Volume 17 Fall 2005 Issue No. 1

In This Issue:
Telling Our Stories

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Features

10 Spirit of the Colleges, Voice of the People: Students share pain, hope through art
by Dr. Rebecca L. Robbins (Lakota)
Art is the heartbeat and spirit of the tribal college, providing a means for student artists to communicate across cultures.

28 TCJ Student Edition
Sherman Alexie says in his introduction that being an author was once as foreign to him as being an astronaut. But the student writers in this year’s edition demonstrated that for them, writing is as ordinary as breathing or drumming. 

Departments

8 Editor's Essay: Recycling Lives - students to believe in
by Marjane Ambler

16 Profile: Frankie T. Kipp
by Marjane Ambler

20 On Campus

60 Media Reviews
by Stephanie Owen, Sara Wiles, Betty J. Mason, Susan Skinner, Duke Epperson, and Gwynne Spencer

On the cover:

“Birth of the Water Clans,” acrylic on canvas, 48” x 72”, by Peterson Yazzie, 2004. The Navajo culture and personal life experiences provide the foundation of Yazzie’s work. In this painting, two sand-painting figures come together. The yellow color represents a waterfall, traveling downstream through the painting and exiting at the bottom. Yazzie, 25, painted this while a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). He specializes in large format canvases, some of which are abstract and some more representational. He graduated this year from IAIA with a Bachelor of Arts degree and plans to continue his education at the University of New Mexico, working toward a master’s degree in art with a focus on painting. The Turquoise Tortoise Gallery in Sedona, AZ, carries his work, and he will be featured at the IAIA Museum during the Santa Fe Indian Market in August. To contact him, write to Peterson Yazzie, HC 58 Box 70, Ganado AZ 86505. Call (928) 654-3164 and leave a message. Or email dinehyazz@yahoo.com.

In his artist statement, he says, “Painting in different mediums is exciting for me. Watercolors, acrylics, mixed media, airbrush, monotypes, and pastels -- each medium provides its own unique effects and a sense of spontaneity in my work. I feel a painting is more interesting if it has a sense of mystery; it can be the subject matter or how the materials are handled. My paintings are explorations and discoveries of myself. Sometimes my paintings start out with an idea of what to communicate, other times it just starts out with a splash of paint, and then everything else falls into place. I am an emerging artist with many things to learn. It’s always exciting for me to start something new, not knowing what will be next.”