12.15.12
by

Urban Foraging

By Sasha LaPointe

During the spring of 2010, I assisted my mother, the head of Lushootseed Language Research, in her first Cultural Knowledge Sharing Conference held at Seattle Pacific University. I was delegated the most crucial of tasks: I got coffee, worked the book table, arranged and rearranged the spread of Lushootseed dictionaries and anthologies of Coast Salish stories, and even sold a couple of books.

Two women from the Northwest Indian College who had set up their presentation on the revitalization of Pacific Northwest traditional foods caught my eye. They unpacked in the center of the main hall: a large paper sack of cedar, bricks of beeswax, little vials of essential oils and bags of herbs. They had a small propane burner that sat like a cauldron between them. Witches. I was immediately intrigued. I got permission to abandon my post to move up front to participate in the workshop.

The women, Elise Krohn  and Valerie Seagrest introduced themselves and the work they do for Northwest Indian College with traditional foods. They presented their cookbook, as well as a walk through in producing a healing skin salve using cedar and comfrey collected in the Northwest.

In their book, Feeding The People, Feeding the Spirit: The Revitalization of Pacific Northwest Foods, Krohn and Seagrest explore the power of indigenous knowledge. Through the first half of their book, they discuss the oral histories and the legends of the Coast Salish people, as well as ceremonies and lifestyle. They provide a glimpse of what pre-contact life might have been like for the tribes in the Puget Sound area. The first half of the book also breaks down the food stereotypes people might have regarding traditional Northwest diet, mainly the idea that the Natives of the Coast Salish region existed on Salmon and shellfish alone. Krohn and Seagrest provide examples of the diverse and complex foods that the region has to offer. The book teaches its users to cook with indigenous knowledge. The chapters are packed with facts about the food that grows native and wild to the Puget Sound area. For example, they provide an easy recipe for a healthy tea that calls for only Spruce tips and boiled water. The tea is rich in vitamin C and good for the immune system. They list the reasons why consuming wild game meat as opposed to industrialized beef is better for you.

Incredibly inspired by the presentation, I felt intrigued to explore their ideas of incorporating traditional food in an urbanized area. I told my boyfriend we were not going to do our grocery shopping at the Trader Joe’s down the street from our house, that we wouldn’t be eating pizza or Thai take-out.  He was amused enough to venture with me thirty miles from the Seattle city limits to a green belt in the suburban Everett area. There, I collected skunk cabbage, stinging nettles and wild greens. Using the book I was able to produce a delicious, one hundred percent local and sustainable meal, without traveling too far. With the recipe in the book, I prepared a meal of baked salmon wrapped in skunk cabbage, topped with stinging nettle pesto and served with a wild greens salad. The skunk cabbage wrapped the fish tightly, preserving the healthy amino acids, the many vitamins as well as the delicious flavor. According to the cookbook, the nettle pesto provided Vitamin C and the wild green salad was also packed of nutrients.

The meal was relatively easy to prepare, and afterwards we felt great. There was a noticeable difference, the way our bodies reacted when consuming the protein, vitamin rich foods as opposed to the common diet, high in salts, refined sugars and fat. We had leftovers for days. I stored the left over nettle pesto in the fridge right next to the package of meatless buffalo wings and left over vegetarian spaghetti and meatballs. The fresh wild food looked out place next to shelves of overly processed “health” food. The assessment of my own fridge left me with this notion of an ancestral diet, and I searched for signs of this new wave of food consciousness in the Seattle area.

In the Spring of 2013, the Beacon Hill Neighborhood in south Seattle will open the first Food Forest in Washington State. The food forest will be a wild foods garden planted on public land for the community to participate in planting, maintaining, and harvesting. The space will provide a variety of wild edible plants native to the Puget Sound area, and the food will be available to the beacon hill community.

The idea of wild native plants available in south Seattle’s urban Beacon Hill neighborhood is a big step. Next to a dentist’s office, nestled between a busy street and a driving range, it’s hard to imagine the seven acre strip thriving with Salal berries, blueberries, fruit bearing trees and other foods, there available for any community member to pull over, harvest and snack on.

My house, kitty-corner to the site, has a view from the porch. I can see the harvesters now. Soccer mom’s on their iPhones standing by while excited kids hunt and gather for an afternoon picnic. I see elderly ladies hunched over for wild strawberries, shoulder to shoulder with kids in studded vests and band patches. Dumpster divers will rejoice in the fresh available produce, no longer having to visit Madison Market’s garbage.

