Ojibwe descendant artist creates safe space for empowerment, exploration of stories

‘Waiting for Beds’ exhibit now on display in Duluth

When Moira Villiard creates art, she aims high. For one recent project, the epic Chief Buffalo murals in downtown Duluth, she involved more than 500 artists and community members in its creation. They came from all over to wield a brush in tribute to the leader who, 170 years ago, organized a historic meeting in Washington, D.C. while in his 90s. Chief Buffalo helped preserve the Ojibwe homelands.

Villiard, a Duluth-based artist, is a Fond du Lac Ojibwe descendant who identifies as being of mixed Indigenous and settler heritage. On June 11, she was announced as a recipient of the 2024 Bush Fellowship. The award will allow her to take her concept of community art to a broad base and a more intimate level. Her new project, “Waiting for Beds,” looks at what happens to people when they have to wait for a bed during a crisis, such as domestic violence, homelessness, or addiction. 

Up to 24 Bush Fellows are selected each year for a one to two-year program and receive a grant of $100,000 to fund their leadership plan. Fellowships can last anywhere between 12 and 24 months. Like several other Bush Fellowship applicants, Villiard applied to the program multiple times before making it to the final round. 

The visual artist works in different mediums, depending on what is calling to her and what will be most effective at displaying the message or story she wants to share.

Her socially engaged art exhibits tend to consist of paintings and mixed-media pieces and usually incorporate community submissions, which will be an important part of her new project.

“I don’t have to necessarily teach people the stories that already exist within themselves, but I can create the space where they can, on their own, be empowered and sort of explore those stories,” said Villiard. “It’s a weird process, but it’s the part I love.”

Villiard said her “Waiting for Beds” idea came from watching her father deal with mental health crises during her early years. Often he would be in and out of different facilities. Later, she helped other family members navigate those systems, with long wait times and few results.

“There’s just a lot of stigma when people are waiting for beds or when people are in crisis and you think, oh, they should just call a hotline,” said Villiard. “The reality is, you call that hotline and a lot of the time you’re told you have to wait. So what do you do in the interim? And why are our systems designed in a way that people who are most vulnerable and the least safe are the ones that have to wait?” 

Her work is featured alongside posters she created to bring the statistics to life—pieces like “The Wait: A Story in Stats.” Community members are invited to submit objects or artwork connected to their time waiting for a bed. She will also invite people to paint with her on public art murals and incorporate graphic design.

The Bush Fellowship is just the latest award in a list of recent ones. But early on, she didn’t have many opportunities. Villiard, who grew up on the Fond du Lac Reservation, said she grew up poor and wanted to go straight to work after graduating high school.

Villiard put her focus on harnessing her craft. After high school ended, she began drawing every day. She had her first art show when she was 18 years old at the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth, where they featured some of her work. 

“After that art show, I realized that I could maybe do a career in the arts because it was kind of like the birthday party I’d never had,” said Villiard. “I feel like growing up, I was really isolated. So finding ways to use my art to have people come to me was really exciting, and I just realized what I wanted to do was create spaces where people in art could come together and engage.”

Villiard found inspiration everywhere. One of the pieces she submitted for that first art show included a project she began in high school. “I had gone dumpster diving towards the end of my senior year and somebody was throwing away these National Geographic magazines. I brought a bunch of them home and started practicing drawing portraits and stuff.”

The faces from the magazines interested Villiard. A few dozen sketches she drew were portraits that she based on magazine photos. Her paintings branched into surrealism, a style that aims to capture the strangeness and beauty of the unconscious human mind. As a child, Villiard’s favorite surrealist artist was Salvador Dali, known for his detailed yet bizarre paintings. “I really wanted to be the next Salvador Dali, minus all the problematic tendencies he had that I didn’t know about as a kid,” Villiard said. 

Her partner on the “Waiting for Beds” project, mixed-media artist Carla Hamilton, said Villiard nonchalantly mentioned receiving the fellowship while preparing for their exhibit. Hamilton describes Villiard as calm yet inquisitive despite her busy schedule. She also said Villiard is a compassionate person who wants to help others. 

“I think she does things all at once because to be an independent artist, you have to be everywhere and doing it all –  multitasking, running a business,” said Hamilton. “But at the same time, she just goes through life like a little butterfly, too.”

Though there is a lot on Villiard’s plate now, her future is bright. With the Bush fellowship, she plans to spend the next two years working on her master’s degree in human rights at the University of Minnesota. Villiard hopes to conduct more research for “Waiting for Beds” while in school. 

During the summer and winter breaks, she’ll be traveling. Specifically, Villiard will be visiting art galleries around the United States that she’s been dreaming of walking through but never could go before because she couldn’t afford it. The National Public Housing Museum in Chicago and the Project for Empty Space in Newark are near the top of her list. Villiard wants to visit exhibits that do work similar to her “Waiting for Beds” project, where it’s data-focused and includes storytelling elements in conjunction with community art.

Another goal Villiard has for the grant is visiting the Shingwauk Indian Residential School in Canada, where her great-great-grandfather, Elias Stonefish, attended. “They confirmed last year that they have a bunch of his records and actually do tours and work with descendants,” said Villiard. 

“I’m going to take however many of my siblings are available to travel and go up there to start piecing together parts of his story. There’s a legacy of separation and hardship in my family that I know is connected to that experience for him, so I’m not so sure what I’m going to find, but I know going there is a step.”

Fellow artists such as Hamilton are inspired by Villiard and are excited to see how far the young artist will go. “She just continues to conquer and continues to rise, because she’s going to do good things with her art and with her opportunities,” said Hamilton. “She knows where to pay it forward.”

As Villiard continues to move forward in her plans with the Bush Fellowship, she wants to keep her focus on the positive. 

“Considering the entire scope of everything, you’re not fixing the ramifications of colonization, war, hunger, poverty and all these big overarching issues,” said Villiard. “I just feel like it’s always better to use our time on this Earth to make the world a better place.”

Dateline:

BISMARCK, N.D.