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Steph Littlebird
218 Plays4 years ago
Steph Littlebird is an artist, writer, curator, and registered member of Oregon’s Grand Ronde Confederated Tribes. Steph earned her degree in Painting and Printmaking from the Pacific Northwest College in Portland, Oregon, she currently lives and works in Las Vegas.
Her work frequently touches upon issues of contemporary tribal identity, cultural survivance, and responsible land stewardship. Aside from her work as a visual artist, Steph is a full-time tech writer and freelance arts columnist for Oregon Arts Watch magazine.
Steph has received three creative grants from the Art + Science Initiative and is the 2020 N.O.A.A. National Artist Fellow. She is also the recent recipient of a writing grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust, and her work has been featured by brands like Luna Bar, U.S.P.S. the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, and Wells Fargo.
https://www.stephlittlebird.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I am actually super excited. I have Steph Littlebird on the show and I encountered her on
00:00:30
Speaker
on Instagram was just wowed by the images and really was just digging what she had to say in your spirit, Steph. Steph, welcome to the podcast. So pleased to have you on. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be on and chat with you this evening. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's great to have you, as I said.
00:00:55
Speaker
Uh, Steph, let's launch into, um, it's a beginning question or an origin question, um, but it has to do about creativity in humans. And it is, when you were born, were you an artist?
Steph Littlebird's Artistic Philosophy
00:01:13
Speaker
Oh, I think that we are all artists. I think that everyone has like capacity for creativity. We just express it in different ways. And sometimes maybe our world sort of like discourages us. But my very first memories are of coloring in a coloring book with my mom. And so I definitely like feel like those are my first sort of
00:01:39
Speaker
ways that I oriented myself to the world is through images and so Yeah, I I still continue to think in that way and think about how I can make images that communicate the things in my mind and
00:01:55
Speaker
um, how I can help other people communicate their ideas through images. So yeah, I think it's, it's definitely in my, it's in my like blood, my DNA, but I also, um, this was actually part of my thesis work was talking about this, like, um, sort of bias that humans have towards images and that we actually prefer images to text, like,
00:02:21
Speaker
any day and the images actually can carry so much more information than a piece of text can. We can read all of these abstract sort of subtexts and symbolisms from art and so there's something about that that I think
00:02:38
Speaker
not only connects to me, but also connects all the way back to the cave art or the caves of Lascaux in France, which are some of the oldest works we know, that humans have been making images for as long as we've been human.
The Role of Color and Pop Culture in Art
00:02:53
Speaker
So I feel like it's a part of what we do. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for that.
00:03:00
Speaker
As a deep part of the show, and I'm always interested in education and development, it's really a wonder to kind of encounter how folks connected to art, what they think about from early on and identity and identifying as such or as creators. Now, Steph, I had mentioned your artwork
00:03:31
Speaker
I wanted to tell you my impression of just what struck me. I mean, I thought that the images were just the color and they were just beautiful and gorgeous, but there's one piece that I wanted to hear from you and see what I'm seeing. It was the some flourishes of a little bit more of a pop appeal, like a very, like a fresh
00:04:00
Speaker
kind of like popular cultural appeal to it. And is that something that's an intent of yours? Because I've seen that. One of the things that I've loved and just to be particular about it is indigenous art and images and then even sometimes overtly like pop culture built into that and developed that way.
00:04:26
Speaker
Was I seeing the pop pieces in there, or could you describe what you're getting towards?
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like smiling just because you read very well into my intentions and so I appreciate that as an artist. You're always like hoping that some of those themes come through. I definitely was inspired by, you know, sort of the pop art era of modern art, you know, thinking about people like Andy Warhol and a lot of the
00:04:58
Speaker
op art artists who made more like graphic images that maybe weren't representational but just playing with line and weight and color and color is something that's really important in my work and
00:05:13
Speaker
The choices in color that I make are very intentional because much of indigenous representation, when we think about the ways in which historically Native people have been represented, were typically represented one in the past.
00:05:31
Speaker
And so we are never really represented in contemporary times. When people think about indigenous people, they see us as like existing somewhere in the past somewhere, but not really now. And so the use of the kind of color palettes that I tend to go towards, which are
00:05:51
Speaker
you know, neons and fully saturated color is a way to bring our representations into the contemporary. Because those colors aren't associated with the past, they're associated with now, and also associated, neons in particular are sort of associated with industrialism and like construction. So you think about, you know, the city, you think about urban sort of life.
00:06:18
Speaker
And so those colors also hint at me as a person. I was lucky enough that I grew up in my ancestral homeland. I didn't grow up on the reservation, which was about an hour and a half away from where I grew up, but I was close enough to it and my family lived very close to it. So I sort of like kind of lived in between two worlds. And so my work is very much trying to
00:06:44
Speaker
show that connection to past. So I use a lot of traditional motifs or styles, but then I also just like bring it in the full color and that reference to that contemporary modern or pop art as you might think of it. Those are ways for me to bring indigenous sort of existence into the future.
