This year’s conference invites Native and Indigenous educators, community leaders, knowledge keepers, students, and program staff to explore ideas and practices that move beyond borders and binaries whether in education, identity, relationships, or community building. We welcome proposals that share strategies, research, or experiences that strengthen Indigenous education and knowledge systems in urban settings.
Annabelle Two-Rivers Broeffle
Tribal Affiliation: Ojibwe and Menominee
Call 312-826-3204 or email Annabelletworivers@gmail.com
Annabelle Broeffle, a Menominee and Ojibwe multimedia fine artist, based in Chicago, channels the depth of her ancestral knowledge into her art. Her art encompasses painting and photography blends her rich cultural background with a contemporary outlook. Drawing inspiration from indigenous social issues and cultural themes, her creations offer a deep and evocative exploration of the human experience.
Annabelle’s creations elegantly bridge the past and the present, combining traditional wisdom with contemporary insights. Each piece not only celebrates the enduring strength of indigenous communities but also offers a profound exploration of cultural heritage and resilience.
Through her artistic practice, Annabelle encourages exploration, reflection, and a deep appreciation of diversity, reminding us that wisdom is found in our capacity to listen, learn, and connect with one another.
Visit Annabelle’s website for more of her work.
Art Form
Fine Arts – contemporary arts such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, contemporary jewelry design, etc.,
Media Arts – technological arts, such as film, video, digital and audio works, documentary, experimental, animation, narrative works, etc.,
Multidisciplinary – mixed media
Nora Moore Lloyd
Tribal Affiliation: Ojibwe
Call 773-508-5828 or email lcochip@gmail.com
Nora Moore Lloyd creates artwork with an emphasis on indigenous cultures, nature, and documenting community and family history through traditional storytelling and photos.
Combining her interest in history with photography projects, her artistic focus is to tell first-voice stories through images. She has exhibited at Chicago museums and galleries, in Bolivia and Guatemala and Hungary and is represented in private collections. Nora’s website is nativepics.org.
Art Form
Photography, culture
Nizhoni Ward, Feature Editor
Nizhoni Ward is a member of the Navajo Nation. She currently is the Feature Editor of her school newspaper the Voyager. Writing can come in many forms, languages, and context. One thing that’ll always be crucial is knowing what’s going on around you and in our world. Writing is a passion of mine and I look forward to sharing it with you all.
Darren James
Darren James is a member of the Cote First Nation. He is an award-winning director, writer, and the head of Stop the Bomb Productions. An independent Native American filmmaker, with a background in music, he brings original storytelling and powerful visual communication to the screen. His most recent film, Altruist, won the Best Windy City Short Film award at the Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival/Blow Up Film Fest.
Patti Steuber – Custom Artwork Creations
Murals, painting on old antique windows, mirrors, or watercolors of your home, just a few things I create.
Ashley Houghton
Ashley Houghton is a printmaker and founder of Language Tools Residency through her press, Player 1 Press. Language Tools Residency is a space for artists, writers, and educators who speak endangered languages to publish language tools, games, books and reimagine/question how we learn languages.
Ashley, a citizen of the Mvskoke Nation, was inspired to create such a space after beginning to learn the Mvskoke Language. The funds provided by CAC’s MAKER Grant will go towards the completion of a Mvskoke Word Game that she developed with the help of the Mvskoke Language Program.
Robert Wapahi
Tribal Affiliation: Dakota
Call 773-297-0025
Robert Wapahi, a member of the Dakota Santee Nation grew up on the Santee Indian Reservation in Nebraska. He was a U.S. Army combat soldier in Vietnam. In the early 1990’s he moved to Chicago and discovered the American Indian Center Chicago where he felt at home and started painting murals in their three story building on Wilson Avenue in Chicago.
Wapahi’s drawings and paintings reflect on his Dakota Santee heritage and the roles of ancestors as story keepers and spiritual guides. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited at the Illinois State Museum galleries in Chicago and Lockport, Mitchell Museum of the American Indian, Trickster Gallery, and American Indian Center of Chicago.
Art Form
Painting, Drawing
Maria White Cedar Woman
Tribal Affiliation: White Earth Ojibwe
Call 773-715-6567 or Email marisdesjarlait@gmail.com
Maria “White cedar woman” is an indigenous woman who is from the Arikara tribe of Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota and Ojibwe from Red Lake, Minnesota. She was raised on the reservation in North Dakota and had big city dreams. She went on to college in Chicago, Il where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and English as a second language. She is married to her best friend Joel and has two daughters Aiyanna and Ayasha that keep her plenty busy. She teaches Preschool in Illinois where she seen the need for books that represent Native American children as people of today. She wrote this book based on her experiences as a child with her grandmother and her two daughter’s experiences with their adventurous grandmother Peggy as well. This is her story that she hopes to inspire more Native American children to dream big. Miigwetch (thank you)!
