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On Saturday, August 2, Taliesin Preservation and the Little Eagle Arts Foundation (LEAF) co-hosted a day-long event dedicated to Indigenous art, culture, and community. Spread throughout Hillside, the gathering brought together Native artists, performers, and educators to share stories, traditions, and creative practices. From the initial greetings to the final notes on stage, the day unfolded as a series of powerful exchanges.
Guests were welcomed with a meal prepared by Wild Bearies, a community-based nonprofit led by Ho-Chunk chef Elena Terry. As a seed-to-table chef, Terry collaborates with tribal and local growers to source culturally significant, regionally grown ingredients. The dish featured wild rice with blueberries and blackberries, served alongside a Three Sisters salad.
Nearby, Jesse Blackdeer (Ho-Chunk), one of LEAF’s new and emerging artists, shared both traditional and contemporary hand-carved wooden bowls and spoons—a long-time cultural practice of the Ho-Chunk people. Along with his demonstration, Jesse provided a close-up look at various hardwoods, carving techniques, and tools that he uses in his creative work.
Gene Delcourt (Abenaki and Filipino) sculpted an owl in real time while narrating his artistic process. He spoke about reading the wood’s grain, managing drying times, and embracing natural imperfections to create a cohesive, expressive three-dimensional form. A collection of his past commissions added further context to his craftsmanship and range.
Inside the Drafting Studio, four Indigenous artists presented a dynamic variety of mediums, styles, and stories:
Karen Ann Hoffman (Oneida), a nationally recognized beadwork artist, presented her intricate Haudenosaunee designs. Her work, grounded in cultural sovereignty and traditional teachings, transforms beadwork into a powerful visual and tactile language that carries ancestral knowledge forward.
Leah Winneshiek (Ho-Chunk), showcased a collection of handcrafted jewelry that combines semi-precious stones, birch wood, and fine metals. With over 20 years of experience, she has cultivated a style that infuses nature’s raw beauty into every creation.
Dawn Dark Mountain (Oneida, Turtle Clan) is an nationally acclaimed and award winning painter and mixed media artist whose work blends watercolor, raised beadwork, and layered paper to honor Haudenosaunee stories, treaties, and cycles of the natural world; her pieces often feature the turtle, a symbol of creation and endurance.
Scott Hill (Oneida, Bear Clan), whose name Wakatatlihuni, means “he teaches himself,” is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptures, paintings, and murals have been exhibited worldwide. His work reflects decades of dedication to Indigenous expression and storytelling across diverse media.
Together, these artists created a space that invited reflection and exchange. Conversations throughout the day offered attendees rich insight into the artists’ creative processes, personal journeys, and roles as contemporary Native artists. The Studio functioned not only as a gallery, but as a place of dialogue, learning, and connection.
In the Dining Room, master weaver Wasson Renee Dillard (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians) crafted an oval basket, offering a hands-on view into her traditional Anishinaabe fiber arts practice. Raised in Michigan and taught by her mother and grandmother, Dillard has spent more than 45 years weaving and teaching, using natural materials she harvests and processes herself such as basswood, birch bark, cedar, and river reeds. As she wove, she shared her knowledge of sustainable harvesting practices, like gathering only male cattails to protect the regeneration of female plants, illustrating how weaving is inseparable from land stewardship.
Guests were also encouraged to take part in a hands-on bracelet braiding activity led by Lightning New Rider (Ho-Chunk/Oneida), a naturalist and fiber artist. Participants worked with softened plant fibers, learning to twist and braid them using traditional methods. The activity captured a shared spirit with Frank Lloyd Wright’s learning-by-doing philosophy.
Featured black ash basket maker Kimberly Crowley (Ho-Chunk) carries forward a multigenerational weaving tradition. Despite threats to black ash trees from invasive species like the emerald ash borer, she remains dedicated to creating and teaching, passing this knowledge to future generations. Her work, featured in local collections and in the Smithsonian, highlights the interconnected themes of cultural resilience and ecological urgency.
Watch Crowley’s segment on Discover Wisconsin:
Painter and muralist Christopher Sweet (Ho-Chunk/White Earth Ojibwe) presented works that vividly convey Indigenous experience, identity, and renewal. His art draws from storytelling, song, dance, regalia, community, and spiritual connection, weaving these elements into powerful visual narratives.
In the Hillside Theater foyer, Rob Nurre, an effigy mound specialist and former president of the Wisconsin Archaeological Society, offered a window into the cultural and spiritual importance of regional earthworks, sharing how to respectfully engage with the sites. Guests left with an understanding that effigy mounds—shaped into forms like bears, birds, and other beings—are not simply ancient structures, but sacred burial sites that embody the stories, ceremonies, and worldview of the Indigenous peoples who built them. Far from relics, these mounds continue to serve as powerful links between past and present, anchoring communities to their ancestors, the land, and a living sense of identity.
