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.