An interview with Artist, Dennis White “Mezinaanikwad”
Ramona Morrow interviews Dennis White “Mezinaanikwad” (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians), Elder in Residence at Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University. Since he graduated in 1969, Dennis has been teaching in the fields of Native arts and culture and mathematics. In addition to being a teacher, he spent some time working as an engineer. He says he just had to make time for his art, emphasizing it as an extension of his work, “All this to me, is just the mathematics of art and the art of mathematics.”
He breaks down the mathematical and technical processes of weaving and design, demonstrating that math is in everything and art is in everything. He says of teaching math to students in a culturally relevant way, “It’s just all around them all the time, and we have to use that in teaching.”