The Beacon Hill Food Forest is a step in the right direction concerning cultural preservation. It proves that there are communities out there interested in maintaining a healthy and sustainable way of existing. With actions like the Food Forest, communities across the country stand a chance against a colonized diet.

12.14.12
by

Zozobra: A Time To Celebrate?

By Sasha LaPointe and Christine Trudeau

Santa Fe, NM -  Murales Road is stopped in a slow moving crowd of people. It looks as if the entire city’s population has been funneled into the narrow residential street in an attempt to make their way into Fort Marcy Park. The park’s entrance is a circus of families, groups of glow stick clad teens, toddlers on shoulders, and couples holding each other in anticipation for the night’s events. The sun hasn’t set, and already there is a number of men drunk and swaying against a backdrop of the red flashing lights of a police cruiser.

A group of teenagers pass a family in line, shouting about “E” and “Molly”, more commonly known as Ecstasy, and flick their cigarette butts to the pavement. The event has brought out an eclectic variety of New Mexicans, with one common goal: to kick off Santa Fe’s Fiestas with the burning of Old Man Gloom. Old Man Gloom, a fifty foot paper mache puppet, looms in the distance, it’s eyes glowing green and it’s paper mouth eerily falling up and down with the breeze, creating the illusion of speech.

Many of the events attendees have little to no idea of the event’s history, its origin or its connection to the fiestas celebration. A tourist from England admitted to having no clue to what the event was even about, just that some locals had hyped Zozobra the night before at a bar. Person after person enthusiastically praised Zozobra for bringing the community together, and many people even admitted to just being there for the drugs. But mainly, people were at Zozobra to celebrate community.

“It’s good for the kids, you know,” says Joe Padilla as he waits in the ticket line, “It’s great to see the kids and the families come out.” Padilla, a coach at St. Michaels High School has been coming to Zozobra for ten years.

Brandon from Albuquerque was looking forward to the burning of Zozobra. “You throw all your gloom away,” he continues cheerfully, “you throw it into Old Man Gloom and watch it burn.”  Brooke, from Gallup accompanied Brandon in the crowd and explained that this was her first time, and that she had some apprehensions. “I was actually told not to come here,” she laughs, “ cause I heard people got shot here.”

There is a lot people getting drunk, taking pictures, buying Zozobra souvenirs and not a lot of people able to engage in an informed dialogue regarding the purpose behind all of it.

Donald Stout and Chuck Higgens, two informed festival goers, offer a knowledge of Zozobra history, the first of the evening. Stout, a Santa Fean of 28 years, Higgens for 12, were married in Iowa last year and in a celebratory mood.  Even though Stout hadn’t been to Zozobra in over 15 years, he was versed in the event’s beginnings. “I Know it started with Will Shuster in the 1920’s. And the first Zozobra was in his backyard and he made this puppet, probably three feet high or something, burned it in his back yard and it just grew from there.”  When asked about the connection between Zozobra and Fiestas Stout laughs and answers, “Well that’s the big question. It does not have a direct connection to the original fiestas. You know, which was of course the reconquest of Santa Fe after the Pueblo revolt of 1680. But it soon became an integral part of Fiestas. It was the evolution of Fiestas.”

Chuck Higgens  laughs at the concept behind Old Man Gloom, and the burning of personal glooms. “what’s interesting,” he says, “is that fiestas is kicked off with a Pagan ritual. This burning is kind of like a Pagan rite.”

Stout joins in the laughter. “Yes, which is very interesting considering the Catholic overlay of Fiestas.” Both men laugh and look at each other. Higgens adds with a smile, “I’m sure the original Padres are turning over in their graves.”

Higgens and Stout  will join the rest of the festival goers to throw old love letters, old deeds and divorce papers into the mouth of Old Man Gloom and set fire to their past regrets. Some of them are also just here to get drunk and watch something really, really big burn.

Perhaps the original Padres are turning over in their graves. But what’s more interesting about fiestas and specifically the Zozobra event, is the lack of awareness behind what is really happening.  There is a level of disconnect present on the faces of crowd.

