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Spirit Lake Nation citizen Marlena Myles grew up in south Minneapolis in the Native American housing development, Little Earth of United Tribes. Growing up, she attended a school focused on Native American culture within its programming.

“Outside of those areas, I never really saw anything that showed that this was Dakota homelands here in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. And so, as an adult, I create all kinds of art that teaches people about our relationship to the land,” Myles said.

This year, she designed MPR’s state fair tote bag, which features vibrant colors and pays homage to each corner of Minnesota through an Indigenous lens. The special gift is given to thousands of fairgoers in exchange for donations.

Myles says she wants to create meaningful artwork that uplifts and gives a sense of representation to those who see it.

“A lot of my art, when I create it, I like it to serve a purpose,” she said.

Myles has been an artist for as long as she can remember. Growing up, she watched her mother, grandmothers and aunts create beadwork and traditional Dakota arts. She pursued digital art with encouragement from her mother.

Her artwork has been featured in classrooms, on building murals in the Twin Cities and even on Metro Transit buses. Plants, animals or spiritual beings are often featured in her work. She uses her creativity to present the world through a Dakota perspective.

“I’m always putting [in] the significance of plants, and place and spirits. Anything I can to let people see that there’s an interconnectedness between all life and everything that’s around us,” she said.

Myles made sure that connection between people and land is shown on this year’s MPR tote bag. The artwork features an outline of Minnesota in the color blue, representing the state’s lakes.

“In Dakota culture, blue also represents the spirit of life and the things that flow through us that give us the energy to do what we have to do in this lifetime,” she said.

The state design is divided into four quadrants, each region showcasing a specific aspect of the state. Myles chose symbols that remind her of those areas, like the buffalo at Blue Mound State Park in southwestern Minnesota or bird migrations along the Mississippi River in the southeast.

“The northwest. You know, that’s where I think of wild rice. I think of fishing,” Myles said. “And then the northeast is where the darkest skies in the nation are, so you can see the stars, like how our ancestors saw the stars.”

A purple and yellow loon — a nod to the colors of the Minnesota Vikings and singer Prince — is layered over the state’s outline. "Mni Sota Makoce," the Dakota name for Minnesota, which means “where the land reflects the sky,” is printed in purple, blue, yellow and red.

“I didn’t want something neutral,” said Myles. She designed the bag to “stand out in a fashionable way.”

She hopes that her artwork can bring awareness to Minnesota's Indigenous heritage and that all Minnesotans can see themselves and what they love about the state in it as well.

“When you’re creating art for the public, you want to represent the communities and tell the stories that represent those communities, and you also want to go deeper and reveal these layers of knowledge that people might not see or know.”

The MPR tote bag will be available at the MPR booth inside the Minnesota State Fair through Labor Day 

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via 

, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.

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Every year Minnesota Public Radio picks a local artist to design a tote bag to be given to thousands of members at the Minnesota State Fair in exchange for donations. Dakota artist Marlena Myles designed this year's special gift, which features vibrant colors and pays homage to each corner of Minnesota through an Indigenous lens.

New MPR Minnesota State Fair tote bag showcases state through an Indigenous lens

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