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THE BIG PIVOT 2.0: Artist, clothing designer Michelle Tsosie Sisneros slips into new modes of marketing

5 March 2021 Tamara Ikenberg
With this year’s art market season promising to be as wild and unpredictable as the last, artists and museum and market professionals are plunging in with a year’s worth of experience in pivoting, navigating and developing virtual events. At this pivotal moment, Tribal Business News is checking in with five veteran art market organizers and artists about their expectations and approaches to this year’s Native art market season. In today’s installment, we talk with artist and fashion designer Michelle Tsosie Sisneros, who creates glam Pueblo couture and sleek, modern streetwear adapted from her paintings.

Growing Up Ojibwe tackles cultural awareness amid lack of Native representation in video game industry

04 Mar Economic Development
University of Wisconsin-Stout junior Eleanor Falck has set her sights on the booming video game industry following her graduation from college.

Alaska Native-owned Ahtna Marine & Construction forms JV with Wisconsin contractor

February 17 Federal 8(a) Contracting
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — Ahtna Marine & Construction Co. LLC (AMCC), a subsidiary of Alaska Native corporation Ahtna Inc., has formed a mentor-protege joint venture with Wisconsin-based marine...

Little River Band of Ottawa Indians’ proposed off-reservation casino faces state House challenge

March 05 Gaming
Michigan legislators passed a resolution against “unchecked proliferation of off reservation gaming” last week that could imperil a proposed tribal casino in Muskegon County.

Despite lack of support, little Native representation, Cummings Aerospace founder finds runway to growth

March 02 Entrepreneurism
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Sheila Cummings wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up, like many little girls of her era. It was an aspiration sprung from an early aptitude for science and math and a...

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Zach Ducheneaux

Intertribal Agriculture Council’s Zach Ducheneaux tapped to lead USDA Farm Service Agency

Food/Agriculture
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Zach Ducheneaux, a longtime champion for Native farmers and agricultural producers via the Intertribal Agriculture Council, has been named administrator of the Farm Service Agency at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
energy station

Biden’s promise for justice tested in tribal coal fields

Energy
When three 775-foot-tall smoke stacks at the Navajo Generating Station came tumbling down in December, sending plumes of dust into the sky and thundering reverberations off the mesas of the Arizona high desert, it marked the end of an era. The federal government was instrumental in engineering the rise of the 2,250-megawatt coal plant 45 years ago, one of the country’s largest prior to its closure in 2019.
yoga

Northwest Native Development Fund offers lifeline to entrepreneurs amid pandemic

Finance
OKANOGAN, Wash. — When COVID-19 sounded alarm bells across the world last winter, photographer and small business owner Roxanne Best watched as her fledgling business suffered one lost gig after another.
necklace

THE BIG PIVOT 2.0: Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market returns with hybrid format

Arts and Culture
With this year’s art market season promising to be as wild and unpredictable as the last, artists and museum and market professionals are plunging in with a year’s worth of experience in pivoting, navigating and developing virtual events. At this pivotal moment, Tribal Business News is checking in with five veteran art market organizers and artists about their expectations and approaches to this year’s Native art market season. In today’s installment, we spoke with Anna Flynn, chair of the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market in Phoenix, Ariz. The Heard Market was the last major in-person Natve art market of 2020, and it returns in hybrid form with a virtual market and live juried show on Friday, March 5.
WeCare facility

With innovative addiction clinic, Muckleshoot Tribe offers patients, other tribes a way forward

Health Care
Jody was close to achieving her dream of becoming a writer. A member of the Muckleshoot Tribe near Seattle, she had gone from living on the streets of Seattle as a teen to nearly finishing a creative writing degree, and had plans to get her master’s degree at New York University. But debilitating back pain caused by an injury she sustained as a teen forced her to drop out of school, just a handful of credits shy of her bachelor’s degree.
engineers

University of North Dakota receives $450K grant to encourage Native students in engineering

Higher Education
GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Backed by $450,000 in grant funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University of North Dakota hope to find ways to make engineering more culturally relevant for middle school Native American students.
Navajo Nation D.C. office

Navajo Nation purchases new permanent D.C. office for $4.8M

Real Estate
The Navajo Nation Council, the legislative branch of the tribal government, advanced legislation last week to buy office space in Washington, D.C., joining a handful of federally recognized tribes with established space in the nation’s capital.
apple orchard

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: New guidebook explores growing tribal agritourism industry

Tourism
In the rustic and inviting Séka Hills Tasting Room on Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in Northern California, guests sample tribally made extra virgin olive oil like one would sip fine wines at a tasting in a nearby Napa Valley vineyard.
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe

Interior drops challenge in Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s land-to-trust case

Sovereignty
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Friday dismissed its appeal in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s land-to-trust case, effectively recognizing the sovereignty of the Massachusetts-based tribe that’s occupied its land in Cape Code for more than 12,000 years.