Sharing and Supporting Native Creativity with Holly Doll (5 Plain Questions)

This episode was produced in partnership with 5 Plain Questions and Eleven Warrior Arts. Hosted by Joe Williams, 5 Plain Questions is a podcast that proposes 5 general questions to Native American and Indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, movers and shakers, and culture bearers.

In this episode, meet Holly Doll.  Holly Doll lives in Bismarck, North Dakota, and is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. First and foremost, Holly is an artist. She specializes in Lakota forms of beadwork and quillwork, which her mother started to teach her when she was just two years old. Holly grounds herself with cultural values passed down by her family and applies them to any artistic, cultural, and community work that she does.

“Even though we're holding something that's hundreds or thousands of years old, culture is something that lives and breathes. It's okay to leave your mark on it and to move it forward and be okay with it changing with future generations that also participate in it.”

In addition to being an artist, Holly wears many professional hats. She has over a decade of experience in arts and cultural nonprofits. Currently, she works in collaboration with The Waterers, a collective of radical disruptors of philanthropy, as a Program Director for Ignite Rural with the Department of Public Transformation, and as Program Manager with Arts Midwest. 

Episode Resources

• Episode webpage
• Episode transcript
• Holly Doll on LinkedIn
• The Waterers
• Ignite Rural, Department of Public Transformation
• Midwest Culture Bearers Award, Arts Midwest
•  Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, & Museums (ATALM)

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Art of the Rural is honored to support 5 Plain Questions. We are grateful to individual donors across the country, the Ford Foundation, and Good Chaos for making these conversations possible. Additional support for this podcast is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Learn more about our work and show your support at artoftherural.org

Transcript

Episode Introduction

​​Matthew Fluharty:  Hello, and welcome to The Art of the Rural podcast. Today, we're grateful to share an episode of 5 Plain Questions, a podcast hosted by Joe Williams. Joe is an artist, curator, connector, and also a media and editorial collaborator at Art of the Rural. 

To learn more about Joe's work, please visit elevenwarriorarts.com or check out our show notes. Deep thanks to the Ford Foundation and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of this collaboration.

Joe Williams: 5 Plain Questions is proud to present this miniseries highlighting the impactful work of the waters through the lens of their giftees. Together, we're celebrating community-led change and amplifying stories that disrupt traditional philanthropy and foster local power

Hello, and welcome again to another episode of 5 Plain Questions, a podcast that proposes five questions to Indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, movers and shakers, and culture bearers, people in the community that are doing great things for their communities. I'm Joe Williams, your host for this conversation.

My goal is to showcase these amazing people in our Indigenous communities from around the region and country. I want to introduce you to Holly Doll. Holly Doll lives in Bismarck, North Dakota, and is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. First and foremost, Holly is an artist. She specializes in Lakota forms of beadwork and quillwork, which her mother started to teach her when she was just two years old.

Holly grounds herself with cultural values passed down by her family and applies them to any artistic, cultural, and community work that she does. In addition to being an artist, Holly wears many professional hats. She has over a decade of experience in the arts and cultural nonprofit. Currently, she works in collaboration with The Waterers, a collective of radical disruptors of philanthropy, as a program director for Ignite Rural with the Department of Public Transformation, and as program manager with Arts Midwest.

With that said, let's jump to this conversation with Holly Doll.

Interview

Holly Doll, thank you so much for joining me here on 5 Plain Questions. It's really great to have you here.

Holly Doll: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Joe Williams: Oh, no very excited. As we were talking before the recording, I feel like we've been in this in proximity to each other for a while, but this is actually the first time we've had a a virtual face-to-face in meeting each other.

Holly Doll: Yeah.

Joe Williams: So yeah. So well let's jump into these questions here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, where you're from, and what it is that you do?

Holly Doll: Yeah. I'm Holly Doll. I was born and raised in the Bismarck-Mandan area, where I currently reside, of North Dakota, I should specify.

