Joe Horse Capture's episode presents a compelling narrative of his evolution as a leading figure in Native American art curation. The discussion intricately weaves through his personal history, detailing his journey from a childhood influenced by the Alcatraz occupation to a distinguished career as the Vice President of Native Collections at the Autry Museum. Joe's upbringing in a culturally rich environment, guided by the mentorship of his father and other prominent figures in the Native community, significantly shaped his professional ethos, which centers on cultural integrity and community involvement.

A salient theme in Joe's discourse is the urgent need for museums to recalibrate their approaches to Indigenous art and culture. He articulates a vision where museums are not merely repositories of artifacts but vibrant cultural spaces that engage with and reflect the communities they represent. This shift necessitates a collaborative model, wherein curators work alongside community members to authentically represent Indigenous narratives. Joe's commitment to fostering these relationships is evident in his curatorial projects, which prioritize the voices of Native artists and emphasize the importance of cultural context in the interpretation of artworks.

The episode also addresses the complex dynamics of repatriation, as Joe discusses the ethical implications of museum collections and the essential role of Indigenous communities in determining the fate of their cultural heritage. He advocates for a future where the museum sector not only preserves history but actively participates in the cultural revitalization of Indigenous peoples. Joe's insights underscore the transformative potential of art as a tool for healing and reconciliation, serving as a powerful reminder of the ongoing journey towards cultural empowerment and recognition.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of community engagement in curatorial practices within museums, particularly regarding Native American art.
• Joe Horsecapture discusses his journey from being a river guide to becoming a prominent curator in the museum field, highlighting the significance of mentorship.
• The conversation addresses the evolving role of museums in relation to Native communities, advocating for the repatriation of cultural artifacts and community involvement.
• Joe underscores the necessity of developing tribal museums that serve as cultural spaces rather than traditional museums, which often isolate artifacts from their communities.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Autry Museum of the American West
• Minnesota Historical Society
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• National Museum of the American Indian
• Smithsonian Institution
• Ho Chunk Museum

Foreign.

Hello and welcome again to another episode of Five Plane Questions, a podcast that proposes five questions to indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, movers and shakers, and culture bears, people in our community that are doing great things for their communities.

I'm Joe Williams, your host for this conversation.

My goal is to showcase these amazing people within our indigenous community from around the region and country.

I want to introduce you to Joe Horsecapture.

Joe is vice president of of Native Collections and Emerson Curator of Native History and Culture at the Autry Museum of the American west in Burbank, California.

With over three decades of working in the museum field, Zhou's journey has been one of exceptional experience.

From being the first director of Native American initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society, focusing on building community relationships, serving as curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the National Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C.

joe is of the top curators and experts in the United States.

Earlier this year, I had the honor of joining him at the Autry in Burbank, California, where he gave me a tour of the incredible Christina and James R.

Parks Research center, one of the most impressive collections facilities in the country.

So let's jump into my conversation with the one and only Joe Horsecapture.

Joe Horsecapture, thank you so much for joining us on Five Plane Questions.

It's really great to have you here.

Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

Would you be able to introduce yourself.

Tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from, and what it is that you do.

So my name is Joe Horsecapture.

I am an Onionen from Montana, specifically the Frozen Clan.

I was born in the Bay Area in the early 60s, you could say.

And the reason why I bring that up, it's because that's where my father.

My father, my biological mother lived trials born.

And my older brother, George Jr.

And my father was certainly influenced by the Alcatraz occupation.

And he took my younger.

Excuse me.

He took me and my older brother and I out there.

And at the time, you know, I was like maybe seven.

And you're thinking, oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

They're holding up boats and bringing a bunch of Indians to prison.

That's a, you know, you're young, you go, what's going on here?

Would that really influence my father?

Yeah.

And with that, I think it influenced, certainly influenced my older brother and myself.

Of course, it was much at a much later date as it became an adult, you know, like everybody else, you know, you graduate from high school.

For me, I didn't Go straight away to college and your parents, either one or the other, always, you always encourage you to get into the field that they're in.

And as a young person, that's the last thing you want to do, is follow what your parents do just because you're a teenager and you're being a teenager.

So I spent my 20s, I was a Whitewater river guide, and then I got an internship at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in the early 90s, and that changed everything for me.

Ended up going to school, getting my bachelor's degree, work at a number of institutions.

