Letter from Iowa
The Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café is a space where Indigenous artists can come and show their works. We will have art exhibitions, spoken word events, film showings, cooking demos, educators, book releases, and interviews with artists. The Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café is where you will find the best in Indigenous Arts. The idea is to give Indigenous Artists a space to not only show their work, but to sell their work for what it is truly worth. We are not trying to make a profit off our artists, but we want them to succeed, and to help promote them in the best way possible.
Image & art by Dawson Davenport
As a student in the University of Iowa’s art program, I attended art events and participated in spoken word poetry events, and I even created my own podcast, “The Uplifted Podcast,” which led to me creating my own radio show on KRUI 89.7 Iowa City, the student-run radio channel. For two years, I hosted my own show, “We Still Here Radio,” on which I would speak on issues happening in Iowa and across the country, especially about environmental injustices that were taking place on Native lands, and in particular, the Dakota Access Pipeline that was going across the whole State of Iowa. Not only would I have segments about those issues, but I would also promote Native Hip Hop artists and other Native styles of music.
As I went along my program at Iowa, and started getting more involved with the arts community outside of the University setting, I began to notice a lack of Indigenous representation in all these events I was attending. I started to host my own shows, bringing Native Hip Hop artists to venues in downtown Iowa City. I raised awareness about the #NODAPL issues and did a little fundraising for that. I would attend events like the Witching Hour and Mission Creek Festival, and I noticed that if there was a Indigenous person involved, it wasn’t promoted that well. I remember stumbling across Shinhwa’ak Krebs Khalil, aka Adam Khalil, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, who was showing his film, Inaate/Se, which I went and supported. Eventually I got to know Adam, and showed his film at FilmScene for Native American Month.
One semester, I was up to have a piece of my artwork critiqued, and as we began, there was a silence. The instructor at the time wanted me to elaborate on my work some, which led me to taking up most of the critique telling the history of my people, leaving little time for the class to make their remarks. Again, there was a silence, and the instructor started to say how hard it was to understand my art, because of the context. He stated that because of the lack of knowledge of what I had created, there was nothing to say about it. I was hurt leaving class that day, and even wanted to quit school. I felt like I didn’t belong in a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). However, after talking to some good friends, I determined that I would Indigenize the whole Visual Art building, and I would go into the community and let everyone know that Native Art is more valuable than whatever it was everyone else was doing.
Enter the Iowa Writers House Fellowship. Thanks to my friends in the Iowa Writers Workshop for encouraging me to write, and helping me with the story I submitted to the fellowship, which would eventually be published in a book. Andrea Wilson was the editor. Upon being selected, I soon found myself becoming a writer. We the Interwoven Vol. 2 was going to help me get into places I never thought possible, for instance Witching Hour and Mission Creek Festival. Yes, ME!! I did it! My Indigenous artist ass, who a University of Iowa art instructor said made no sense, got into the events that seemed a far stretch. Me! With an actual published book, reading along writers from New York and all over this country. Me!! A Meskwaki from the Meskwaki Settlement, who people thought would never amount to much. Me! Just a man who wanted to create art and space for other Indigenous artists, because we have a lot to offer this world, if only people would take us out of the artifact box and understand We Still Here!!
So I created this idea of having me and my friends in the Iowa Writers Workshop, and any other Indigenous artists who wanted to showcase their work, to join my alliance. I threw together some shows. We would recite readings in-between performances by Native dancers and singers, aligned with the theme I had created. I was commissioned by Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa to bring my show there. I hosted the same event at Old Brick, thanks to the Beloved Community Initiative, who let me do my event two years in a row, and let me host some art shows. After some failed attempts to get into the Witching Hour or Mission Creek Fest, I decided that I wanted to open my own Art Space. In 2019, I was almost done with my art program, and Simeon Talley, an acquaintance and local entrepreneur, hooked it up with a space on Washington St., where I had my first Art Gallery. While it was a short-lived thing, I did it, and because of the rent price going up, me graduating, and eventually a world-wide pandemic, my dream of having my own space to break down the stereotypes and all the doubters and haters of Indigenous Art was on hold.
