First Daughter and the Black Snake

I believe people reveal their value systems through their daily rituals of family life, work, faith or cultural practice. I seek out amazing people who are making the world a better place, but I am also focused on marginalized communities who inspire me with their struggle. As a story-teller, I look for intimacy, emotion and revelation in my subjects.

I studied filmmaking at Moorhead State University with Eric Larsen and screenwriting with Thomas McGrath, but chose photography as my primary artistic language. I got my start as a professional photojournalist working for the Village Voice, People, Time and Geo magazines and I have photographed Paul Wellstone, The Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel and Rigaberto Menchu.

In 1980, I traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the Black Hills Survival Gathering where I worked for AIM leadership running their ancient switchboard. In 1984 I met Anishinaabe activist Winona LaDuke, who gave me a tour of the White Earth Indian Reservation. Years later, Winona and I met again on the Turtle Mountain Reservation and a healing ceremony was performed for me at a Sun Dance. Those meetings and experiences cemented my life-long interest in Indigenous communities.

My current feature documentary film is rooted deep in Indian Country traditions in conflict with the Alberta Tar Sands, No KXL, No Sandpiper and the birth of the LoveWaterNotOil movement. Native American wisdom predicts the Black Snake will bring destruction to the Land, so Winona LaDuke’s quest is to stop the oil and gas mega-corporations from driving pipelines through sacred wild rice territories of Northern Minnesota. Climate change, pipelines and bomb trains are opposed with musicians, Slow Food and Indian horses as former Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate LaDuke fights to protect one-fifth of the world’s fresh water with Midwestern hard work, humor and thousands of years of Indigenous wisdom.