I worked at the Minneapolis Institute of art for 15 years.

Then I went to NMAI for a few, to the Historical Society in Minnesota for a couple.

And now I'm here at the entry.

I've been here for almost five years.

I am vice president of Native Collections and Engagement, also chief curator in curatorial.

So, yeah, it's certainly, as I look back from my 20 something years of museum experience, it's certainly interesting how things have changed.

Certainly a lot of things for the better.

Some things I think we need to work on.

But it's been, it's been, it's certainly, as I.

I'm in my early 60s, and as I, as I look back, I'm going, huh, that was, that was kind of different.

Or it's like, wow, this is great, the direction that we're going.

How, how did you make the jump from being an instructor with rafting to getting an internship in Minnesota?

How did, how did that transpire?

Well, when I was, you know, I was my 20s, was sort of my, let's see how much fun that we can have decade.

And I had at that same age, I'd started participating more and more in ceremonies.

And my, my father invited this friend of his who he had known for a number of years by the name of Evan Mauer.

And he was a director at the Minneapolis Institute of Art at the time.

And he came out and we got close, our families got close, and he was trying to think about how he could involve more Native people in a museum field.

And oftentimes, you know, you got to go to school and get your bachelor's and your Master's, then your PhD.

And oftentimes people do that without necessarily having experience in their field.

Then they go through all this education and they end up going into their field and they think maybe it's not something that's for them.

So he sort of wanted to try something different and do it reverse.

So instead of going through this education program and then with an internship.

Do the internship first and then go to school to see how the person liked it.

And he asked me to come out to Minneapolis.

And at the time, I was going, oh, yeah, sure.

And I didn't realize how important of a time that would be for me.

And I really learned a lot.

And I realized, wow, this is.

You know, it's one of those things you go, God dang it.

My father was right.

And over the years, the things that my father had taught me sort of kind of start to click, you know, one of the things I always often say is my father told me what kind of person to be, and Evan showed me how to be that person, and there's a difference there.

So, yeah, he passed away not last year, but the year before Evan did.

So he was.

We were very, very close.

Sorry for your loss.

That's a heavy thing when you lose a mentor and a friend like that.

Yeah.

And for the listener who may not know, your father is George Horsecapture.

Yeah.

George Horsecapture Sr.

Spent a number of years there, and then Rick west recruited him to be the.

I don't remember his title, but he was certainly one of the early upper administration folks at National Museum of the American Indian.

So he had a big hand informing that, and he retired.

So.

Yeah.

Wow.

What a life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think we're touching on this already.

But, you know, we are influenced throughout our life in different ways from early on, which may be obvious to things that are people and things that are influencing us today.

Can you talk about your biggest influences?

Sure.

I think.

Well, as I mentioned, certainly my father, Evan is a big one.

It's not necessary for me.

It's not necessarily.

You know, there's one ideal person who has given me the most.

It's almost as though you form relationships with different people, and through those relationships, we learn things from them.

And as I mentioned, my father and Evan and certainly Rick west as part of that.

There's some people in the field today who I am very impressed with, who I certainly learned from.

I think Donnie Whitehawk falls in that category.

I don't know if you know Josie Lee.

She runs the Ho Chunk Museum in Wisconsin.

She's extremely smart.

I mean, very, very sharp.

And I'm quite certain she has opportunities to work in larger museums across the country.

But, you know, she stays in her community and works at her own museum, and I find that extremely Impressive.

Heather Autone is a big one for me.

You know, you always kind of have a little bit of a, a crazy side.

And that's Kevin Poirier.

You know, it's.

Although I've been very fortunate to be in the museum field a long time, there's so many people who I meet who definitely influence me because, you know, this is, you know, the museums aren't necessarily a natural institution.

You know, historically you don't see Native people having museums.

It's a Western culture kind of thing.

And then when you put non Western material in a Western institution, it doesn't really fit.

So how do we sort of accommodate that not only with a museum's goals, but I think equally and more important with Native people's goals?

Some people call it so called decolonization, decolonizing museums, which I am not a fan of that term at all.

But it's a learning process and I think part of that learning process as I've been fortunate enough to travel this road, I learned from a lot of people, you know, David Penny in Mai.

Yeah, I've been really.

The creator's been good to me so far.

Yeah, you've.