00:07:09
Speaker
And that concept of indigenous futurism can be really subtly done just through the use of color. And that's how deeply we've been erased from American consciousness is that we're typically only represented in sepia tone. So the color is really a way to sort of strike against the thing that you're expecting.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for saying that and explaining that. I really think it's a profound and subtle point. It has to do with time and representation. I've seen the documentary, Real Engine, about representations.
00:07:49
Speaker
One of the things that I've considered myself over time to be a progressive, white-identifying male and sympathetic, but what's happened during the podcast and having the great pleasure of talking to Indigenous artists
00:08:10
Speaker
has been to completely radicalize my perspective or like my knowledge of how much, here's the one thought step that always disturbs me, right? And you get a curious mind as well. Having curiosity and being introspective about what you encounter, but then you find this patches and patches of areas where you just were spoon fed some horseshit and like you just took it and you didn't,
00:08:36
Speaker
like you might not realize that you did and that's been a very big experience and on the point that you said exactly as I got into talking to indigenous artists uh from different nations in seeing the art in seeing not just art but just seeing the culture I was like holy
00:09:00
Speaker
There is so much here and then I've gone through like the psychological stages of my own thing of like betrayal being like what the hell is this and Will Rogers was a Native American like I found that out 40 ago. I'm laughing this it's all around so um, I do appreciate like Usain about the colors and and how you're trying to bring in and be like, hey this was made by
00:09:26
Speaker
Recently and it looks super martin and now all right Thank you for thank you for that what I wanted to ask you and is is the philosophical question we go into the conceptual here is You produce a lot of beautiful art you studied art you've done thesis and art But what is art?
Art as a Universal Language
00:09:57
Speaker
Art is everything. So that actually was one of my favorite things that I learned in art school was that there was a school of thought that said that everything is art. Every single thing we do. The thing we're doing right now is art.
00:10:14
Speaker
Um, there's no question about that. It is what it is. And also when you go and brush your teeth, that's an art too. And so when you asked me the question originally about, you know, have I always been an artist that that question makes me, you know, inside, I know secretly what you don't know is that, you know, you're an artist too, and we're all artists and maybe you're an artist at, at, um, you know, keeping people's fucking books in order, or maybe you're a,
00:10:41
Speaker
you're a software engineer. I actually write for Intel and so I'm a tech writer and I'm not a huge tech person but I work with people who are engineers and programmers and so those people they use the same kind of critical thinking skills that artists use
00:11:00
Speaker
but they're writing software or you know they're designing a computer and so um I recognize those things in all of us and so uh yeah for me uh everything is art uh and and you don't have to even agree with me you can't escape the fact that it is and that's um what one of my favorite things that I've learned is that
00:11:25
Speaker
I can really see the world in this really beautiful way because even the ugliest things that happen in this world are art. And there's so much ugly art. I mean, we all know, we've all seen ugly art, right? So we can say like, oh yeah, that thing that I saw on the news today, that was some really ugly art. And I can think about it critically. And actually, that's also a key component of going to art school is learning to think
00:11:53
Speaker
critically about yourself and also about
00:11:57
Speaker
how the world sees you in your work. And so as an artist, like, you know, I feel very blessed to know that I'm an artist, but you also don't like, you don't have to go to school to be an artist. I have always been an artist. I waited until I was in my very late twenties to go back to art school. And so I was like kind of a weirdo at art school because I was amongst a bunch of, you know, trust fund babies essentially.
00:12:26
Speaker
And I was a poor kid who got an Indian scholarship. So, you know, I wasn't supposed to be there. And so, yeah, but what I realized is that in my core, in my heart, yeah, I'm an artist. And it's something that I'm just, you know, dedicated to every day. But
00:12:42
Speaker
People do those same things. They just do it in different ways, you know, like what you do and you're your work You're an artist in your own way And there are things that you do that you probably do very artfully that no one else could do and so Yeah, I see everyone I try to tell everyone they're an artist whenever I figure out what the thing is that they do I'm like, oh, yeah, you're an artist, you know Yeah, yeah, and I mean I think there's like I think the terms I think you know terms are
00:13:10
Speaker
like art or creativity or being a creative or making things. There's so many processes that humans engage in that are intricate, I guess. There are multiple pieces to them. I wanted to ask a follow-up question to the, what is art? And given your answer, it might be a tiny bit of a tricky one, but I just wanted to hear from you
00:13:37
Speaker
what the role of art is. It's super important, and if we are artists, when we're talking about art or interacting with art, what is the role of art for human beings? What's going on there?
