- I do art to self-soothe.

So you're in there and you're drawing or you're beading, it definitely helps you take on a different perspective and look at things differently in the world.

It's like therapy.

(bright music) My name is Holly Young, and I am a full-time Dakota artist.

I am a beadworker, I practice quillwork and made moccasins, dolls, ledger art, and whatever else I can learn I try.

When I was pregnant and carrying my daughter was when I first got interested in art.

In our Dakota way, when our children are born, we gift them with cultural items.

That's where I wanted to start learning how to do the work myself.

And so that's where I first started and got curious about art.

And then I was kind of really obsessed with it and I really wanted to learn more about it.

I wanted to learn about the colors, the patterns, I wanted to get better at it.

And so it was something that I really just dove into.

Beadwork, which is the first art form that I picked up.

And that's because you have a ton of color that you can use in the beads.

When you do a pattern or a design, there's a lot to choose from.

And there's different types of beads and cuts and shines, and some of 'em are matte.

So that's fun to play with.

This is like, I don't know, 15 years ago, my grandma's passed away, and I went into my grandma's house and I found some old beadwork and the beadwork had these floral motifs on them.

And some were quilled and some were beaded.

And I got very curious about it.

And then that started a whole journey of trying to figure out what kind of beadwork it was, where it came from, what it signified, and why the people created it.

And a lot of our art is narration.

You know, it's always storytelling.

So these floral motifs and these plant designs are people recording history of like the plants that they used?

It could be a personal story to the family.

Since then, this floral work is making a comeback, and it's pretty moving to see.

Part of being a beadwork artist is the patterns, and you put down on your material, and so you have to kind of sketch.

I had some artist friends that were watching, you know, the process that I was doing.

Those friends encouraged me to try ledger art.

(upbeat music) Ledger art is a very old traditional art form that was solely done by men.

So it began first with petroglyphs, and then it was animal hides.

And then there was a time during the late 1800s, early 1900s, when the people were confined to the reservation.

And so they no longer had access to the animal hides.

And during that time, through trade and the agents and the non-Natives on the reservation, they got hold of these ledger books.

And so the ledger books were used to keep track of census taking.

Some were used for distribution of materials, such as blankets and food.

And so the people had taken those books and, you know, adapted to the extreme change that was happening around them and just made do with it.

So some of the themes that are seen in older ledger art were scenes of war, stealing horses, counting coup, courting scenes, ceremonial scenes, and anything that they felt were important to preserve, because it's the people preserving history through telling these stories that they felt were important for the community to always remember.

Being a contemporary ledger artist and a woman and a mother, my point of view is obviously a little bit different than the older ledger art.

I tend to focus on a lot of things that I know.

I tend to draw moms and children and grandmas, cradle boards.

Creating ledger art is like letting my voice be known and my experiences as a woman.

Recently I worked on illustrating my first children's book, is with author Tara Perron, and it's called "The Sacred Land of Phezuta," And phezuta means medicine in Dakota.

It's a story about a grandma and her grandchild on the land, foraging, spending time together.

And I chose to do the project because I could relate to it as somebody who was raised by my grandma as well.

And we did a lot of the things that are going on in the book.

You know, we did a lot of foraging, we spent a lot of time together, we were constantly on the land.

So I could relate.

(upbeat music) What's important about creating ledger art is continuing a tradition that I feel is important.

I think that we think of art in these days that it's like you do art and then you live your life.

But back then, and even now, to me, as a contemporary artist, it's intertwined.

It's kind of like, if I didn't do it, it just wouldn't feel right.

(laughing) It's continuing in a tradition that is important culturally for our people.

- [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts and by the members of Prairie Public.