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Minwaajimowinan (Good Stories)
Watermark Art Center in Bemidji, Minnesota
January 9 - March 28, 2026
Public Artist & Music Reception
February 14, 3-5 pm
Discover Naytahwaush
About the Show
Aaniin, Boozhoo, and welcome to Minwaajimowinan-Good Stories. I’m Kent Estey, the guest curator for this exhibit. I wanted to take a moment to welcome you and share a bit about this exhibit. The idea behind Good Stories began a long time ago. Actually, I started collecting photos and interviewing elders from the Naytahwaush, Minnesota community for a Harvest Festival newspaper I began creating back in 1985. You’ll see some of the Harvest Festival Newspapers and the t-shirt designs from the festival in this exhibit.
Over the years, I kept collecting photos and interviewing elders because I knew and appreciated our little village’s history and culture. There wasn’t a place to archive our information, stories, and photos, so I began to do it myself. It became an obsession for me to gather as many stories and images as possible because I knew how important our history was to our village, and I thought I would one day create a website to archive all this information.
Instead, it became an exhibit! The first version of Minwaajimowinan-Good Stories appeared during the spring of 2024 at the Gizhiigin Arts Incubator in Mahnomen, sponsored by the Manoomin Arts Initiative and a grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board. Our little villages on the White Earth Reservation, including Naytahwaush, have beautiful people with stories to tell, beautiful pieces of art we create, and a beautiful voice to be heard if you are willing to listen.
Minwaajimowinan-Good Stories will introduce you to a few families of creators from the Naytahwaush, Minnesota community. This exhibit features the Robinson, Keahna, Estey, Bunker, Mason, Littlewolf, Lavoy, Burnette, and Turner families, all with deep ties to the Naytahwaush community, and all families have multi-generational artists. So, as you walk through this exhibit, you will see the artistry of eight families, over 30 artists, 500 photos, and a million memories. You will learn more about this little village that we love and appreciate so much, located on the banks of the North Twin Lake, in the heart of the White Earth Reservation. Welcome to Minwaajimowinan-Good Stories.
Kent Estey
Welcome Home
Welcome Home
Naytahwaush, a welcoming home.
You can’t judge a book by its cover.
Anymore than a village by its surface.
People are accepted for who they are, at face value.
Not judged or looked down upon, but they back you.
Look at the roots of the people’s lives, their experience.
You will find bruises of trauma, but also the healing of resilience.
Kids steeped in imagination playing in their yards.
The whacks of baseball and people’s business cards.
Homes adorned in warming glow,
As their cultures regain and flow.
Ancestors' wisdoms are rooted deep.
Ever present, not asleep.
Peace and tranquility, a festive covering,
Allow the lessons to teach that are always hovering.
Current faces resemble faces of long ago
What family you are from, we always know.
An outreached, helping hand for support,
Guidance and strength, proof it implores.
Humor bouncing round like Tumbleweeds,
Lightening moods with Howah and schemes.
The vacancy sign with its welcome in neon too bright to ignore,
Letting you know that there is plenty of room for one more.
You can’t judge a book by its cover.
Anymore than a village by its surface.
Naytahwaush, you bring me home.
By Becky Estey
It's all about community
About MINWAAJIMOWINAN- GOOD STORIES
Miigwech For Your Support
"Thank you, Brent and Gayle Gish, for lending me many of the black ash baskets and birch bark baskets for this exhibition. Your support for the Naytahwaush Community and the arts is evident and truly essential."
Also, thank you to Paul Bunyan Communications for supporting this project.