Native Arts & Cultures Foundation

06/18/2026

Join us on July 18 from 9 AM to 3 PM at the Center for Native Arts + Cultures, 800 SE 10th Ave in Portland, for Creative Afternoons: Community Mural Refresh.

Creative Afternoons returns this summer with a community mural repaint day at CNAC. Join us as we come together to refresh the mural, connect with neighbors, and celebrate Native creativity in public space.

Whether you painted with us last time or want to pick up a paintbrush for the first time, we welcome you to spend the day creating in community. Help repaint sections of the mural while enjoying music, food, and refreshments throughout the event.

What to expect:
• Community mural repaint
• Music throughout the day
• Food and refreshments provided
• Outdoor summer gathering
• Opportunities to connect with artists, neighbors, and community members

This event is free and open to all ages and experience levels.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-afternoons-community-mural-refresh-tickets-1991742022004?aff=oddtdtcreator

Support for this event is generously provided by Metro, the City of Portland Office of Arts & Culture, and the Mellon Foundation.

06/16/2026

For Pride Month, we're proud to highlight Aaron Baumgardner (Catawba), a NACF LIFT awardee whose work spans pottery, basketry, rivercane (a plant integral to basket weaving) restoration, and community teaching. When asked what it means to bring his whole self to his artistic practice, Aaron shared:

"Honestly, it's about not being afraid to push boundaries anymore.

Coming out to my friends, family, and community was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I had to face the reality of being willing to lose those relationships just to be my authentic self. But once you survive that kind of vulnerability, everything else feels easy by comparison. Asking the hard questions, exploring my practice, none of it scares me now.

I think Q***r Native artists hold a really special, distinct place within our communities, and for me, bringing my whole self to my work means fighting on two different fronts.

With pottery, it's about challenging orthodoxy within my community's traditional arts. By pushing the boundaries of our 4,000-year-old pottery tradition, I am making sure it continually adapts and innovates rather than becoming stagnant or frozen in time. But with rivercane restoration and basketry, it is pure advocacy. It's a fierce, uphill battle for survival.

My community, the future potters and basketmakers, and the crafting plants themselves are what I am responsible for keeping alive. By showing up fully and fiercely as myself, I'm making sure they have a future."
++++
Photos courtesy of Aaron Baumgardner, featuring his work in community, teaching, and rivercane restoration.

06/13/2026

"When you grow up on the Navajo Nation, it's pretty hard to escape country music."

For Dirt Rhodes, country music isn't just a genre. It's family, community, memory, and home.

In their Roots + Resonance conversation, the band reflects on growing up surrounded by Navajo country music, the influence of their grandfather, and the sounds that continue to shape Native music communities today.

These moments were captured during the recording of their Roots + Resonance session in Tempe, Arizona.

Watch the full performance and conversation at the link in bio.

06/09/2026

The women in Malak Afaneh's family carried Palestine in their hands.

Her great-grandmother stitched flames of grief and anger. Her grandmother embroidered cypress trees while raising seven children in a refugee camp. Her mother surrounded herself with Tree of Life motifs after leaving her homeland in search of stability.

In "In Stitches We Return: The Resistance Threaded Through Tatreez," Afaneh explores how Palestinian embroidery serves as a record of memory, place, and resistance, connecting generations through patterns that refuse erasure.

"In the end, the needle knows the way home."

Read the full essay in the latest issue of NACF Magazine. Link in bio.
++++
Images:
(1) Thobe from Ein Yabrud, central Palestine, embroidered in dense red cross-stitch on white fabric. The geometric motifs cover the chest, sleeves, and side panels, exemplifying the village's embroidery tradition. Worn with a hand-embroidered veil (smadeh), the ensemble reflects the full ceremonial dress of the region. Photograph by Maysoon Suleiman.

(2) Detail of a wedding gown designed by Malak Elreyati, a Canada-based designer of Gazan origin. The white silk dress is embroidered with tatreez motifs from Beersheba and Gaza, stitched over 1,010 hours with the help of the bride's aunts. Photograph by Imane Nabaoui.

(3, top) Velvet thobe embroidered with gold-thread couching, a technique strongly associated with Bethlehem. The ornate chest and sleeve panels reflect the region's celebrated "royal" style of festive dress. Photograph by Batool Alawadi.

(3, bottom) Thobes reflecting regional diversity: on the left, bold red embroidery typical of Hebron; in the center, multicolored floral motifs reminiscent of coastal Jaffa styles; and on the right, a blue dress with floral bands associated with northern Palestine. Photograph by Batool Alawadi.

06/07/2026

What does love look like?

For photographer and past NACF awardee Zoë Urness, it can look like welcoming new life into the world while carrying forward the traditions, values, and strength of those who came before.

