Today we are speaking with Giizh Sarah Agaton Howes. Howes is an award-winning Anishinaabe creator, artist and organizer from Fond Du Lac reservation and Muscogree Creek. She’s the CEO of Heart Berry, a contemporary Ojibwe Design brand that offers wool blankets, apparel, gifts and accessories rooted in Howes’s beadwork and Ojibwe floral designs.
Giizh was raised by an artist mother but never thought about herself as one until she realized art wasn’t just paintings in a museum but the cultural traditions from her Ojibwe community. She started with beading and moccasin making. That led to her teaching workshops so others could become cultural makers too.
She shares the origin story of Heart Berry, which grew out of a desire to see Ojibwe designs translated into contemporary apparel and to take back the wool blanket as a Native craft.
She also talks about a recent mural project on the Cloquet bandshell, finding art that we love and that loves us back, and course correcting after a wrong turn. Giizh lives in Sawyer with her family. These days, she’s experiencing the bittersweet emotions of a parent who has recently seen her first child graduate from high school.
Transcript:
Giizh Sarah Agaton Howes
What I really like to do is to translate traditional ojo by art and stories into contemporary design, from a wool blanket a pair of earrings to an architectural installation to a mural, and really just any form that we can take our hurt and stories and turn them into it.
Leah Lemm
Boozhoo, hello. Welcome to Native lights, where indigenous voices shine. I’m your host. Leah Lemm,
Cole Premo and I’m your other host, Cole Primo. Miigwech for joining us today on Native Lights, which is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it’s a place for native folks to tell their stories each and every week, we have captivating conversations with great guests from a whole lot of different backgrounds. We’re talking musicians, artists, community leaders, you name it. They have a wonderful mix of passions, and we talk to them about their gifts and how they share their gifts with the community. And it all centers around the big point of purpose in our lives and amplifying Native Voices. How you doing? Leah, what’s going on?
Leah Lemm
I’m doing well. Thank you. How are you?
Cole Premo
You know, I’m doing great. I’m at that stage of my life where improving and working on my lawn has become a thing, which is crazy. Basically, the update for me, the breaking news update, is that I’ve helped kind of rejuvenate the front of my lawn. It was getting a little dry. Our dad called it winter burned, so after about a week or so, to couple weeks now, it’s starting to look a little better. So I’m, I’m celebrating that right now, but little did I know I’d become that person, but you know, it’s nice,
Leah Lemm
Nice. Yeah, it feels good to get out there, get out and do
Cole Premo
something. Yeah, I have to wear a mask, though, because if I cut them long without wearing a mask like my next day is just wrecked from allergies, because I was one of us who got the allergy bug. Of us siblings, a little bit more so than, Oh,
Leah Lemm
my blessing and a curse. Yeah, I hear ya. It’s your superpower. You can detect when there’s pollen in the air. Yeah, exactly. Well, I’m doing all right over here too. You know, sometimes our animal friends, our animal relatives. Yeah, spend time close to us and Radagast right now, there’s nobody else home at this moment in time, so he needs to be in the same room with me, because he’s a needy little dude. So
Cole Premo
you wanna say hi? Oh, I see him. Yeah, look at him. Oh, look at those expressive eyes. Very shiny coat as well.
Leah Lemm
Thank you. Yeah, he actually does very well in the bath. Oh, really, I’ve been consistent with him being in the bath since we got him, but he’s in with me. So if you hear a little squeak or a little panting or running around. It’s not me. It’s around a guest. So it’s our puppy.
