S2E15: Lisa Kennedy (Saginaw Chippewa)

2023 Artist in Business Leadership fellow Lisa Kennedy (Saginaw Chippewa) is a beacon of indigenous art. Join us as Lisa takes us through her vibrant tapestry of life – from humble beginnings to crafting a legacy. She and her partner, Adam Avery, illuminate the rich cultural heritage by intertwining traditional art forms like beadwork and black ash basket weaving with contemporary narratives. Lisa's academic prowess in public administration also comes into play, showcasing how one can serve one's community by marrying cultural teachings with modern strategies. Her candid account of overcoming self-doubt to embrace her role as a knowledge keeper is a striking reminder of the resilience woven into the fabric of indigenous stories.

Chapters

• 0:03 Indigenous Art and Culture
• 7:02 Business and Art in Tribal Communities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

It's a beautiful way to live. I not only get to be creative and make something with my hands, but I get to do it with somebody that I love, and we get to do it collectively with people not only in our community but throughout other tribal communities, throughout Indian Country.

Speaker 2: 0:29

The CollectivSpirit Podcast presents the CollectivSpirit Podcast. The CollectivSpirit moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity. The CollectivSpirit Podcast features Native artists and culture bearers who discuss the power of Indigenous art and culture.

Speaker 1: 0:55

My name is Lisa Kennedy. I am affiliated with the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe in Michigan. I reside in Central Michigan within the contemporary boundaries of my tribe. My artistic medium is quite diverse. I'm known for my beadwork, our woodland style seed bead art. I display this in a variety of different ways. Primarily, right now, what I'm known for is making moccasins, specifically poker toe moccasins, split toe moccasins. But I also do other things. So I come from a long line of black ash basket makers and I have reclaimed that art. So I weave baskets and I was actually able to do that with the help of my partner, adam, who also comes from black ash basket makers. He helped me reclaim that art that was lost within my family over a few generations. And then I also do a variety of different things, like we work with quills and birch bark, and I'm also known for my cloth work. I applied for the Small Business Development Grant Under that specific initiative. One of the things that Adam and I do collectively is we share a collective which we call Nisha Odei Two Hearts, which is named after his grandmother, who was known as Two Hearts.

Speaker 1: 2:32

I started doing beadwork when I was 19 years old. I'm in my 50s now. I started doing it as a way to earn an income for my son, who I was pregnant with. My son was born in 1990 and it wasn't until the year he was born that we actually moved into our first home that had indoor plumbing. I had to find a way to make some extra money to care for him. I did that by learning how to do beadwork. I did loomed pieces and beaded dangly fringe earrings, which are coming back into style today, with some quills on them.

Speaker 1: 3:12

And then I transitioned into working for my tribe and stepped away. Really didn't have the time to focus on it because I was working full time. I went back to school, was raising my son and then eventually had the opportunity to be creative again. I hold a master's in public administration. I have worked for my tribal community for almost 22 years and a variety of different management level positions, working for human service type programming, and as an outcome of that experience, I had the opportunity to be trained in a variety of different curriculums that are centered on wellness, culture, our traditions, our teachings. I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to balance what I learned academically and be exposed to curriculums that are rooted in our life ways and use that information and those teachings and that knowledge to help our community overcome struggles that we're dealing with.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So then, jumping forward, I went on through school, eventually got reacquainted with Adam. Adam is from this community, had an opportunity for a long time to work with his aunties and then personally, him and I had an opportunity to become re-familiar with one another and visit and eventually started a relationship, and through that relationship Adam has always been immersed, like even when he owned his pizza shop, he would always have pieces that he was working on a table in his restaurant. He really inspired me to pick those beads back up and to start being creative. And so we started doing that together, working on little pieces, earrings, smaller projects, and we couldn't keep up with the demand that people had for us while working. Eventually I made the decision for us to work for ourselves, collectively. It really exploded and we're very busy, we're very creative. It really has given us an opportunity to go into other communities and teach. So collectively we create some pretty significant things, not only for individuals but for communities, for collections, for museums.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I have to say that I doubted myself for a long time can I do this? Do I have the capacity to do this. Am I a knowledge keeper? Do I have what it takes to share what it is that I do with other people? And have come to the conclusion that I do and I'm still learning. I think at the root of a lot of struggle is just believing in yourself. Do I really have knowledge? Do I have a skill? Do I have this artistic ability, this vision, this insight, and will people believe me and value it? That is something personally that I've struggled with before, but I also think that's slightly inherent in our communities Believing in yourself and believing what it is that you do artistically has value and that it has a purpose and it has a meaning and it's meant to be out there.

Speaker 1: 7:02

My project proposal was focused on developing the business end of Nisho-dei Two Hearts. It was focused on building a website, a business website, a storefront, a virtual storefront, product development, marketing, because that really is also another struggle that I think we as artists experience is that most often we do one-of-a-kind pieces that can vary in price, but it's not necessarily sustainable. So you see people that have worked with First People's Fund, like Lauren Goodday, who is phenomenal and I love her, and so how can we translate that as artists. That really is the primary focus of what my proposal and my grant reflex was from First People's Fund. How it's progressed has been interesting because we have been submerged with educational opportunities to teach in other tribal communities and so we have spent a considerable amount of time working in tribal communities over this grant period that we didn't necessarily predict it's been phenomenal, but it definitely has shifted the way that I'm thinking about what our priorities are.

Speaker 1: 8:22

With the business end of Nisho-dei Two Hearts. It's a beautiful way to live. I not only get to be creative and make something with my hands, but I get to do it with somebody that I love and we get to do it collectively with people not only in our community but throughout other tribal communities, throughout Indian country. I really am a true believer in not keeping up with the past and I really am a true believer in not keeping my knowledge or my skills, my artistic ability, to myself. I'm a true believer in giving it away to other people, sharing it with other people, being creative and reclaiming our life ways, and sharing that and living that way really has brought me peace and happiness and wellness and I guess it's come full circle and my journey, I don't think has ended. I'm always learning.

Speaker 2: 9:46

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.