00:13:54
Speaker
So that is a great question. And especially when you think about the fact that everything is art. But art has many different roles. It doesn't just serve one purpose. The art that I make serves a different purpose than someone that comes from a completely different place in the world. And I learned that when I went to art school. So coming into
00:14:16
Speaker
a place where I came to art school because art had saved my life. Art actually made me feel value in myself and so it actually made me want to like try to contribute something to the world as opposed to the path that I was on prior to that. And so you know for me my purpose in art is to use my art to better the world because art bettered me and to like educate people through art and empower people through art
00:14:46
Speaker
But there are all kinds of ways to engage with art. You can engage with it in very abstract ways and that have nothing to do with politics or supposedly have nothing to do with politics, but everything is political. So there are many ways to use art. And there are ways that are very passive. The ways that I use art and its purpose for me is usually like trying to create positive impact.
00:15:15
Speaker
And so, like I said, a lot of my work around representation of Indigenous people and bringing things into the contemporary world, that's my purpose. I grew up with no representation. The representation of Indigenous people that I had were in John Wayne movies and Pocahontas.
00:15:37
Speaker
And so, you know, for me, Pocahontas didn't look nothing like my auntie and my grandma. And so I didn't relate to these representations that I was being given. And so I know now as an artist that part of my purpose is to like
00:15:54
Speaker
fill those gaps that I recognized when I needed those representations. And I see now as I'm making them that, yeah, we still need them really badly. And so that's why I have to keep making the work because people need it. And so that's my purpose. But art can serve many different purposes. And so that's actually the beauty of is that it can be as functional as a car or the design of a tire.
00:16:23
Speaker
But it can also just be a beautiful image as well. Yeah, I had mentioned in the media and the representations, I think.
00:16:35
Speaker
Just for me, I want to mention like reservation dogs, right? Like it's tough for me to have a conversation about that in the sense where like I want to be like, hey, this is like a real show and this is the reservation. I'm listening to others say I don't pretend to have any, you know, but it feels real and it brings in a diversity of characters and it brings in the creative talent, whether it's somebody holding, you know, the sound mic.
00:17:05
Speaker
or the writer or the incredible actors and actresses, or even seen a major network like NBC with Rutherford Falls with a lot of indigenous creators. But I'm like, this isn't the last year or two, right? For me, if I'm just a consumer of media and art,
00:17:31
Speaker
I want enough indigenous shows so I can refer to five crappy indigenous shows and like 12 good ones and others I haven't seen. And so it's, it's great to see this right now, but the only, what I'm left with is like more and more let's have regular or real or
00:17:53
Speaker
And for me, in my own little way, it feels like a good time to see this, but also to push and be like, need a lot more. Need a lot more, want a lot more, because the stories are that good. What are your impressions of, I gave a couple examples that I've seen that are in popular media. What are your impressions of, is something different going on now?
Indigenous Representation in Media
00:18:24
Speaker
are we headed towards something that's better and more reasonable, or I mean, at least as representation goes? Yeah, I think it's really exciting to see shows like Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls, because those are people that are in our larger community. And like Jana, who's the star of Rutherford Falls, the female lead,
00:18:51
Speaker
Jenna actually was in my very first curated exhibition and so I collect her beadwork. I think that, you know, I think she's an amazing human being and then she became freaking famous and so I'm like, I get to see people in my own community like
00:19:08
Speaker
reaching their dreams. And that is, again, it goes back to this idea of representation for our community because we have been erased for so long. And when you said, I didn't know about all of these things, it's like, you weren't supposed to. And that was by design, like a lot of things.
00:19:29
Speaker
um you know connected to white supremacy many of the marginalized stories become invisible because that's how you maintain white supremacy so you can't know about genocide because if you knew that america committed its own genocide you would probably be more critical of the things that it's doing abroad you know and so there was great
00:19:53
Speaker
care taken to erase those things. So now, as we're seeing them on the screen, it's very exciting. But you know what, these folks, they've been working their ass off for years. They've been doing this for decades. A lot of them have been working for 15, 20 years on, you know, stand up circuits or writing in writers rooms and stuff. And they're just finally now
00:20:16
Speaker
Getting the space to tell our stories and so it's very exciting But it is like I think um, you know, some of it can definitely be attributed to the George Floyd protests I feel like when when things started to happen around those things people became like a little bit more awake somehow and
00:20:37
Speaker
and are wanting to engage in these conversations. And so I think there's like, there are multiple sort of layers of things happening right now and people are becoming more aware. And so that's great. And I'm happy to like have those conversations because we've been waiting to have, we've been having them by ourselves for so long. We're so excited to engage with other people on them.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the timing of this, too, is within the last week, there was a new book out. And I might have the title slightly off, but we had a slight real estate problem, or we had a real estate problem. And it was about Native comedy. And I listened to it. It was nine and a half hours long. And so for me, or a typical reaction, somebody would be like, oh, Native comedian. Name one. Can't do.
00:21:30
Speaker
ever hear that, you know what I mean? Like you'd be most people in the popular culture would be stymied. And as I got into it and listened to it and heard about what you were talking about of toil, like these folks have been around making people last laugh their asses off, like going from reservation to reservation or going to a particular place and doing two big, big shows a year. They've been humping it. They've been doing doing the work and it's great to see, you know,
00:22:00
Speaker
more folks getting exposed to it and their hard work paying off. And Jana, who I think is ridiculously hilarious, and I start laughing as soon as she opens her mouth. She's fantastic, but a lot of great people working hard and getting some time.
