Native Women in Film & Television
DOCUMENTARY SHORT | United States | 21 MINUTES | English
When angry animals and heartfelt stories made music.
Illustrating the rhythmic style and transformative artistic nature of artist and musician Rick Bartow (Mad River Band of Wiyot, 1946-2016), Rick Bartow The Man Who Made Marks is a mini documentary with a twist of animated music video.
Bartow’s recorded song Black Dog provides the mood, and in his own voice, each verse serves as narration.
Animation by Amy Uyeki (Searchlight Serenade) and over 100 images of Bartow’s works of art complement the comical and heartfelt storytelling by his close friends and colleagues including artist Lillian Pitt (Warm Spring/Wasco/Yakama), founder of the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts James Lavadour (Walla Walla), Tribal Chair Ted Hernandez (Wiyot), artist Brian Tripp (Karuk), Master Printmaker Seiichi Hiroshima, and many other artists and musicians.
Directed by Nanette Kelley
A lifelong traveler on the roads in-between, Nanette Kelley resides part time in her Osage and Cherokee homelands in Oklahoma and also calls the California Redwood Coast (unceded Wiyot land) home. She likes to tell people, “My family never stopped migrating.”
Her life’s foundation in the arts predates her birth by generations of craftspeople who lived off the land from time immemorial including leathercrafters, woodworkers, and metalsmiths. Her work includes culturally and regionally specific primary research materials and the result is historically accurate interpretation through an Indigenous Knowledge lens.
Personal mentors such as China-born artist Hung Liu (social realism), Switzerland-born fine artist Lucienne Bloch (Diego Rivera’s assistant and paint specialist), and Vietnam-born multimedia/transdisciplinary artist, Anh-Thuy Nguyen (whose work highlights human relationships and cultural conflicts), although ethnically diverse, gave her an appreciation for works of art as language and not mere aesthetics.
A first-generation college student, Nanette completed her B.A. in Art with a Studio emphasis at Humboldt State University, California during the redwood timber wars and the tribal water wars. Immersed in an environmental and tribal cultural conflict zone and working as the publicity chair for educational and environmental nonprofits provided her with a good understanding of direct political, cultural, and environmental Public Relations and community outreach.
Located in the town named after Osage Chief GRAH MOIE within her ancestral Osage territory, and where her Cherokee family settled after they walked the Trail of Tears, she chose Rogers State University to complete a B.A. in Corporate Communications. Her study pertained to community outreach in radio, TV & video, and the creation of regional Indigenous multimedia curriculum for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, media she continues to utilize in education and outreach programs today.
Recently, Nanette received a commendation from the California Legislature for “her participation in helping to create and preserve the cultural identities of all Californians.” She is one of five Indigenous filmmakers chosen for the Bartow Project about artist Rick Bartow (Wiyot) and was one of 10 cultural based artists selected for the 2021 California Arts Council Administrators of Color Fellowship cohort. She is a professional member of the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), and a contributing writer to Indian Country Today, Native News Online, and First American Art Magazine. Nanette is graduating 2022 with an Indigenous Education M.A. (with an emphasis in Indigenous art narratives and program development) from the School of Social Transformation, Center for Indian Education program at Arizona State University.
Nanette Kelley
Nanette Kelley
Nanette Kelley
Brian Gee
Lillian Pitt, James Lavadour, Ted Hernandez, Brian Tripp, Charles Froelick, Leon-Forrest Caulkins, Karl Davis, Peter Walters, Seiichi Hiroshima, Richard Elmer Bartow
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Native Women in Film & Television In All Media is a program of Red Nation Celebration Institute
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