Jonathan Thunder: Finding Joy in Art and Life

Transcript

[sound element: Native Lights theme music]

Jonathan Thunder: I started to get a little bit of fatigue on the sociopolitical painting front. And it never really was my intent to be that type of artist. And I started to think about working from a place that tackles my story of joy, my successes as a human without focusing on my hardships.

[sound element: Native Lights theme music]

Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, hello. Welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. I'm your host, Leah Lemm

Cole Premo: And I'm your other host Cole Premo. Miigwetch for joining us on Native Lights, which is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it's a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Each and every week, we have captivating conversations with great guests from a whole lot of different backgrounds, and talking musicians, artists, community leaders, language warriors, goes on and on. You name it. They have a wonderful mixture of passions, and we talk to them about their gifts and how they share their gifts with the community. And it centers around finding purpose in our lives and amplifying Native Voices. So what's going on, Leah? How you doing?

Leah Lemm: I'm well, thanks. Just doing the thing, amplifying Native Voices and well, finding purpose in my life, you know, chipping away at it bit by bit. How about you?

Cole Premo: I'm also trying to do that as well. You should let me know how you, how you do that as well. Because, uh, yeah, it's just a lifelong process, trying to find the moments here. Maria, my wife, is about seven months along, and just trying to enjoy the moments as they as they come. Because, you know, it's just an interesting time period in my life. So, yeah, just trying to reflect and not work too hard, but also get things done, you know, trying to find that balance.

Leah Lemm: Yeah, that's the thing. Like, you know it's coming, but you don't know what'll happen. You know, it'll be a baby, it'll be a baby, but what'll it be like?

Cole Premo: Who knows?

Leah Lemm: Are you nesting? Are you getting the room ready?

Cole Premo: Yes, yes, putting together the crib. I thought it was going to be like some reflective and like, feel good moment, but I was just super aggravated trying to get it all together, because it was just not--it wasn't working. At first. I'm not a very handy person, but we finally got it. We got it going. So after that, I calmed down a bit and reflected after that. You know how they say you gotta, while you're building and creating things, think good thoughts? And I tried to do it. I did. I've made a very good effort, good intentions, but dang, it's tough for me with directions, you know? Anyways, yes, no, but we're, we're getting there, we're getting there. So thank you.

Leah Lemm: Well, we are going to talk to a creator today. How about that? I'm super excited.

Cole Premo: Nice. I like it.

Leah Lemm: Yeah, thought I'd take advantage of that little opportunity to segue into our guest today Jonathan Thunder. Very excited to speak with him again. Jonathan is a revisit guest. He was on Native Lights about four years ago or so. How time flies. But Jonathan is a Red Lake Nation citizen, multi-disciplinary artist. You would recognize his paintings, his artistry, his visuals. They're just very vivid and dreamy. He does large scale murals, animated films and installations and paintings, and he recently opened Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery in Duluth by appointment only so far. But really excited to speak with Jonathan today. Boozhoo.

Jonathan Thunder: Boozhoo.

Cole Premo: Boozhoo, Jonathan, could you start out by introducing yourself please?

Jonathan Thunder: Yeah, can do. [Introducing himself in Ojibwe-mowin.] And what I said was, hello. My name is Jonathan Thunder. I like burning mixtapes for my friends. My favorite color is turquoise, and I'm a big fan of walleye sandwiches.

Cole Premo: How are you? How's the family doing?

Jonathan Thunder: I'm doing well. I was kind of burning the candle at both ends for a while there, but this week has been a better pace. The family is kind of happy to see me sitting still for a minute. You know, I have a three year old who never sits still. It's nice to be able to chase him around and, you know, do stuff. I built a little swing set in the backyard for him late last week, and we’ve just been hanging out and, you know, learning how to do all kinds of different little things. To sing while you're swinging on the swing. Yeah. How are you doing?

Cole Premo: Doing great. We were just talking. I'm expecting a kid here, my first baby in August.

Jonathan Thunder: Oh yeah?

Cole Premo: He's a boy.

Jonathan Thunder: Awesome. Congratulations.

Cole Premo: Yeah, very exciting. Thank you. Thank you. So just kind of try not to freak out too much. But you know, any advice you have on that situation, let me know.

