Minnesota Native News: Award Goes to Native Artist and Suicide Prevention While Embracing Culture

Transcript

Marie: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock.

Headlines: This week… the McKnight Foundation’s 2019 Distinguished Artist Award goes to a Native artist for the first time.

And… September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. The Division of Indian Work in Minneapolis speaks to the need and availability of culturally specific programming to reduce suicide rates.

Here’s Reporter Leah Lemm with these stories.

STORY #1 - McKnight Foundation Names Painter Jim Denomie 2019 Distinguished Artist

REPORTER: The McKnight Foundation created the Distinguished Artist Award to honor a Minnesota artist who has made major contributions to the cultural life in the state. This year, the award goes to visual artist Jim Denomie.

JIM DENOMIE: My name is Jim Denomie. I am enrolled at Lac Courte Oreilles and northern Wisconsin and I live in Franconia, Minnesota and I'm a painter primarily. I play with printmaking, and found objects, sculpture, and photography.

REPORTER: I spent some time looking at Jim Denomie’s paintings. His work is active with bold and vibrant colors.

JIM DENOMIE: I paint about intuitive things, creative portraiture, erotic, spiritual landscapes. You know, what, whatever tell me can be whenever I can fit to my universe.

REPORTER: And sometimes, his work leads into politics and history. He’s received praise and criticism, including negative comments on social media, which even prompted a six-week break from Facebook. But he relates this work to journalism… or investigative reporting.

JIM DENOMIE: I've always said that I've tried to be as honest and fearless as I can when I comment about history and social events. I don't try to create controversy just to create a shock value for my work and my career. I just comment on what I see and what's important.

REPORTER: Jim Denomie reports that the 50 thousand Distinguished Artist Award money will go towards studio time, to taking some time off from his full-time construction job, and to purchase supplies.

STORY #2 - September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

REPORTER: Next up, September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the American Indian population experienced the highest suicide rate in Minnesota and had a rate nearly two times greater than the national rate when comparing suicide rates by race during the 2013-2017 period.

Bryce Premo is a Youth Worker with the Division of Indian Work’s Youth Leadership Development Program. Which as part of its programming, makes sure to have an active role in suicide prevention with the youth it serves.

Full disclosure: Bryce is my brother.

Bryce Premo: It's an afterschool program for literacy improvement, homework help, cultural lessons and also alcohol and drug prevention. So a part of that program, the alcohol and drug prevention is a really talking about coping skills, better habit forming, hobby farming, coping skills, and then also informing them of the side effects of alcohol and drug and tobacco use which can be depressive disorders and sometimes suicide. So they can really exacerbate these underlying mental, historical traumas.

REPORTER: And some of the culturally based healing methods that the Division of Indian Work embraces include stories and ceremony.

BRYCE PREMO: We're trying to really, you know, reach through to the kids through cultural, through the community, through their schooling, through their parents and then to them as well. So we really try to go through all the layers of their shelf, social, educational awareness.

REPORTER: Events are being held this month to raise awareness for suicide prevention. At the Division of Indian Work, Bryce Premo is giving a presentation called Safe Talk to help increase suicide awareness.

BRYCE PREMO: It’s through a program called Living Works and they're a worldwide organization to promote suicide awareness.

So on September the 19th, we'll be hosting a safe talk training for community members and basically that is to raise awareness for spotting the suicidal ideation. It's a culturally based presentation and it has different aspects for the first nations or indigenous culture.

REPORTER: For more information about the Safe Talk training on September 19th contact Bryce Premo at bpremo AT diw HYPHEN MN DOT ORG.

If you or someone you know needs help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK, that’s 1-800-273-8255. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a free, 24/7 service that can provide suicidal persons or those around them with support and a range of information.

For Minnesota Native News, I’m Leah Lemm.