❥A Little more about me and my work.....

➳I Believe as someone who walks the RedRoad it's my responsibility to state that we as indigenous people carry a heavy weight of our history, And the crossroads that walk us in this life and in the spirit world teach us to not treat our heritage as a burden or a forgotten time. Our loved ones are still guiding us, Our higher beings are still watching us and the creator has never forgotten us and i believe it's important for Indigenous and non Indigenous people to understand that we are still here and we will be heard.➳

As people who are familiar with my work know i have stories inspired by my heritages creation stories, I will ALWAYS state when a piece or character is for a existing story or if it's my own. I do not and will not ever claim my OWN stories as fact or as a story told by my people. it's important to me that things are treated sacred and all i ask is that both, Original and my own stories are respected.I do not base character's off of existing beings, They are only inspired in the existence of these beings. I as an artist feel more comfortable writing and drawing these characters/stories from my inspiration than i do opening up thousands of years old stories and the beings for interest or educating, But i highly encourage folk to immerse themselves in the existing stories indigenous people have public and to respect that whatever is private stays that way.My stories and Characters are under my right but you may feel free to have fun with them! Again, As long as it's all respectful! Wado!

I AM AN ARTIST, I AIM TO SHARE THE LOVE OF MY HERITAGE THROUGH MY WORK AND EDUCATE PEOPLE IN THE BEAUTY OF OUR PEOPLE. Being descendant or Native period is NOT a personality, A cartoon, A label. It is not something to be treated at face value, It is a honor to walk the same footsteps as my ancestors and it's important to me people are aware that my work is not for glorification.Being half Gaelic, I am quite light skinned with Light eye's. thus i have ran into questions about me and my work, Which does not offend me as my culture gets severely white-washed and frankly in my opinion; abused. I have been raised the Redroad my entire life and have been extremely fortunate to grow up and live in turtle island despite my tribes not being originated from California, But what i have learned over the years is i have nothing to prove. I do not aim to profit from my DNA, Only from my work as an artist. I do not wish to be treated exclusively because of my heritage, I want my people who have lived for generations being treated unfairly, Living in unlivable conditions, Experiencing government abuse, And so much more to be compensated and to be given the rights that were taken away and are still held over our heads as a nation. I have no intentions of gaining from my ancestors, But i will fight for them. A lot of my work made for specific causes the money is donated as the honor of being viewing my work means the world to me. Profit i gain is from my commissions, Etsy items and non charity work.Some may see this as overcompensating for a explanation, Others will understand the importance to me that it's stated that I and My work is not a Persona. This is a way of life.

Last but not least on this extra information novel about me & my work: I am a Freelance illustrator! I work with many mediums (Primarily, Markers & Digital Art!) And i draw MANY genre's! Not everything i draw may be your style, But as stated before being indigenous is NOT a personality. I LOVE working on fanart for other's and music, shows, movies, books etc And i hope people will respect that with not only me, But other artists who are too afraid to state this yet.Allow us all to honor to respect all tribes, generations and its youth. If we can avoid discouraging our people from being an IMAGE and instead embrace the Spirit we carry then we can rise even stronger as a people.from my own personal experience, I found difficulty in speaking about my beliefs or heritage to other's due to the judgement of my looks, My work has been blatantly criticized solely based from my appearance. Growing up people looked at me from my outside not my inside let alone never give me the opportunity to speak of my up brining or knowledge. As a youth it was extremely discouraging but the older i got the more i understood it caused me to cherish those around me who did and who weren't ashamed to partner with me at a powwow or be seen alongside me with other natives and frankly I'm glad i was treated this way because now i can be someone who can stand up for youth and even non youth who experience this. I want to educate people on the difference between people white washing our culture and getting DNA just to say they're "Native American" And the people who are mixed but entirely raised the Beauty Way like myself. Not everyone who looks Indigenous follows the culture, And sadly some of the ones who do just don't look the part. (hah, me.)So i don't treat this as a sob story or a "poor me i'm not brown" story, (Don't get me started on that.) All this is, Is my experience and it gave me closure on trying to encourage people to maybe be a little more open minded, And don't assume. And for non indigenous people who read this and ask why "Why treat your own people as not brown enough or not White enough?"
Well. Unfortunately, This is the result of our heritage being so over glorified by non native people and it sadly is something that has to be checked, Native people deserve to be compensated (and then some.) and there is non Natives who try to get in on those benefits and even our designs. That is why this is a statement that comes from the heart but not anger, Because its understood to have that wary around people that don't look traditional but there's caution and then borderline mistreatment. All i aim for in this statement is for us to learn the difference and to not make the mistakes that dictators have done to us.
➳Wado!➳

❥What inspires my Kachina work if i'm not Hopi?

