User:Lavenderthrifter66/Moira Villiard

Early Life
Moira grew up in Cloquet, MN on the Fond du Lac reservation, and is a Fond du Lac direct descendant, Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe lineal descendant, and Moravian Band of the Thames Lenape direct descendant. She lived and grew up in what she describes to be a “hoarder house” and decorated her room with pictures from National Geographic magazines. Through her time in high school, she did some portraiture, murals, experiments with different mediums, and a little bit of freelance work. During and after highschool, she spent some time taking classes at Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College where she received an Associate’s Degree. In 2016, she received a Bachelor's Degree in Communicating Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Through her work-study positions, she was able to reaffirm her love for public art.

Art Career
For three years she worked as the Arts & Cultural Programming Coordinator for the American Indian Community Housing Organization. She had her first art exhibition there when she was 18 years old. She currently works as a freelance consultant, designer, speaker, and grant-writer and is the lead artist behind organizing the Chief Buffalo Memorial Mural site in Duluth. Her educational, activism-rooted exhibits "Rights of the Child" and "Waiting for Beds" are currently on tour. In 2021 she debuted her first animated work for Illuminate the Lock, a 10 minute, 150’ projection piece titled “Madweyaashkaa: Waves Can Be Heard”, and has since collaborated with Indigenous musicians and writers to create animations for "A Winter Love", "Mináǧi Kiŋ Dowáŋ: A ZitkálaŠá Opera", "Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology" (PBS American Masters), and "Extraction" (poem by Tanaya Winder), among other films.Her work has been featured in numerous shows in Duluth and around Minnesota, including her solo show, “Rights of the Child” at Zeitgeist, and group shows “Beyond Borders” at MacRostie Arts Center and “We the People” at the Minnesota Museum of American Art.

Exhibitions
Fond du Lac Reservation in Cloquet, MN

Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA)

Covid-19 pandemic === References     ===