Art Form
Performing Arts, Children’s Book Author and Culture
Le’Ana Asher
Tribal Affiliation: Keweenaw Bay Indian
Call 224-515-0057 or email asher4art@icloud.com
Le’Ana Asher is an award-winning contemporary artist known for her powerful representations of Native American culture. With a profound connection to her Ojibwe heritage, she creates vibrant and evocative paintings that explore themes of memory, identity, and resiliency.
Art Form
Fine art – contemporary, oil painting
Zoë Harris
Tribal Affiliation: Afro-indigenous, Citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag
Email zoe.harris@comcast.net
Zoë Harris is a Community Health Sciences PhD student at the UIC School of Public Health. She is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and has worked with her own tribal community as well as urban Native populations in Boston and Chicago on topics of education, health promotion, and language preservation, specifically among youth populations. Zoë is also a Jamaican citizen and has family roots in Selma, Alabama. Therefore, she strives to educate people on the unique experiences of afro-indigenous people to shed light on the lateral oppression that exists in these communities. In addition to her work on indigenous wellness systems, she has also worked on projects related to suicide prevention, social determinants of health, and racism as a public health issue.
“I had never thought of myself as an artist. I picked up weaving in the summer of 2020 from my sister and have been doing it ever since. For me, it is not so much about the art but the connection that comes with weaving. Whether it is connecting with other Native art makers, following basket weavers from around Turtle Island on Instagram, or making baskets for friends and family, I have always enjoyed the camaraderie more than anything. The weaving is just a bonus.”
Noelle Garcia
Tribal Affiliation: Klamath, Northern Paiute
Call 702-809-1556
Traditional Arts – techniques that reflect cultural traditions, such as beadwork, quillwork, basketry, pottery, drums, rattles, textiles, leatherwork, traditional jewelry, etc., Fine Arts – contemporary arts suchas paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, contemporary jewelry design, etc. I use painting, drawing, bead weaving to make narrative work that focuses on family relationships, loss, and the contemporary Native American experience. I am also a contracted teaching artist.
Vincent G. Romero
Tribal Affiliation: Pueblo of Laguna
Call 505-659-1112 or email onemoreindian@aol.com
Stone’R Designs showcases my jewelry work that was inspired by the years working with my mother and siblings when I was a teenager. She would fill large orders of southwest style jewelry to galleries and we would help using a lazy susan pie plate for production. My designs are both traditional and contemporary styles with natural materials such as stone, bone, crystals, shells, leather and glass.
I also write poetry and do performance poetry, as well as storytelling. Stories range from history presentations to children’s stories. I coordinate poetry workshops for my community and other groups that cover issues of personal experience, traditional values and lessons, humor and horror. I’m from the Pueblo of Laguna and also I’m a Dine’ descendant, a Navy veteran and a longtime Chicago community member. You can visit Vince’s Etsy shop here.
Art Form
Traditional Arts – techniques that reflect cultural traditions, such as beadwork, quillwork, basketry, pottery, drums, rattles, textiles, leatherwork, traditional jewelry, etc.
Norma Robertson
Tribal Affiliation: Dakota
Call 773-297-0025
Han. Norma Robertson emaciyapi. I’m an enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, Lake Traverse Reservation, Sisseton, South Dakota. Beading has been a gift to me from my Kunsi, which I have passed on to my daughters and others.
As a teenager I became interested in learning how to bead and my Kunsi Ella Wanna taught be some basic techniques. She also told me “You learn to do this and you’ll never go hungry.” Today, I’ve beaded amulets for all my grandchildren that hold their umbilical cord, and then their first pair of moccasins.
Art Form
Tradational Arts, Beadwork
Sharon Hoogstraten
Tribal Affiliation: Citizen Potawatomi Nation
Call 773-486-3747 or email hoogstraten.sharon@gmail.com
A member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and professional photographer, Sharon Hoogstraten has spent a decade creating formal portraits of fellow Potawatomis. This legacy project spans all nine Potawatomi Nations and is our gift to the future seven generations. Focusing on both the traditional and contemporary aspects of regalia, it is also a declaration of continued existence.
WE ARE STILL HERE! Her nearly life-sized portraits have been widely exhibited and collected. A book, Dancing for Our Tribe: Potawatomi Tradition in the New Millennium is scheduled for 2021 publication. She lives in Chicago/Shikaakwa, homeland of her ancestors. Visit Sharon’s website for more of her photography.
Art Form
Fine Arts – contemporary arts such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, contemporary jewelry design, etc.
Joe Yazzie is a master artist who loves teaching community members to transfer knowledge from one generation to another generation. For the last 20 years he has worked to advance opportunities for Native peoples and people of color, through his art.
Joseph Podlasek is a citizen of the LCO Ojibwe Tribe in Northern WI and is also of Polish descent. He is the father of three great children. Mr. Podlasek (Joe P), a fellow of the Leadership of Greater Chicago and FBI Citizen Leadership Academy, moved in July 2012 full time to establish the Trickster Cultural Center, a 10,000 sq. ft. facility and nonprofit organization in Schaumburg IL.
He has produced 6 great films from the opening of the Smithsonian to five documentaries, and one full film on D-Day’s 75th Anniversary.