This is a very fair question i get OFTEN. And its understandable, Just.... It gets tiring after one person after another asks and i don't wanna sound like i'm talking off a script cause i'm saying the same thing over and over again Y'know?
THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE!
So to start off, I guess you could i'm pretty light hearted about it but the majority of my Illustrations, Character's And Stories are based off of dreams/nightmares.
i have a joke i don't create any of them because they're always just showing themselves to me, And at first when it began it was quite terrifying for me.
They were so realistic (And still are.) it was like everytime i entered a dream it felt like waking up and so at first i had trouble being aware when i was awake or asleep! so i eagerly awaited for this weird period of time to stop...Spoiler alert, They never stopped. But fast forward it has been almost seven years now since they started and now i'm adjusted to them, And do my best to present the beings of my sleep on paper and honor what they show/teach me. For people who are curious if i draw the negative beings, I try to avoid doing so unless i believe i'm interpretating them incorrectly but my intuition is fortunately very accurate the older i get let alone be guided occasionally there. There are things i'm open to speak about and some i don't due to personal reasons but i do hope this does answer some people's questions.So for me i do believe there is different variants of beings in the Dreamscapes but i couldn't tell you how, I go by feeling. But some also just have a completely different structure and aura that to me separates one being from another and its hard not to sound philosophical or like some sort of higher being enthusiast when explaining my perspective. But honestly for me i'd like the unknown stay unknown, Just sayin'.
But anyway, Most of the beings and stories you see is how they are/were presented to me.
The only one's that were a unique case was the Ina Sunflower Kachina's, Not only was it during the time of when my Dreams first began but it was also an entirely different setting even now. The three were MASSIVE and it was storming and i was pretty scared, The three sisters were faceless and demanded i make them one. For weeks i drew them faceless and every night they'd be standing there waiting until finally in the dream i painted the faces you see them with now.
It was one heck of a experience for me at the time and to this day it still gives me chills, I don't see those three as often as i used to but i do i treat it very sacredly because they don't speak much but when they do it's always an important day.
The Ina Sunflower Kachina's mean very much to me as not only did they help me through such a difficult setting but they guided me through my art career and i'm extremely honored to be their artist and story teller, It's extremely fulfilling.So i do make a lot of Dream jokes and sleep deprivation jokes, Cause unfortunately i do lack a lot of sleep due to the things i see but that's another story!
for now, I do hope this explanation sheds some light on my work and how my process from dream-to-design works. It's humorous to me sometimes because Kachina's were something i didn't necessarily "Stay away'' from but i was raised very early on how sacred they are and i admired the traditional ones i'd see carved as a child, But when i was really young i was a little afraid of them because of the stories i'd hear about ogre Kachina's. (My dad was very fond of telling me scary stories.) But my mom used to have beautiful sand paintings in our apartments growing up which i think those had a play in my current day art style, I have a knack for a semi realism but traditional style of work and growing up in fair banks Alaska at an early age also allowed me to love for complicated design work inspired by traditional tlingit art. But generally i can say if it wasn't for my dreams, I probably would have never started drawing Kachina's. I've always cared that things are respected properly and at the time when those visions began it felt almost as if i'd be disrespecting a higher power not drawing what came to me, It was never forced or out of fear i'm just grateful i went out of my comfort zone and went with my intuition and started drawing them.A prominent memory i carry with me is a trip with my mom once when i was four and a half, I grew up going to Pacific Western Trader's in Folsom CA often with her and i was having kind of a rough day. My mom told me i could pick anything out i wanted and being hard headed and set to stay in my bad mood i said i didn't want anything, But as always i looked around in there because that store was fascinating, While looking in the book section a coloring big on the highest shelf fell on me out of nowhere and it was a Kachina coloring book and back then i was still a little intimidated by them so i just put it back on apart of the shelf i could reach and waddled off. I waited for my mom next to her the rest of the time there and while we were leaving an elder who was in there approached me and purchased it for me and told me "They dropped this to you and you must listen when they speak." And i carried that with me ever since it happened. Now hilariously, i never looked in it till i was older i just tried to take care of it...I used to save and put away anything gifted to me even at that young of age. Ask my mom.
But that memory became strong in my mind again after i got more used to my sleep adventure's and those kind of events make you think, Y'know? And it's something silly like that it reminds me why i'm on this road and how grateful i am i've been carried on this journey so long.I like to think i have a very balanced combination of my mom's Beauty way teaching's, My dad's scary medicine stories and me with my Beauty way scary medicine dreams... In the end, The Red Road is the most fulfilling, Righteous and balanced way of life but it is also the heaviest and hardest weight to carry. And i honor that silver lining especially if it means carrying on my ancestors traditions and making do with my responsibilities. I don't think many people grasp that concept just yet (Unless they're indigenous of course) and that's okay, They don't have to. But if one day people realize this way of life has been this way since the beginning of our people, Maybe they'll learn it's something that should be respected. And i hope to carry that message as long as i walk this great mother.I'd like to Thank you again for taking the time from your day to read such a long description that differs so many different subjects about me and my work and how much it really does mean to me, Even if my beliefs and perspective isn't your cup of tea, I don't expect it to be. I believe our differences as beings, Perspectives and as people is a beautiful concept and i'm honored to share a little bit of mine with you.
❥Wado.