(serene music) - [Narrator] On this episode of Postcards.

- It's a positive hobby to be able to come out and to work with these horses.

Their confidence has gone up, and I think that transfers over into the real world.

- I just wanna make sure people are blessed through my food.

- They're tattoos.

Probably isn't considered fine art obviously, but people are doing tattoos that a lot of people can't even paint.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yigal Julene on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms.

A retreat and conference center in a Prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria Minnesota.

A year round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar.

An arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 KRAM.

Online at 967kram.com.

(upbeat music) - It can be hard to grow up as a young woman in today's society.

There's a lot of pressure on young women to be a certain way and to almost be perfect in a sense, and social media I think plays a huge role on that.

You see a lot of unrealistic expectations of what you should be as a woman.

And so when you get caught up in that, it can take a toll on your confidence, especially in this adolescent phase.

Being out here, it just helps build confidence overall because I mean, these are 1500 pound animals and I feel like once you're able to control them and you have a relationship with them and you can handle them, then I think it just shows these girls the things that they are capable of.

(upbeat music) We are called Sunktanka Wicayuhapi which translates to we care for the horses.

Part of the work that we do is just reclaiming our connection with the horses, because to the Dakota people, Lakota people, all the Plains Indians, the horses were very vital to our ancestors and played a big role in our lives back then.

And so it's not just horseback riding, it's not just giving lessons.

It's more about trying to reclaim that connection with our horses.

Our horseback riding program is open to girls and boys grades fifth through 12th.

But as of right now, our Sunktanka Wicayuhapi is just made up of girls.

So we have our beginners riding, which is with girls and boys, but to be a part of Sunktanka Wicayuhapi you have to have a few years of riding experience.

- Back up, back up.

I actually started a year earlier than I was supposed to start.

I started third grade summer.

So I've been around horses basically my entire life.

And they said that I could actually get lessons and help out here.

So I started riding out here and ever since then, I'm a senior now.

I've rode every single one of those horses.

So I have a great bond with all of them.

I started out on one of the tiniest ones and now I'm on the tallest, most fastest horse out here.

(chuckles) - [Deep Voiced Man] Go faster.

- I'm not gonna run them over.

Yeah, so actually I just had a baby.

So, I'm a teen mom, but I just had a baby and when I came back, I was super scared and I didn't want to get hurt or anything like that.

So I was like, I don't want to just jump back in.

But over the couple months, she's nine months old now, so over the last, like eight, seven-ish months, I've been able to gain my confidence back and now we're barrel racing again and all that.

(indistinct chatter) - I enjoy coming out here, spending time with the horses and my peers.

We're like a family.

In the past throughout generations and generations horses have been very important to our community and our people and our culture and involved in ceremony.

And what we do here is a big part of our culture.

And I'd like more people to know that.

- I've been part of this program for about six years.

It's good spending time with your horse when you really need it.

I mean, just like horses are very therapeutic and they're really good listeners, and they understand how you're feeling.

They know that feeling.

They understand you.

(horse galloping) (cheers) - Something that I struggle with personally would be anxiety.

And I find that when I'm with my horses that it allows me to just focus on the here and the now.

We do a lot of riding in the arena.

And so that will be barrel racing, pole weaving, things like that.

And if we're not riding in the arena, we're trail riding.

Our youth also like to participate in rodeos.

We also participate in our County Fair and the girls are able to show their horsemanship skills that they've gained over the years.

So that really gives them the opportunity to kind of show their family and friends what their hard work is doing.

(musical chanting) So another thing that we do is we participate in Dakota Prayer Water Walk slash ride and that starts in Sisseton, South Dakota and we ride to Mankato, Minnesota.

And the message with that ride is we are bringing awareness to climate change and how sacred our water is, and we're also riding to honor the missing murdered indigenous women which we have seen is becoming a huge epidemic within not only this country, but Canada as well.

And we also ride to honor the 38+2 Dakota men that were hanged on December 26, 1862, following the Dakota War.

That's another thing that we're able to have our girls be a part of and I think it's very important for them.

I love to work with youth.

Through all of my job positions, I've always worked with youth in some way, shape or form.

And I think for me, it's because I like to try to be a positive role model for youth.

Within our native communities, we struggle with a lot of different things.

Whether that be poverty or drug and alcohol addiction.

And I know that these youth that they can go through a lot.

And so to me it's important to try to be a positive role model for the youth I work with.

I've been drug and alcohol free for four years.

And so I just try to set an example and try to let them know that I'm here for them.