Jonathan Thunder: Well, the only advice I have is it's all human instinct. We've been doing it from the beginning of mankind. That's why we're all still here.

Leah Lemm: Propagating!

Cole Premo: There you go. True enough, we are good at, you know, extending our humanity.

Jonathan Thunder: We're good at the fun part. Well, I just remember, I just felt like something kicked in. You know what I mean? All of a sudden, there was this tiny, little creature that depended on me, and something just said, you're going to do this. And I just started doing it. And up until then, yes, it was like, Oh my God, you know what's happening. I don't know what to do. But then, you know, you just start doing it. You just start doing it all right, that's all I can say, you know. And everything else YouTube videos, I rely, I still rely heavily on YouTube videos like I'll watch, you know, like dad videos or like, you know, talk about cool ways to do things. It helps.

Leah Lemm: How to build a swing set?

Jonathan Thunder: Stuff like that. Well, I should have watched the video on that one, because it says it's supposed to take you 90 minutes, and it took me four hours.

Cole Premo: Heck, yeah.

Jonathan Thunder: All right, cool. Read the instructions, wrong.

Leah Lemm: Yeah. The closest thing we have is the tire swing hanging from a tree in the back. As much as that gets used. But my kid’s a little older, so. Well, that's wonderful. Actually, maybe we'll just jump right in. Jonathan, since we've talked before, we have the luxury of having kind of a foundation here, of talking about your, you know, your artistry, and, you know, all of that good stuff. But since we bring up kids, I'm wondering, you know, the last time we talked, it was pre-Minnow?

Jonathan Thunder: Minnow, yeah.

Leah Lemm: And so I'm just wondering, you know, how has fatherhood affected your work and artistry and inspiration?

Jonathan Thunder: Well, I think the simplest answer is, I don't get as much time to dwell on whether the painting that I'm working on or the creative decisions that I'm making are the absolute best, because there's a finite amount of time that I like to dedicate, even mentally, to thinking about my work. I can say that it's probably only strengthened my ability to embrace spontaneity, to embrace my instinct, and I don't have any regrets you know about the work that I've made. In fact, the more surprising, the better. So it's really been pretty incredible, you know. And I always try to be home at the dinner table at a certain hour, but it doesn't matter how busy I am. I'll shut the lights off at a quarter to six and start getting ready to head home so that little boy can see me sitting at the dinner table and he knows where dad is. I try to do what I can to make sure that I'm handling business, but it's been fun. I actually had the opportunity to work on a project with him for an exhibit that was at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which was called the M. A McKnight cohort fellow invited me to be a part of this exhibit that was aimed at artists who are parents, and they just said, all you have to do is make a piece with your son. You and Minnow just have to make something. So over the course of a year, I had this little like, probably 36 by 24 or 30 by 40, and Minnow could barely, like, he was just learning how to stand up, you know, he was one year old, and I would just like prop him in front of this canvas with a crayon, and he would kind of go for it a little bit, make some marks. Then I would make some marks with a paintbrush. Crayon is actually pretty fun to work with on canvas. Do some of that pencil. And over the course of the year, we worked on this canvas, which went into this show at the M, and this is my first time showing at this museum. I was never invited to that museum until this project, they acquired the piece, you know, so my son has a painting in the permanent collection of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, which is incredible. When they asked me if I was willing to sell it to them, I talked to my wife Tashia about it, and she was like, Oh, I kind of want it back. And I said, Well, here's my thinking. We'll use the money to buy a lot of Play Doh. Plus, when Minnow is 30 or 40 or 50, he can always go to that museum and it will probably be safely tucked away in their archive, whereas, if it's here, who knows what'll happen to it, and I'm really proud of it.

Leah Lemm: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we're speaking with Jonathan Thunder, artist, visual storyteller from the Red Lake Nation. He recently launched Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery, which is currently by appointment only in Duluth.

That's amazing. What did it look like? What was the subject of it?

