Highlights from the Labriola Center
September's events at the Labriola National American Indian Data Center set the foundation for this fall 2023. We began with an Indigenous Comic Book Workshop with Kayla Shaggy, a Dine' zine creator and artist within the Phoenix Valley. Then we ended our month with a poetry workshop with Kinsale Drake and an Indigenous Open Mic night at Tempe Labriola Center in Hayden Library. Read more below to learn the details for each event.
Indigenous Comic Book Workshop with Kayla Shaggy
Nighttime approaches. Shadows grow long across the pavement. The leaves in the trees ignite with a chorus of songbirds. A little before 6pm, a group of four shows up to Fletcher Library for the Indigenous Comic Book Workshop at the Labriola Center. The instructor for this workshop is Kayla Shaggy, a Diné and Anishinaabe artist who has been creating and publishing her own zines and comics for the past seven years. Kayla has long dark hair and dark rimmed glasses. She is accompanied by her partner, who carries a box of zines in one hand.
Kayla Shaggy's grandma introduced her to comic books at a very young age. She began to draw as a way to help her mobility in her fingers, and it was a way for her to express the worlds she imagined as an Indigenous and lesbian woman. She has since then created numerous zines and comics, with themes dripped in horror genres, lesbian love, and comedic humor interspersed.
Kayla's artist portfolio is impressive. Her work has been featured in "Unsolved Mysteries" on Netflix In Episode 5, “Paranormal Rangers.” She has artwork painted on a hotel room's walls at Nativo Lodge, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You can virtually tour the space and view her paintings through an immersive experience on their website here. Kayla uses a tribal press to print her zines. Some of her most popular zines are "Anathema," and "Death Becomes Her." "Anathema" is about heroic twin sisters who are on a journey to find the murderer of their mother, and along the way they come across a village that is being ravaged by a monster. This monster takes women in the village and all that is left of them is their blood, bright red remnants of their existence. There is also a forest full of eyes, which portrays a sense of always being watched. "Death Becomes Her" is about a woman who contemplates suicide and comes across the possibility for immortal life. The story also contains tender tones of lesbian love. Kayla informed me that Death Becomes Her was inspired by the movie "Death Becomes Her" with Meryl Streep, who plays Madeline Ashton, an aging actress who fears growing old and drinks a potion that gives her eternal youth.
Back in room 305 at Fletcher Library, the audience is directed to the long wooden table in the Labriola Center next to the Open Stacks. The room is dimmed and a projector lights up on the wall. Kayla presents slides of her art and speaks towards her background as a comic book artist and illustrator. She speaks about her plights as an Indigenous woman artist, the struggles of marketing and publishing her own work, but also the empowerment and rewards she gets from the autonomy in selling her own art.
However, it hasn't always been easy expressing her viewpoints as an artist. During her time as a comic book illustrator for a newspaper in Durango, Colorado, Kayla drew a piece about the chief statue next to the Toh-Atin Gallery parking lot. The statue is a caricature of an Indian man wearing jeans, a red long sleeve button down shirt paired with a yellow vest. The man has long hair, a feather sticking out from his head, a large nose and goofy smile, pointing at the parking lot and waving at passersby. Jackson Clark, the owner of Toh-Atin Gallery, bought the sign in 1980 and has since then received plenty of criticism for it. He contends that the statue has "been a big part of Durango for a long time. It's on private property, it's not bothering the artists that we work with. The clients that come in here like it" (from Rocky Mountain PBS The Durango Chief Statue: Native Perspectives). Kirbie Bennett, a journalist and member of the Navajo Nation, wrote an essay on the Chief statue. His sentiments echoes Kayla Shaggy's concerns on the Durango Chief statue. She wrote and self-published the comic "Godzilla Decolonizes Durango," which she gave out to participants at the Indigenous Comic Book Workshop. There is also an ongoing petition to dismantle the "Chief" on change.org that was started by Durango Peace & Justice in 2020.
Poetry Workshop with Kinsale Drake: On Identity, "Honoring Ourselves and Our Musical Inspirations"
Kinsale Drake (Diné) is director of NDN Girls Book Club and currently edits Changing Wxman Collective. She just finished working on a debut manuscript of poetry called "The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket," which won the 2023 National Poetry Series Competition. In partnership with The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU, the Labriola National American Indian Data Center had the honor of hosting a poetry workshop with Kinsale Drake. The workshop's theme was around identity and music, where participants wrote a poem about a musician whose music inspires them.
In the workshop we used music as a theme to write a poem, more specifically, we wrote about a music artist we feel close to. The first thing we did in the workshop was brainstorm different artists to write about. I chose NewJeans, and The Weekend. (someone had already mentioned BTS, but I still chose to write about BTS).
As Kinsale was guiding us on how we should respond to the question prompts, one thought that kept coming to me was how I didn’t fall in love with BTS because of their music but because of their personalities and how they are as a group. There's one particular video of BTS at the UN talking about how to love yourself and protect the youth from violence. From there, I started listening to their music, and have been a fan since 2019. My favorite song of theirs is “I'm Fine” from their album “Love Yourself.”