I just try to do my best to continue to set positive examples for them.

I've definitely seen our young girls grow throughout the years.

Of course, when they first started out I was more involved in their horse riding experience as far as helping catch them and saddle, bridle.

But now I more just stand back and I kind of just supervise, I guess you would say.

(upbeat music) Of course, riding horses is fun and it's exciting, but it's also very therapeutic to them.

It's a positive hobby to be able to come out and to work with these horses.

Again their confidence has gone up.

And I think that transfers over into the real world, for sure.

I noticed that when they come out here, it's like we're a little family out here.

(upbeat music) - My husband, Dan.

I call him my meat master.

(chuckles) Initially he was known for his fried chicken and we called him Kentuckett Fried Chicken (laughs) and then kind of branched out from there and started doing ribs and competed in some rib competitions here in Madison and has done very well with that.

He enjoys doing stuff with main course of meals.

(chuckles) (upbeat music) - I grew up in New York City in the Bronx, raised in the Bronx.

Well see, my dad, he was the grill man most of the time in the summertime.

Never cooked nothing in the house but he was always cooking on the grill.

Every year we'd have these impromptu family reunions and usually there was always ribs.

As years went on, my mom did the cooking in the house.

And so a lot of times I just watched her.

And so I picked up the cooking bug from her.

My youngest brother, Ernie, he was always happy when I came home from college because whenever we came over, he knew he was going to get some good food.

(upbeat music) 'Cause my mom, her health was an issue and so she started making more healthier foods.

And so she wasn't making the foods that liked any more.

So when I came home in between college or whatever, I mean, I was making everything.

Fried pork chops, fried chicken, everything.

And so he was in heaven 'cause I was making the good stuff my mom wasn't making anymore.

(chuckles) (upbeat music) I've been making ribs little by little especially since I've been married.

Just trying different things.

And then I remember they were having the first Rib Fest and I wasn't in the very first one.

I think I had forgotten about it too.

So then I was thinking about getting into it the next year, and then Paul Ramo, he had called me and said, say the radio station is looking at sponsoring somebody to make ribs for 'em.

Are you interested?

So I said, sure.

So then they've been sponsoring me ever since.

Ever since I got into it, I've won.

(upbeat music) John Witty, he had this old 250 gallon fuel tank that he was just gonna do away with.

And so I had known some people that have made grills out of those.

And so it was a father's day gift for me.

And so she had the kids, the shop class made his grill for me, it's just awesome.

I really enjoy having it.

I'd like to paint it, but I just haven't found the, I haven't really, it's just the same old looking old fuel barrel color.

(laughs) (upbeat music) - He had initially done cupcakes for my mom's 85th birthday.

Nichols Ichlog was actually at the party for my mom, and she said, can you make cupcakes for Cameron's graduation?

And then at that graduation party when people were just in awe of his cupcakes and the calls started rolling in and can you make cupcakes for this and that and whatnot.

And it kind of happened at the same time that the bakery here was closing.

And so there was definitely a need for baked goods.

So yeah, kind of worked out good in his favor.

After Cameron's graduation, on the following graduation he made 750 cupcakes, which was, it was wow.

It was a lot.

That next morning, I'm like, I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck (laughs) because of course we had to help him, right?

I mean, that was like way too many for one person to do all by themselves.

(upbeat music) - I live in Madison, Minnesota and I go to high school at Lac Qui Parle Valley.

(upbeat music) What I like about making cupcakes is that it's something that I enjoy and it's something that the people that order them will enjoy.

(upbeat music) Some of the flavors I have are peanut butter, mint, almond, strawberry, carrot cake, rojo, twix, pina colada.

(upbeat music) - I started having this conversation after he's saving money.

He's like, you know, what about if I saved enough money, could we go to Disney?

And I'm like, yeah, sure, maybe.

Not really thinking that could actually happen.

And within a year he had saved up enough.

- He just come up out of the blue and said, you know what, if I save enough money, I wanna take the whole family to Disneyland like that.

And it was like, wow, it just blew me away.

So it's something that he didn't have to do but it was something that he wanted to do.

We didn't make him do it or anything like that.

There was just something that he really wanted to do.

It really blessed the family 'cause he took my wife and myself, he took my oldest son and his wife and his baby and then my daughter and we had a great time.

- To go to Disney World, I needed about 4,500 cupcakes.

(upbeat music) (indistinct chatter) - It makes me really happy.

It makes me proud of who they are.

And I think it just makes me happy that it boosts their self esteem too, 'cause it feels like they're doing something good.

