By: Sarah Elmquist Squires
Managing Editor
New York Times’ best-selling author Robin Wall Kimmerer of the Potawatomi Nation will visit Lander on Thursday, during a book discussion of “Braided Sweetgrass” as part of the GROUNDED exhibition.
Kimmerer is a botanist and Indigenous author, whose work reflects on everything from her life as a scientist and mother to the role plants and animals play in life. Elizabeth Gilbert said the book brings readers on a “journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise.”
It’s just one of the latest offerings of GROUNDED, part of the Episcopal Church in Wyoming’s ArtSpirit series. The series promises to deliver opportunities for community members to nurture their relationships with one another and the earth, and to frame these experiences through the lens of art. The project features 15 contemporary Native artists from eight Indigenous tribes, invited to participate in GROUNDED, which is curated by Northern Arapaho artist Robert Martinez. Other participating artists include Talissa Abeyta (Eastern Shoshone), Ben Pease (Apsáalooke-Crow), brent Learned (Arapaho/Cheyenne), Carlin Bear Don’t Walk (Apsáalooke-Crow/Northern Cheyenne), Donald F. Montileaux (Oglala Sioux), Henry Payer (Ho-Chunk), Hillary Kempenich (Anishinaabe), Jackie Larson Bread (Blackfeet), Jackie Sevier (Northern Arapaho), Jim Yellowhawk (Itazipco/Cheyenne River Sioux), Joanne Brings Thunder (Eastern Shoshone), John Pepion (Blackfeet), Louis Still Smoking (Blackfeet), and Wade Patton (Oglala Lakota).
The GROUNDED exhibition began its global tour in Wyoming in Lander, and will travel the state before heading on to other U.S. venues and then the U.K. and Middle East. The “Braided Sweetgrass” discussion will be held on November 3 at 6:30 p.m. at the Fremont County Library in Lander.