00:22:19
Speaker
to display their talents, which goodness gracious, Steph, should happen, right? Shouldn't it happen, right? If you have the proof of concept and you get a great idea and people laugh no matter who you are, shouldn't you have the time, I guess? Anyways, some better TV is out right now, I guess, is where we arrived at.
00:22:49
Speaker
One of the things I wanted to ask, and it's related to some of the things that I mentioned, and a little bit more of kind of the origin or going back to the beginning away from the creativity question. And it's a way for me to kind of find out about influences. But I was wondering, Steph Littlebird, who or what made you who you are?
00:23:21
Speaker
Oh man, that's a good question. I think I am made by my predecessors for sure. I always, the people that I keep with me every day are my, particularly as my grandmother who was an indigenous woman, but you know,
00:23:44
Speaker
I keep with me the people that shared kindness with me in my life because I did not grow up with a lot of that. My upbringing was not that great. And so the positive people who did shine a light in my life are the people who keep me going. And so a lot of the work that I do is very much in
00:24:07
Speaker
whenever I'm sort of approaching any project, I'm thinking about my community, I'm thinking about my own personal family, but I'm also thinking about my relatives is what we would say, just to like the extended indigenous community, like, you know, I have a responsibility to them. And so I'm very much inspired by and also work in honor of those people who are living and also those people who have passed on. And so
00:24:34
Speaker
That's a huge inspiration for me, but then I'm also just inspired by artists and by creators generally and people who are manifesting new things for this world, especially thinking about some of the struggles that we're going through.
00:24:52
Speaker
as a, you know, in the American culture just, you know, if you want to be that specific is like we're going through some identity stuff right now and we're really working through white supremacy and maybe not working through it in some ways. And so, you know, while there has been all of these changes,
00:25:14
Speaker
it's the creators that keep me sort of hopeful and so seeing these people who I know who have experienced oppression, indigenous female artists in particular, those are the people that sort of like keep me going and keep me like wanting to do better for myself and for others and so
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah, ultimately it's like my indigenous community and my artist community, they keep me sort of in check and also on the path to keep making and keep creating. Yeah, thank you. One of the points that you had mentioned was about
00:25:59
Speaker
about some of the things we come in contact or within dominant American culture or white culture and the things that aren't brought up to, I don't know, make us uncomfortable or hearing. One of the things about my reading recently was learning deep stories about allies and indigenous folks and a whole bunch of folks and they could be in Hollywood and other places
00:26:29
Speaker
Putting in for the struggle and you would never ever hear about it You never hear the names of like somebody was a producer on a show and being like hey I'm gonna give you the space to do this in this way and like helping out that and it Your point in saying like that's not brought out is like because as a thinker I think always like I want the information I want to know what happened What is the history?
00:26:54
Speaker
But as you point out with the power of what happened or didn't happen or I didn't know that this person and You don't hear stories of folks helping each other out. You don't hear folks of somebody from here saying I don't care where you're from and putting in and putting themselves on like whoever they are and I find it so
00:27:18
Speaker
difficult. I know you're an activist and I am myself to figure out, to get at those stories, to put in the time and to learn and to then tell others about it, right? Did you know about the occupation of Alcatraz? And do you know many elements of that and why it happened and how it developed? And
00:27:44
Speaker
And we're left without that. I try in the show and of course talking to you to get like, for me, it's a self and deep interest, but there's a lot of wonder. There's a lot of wonder in learning to be done.
00:28:04
Speaker
Um, and thank you for coming on to philosophy and in art and art podcast and and helping me out with this um, we're talking with steph little bird and uh, I am talking her from actually the historical lands of the calipua tribe and we're talking about art and philosophy and uh how we come to be
00:28:28
Speaker
I wanted to ask a separate question Steph and I didn't give you a heads up on this but it's related kind of to
00:28:36
Speaker
are times or fast moving events in how it seems that politics is becoming radicalized and intense and extreme. The question I wanted to ask you is, how do you derive meaning from these quick moving events, these events that are going on? I see a lot of folks, and no fault of their own, whether it's, you know,
00:29:04
Speaker
a cognitive or traumatized. There's so much change. I can't understand it. But how do you personally, or as an artist, derive meaning from what's going down right now?
