Join us for Season 4, Episode 5 of Urban Art Biz as we focus on Becoming a Workshop Facilitator 

Presented in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery 

Wednesday, April 23^rd, 2025 from 12:00 – 1:00 pm CST

With our very special guests:
Kiana Fontaine, Jessie Jannuska, Fred Spence, and host Justin Bear L’Arrivee.

Do you have an arts practice you want to share with the community? Are you looking to diversify your income as an artist? Wondering how to get work as a facilitator?

Join us for a panel with experienced facilitators Kiana Fontaine, Jessie Jannuska, and Fred Spence, who specialize in Indigenous arts workshops. They’ll share how they balance their careers as artists and facilitators, how they established their roles in arts organizations or as contractors, and how they developed their unique approaches to sharing their art practice with the community.

Moderated by Justin Bear L’Arrivee, Artistic Director at Urban Shaman, who also has extensive facilitation experience with Red Rising Magazine, Art City, The WRENCH, Ndinawe, Martha Street Studio, and the University of Manitoba.

We will learn:

• How to move from being an artist, student, or participant to workshop facilitator
• How to develop an art workshop based on your practice
• What opportunities are out there in community to provide workshops
• How to connect with organizations that hire facilitators
• Starting a business as an arts facilitator

The workshop is offered FREE. Please register online by 10:30 am CST on April 23, 2025, and a Zoom link will be sent to your email address by 11 am!

If you haven’t received the zoom link, please check your junk mail folder.

Kiana Fontaine

Kiana Fontaine is a visual artist born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Fontaine is Indigenous, she is Saulteaux and Cree. She has roots from Keeseekoose, Saskatchewan. She was raised in a family of artists and she also attended Art City Inc. programming almost daily as a kid. Fontaine’s family and Art City definitely shaped her into the artist she is today.  As an adult, she has come full circle and works at Art City Inc. as workshop facilitator and runs the indigenous Art Program. Now it’s her turn to provide meaningful art programming to the community. She is a painter but also makes beadwork and sews regalia. Her paintings are inspired by her culture, family, nature, and her community.

Instagram: @_kiana

Jessie Jannuska

Jessie Jannuska (she/her) is a Winnipeg-based multidisciplinary Indigenous artist and Art Workshop Facilitator. She is mixed Dakota, Ojibway, and settler and is a member of Canupawakpa Dakota Nation. She graduated with a BFA with honors from Brandon University’s IshKaabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg Department of Visual Art in 2018. Jannuska primarily works in mixed media, beadwork, acrylic, crankies, and murals. She teaches art workshops in beading, dreamcatchers, Indigenous-themed painting (step-by-step), mixed-media mural work, sweetgrass baskets, and crankie-making.

Jannuska recently completed an artist residency at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Her work explores her Indigenous culture through a cathartic lens by blending realism, contemporary beadwork style, and symbolism that represents her Indigenous spirituality. Jessie is a co-founder of the Seven Teachings Art Collective (STAC). They offer free art programming to Indigenous folks of all ages. Non-Indigenous allies are welcome to attend STAC programming. Her work utilizes themes of Indigenous female empowerment, commentary on Indigenous issues, and often features strong female role models and imagery. Jannuska’s most prominent awards are the Canada Council for the Arts Explore and Create grant in 2023, and the Manitoba Arts Council Arts Leader Grant in 2021.

Website: jessiejannuska.com

Instagram: @jessie.jannuska.art

Fred Spence 

Fredrick Lyle Spence (Thunder Bear) was born and raised in Peguis First Nation. He has enjoyed being creative in various forms for most of his life. Upon graduation from high school at 16 years old, Fred moved to Winnipeg where he worked construction for 5 years before discovering a specific interest in electrical work. He went on to become a journeyman electrician and successfully completed electrical engineering technology diploma. For a variety of reasons, during his early years of adulthood Fred developed a substance abuse issue. It was art that allowed him to successfully take his life back.

Initially it was woodworking that he found to be beneficial for his mental wellbeing and shortly thereafter developed a love of soapstone carving. Fred’s emotions and feelings go in to his artwork and all represent particular stages of his recovery. He currently volunteers at Siloam Mission, where he teaches soapstone carving in hopes that the art form will benefit others as it has him.

Website: spencecustomcarving.com
Instagram: @spence_custom_carving
Facebook: facebook.com/spencecustomcarving

Urban Art Biz is a series of online workshops focusing on the business side of art from an Indigenous perspective, presented in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery.

Urban Shaman Gallery is an artist-run centre dedicated to presenting contemporary Indigenous art with integrity. Taking a leadership role in the cultivation of Indigenous art and artists by providing a vehicle for artistic expression in all disciplines. Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art gallery is a nationally recognized leader in arts programming and one of the foremost venues and voices for Indigenous art in Canada.