When Marina DeCora’s first solo art show opened at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum, they were amused to see viewers gravitate toward a corner packed with coyote depictions.
DeCora, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, said that the coyote is a trickster in some Native cultures.
“In my culture, Coyote, yeah, he is kind of a trickster, he does get up to hijinks, but at the same time, he always comes with lessons, and those lessons always bring people together,” he said. “And it was kind of funny to see everybody gravitating around the coyote pieces, because that’s exactly what I pictured Coyote doing.”
The multimedia exhibition, “ReVision,” marks the first student exhibition at the HCCM.
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DeCora said she’s a reconnecting relative who started at Haskell in fall 2024. Growing up, their parent discouraged them from connecting with their tribal identity, and choosing to attend Haskell has been one step in a long healing process.
“I came in with a huge chip on my shoulder. I was pissed off at the world, and I was upset that I had been withheld pretty much from my community because of a decision my family made a long time ago,” he said.
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“… It’s been an extremely intense, sometimes traumatic reconnection, and it caused me to kind of look at my life and my experiences in my life from a different perspective.”
DeCora’s exhibition gives visceral, visual form to this reckoning.
Many pieces reflect the time that she has spent reflecting on human connection to land. She was an art intern for the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts Hub that is stationed at Haskell, and would spend hours on calls with folks from around the world discussing the state of their coastlines.
At the same time, DeCora said she makes a pilgrimage to the wetlands surrounding Haskell nearly every day, often to pray at the medicine wheel. Over the last few years, the wetlands have been at risk because of development.
DeCora’s graphite drawing of a fragment of a coyote face, “Wetlands,” emerged from the friction. From a distance, the coyote’s eye appears to be glowing, as DeCora nestled a topographic map of the wetlands amid the gray tones.
“This was kind of … an attempt of drawing attention to that while, yes, Rising Voices, Changing Coasts does affect a bigger picture, we have a good example of exactly how to enact that and to kind of collaborate to land back something and to protect something right in our backyard, literally,” he said.
DeCora said in many cases, the canvas is a space to wrestle with emotions, to fill their hours when insomnia keeps them awake or to soothe their ADHD symptoms.
“Mirror Woman” is one of many pieces that he created while meditating on mental and community health, with its highly saturated colors and sprawling patterns. He said it took 80 hours to complete, as a conservative estimate.
They said some folks have asked if the painting depicts a woman with war paint when, in reality, the patterning is pulled from the shell of a baby painted box turtle that DeCora found in the wetlands.
The imagery reminded her of a Rorschach test. It led her to reflect on the ways that she is gaslit and silenced in Western medicine spaces, especially as a neurodivergent, two-spirit woman.
“Mirror Woman” and four other original pieces will be up for auction later this month, and smaller prints are available for sale on the HCCM’s website. DeCora said half of the proceeds will go to the HCCM and the other half to a fund in their ancestor’s name.
Their ancestor, Angel De Cora, was the first Native art instructor at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Haskell and Carlisle were both federal boarding schools where Indigenous children were forcibly and violently assimilated into white, settler American culture.
DeCora wants to see greater recognition of her ancestor’s mark on history.
“There needs to be a little bit more light shed on women, Native women, in history at boarding schools,” they said. “… I think she (Angel) sacrificed a lot to be able to protect those children in at least a small way where she could.”
DeCora hopes the fund will ultimately help Native students support continuing art education. In the short term, it will be used to help students buy art supplies.
“Sometimes … you really have to push students into the room. You have to really reassure them that it’s OK to take these things. You don’t have to do stuff like this to make art,” they said, referencing the exhibition. “You can make sketchbooks, you know, and you can just get those obsessive, hyperfixation-type thoughts out on paper, close the book, put it away. It’s healed, and you’re good. You understand it a little bit more.”
“ReVision” is on display at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum through May 16. The HCCM is free to all and open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at 2411 Barker Ave.
Five of DeCora’s works will be auctioned off at the exhibition’s closing reception, which has yet to be scheduled. People can find updates on the HCCM website and Facebook.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
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