This is very loud and colorful.

We're here.

For people who are native to be able to see something and be like, I really identify with that.

Or that you know, that image and that symbolism, it just means so much.

For us, having visibility about us, elevating our voices.

Somebody is going to look at it and say, what is that tobacco teaching?

Why is the hand so big in the in the center of that?

What about the turtles and the fish?

Because like every fish has a story, every, you know, the turtle has many stories.

There's just thousands of stories.

And hopefully people look at that and they get curious about it.

And they go on the journey of learning the stuff that they were never taught.

Why?

We're not gonna go away.

Indigenous Contigo.

My name is Michelle Defoe and I'm from Red Cliff, Wisconsin.

I am Lake Superior Ojibwe and I am an artist on this mural.

There's many artists, and I got to design a few pieces on the wall here.

So my name is Mary Villard.

I grew up on the fond du Lac reservation.

My dad is fond du Lac and Rolly, so I'm a direct descendant, not enrolled.

But I grew up there.

And I do a lot of, indigenous land acknowledgment, community collaborative art projects.

And then I like to include racing because I just think it's such an interesting story of, you know, the Anishinaabe migration to this area and how it became you know, such a such a significant historical, you know, part of being here, that a lot of people, I think, in the mainstream, don't really know about the mainstream narrative of native people is very negative.

Like there's the image of like they're just drunk or they're homeless and we're representing and all of these really bad statistics, and that's all you ever hear, you know, sort of covered about native people.

And so to be able to be like, hey, we contribute beautiful things, we contribute beautiful art, we're contributing to this community.

And we're a part of it.

I think that's just incredibly important, especially when we're living on territory that, you know, has such a complicated history of, you know, the settlers coming and then the treaty of 1854 and everything like that.

It just a complicated history and nobody knows it.

And then we only see these negative statistics, and it's just there's so many misconceptions about native people that it makes it hard to exist here.

And even, you know, while we were painting it, sometimes people would come up and have questions.

And, it.

Was really.

Sometimes hard to describe, you know, some of the significant of the mural or the ism or things like that, because people just don't know.

And you get that awkward moment of having to explain.

And so hopefully having this artwork and this visual representation gets people used to seeing us so that future generations won't have to answer as many questions and be put on the spot constantly, like repeating themselves and, you know, going through what we are going through right now as artists trying to to to connect with the.

Community, sometimes.

Over the years, we've slowly been, creating space here for us with our own voices and our own vision.

It's important that we tell our own stories.

We've had non-native artists do art pieces that are revolved around our stories, and they were not told accurately.

So that's even more frustrating.

Usually I have like hundreds of people who come out and help out, like in time, but we had to limit it to.

And so one apartment building of kids, which is fine because kids are everywhere all over the place anyway.

But also just that idea of like being able to sort of quickly, like make a dragonfly outline and instead of having kids design stuff on site, being able to have them submit that online and then get a little gift card for, you know, their, their contributions.

That was a really cool part of, you know, an unexpectedly interesting way, I guess, to have people engage during the pandemic.

I've heard a lot of people talk about how they're struggling with mental health.

Under a lot of restrictions and a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.

And how do we deal with that?

Not being able to connect how we normally do, which is maybe through large social gatherings, powwows, dancing, singing, feasting, being together.

And so it's a little difficult to be able to find.

How do we support ourselves now?

Because we can't get into big group gatherings like that.

And so this is the reminder here, too, that there's other ways to receive that help, even though it's difficult.

And we want to be able to be with our, our community.

The plants and the animals are our community too.

So I think for me, it's a reminder that we have our traditional ways as well, and the reminder of our stories and all the strength that come from our traditional teachings.

And so when you look at this mural, there's a lot of Ojibwe teachings in here to pull out.

And, the reminder that we're not alone, the plant life and the fish life are here, and they've always been here, and they're like our ancestors.

They're older than us.

And, so if we need help or we're having a hard time, we can always offer tobacco, which is our first teaching tobacco offerings, and ask for help.

And so they're there to help us and, they care about us and love us.

And so that's incorporated in our teachings.

The beautiful parts, our resilience.

You know, because what Mary was talking about, people like to focus on the trauma and, you know, the horrible parts, which is important to know about.

But what about the resilient parts of us, you know, what are both the parts that give us strength?

And, so hopefully this mural helps people identify with that, too.