Jonathan Thunder: It was a lot of scribbling and different colors. I wanted to put something on there that he would recognize. So the, I think they're called the Electric Band from the Muppets. And I don't know if you remember this eagle. He was one of the characters on the Muppets. He would do the news, and he was always sort of very Walter Cronkite. So over the course of this video, he gets really drunk, and kind of is like, all of a sudden he's wearing a coconut bra, and he's learning to like dance and loosen up a little bit. And we used to dance to this video almost every night, so I put him on there, and we titled the piece Grumpy Eagle Learns the Boogie. So it's Sam the Eagle wearing his coconut bra and shaking some maracas. I think something like that.

Leah Lemm: Well, and that can be on Minnow’s resume too. That's pretty great.

Jonathan Thunder: That's on his resume. Yeah.

Leah Lemm: Well, Jonathan, is there anything these days that you're thinking about kicking around, obsessing over?

Jonathan Thunder: So I signed on for a lot of things, back to back. And I had to create a lot of paintings for those opportunities, which were exhibits. One of them, which is up at the Regis Center for Arts at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, currently. And it was long hours working in the studio day after day painting. And when that broke, when I finished the last piece of work, I just got this itch. I don't know if you guys know, but I have been a filmmaker and involved in other people's films. I've kind of done Film Festival stuff. That itch kind of came back strong. The films that I've created, but for myself, have been animations. But I wrote a live action movie called Ish Meets a Mermaid, and it's about this struggling artist named Ishkaday. But everybody calls him Ish. He meets a mermaid. This mermaid is more like the mermaid in the Basil Johnston story about the water spirits, where they have a different set of rules. So it's sort of a dark comedy. It's surreal, gruesome. It's kind of romantic in an instinct versus intellect sort of way. It's gotten some support from people in the community who are actual filmmakers, that I consider people who know how to make live action. So quickly I've been able to develop a team for it, and I'll probably be spending the summer producing this film and acting in it, so it'll be written, directed and will also star me.

Leah Lemm: Is this your first time acting? Or have you acted in other things?

Jonathan Thunder: I've been in a couple projects, and you might know that I've been the subject of some documentaries. I'm okay being on the front end of the camera. This does feel like a different beast, though. So that's exciting. I was in a film called Solatium, which was a feature film, and the main character, he struggles with these paranoid delusions and episodes. He finds himself in real trouble with some gangsters, and I play the friend who usually talks him off the ledge when he's having a paranoid delusion. That film came out probably 2017-ish, I want to say. It's been a while. Have you done some acting?

Leah Lemm: Okay, well, I mean, technically.

Cole Premo: Some theater stuff, right? Leah, come on.

Leah Lemm: Well, yes, and I was an extra in Rhiana Yazzie’s “A Winter Love.” Yeah, okay. You will see me in it for about five seconds. I'm a van driver. I think you can see my profile, but yeah, that was pretty, pretty glamorous. I actually really loved it. That was pretty fun.

Jonathan Thunder: How about you, Cole?

Cole Premo: Heck no, I'm so awkward in front of the camera. I just like, I just shut down a little bit. But yeah, music is that's my comfort zone.

Leah Lemm: You know, sure, let's stick to music.

Jonathan Thunder: One thing I think that has helped me, and I remember the first time that I got interviewed on camera about my work. I was so nervous because it was me. And I had been in a short film on camera prior to that, and was nowhere near that nervous afterwards. I realized that I'm more nervous when I have to be myself versus when I get to play somebody that's not me. There's like a layer of protection between you and the camera, like you're this other person. I heard something once that helped me with when you have to be yourself on camera. Somebody said, if you're on a stage, it's a performance. So that let me know that you can be whatever you want to be, or whoever you want to be when you're giving a presentation. And that's made my like, you know, lectures and stuff, more bearable because I I've had my whole life a little bit of stage fright. So those are very excruciating. Unless I kind of think about that mindset.

Cole Premo: I just embrace the awkwardness. It's a part of me. It's my life. Yeah, you know, we talked to you in March 2021 you had just painted Quarantine at Grandma's House and The Grave of the Giant. Could you talk about some, you know, paintings that you've worked on since then?