Art by Dawson Davenport
Pandemic life was torture. My tribe locked down the whole Settlement just as I was on to something. By cellphone, I watched the world figure it out, and I sunk into a depression because I didn’t have many resources to create. Heck, I couldn’t even leave the house. People were dying, and the world seemed like it was coming to an end. Well at least for me, because for once in my life, I created something that I loved to do, and it was mine. My idea, my work, my time and effort, my degree, my organization, and my connections to wonderful Indigenous artists seemed gone, because it was uncertain if the world was ever going to be the same.
Weeks passed, and all I could do was watch Minneapolis burn to the ground and hear DJs spinning beautiful music. Eventually I stumbled upon a poet named Aja Monet in Des Moines, at a RUN DSM event, and I was blown away by her work. As I watched Aja and her friends read at her event, it hit me. I have internet. I have some writer friends. Why not do what Aja Monet was doing, only for Indigenous Peoples? I mean, it was clear that people in Native Communities were not taking the pandemic seriously, as people were getting sick in high numbers. And so, it was born. I reached out to some friends and Bazille, my brother and a hip hop artist, to come, read, and perform, and before you know it, The #StayHome Poetry reading series was created. From there, I would just reach out to artists that I didn’t even really know, and they said yes, without hesitation. I hosted these events every Saturday night on the Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café Facebook Page, with the intent of keeping Native people home and safe. I had the help of a friend from the Midwest Writing Center and also my We the Interwoven Vol. 2 co-author Sarah Elgatian, who assisted with technical issues and finding other Indigenous Poets.
As I began to run out of artists, I came up with another idea. Since I was always into journalism, I wanted to do an interview series with Indigenous Artists. I thought that it would be cool to not only see these artists’ works, but to hear their stories from their own mouths. Again, I reached out again to artists I didn’t really know, and to my surprise, they all said yes to my ask. Again, all this was done under my Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café Facebook page.
During the pandemic, I sought out a new space in Iowa City and fell upon this place called the Riverside Theatre, which was up for sale. I went and looked at the space, and spoke with the realty people about what I wanted to do. The talks were slow, and eventually, some people with money came and purchased it, leaving me to re-think this idea of mine.
Image & art by Dawson Davenport
Enter PS1. PS1 reached out and expressed an interest in what I was doing, and that they were supportive of it. We met, and they told me about this space they were looking at, and that they wanted to have me and the Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café to be a part of that, if I was interested. At first, I was like, Cool, I’m down. But in the back of my mind, I was like, If they want to help, cool. If they don’t want to help, cool. I’m going to make it happen either way. I felt like I have always had people say they wanted to help, and that my idea was cool, but they never really made an effort after that. But I had seen what PS1 was doing. Heck, I was even involved with some of the same people, doing poetry readings on their porch. So, I was like, Cool. Time passed, and I didn’t hear from them, so I was like, Oh well, I’ll keep doing what I was doing. And one day they emailed me, and again stated that they still wanted me to be a part of their new space. We’d meet on Zoom, and I was like, Hmmm. Maybe they are for real. PS1 kept me updated on their progress about the new space, throughout their process, and I was more and more excited, because for the first time, it seemed like somebody was for real about helping me with my vision. An organization that didn’t want to take it over or anything, but genuinely wanted to help me. And with that, here I am, a resident of the new PS1 Close House, along with other art orgs and old friends, who have always been supportive of what I was doing.
Image & art by Dawson Davenport
Indigenous Art Alliance
Education through the Arts
Not only will you find art about you, will find education about the tribes that once occupied the land now known as Iowa, from the tribe after which the state is named to the many others who called this place home, including one of the last ones to remain, my tribe the Meskwaki, federally known as the Sac and Fox of the Mississippi in Iowa. The Indigenous Peoples Art Gallery and Café is the outlet for the non-profit that will fund the project. I created the Indigenous Art Alliance, which is an alliance of Indigenous Artists who are working and doing great things in the Indigenous Art World.