-Written by Ashley Davis (Diné)
Indigenous Open Mic Poetry Night with Kinsale Drake
On the night of September 27th, I attended the second half of the Labriola Indigenous Open Mic Night. The evening was filled with meaningful poetry readings that evoked deep emotions in the audience. I felt there was a feeling of vulnerability that occupied the entire space and that vulnerability was embraced by the audience. As the poets were sharing their art with us, the audience was fully immersed in their story. I recall seeing people close their eyes, nodding their heads, and expressing their appreciation audibly. To me, it seems that the Open Mic Night was a healing space for the presenters who shared poems about personal stories.
After a few presenters were done sharing it was my turn to contribute to this night of poetry. I felt my poetry was not of the same caliber of the previous presenters although I still felt inspired to share. I read two poems that reflected how I felt last semester and my summer internship, and the audience appreciated it. After sharing my poems, I played two guitar instrumentals, one of which I wrote for the audience. I chose to share these two pieces with the people in attendance because I have accumulated many pieces of art that I wanted to share with others.
Overall, the event was an amazing experience for me because I was able to see amazing poets showcase their art in a welcoming Indigenous space. This event is one of my favorite events that we (the Labriola) host because it is a safe space for new artists who may want to share their art with others. I’m looking forward to the next time that we do this event because it is a space that I would like to use to share my creations with others.
-Written by Elijua Shepherd
The performing poets for this open mic were Kinsale Drake, Jalen Charley, Lindsey Curley, KaLynn Yazzie, and Kianna Joe.
Kinsale Drake (Diné) is a poet, playwright, and performer. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Teen Vogue and Time Magazine. She recently graduated from Yale University, where she received the J. Edgar Meeker Prize, the Academy of American Poets College Prize, and the Young Native Playwrights Award. She is also the winner of the 2022 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Currently, Kinsale edits Changing Wxman Collective, directs NDN Girls Book Club, and is working on a debut manuscript of poetry.
Jalen Charley was born on the Diné Nation. Raised in Aztec, New Mexico, and has earned her Bachelor's in Sociology from Fort Lewis College. She is Honey Combed Rock clan, born for the Bitter Water clan. She is the recipient of the SkyWords Emerging Writers Prize, Northern Arizona Book Festival Scholarship, and a Writing Fellow of the Emerging Diné Writers’ Institute. Jalen also participated in "Joys of Queerness and the word: An Indigiqueer reading" with Abalone Mountain Press at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore.
Kianna Joe is currently an intern-reporter with Navajo Times and the creator of She Towers Zine, a multi-media zine for Indigenous creatives to share their art. There are currently 6 issues out of She Towers Zine. You can read more of Kianna's work at Navajo Times here.
Lindsey Allison Curley (Diné) is Red House Clan and born for the Hopi Salt Clan, and was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. She graduated with a BA in Creative Writing, emphasis in Poetry, and a minor in American Indian Studies and a Masters in Library & Information Science at the University of Arizona. She is currently a Tween Librarian with the Pima County Public Library. Her Nálí was a huge proponent of receiving an education while maintaining Hózhó in life. For that reason, she hopes to bridge her creative writing abilities with Library Services through outreach programs for Native and Indigenous communities with healing in mind. Her poem “Hashk'aan'' was in the Poetry on the Plateau series at the Museum of Northern Arizona and was a Poet + Artist Collaborator in the 4th annual Writing on the Wall gallery show for her poem “Chrysocolla-Impregnated Chalcedony.” Her Creative Nonfiction essay “Stories from a Two World Drifter” will be in a book called The Languages of Our Love: An Indigenous Love & Sex Anthology with Abalone Mountain Press."
KaLynn Yazzie graduated from ASU with a Bachelor's degree in English. During her time at ASU, she was able to work with Taylor Notah at ASU's Turning Point Magazine as an Intern and created OutWriteNatives Creative Writing Section. You can listen to KaLynn's episode #MyTake with Turning Points on Spotify here. KaLynn writes short stories, children books and YA. She currently works as an Elementary School Librarian, Indigenizing reading for the youth. At the open mic, KaLynn shared an original story about a young adult female who was learning how to create a ribbon skirt from her aunt. Her aunt was more than happy to help her niece, the protagonist of the story, and began telling her the history of ribbon skirts. At the end, the niece and her aunt unveil the ribbon skirt and it reveals the colors of the bisexual flag, an image of solidarity and love from the aunt accepting her niece as a bisexual woman.
Upcoming Events
Monday, October 9: In collaboration with the Office of Indian Education and Arizona Humanities, the Labriola Center will host a symposium for teachers and educators focused on Indigenous literacy in children and young adult fiction.
Friday, October 13: In collaboration with the Virginia Piper Center, the Labriola Center will host a book talk with Ramona Emerson, author of Shutter.
Wednesday, October 18: Join the ASU Library for Archives Wednesday, an open house inside Hayden Library’s Wurzburger Reading Room. At this month’s event, explore selections from the Labriola National American Indian Data Center with Vina Begay, assistant librarian.
Check out our upcoming events by visiting our events page here.