I am an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. So my Lakota name is Anpao Win, which means First Light Woman.

What it is that I do? That's always a really tricky question, 'cause I feel like I do a lot of different things that all somehow tie together in a really, I don't know, organic, poetic way.

But formally, first, I am an artist. I do Lakota cultural work. But sometimes I like to do it more modernly. I'll do beadwork, but I'll bead skulls or something. so I do beadwork. I do some quillwork as well, a little bit of painting, and I've also recently gotten into writing.

And then in a formal capacity of what actually pays me, I have a part-time job with the Department of Public Transformation, which is an artist-led, rural, Minnesota-based arts organization. And there I'm a program director for an at-home artist residency called Ignite Rural.

And then my full-time job is with Arts Midwest, where I'm a program manager. So I do some grant making there. I manage cohorts, and I get to connect with people across a very large region. But it's really great and fun. And then, of course, I also am with The Waterers, which I've been with them since 2020. It's been a while.

Joe Williams: Wow. Wow.

Holly Doll: So I stay busy.

Joe Williams: You're in good company with those two organizations. And just for transparency, I'm a board member on Arts Midwest, and I've been able to witness the good work that Arts Midwest does and continues to do. And so-- and of course, The Waterers as well. This episode is part of the miniseries with The Waterers, and so I'm just really happy that we're able to connect through this.

Holly Doll: Yeah. Me too.

Joe Williams: Let's talk about your influences. Who has been your biggest influences, and what is currently influencing you right now?

Holly Doll: First and foremost, I would say my mom. My mom started me with beadwork when I was 2 years old. She says that I just wouldn't leave her alone. So to keep me, to keep my hands busy and to keep me distracted, she would just give me a tin of loose beads and some thread, and I would just start stringing things.

But my mom really has always encouraged any and every endeavor that I wanted to take on. So if it was beadwork, she got me beads. If it was painting, she bought me an easel. If it was sewing, she bought me fabric and a little sewing machine. If it was baking, she bought me an Easy-Bake Oven when I was a kid. We didn't have much in terms of money, but she was always the person who really wanted to prioritize and push into me the importance of artistry and creativity and making sure you nurture that side of you.

So yeah, that's been since I was born. My entire family is just like that. They're all artists of various mediums, and it's all I've ever known. And as far as today my mom still... she's always there for me. But also just the people that I get to interact with. I'm really privileged in the work that I do.

It's a really big honor to be able to meet with all of these people that do this incredible work in the arts and culture field and nonprofits and advocacy work for communities of color, for Native Nations, and really, I could just sit and have a conversation and listen to people, and I wanna build that into everything that I do.

So I just, I love to be a holder of things and carefully put that into my work. Yeah that's my biggest thing. Anyone I talk to.

Joe Williams: Sure. yeah I can relate, especially through this podcast, right? Just, you- Especially when you're younger you come across some mentors, and they introduce you to folks from around you.

But as we've entered this field and we've gotten to, to know different people from different towns, I've come to realize that almost on every turn, in every community, there's someone doing something that's so incredible. And it's always a nice surprise for myself, a discovery for myself that there are so many people doing such great work often because it's their passion, right?

It's the thing that's driving them. And I'm just kinda curious if maybe there's an example that comes to mind recently where an experience really surprised you in a place you weren't expecting.

Holly Doll: Yeah. Gosh, there's so many to choose from. At Arts Midwest, I manage a program called the Midwest Culture Bearers Award, and we awarded nine awardees, one from each of the nine states that we cover.

And I've been holding these little peer connect sessions virtually. So they'll come in and just get to share about their work. And just this past week actually I had one of those, and they teach me so much. So one of the tensions that I hold and that I've heard a lot from other artists, especially those who are so deeply connected to community or they do culture-bearing art, is this tension of honoring the past and your ancestors, but also acknowledging you're living in a modern world.

