Ivan B. Watkins

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"To All My Relations (Metakuye Oyasin)"  is based on showing the Black, Brown, Red Nations of people - the old ones are very close in cultural ways and Spiritual outlook and while often targeted by society as perceived threats, they are the peaceful, spiritual teachers our world needs. The figure represents the peaceful Rastaman and peace-pipe carrier of the Native, but he dons the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) logo on his sash and the gravestones are marked with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) logo. In other words, our resistance to violence, oppression, generational distortions of history and suppression of truth, and the political alienation and disenfranchisement rampant today, is manifested through holding our Ancient cultural and spiritual Wisdom and sharing that with the world. To heal all nations and creatures - we must remember that we are all relatives! We are all connected in the cosmic web of life and thus need one another to exist in peace and harmony with all of Nature and all Nations. This way isn't easy - thus the figure seems weary/almost heavy - but it is light and truth thus his aura and vibrant healing colors/beadwork with which he is adorned.

I am Blessed to have been able to literally grow up in Lakota Spiritual Ways. Being adopted by the Fool Bull Family of Rosebud, Reservation South Dakota and Baptized as a Member of the Native American Church. What I learned from Red Road/Medicine Wheel/Sacred Hoop Ways is that we are all related. The two-leggeds, of all four colors, four-leggeds, Thunder People, Green Tree nations, Creeping Crawling / Insect Nations! This understanding has shaped how I've engaged tens of thousands of people through the Arts (public art) and Education for decades! 

Ivan B. Watkins is an internationally recognized artist, filmmaker, and ethno-historian, born and raised in New Orleans. He is a graduate of NOCCA (New Orleans Center for Creative Arts), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA) and University of Chicago (MA-Social Science) and is a PhD Candidate in Ethno-History/Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans. Not only a scholar, but an integral part of the Masking tradition itself WildMan of the renowned Yellow Pocahontas Tribe of New Orleans Black Indians and a Treinel in Capoeira Angola. Ivan's large-scale murals, public lectures, screenings and events programming have sought to inspire, educate and uplift the public from Brazil, to the UK, from West Virginia and California to Chicago and Connecticut, to Durban, South Africa.