TUCSON, Ariz. – Bobby “Dues” Wilson (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) works on different levels of creativity, from making murals to beadwork and quillwork to poetry. His work as a founding member of the Aboriginal sketch troupe The 1491s and as a writer for hit television shows such as Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs, has shaped a multifaceted terrain of artistic creation and cultural production. Wilson’s practice aims to dislodge preconceived and stereotypical perceptions about Indigenous peoples in North America.
Wilson, who grew up in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, had his share of precariousness as a child. “We bounced around in women’s shelters for a while until we got out of it,” Wilson told Hyperallergic. “Then we would stay with other people for a while until our Section 8 [housing] finally cleared. It was during this time that he learned that the woman raising him was not his biological mother. “She confessed and then I ran away from home and never went back.” While living alone, he began tagging buildings and experimenting with graffiti. “I met a graffiti artist who was also Native in college named Gabriel Ward, and we became really close,” Wilson said. “But he was marking a gang [stuff], which was not my thing at all. I always thought it was crazy how many guys I grew up with in gangs, and that didn’t appeal to me in any way.
Although he did not participate in gang culture, he very much enjoyed the act of making marks. “I really liked the idea of tagging on shit, so I started stealing spray paint with Gabriel until I was mistaken for graffiti.” At the age of 16, Wilson was arrested for graffiti and sentenced to two years in the Ramsey County Boys’ Home. The arrest led to a life-changing reunion. “I always feel funny saying that I had a good relationship with my parole officer, because I don’t think you’re supposed to,” he said. “Her name was Deb Knutson and I haven’t seen her since I was 18, but she focused on what was going to make me feel good. She told me about the youth art programs in the Twin Cities and told me that I should get involved in some of them.
Wilson joined a program called Compass Arts in St. Paul, which had a summer program called Arts Work. During this time he met Youa Vang, who provided the first formal fine art training he had received. “He was the guy who taught me how to paint murals,” he said. “He took a particular interest in me and two other children who were there.”
Vang taught Wilson the artistic skills he needed to pursue a professional career in the cultural field and gave him the foundation for the discipline and respect for process necessary to succeed in the complex and often precarious field of visual arts. Wilson had a successful career as a muralist in the Twin Cities, a practice he still practices today as time permits. In addition to his painting, he creates delightfully irreverent pieces of beading and quillwork, often mimicking Indigenous techniques and popular culture, drawing inspiration from mass-produced imagery, such as a blue social media check mark and objects. like La Croix cans. Recently he collaborated with Brain death clothes in Los Angeles to produce a now sold out edition of beaded minions from Despicable Me.
Perhaps Wilson is best known for his sketch comedy work with his troupe The 1491s. Consisting of Dallas Goldtooth, Sterlin Harjo, Migizi Pensoneau, Ryan RedCorn and Wilson, the group produced biting satire on colonization, systemic racism, the misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples, the commodification of Indigenous imagery and culture, as well as persistent homelessness and poverty resulting from the United States. government policies in Indian country. A chance meeting in Santa Fe led to Wilson’s involvement with the band. After driving his aunt to the New Mexico capital for the Southwest Indian Arts Association’s annual market in 2010, Wilson met Redcorn and Harjo. They quickly became friends, and all have been working together ever since.
In 2019, The 1491s were commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to create an original work, Between two knees. The play weaves together family relationships, love and loss, and incorporates large swaths of Native American history that have been left out of US history curricula. The play spans from the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, in which 300 Lakota were slaughtered at the hands of the US 7th Cavalry Regiment, to the American Indian Movement’s 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Run to Seattle to Bagley Wright Theater through March 26, it offers a richly textured, dark, and unflinching look at America’s genocide of Indigenous peoples via settler colonialism.
In addition to his practice of wall painting, beadwork and comedy sketches, Wilson is now becoming a TV staple. He wrote and appeared in Peacock’s Rutherford Falls opposite Ed Helms and Jana Schmieding (Cheyenne River Lakota), and currently writes for the hit show FX Reservation dogs, in which he also occasionally appears, and which was created by fellow 1491 member, Sterlin Harjo, in collaboration with acclaimed director Taika Waititi. The writing process has moments of fluidity and moments of obstruction. “Sometimes writing is the worst, I hate it!” he’s laughing. “It’s really about putting your mind in the right space for it, and so sometimes I’ll just paint something or write a poem to drive it forward. It’s a matter of finding that place that’s inside my consciousness that dives into the art, and it always looks a little bit different. He lets the details of his daily life seep into his writing and somehow end up on the page. “The writing goes through so many iterations – so for me, it’s beyond the block of needing it to be perfect.”
It is this tolerance of imperfection that is the beautiful crux of Wilson’s career – one that undulates, so gracefully, through multiple mediums and registers of generational pain, healing laughter and Indigenous joy.
between two knees performs at the Bagley Wright Theater (155 Mercer Street, Seattle, Washington) through March 26.