According to Jeanette De Bouzek’s  documentary “Gathering Up Again,” a film that follows the lives of several individuals participating in different events involved with the celebration, Zozobra’s purpose is to serve as an outlet for the Anglo community during Santa Fe’s Fiesta’s. Fiestas are rooted in the Spanish community. People within the anglo community here in Santa Fe have embraced Zozobra as a way of celebrating and have succeeded in turning the event into a phenomenon.

People are excited. They’re excited to be gathered in the city at sunset, preparing to say goodbye to their gloom. They’re excited in the way people attending public executions are excited. There is a fifty foot man made of paper and wire, complete with his own voice, a prerecorded booming wale that echos over the parks grounds. When the sun completely sets, Old Man Gloom is engulfed in flames, people cheer, some children scream.

It’s a release of the years gloom, a way to reenergize and reground, start fresh, which speaks to many of the community members of Santa Fe. But what about the historical trauma that floats around the very heart of Fiestas? The reconquering implies the conquered, but is anyone burning anything for the hundreds of Pueblo lives lost through out the revolt?

“Zozobra has always struck me as strange. I think the reason they keep the celebration is that it’s a huge money maker for the city and Fiesta,” says Diane Reyna, Student Success Coordinator at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Videographer on ‘Gathering Up Again: Fiesta in Santa Fe’. “I’ve never been comfortable with it.”

In 1990, Reyna and Jeanette De Bouzek, director of ‘Gathering Up Again’, set out to make a documentary that concentrated on what cultural contributions were being made during Zozobra and the Fiestas from different communities in the Santa Fe area, and more importantly, who was framing the perspective on historical events.

“We wanted to show how the ‘three cultures’ celebrate Fiesta,” says Reyna. “Pueblo people didn’t participate for the past 20 to 30 years so we didn’t really know how we were going to show the non-participation of the Pueblo people. However, it was very clear how the Hispanic community did that, and the Anglo community did that.”

Chip Lilienthal of the Kiwanis club, a Caucasian man who ran the Zozobra event the year the documentary was filmed seemed to believe that prior to 1926, Caucasians were underrepresented during Fiesta season. “Santa Fe is a city of three cultures: You had a representation of the Indian, you had a representation of the Spanish,” said Lilienthal. “There was not a lot of representation of the Anglo, and the gringo needed to have some kind of say in the whole operation.”

It’s difficult to tell how much Zozobra has aided the city of Santa Fe’s understanding of the larger history at work here with what the season is commemorating. A large majority of tourists and locals alike from various cultural backgrounds, might find it enlightening to discover what exactly is being represented during Fiesta season. All Indian Pueblo Council member, Herman Agoyo of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, was unaware of the history behind Fiestas for much of his early life.

“Indian people do not write their history down in books,” said Agoyo in ‘Gathering Up Again’. “When we went to school, we learned very little about the New Mexico history, and in fact, I never heard about the Pueblo Revolt until after I got out of college.” The revolt united the Pueblos in 1680 to rise up and force the Spanish out of New Mexico for a dozen years.

The documentary also features Historian Dr. John Kessel, Professor at the University of New Mexico, specializing in New Mexico and Southwestern history. In the film he is featured as a guest speaker at one of the Fiesta events.

“The real reconquest began in 1693 with the ill-starred expedition of colonists who intended to stay,” said Kessel. “At their head, Governor Vargas – impatient and over confident – reappeared before Santa Fe in the dusty cold of December. Despite his best efforts, negotiations broke down. Retreat was out of the question.  So, with the timely aid of one hundred and forty armed Pecos Indian allies, he assaulted the place, and the snow ran red with blood. After the battle he ordered seventy Pueblo Indians executed. ”

An interesting aspect to consider, especially when you take a look at the current  2012 official site of the Santa Fe Fiesta Council (www.santafefiesta.org) states under their history section that “[De Vargas] accomplished this difficult and remarkable mission without bloodshed on September 4, 1692.”

“By implying during Fiesta that the Spanish reconquest of New Mexico was bloodless we not only distort the past, but we also deny the dignity and humanness, good and bad, of New Mexico’s Hispanos and Indians who fought, endured, and lived together for in this beautiful and unforgiving land of little rain,” says Kessel.