History and Positive Influence
00:29:17
Speaker
I think that I always try to remain rooted in history whenever I'm thinking about what's happening now and trying to think about the people who I am descended from and what they experienced. Not just my immediate predecessors like my parents, but my predecessors who were colonized and thinking about
00:29:44
Speaker
all of the violent experiences that have sort of happened to previous generations that came before me, not just indigenous people, but all kinds of people who've been oppressed in this country, you know. And so when I see what's going on in the world right now and I see how polarized things are,
00:30:05
Speaker
I feel troubled by it. But I also kind of like am reassured by the sort of trajectory of human, I don't know, human history having, you know, like,
00:30:26
Speaker
there is always going to be struggles. There are always going to be sort of stumbling blocks and we're not always going to be perfect in our ascent to the, you know, the next evolved state. But what we are now is far more informed. And I also think that, you know,
00:30:50
Speaker
We are in a sort of unprecedented world and so there are things that we can't really predict, but I feel like knowing yourself and knowing who you are in terms of where you come from,
00:31:05
Speaker
those things can kind of give you a stability in a sense, and knowing that I descend from people who, you know, were violently colonized and survived that, that I that whatever I'm doing right now, like I have the
00:31:22
Speaker
like the pre-coded sort of experience in my DNA from my ancestors to survive that shit. So, you know, I just keep working away and trying to put my positive light into the world because that's all we can do, right? It's like when you are facing down the fucking gun of a barrel that is tyranny, that is absolutely knocking on this country's door right now,
00:31:46
Speaker
then you you have to like remain positive because if you don't have that vision for a better future then everything deteriorates very quickly and so you know I don't know I just have to just stay focused on you know my purpose because that's really the only thing that's sort of like
00:32:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like, there's a lot going on right now in this world. And we're in a very strange time, you know, people keep saying post pandemic, but we are not in a post pandemic, we still have 50 to 70,000 people being affected every single day. And so, you know, we've just become desensitized. And so
00:32:28
Speaker
It's very interesting. We're in a world right now that's hard to predict, but I stay tethered to reality through my ancestry and doing my purpose every day, which is to create work for my community and for others that uplifts them because that's what we need right now.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, and thank you. And I want to connect what you just said right there to collective activity. And we chatted prior to the episode a little bit about collective activity and working together. You and I must believe that when you take art and you take people, that there must be some power to collectively organize
00:33:16
Speaker
Around it and I'm not saying just overtly for political purposes, right? You know that which has its own uses in means of political imagery I'm saying the power of art and in organizing to help transform I'm assuming that your art is integral to your organizing. So I want to ask this The when we organize Must it be artful?
Art, Activism, and Collective Action
00:33:48
Speaker
I don't think we can ever really count on being artful as humans. So we should never, like we should never aspire to only be artful. Like perfectionism is not, it's not great. It's a tough, tough rule to live under, but I think that it's not important to be perfect. It's important to try. And so a lot of people ask me that when I talk about art, but it's true of activism too, which is like,
00:34:16
Speaker
Well, certainly every painting I make is not going to be a masterpiece, but it doesn't mean I don't paint that painting because that painting that I made that isn't a masterpiece, well, that teaches me how to make the masterpiece. And so as we talked earlier about collectivism, like sometimes our collective actions are a very small microcosm and they don't impact the world the way that we say would want them to.
00:34:42
Speaker
But it's that action, it's that collectivism that keeps that flame of revolution and change alive. And so we have to keep putting coal on the fire, right? We got to keep putting fuel into it to keep it alive because sometimes the fire isn't burning that bright. But as long as it's burning, then there's potential for it to, you know,
00:35:05
Speaker
to come back up again and so anyway yeah that's it's tough it's tough it doesn't have to be artful it just has to happen yeah I found one of the best one of the best lessons you know I learned a long time ago but to teach folks
00:35:25
Speaker
organizing or collective activity around a cause is so clumsy and sloppy. I don't even have the words for it. And people don't expect that going in. They expect to be like, where am I supposed to be standing? And where is that? And folks will look at you and you'll be like, look, your attitude has to be this. You have to constantly adapt because we're in a new thing constantly.
00:35:52
Speaker
And it's quite a funny thing to think about it in that way, because I think we're kind of trained to think of, OK, what are the instructions? What is going to work? And we're like, guess what? As we're going along here, we're going to find what works as we're doing it.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a painting is a series of thousands of decisions, right? So like when I make a painting, I have to consciously and also subconsciously just paint these layers of color, essentially, to achieve something that looks like a thing later on, you know? And so really, there's no roadmap to that. That's just kind of like, you got to go with it. And like you said, be able to adapt, adaptability, being dynamic,
00:36:37
Speaker
super important when it comes to organizing or being an artist generally, because if you're not willing to experiment like these, the lives we lead as activists and artists are typically the like the sort of overgrown paths. They're not cleared for you, you kind of got to make it on your own. And so you have to be a creative mind either way. Yeah, yeah. And, um,
00:37:04
Speaker
Well, and part of the thing I think in mentioning art or, you know, the art of that, but also, you know, thinking about philosophy and asking questions. And one of the things that I know in doing this show, I mean, if you look at the history of philosophy, you know, per se, not only do you have like a dominant white male narrative
00:37:30
Speaker
you have one even more dominant in the kind of concepts that are created. Like it seems that philosophy is even more white and male. And I think it's problematic, much more problematic compared to art because yeah, art has that same type of thing, right? So somebody will think of the Guggenheim or like rich people having a glass of wine in front of a painting.
