Ed Kabotie is an artist, musician, and educator from the Hopi village of Shungopavi and the Tewa village of Santa Clara. Join us on this episode of Behind the Scenery and hear Ed discuss his work, his connection to the Grand Canyon, and the messaging in his music. You can find his work on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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[Flute Music]

ALICIA: That was Ed Kabotie playing the flute here on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. My name is Alicia and I’m a ranger here at Grand Canyon National Park. In early September 2024, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ed and talk about his work as an artist, musician, and educator. We sat on a picnic table outside of the cabin where he stayed, surrounded by late-season wildflowers and towering ponderosa pines. In this episode, you'll hear some occasional noise from the wind. If you listen closely, you might also hear birds chirping and the sound of pinecones dropping from the ponderosas around us. Thanks for joining us today.

ALICIA: Really grateful that you came out to the park today, so thank you so much for being here.

ED: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so grateful. Yeah. Love this place. Super beautiful today. Love to hear the pinecones dropping all over the place.

ALICIA: Yeah. So, Ed you're a multifaceted creative, right, a multi-talented artist. You're a musician, an educator, and I know you have a family history in art, too. So can you tell us a little bit about your background as an artist and how it connects with your work today.

ED: Wow, that's a big question. When I, when I hear the reference to family, I think back to my grandfather, you know? So my great grandfather, Lolomayaoma was arrested in 1906 for refusing to send my grandfather to school. He was six years old at the time. This was a, you know, boarding school in Pennsylvania. So I mean, 1000 miles away, kill the Indian, save the man. Of course he resisted, you know, and he was put in prison for his resistance. My grandfather actually ran away from school till he was 15 and then he was sent to Santa Fe Indian School, which is the same boarding school I graduated from, as well. But Santa Fe Indian School has an interesting history of its own type of renegade resistance. You know, Dorothy Dunn-style studio art, well known in Indian art that comes later. My grandfather was there during the DeHuff administration and Principal, or Superintendent, rather, DeHuff was demoted from the Indian Service because he and his wife were encouraging, you know, the children in their culture rather than, you know, trying to extinguish it. My grandfather was singled out along with two other artists, Otis from Shongopovi and then Velino Shije from Zia Pueblo and those three as vocational training were actually given exposure to techniques in art, and so my grandfather began a journey there. He's kind of a world-renowned kind of guy. You know, he's known at the Grand Canyon for the Watchtower murals, which were done in 1932. That's not typically his style, you know, he went, he reverted to kind of an ancient style of art with the watchtower murals. His art journey is just incredible. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, and he also was instrumental in the development of the overlay techniques in Hopi. He spearheaded the development of the Guild, which trained silversmiths, 60s, 70s, 80s in Hopi. He was very involved with the establishment of the Hopi Cultural Center as well, so. He was a U.S. ambassador to India, you know, Goodwill Ambassador, Agricultural Summit. He was commissioned by Mrs. Roosevelt to do a piece of work when she visited him at the Peabody Museum at Harvard during one of their openings. It's a really remarkable journey that he had. I, I never knew him as an artist. I knew him as a hard-ass Hopi farmer, you know? But my father was, of course, very engaged in art, as well. And so I'm a third-generation artist. My father, I would say, is probably my biggest inspiration, kind of in an abstract way. I mean, I think my dad did not want to follow in his father's footsteps. I don't want to follow in my dad's footsteps. I think we all try to be very distinct in our journeys. But there's that process of osmosis that takes place when you're in an artist's home and you know the work is being done. You know, I can hear my dad's saw blade going, you know, as he would make jewelry, singing songs, listening to songs, humming kachina songs, you know, just as he would work. You know? So it was a it was a very, very special atmosphere and I think that nurtured me in my work. There's a number of things that brought me to the place. In my own personal expression, music and art have played a big part of my journey, and music tends to be my forte not necessarily by choice. I love, I love the serenity of creating visual art. There's something about it that I have to be in a good place to do it and it's something that I long for to be in places like this, honestly, this is this is where I generate artwork.