Throughout Fiesta season various ceremonies and celebratory events are held. One of these events is called the Entrada, which has been held since the inception of the Fiestas in 1712. The Entrada is meant to be a re-enactment to honor and highlight events that took place during the reconquest of Santa Fe. During the Entrada re-enactment, individuals from Hispanic and Pueblo communities are chosen to portray various historical figures. In ‘Gathering Up Again’, Randy Kaniatobe, from Santa Domingo Pueblo, was chosen to portray one of the Pueblo tribal leaders of 1692 who apparently met with De Vargas to discuss and agree upon a peaceful resettlement of Santa Fe. During a Fiesta council meeting in the film it is enthusiastically announced by Caucasian council member Ed Barry that “this year for the first time in many, many years we have an Indian, from Santa Domingo Pueblo,” referring to Kaniatobe. In the film, Kaniatobe reflects upon the events he participated in: “If I stopped to take a hard look at the reason why it’s been celebrated, I probably wouldn’t of done it.”

Mariano Chavez, a Fiesta council member himself, reflected toward the end of ‘Gathering Up Again’ that “The Indian has no reason to celebrate the Fiestas. The local people are celebrating the so called bloodless reconquest of the Indian. Now, I mean, Americans don’t celebrate Pearl Harbor Day; Indians don’t celebrate Fiesta.”

12.13.12
by

Santa Fe’s Ghost Walking Tour

By Anna Nelson

Santa Fe, NM — According to professional guide Allan Wheeler, who leads Santa Fe’s GHOSTWALKER tour, no one really knows what a ghost is made of, but around these parts, he has narrowed it down to three types of haunting “personalities.”
“The first kind of ghost is the Stephen King-type: Malicious, does nasty things, and in some cases—can be deadly. The second type loves to cause chaos—these are poltergeists, and the third kind—which we have the most of, due to the clash of cultures in these parts—is the ‘mischievous’ type of ghost.”
For the last nine years, through the doors of the La Fonda, where the paranormal tours begins, Wheeler has approximately 3,000 people (a dozen of which were professional ghost hunters) through the two-city blocks that hold most of the ghostly activity. They include: The LaFonda, Cathedral Park, the old St. Vincent’s Hospital, the old Santa Fe Federal building, and the infamous, La Posada Hotel, which used to be the Staab house and judging by the “mischievous doings” of Julia Staab — the mansion’s ghostly mistress — she believes it still is.
At the starting place, the LaFonda, Wheeler says there are 11 ghosts that occupy the establishment, but only three that are active. They are known to show themselves between three and four in the middle of the night, also known as the “witching hour.”
“Folklore of old held that the ‘witching hour’ was midnight,” says Wheeler. “But currently ghost experts mostly agree that it is more frequently the hour between 3 and 4 AM that ghosts and other paranormal events occur. The theory is that ultraviolet rays from the sun tend to diminish or interfere with the energy that a ghost/spirit is able to obtain from the atmosphere. During the hours of 3:00 to 4:00 AM those rays are usually measured at their lowest.
The most famous LaFonda haunting involves a young honeymooning couple from St. Louis, who checked into the hotel during the 1930’s. The story goes that the night of their stay, the husband started drinking down in the bar, got into a fight with the bartender and was shot dead on the bottom of the steps going back up to his room.
What people have claimed to see is of the bride coming down the steps in her nightgown and standing over her newly departed husband. She has her hands held close to chest, then disappears. The help of the hotel are the ones who have seen her the most. According to legend, the bride had killed herself after lingering around the lobby of the hotel, seemingly forgotten about, till she pulled out a small Derringer (common for women to carry in the day) and shot herself in the head, joining her husband.
The other active ghost of the hotel shows up two to four times a year. He was a traveling sales man from St. Louis who is written in the ledger as having checked in around 1934. According to history, the salesman lost all his money by drinking and gambling and became very emotional at the front desk. He can be seen, at times, in his black broad cloth with chalky white skin—which ghosts are known for, running towards the hotel’s well and jumping into it—where he initially drowned. The hotel’s restaurant is now built around the old, bricked up well; however, this doesn’t stop the salesman’s ghostly form from occasionally taking a flying leap into the well.
In the courtyard of the St. Francis Cathedral, Wheeler tells of the 1951 cleanup by Santa Fe that hired local high school kids to help with landscaping. During this time they started finding bones just under the topsoil. Archeologists were brought in and it was discovered to be an old graveyard. Many of the bones were later moved to the Rosario Cemetery where they were put to rest. While the mass Catholic internment was going on, people could hear a ruckus of commotion in the air, but nobody could pinpoint where it was coming from. It didn’t stop till the ceremony was over. To this day, people sometimes will see murky shadows and strange sounds coming from the back of the darkened courtyard.
The courtyard is directly below the old St. Vincent’s Hospital, built in 1853, which also at one time was a nursing home, and a psychiatric sanitarium was on its upper third floor. The soft cries of a small boy who died in room 311 from a car accident along with his father have been heard many times by the nurses — so frequently that the hospital tried to keep the room unoccupied.
Across from the old St. V’s is La Posada, at one time, the Staab family’s Victorian mansion built by Abraham Staab, a wealthy Jewish merchant in 1882. He built the three-story brick mansion for Julia, his wife.  It was lovely decorated and they had many formal parties. However, their fairy tale life ended with Julia’s seventh child, a boy, dying soon after he was born.  This sent her into a deep depression, some now think post-partum and her hair was said to have turned white almost overnight. Julia took to her room, where she spent most of her time until she died, at age of 52 in 1896.  Julia is said to have gone completely crazy in these last years. As there was a social stigma attached to mental illness, the family is thought to have hidden her away.
That doesn’t keep her from letting herself be known now, as her reputation is such that her bedroom is booked solid for 6 months in advance. If you’re a non-believer, she may tilt the bed up to throw you out of it while sleeping. Or she’ll let you sleep with one eye open all night to think that nothing went amiss until the next morning when you find your pieces of valuables gone. Later, they are usually found in another room of the house.
“Julia has a way of reading minds,” Wheeler states, “and playing with your mind.” He relates one story in which a couple checked in, but the man didn’t tell his lady friend that the hotel was haunted. A little while later the woman comes running down the stairs, goes to the front desk and demands if the hotel is known to be haunted. “Of course, they tell her, everyone knows that.” The woman is very upset her boyfriend didn’t tell her and she goes off to find him. It seems when she was up-stairs, outside Julia’s bedroom, she seen an arm sticking out of the wall—going up and down, up and down. It kind of freaked her out.
Unlike the “weaker” ghosts, who need to charge their batteries to be able to even show themselves at the known witching hour, Julia is another case, according to Wheeler and those that have had the chance to see her in action:
“Contrary to this is the particular ghost, such as Julia Staab, who appears at any time of day or night. It is thought that this signifies that she has been able to obtain energy from some other means. That source could be the frenetic energy which groups of people at places like hotels give off. Many times I have just stood still in the La Fonda or the La Posada and felt that energy for myself.”
What are ghosts trying to tell us? For Wheeler, they all have one thing in common: “they want to move on.”