You've named off quite, quite an impressive list of people, many of whom humble break have been on this podcast.

Diani was someone that shaped.

I've never talked about this, but you know, she helped shape this podcast a little bit.

She was, I think the first guest of this podcast or the second guest.

And one of the questions I had asked, she didn't like the phrasing of it.

And so she said let's, let's ask it like this.

I said, okay, let's try it like this.

And so it's been one of the questions that I've carried through.

So yeah, she is someone that is a presence in this art community that we have that is undeniable.

Brilliant.

Yep, brilliant.

Much like some of the, I don't want to use the word matriarchs but you know, like, like those who came before her.

She knows exactly what she's doing 10 steps before she carries something out.

But yeah, and she thinks there are some folks who for really the only way that I can, only way that I can express it, think two dimensionally.

Sorry.

Moving from point A to point B to point C to point D.

Make sure I get my letters right.

And there's a clear path where I think Diani, as I know her and I've known her a number of years, she thinks three dimensionally.

You know, we discussed a little bit earlier, you know with her artwork, how she can bring these Lakota aesthetic principles and apply them to contemporary works, where your non Native visitor, or maybe Native people who aren't familiar, familiar with Lakota work, can look at it and appreciate its abstraction.

But as you look at it, and if you have a familiarity with Lakota work, you're like, this is Lakota as Lakota can be.

And when I think about, as we lean on our ancestors, what they've created for us and use that as a path to move forward, it's not necessarily a sense of replication, it's a sense of inspiration.

And I find Diani's work probably the best example that I could think of of how one uses those principles that our ancestors, Capital A, left us and how we move forward.

So let's talk a little bit about your career we've brushed over, but how is that.

How has that formed for you along the way?

Let's go back to college.

How did you get from, I guess, the schoolhouse, so to speak, and then finding your way out of there?

When I took my freshman class, I was lucky enough where I'd already been published in the exhibition, that I was an intern for Visions of the People, Pictorial History, A Plains Easy Life.

So I knew the path that I wanted to.

To go on.

In college, I went to Montana State University in Bozeman.

The education was more of a.

More of a requirement instead of a necessity.

You know, I've never taken a Native American art class because at the time it really wasn't offered.

I took African art, Roman art, but Native, Native, never Native American art.

And so I think a lot of that was sort of drive, and a lot of it is sort of really being nudged by my mentors, which my father and Evan, is to always keep it moving.

And I think over the years, my perspectives has changed.

Now that I think about it, a lot of it is trying to figure out how to interface with this museum world.

And how do you interface with one's obligation to Native people now?

They go hand in hand.

Back in the 90s, it didn't necessarily go hand in hand.

And I think a lot of institutions were trying to figure out how to do that and.

Or if it was an obligation.

And I think during that process was certainly a lot of learning.

One of my things, my father always says, is no matter what you do, you always have to figure out how to give back.

And for visions of the People, for the catalog for every, I think every high school on the plains, we sent them a free copy for a show, another show I worked on there with nmai.

Beauty, honor and tradition, the legacy of plain Indian shirts.

We did the same thing.

And so there's almost a path of how one gives back.

And over the past several years and through my work and work of many others, particularly now with the passing of the new repatriation laws, the voice, from my view, the voice of the curator, at least dealing with native related topics, is no longer the important voice.

Young people ask me, oh, I want to go in the museum field.

And they answer certain, this romance about curatorial.

And I tell them it's a little bit overrated.

Sort of.

My perspective now with many of the projects that I'm working on as well as my team is working on is territorial is sort of, we're setting the framework of what we're building and working with the communities and working with native folks.

They build everything else.

We may sort of guide it along a little bit, but we certainly aren't in the driver's seat.

People who want to get in the museum field, I always, I usually mention to them curatorial is not necessarily the route because there's only so many curatorial positions.

But to me, development, raising money is really the route because we need people to, excuse me, fund these projects.

We need people who can talk about these projects passionately, to not only guide the institution financially, but also to ensure that it's economically viable.

As sort of the museum world shifts.

There's a lot of focus on tribal museums.

I think that's the future is tribal museums.

And we're going to need people to raise funds to ensure tribal museums are successful.

I'm not sure big museums are necessary in the future.

I think it's tribal museums which becomes really challenging because as you probably know, their politics on reservation communities can be a little tricky, particularly dealing with tribal governments.

