We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

-Native American Proverb

Native American arts initiative

sponsored by The Christensen Fund

Thanks to funding and encouragement from The Christensen Fund, in 2007 ISDA has begun to create a center for cultural exchange as part of the Curley School campus.

Over these years, we began sponsoring programs and events emphasizing our region's Tohono and Hia C-ed O'odham art, culture, and traditions.

These have included performances by musicians and bands, dancing clowns, traditional foods, and workshops in traditional basket weaving, dream-catchers, and pottery.

Renown O'odham artist Michael Chiago taught adults and children together to paint beautiful desert scenes in watercolor, and then led mural-painting workshops in which youth from Pisinimo and San Lucy and Ajo volunteers worked on a 10' x 50' mural depicting traditional saguaro harvesting, rain and basket dances, and O'odham cultural symbols.

A group of O'odham girls and mothers met weekly with female elders to discuss their female heritage and learn traditional skills.  The girls also learned traditional methods of harvesting and preparing organ pipe cactus and saguaro fruit on a 3-day desert camp out in July and then passed these skills along to another enthusiastic multicultural, multigenerational group of community residents.

Our Native American arts initiative is now an ongoing aspect of ISDA programming.