12.11.12
by

IAIA Struggles With Student Retention

By Donna Hall

Santa Fe, NM — Retention and graduation rates for The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) vary greatly from year to year. A graduation rate table can show the statistics of an average student’s four year Bachelor’s degree plan.  On average, it will take a student six years to complete their first or only bachelor’s degree.  For the entering class of 2003, their graduation percentage was at a high number: 83%, however, for the entering class of 2004, the graduation rates were low at just 21%.  The following 2005 entering class showed a little increase in their graduation rate of 13%, making their percentage 34%.

Retention rates seem to fluctuate a little more evenly than that of the graduation rates at IAIA.  For IAIA, first-time, full-time freshman retention, to their sophomore year, the entering class of 2008 saw a percentage of 58% return for their sophomore year.  The 2009 entering freshman class saw a moderate decline in the retention for incoming sophomores the following year, and may show waves of good and bad years for both retention and graduation rates.  Since the last report from the entering class of 2010, the retention rate to sophomore year was at 72%, ideas were talked about on how to keep retention at this rate or higher.

The rates have shown dramatic change in retention, as well as graduation percentages, the instances of why students fail to return to IAIA vary just as greatly.  Some students that have not returned cite financial hardship as the determining factor.  “I have a bill for over a thousand and I can’t go back until it’s paid,” says Russell Sun Eagle, a former student from 2011.  “But that’s OK I am focusing on my Mixed Martial Arts fighting and that, I think, is going to be better for me.”

College students all over the country face challenges that might prevent them from returning a following semester.  Challenges from financial to family issues surface on a daily basis and can have an impact on whether of not one can return.

Like other campuses throughout the United States, IAIA has retention problems as well.

