The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

am really more interested in social leadership,
particularly following this new, young-adult,
21 st -century group that has yet to name itself.
Annette Evans Smith: My name is Annette
Evans Smith. I have three names—it sounds
awfully official, but if you were in Alaska, you
would know when I say Evans, it means I am
from the interior, and it means that my grandparents
were wonderful and honorable people. If
you hear the name Smith, then you know I am
from Bristol Bay on my mother’s side, and you
know that I married into a family of wonderful
and honorable people. So that is why I have
three names. Quite literally, I am a daughter
turning into a mother, as we speak, which is a
very fun process that drives my work in many,
many ways. Yup’ik urwa means I am Yup’ik, but
I am also Alutiiq, and I am also Athabascan.
Canu yung ut. I am from South Naknik, which
is a small village in rural Alaska of about 80
people and not connected to anything by
any road. My biggest fear and what drives me
the most is the thought that my children and
my grandchildren or my great grandchildren
will someday say, “My great grandmother
was Alaska Native.” I hear that very often
from people I talk to. They say, “My great
grandmother was such and such” or “My great
grandmother was such and such.” That means
that they aren’t any more; they are that disconnected
that they aren’t anymore. That is what
drives me and that is why I am here and that is
why my life and passion and my love is Alaska
Native culture and preserving that and doing
everything in my life that I can to preserve it.
Sunya Ganbold: My name is Sunya Ganbold.
I am originally from Mongolia. I have lived in
Denver and have recently relocated to East
Stroudsbourg, Pennsylvania. Like Mayumi
Tsutakawa, my career path has been supporting
the arts and creative genius. In my quest
to unleash my creative genius, while I was in
Mongolia in September, I shot hours of footage
following my grandparents, who are a great
inspiration to me. They reconnect me with
my roots and help me grasp the magnitude
of where I come from. When I was reviewing
the footage from that filming, I also realized
that it was not only a quest for reconnecting
with who I am and where I come from, it was
also a journey of relearning the history of my
country. This is the case because I went to
a Russian high school, where I was taught to
appreciate Russian literature and history, while
I was not taught my own cultural history. So,
through following my grandparents’ lives and
their paths, I have discovered that this is also
a way for me to reconnect with my history.
Danielle Brazell: My focus, my love, my
passion is creating spaces for art to happen.
When I am lucky, I get to participate
in them as an administrator, as a curator,
as a programmer, or as an artist.
I remember looking at a piece of paper with
stick drawings depicting basic emotions: happy,
sad, angry, frustrated, mad, etc. It was kind of
like a chart of feelings, and I would keep that
chart of feelings close because I didn’t have
the language to say, “I am angry. I am sad. I
am angry and sad. I am angry and sad and
frustrated.” That chart helped me develop a
language to talk about my emotions. When I
think about that saying from the ‘90s, “Art saves
lives,” I think, what does that mean? Do we
really own that? Do we really mean that? Yeah,
we mean it. The reason we mean it is because
we see it. I believe everyone at this table has
seen art transform, has seen art change people,
has seen art influence a change in action. For
me, art enabled me to take that chart of feelings
and fuse it into an artistic language entirely
my own—a language that could not be refuted.
My mom used to say, “No one can deny the
way someone feels. You feel what you feel what
you feel.” Taking that philosophy as a way to
help others transform feelings, perceptions, and
voice into art with the idea of creating artistic
spaces is a driving force behind my work.
Tony Garcia: My name is Tony Garcia. I am the
executive and artistic director at El Centro Su
Teatro, which is a cultural arts center located in
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