Groundworks Artists
L. Frank
L. Frank is a Tongva-Acjachemen artist, writer, tribal scholar, cartoonist, and Indigenous language activist. She is an important keeper of knowledge related to Indigenous craft, building techniques, traditional foods, agriculture, and land management. In addition to activism to reclaim language, L. Frank has led the building of Tongva canoes through traditional means.
Ras K’Dee
Ras K’Dee is Pomo, with ties to multiple bands in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. He is an accomplished musician and producer. He fronts Audiopharmacy, an international touring musical group that defies styles. He is also the editor for Snag Magazine, and is building The Nest, an arts and community facility in Forestville, California which will be dedicated to having half of all collaborators be Indigenous.
Kanyon Sayers-Roods
Kanyon Sayers-Roods is a multidisciplinary Ohlone artist from Indian Canyon, a sovereign Indian Nation nestled into a canyon outside of Hollister which provides ceremonial ground for tribes without reservations and diverse Indigenous peoples. She is working to maintain and expand these lands and water access as more and more of the surrounding area is converted to vineyards; work started by her mother and a flock of pygmy goats.
Bernadette Smith
Bernadette Smith is a Pomo singer, musician, and playwright from the Point Arena Manchester Band of Pomo Indians. She is an activist leader involved with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and brought her whole family to Standing Rock to protect water rights. She is currently working on reclaiming land traditionally used by her tribe for their acorn harvest, and on protecting the source of those acorns—the tanoak—from hack-and-squirt clearing to make way for managed redwoods.