Woesha Cloud-North

Artist Biography

Woesha Cloud-North was a Ho-Chunk-Ojibwe artist, teacher, and activist. After earning her master’s degree in painting from The Ohio State University in 1944, she moved to California, where she worked as an art teacher for the Palo Alto public school system from 1961 to 1969. From 1969 to 1971, she taught at Alcatraz during the 19-month long protest and occupation by Native Americans organized under the name Indians of All Tribes in response to government action believed to be in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. After the occupation ended, Cloud-North began teaching at the college level. She held positions at San Francisco State College, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and California State University, Fresno. Throughout her career, she balanced her time between teaching, creating artwork, and serving organizations focused on advocating for women and Indigenous people, such as founding the National Indian Women’s Action Corps and the American Indian and Alaska Native Caucus for the American Public Health. As an engaged activist and working artist, Cloud-North’s painting style became more abstract and symbolic in reflection of the political and social conflicts she witnessed around her. This abstract collage, dated to 1968, was created the year before the Occupation of Alcatraz, during a time of heightened tensions for Indigenous people and activists. The dark, saturated red and black coupled with the jagged, layered edges of the collaged paper echoes the uneasiness and uncertainty of the time.