Urness' photograph, "Raven, Renae, Dem-I-Thia (Lummi Nation)," from her "Indigenous Motherhood" series, was recently included in the international exhibition "Love" in Paris. Through the story of a young Lummi Nation family, the work brought themes of family, care, and cultural continuity into a global conversation about one of humanity's most universal experiences.

As Zoë shared with NACF:
"Love is universal. No matter where we come from, what language we speak, or where we live in the world, love is a language we all understand."

She reflected that while the photograph is rooted in the experience of a young Indigenous family from the Pacific Northwest, its themes of family, connection, care, and continuity resonate across cultures. For her, participating in the exhibition created an opportunity to share stories that highlight both our unique identities and our shared humanity.

Congratulations, and thank you, Zoë, for continuing to bring Native stories and perspectives to audiences around the world.
++++
Image: (1) "Raven, Renae, Dem-I-Thia (Lummi Nation)" from the "Indigenous Motherhood" series by Zoë Urness. Photo courtesy of the artist. (2-3) Gallery view from "Love" in Paris. Photos courtesy of artist.

06/04/2026

Brent Michael Davids (Stockbridge-Munsee Community), a 2025 SHIFT awardee, recently premiered "Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People" at London's Barbican Hall.

More than twenty years in the making, the monumental work brings Indigenous voices and historical records into conversation with founding-era texts, inviting audiences to reconsider the stories that have shaped the United States and whose voices have been left out of them.

Created in partnership with White Snake Projects, the composition confronts histories of violence, displacement, and erasure while creating space for reflection, accountability, and healing through music.

At NACF, we believe artists play a vital role in challenging dominant narratives and expanding public understanding. Through SHIFT, we support Native artists whose work sparks dialogue around the most pressing issues of our time. Brent's project embodies that vision.

Congratulations to Brent on this landmark premiere.
++++
Images: (1) Brent Michael Davids playing the flute at the world premiere of Requiem for America: Singing for the Invisible People at the Barbican, London. Photo by James Watkins for the BBC. (2) Native singers performing at Barbican Hall. Photo by James Watkins for the BBC. (3) Full BBC symphony orchestra conducted by Teddy Abrams. Photo by James Watkins for the BBC.

06/02/2026

Curated by 2017 NACF Mentor Artist Fellow Delina White (Leech Lake Band of Anishinaabe), "Mni Sóta: Traditions & Innovations," brings together Dakota and Anishinaabe artists whose work reflects the enduring vitality of Native textile and fiber arts.

On view through July 11 at Textile Center the exhibition features beadwork, quilting, weaving, hide work, textiles, and mixed-media practices that carry forward generations of knowledge while speaking to the present. Through materials shaped by place and relationships, the artists demonstrate how cultural teachings continue to live and evolve.

White is widely recognized for her contemporary interpretations of Anishinaabe women's traditional dress and her commitment to cultural mentorship, values that continue to shape her work as an artist, teacher, and curator.

Featuring work by artists from across Minnesota, the exhibition invites viewers to engage with Native textile arts as living expressions of creativity, responsibility, and community.

An artist reception will be held Thursday, June 4, from 5:30–7 p.m. at Textile Center.

Congratulations to Delina White and all of the participating artists.
++++
Images courtesy of Textile Center.

06/02/2026

05/31/2026

What stories help us imagine a livable future?

Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota), a 2016 NACF Fellow, has been awarded the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for "SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide."

Blending speculative fiction, poetry, drawing, and visual art, "SURVIVA" asks readers to consider survival not as an act of individual endurance, but as a practice of relationship. Through Indigenous futurism, the book explores how knowledge, community, and responsibility to one another might guide us through uncertain futures.

At a time when many stories about the future are shaped by scarcity and collapse, works like "SURVIVA" offer another possibility: futures built through care, reciprocity, and our connections to each other and the living world.

Congratulations to Cannupa Hanska Luger on this well-deserved recognition!

05/28/2026

Past NACF awardee Rose B. Simpson is currently featured in “Recognition of Art by Women: In Retrospect” at the Norton Museum of Art, an exhibition reflecting on a decade of artists whose work continues to shape and challenge the contemporary art landscape.

Working across sculpture, performance, installation, and storytelling, Simpson’s practice refuses simplification. Her work moves through memory, identity, futurity, and Indigenous knowledge systems with a presence that feels both grounded and expansive.

Exhibitions like this reflect more than individual recognition. They reveal the growing visibility of Indigenous artists within spaces that have historically excluded or overlooked Native perspectives, while also raising larger questions about who institutions recognize, when they recognize them, and what becomes possible when Native artists are supported across the length of their careers.

Simpson’s work does not ask to be folded into contemporary art history. It actively reshapes it.

“Recognition of Art by Women: In Retrospect” is on view through September 27, 2026.
++++
Image: “Vital Organ: Gut,” 2022, by Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo). Photo credit: Dan Bradica; Jessica Silverman, San Francisco; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.