Brenda Child and Howard Oransky, editors of Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers
Anthology Category, sponsored by Minnesota Humanities Center
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
Brenda: This book is the first publication related to the new George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts that has been established at the University of Minnesota. It honors the truly significant generations of Ojibwe and Dakota/Lakota painters from our region, and features 29 artists. While we may recognize their work in Minnesota, we also need to appreciate that many of them are also major figures in American Art, especially George Morrison and Oscar Howe.
Howard: This book is the catalogue of an exhibition by the same name that we presented at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery at the University of Minnesota, January – March 2024. The exhibition subsequently traveled to the Rochester Art Center and the Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth. I was inspired to publish this book by the beautiful artworks included in the exhibition — over 100 paintings made by 29 artists, including Frank Big Bear, David Bradley, Awanigiizhik Bruce, Andrea Carlson, Avis Charley, Fern Cloud, Michelle Defoe, Jim Denomie, Patrick DesJarlait, Sam English, Carl Gawboy, Joe Geshick, Sylvia Houle, Oscar Howe, Waŋblí Mayášleča (Francis J. Yellow, Jr.), George Morrison, Steven Premo, Rabbett Before Horses Strickland, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Roy Thomas, Jonathan Thunder, Thomasina TopBear, Moira Villiard, Kathleen Wall, Star WallowingBull, Dyani White Hawk, Bobby Dues Wilson, Leah H. Yellowbird and Holly Young.
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
Howard: Thomasina Topbear is an amazing Santee Dakota and Oglala Lakota artist who has created large public murals in the Twin Cities using aerosol spray paints. Her designs are intricate, her control of the spray paint is precise, and her love for the language and representation of indigenous people of this area inspires her work. Thomasina agreed to make a new artwork, a “portable mural” for the exhibition, on a roll of canvas 10 feet high and 18 feet wide. It was the largest painting she had ever made that did not cover the side of a building!
Not surprisingly, the book had to go to the printer before the painting was completed. The finished mural is titled “The Great Mystery.” Thomasina described it this way: “The Creator is the sacredness that resides in all things, yet we don’t know why but it gives us everything our people need. It shows us both good and bad, light and darkness and guides us in the path we need to go. Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka gives us these experiences to survive for an unknown reason and this is why we pray. I am grateful for the hardship that teaches us, the joy that carries us, the relatives that sustain us. This piece reflects the mystery of being of the stars.”
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
Howard: As they say, it takes a village. Prof. Chris Pexa (Bdewákaŋtuŋwaŋ Dakota from the Spirit Lake Nation) was especially helpful. In addition to writing his beautiful essay he connected me with several artists and he personally delivered the large painting by Francis Yellow for the exhibition. Our copyeditor Miles Champion, graphic designer Emily Swanberg, and photographers Easton M. Green, Nedahness Greene, and Charles Walbridge helped us produce a beautiful book. And thanks to Baabiitaw Boyd, Šišóka Duta, and Benay McNamara we were able to include translations of the artists statements from English to Dakota and Ojibwe.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
Howard: Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers was the first exhibition sponsored by the new George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts at the University of Minnesota. We will present the exhibition Jonathan Thunder: The Artist as Storyteller featuring this outstanding Red Lake Ojibwe artist April 29 – May 17. I’ll turn 70 in July and will retire from my position as director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery on August 1.
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
Howard: I grew up surrounded by books. The motto was “a room without books is like a body without a soul.” I still believe that. We need libraries now more than ever.
Brenda J. Child is Northrop Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota. She was recently named a Guggenheim Fellow. She is the author of several books including My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation which won the American Indian Book Award.
Howard Oransky was appointed director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery in 2011. Since then, he has organized numerous exhibitions, including Covered in Time and History: The Films of Ana Mendieta, which traveled worldwide. The catalogue received a first-place award from the American Alliance of Museums.