00:37:57
Speaker
But you and I know that there's a ton of art and there's a bunch of other things. There's just a whole lot more that is there. And I think about history. I think you mentioned in talking about history, that history is there. And one of the things I try to do in this show, which is,
00:38:23
Speaker
is kind of an interesting experiment almost is that type of philosophy or that type of esoteric learning the language, particular language is so exclusionary. I think it's noticeably, it's just exclusionary. And when you popularize philosophy of saying like, what is art? Or like, why am I here?
00:38:53
Speaker
can get to the point in talking about that and not create the argument necessarily, but to talk about big questions. In thinking about philosophy, and I know you studied history and doing philosophy, what is it like to not see, at least formally, in formal education, representation
00:39:20
Speaker
of thought systems and thinking within academics. And what does that mean for us?
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that what I would say to what you were just saying about how philosophy and art are kind of separate, I will argue that actually those are the same audiences in terms of the pedigree of people who can study those things. They're coming from the same place a lot of the times. And so when I went to art school, I didn't know a whole lot about philosophy, but I came in
00:39:53
Speaker
to be in class with these kids who were like 19, but they'd gone to a magnet school. And so they had learned philosophy and they knew about words I had never even heard before. And so I had to catch up because I came from the country. I came from a town of 500 people. So we weren't talking about philosophy in junior high or high school.
00:40:23
Speaker
I don't know, I think that they sort of, the institutions of thought that they have created around them, that elitist vocabulary, very much sort of like the same functionality and actually much of philosophy travels into art history.
00:40:45
Speaker
when we think about concepts in art history known as the sublime. There's a visual school of the sublime, but then there's a module Kant who wrote about the sublime. And so that's actually where the school of the visual sublime comes from. And so it totally infects the way we're trained as artists as well.
00:41:09
Speaker
So they are separate, but I'm like, no, I lost. I don't know what. No, it's fine. Once I started to. Hey, Steph, once you got to Immanuel Kant and get into critique of judgment, like I started to latch onto this and say, how the hell do we get there? Immanuel Kant and.
00:41:27
Speaker
You were saying, and I appreciate your comments because I see what you're saying, you're saying this is kind of cut from the same cloth. There is, no matter how you approach philosophy and art, a dominant, elitist, exclusionary piece to it.
00:41:51
Speaker
And with what you're talking about is something that I experienced, because I was very much a working class kid, doesn't pronounce his R's well, from Rhode Island, and a smart kid.
00:42:09
Speaker
but not prepared or knowledgeable of going into those type of things and then seeing the type of people were there. They were either traditional religious scholars from a tradition or a Christian tradition or they were white men and studied already in philosophy where the way I approached it
00:42:33
Speaker
Well, it didn't lead me to a career. It led us to me doing a podcast with you and labor organizing. But I do know what you mean in access. And I can't imagine what some of your experience were trying to have a conversation about making art with some of those folks in that apartment.
00:43:03
Speaker
I was going to say, back to the color conversation, throughout my art school experience, my teachers, particularly my painting teachers, were like, why do you want to use neon all the time? Why do you want to use these colors? And I think it's because many of them were hippies.
00:43:24
Speaker
And so they saw my color use as a drug reference because they were thinking about like the Grateful Dead or something. And the thing is, is if you've ever been to a contemporary powwow, then you will see all of my palettes in our regalia. And so everything is so brightly colored and reflective. And so neons are present in all of our regalia now because
00:43:51
Speaker
it's a mixture of tradition and contemporary materials. And so my colors are very much a reference to that, but I actually just had this conversation with somebody who's doing
00:44:03
Speaker
sort of an exhibition overseas and talking about elitism and how in the art institution that even down to color, the idea of white supremacy is enforced. So when you go into a gallery space, all of the walls must be painted white. And there is a very specific type of white that you should have. And there are all these rules about how a painting should be hung at a certain level on the wall,
00:44:32
Speaker
inches on center specifically, because that's the perfect height. And so there are all these secret rules that white men have created, essentially, that are enforced upon creatives, no matter where they come from. And in a lot of cases, like indigenous artists, we may have gone to art school. Some of us were lucky enough to get into those institutions, but we very much were not a part of those institutions and felt like aliens
00:45:01
Speaker
in them because our approach to the work is so different than somebody who's coming in there. There was a student I went to school with and one of his very first projects in school in our sculpture class, we had to make a sculpture and bring it in to have it critiqued. He bought a hamburger and put it on a pedestal and we had to critique it. It was totally valid. It was totally valid. I spent
00:45:30
Speaker
hours and hours and hours making a sculpture and he went and bought a hamburger and talked about it for 30 minutes. And so there are many different ways in which white supremacy plays out in art institution and privilege plays out because that person can get a better grade than I did because they knew how to talk about it in the right language.