And then how do you carry that forward and how do you push that to the next generation? And this was a really interesting conversation with this group, because they were like, culture is something that's malleable, right? It's something that grows and changes. And even though it's, we're holding something that's hundreds or thousands of years old, culture is something that lives and breathes, and it's okay to leave your mark on it and to move it forward and be okay with it changing with future generations that also participate in it."

And it just brought me a lot of comfort, because it's something that I hold really intensely, and I get really protective of teachings and stories that I'm told as a Lakota person. And I've always been the type to wanna just put it in a box and preserve it just as is. But being scared to move it forward because of that.

So being able to talk with people that just were like, "It's okay. It's okay that it's something that breathes and lives through you, and you can move that forward," has been... It was really comforting having everyone collectively agree to that feeling.

Joe Williams: Yeah. It's definitely... we're from a community. I'm citizen of Wahpeton, where we're raised to honor our ancestors, and we wanna stay true to that. And so there, there does sometimes feel a sense of guilt or a conflict within ourselves to live our lives for ourselves, which sometimes may feel contradictory to some of the pressures that we feel that may not be intentional, from our communities, from our ancestors. But but I think it's really important for us to acknowledge that we do live in the modern world. We are members of the contemporary society. But one thing I've come to realize too that, our traditions, our art were all created by contemporary people of their time. Those items that, we hold in museums or in heritage centers were created by sisters and mothers and grandmothers, all sitting at the table, laughing and joking about, and gossiping, about family members, and maybe had the radio on in the background or had a newspaper somewhere.

I mean, they were contemporary people.

Holly Doll: Yeah.

Joe Williams: Yeah. It's... I don't know. That mindset kinda gives me permission to frame our conversations and our stories in a modern lens, so to speak.

Holly Doll: Yeah. Yeah, I really like that. And there we go. I'm influenced today by Joe Williams.

Joe Williams: That's going in the reel for sure. So yeah. The promo reel.

Let's talk about your career. How has that developed in college, post college?

Holly Doll: The funny thing is that for post-high school education, it has nothing to do with what I currently do. I was going to culinary school. My initial dream and what I really worked towards when I was, like, in middle school and high school, I took four years of French and I lost most of it, so don't ask me to speak it. But I was working towards going to culinary school and then transferring to France to be specialized in patisserie, and then I would open up my own bakery.

That was, like, something that I wanted to do for a really long time. And when I was 15, though, my dad got diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer, and like any stage four, it's pretty, pretty dire. And I really had a hard time. I was 15. I was a kid, and I was losing my dad, and I just wanted to be near him.

And he passed two weeks before my 18th birthday. So we're actually coming up on the... Oh my gosh, it was 2010, so 16 years at the end of January. And I just, I couldn't do it. But at the time, I was working for a local nonprofit that just saw I was struggling, and they were like, "We'll take care of you."

So I started working at a nonprofit here in Bismarck when I was, gosh, I think I was freshly 15. So nonprofit work is all I've ever known.

Joe Williams: Okay.

Holly Doll: And they offered me a full-time job, because income was bad, especially after my dad had passed. So I took it, and I was in an art gallery, and then I became a manager of the art gallery.

And then I co-founded a artist cooperative, and then I just started to grow more and more. It was a really messy and emotional path for my career, 'cause it was tied so deeply with loss, and I feel like that's what influenced what I chose to do. Instead of following this dream that I had throughout childhood, I wanted to stay here.

And that's a bittersweet way of saying it, and I don't regret it. I don't want anyone to listen to that and be like, "Oh my God, that's not what she wants to do," because I love what I do. My grief shapes what I do. I was on a keynote panel for Grantmakers in the Arts back in October of 2025, and that was one of the questions they asked, was like, "how are you working within your field? How is how do you shape your leadership?" And things like that. And whenever I'm asked this question to talk about my career growth and trajectory, I always think back to when I was 15, 'cause that was such a turning point for me, was that loss and the grief. And I don't regret it because one of the things that happened was it brought me closer to my family, and it brought me closer to my community.