Cole Premo
Actually, on the dog note, Stanley went on a hike this weekend, Sunday. We’re recording this on Monday, and after the hike, my goodness, 14 plus ticks on him. Ticks. He’s a poodle, mini poodle. So he’s got these long, long hairs, and they really like to get in there, get in there deep. So it was, it took us a couple hours to make sure we got, got them all. And so, oh, that was kind of like little No. Thank you, freaky little thing. But hopefully, well,
Leah Lemm
let me give this guy a different toy. Yeah, I’m really excited to talk with our guest today. Yes,
Cole Premo
while you’re getting that toy, I’ll introduce our next guest. Here we are speaking with you. Sarah agaton house. She is an award winning Anishinaabe creator, artist and organizer from the Fond du Lac Reservation in Muskogee Creek. She’s the CEO of heartberry, a contemporary Ojibwe design brand that offers wool blankets, apparel, gifts and accessories rooted in her beadwork and Ojibwe floral designs. And very excited to talk with her about all that and more. Here she is. Buju. All right, Buju, could you please start by introducing yourself, and, you know, letting us know where you’re from. Quick introduction. How you doing? Well,
Speaker 1
Buju, now Kweku queen to go. So my Ojibwe name is now kweguji cookware magazine. And do name, I’m Eagle clan and I’m Papa. Should come at the goon and do Dubai. Come from the bald headed Island area of Fond du Lac in guava evening Inda. And I live in Sawyer, and I’m an artist and designer and owner of heartberry here on
Cole Premo
Fond du Lac. Awesome. I will definitely get into all that. We also like to ask, you know, how are you doing? How’s the family doing? Oh
Speaker 1
my gosh. So this week, my son. Then is graduating from high school, so this is our first little wolf pup to leave the den, and it’s a very emotional, very bittersweet part of our life as parents. So but it’s good. It’s
Leah Lemm
good. Well, we like to begin our conversations by asking if there’s anything that you’re particularly thinking about or geeking out on.
Speaker 1
What am I geeking out over right now? I’m just in a, you know, I’m in a comfort measure shits Creek third time through, because I just finished, you know, some really big projects. And so it’s nice to kind of decompress out of that and just watch something that’s a comfort show. So that’s where I’m at. And yeah, like I said, just totally preparing for my little baby, who’s 18 years old, to
leave me.
Leah Lemm
Oh, yeah, I still have, what, six, seven years on mine. He’s got to cook a little longer, but I feel that like slow approach,
Speaker 1
it’s such a wild thing, especially like as a native parent, because we do so much to protect our kids and to try to root them and give them a healthy space, and then we’re somehow supposed to then encourage them to also, you know, follow your dreams and go wherever your heart leads you. And then it’s like, okay, so, yeah, it’s a really wild,
Cole Premo
real wild ride. So you mentioned you just finished up some big projects.
Speaker 1
I just finished a mural that is in the Cloquet band shell. So the band shell is this structure in Cloquet from sort of like the glory days of I don’t know what folks were doing out on lakes during that time, but it’s a classic, like big white band shell that is kind of like neglected structure. Got the chance working with the county and the tribe to put something in the structure related to active living. Maybe they thought I would put, like a bike or people walking their dog. And when I really started to think about active living, I was like, you know, we actually have always been active people. And actually what we really need as a reminder is just a reminder of what we had always done and what we had always had. And so I was like, one of my favorite moments in life is when you’re on a canoe, the rice that comes up over the canoe, there’s people kind of joking and talking. You kind of hear them kind of far away. Maybe they’re ribbing each other about something. There’s just this magic in that work and in that doing that, I really wanted to put that in this space in Cloquet, and so took on a project that was like a little bit over my head, which I kind of like to do. And we installed these big sign boards. We did some community paint nights, and then we just wrapped it up last week. So it’s been quite a wild and amazing ride, and I feel super fortunate to be able to imprint Ojibwe art into the town adjacent to the reservation. Because if you grew up here, you know that that’s always a complicated relationship. So I feel really fortunate to be able to do that kind of work.