And tribal museums sort of need to be separate from politics, which is difficult to do in some environments.

Yes.

The last couple years I've been trying to work with my tribe and establishing a museum and I'm not taking the lead on.

I've been more of an advisory role.

But yeah, the trick is how do you get that set up independent of tribal council?

And you know, because councils come and go and you're sort of at the mercy of the whims of the folks at that point.

So.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

And tribal council's agendas change with the wind and somehow it needs to be steady.

Where, you know, museums.

I've never been a, I'm not a big fan of the term Sort of tribal museum, although I don't necessarily have a different term for it, because, you know, museums have this sort of space where you come and look at things and you read a couple panels and then you go where.

I think a tribal cultural space is where you have works that the ancestors created, in a sense, objects.

You have archives, you have oral histories.

You have a space for community members can learn from each other, sit and drink coffee, learn how to be.

Learn how to quail, learn how to make birch bark baskets or weave.

It needs to be that kind of space.

And I think that really brings it alive, you know, like in.

You know, in Minnesota, outside, maybe you can have a big field where people can play lacrosse.

It needs to be a real active component of the community where also these works and this intellectual property that our ancestors created need to be housed.

Because oftentimes I come from the perspective that works in the museum can be lonely.

The works themselves are lonely.

You know, for example, for years, I carry a pocket knife.

Just one of those things I always have.

And some would.

One perspective is that, know, every morning, you know, I get up and have, like, a little basket by the door, and I take out my pocket knife and I put it in my pocket.

And maybe, you know, once or twice during the day, oh, there's an envelope I need to open.

So I bust out my pocket knife and open it up, you know, that kind of thing.

And I've been doing this for.

For years.

So if I don't.

If I reach in my pocket, and if I don't.

If I don't have my pocket knife, I don't feel right, you know?

And then as I'm sitting here with you looking at my pocket knife here, you can certainly see it has some wear marks around the edges and some areas where maybe the stamping is worn off.

And in a way, this knife has created a relationship with me.

So we are friends, I guess you could say.

Now, if somebody were to take this away from me and put it in a museum or in a collection somewhere, and I'm gone, this feels lonely, and it needs to be touched.

It needs to be loved, and it needs to be cared for.

And that's where museums really need to sort of shift their perspective, is understanding that these works have a life.

At the end of the day, I think the vast majority of collections should go back to the community.

So that's my personal opinion.

This is not speaking for the museum, because I don't want to impose my multiple museum hats on anybody, but my personal view is, I'LL just talk about for my job on in for Belnet is I would not feel comfortable having these works go back to the community unless there is a facility and a proper way to take care of them.

Because, you know, things happen.

They can find their way out in the market again, you know, there could be some kind of disaster, but they definitely need to go home.

Having said that, I think there's a natural fear, which I understand and except now I'm putting on my professional hat.

Sorry, you don't have visuals here.

I'm putting on my professional hat of museums feel that a lot of their collections are going to be gone.

They're going to have anything else.

And I believe that that is not going to be the case.

Instead, museums will be forced, particularly through the latest legislation, to work with Native people.

So, ironically enough, Native people would lend these objects back to museums.

And museums is interpreting for the general public with the collaboration of Native people.

In my mind, I think that's the future for the.

If not the next generation, then a generation after.

I'm trying not to insert my own part of this conversation, Darius.

It's like, yeah, my former job at former museum, I was attempting to establish a community, sort of, I hate to say committee, but, you know, a working group to be able to go through those materials that were in the museum, that were in the collections and establish a relationship with the tribes around the area with especially trying to identify the pieces that were there.

Because, I mean, labels, you know, pre 89 are the language itself, but I mean, just the accuracy are awful.

There's definitely a need for communities to be in there and going through these pieces because I was going through some of these things and with my limited knowledge, I knew that some of the labels were incorrect and they needed people with more knowledge, more experience than myself in there.

And I can't see how that museum can move forward without community input.

In Portland, they brought a group in to talk about what's.

The stories, the fishing stories, the objects that are up there.

And it turned into this really.

This really big.

I think it was like a monthly meeting or something like this among the groups for a long while.

Eventually it sort of faded away, but it felt like it was a really beautiful moment for them.

Yeah, but I mean, that's the other part too.