“Yes, all colleges have problems with retention,” says the Director of Student Success Nena Anaya. Undertaking a plan to increase retention, the goal for the school year 2011-2012 was to improve the retention rate by 10% and the graduation rate by 8%.  The Institute itself decided to embark on a plan that would attack the problems that face both IAIA and its students. The plan focuses on both new and ongoing initiatives that require immediate as well as long-term improvements.  The areas of responsibility varies from office to office, however because the Institute values its students, the President’s office and the Student Success Center’s office oversee the majority of these issues. To help retain students the Institute of American Indian Arts created the Student Success and Learning support center to make a “one-stop shop” for student services.  Within this center, the issues that come up with students are addressed and steps are taken to try and help them succeed.

Last year a student success summit was organized and students were invited to attend so any problems they were having could be heard in an open and understanding forum.  Thirty-three issues were brought to light ranging from preparing for graduate school to starting a cyber-café in the Center for Lifelong Education. Out of these 33 issues 29 have been addressed.  As of November 2012 the retention plan, as originally mapped out, was 88% completed. However that does not mean that all the issues were solved, just addressed.  With the continuing efforts of IAIA’s administration to improve communication with its students and dedication to their success, the retention & graduation rates are sure to improve.

12.10.12
by

Student Parents Struggle With Childcare Options

By Warren Giago

Santa Fe, NM – The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a small school located on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s a great place for students to come and learn the tricks of the art trade  from trained professionals. Native American and Non-Native students from all over the world attend this institution to attain their educational goals.
One of these students is Tahnee Harjo-Growing Thunder. She is an Elected Parent Representative student from Oklahoma. She, like other students, is experiencing what it is like to be a college student and a parent. Ms. Harjo-Growing Thunder lives in the IAIA family housing with her mother and two children, who attend the IAIA Childcare program: The Nizhoni Center, which is funded by Presbyterian Medical Services. This program provides daycare services for children ages six months to three years old.

Ms. Harjo-Growing Thunder feels these services could be improved upon. “We need a program that could better service IAIA students because the college students need to be the focus of the program since it is on school grounds,” she says.
This service is provided for any low-income housing applicant who qualifies. Their company website describes their services as “quality accessible integrated health, education, and human services in response to identified community needs of the multi-cultural people of the Southwest.”

This allows for non-students who fit the low-income qualifications to use the services on the IAIA campus. This does not sit well with Ms. Harjo-Growing Thunder.

“The program is a cookie-cutter program that does not fit the needs of the student body,” she says.

Carmen Henan is the IAIA Dean of Students. She is responsible for the non-academic areas of Student Life and is a senior administrative member who oversees housing, counseling, childcare, student clubs and organizations. Ms. Henan claims that Presbyterian Medical Services (PMS) is filling the needs of the IAIA community.

“Our students have priority,” says Henan. “We let our students know when there is a slot open for children.”

The Nizhoni Center is currently at full capacity with 16 children. Out of these 16, eight are children of IAIA students.
“The reality is we don’t have enough children to fill the program,” says Henan. “Maybe increasing the age for children would be beneficial for the IAIA community.”

Nizhoni Center Director, Sabrina Moquino adds “We would like to increase the age for children attending, but we have to follow PMS guidelines, which only allows us to work with children three years and younger.”

IAIA is also working on an after-school program for kids aged, five to 12 years old. It is in the early planning stages right now, but this would be a big addition to the student body at IAIA.

“We are really trying to get this program started because we could provide an excellent service for these children and for the parents,” Henan said. “We have the facilities for the program, and all we would need is the money to pay for the staff.”

The after-school program could be a great comfort for IAIA students who could use these services to help them complete their college education, although it might not immediately aid the IAIA community because it will not be implemented until the fall of 2013.

For students like Tahnee Harjo-Growing Thunder, it is a step in the right direction. “We really need an upgrade in the services provided to the students,” says Growing Thunder. “The way things are right now is not up to par.”

12.07.12
by

IAIA’s Creative Writing Department Begins Low-Residency MFA Program

By Monty Little

Santa Fe, NM – The leaves have all fallen around the Institute of American Indian Arts campus. Critiques from students and faculty can be heard echoing in the hallways, and drumming from keyboards become syntactical. Students prepare themselves for the coming semester, while some seniors are looking ahead to the next step in their educational path — Graduate School. Application deadlines can be another stressful thing to worry about, but excitement is found around campus, more specifically, around IAIA’s Creative Writing department.

