Many Nations American Indian Arts And Crafts Shop Brings Authentic Native American Art To Madison Wisconsin

Many Nations Owner Tim Hagen proudly displays an American flag just inside the front entrance of his American Indian arts and crafts workshop in Monona.

The flag was given to him by an Army special forces unit stationed in Iraq. Hagen's first contact with the unit was a few years ago when he met one of the soldiers at a powwow. The major, who was about to deploy to Iraq with his unit, bought a bear claw necklace from Hagen.

"Not too long afterwards, his partners in his unit wrote me wanting necklaces," said Hagen. "So now this whole special forces unit had my bear claw. And they actually had to notch out a piece of the armor on their vests so they could wear it on missions. That's what they wanted it for - to protect them. Now I've got four or five dozen guys over there wearing my claw."

Hagen expressed great admiration for the soldiers, comparing them to his own warrior ancestors. "I've got so much respect for these guys. I've got so much respect for my ancestors that were warriors. I put them in the same class as my ancestors."

Hagen, a full-blooded American Indian, is a descendent of the Bad River and Menominee tribes. While he grew up on the Menominee reservation in northern Wisconsin, Hagen says he was actually a member of the Bad River tribe since Great lakes and woodland Indians in this area are matriarch tribes, which means children go by their mother's tribe.

While growing up on in the Menominee reservation, about one half hour northwest of Green Bay, Hagen, at age 5, started learning traditional American Indian arts and crafts from his grandmother.

"She didn't teach me to teach me the craft. Back then you taught your children to do bead work at that age to teach them patience. To learn about craft was just an added bonus."

The patience has paid off, too, as Hagen continues to put meticulous time and effort into creating beautiful bead work and woodwork and countless other art pieces. Many of his pieces have won awards in art contests throughout the country. His Many Nations art shop is filled with his work as well as work from a few select Native American artists, which allows him to keep prices much lower than other shops in the region. "Everything I sell - if I don't make it personally - I know the Indians that made it. I feel very strongly about personally guaranteeing everything is authentic."

Hagen moved from the Menominee reservation about 20 years ago to attend UW-Madison. "I went to school for political science. I thought I was going to work with Indian law. I was somewhat idealistic. After doing a one-year internship at the end of my schooling, I realized that was not what I wanted to do. I really couldn't see arguing the rest of my life, that's not me."

Hagen eventually started a family and settled in the area, always maintaining his interest in traditional arts and crafts. He spent about two years working for the Wisconsin Historical Society studying their American Indian artifacts. "They've got this vault about the size of this room," said Hagen referring to his workshop, which is about the size of a two-car garage. "It's full of drawers. Drawers everywhere. They all have old stuff in them - three, four, five hundred years old. And a lot of it is Menominee stuff because we've been here the longest. We've been here over a thousand years. The state of Wisconsin says over a thousand years but we say much longer. There's so much Menominee stuff down there and I studied all of it."

The knowledge gained from his studies has certainly helped make Hagen a great artist, but it's the painstaking work he puts into creating his art that says volumes about where he comes from. "I'm a full-blooded Indian and there's not too many full-blooded Indians left in Wisconsin. So I have a responsibility. That means what I do has to be done in a proper way to respect what I am and who I am. There's ways that you do things; there's ways that you make things. And there are beliefs involved. There are beliefs in numbers that are involved, there are beliefs in colors that are involved, there are beliefs with the attitude at the time. There are beliefs with truth. If I'm not absolutely truthful with myself and I'm making a drum I'll have to take that drum apart and cleanse myself first and start over. I've done that. I had to do that several times. I realized that there was something going on at home, I realized that I hadn't been completely truthful and I realized that I had to start over. The drum represents the heartbeat of Mother Earth, and it would be disrespectful for me not to be truthful when I'm making that representation of her heartbeat."

What Hagen puts into his art seems to permeate it, giving those who buy his work more than just a piece of art. "It's not something I'm giving them, it's what they're getting out of it. It's a multitude of things, reasons. But they really get more out of my pieces. They're getting some reasoning maybe that they need in their life at that particular time to give them some sort of strength. It may be it made them think about something in a different way that gave them an answer that they needed at that time. The first year I was open I was really astonished by that. By how many people came back and told me about what they had bought really became something more meaningful to them. Every reason was different from every customer. I could never really nail it down to any one thing, but I really found that my customers get an intangible value through my stuff."

Every piece in the shop has a story, and Hagen makes a point to share those stories with his customers. "Everything I sell, when I sell it I tell them something about that piece. Maybe it's the way I made it or maybe it's how I got the products to make it or how I traded for the products or how I picked them up down south from a family or however...I tell them something about how that piece became. And even the pieces that I haven't made I have here in the store, I can tell them about the maker. I always tell them something. When I tell them about it, you can see that their wheels are turning."

Art is a part of who Hagen is and there is no doubt that he enjoys it, but like most businesses, things can get a bit hectic at times. Especially during the spring and early summer when powwows and other traditional celebrations start happening.

"At the end of May I'll have a half dozen dancers that come to me to have something to repair or something made. Every year they do that to me. They come with like five or six days to go. It might be just repairing the beadwork, it might be a new roach - that's the head piece. It might be repairing the feather work or maybe a new breastplate or a new dance stick."

While most of the arts and crafts Hagen sells are for ceremonial and aesthetic purposes, he never forgets that every piece he creates has practical roots. "The thing about Indian arts and crafts is that it all started from practical uses. The breastplates, the bone chokers - that's all considered decorative now, but that was armor in the day. Their shields were part of a hunting party's armor and protection. The weapons were all developed for hunting. Everything really comes from practical beginnings."

Even though most of the pieces Hagen makes are for show, he still feels it important that they have full functionality when it comes to their original purposes. "If you buy a hatchet from me, it is beaded and it's nicely decorated with nice copper work and leather work, but it's usable. And I also make it so it will last a hundred years. That's one of my beliefs that I want all of my stuff to last a hundred years. That's a goal I have in all my work. And when I buy stuff from other Indians that's one of the things I look at is the quality of the work and how long is it going to last. The stitching on any sewing work; the material that they are using."

While the work he does is much about respecting his ancestors and tribe traditions, Hagen says there is a certain amount of who he is that goes into his work. "I say I put a lot of myself into it. A lot of times I have to stop myself so I don't put too much of myself into any one piece. I've let myself go and go too far in some pieces by putting too much of myself into it. If I make a buffalo hoof rattle, that would be something that everything about that I would make very traditional." It's part of what Hagen says is called "old traditional" that he ascribes to in his work and who he is.

"When you're old traditional like that, part of the belief is that everything you do you give of your...I hate to say energy but I don't know how else to say it. You put your own energy and strength into that piece or into that deed or whatever it is that you're doing. And you can put too much. If you put too much, you can personally suffer for it."

Many Nations American Indian Workshop

4503 Monona Drive

Madison, WI 53716

Phone: 608-467-8060

Hours

Monday - 12 to 9 p.m.

Tuesday thru Saturday - 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.