The Rolling Rez Arts will be seen all across the Pine Ridge Reservation as it delivers art, business, retail and banking services that up until this point have been inaccessible to many of the artists and culture bearers who live and work on the Pine Ridge. Here it is with Anna Huntington, Greg Handberg, Donald Montileaux, Guss Yellow Hair, Miranne Walker, Brendon Albers, Brandie Macdonald and Jesse Short Bull. Photo from First Peoples Fund / Facebook
Rolling Rez Arts gets the show on the road
By Brandon Ecoffey
LCT Editor RAPID CITY— On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation sometimes even the most basic of necessities can often times be inaccessible. Now, however, the First People’s Fund has created a mobile arts center for artists that will help to bring customers, artists, and culture bearers together in a new and innovative way. The Rolling Rez Arts is now set to deliver art, business, retail and banking services to residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The one stop all facility for artists, has creatively been installed of a large passenger van that is now equipped to meet the needs of reservation artists. According to Miranne Walker, Senior Program Manager at First People’s Fund Rolling Rez Arts will provide “services that up until this point have been inaccessible to many of the artists and culture bearers who live and work on Pine Ridge." "The arts space on wheels has been years in the making, and is the result of a group of people from our community coming together to infuse new energy into the creative economy,” she said.
First Peoples Fund: Rolling Rez Arts - Launch
The project is a collaboration between the First Peoples Fund, Artspace, and Lakota Funds staff, nonprofit partners and foundations supporters and is the culmination of years of work by the team. The creation will work to solve many of the problems that reservation artists encounter when trying to bring their work to the market place. “This is a remarkable milestone for First Peoples Fund, yes, but even more so, for the artists we have an opportunity to work alongside here in our home community and all across the country,” said Lori Pourier, president of First Peoples Fund. “Rolling Rez Arts will give access to the tools and support artists both need and deserve to overcome barriers that they may face. And, it will also represent what happens when good people come together to creatively find solutions to decades-long challenges.” The First People Fund is a national non-profit that works to improve the opportunities of reservation artists and has programs that help train artists to be successful in today’s Native American art industry. According to a press release from First People’s Fund the idea for the mobile arts center came about after the results of a study conducted by First Peoples Fund, Artspace, Colorado State University, Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) and Northwest Area Foundation on the reservation art world were analyzed.
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The study found that over half of the households on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were engaged in some sort of home-based business. Amongst those who were operating a home-based business more than three-quarters has a business involving the arts. What the study also found was that 61% of those operating a business in the arts had an income less that $10,000. Artists who had participated in programming provided by First People Fund however were far more likely to exceed the $10,000 earning mark. “This collaboration with First Peoples Fund helps us to move our mission forward in bigger and greater ways,” explained Tawney Brunsch, executive director at Lakota Funds. “Now, we’ll be able to reach every corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation to work with our community, and play a supportive role in their financial success, and our creative economy.” Lakota Funds is the first Native-led Community Development Financial Institution on a reservation in history and was and played an essential part in the creation of Rolling Rez Arts. The organization has created more than 1400 jobs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and will provide their financial services to tribal citizens through as part of the project. Rolling Rez Arts was funded through grants from ArtPlace America, The Bush Foundation, Northwest Area Foundation, and USDA Rural Development, all of whom have partnered with First Peoples Fund in the planning, community outreach, and research that makes this innovative mobile unit a reality. Additional funding was provided to Artspace by The Ford Foundation. (Contact Brandon Ecoffey at editor@lakotacountrytimes.com) Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.
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