Cole Premo
You’re listening to native lights, where indigenous voices shine. Native lights is produced by Minnesota native news and Ampers, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with ghees, Sarah eggett house, an award winning Anishinaabe, creator, artist and organizer from the Fond du Lac Reservation in Muskogee Creek. She’s the CEO of heartberry, a contemporary Ojibwe design brand. While talking about the work, could you describe your work? You know what inspires it? What
Speaker 1
I really like to do is to translate traditional Ojibwe art and stories into contemporary design, and that can look anything from a wool blanket a pair of earrings to an architectural installation to a mural, and really just any form that we can take our art and stories and turn them into it. That’s what I’m really excited about doing, and really like to be doing. And I come from, like, a beadwork moccasin making background, so I really like things that like work and move and live in people’s lives. It’s always been a very like functional part of our lives, and I really like to make that kind of work. And because we are living in a time we are where we are all the things. So we’re traditional people, we’re modern people, we’re all of those things. And so I like to bring all of those together, because I think that’s who we really are, is all of those things at one time. We’re not too. A world in two spaces where one person on one path, and that’s how I like to try to to do my work. And that’s gone from doing like T shirts to now working on big architecture projects and like super cool stuff that allows me to really institutionalize Ojibwe points of view, like, if I can have Ojibwe art sandblasted into the side of a building, that’s like an institutional transformation. And that’s everyone that sees that will say, Oh, well, Ojibwe art. Ojibwe is must be important, because look at how this is sandblasted into this building like that does something, and that’s a really like a part of my work that I’ve gotten to do more lately, and that, like, sort of other dimension of it is I teach a lot of cultural art classes because I really, really like teaching moccasin making specifically, I have Really, like focused in on that, because I think everybody has an important role to play, and I think that this is my role to play. And I just love to watch people, when they come in to classes, they’re unsure of themselves. They’re kind of like, ooh, like, I don’t know if I should be here. And if you’ve ever tried to do anything new culturally, like you know that feeling of like their people’s own insecurities and all kinds of stuff, and they come in and helping them think about what kind of a plant might they feel connected to, that they maybe want to design, and working through the process and the frustration with them of something they’ve lost, and then to watch them as they make it and become it is so rewarding, because I think we have so much grief around the little feeling lost and that so much is lost to us, And then when people are able to make those reconnections, that’s just such a powerful thing, and such a powerful thing that somebody did, people did for me, and I really love to be a part of other people’s lives as they do that, I just feel like that’s just so incredible and such a gift that was given to me so many times, like, over and over, and As many times as I can give that back, I want to do that. You know, when people are moccasin makers, they are able to care for their family from, like, birth through death. So you’re able to, like, help somebody, give love and care for people in a way that our ancestors really smart. You know, they knew, like, you had to send this love with people. Where do you teach your classes? Out
Leah Lemm
of I
Speaker 1
have at my shop, Auntie’s table, because not all of us have an auntie like that. Some of us do, and some of us don’t have that. And so really creating a space that is just that Auntie’s table for people to come to. And then often, times I’m going, like, around to colleges or community centers, different school groups, doing teaching, kind of like, wherever I’m beckoned to go. So that’s been really cool, though, to be able to create my own space to do that has been really fun. And I’ve been doing that for the last year and
Cole Premo
a half. So you talked about, you know, how this was gifted to you. Could you just expand on that more like, when did you realize that this was your calling, and why is it your calling? I
Speaker 1
wanted to dance, and when I was in, like, my early 20s and powwows, and my brother was like, well, guess you better learn sew and be then. And was like, here we’ll show you how to sew. Show you how to be. My mom’s an artist, and she was always trying to get me to engage more with art, but I didn’t see myself as an artist at all. I felt like it was really frustrating, and it wasn’t until I got into cultural art that I was like, Oh, this makes sense to me. And then I took a moccasin class from Winnie la prairie, and this had to have been 17 years ago, something like that, you know, since then, like Karen and Wendy savage have been super giving in all of the knowledge they’ve had, just like, always willing to share with me. I really love being in classes with Karen. She’s very calm, and she’ll say things like, maybe we should just take this stitch out and just and she always says, maybe we should. And there’s this way of when she does that where you feel like she’s going with you. You don’t have to go alone. We’re gonna do this thing together. And I felt like all these people are giving me all of this. I can’t just take it and keep it for myself. And it’s like, we really need to give this to people. And after I learned how to make moccasins, a lot of people would call me and be like, I know this is last minute, but I need a pair of funeral moc stands for my dad or my uncle or whoever. Oh, I really need to teach this to people. I don’t need to be doing this for them. We need. To have this skill like as a community, and that sort of shifted the way that I thought about what I was supposed to be doing. Was because I just didn’t want to be doing funeral moccasins for people. I wanted them to touch them, them to be able to care for their loved one the way that they were supposed to be able to. And I get a lot out of it. So as soon as I started teaching, and I’d see people’s faces, like, they’d flip them around, and they’d be like, you know, in the sometimes you just know, like, sometimes you’re just doing something, and you’re like, this, this is the thing. And I try to pay attention to that. And whatever that is, that magical thing that is there. You can call it whatever you want, but whatever that magic is, I try to pay attention finding
Leah Lemm
that this, having that feeling of knowing that you’re kind of on the right path. How do you compare that to when you feel like you’re on the wrong path? I don’t know if wrong is the right word, but like when it’s not right. You know,
Speaker 1
that’s really interesting, because I’ve been definitely thinking about that a lot lately, that that feeling in your stomach when you’re out of alignment, and that feeling when you’re going off of your path, you know, and I think we know that you’re always going to do that. You’re always gonna, like, kind of go off it, and go too far over here, too far over there, and get a little too wrapped up and stuff. And I think as a business owner, it is really easy to get off that path, that you can start going down a path that isn’t in line with your values. And so often I just, I’m like, my stomach is like, this doesn’t feel good. And try to bring myself back, but I just know I have to go off it. I like, I’m gonna just keep doing that. And then I just have to, like, listen to that and be like, Okay, come back over here, and then like, oh, okay, that feels better. Yeah. Just course correct, yeah. And just accept that, that that wavering is just what we’re here to do is like human beings, like, make mistakes and try to do better.
