Delina White

Delina White is a contemporary Native American artist specializing in indigenous, gender-fluid clothing for the LGBTQ and Two-Spirit Native communities. She is also an activist for issues such as environmental crisis, violence against women, and sex trafficking.

White is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.

Art career White launched her clothing collection I Am Anishinaabe, which she runs alongside her daughter Lavender Hunt and granddaughter Snowy, the latter of whom serves as the brand signature and international model. In 2017 she and Joy Campaigne presented their work together at a community workshop at the American Indian Community and Housing Organization in Duluth, Minnesota.

She produced her first fashion show at the Great Lakes Woodland Skirts Fashion Show in 2015.

White has won numerous awards and grants for her work, which has been exhibited in locations such as the Art Institute of Minneapolis. She typically works with modern/contemporary fabrics from around the world materials such as hand-tanned leather, bones, and shells, which she uses to create and design traditional Native works.

I Am Anishinaabe In 2015 White launched the "I Am Anishinaabe" collection. Her inspiration for the collection came from the Great Lakes, the Lakota term "winyanktehca", which means balance, individualism, and fluidity of genders or sexuality, and the term two-spirits, which is used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial role in their cultures. White intended the line to show support for underrepresented LGBTQ+ communities, particularly those in Native American cultures.

She showcased her collection at the Walker Art Center on June 13, 2019, and chose to use people who identified as two-spirit and queer as her models. The collection is made of fifteen contemporary Great Lakes woodland-style skirts, along with items such as pipe bags, handbags, and moccasins. The collection also features a piece created by White's daughter Lavender, a skirt that features an Ojibwe floral design and a high slit intended to allow the individual wearing it to show their leg if they so wish. Of the collection as a whole, White has stated that the clothing is "meant to make the individual wearing them, happy, to feel good, to feel good about who they are, be confident and take pride in being a Two-Spirit."

Awards and honors

Delina White has acquired many awards, fellowships, and grants that includes: Style show at “A Traditional Perspective in the Modern World" (2020, Northwest Indian Community Development Center)