Create a 10-word scroll-stopping headline for: In Gregg Exhibit, Ancestral Wisdom Animates the Stories of Today | Vibe NC

Stories Told By Breath: Native American Voices in North Carolina | Through September 26 | Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh

Preparing work for her first group show at a major museum, just as her tribe was finally receiving federal recognition, was an incredible moment for artist Karina McMillan.

“I had no words,” she said. “We’ve been fighting for this for such a long time.” 

McMillan, one of more than 55,000 members of North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe, had originally agreed to show 10 pieces in North Carolina State University’s Gregg Museum of Art & Design’s exhibit Stories Told by Breath: Native American Voices in North Carolina. Inspired by the moment, she created an 11th before the opening. 

Like many of McMillan’s other colorful portraits, intricately drawn with Bic pens and finished with acrylic paints or colored pencils, this work depicts a Lumbee woman. She’s drawn in profile, a bright red and fuchsia shawl wrapped around her head. 

Three ears of corn are embedded in the shawl, each composed of hatch marks in vibrant jewel and neon tones—easily the most beautiful ears of corn I’ve ever seen, with the “push and pull” between their green husks and the red shawl elevating the colorful corn to the surface of the canvas. There’s more: Within the ears, some of the individual kernels bear the number 575 written in gold. 

The number, which also serves as the painting’s title, is, like the corn it depicts, heavy with meaning; with the passage of the Lumbee Fairness Act in December, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina became the 575th recognized tribe in the U.S. 

That it took 137 years for the federal government to recognize the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi is, of course, a part of the painting’s story. And it’s not the only work in the exhibition that highlights this historic moment—“575” is also the title and subject of a beautiful beadwork by artist Ashtyn Thomas, a current N.C. State student who served as Miss Lumbee in 2023 (her beaded crown, made by her, is also on display). 

Thomas and McMillan are among the youngest artists of the 15 included in the exhibition, which features some of the state’s most prominent Indigenous artists, including master potters Senora Lynch (Haliwa-Saponi) and Bill Harris (Catawba), jewelry designer Timo Locklear (Lumbee), and interdisciplinary artist Rhiannon Skye Tafoya (Eastern Band of Cherokee and Santa Clara Pueblo), whose works use printmaking, digital design, and basketry techniques. 

Meant to showcase works from both emerging and established artists, the Gregg show encompasses a wide array of mediums, including beadwork, printmaking, sculpture, textiles, and regalia. Such a range, especially all in one gallery, could prove challenging, but the thoughtful presentation offers ample space to engage individual works…