Leah Lemm
I’m writing that down, make mistakes and try to do better. Because really honestly, so it seems like, oh, and it’s funny,
Speaker 1
because whenever we’re in even, like in classes too, people are so scared to make mistakes. And I’m always like, that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to make the mistakes and just get better at it and do better. But that’s all we’re here. We’re not here to be good at it. And I think me being able to make that, accept that. And that’s like, really in our teachings, right? Like, mana, Buju, like, all of that total philosophy, it was just like, mistake, mistake, mistake. Oh, yeah, I make a lot of mistakes. And I always tell everybody in my classes, like, look, I have made every possible mistake you could. So I’m just trying to prevent you from doing the things that I have done. So
Leah Lemm
man, that’s rugged, though, you know, just mistakes, I mean, they help you learn, but geez, it’d be nice to just do something perfect for once. But alas, well, I’m curious what was child Geesh, Sarah eggerton house, like with art,
Speaker 1
my mom is an artist, so there was always art around, and we were always make a mess, always paints around, always things around for us to make art from. But I think I had in my mind, art is painting a portrait, that art was like a sort of a European sense of art. And I didn’t grow up around cultural art, so I didn’t really have any understanding of what that, what that really could mean in my life. And it wasn’t until I was an adult that I came into contact with that whole life. I definitely felt like once I was doing cultural art. And this is gonna sound crazy, but I think it loves us. If you go racing and you’re like, I think it loves me, or you go out on the lake and you’re like, I think this lake likes me. I think, I think something out here likes me. And that’s kind of why it feels like you’re doing something, is we like that? You’re out here doing this thing, and you’re all like, happy about it. It feels all good and stuff, and it’s super hard work, but that’s fine. But, yeah, I don’t think as a kid I made art. I made lots of sun over the two Hill paintings as a child, but I was never, I was never really. I really saw myself as an artist at all. But my mom was always game for anything which is fun. Yeah. So like as my. You know, my grandma went to boarding school. My great grandma went to boarding school. My dad was Catholic school, and I went to a Christian school. And so, like, we’re really, like multiple generations deep into being disconnected. And so it’s really been our privilege as a generation to be able to reconnect and be safe enough to reconnect to that that’s really, you know, I’m 48 that’s really a privilege that I have as a person, to be able to be able to do this kind of work that I think my grandma would have been like, whoa. Can you imagine what they had thought of us? You know,
Leah Lemm
you’re listening to native lights, where indigenous voices shine. Native lights is produced by Minnesota native news and Ampers, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today, we’re speaking with gheej Sarah eggett house, an award winning Anishinaabe, creator, artist and organizer from Fond du Lac Reservation and Muscogee Creek. She’s the CEO of heartberry, a contemporary Ojibwe design brand.
