Our Village
Fire in The Village is an arts & cultural organizing collective.
Led by artist organizers, our wider village includes many other culture bearers, educators, organizers, advocates, elders, youth and other relatives who are gathering to build fires of connection with earth and one another.
We work in Native and rural places in northern Minnesota, and in arts and culture communities across the region.
We create opportunities for storytelling and relationship through art and poetry workshops, music concerts, print pop-ups, mural projects, dancing and nourishment, all woven together by coherent thought for our children and Earth.
To begin a conversation with Fire in the Village about hosting a gathering, volunteering, or other creative ideas, send us a note.
“All human beings are descendants of tribal people who were spiritually alive, intimately in love with the natural world, children of Mother Earth… This sacred perception of reality remains alive and well in our genetic memory. We carry it inside of us, usually in a dusty box in the mind's attic, but it is still accessible.”
- John Trudell
Annie Humphrey is enrolled with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She resides on the Leech Lake Reservation (1855 treaty territory) with three generations under her roof. Annie is a visual artist, singer/songwriter, carpenter, veteran (USMC), grandmother and woodswoman. She depends on the natural world to teach her grandsons all that her parents taught her and their parents taught them. Annie embraces the inconvenient life. She splits wood with an ax, hauls her water in 5 gallon pails into her home and to her animals each day. She has a very strong back.
Annie Humphrey is enrolled with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She resides on the Leech Lake Reservation (1855 treaty territory) with three generations under her roof. Annie is a visual artist, singer/songwriter, carpenter, veteran (USMC), grandmother and woodswoman. She depends on the natural world to teach her grandsons all that her parents taught her and their parents taught them. Annie embraces the inconvenient life. She splits wood with an ax, hauls her water in 5 gallon pails into her home and to her animals each day. She has a very strong back.
Shanai Matteson is a writer, artist, cultural organizer & educator. She is a single mother to two young kids. She was raised in a very small town in rural Aitkin County, where she lives today. Her dad is a working-class musician & artist in a long line of working class musicians and artists. Her mom comes from a large family that has lived close to the land and water in Aitkin County for six generations. Shanai spent a lot of her time as a kid in the woods and by the Mississippi River, dreaming. She's devoted much of her adult life to encouraging others to create, to find community, to protect water, and to seek justice.
Shanai Matteson is a writer, artist, cultural organizer & educator. She is a single mother to two young kids. She was raised in a very small town in rural Aitkin County, where she lives today. Her dad is a working-class musician & artist in a long line of working class musicians and artists. Her mom comes from a large family that has lived close to the land and water in Aitkin County for six generations. Shanai spent a lot of her time as a kid in the woods and by the Mississippi River, dreaming. She's devoted much of her adult life to encouraging others to create, to find community, to protect water, and to seek justice.
David Huckfelt is a songwriter, performer, speaker and touring musician with deep roots in the upper Midwest and a poet’s eye for the beautiful and the vulnerable. A former theology student, David attended the Iowa Writers Workshop before turning his focus to songwriting and live performance across the country. An early encounter with the incendiary activist and philosopher John Trudell opened David’s world to an unending string of musical collaborations with powerful artists growing wild on the fringes of the American landscape, from Quiltman, Louise Erdrich and Keith Secola to Bon Iver, Emmylou Harris and Greg Brown. David’s songs of “No Spiritual Surrender” have connected him with audiences from small town opera houses to international festivals, all in the service of offering music to thin the veil between spirit and Earth, person to person.
David Huckfelt is a songwriter, performer, speaker and touring musician with deep roots in the upper Midwest and a poet’s eye for the beautiful and the vulnerable. A former theology student, David attended the Iowa Writers Workshop before turning his focus to songwriting and live performance across the country. An early encounter with the incendiary activist and philosopher John Trudell opened David’s world to an unending string of musical collaborations with powerful artists growing wild on the fringes of the American landscape, from Quiltman, Louise Erdrich and Keith Secola to Bon Iver, Emmylou Harris and Greg Brown. David’s songs of “No Spiritual Surrender” have connected him with audiences from small town opera houses to international festivals, all in the service of offering music to thin the veil between spirit and Earth, person to person.
Geezis Humphrey is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She is a coordinator for Giinawind Creative Space at the MacRostie Art Center, as well as a carpenter. Geezis graduated from the Leech Lake Tribal College with an A.A.S in Integrated Residential Building and has been a part of many building projects. Geezis is joining Fire in the Village as an artist organizer and as a member of our Village Advisory Circle.
Geezis Humphrey is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. She is a coordinator for Giinawind Creative Space at the MacRostie Art Center, as well as a carpenter. Geezis graduated from the Leech Lake Tribal College with an A.A.S in Integrated Residential Building and has been a part of many building projects. Geezis is joining Fire in the Village as an artist organizer and as a member of our Village Advisory Circle.
Our Village ><
Our Village ><
