Featured Artist
Every quarter, we feature an artist or cultural creative on our website and on social media channels. Featured Artists are selected based on how they intersect with our vision to give voice and shape and movement to the new world emerging from the edges. Priority is given to edgewalkers - those on the margins of mainstream culture, in the cracks of cultural emergence. "Art" includes any medium - visual, performed, written, moving, spoken, etc. If you, or someone you know, aligns with this vision, and would like to be featured, please get in touch with us!
Featured Artist for Spring 2022
Robert Two Bulls
I was born in western South Dakota, spending my first two decades of life on and off the Pine Ridge Reservation. I am an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Oyate. In 1990 I married my wife Ritchie, an art therapist, in Washington, DC. We have two young adult children; the older is in law school and the younger sings in a rock band and creates jewelry.
Over the past 35 years I have lived, studied and worked on both coasts (in Washington, DC, New York City and Los Angeles) and, since 2006, have resided on south side of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in 2001. The work I have done since the 80s has been primarily within the Episcopal Church with emphasis on Indigenous communities. I have a bachelor's degree in American History from the University of Maryland and a master of divinity degree from The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. Since the early 1980s, I have worked, when time allows, in art and design.
Many of my interests and hobbies relate to my identity as a visual artist. I have an affinity for the exploration of the intersection of art and spirituality. In the Spring of 2018 I spent my sabbatical at that intersection. I love to read on topics that range widely and I like to be informed. I write creatively, when the spirit moves me. Music is a great passion for me, leading me to begin learning, in recent years, how to play the electric guitar. I like being outdoors, walking, whether it be in the city or country. And I’m always up for a new adventure.
BELOW, FIND A GALLERY OF ROBERT'S ARTWORK AND DISCUSSION
Edgewalker Gallery
Click on each image for title and information
Robert Two Bulls on Art & Spirituality
What and where is the intersection of art and spirituality in one's life?
Sometime back in the late 90s one of my seminary professors was giving the definitions to the terms and concepts of "spirituality, mysticism and asceticism" and I was struck at the time by how these definitions resonated within me in terms of both art making and viewing. I decided later to explore these intersections more deeply.
How do you see this project might impact others? How has it impacted you? What is it asking of you? It has been my experience, from working and teaching on this subject, that there are many individuals who are seeking the same awarenesses or understandings at what might be found at these intersections. People are hungry for it. For myself the impact has been more of a reaffirmation that these are crossroads that have not been fully explored...at least to my satisfaction. And what it is asking of me is to find a place where I am satisfied.
In what ways do you embody edgewalking? What edges do you walk along?
If I understand this idea or term correctly it means living on the fringe either metaphorically, spiritually, or maybe even allegorically. As an Oglala Lakota I think many if not all of us walk on the edge whether it is in the religious or spiritual realm, historical and present times, economics, daily living and even diet. As an example, while living in the big city with its bright lights [and] noises, where much is happening, I pined for the life my ancestors lived.