'll just make things easier on both of us.

Speaker 1:

I also purchased go pros so that we can start recording these canoe builds and then my plan is to take the footage from that and work with somebody who was raised speaking Ojibwe and have them do all of the videos in Ojibwe and then have them subtitled in English so that they could be used for educational tools and schools or museums different things If people come to me with questions about making regalia, anything if I can help them, I try my best to help them and I hope that's what I'm remembered for is passing that information on teaching as many people as I could teach and being a good mentor. I guess that's what I would want my legacy to be. I've made a personal goal recently to produce at least one bandolier bag a year. I started doing that during the pandemic and right now I'm on bandolier bag number five. So my goal I would like to have at least 50 or more of these floating around. That's a personal goal for me.

Speaker 2:

The Collective Spirit podcast is produced by First Peoples Fund, whose mission is to honor and support Indigenous artists and culture bearers through grant making initiatives, culturally rooted programming, and training and mentorship. Learn more at FirstPeoplesFundorg.