Native Arts Speaker Series: A Family Affair: Get to Know the Growing Thunder Collective

This event is part of the series Cultural Currents: The Role of Mentorship in Native Arts.

Mentorship in the arts has long played an important role in the continuation and growth of cultural knowledge and practice in Native communities. the 2025 Native Arts Speaker Series explored the relationship between artists and their mentors and the ways in which mentorship both preserves Native Arts and provides new paths for advancement.

Speakers discussed the mentor/mentee relationship, the continued importance of passing on cultural knowledge, skills, and artistic practices to the next generation, and the ways mentorship continues to shape the future of both traditional and contemporary Native Arts.

The Native Arts Speaker Series, formerly the Indian Arts Research Center Speaker Series, features topics surrounding the history and evolution of Native American art and the associated issues facing contemporary cultures of Indigenous people throughout the world. From advocacy and policy to preservation of language and traditional knowledge systems, the signature series offers scholars, artists, SAR members, and the local community an opportunity to learn and engage with notable experts.

A Family Affair: Get to Know the Growing Thunder Collective
This program was a discussion with Juanita Growing Thunder (Dakota/Nakoda), Jessa Rae Growing Thunder, PhD (Dakota/Nakoda), and Camryn Growing Thunder (Dakota/Nakoda)

Speakers:
Assiniboine and Sioux artist, Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (she/her), is a second-generation traditional Northern plains artist who has spent much of her life learning from her mother, award-winning artist, Joyce Growing Thunder.

Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty creates traditional Northern plains clothing and accessories adorned with beadwork and porcupine quill embroidery. She also creates soft sculpture dolls that emulate historical Oceti Sakowin attire.

Jessa Rae Growing Thunder comes from the Fort Peck Assiniboine (Nakoda)/Sioux(Dakota) tribes.Sheis a third-generation beadwork and quillwork artist whosework has beenshown inmultiple museums, including the MinneapolisInstitute of Art, SmithsonianNationalMuseum of the American Indian,the Heard Museum, and the Joslyn Art Museum. Jessa Rae isaGreat Plains tribal art historian. She holds a Ph.D. in Native American Studies from theUniversity of California, Davis. Her workapplies both recognized(archival and oral history) andtraditional creative forms of knowledge transmission through analyzing beadwork as livingtestimony.Jessa Rae is a 2022 Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow andremains committed tobeadwork/quillwork histories and education through her various community-based projects.Jessa Rae serves as the Director of Tribal Nations Initiatives at Native Americans inPhilanthropy. She has a background in program and project development, program management,network facilitation, and decolonial methodologies.

Camryn Ahhaitty Growing Thunder (Assiniboine/Sioux/Kiowa/Comanche) is an awardwinning third-generation artist from the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. Camryn learnedtraditional beadwork and quillwork while growing up from her mother and grandmother,Joyceand Juanita Growing Thunder. She was a self-taught painter until attending The Institute ofAmerican Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she is currently pursuing a BFA in studioarts with an emphasis in painting and currently has work exhibited at the Joslyn Art Museum inOmaha, Nebraska. Camryn also combines mediums to create contemporary Native fashionaccessories and first began building her career at thirteen after winning a Best of Classification:Youth Division at Santa Fe Indian Marketin 2017 for her first contemporary painted parflechehandbag. By using parfleche and alcohol-based paints, she refurbishes vintage tiled handbagsinto contemporary Native fashion accessories that invite audiences to explore an Indigenous pop-surrealist world. Camryn has since continued expanding her painted handbags into jewelrymaking and multimedia painting.

SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH
Established in 1907, the School for Advanced Research (SAR) advances creative thought and innovative work in the social sciences, humanities, and Native American arts. SAR is home to the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC), a leader in community-advised and collaborative Indigenous arts engagement and collections management. Through scholar residency, seminar, and artist fellowship programs, SAR Press publications, and a range of public programs, SAR facilitates intellectual inquiry and human understanding. SAR’s historic sixteen-acre campus sits on the ancestral lands of the Tewa people in O’gah’poh geh Owingeh or Santa Fe, New Mexico. SAR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational institution.

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