Story by Jeff Kronenfeld, October 2019 Issue.
Photos courtesy of Sky Duncan
Sky Duncan grew up
thinking it was normal to tour the world dancing in front of large crowds.
Though born in Arizona, Duncan’s earliest
memory is from a trip to Austria where he and his family were attending a
festival celebrating indigenous cultures from across the globe. Only three at
the time, he still vividly recalls watching Maasai, Hemba, Aztecs, and others
celebrate together while he nestled under a blanket beneath a tree. Hailing
from a family of world champion hoop dancers, he learned to move to the beat of
drums almost before he could walk.
Whether painting on canvas, sketching in
his journal, dancing gracefully in competition or teaching dance to indigenous
youth, Duncan uses art to bridge gaps, be they aesthetic, cultural or even
emotional ones.
As the second
youngest of five brothers and one sister — almost all of whom have been
competitive dancers at one time or another — Duncan learned dancing by watching
his brothers rather than in a classroom or studio. Growing up in a suburban
home in east Mesa, all he wanted to do was dance and draw, sometimes seeing
elementary school as something that got in the way. Though at times the only
Native American in his classes, he was surrounded by indigenous people through
extracurricular activities, church and dance.
As early as first grade, he recalled
feeling somewhat separated or displaced due to his sexuality, especially when
P.E. class was split up by gender. However, his best friend BJ always had his
back. “He’s black and queer and I am indigenous and queer,” Duncan
recalled. “If anyone gave him crap, I would give them crap. If anyone
gave me crap, he would give them crap.”
While he found solidarity in the classroom,
his homelife was an artist’s haven, whether it was his father painting, his
brother Kevin sewing dancing outfits or his mother’s work at the Heard Museum.
From Kevin, his older brother, he also picked up the habit of keeping a journal
and sketch book, something he still does for artistic and therapeutic reasons.
Then as now, his journals were intricate works of art overflowing with colorful
self-portraits, angelic figures and psychedelic skyscapes.
Though increasingly drawn to visual arts,
he didn’t gel with his art teacher at Mountain View High. However, he continued
to develop his skills through fashion and photography classes. His photography
teacher held weekly critiques and pushed Duncan to show his work and enter it
in competitions. He learned the basic elements of design in fashion class,
enjoying being the only boy in it. He loved both subjects, feeling torn over
whether to move to California to pursue fashion or New Mexico to pursue visual
arts.
Duncan opted to study visual arts at the
Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe, the same school where his
parents and brother had once gone. He enjoyed being surrounded by other
aspiring Native American artists from across the continent, though it was a
little overwhelming as well, cloistered far from the city center.
Compared to his brother’s experience a
decade earlier, which Duncan said was defined by President Barack Obama’s
hope-centric campaign, he attended in the shadow of President Donald Trump’s
vitriolic one. At the same time, Duncan witnessed a resurgence in indigenous
activism forced by efforts to infringe on the sovereignty and livability of
tribal communities. There was the proposal for the Resolution Copper Mine in
Arizona, which would have desecrated an area sacred to Duncan’s San Carlos
Apache Tribe, and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests further north. “That was
one movement that I kind of saw mature,” Duncan said. “I always look back
at that one-year as really wild, being a 20-year-old growing
up during that time and trying my best to hold on to my hopes and
drives, even though everything — all the screens — were totally
opposite of that energy.”
Duncan has kept busy, continuing to paint
while participating in solo or group shows throughout New Mexico. He often
integrates dancing or live painting into his events, such as he did for a show
in July at Karuna Colectiva, an Albuquerque art gallery. He had a solo show in
2015 at a space now known as the LOOM Indigenous Art Gallery in Gallup. There,
Duncan showed paintings that were massively scaled up versions of his journal
work, including wavy recursive patterns and colorful skyscapes, often featuring
smiley and stoic faces. “My paintings, at that little stage, were kind of
Keith Haring-esque, just to represent my claustrophobia and extreme
overthinking.”
Contacts he made at school and through the
art world helped him learn more about the indigenous LGBT+ community, including
the Gathering of Queer Nations. Started in 2016 as a response to a lack of
visibility for LGBTQ people at the annual Gathering of Nations Pow Wow in
Albuquerque, which brings over 700 tribes from across North America together,
the Gathering of Queer Nations showcases the art, music, poetry and fashion of
LGBTQ indigenous creators at Corpus Arts, an Albuquerque book and zine store.
At the most recent gathering, Duncan participated in a multimedia show,
presenting a large painting titled “You Will Never Fall Apart.” He labored on
the painting for more than year, repeatedly painting controversial images or
words, only to cover them up and then repaint them, over and over. “That was
one of my main inspirations, just conceptually thinking why am
I covering this up?” Duncan explained. “Then, going back to those
things and asking what am I glorifying? What am I yelling to
the audience? A lot of it had to do with sexual
violence and other experiences that I’ve never discussed before.”
As he continues exploring traumatic events
from his own past and pushing himself as an artist, he also has been learning
from teaching hoop dance to youths from the Pueblo of Pojoaque in New Mexico
over the last three years. Having never been a teacher before, save for as an
uncle or older brother, Duncan’s experiences helped him cultivate patience, adaptability
and to reflect on why he creates and performs.
“Sometimes a student will have a good
day and sometimes a student will have a bad day,” Sky said. “I have to
reach down to the deepest part of my heart and give them what excites
me, whatever I would feel on stage or in my
backyard dancing. Then, I happen to hear the ending and we have
to get out in time, because we’re so lost in the rhythm. I just want them
to get to that point, to where this becomes an instinct for them.”
Armed with his numerous journals and a drive as relentless as the beats he dances to, Duncan is a young but growing artist to watch.