ALICIA: Yeah. I wanted to ask where you where you draw inspiration for your songwriting, which I guess is you said places like this. Where else do you do you draw inspiration for your your art and your music?

ED: I draw inspiration from indigenous history. I draw inspiration from my culture. I draw inspiration from a lot of the negative that I see around me in the history of my people, in our relationship with the United States government, you know both past and present. So I think sometimes people refer to me as an activist, which I, I tend to resist that concept because I feel like an activist is active, you know? I mean, my vibe is like, yo, we all just need to slow down. You know, we, we need to come to a place where we can be in spaces like this to listen to the rhythm of nature, how it connects with the rhythm of our spirit. And find a way to think consciously again. You know, if I feel like that's, the biggest problems that we have in this world are, they need a spiritual solution. And I hope that somehow through my art and music, I'm able to elevate my thinking and hopefully maybe other people's thinking at the same time about conscious thought regarding environmental social justice issues on the Colorado Plateau, Grand Canyon Region, and also in the world in general.

ALICIA: When you look back at your time that you've been creating music or creating art, do you think your, your style has changed? Maybe the content of your music or the style of your music, or?

ED: Absolutely. I mean, in regards to music I feel like my journey as a musician started in my home communities. I feel like everybody's a musician where I come from; from the time you're a child, you know, everybody's introduced to song, everybody's introduced to dance as a form of prayer, and as a form of interacting with the universe. And that also crosses over to visual art, as well. I was exposed to rock music via a Native American band called XIT, X-I-T, who was on Motown Records like between 1970 and 1972, and they put out a couple of amazing albums, one called Plight of the Redman, one called Silent Warrior, and they were very aggressive in their message. I, I mean think back what was happening in Native America in 1970, 1972 that's the takeover of Alcatraz, that's the takeover of Wounded Knee. That's the American Indian Movement, you know, taking over BIA offices in Washington, I mean, all of that was kind of expressed in the spirit of their music. When I got into boarding school, I you know, metal was kind of communicating to me and a lot of us because I think, as third generation boarding school students, we were all pretty pissed off, you know? And it made a lot of sense. When I, when I heard reggae, I recognized that reggae was like very angry music, you know? And I'm talking about Jamaican reggae, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, you know, those old school guys. And their message was very aggressive as well, a cry for justice for 400 years of oppression. And sometimes when I would listen to the music of Bob Marley, it would just feel like he was singing about me, you know? I got homesick after living off the reservation some years down the road after high school. I was a drummer in music originally, that's kind of my passion, but I always kind of continued carrying a guitar. I left music just because it was difficult for me separate some of the dysfunctional things that follow rock'n'roll, you know? And I started a family very young, so, you know, I, I felt like it was wise for me to put away, you know, the drum kit. But of course, you know, it's you can't, you can't keep music out of your brain, you know, or out of your heart when it's there. And, you know, I'm always tapping on everything and, you know, fiddling with guitar. And out of homesickness, I began to sing more traditional style melodies in Hopi and Tewa and translate it into guitar. That's the way my original music started. You know, the original recordings of original music and it was very history-focused. I thought a lot about my kids. I thought a lot about youth growing up on the reservations. You know, I wanted them to hear their music. I wanted to them hear, for them to hear stories about their heroes, you know? And that's kind of the way it took off. I got arrested in Coconino County for marijuana possession. You know, at a at a time that that the state of Arizona was like, very aggressively against it, right? And so like, for less than a gram of marijuana. I was. I was charged with felony possession, felony paraphernalia, blah blah la la la. When I got arrested, you know, I, you know, I heard I've heard about my people talking about being careful about border towns all my life. I never had a problem personally until then. You know, and now I'm in jail, facing prison time, and I'm looking at everybody else who's in jail and we're looking like 80% Native American. And today in Flagstaff, and this is not ...