00:45:53
Speaker
And so there are all these barriers that indigenous people experience in those institutions, people of color generally experience, and also just poor people. When you get anywhere near those institutions, you recognize that you did not, you didn't come with the prepackaged vocabulary and privilege you were supposed to have to be there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and one of the things in the systems that I found out, I've mentioned this publicly at times is, you know, I represent,
00:46:22
Speaker
Everybody when I as I work for a union, I don't I don't choose my clients and and as such
00:46:30
Speaker
I've worked in a large school system where I knew every black person, right? I knew every person of color. Why? Because they're gonna get in trouble. They're not gonna fit in. They're gonna do the same thing that the other person down the hall did, except now they get a reprimand for it. So it's one of those things where I feel it's been a gift to see how the system doesn't work from the inside.
00:46:57
Speaker
Because I'm talking to the folks who sometimes aren't fitting into it and they're telling me why. They don't.
00:47:08
Speaker
But one of the things I wanted to, well, I keep saying one of the things, I want to ask you a lot, Steph. I wanted to ask you a unique question and one of your pieces of art become popularized recently as far
Designing for Jubil Ale and Ethical Art Practices
00:47:29
Speaker
as a design you've done.
00:47:32
Speaker
for um, uh jubil ale um, it was a seasonal ale and I know I I don't drink myself. Um, I quit drinking a while back but What I wanted what I wanted to mention is I thought it was I had such a cool experience seeing that and then like seeing it Out there and i'm like, oh my gosh that I know that I also know that for artists it can be kind of a a
00:47:59
Speaker
thing because it seems bigger than, you know, what you've done. Would you mind just talking a little bit about your experience of like now folks coming and say, hey, I see you are here and I saw it here and I saw it down at the corner. So I was just wondering if you can mention about that.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird to navigate. It's like the jubileo label is weird because I'm not a beer person. I'm also conscious of the fact that my indigenous community struggles with alcoholism. I have alcoholics in my family. And so I took the job after very clearly articulating to them that I would not be giving them indigenous aesthetics to use on their products.
00:48:44
Speaker
that they would be hiring me as a designer and so you know that's sort of the way that I approach that job in particular because you know the one thing about being in demand and having people want your art is that you have to then be more discerning about the people that you let have your art right because
00:49:04
Speaker
When I was a young artist and nobody wanted my art, I was like, some of us, just somebody take my art. And now I'm like, oh, no, wait, I don't want you to have my art because I don't agree with what you do. Or maybe they didn't treat me ethically, those sorts of things. And so I have to navigate that a lot.
00:49:25
Speaker
you know, a lot of people want to tokenize me and call me on, you know, November 1st because they forgot it's in, you know, Native American Heritage Month and they need something native or whatever. And so there are like ways in which that crops up that are sort of frustrating and sort of whatever. But I also am like, I recognize that just as an artist,
00:49:49
Speaker
I'm extremely privileged to have so many people that I have to say no to. So I know what it's like to be a working and starving artist and so to now be like, I can't, I'm sorry, the Washington Post approached me for some shit a couple of weeks ago and I was like, I can't.
00:50:09
Speaker
You guys give me like two weeks turnaround and I'm busy, so I'm sorry. But that's a really cool thing to say no to, right? So it's a blessing and a curse. And learning to discern and set boundaries with people, particularly non-Indigenous entities has been a big lesson for me for sure.
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, and thank you for that. I wanted to tell you about my, I was like, wow, I love looking at that. I was so excited by it. I'm sure many people who, you know, love you and love your art are having, you know, that experience and being able to see it, you know, a bit more, a bit more publicly, I guess.
00:50:54
Speaker
I Keep saying it's like a one more thing and then and I got another thing. I want to ask you the big question though I want to I want to ask you the the big question And then maybe a couple smaller ones. The big question is why is there something rather than nothing?
Life's Meaning and Personal Purpose
00:51:12
Speaker
Why is there something rather than nothing? I will say one other comment about the question. I
00:51:19
Speaker
It can be asked, how is there something rather than nothing when people are saying, of course there's something. I never wanna presume the answer, but which is it, something or nothing or both? Both, for sure. Yeah, I think when I was younger, I would say this a lot. I don't say it as much anymore, but I used to, it depended on the day. Some days I woke up like,
00:51:44
Speaker
very hopeful and some days I woke up a nihilist and like nothing mattered you know and so nihilism has its place in some ways like but I also think that that idea that nothing matters is also tied to white supremacy and I think that the idea that you know that we don't have to take responsibility for our actions and
00:52:10
Speaker
and own up when we make mistakes is like such a core part of the American psyche which is also why we can't address climate change and we can't address genocide or oppression because um you know it's it's sort of
00:52:27
Speaker
it's actually sort of picking at something that is very much tied to white supremacy. And so, yeah, it's, yeah. That's a tough question. My purpose is what I make. And like I said earlier, my purpose is like,
00:52:48
Speaker
working to right the wrongs that happened to my ancestors and also work for the people now. So, you know, when you ask that question, I liken it to what's the meaning of life essentially. And I think that
00:53:03
Speaker
the answer to that question is not the same for every person and that we make meaning and that's what I have that's that's the difference between me now and me as a younger person is that some days I woke up as a nihilist and those were the days that I chose not to make the day have meaning and so every day I have to choose to make my day have meaning and purpose and really that's
00:53:28
Speaker
what keeps me here is like living. So that's my guiding purpose really is that I have to make the meaning. Yeah, I feel that and thank you for your response.