It's a statement, right?

Yeah.

How does one set something like this up and then have it sustained over the course of a generation or two?

Not just the whims of the current director or the council person that's in.

There and I think that the challenge is, where does this knowledge live?

Oftentimes the conversation tends to be binary, that all the knowledge is in museums or all of the knowledge is in anthropology books, or all the anthropology is in Native communities.

I come from the perspective that it's a combination of all of the above.

For example, a number of years ago, this has been a number of decades ago, I guess.

My father and I, I was working with him on this database of works from our tribe, and we brought some photographs that we had collected from the Field Museum, American Museum of Natural History, as well as Berlin, that has a lot of our collection, Sat down with some folks at Belnet and asked them if they knew about them.

And the people who we talked to, who now probably.

Probably gone, they didn't have any recollection.

They didn't recognize it.

So.

But the collecting.

But the collector's notes said they came from Fort Belnet, and in some cases, this is who they collected it from.

So we know it's from Fort Belknap.

And in some communities, that knowledge is there.

Some communities it is not.

So for me, you know, before we start relying too much on one of these sort of legs or the tripod, is we really need to spend more time in collections, because collections don't change.

The works our ancestors left us are there.

So we can spend time with them and we can learn from them.

And we can compare X amount of objects on over here to this amount of objects over there.

And through stylistic analysis, we can start to understand what makes, for example, what makes Lakota, Lakota, or what makes Nakota, whatever the case may be.

And I think that is for young people who want to interest in going in the field.

My first thing is try to get as much access to collections as you can is because it's like a snapshot in time, and there is a lot of knowledge there, and you kind of have to learn how to sort of how to look at them, I guess you could say.

And this knowledge, you know, needs to be shared, but we need to start with that foundation.

So you're.

Throughout your career, then you've.

I mean, here you took me through this beautiful facility and the care that's been given to these collections.

You're not solely in collections, though.

I mean, you've got multiple hats on.

Does every museum employee have.

I do, yeah.

Can you share a little bit about, I guess, sort of the scope of work that you do?

Sure.

So my curatorial hat is I work with collections, and also I am organizing a couple of exhibitions.

I have one opening this fall called.

I always forget the title of my own exhibitions.

It's terrible.

It's called Creative Family Pride and Community in Native Art.

And through that project, I'm working with John Pepion from Black Crete, I'm working with Brocade Stops, Black Eagle from Crow, and I'm working with Jessa Growing Thunder from Fort Peck.

They're providing that narrative.

Also, I am working on an exhibition that'll open up here at the ATRI in 27.

It'll be up for a year, so it'll be up in summer 28.

And that's about Native American skateboarding.

So I've been traveling around to multiple communities who have skate parks in their communities, engaging with them.

So I've been to Blackfeet, Belknap.

This past summer we went to Pine Ridge.

This year I go to Navajo, and next year I go to.

Excuse me.

This year I go to Navajo, and also I go to Bolivia, and that shows traveling to the World Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

So that's sort of my curatorial hat.

My vice president of Native Collections is.

I have two staff that I oversee, so a lot of community engagement.

They're working on their exhibitions and doing their thing.

Karima Richardson and Amanda Wixson.

Also within our department, we have a repatriation department, which is very, very active.

And, you know, it's a lot of work, but we're certainly getting there.

Very encouraging.

The board supports it, the director supports it.

It's just so much that it takes time.

My last hat as chief curator, I also supervise curatorial as a whole to sort of move us along through this process and how we work together within the institution with all exhibitions and narrative and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

John Papillon, former guest on this podcast.

He is someone that is.

I think he hit a big first on social media.

His social media game is something else.

But I don't think he was really out there as far as an artist goes.

People, last couple years, he's really exploded, especially with the acquisition from the Autry that he said he did.

Yeah, yeah, he's a good guy.

He's a good guy.

We brought him in a couple times.

Whenever I talk, whenever I go back, one of the texts, he goes, so, Joe, when are you going to bring me out to la?

So, Joe, when are you going to bring him out to la?

He likes it here, so he's a good guy.

I really like him.

And Brocade is a phenomenal Crow artist.

She's got a great family.

She's a Bead worker.

And she's also gone into fashion with co designs, so she's great.

And of course, Jessa with a growing Thunder family.

I mean, they're like a dynasty.