Because as Native people, grief is collective. Like everyone comes together when you see someone grieving, and they take care of you. And that, in turn, made me wanna take care of them. And so that's, I started with the art gallery and I started to get community input, and that was where I got my first ever grant was through First Peoples Fund, yay, to just help my community.

And I just loved it more and more every day. So it was a natural growth.

Joe Williams: It sounds like it's been an incredible experience since then. Something, I guess, amazing from something so tragic in a sense. And it's definitely a way to honor your father and to honor your family, this trajectory that you've had since then.

Holly Doll: Thank you.

Joe Williams: So as you've moved through the space, opportunities have presented themselves differently, in different ways. And yeah, I was wondering if we could talk about how opportunities have presented themselves for you, and do you make opportunities for yourself at this point?

Holly Doll: Wow. That's a good question. I think they come to me and then I also make my own from it. So opportunity has shown up in ways of just like having conversations with people that I thought would never wanna have a conversation with me. And being invited to do a podcast, being invited to be a keynote.

And I do suffer pretty intensely from imposter syndrome. So I always have to push past a fear to even accept opportunities as they come to me. But because of that, I think there's always a ripple effect out. So when, like, I'll point to the Waterers. I had pretty recently started up Native Artists United or NAU, and I had no idea what I was doing.

But someone from ArtPlace America, Maura Cuffe, reached out to me, sent me this really long, really nice email. And I thought it was a scam at first, 'cause it was like, "Hey, we want you to join this thing to give away $3 million." I was like, "Pah, people don't just do that." I almost didn't respond, but I was curious enough and I reached out for a phone call and then just that is what trickled out into me joining the Waterers and then learning from the Waterers and being brave enough to then, "Hey, I'm gonna apply for this position at Arts Midwest."

And then I got the role there. So yeah, just following these things that kind of get me scared at first, but have always had a really great outcome. So that's at both ends. They come to me, and I create them by pushing past the fear.

Joe Williams: Sure. Sure. A lot of it sounds like you, you show up for the work, right? You show up for the challenge, and I feel like that's a strong takeaway from this.

Holly Doll: Thank you.

Joe Williams: That, that said, what would you say to the 18 to 22-year-old that's listening to this conversation?

Holly Doll: I love asking people this question when I interview them, and now it's being asked to me, and I feel the heaviness of it. I would say first and foremost, don't be scared. And if you are scared, it's okay to do it scared. To follow your gut and do what you feel is the right thing for you to do in that moment, even if it's not something that you thought initially you were going to do. Life changes, life happens unexpectedly, and just following where it takes you can sometimes be very surprising.

And also to take care of yourself as you do this work, or any work really. It can be emotionally draining to be around people all the time and to hold their stories, and it's an honor, but you have to take care of yourself. When I was... Oh my gosh, back in 2019, I was a, awarded a Cultural Innovator Fellowship with Salzburg Global, and I went all the way to Austria for a week.

And I was very shocked because by that point in my career, I was really surrounded by folks who I deeply admire. I have so much respect for all of these people that I was surrounded by. But they were often the only ones doing their job, like they were the only ones holding certain roles in the community, and they were very overworked, and I found myself becoming that person.

And I was about 24 at the time, 25, somewhere in that range. And when I went to Austria I was very shocked because the whole time they were talking about the importance of self-care. And that wasn't something I was really surrounded by. And I remember talking to this one guy, he came up to me and he's like, " who do you look to model what self-care looks like?"

And I couldn't answer him. And I said: "I don't know if I have anyone right now." And he said: : why don't you be the person then? Why don't you be the person who shows others what boundaries look like, or what taking time off when you need it looks like, or, making sure that you're building in space for your creativity, and you can then influence others."