Melanie Tallmadge Sainz (Ho-Chunk), Little Eagle Arts Foundation Executive Director, acclaimed artist, and cultural arts educator, was the driving force behind the event, leading a porcupine quill and bead Friendship Bracelet workshop that beautifully embodied the day’s emphasis on connection, shared culture, and Indigenous art.
Sainz specializes in traditional and contemporary Native art, using porcupine quills, beadwork, and locally sourced materials in her portraits, jewelry, floral and geometric designs, and mixed media mosaics. Her work has been showcased at prestigious venues such as the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, the Heard Museum, and the Eiteljorg Museum, while her public art enriches local spaces like the Great Sauk State Trail and Jack Young Middle School, underscoring her commitment to preserving and sharing Indigenous culture through education and artistry.
Throughout the day, the Hillside Theater stage hosted a full slate of presentations, storytelling, and performances that grounded the event in shared history and knowledge.
The Wisconsin Dells Singers and Dance Troupe opened with a vibrant, culturally rich performance honoring a family tradition dating back to 1976. Through dance, song, and regalia—including intricate bustles, eagle feather fans, appliqué skirts, beaded pah-kehs (hair wraps), and square-toed moccasins unique to the Ho Chunk—the performers shared stories while highlighting the careful craftsmanship and symbolism behind their handcrafted regalia. The performance concluded with a dancer whose sweeping movements delivered a striking finale.
Chef Elena Terry presented in the afternoon for a deeply personal talk that blended food, family history, and healing. She recounted her upbringing and how traditional foods (especially her research into Ho-Chunk beans) became a source of cultural reconnection. She shared the remarkable story of recovering these ancestral beans from a distant seed bank, nurturing them over several growing seasons, and the lengthy process of reintroducing them to her community. She spoke of the bean stewards who preserved these seeds across generations—embodying, she says, the “cultural resilience” of the Ho-Chunk people, who, through forced displacement from their homelands, found new ways to sustain their identity through food. Her work through Wild Bearies supports people in recovery from trauma and addiction by reconnecting them with Indigenous food systems as a path toward healing.
Challenging notions that civilization began with the written word, Karen Ann Hoffman (Oneida) presented Haudenosaunee raised beadwork as a sophisticated and longstanding language. She explained that those literate in this visual tradition can understand profound aspects of her identity, history, and culture simply by observing what she wore on stage.
Using her Coming Home collar, Hoffman illustrated cultural motifs such as cascading water, emphasizing that every element in her work is intentional and referential—echoing her mentor’s advice: “Never take a stitch without a reason.”
To explain the symbolism of the pouch at her hip, Hoffman shared an Indigenous story about boys eager to become men who lit a great fire to prove their readiness. Their impatience carried them into the sky, where they became shooting stars—symbols of youthful ambition and the effects of rushing into adulthood. By weaving shooting stars into her beadwork, she honors this story as a powerful reminder of patience, learning, responsibility, and growth.
Her presentation concluded with a discussion of a third piece, Flame Urn, projected onscreen. Inspired by a mid-1500s birch bark seed keeper used to store the seeds of the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) through the winter, the vessel’s design reflects a thoughtful balance of form and function: its rounded bottom enhances air circulation, the elongated neck prevents spillage, and the small spouts allow for efficient seed dispensing. Hoffman’s Flame Urn stands as a sculptural homage to the ancestral practice of seed keeping and the cyclical promise of renewal.
Through these works, Hoffman revealed beadwork not as mere ornamentation, but as a profound visual lexicon, one that holds memories, teachings, and truths for those willing to read them.
The day concluded with two musical performances by Wade Fernandez (Menominee), an international Grammy-nominated and Nammy-award-winning touring musician and educator. His first set featured flute improvisations accompanied by a loop pedal, creating soundscapes that mimicked the natural world. His second set blended vocals and guitar in songs that reflected both traditional roots and contemporary experience. His performance was both celebratory and contemplative, and a fitting close to a day centered on cultural expression and community connection.
Looking Ahead
The collaboration between Little Eagle Arts Foundation and Taliesin Preservation brought Indigenous voices and traditions into the heart of a space long dedicated to creative exchange. By centering Native artists, educators, and knowledge keepers, the event fostered deeper understanding and opened pathways for learning and relationship-building. This partnership reflects a shared and growing commitment to honoring Indigenous culture and supporting its presence at Taliesin and beyond.
We are grateful to Little Eagle Arts Foundation, the artists, culture bearers, and community members who made the day possible—and who continue to guide us in learning to listen, engage, and build with care and respect. Following the event, the Little Eagle Arts Foundation received a formal Certificate of Commendation from the Governor of Wisconsin, recognizing their years of dedicated service, their work to preserve and promote First Nation and Native artists in the Western Great Lakes region, and the success of their 7th Annual Native Art Marketplace.
Find the full event photo gallery here.