Jonathan Thunder: If I had to pick one that was quite unique and quite different after that socio-political body of work that came out of the Trump administration, and then the COVID pandemic and all those dynamics that we dealt with in our communities. I started to get a little bit of fatigue on the sociopolitical painting front, and it never really was my intent to be that type of artist. So I examined whether or not maybe I could take a break a little bit from trying to make such heavy dialogs in my canvases, and I started to think about working from a place that tackles my story of joy, my successes as a human without focusing on the actions of my we'll say, quote, unquote, the oppressor, you know, or my hardships, those are important stories to tell. But what about the stories about our victories as Indigenous people, you know, as Anishinaabe, because we're very active, you know, and we do a lot of things to have a thriving culture on a day to day basis, you know, I just thought I've worked really hard, and for the most part, you know, I'm a pretty serene person, so I think I'll focus on that as a body of work. Me and Tashia were talking about some of the things that we enjoy, and there's a lot of Indian humor in our relationship. It's fun, you know, and just thinking about our ability to have a trusting relationship, or talk openly about healthy relationships without it being weighted down by our traumas, how it took work, maybe for us to get there, but not really tackling what's in the rearview mirror, but tackling what's ahead of us, what's in front of us. And I made a body of work that went into an exhibit called the Sovereignty of Joy. It really is about that, you know, it's just about focusing on what's good in my life, you know, at this point, and trying to be good to myself so that I can be good to those in my immediate circle. So that was a really fun body of work to work on that showed at a place in Minneapolis called the Gamut Gallery, who picked up the exhibit. And that was a solo exhibit in February of 2025 and it's funny because I don't often work in that tight of a theme, and every day that I came down to the studio, it didn't matter if I was stewing about something on the news or something made me really grouchy, you know, or something like that. It's almost like I would just try to meditate and fill my head with gratitude and think about some of the good stuff that's been happening. And then I would start to make those paintings and work on those, you know, with that in mind.

Cole Premo: And then just to bring it more to the current times we are in, you recently launched an art gallery, right?

Jonathan Thunder: Yeah, the Mishi Bizhiw. I'm looking up at the sign right now. That's why I'm looking up. Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery and Jonathan Thunder Studio in Lincoln Park, the Lincoln Park District of Duluth, Minnesota. I just took the leap. I've done a few gallery shows, and I think I experienced enough to where I was just like, you know, if I just opened a gallery, let's see how that works. And it seems like a good time, you know, it seems like a good time to try it right now, the business is only open by appointment, which is it probably is appropriate for the kind of work that I do. And we'll see, you know, we'll see. How it moves forward, I'm just going to let it kind of grow at its own pace. And for the most part, it really is just my studio. And there are days like Fridays and Saturdays are a good time for me to turn the little open light on and let people wander in. Mostly it's been students, art students who know about the space, and they'll come in and ask a bunch of questions and head out.

Cole Premo: So you'll be like, working as they're walking about? Do you stop your work and then…?

Jonathan Thunder: Yeah, it's hard to work. It's a nice space, you know, it's a nice sized space, but it's, it's my space, you know, it's kind of an artist studio is sort of sacred, and when a stranger walks in, it becomes very small. So I'll kind of drop what I'm doing and, you know, make sure that if they have questions, you know, which so far everybody has, that I can converse with them. And when they leave, it takes me a little while to sort of like recoup from that, and then I'll get back to work. It's an experiment.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we're speaking with Jonathan thunder, artist, visual storyteller from the Red Lake Nation. Jonathan recently launched Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery in Duluth. Well, can you tell us about the name?

Jonathan Thunder: Yeah, Mishi Bizhiw. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the mythological character, the great lynx, or underwater panther. Since I live on the shore of Lake Superior after moving here about 11 years ago from the Twin Cities, I learned about this story. To me, it's almost like a dragon story, except for it's this great lynx, this big cat that lives in the water and is somewhat of a protector of the water and the resources, from what I understand inter tribally, you know, this story exists throughout the states or across Turtle Island, depending on what you want to call it. But here it can be best associated with this pictograph that lives on the North Shore. And you see like this, sort of like lynx with, I don't know what they call it, like vertebrae, you know, sort of protruding from its back and a long, kind of like tail, you know, lynx they sort of have, like those tufts of hair on the end of their ears, but in this image, they're almost like horns or something. So being that it's, in my mind, a water protector story, you know, I really took it on, and I've been adapting it to images of it eating ice cream and doing other activities like protecting its young. I like to change its form a little bit, so I've modified the Pink Panther, in some cases, to represent that character. And then when I went on to name the gallery, I was just like, Well, I gotta think of something, you know, it could just be Jonathan Thunder Art Gallery, but that's kind of boring. So I decided that that was the way to go. And it's also nice to see Ojibwe language on a main street in Duluth. That's something that I thought was also going to be real appealing to me is that, you know, if shanabs [?] were to drive through here they would go, “Oh, wow, look at that. Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery. That's really cool. Maybe we should stop in there.”

