By Eddie Chuculate
For multidisciplinary artist Graci Horne (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), 41, participating the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ (Mia) Teen Perspectives program is a way of returning the gifts she learned over a lifelong career of participating in art workshops.
The Center for Racial Health and Equity at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has partnered with Mia since 2021 on the Teen Perspectives program, which brings together high school students and professional artists to engage in creative storytelling through art.
This year, with the fifth anniversary of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, some artists are focusing on the last five years in the Twin Cities, the Black experience, and how Minneapolis has become a global center for discussions on racial justice and equity.
The group meets for six Saturdays spanning February and March at Mia, culminating in an exhibition titled “Teen Perspectives: Minneapolis As Monument,” which opens May 10 and runs through July 20 at the museum’s Community Commons Gallery.
“This is how I give back to youth,” said Horne, who is participating in her first Teen Perspectives program but has a long history as a teaching artist in the Education Department at the museum. “Throughout my life I acquired my skillsets through workshops. I want to teach them to work with different mediums and show them how to paint, draw, papier-mache.”
Horne is a true example of a multidisciplinary artist. Rather than someone who just paints or sculpts, she also paper-cuts, produces papier-mache, sews, creates puppetry, writes poetry, does film and audio installations and works in textiles and fabrics.
For this 15-20 member cohort, she’s leading a sewing-machine workshop, teaching students to create their own patterns and stitch balaclavas, or facemasks, which students can decorate however they wish using hot glue.
“I want them to express how they feel inside the masks we wear,” said Horne, who was born in Pipestone, Minn., and lives in south Minneapolis not far from the museum. “I was never taught how to express myself; people were always just guessing, and that contributes to your mental health. I want to teach youth how to express your feelings, and state (with art) how you feel. It gives you autonomy.”
Horne says she discovered that many of the teen participants had never used or even seen a sewing machine, much less created a pattern. She said she was influenced by her grandmother Grace Labelle, a boarding school survivor who sewed star-quilt toppers. But Labelle contracted tuberculosis when she was young and died before she could teach Horne her techniques.
“Those types on incidences takes away from our cultural continuity and practices,” Horne said.
Even though the focus of the exhibition this year is on the Black experience, Horne said she is sticking to what she knows.
“Since I’m not Black, I made it clear I wouldn’t cross boundaries. I don’t have that experience, but there are other artists (workshop leaders) focusing on that.”
One of the student artists in Teen Perspectives, Leo Buffalo (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), 18, worked with Horne’s husband, Juan Lucero (Isleta Pueblo), during last year’s program. The senior at PiM (Performing Institute of Minnesota) Arts High School in Eden Prairie is working on a large-canvas acrylic painting for the upcoming May exhibition.
Buffalo said they were contacted by Mia’s manager of programming, Anna Dilliard, to participate again this year. Buffalo jumped at the chance.
“You never turn down an opportunity,” said Buffalo, who recently won a full-tuition scholarship to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, where they’ll focus on painting and drawing but will be subjected to various disciplines after their arrival in August.
Buffalo, son of Kari and Walter “Wally” Buffalo, said they got their start as an artist during the pandemic as a middle-schooler, when remote learning gave them “a lot of time to think, and sit and draw.”
Buffalo is related to the noted Red Lake Band artist Rabbett Strickland, who has an oil painting on display at Mia as part of its permanent collection, and a gallery in Red Lake.
Buffalo applied to Teen Perspectives last year by submitting an artists statement and a sampling of images of their work.
“It’s a great program,” Buffalo said. “A chance to engage the community through a teen perspective. … We’ve been given money to work and buy materials — basically anything we want, (including) workspace at Mia. It’s amazing.”
Buffalo said it’s enjoyable to be surrounded by other Native artists and minority voices at Teen Perspectives.
“The (professional) artists who have been coming in are really high caliber,” Buffalo said. “With direction from Anna, and an assistant from MCAD (the adjacent Minneapolis College of Art and Design), it’s just stellar. It really allows us (students) to network with people who are in the Walker (Art Center) and Mia, just hearing what inspires their process is one of the things most valuable to young artists.”
Teen Perspectives is running in conjunction with the upcoming Mia exhibition “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” on view from March 9 through July 13 in the Target Galleries. The exhibition explores themes of Black identity, resilience and creativity through a wide range of media. Works by Derrick Adams, Arthur Jafa and Meleko Mokgosi — whose largest-ever painting is included in the display — will be shown alongside portraits by Toyin Ojih Odutola and iconic photographs by Gordon Parks.
Although that exhibition focuses on the Black experience, Mia has strong connections to the Indigenous community and three galleries dedicated to Native American art. Mia’s Native American Fellowship Program was one of the first among art museums in the U.S.
The fellowship program has offered professional training to Native American students in curatorial research, exhibition development, collections care and record-keeping, community outreach and educational material development.
Past fellows include Justice Jensvold (Pejutazizi Oyate), Juan Lucero (Isleta Pueblo), Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota), Elizabeth Day (Ojibwe), Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota & Mohegan/Muscogee) and Dakota Hoska (Oglala Lakota).
In addition to Horne, other local teaching artists in the Teen Perspectives program are Lissa Karpeh, Leslie Barlow, Kprecia Ambers and Akiko Ostlund. The students will also attend a career day led by Bobby Rogers, head of Design and Editorial at Mia.
“This program empowers students to embrace their individuality, address challenges and draw strength from community as they navigate reflection and healing,” said Virajita Singh, Mia’s chief diversity and inclusion officer. “Supporting teens as they collaborate with arts educators, using creative expression to explore the intersection of racism and public health in Minnesota communities is crucial to changing narratives and biases that impact the health of our communities.”
Learn more about MIA at https://new.artsmia.org