So wrapping back to what I would say to an 18 or 22-year-old listening to this, you also should be aware that what you're doing is being watched by people younger than you, and you wanna set an example of taking care of yourself. Yeah, go out and do, follow your dreams and all of that good stuff.

You'll always have some people supporting you. But don't burn out. Try your hardest to at least gently burn out, 'cause sometimes it's unavoidable. But yeah, people will be watching, especially younger ones, and being that influence and thinking generations ahead, just remembering that and holding that.

Joe Williams: That's so great to hear. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So what's next for you? What's on the horizon? What are you working on?

Holly Doll: Yeah, what am I working on? Currently nothing super public-facing, so I can't share it.

Joe Williams: Sure.

Holly Doll: Not yet anyway. But I will say that I have accepted an invitation to serve on the National Planning Council for ATALM, or the Association of Tribal Archives Libraries Museums, their conference for 2026 in Washington.

So if you're gonna be at the conference at the end of September, I will also be there. And we should talk. We should meet, have coffee or something.

Joe Williams: Yes. I don't know if you're talking to the guests or me, but...

Holly Doll: both of you. ...

Joe Williams: I would say yes.

Holly Doll: Yes, both. Everyone who's listening, and you.

Joe Williams: Yes. And for our listener, I'll be there too. So yes, come find me as well. The whole gang's gonna be there, so we should all meet up.

You already answered the next question in a sense, but where can the listener find your work and to connect with you?

Holly Doll: You can find me at ATALM in September. I guess it depends on how you wanna meet me and find me, but you can always connect with me through The Waterers on our website, waterers.org. Reach out to any of The Waterers. You can reach me through Department of Public Transformation. You can reach me through Arts Midwest. You can submit an inquiry and connect with me there.

I'm also on LinkedIn, Holly Doll on LinkedIn. I don't use it as good as I should, but I'm on there. If you message me, I'll probably respond. I'm just around, and if you know anyone who knows me, you can ask them. I'm always open to connecting.

Joe Williams: Sure thing. Sure thing. And of course, for the listener, for those organizations, check out what they're doing, their programs. See if there's anything that applies to what you're doing. But also, I also remind the listener too, boundaries when reaching out to our guests. There's always that aspect of it, and we've got a great listener, I don't really need to say that too much,

holly, thank you so much for sitting down with me on the program here. I'm really happy to finally meet you and for the podcast to be able to share your story.

Holly Doll: Oh, thanks for having me. This was... I was nervous, but this was pretty painless. So thank you. Thank you for letting me share.

Joe Williams: Right on. Right on. Thank you.

Episode Conclusion

And that does it for this episode of 5 Plain Questions. I wanna thank Holly for her time and sharing her story with us. It was more than a treat, it was really an honor.

I've been working in this field for a while now, and I've always been in proximity to Holly, but this was really the first time that we have spent some time having real conversations and talking. And I'm deeply grateful that she was able to make time to, to make this happen. So Holly, this was great, and I can't wait to connect with you again, especially at ATALM, and to just see what you're working on next. So thank you.

And I wanna thank you for joining us and spending your time listening to what I feel is a very important story and perspective from our community. So please join us next time as we speak with another incredible person. I'm Joe Williams. Thank you for listening to 5 Plain Questions.

Your support helps us keep these conversations going. You can follow us on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, and Bluesky. And to stay connected, visit us on elevenwarriorarts.com to explore past episodes, check out our exclusive merch, and to sign up for our newsletter. Every listen, share, and purchase helps support this podcast. This episode was made possible with support of The Waterers, whose dedication to community-led change and disrupting traditional philanthropy inspires us all. To learn more about their work and how you can get involved, visit their website at www.waterers.org. That's W-A-T-E-R-E-R-S dot O-R-G. Thanks for listening.

Support for this podcast also comes from Art of the Rural, working to advance rural culture and equity through collaboration, media, and the arts.

This has been an Eleven Warrior Arts production.