A painter and a teller of stories

Videos

Grandma's Tipi - Trailer

Now that Clara is almost in third grade, she’s finally old enough to spend her first summer away from home visiting her grandma, Unci, and her cousin at their home in Standing Rock Reservation. To welcome her visit, Uncle Louie brings an extra-special surprise in his pickup truck: the tipi that’s been passed down through their family for generations. The girls learn how to stack the poles and wrap the canvas covering around them, how to paint spirit pictures on its walls, and how the circle of the tipi tells its own story, reminding us to how to live in the great Circle of Life. Over long days spent playing outside, doing beadwork together, telling stories, singing songs, and sleeping under the stars, the tipi brings the family closer together. As summer draws to an end, goodbye comes all too soon, but Clara will always cling to the memories of summer days and starry nights…and Grandma’s tipi.

The Lakota Way - SD Nelson

S.D. Nelson is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the Dakotas. “My people are known as the Sioux or Lakota. During the 19th century they were renowned as the Horse People of the Great Plains. My ancestors were also the people of the Buffalo, for the Buffalo gave them most of their food, their warm robes, and the lodge skins of their tipis. My people followed great herds of them across the vast grasslands beneath an endless blue sky.” Nelson’s artwork appears on book jackets, greeting cards, and CD covers, and his paintings are held in both private and public collections. He has written and illustrated numerous award-winning children’s books. Music by Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble, “It is a Good Day to Die”.

Lakota Visions - SD Nelson

“I remember one particular summer night… cricket song filled my ears. Then, shimmering overhead, the Northern Lights came dancing, pale green at first, then in ethereal robes of red and gold; spiraling ever upward; colors vanishing, only to reappear. Although I was staring directly into the heavens, from the corner of my eye, I saw something—the sacred something that Lakota People believe is behind all things. I was only a boy, but I was seeing in a Wakan manner, in a sacred way.” Music by Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble, “The Vanishing Breed”.