(somber music) - My mom had always told me when I would make food, especially when making it for other people, she said, you make food like you're making food for kings and queens.

That's kind of what I think about.

I just wanna make sure people are blessed through my food.

(somber music) (upbeat music) - The perception of being a tattoo artist, I don't think people understand quite how much work it is.

Most days it's like when I wake up until I go to bed.

(tattoo gun buzzing) I work at Old Town Tattoo on St.

Cloud Minnesota.

I've been there for 12 years.

(upbeat music) A lot of time and work is put in behind the scenes that no one knows you're doing.

When you show up and you see your drawing, there was time that was put in outside that you won't see.

(upbeat music) I've been tattooing now for 15 1/2 years.

Just started on just kind of practicing on friends and just random people I knew, and then that slowly trickles into taking in random clients and starting with really simple stuff and increasing in complexity as I went.

(upbeat music) In 2005, there wasn't as many synthetic options for learning to tattoo on.

So when we were starting to learn to tattoo on an object or draw or do art on something that wasn't flat.

We started with honeydew melons is what I started on.

And so I would be in there after school, drawing pictures on honeydew melons and filling up fridges full of honeydews with random lettering and pictures drawn on them.

And that's kind of where just to get a start of building up the hand muscles and like how to draw on a curved surface that, it's a lot different drawing on an arm or like something round than drawing on a paper.

And up until then, that's all I was familiar with, was canvas and drawing and stuff.

So start with that and eventually go to people, find willing participants.

(upbeat music) I grew up skateboarding.

The skateboarding and punk rock subculture definitely helped open my eyes to tattooing and stuff 'cause a lot of skateboarders, punk rock bands, covered in tattoos and definitely influenced it.

So yeah, skateboarding was really huge growing up outside of drawing pictures.

Really drawn to any hobby that really just takes you out of life and it takes so much focus that you kind of forget about all the other stuff happening.

(upbeat music) Outside of tattooing, I definitely like to do lots of other kinds of art.

Drawing, painting, I predominantly like to work with oil paint.

Just straight pencil drawings.

I do some stuff with ink work from time to time and try to take in little influences from a bunch of different mediums.

The oil painting I'm working on right now on the skateboard is a bat.

I'm pretty into bats, especially with like a fruit bat is what I painted on there.

Instant reaction to bats is they're kind of creepy, ugly.

But if you've ever seen a baby fruit bat or a fruit bat they're very cute.

They look like little foxes if you black out the idea that there's a bat with huge wings and stuff there.

(upbeat music) Their tattoos probably isn't considered fine art obviously, but people are doing tattoos that a lot of people can't even paint.

The skill level has been raised to such a high level now that I think if someone that had that opinion truly dug into some of the bigger names in the tattoo industry, I think they would see that tattooing has hit some pretty high levels and the artists that are doing it now are some of the best of the best fine artists.

(serene music) Well, the journey of being a tattoo artist it's definitely taken me into a bunch of places and opened up a lot of opportunities artistically for me.

Being that tattooing kind of hit like a mainstream point in the 2000s and stuff, that really boosted a lot of opportunities, I think.

With what you're talking about, the stigma of tattoo, or it being considered a high end art, all that kind of issued in a wave of opening people's eyes, that it is more than just getting a picture that you pick off the wall and then trace.

Artists now are all doing custom work and they're all doing fine art on the side and stuff.

I'm just very fortunate to be able to go to work and really love what I do every day.

Being able to have a career in art that's treated me really well so far.

It's nice being able to have kind of some of that freedom too.

I'm not too restricted on like too much of life stuff.

I can still very much be myself.

I don't have to censor how I dress.

You can still kind of be a little bit yourself.

Pretty spoiled.

I get to live my life and do the things I want, dress how I want, all that stuff and then still get to go to work and do art on people.

That's incredibly rewarding.

(upbeat music) (bright music) - Dandelion came to the upstairs of the Heather Nursery Building in Madison, Minnesota in 1986.

And when you get upstairs there's just thousands and thousands of lights.

There's a bakery and a train depot and a post office where the kids can write their letters to Santa, and then everybody's favorite seems to be the electric train.

And when you come to Santa Land, you certainly leave in the Christmas spirit.

And we hope to bring this magic to people for many many years to come.

Merry Christmas from the Madison Chamber of Commerce.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

Mark and Margaret Yigal Julene on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms.

A retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria Minnesota.

A year round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Councils Arts Calendar.

An arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 KRAM.

Online at 967kram.com.

(upbeat music)