So it's been really great working with them.

And that show opens up this fall.

Yeah, they came out a couple times.

We went through the collection.

They came out together then individually, and through each of them, identified which works they wanted in, figured out themes.

I recorded everything.

So the majority of the text in the exhibition would be quotes from them, as opposed to this weird from the heavens museum voice that we often see in museum exhibitions.

So just trying to provide their perspective on these works.

So, yeah, I look forward to it.

It'll be good.

We're going to put up a teepee.

One of our old teepees I actually collected at Blackfeet from Walter McClintock in a lobby.

I don't think it's ever been seen by the public.

So, you know, and then Native Skate is.

It's.

It's.

The timing of that is really important because it'll be up during the Summer Olympics.

Nice.

So I'm trying to convince that we put a half pipe in the museum, but I'm not sure our insurance people will go along with our.

Which is the other side of this whole thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Were you involved in the NMAI skate exhibition?

I was not.

That was before my time.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because that was probably about 20 years ago.

15.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which in itself was a great exhibition, too.

So I'm sure this is.

It's gonna be exciting to see something that's.

That's contemporary coming out again.

So.

Yeah, back.

Back in my Youth in the 70s, I was into when actually we lived in Bozeman and my father was getting his master's degree at Montana State University in Bozeman.

I used to skateboard then, and there was no parks.

We had ramps out of plywood and stuff.

So when I started working on this skateboard show, I figured, well, you know what?

Although it's been 42 years, I'm going to get back on the skateboard.

So I bought every pad humanly possible.

I'm like a skating mattress and, you know, go a little bit.

But I kind of backed off of that a little bit because I'm like, dang, if I slam myself, it's not going to be good.

So, I mean, I watch him, and there's a guy up in Blackfeet, his name is J.C.

larson.

He's just over the top.

And I'll talk about it going in the air.

But I like to be able just kind of cruise around a little bit.

So I got to dip my toe back into that again.

But pads, pads, pads, pads.

The gravity is not your friend.

No, it never has been.

Well, let's, let's talk about opportunities right again.

In our career or just in our life, opportunities present themselves in different ways.

Sometimes we see things or we make our own.

Can you talk about your experience with opportunities?

For me, that's a challenging question to answer because I've been really, really, really fortunate in, in this field that I'm in now.

And opportunities.

I think a lot of opportunities certainly came from my mentors and the gifts that they have given me through guidance.

And I think a lot of it is for me, what is the next step?

That is, what is the next step, logical step of what needs to be done.

Whether it is trying to work with tribes to ensure they have access to their material when I was at nmai, or whether it was to create a memorandum of understanding with the Dakota Community Council, which we did at the Minnesota Historical Society or here at the Autry to ensure that the majority of native related exhibitions that we have has a strong presence of community voice.

I think these opportunities to me in my mind is what's the next step?

What can we do as a field?

I usually rarely work alone.

I always work with a team.

I've been really fortunate to work with some great people.

Minnesota, I work with great people.

Here I work with really great people.

I'm usually not a guy that does that much solo.

I perform, I prefer to work with like a small group of people because I think it's.

It keeps everybody in check, particularly me.

And you know, I value, I really value my.

The people who I work with, my team members, particularly Cream and Amanda, you know, we sit around, you know, you can joke around, but you know, we just sort of focus and get things done.

So opportunities for me is just.

Is given the situation that you're in, what's the best that you can do?

And once you're there, what is the next step?

And I've been really, really, really fortunate.

But I come kind of more old school.

I'm more of a so called material culture guy.

I don't have a PhD.

Most of my stuff is learning as I've been going along through my mentors, through other people, these kind of things.

So for the listener that's 18 to 22 year old, what advice or what would you want to share with them that's listening to this conversation?

The first one is to put your phone away.

People get all wrapped up in social media and very much of a me, me, me kind of a thing.

I'm taking a selfie with this, I'm taking a selfie with that.

Instead of, I would suggest, what am I going to do with my life in order to contribute back to my people?

Now, whether your people are Norwegians from northern Minnesota or whether you are native folks from Montana, Wyoming, whatever the case may be, how am I going to dedicate what I do to my people?

Now, it doesn't have to be in a museum field.

It could be construction, it could be plumbing, it could be accounting, or it.

Whatever the case may be.