In the summer of 2013, IAIA will open their doors to the first group of students achieving their Masters in Fine Arts in IAIA’s first Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing. The Low-Residency MFA program will have students in residency for six and a half days, with readings nightly, workshops, discussions, and classes daily that will add up to 40 hours. When graduate students are not in residency, they will work with faculty mentors through Blackboard for 16 weeks.

“Tentative dates for the first residency are July 28 through August 4, 2013,” IAIA Creative Writing Department Chair, Jon Davis says. “If all goes as planned, there will be 30 graduate students and roughly 6 faculty mentors on campus for that first residency.”

Davis, Santa Fe’s Poet Laureate, says former IAIA professor, Arthur Sze, and Davis sought the idea of a graduate program back in 2000, and they thought the program would be established ten years after. They were close. In fact, the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Academic Dean, Dr. Ann Filemyr brought up the idea again in the spring of 2007.

Davis researched 35 Low-Residency MFA programs around the country, including three of the nations most successful programs: Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, Vermont College, and Pacific University in Oregon. He studied their programs, looking at their professors, teaching curriculum, operation, and their methods for exchanging and critiquing work. During 2008, Davis consulted the Associated Writing Program’s “Hallmarks of a Successful Low Residency MFA Program,” and attended a Low Residency Caucus at AWP’s annual conference for more insight.

“In the fall of 2008, the Faculty Council approved the concept of developing an MFA in Creative Writing,” Davis says. “By February, I had a complete proposal and a curriculum. During February and March of 2009, the Curriculum Committee reviewed the entire program and approved both the program and the individual course proposals. On May 14, 2009, the Board of Trustees passed a motion approving the MFA.”

The Higher Learning Commission, an independent corporation and member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools accredit degree-granting post-secondary institutions, visited IAIA on November 5th, 2012. “In preparation for the HLC’s site visit and review, the program went through a further round of adjustments, primarily a review of financial and practical matters,” Davis says. “This time led by Dean Ann, Bill Sayre, and Lawrence Mirabal, with strong support from President Martin.”

It was also then when the Higher Learning Commission interviewed a few Creative Writing students after meeting with faculty, which included: Carolyn Conley, Paige Buffington, and Windsong. “The main question was why we felt IAIA should have its own MFA program,” Buffington says. “They asked us about the program’s strengths. I said that the faculty is encouraging. They prepare us for graduate school as if it is the next step and not just an option.”

On the same day, the Higher Learning Commission’s review ended in a favorable vote. IAIA was ready and ahead of schedule for an MFA program.

Currently, Davis, who will be Interim Director, is organizing the program, which includes building a faculty staff. “The initial group of six [faculty members] will be 80% Native and will include some very well known names,” Davis says. “The number of mentors will grow as the student body grows. If we have a full program (60 students) in August of 2014, the faculty will expand to 15-20 total faculty mentors.”

According to Davis, IAIA’s Low-Residency MFA program will be affordable. “We’ve tossed around an early application deadline in April, a late deadline in May or even June 1st. Given our constituency, we want to keep the price low, yet pay the faculty well so we can get the best available writers.”

IAIA’s Creative Writing Department was asked why chose a Low-Residency MFA rather than a full residency program. Two good reasons: “A student can live away from Santa Fe, attend to family, work, community, and still participate,” Davis says. The other reason is, “Faculty are paid per student, so costs and tuition are precisely aligned. Ultimately, we will rotate a roster of 15-20 faculty members in and out of the program.”

According to Davis, most schools generate huge profit, which is why IAIA is pushing for the MFA program. But the profit is not what the Creative Writing program is interested in; in fact, “We want to provide a service to the Indigenous writers of the continent. If it works, the students will dream of literary matters, too.”

12.06.12
by

Apocalypse Now!

By Byron Aspaas

Trash Bash 2012

Santa Fe, NM — The Student Success Center was filled with trash as the air blew scraps of paper through the building each time the door opened to visitors. Groups of students stood in circles grooming one another with tape and wire, attaching and reattaching articles of clothing, while pieces of their attire fell to the ground and were swept away by the opening doors. It was a dump-site of couture fashion.

“This is the 2nd Annual Trash Bash event,” Monica Gutierrez smiled proudly. “Our job, as members of Student Sustainability Leadership (SSL), is to brainstorm and find ways to get student involvement so our school will continue to recycle.”

Gutierrez is a student of Fine Arts at Institute of American Indian Arts where she specializes in sculpture and is a member of the SSL program. “Trash Bash is just an event with an apocalyptic theme since its 2012 and supposedly the end of the world,” she laughed.