00:53:45
Speaker
Before before I kind of hand it over to you to kind of tell folks You know where to find you because I want them to be able to find you in in your art One of the things I wanted to say Steph is that you know on this show I've had indigenous guests and Indigenous women and one of the things that I found to be a great gift that's been given to me is I know that I can represent in general a
00:54:13
Speaker
a very risky proposition to have a conversation with somebody you don't know uh... white male uh... you know
00:54:21
Speaker
49 I'm struggling my age. I mentioned my age all the time now trying to grapple with it I didn't do it as much before but I know that there's this there's this that there's this step that you take and and I Really just want to recognize that and for I've talked to Jordan Marie brings three horse Daniel Rosalie fish and Raven Juarez and part of my engagement is that my show is
00:54:52
Speaker
open and I'm deeply curious and I'm deeply curious where I don't know I really don't know and I'm learning a lot at the time but fundamentally what I wanted to say is thank you you know for coming on the show and to for taking that step because it's something I notice and it's something I appreciate
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, I will say that it can be a risk for sure. But when you said that you had recently been radicalized to buy indigenous people, I was like, I'm coming. That is the that is the only is the only word and I use it in the most
00:55:41
Speaker
Beautiful non-american radicalization threatening way even though it should be threatening as fuck because you're questioning Fundamentally the structures that are around you. But um, yeah, and that has happened and um being in a process where i'm like, okay How do I do today? How do I learn and how do I how do I figure this out and how do I see? see, you know and with with
00:56:09
Speaker
see the art and also hear in the conversation.
Where to Find Steph's Art Online
00:56:14
Speaker
All right, so, Steph, I will tell you that I already I mentioned you coming on to the show with the producer. He's been ordering your art already. This is, you know, the show hasn't been produced yet. He's excited about it. But could you tell the listeners where to find your art or
00:56:36
Speaker
or maybe any other aspects of your creativity and things you wish to express to the audience.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, if you want to look at my art, the best place to find it is on Instagram. So my handle on there is artnerdforever. All, you know, all spelled no letters or no numbers. Sorry. And then you or you can just type in Steph Little Bird and it'll come up as well. There's also StephLittleBird.com where you can see some I work on there. But
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah, you can Google me. I got all kinds of projects across the internet that you can check out. Aside from being a visual artist, I'm also a curator and a professional writer, and so I'm writing a series right now for Organ Arts Watch that's about Indigenous resilience and about
00:57:23
Speaker
indigenous people in Oregon and how they use creativity to sort of bring, you know, native identity into the present and, you know, thinking about those ideas of indigenous futurism. And so, yeah, you can just search Steph Littlebird on Google, you'll find me. And, yeah, I appreciate the time and opportunity to chat with you on this. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the invitation is, since you're art nerd forever,
00:57:52
Speaker
The invitation is forever. That corresponds. No, I actually tell people that. I used to have this post that I put on Instagram, and it was called the Art Hotline. And you could just DM me if you had questions about art or if you wanted me to look at a piece of art. I still do that for people anyway. But I love art so much. And like I said, art is everything. And so even my DMs on my Instagram account, that's art. So DM me and we can make art together.
00:58:22
Speaker
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Steph. As you know, I've been really excited to chat with you, and actually, as usual, to learn as I'm talking. And I hope everybody gets a chance to take a look at Steph's art. I really enjoy it, and I look forward to those pieces, but also what you were saying about
00:58:49
Speaker
you're writing and about the connection between activity and art. For the sake of moving away from theory to the practical component, one of the threads, I did an interview with Ricardo Levin's Morales in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
00:59:16
Speaker
He really helped me take a jump forward in understanding art activity or creativity, not something that's being pushed in to the activity that you're doing.
00:59:28
Speaker
It's an emanation and it's part of it. And he pointed to, you know, a lot of effort wasted squishing things in when you have to reposition. And I hear a lot of what you have to say there. And for me, that's a very liberating concept because otherwise, for me, in my own way, I get stuck doing labor stuff over here. And now I'm acting arty.
00:59:56
Speaker
over here and now I'm doing this over here when it isn't like that it is like that you know the capitalist system kind of breaks it into those pieces but it really is me and it really is you so um I heard a lot of what you had to say of what we're talking about having a real impact uh on on the world so um
01:00:21
Speaker
Shit, right? That's what art collective, you know, conversation is supposed to do. Steph, thank you so much for your time. This is something rather than nothing.