But always think about how, you know, our ancestors went through a lot to get to where we are today.

And I believe it is our obligation to figure out how can we contribute back and to honor what they've given to us.

I don't care what field it is, always give back.

Put yourself aside.

Try to put yourself, your own ego aside.

And for me, that can be challenging because, you know, people are like, oh, this is great.

This is great.

I'm just like, okay, let's just, you know, let's just keep it going here.

Let's just keep it moving.

How can you.

What is your accountability to your people?

And from my perspective, you have a lot of accountability.

So what's next for you?

What's on the horizon?

What are you working on?

Well, I have my exhibitions that I'm working on.

I have creative continuities.

Kind of got thrown into a little bit of situation here at the Autry.

We're opening up an exhibition about black cowboys in May.

It's been a little challenging, but it's been really a learning process that's been really enjoyable.

Got my native skate project.

There's a lot.

There's really a lot.

Living in LA can be challenging at times because LA can be a little bit of a crazy place.

I've been very lucky.

And it's just once I get finished with these projects, I'll find more projects and keep going until I can't keep going anymore.

It's just, how do we make it better?

How do we make it better?

Where can the listener find you or be able to connect with you if they need to?

If that's something that you.

Sure.

Probably the most reliable place is on Instagram.

My user name is a native curator, so Facebook.

I'm kind of like, you know, Instagram, you know, it's probably the best.

Sometimes you see interesting things on there.

Sometimes you see Stupid cat things on there, which I, you know, I prefer the flexibility.

Talking to Rick west last night for dinner, I asked him what.

What was he seeing for what's on the horizon for Native art, contemporary Native art?

Like what.

Where do you see it going?

Where would you like to see it go?

If you were able to sort of steer that.

This movement a little bit, where would be a good place?

One of the challenges I have with Native contemporary art today is some of it can be rather Pan Indian.

It's where I'm taking this and I'm taking this and taking that and sort of creating whatever.

The works that really resonate to me is when artists reinterpret or put their own spin on works that come from their own cultural heritage.

And for me, that is an area that I would.

That really resonates with me in an area that I would prefer to see.

And it doesn't necessarily mean it always has to be in traditional.

Not sure how to define that.

But in traditional form.

It could be in a number of different forms.

But I think getting these works and these ideas and massaging them and making them your own while still being accountable to your people and your own people's artistic heritage and legacy is works that I think are extremely powerful.

Extremely powerful.

I mean, for example, if you.

There is a artist here, her name is Mercedes Dorme, she's Tongva, and she does a lot of installation pieces and she does auto photography that really deals with the concept of Tongva land.

Even considering that, you know, Tongva are not fairly recognized.

She had a show.

She was part of the fellowship at the Eibelzorg.

I really have a lot of respect for her and her work and sort of her perspective of how she's coming from.

And so she is talking about the experience, not of her being on her land that is, well, la.

And also sort of rebuilding and reconnecting with her own personal cultural heritage.

So those are sort of the stories that I really enjoy and I think resonate for me and really sort of touch deeply for me is when you can sort of see this sort of large development that there's more behind it than just sort of the final product.

Well, Joe, thank you so much for.

For sitting down and having this conversation with me.

It's really great to have you on this podcast.

Well, it's an honor.

I really appreciate it.

It's great talking with you and I appreciate you coming out here to la, although particularly now, it's a bit challenging times here.

So thank you very appreciate it.

And that does it for this episode of Five Plane Questions.

I want to thank Joe again for his time sharing his story with us.

Admittedly, this is an interview I've wanted to have for a very long time.

He comes from an incredible family.

His work and reputation as a leading scholar and professional is something I admit is something that I'm truly impressed with.

But more so, his warmth and generosity is deeply appreciated and I'm grateful that our community has Joe as a leading professional and leader for what we do in the museum world.

So Joe, thank you for this conversation and the tour of the Autry was really wonderful.

More importantly, I want to thank you for joining us and spending your time listening to what I feel is a very important story and perspective from our community.

So please join us next time as we speak with another incredible person.

I'm Joe Williams.

You can find me on across social media, on Instagram, on Facebook, and we're expanding our social media footprint as well.

You can find this podcast wherever you you listen to your favorite podcast as well as the Loving Warrior Arts website.

This has been an eleven Warrior Arts product.

Sa.