This week on Minnesota Native News, we revisit the Winter Artist Market Collaboration between the Native American Community Development Institute’s All My Relations Arts Gallery and the Four Sisters Farmers Market, with details on the upcoming Niimiwin Artist Market at the Minneapolis American Indian Center.
Announcer Marie Rock:
When the warm weather fades, the Native American Corridor on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis says see you later, to the Four Sisters Farmers Market. However, in 2023, a Winter Artisan Fair was held in Minneapolis for a mini extravaganza of jewelry, artwork, and crafts from over a dozen Indigenous artists and vendors. Reporter Chandra Colvin visited with two collaborators for the off season market about how the project started.
Chandra Colvin: The fair was organized by Destiny Jones, who is the food sovereignty coordinator and farmer’s market manager at Four Sisters Farmers Market. This is the first artisan fair to be held in the off season.
Destiny Jones: Typically Four Sisters is a seasonal farmers market, in the summer we run the entire growing season. And we focus on food access and food sovereignty, specifically indigenous food sovereignty in the East Phillips Ventura Village area of South Minneapolis right here on the American Indian Cultural corridor, better known as Franklin Avenue.
Chandra Colvin: The fair was organized by Destiny Jones, who is the Food Sovereignty Coordinator and Farmers Market Manager at Four Sisters Farmers Market.
Destiny Jones: The connection between Four Sisters Farmers Market and All My Relations Arts was actually really organic.They’re another program within NACDI that focuses on the arts aspect of indigenous representation, [00:01:00] and we were trying to figure out ways to better collaborate between food sovereignty and arts and culture.
Chandra Colvin: Jones says that an artist in residence at the farmer’s market was established. The idea is to have a featured artist at Four Sisters Farmer’s Market each month during the summer. It is not only to share and sell the artist’s work, but to engage with market goers on knowledge of indigenous plants and food sovereignty.
Chandra Colvin: Jones wanted to create spaces that were reciprocal to the artists in the community, alongside creating opportunities during the off season.
Destiny Jones: I really wanted to be able to kind of create more spaces for people to sell work, early entrepreneurs to kind of get their start, and also display their beautiful and traditional beadwork and moccasins and jewelry and all of the other amazing things that we have that are presented at the market.
Destiny Jones: Something that I hear a lot from all vendors is that the winter can be really hard as like markets dwindle and that’s something that I also kind of wanted to alleviate for some of our vendors. I know that we work with a lot of early entrepreneurs and I would just hate to see so many talented people get discouraged because I know that it can be a really hard business to kind of get started.
Chandra Colvin: Brooke LaFloe was the founder and owner of Niniijaanis One of Ones. The company is a social enterprise for Indigenous children and a collective of artists and educators that work under a model of selling artwork with all proceeds going into giveaways for Indigenous children. This was one of the several times that Nene Janis has been a vendor at Four Sisters Farmers Market selling bead and ribbon work amongst other items.
Brook LaFloe: I love how NACDI invites You don’t have to be like an established business. There’s artists in there who are just starting, and I like how NACDI uplifts everybody in the community, and this market does a good job trying to promote just anybody at any stage in their business or in their art . It’s good when NACDI hosts these markets because they invite people in, they create [00:03:00] marketing and, you know, kind of publicize and get the word out there.
Chandra Colvin: The turnout for both artists and market goers was notable.
Brook LaFloe: It’s just really amazing to have so much interest and to have so many people show up with like all different types of work. It’s just really beautiful to see the community kind of come together. and support artists as well.
Chandra Colvin: You can find more information upcoming on allmyrelationsarts. org. For more information about Niniijaanis, visit niniijaanis1of1s.com
Chandra Colvin: For Minnesota Native News this is Chandra Colvin.
[Flute Music]Announcer Marie Rock:
This year, the All My Relations Art Gallery is hosting the Niimiwin Artist Market at the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Friday, December 20th from 3 to 7 p. m. You can find more information about the Nimiwin Artist Market and upcoming events on social media at AllMyRelationsArts.
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