Cole Premo
When people think of art, they think of, you know, just something fun to look at or whatever. But it’s more than that to many people. You’ve mentioned a lot of like art as a way of connecting. Could you speak more on that and just what art means to you? If we look back
Speaker 1
at anything that native people in Anishinaabe have ever made, we always were decorating it to look like us. So whether we were making a canoe and people would etch on the canoe, or whether it was some of the moccasins or someone like we’re always making things look like us and be beautiful. And that is something that I think really resonates with me, is the idea of these parts of our life that we are, are living with, looking like us and reflecting us. And, you know, I learned something really cool about like Ojibwe florals were being beaded at a time around the turn of the century, people would put medicines on them to remind people of medicines that we couldn’t talk about. And so it was this, like cool underground way of sharing about medicines, which I think is so freaking cool. And so those plants, those those those designs, while they’re beautiful, they’re there to remind us of who we are, how rich we are, how you know, these are all these things are out there in the world for us. And when we don’t see those things as our eyes, we don’t ESCA sound weird, almost like a, like a, like a brainwashing, like, if I see Nike, Nike, Nike, Nike, I see a certain symbol over and over, I will start to think I like that. That must be important. That must be something that we value as a culture. And when we see ourselves valued, and we see are, are out there all the time. We’re like, that’s something that must be important then and and I like something that I really have been focusing a lot now on, and not only in my own design work, but also in classes, is I don’t give people beadwork patterns because I’m like, what plants do you feel connected to, what’s something that you feel like a reciprocity with, and getting people to think about that, because I want us to reconnect to those things and to think about like, Huh, what is something when I go outside that I see it and I’m like, oh, there it is. You know, is the Trillium I see when I go biking down the path. I’m like, there it is. And so I really want people to be, to be thinking about that. Because I think that our great grandparents thought about that stuff. They were, they were thinking about what kind of plants are out there, and they were quilling them, drawing them, etching them, designing them for us, all this time later.
Leah Lemm
Oh, can we talk about heartberry? A bit Sure? Why don’t you say a bit more about heartberry and kind of how it’s set up. I
Speaker 1
started my business originally was doing, like, custom beadwork, quilts, jingle dresses for people, and like I said, that morphed into me teaching. There was an artist at the time that I would totally like followed on all the social media. His name is Louie gogg, and he has started a company called eighth generation, and he had this really cool way of combining cultural art with community work and entrepreneurship that I like never seen anybody do before. And I was like, oh, like, that’s super cool. Like, I would love to do that. And so when he contacted me and was like, Are you interested in being a part of this inspired native project? I was like, Oh, my God. Gosh, like freaking out because it’s like the dream scenario, like, I don’t know, whoever your favorite, whatever dream person is, and sends you, you know, a message. It’s just so exciting. And so that’s how I started doing more design work. Was working with eighth generation, and so that was about 15 years ago, and heartberry comes from was, I was like, looking at all my design work. The common theme in all of this is the strawberries, or strawberries, and everything that I, you know, was making. And the word no job way for strawberries, oh Damon, which means heart Berry, because there’s just something about strawberries, that anybody you see native, non native, anybody they have a reaction to seeing those. And then for us, there’s also all these cool stories and teachings. And different tribes have all kinds of cool stories about strawberries. And it just was like, this is the thing. Like, this is the thread. It’s a cultural thing, but it’s close for me, but it also is something that other people can relate to, and that’s how became heartberry. And I do a lot of design work. I write my brand and design all kinds of fun stuff, and do all the business things. You know, while photo shoots, sign up for our email newsletter. We’ll send you a fun email newsletter, but it’s really great because I get to make things exist that didn’t, you know, I think, Oh, my as well. Like, I’ll be really cool. There was a Ojibwe floral bomber jacket. And then I’m like, Yeah, let’s make that exist. But a big part of what I’ve gotten to be a part of as part of working with eighth generation was really taking back the wool blanket. Because for, you know, 150 years, the word wool blanket was synonymous with one company that has been using native designs to make a multi generational fortune. And so to be able to be a part of taking that back and being like, we can do our own wool blankets. We can be our own, responsible for telling our own stories and getting to be a part of, like, leaving a little part of that is, like, ah, top notch. Like, the coolest thing, because blankets are such a pinnacle gift, you know, they’re like the wedding, the graduation, the thing. So getting to make items like that that are institutional. Ojibwe
things is like
the best,
Leah Lemm
amazing gheej, Sarah agaten house, the one, the only but who does so much with community too, like helping others learn art and experience art. I like
Cole Premo
her whole comment on you can realize that these things you’re doing love you back, or the places that you’re at love you back. I got to think about that more. I need to realize that more in my life. Yeah, so
Leah Lemm
just great. We all need a little course correction every now and then. So, all right. So
Cole Premo
Miigwech to our guest, Giizh Sarah Agaten Howes, I’m Cole Primo,
Leah Lemm
and I’m Leah Lemm. Thank you for listening. Gigawat. Gigawat, you’re listening to Native Lights, where indigenous voices shine. Native lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
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