179 is a muralist and teaching artist in Seattle, and works with the community on public art projects and workshops. Her goal is to create safe and beautiful spaces for community members by engaging them in mindful installations. She loves working with youth and challenging their brilliant minds to think about their roles within the rapid growth of our city. Her work strives to engage the viewer to be a part of their environment through observation, critique, and participation. She believes community engagement is vital to successful art planning, and art should be accessible to all. Her focus is education and leading by example.

Tammy’s expressionistic style is honed through years of experimenting with different mediums and styles — primarily acrylic paint, graffiti and street art, graphic art, and paper. She draws inspiration from cultural components and storytelling, as well as from subjects and objects that have great meaning to her.

Tammy has four young children who inspire her daily, and they often can be found in the pieces she creates. She credits her artistic knowledge to her late uncle, Leonard Granados; her pride in her uncle’s creations evolved into a motivation to learn and find an avenue for her own self-expression. She also attributes a great deal of her artistic growth to her years employed with the Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte; she learned a variety of artistic techniques and mediums alongside the young people she served.

Tammy sees her artistic development as a lifelong journey, one in which she is constantly fine-tuning her artistic vision and enhancing her skills and techniques. While she works primarily with acrylic on canvas, she also creates large-scale murals as a graffiti and street artist. On a smaller scale, she produces craft items and wood decor. She enjoys video creation as well as graphic arts; she creates logos, publicity pieces, holiday cards, T-shirt designs, and illustrations for children’s books and other publications. For several years, Tammy has participated as an accepted artist in the “Native POP: People of the Plains” art market, and she has consistently placed in CRST’s Labor Day Domestic and Lakota Arts Exhibit. In addition, her work has been displayed at the Journey Museum in Rapid City as well as at the Rapid City Public Library.

Anitra incorporates applied graffiti paint techniques, bright color palette, and surreal pop — with elements of neo-folk art with an emphasis on expressing indigenous joy, attitude, and empowerment t through sun-kissed cactus characters named “Nopalitas,” “Saugo,” and “Taawe ToothTaker.” Her work also reflects a deep admiration for and spiritual connection to the lands and sky of the Sonoran Desert as well as Yaqui Tribal cultural essences and symbolism. Mixed into her paints, viewers will discover a dreamy and joyous kawaii twist with attitudes of punk rock and heavy metal.

Rock Cyfi Martinez is a native to Tucson, Arizona. He is now lives and creates in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pulling from elements of his surroundings in nature and life, Martinez uses these themes throughout his work. He is influenced by his Mexican American heritage and native descent. A self-taught artist born in 1980 with more than 18 years of experience as a freelance muralist, Martinez has produced more than 300 murals throughout his career.

www.cyfiart.com

Hoka Skenandore was born in 1982 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His multicultural roots include the Oneida of Wisconsin, the Oglala Lakota and the La Jolla Band of Luiseño, as well as Chicano heritage. He grew up in a home where he learned to appreciate traditional native art as well as fine art. On his own, he embraced the DIY ethos of punk rock, hip-hop culture and painted graffiti art. He transitioned from painting graffiti to working on murals in the Albuquerque metro area. After a year in AmeriCorps, he attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2006. He is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Oklahoma. He also has written for First American Art Magazine and Contemporary Native Art Magazine, and he recently contributed his perspectives on the intersection of graffiti, street art and indigenous culture to a chapter written by Matthew Ryan Smith, titled “Indigenous Graffiti and Street Art as Resistance.”

Wundr is populating the space we live in with his playful, mischievous and always evolving illustrations. The characters he creates are not meant to represent any specific individual, but are stitched together from pieces of all of us. Wundr is currently producing artwork in multiple mediums, including murals, illustration, toys and fine art. Influenced by traditional graffiti, cartoons and comics, Wundr’s work provides a fresh take on designing characters that are constantly creeping into our known habitat.

www.wundr.org

Lawst uses his Potawatomi, Menominee and Puerto Rican heritage to influence and shape his visual artwork. His murals and photography examine social and political issues such as the criminalization of immigrants and indigenous populations, urban life, and self- identity. He has been a part of many collaborative mural events across the country, is a member of City Mischief Murals, and is the Founder of Intertribal Styles BIPOC Graffiti Jam.

In 2015, Dances with Words was invited to become one of 19 organizations across the country that make up the Youth Speaks’Dances with Words™️ is a youth development initiative of First Peoples Fund that works with young people, adult mentors, high schools and nonprofit partners on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation empowering participants to become engaged students and community leaders through literary, spoken word and other art forms. First Peoples Fund understands the cultural and historical significance of oral traditions for Native peoples and Dances with Words™️ connects young people to these traditions through the study and creation of literature, poetry, spoken word, and music. At the same time, the program uplifts participants’ stories within their own community and beyond.

In 2015, Dances with Words was invited to become one of 19 organizations across the country that make up the Youth Speaks’ Brave New Voices Network. With support from this network, Dances with Words has grown to create an adaptable program for other tribal communities.The program networks Native young people to literary traditions and other art forms, artist and community member mentors and the broader spoken word community, helping them grow into their roles as culture bearers, artists and community leaders. With support from this network, Dances with Words has grown to create an adaptable program for other tribal communities. The program networks Native young people to literary traditions and other art forms, artist and community member mentors and the broader spoken word community, helping them grow into their roles as culture bearers, artists and community leaders.

The concept of Rolling Rez Arts came in response to a market study conducted by First Peoples Fund, Artspace, Colorado State University, Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), and Northwest Area Foundation. The study explored the challenges and successes experienced by Lakota artists on Pine Ridge. It found that more than half of Native households on Pine Ridge are engaged in home-based businesses, and 79 percent of those businesses are in the arts. It also found that 61 percent of emerging artists have incomes of less than $10,000, but through participation in workshops and trainings—like what will be offer through the mobile art unit—that number increases dramatically.

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.

First Peoples Fund’s Rolling Rez Arts Bus has been featured by PBS News Hour, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Times.

Hoop dance has been the brothers’ passion and instrument of choice since they first learned as young boys. While the Powwow styles of Grass and Fancy dance were their origins when they began to walk, they were always encouraged to “never stop learning” and try more… that’s when they were introduced to and picked up their first hoops. At first, it was simply to inform and share with their peers at school assemblies, yet it quickly became a means of living, and ultimately, a way of life. More than 25 years later, they have since performed in more than half a dozen countries and at hundreds of universities, and they have educated thousands of individuals around the world about their culture and Indigenous Hoop Dancing.