In the fall of 2010 the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) introduced the SSL program to its curriculum. The program is coordinated by Annie McDonnell who has helped raise awareness of environmental studies on the IAIA campus “We started just wanting to do projects on campus that had to deal with sustainability and gardens,” McDonnell said. “There were a group of students and I who were interested in that [sustainability].”

Sasha LaPointe, a junior at the Institute of American Indian Arts studies creative writing. Both the students and McDonnell brainstormed about ideas to raise awareness. McDonnell recalls: “The Trash Bash is actually Sasha’s idea.”

“I have a background in burlesque shows and costume performances in Seattle,” Trash Bash’s coordinator, Sasha LaPointe says. “SSL wants to get students involved. Students are asked to participate by making jewelry, costumes, ensembles, art, etc.”

Both students agree that before SSL’s involvement with the student body “Recycle bins were just another trash bin,” Gutierrez recalled. “Since SSL has begun, the students have pushed towards more recycling and had more concerns about the usage of alternate fuels. We also created a compost garden.”

As the show was about to begin the auditorium was staged in red lighting. Trash filled the platform with ornaments reconstructed of old waste and recycled materials made by students. On the wall, scenes from the film The Road Warrior were flashed in silence while music played from the speakers. Images from the movie played in unison with each musical segments. The audience nestled into their seats and the music stopped. With a Thunderdome-era Tina Turner-like persona, Bonita Rickers walked out dressed in a white bouffant outfit made of plastic bags with earrings and necklace made of recycled tin made by student designer, Nicole Lovato. As Rickers stepped onto the podium as the woman in charge, the emcee — she became master of the show. With her hair placed perfectly and shaved on the side, she looked like a fierce warrior princess of fashion. As she announced the importance of SSL and its continuing success as a program at IAIA, the lights dimmed, and the first model appeared by the door.

The Post-Apocalyptic show began.

First introduced was Museum Studies student Tazbah Gaussoin’s work. Her creation was modeled by Kamella Bird-Romero, who was highlighted in gold paint. The well-designed gown harmonized the statuesque, goddess-like figure that was surrounded in fallen leaves encased with sheer fabric.

Along with Gaussoin’s creation, many student designers accomplished their works of art like student designer, Mildred Raphaelito. Her creation replicated elements of the earth which were modeled by fellow IAIA students McKeon Dempsey, Katrina Montoya, and Joanne Morales. Each person wore Raphaelito’s outfits made to represent the willow tree, the water/air elements, and a feathered gown.

Other student designers fashioned their aesthetic creativity like the raincoat made of bubble wrap, the refurbished/redesigned leather jacket infused and encrypted with artwork made by a wood burner. Elegant aprons were on display for the post-apocalyptic housewives, as well as, bluebird flour-sack regalia for toddlers. All the exotic gowns presented were made of recycled-material, clothing was made from vintage punk shirts and vintage material, and modern-day teen skirts were prepared with recycled-plastics.

One elegant fitted-skirt was finished with recycled-purses and accessorized with aluminum gold wings, complete with a hand-made clutch — a collaboration design by Gaussoin and Bird-Romero.

To end the show, Studio Arts student George Alexander strutted down the runway like a Victoria Secret’s model in a beautiful head-dress made of recycled Dr. Pepper cans by fellow student, Terence McDonald. The pieces worn by Alexander were complimented with a pink t-shirt-bikini-top and bottom made by Sasha LaPointe. Alexander ended the show, his nobility and confidence allowing him to leave the ring of designers like a fashionista not ashamed to wear recycled material.

As the show concluded, Pilar Agoyo, a fashion designer and graduate of IAIA in Fashion Design and Drawing said: “It’s great to see that IA is bringing back fashion and design. I amazed by the creativity of it all. It takes guts to put stuff together especially if you’re not a designer,” She continued. “We used to have fashion shows all the time. We were a family unit back then and it’s great to see its returning to IAIA. My friends and I remain close still to this day because of the shows.”

She concluded: “Everyone did great. This was my first time coming and I brought my little girl, Haleigh. She’s always amazed by the ties I have with IAIA.”

Gutierrez reflected on the show: “The post-apocalyptic look allows you to still look Fabulous in something recycled— couture fashion!”

Be prepared for the annual Trash Bash in 2013.