Cole Premo: I believe you've talked about how you've been inspired by dreams. So I was just curious your experience with dreams, how you navigate them.

Jonathan Thunder: You know, I have a couple good answers for that. So I think it was like in 2011 I've always paid attention to my dreams, and I may have had sleep paralysis at one definitive moment in my life too. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it was memorable. I'll say at the very least, I remember living in South Minneapolis, and I was struggling with alcoholism. A friend of mine said, hey, you know what might help you is if you got your Indian name. And I said, Wow, sure, I'll try it kind of out of answers. And she hooked me up with this friend of hers, Amik Smallwood. I never met him before. He met me at this place on Lake Street. You know, I told him about myself, and, you know, we sat and talked a little bit, and he gave me the name [says name in Ojibwe-mowin]. He told me this story about, actually, an old man that lives in dreams and moves from dream to dream. He said, “That's the story of my name. That's the only name you're ever going to need. You don't need other names. A lot of people, they go out and get a bunch of Indian names. You just need that one.” And I said, Okay, all right, you know, uh, well, thank you. And. Yeah, I feel like it made sense to me, you know, because I always felt like I paid attention to my dreams and I would draw, you know, like what was in my dreams. A lot of my paintings were based on that, but it kind of gave me some help and some direction. I feel like my life did start to change around. Then I was real grateful for that moment, you know, I didn't know him all that well, and I may have met him maybe two or three times, and was able to maybe ask him a couple more questions during those times, but I would say he helped me in a way, and that idea of being a spirit that moves from dream to dream, you know, has really helped me to try to wrap my brain around this world perspective that I have that, you know, I always felt kind of made me a little bit of a, you know, like a dreamer, or whatever that is. I always try to pay attention to my dreams and look at the big picture. Yeah, I'm real grateful for that experience, you know, I have a 11 years of sobriety today, and even though I it took me a few years to sober up after that meeting him, the journey I think began there, actually, I would just say it got on a good foot. And those times and that spiritual way of looking at life was not anything that I ever imagined. I always thought it was kind of hope, you know hocus pocus, and I remember the first time I put out, like, tobacco, I was just like, god, I hope my neighbors don’t see me doing it. And that was the beginning, right? You know, there's a good way, you know, to, like, look at the universe and try to have a good perspective. So not only are you healthy, but like, the people around you pick up on that, and it helps them. And I've always tried to do that through my work. I did this work recently that I call Basil’s Dream. This piece is headed for the Detroit Institute of Arts in September. I did this nightclub. It's like a nightclub set on the shore, and in this nightclub is a Mishi Bizhiw who owns the club, and he's playing pool with the thunderbird woman. There's like a traditional man. He's old school, but he's on the wheels of steel, kind of VJ, like scratching records. In the corner is Basil Johnston writing on a typewriter. You know, not only my love of mythology, my love of storytelling, my worldview. You know, Ojibwe stories can be very endearing and very eerie at the same time, and I think that's an esthetic that I love in my work.

[sound element: Native Lights theme music]

Cole Premo: Jonathan Thunder, everybody.

Leah Lemm: Fantastic. Yeah, his art is so bright and vibrant, really makes you think and just want to look at it for a long time.

Cole Premo: I like that. What did he say? It's endearing, but also eerie. That's a great description of it. You know, some of it is cute, but also there's a bit of eeriness in there. Good stuff. Jonathan Thunder, artist, visual storyteller from Red Lake Nation. He recently launched Mishi Bizhiw Art Gallery in Duluth. I'm Cole Premo.

Leah Lemm: And I'm Leah Lemm. Miigwetch for listening. Giga-waabamin.

Cole Premo: Giga-waabamin.

Leah Lemm: You're listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.