Artist Bio

(Bio as of June 2022)

Jennifer Stevens (Oneida and Oglala Lakota) is currently a resident of Bayview-Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin through her father and Oglala Lakota through her mother.  She was born in Alexandria, Virginia and raised on the Oneida Nation-De Pere, Wisconsin and received her BA in Art from St. Norbert College. Jennifer has weaved a creative life as a classical singer and visual artist. She studied Classical Singing and Opera nationally and internationally and she studied Classical Art in college and traditional Oneida Pottery with prominent woodland Indigenous artists, including Rose K. Kerstetter, Peter B. Jones and Richard Zane Smith. Jennifer became nationally known for her contribution in cultural preservation through Oneida Pottery revitalization, taught Oneida Pottery for 20 years (4k-Advance level students) and is one of the few in history to become a professional Native American woman composer and classical singer. Stevens was acknowledged in the book Encyclopedia of Native American Music of North America by Elaine Keillor and Timothy Archambault, and was a featured artist, singer and Composer on PBS-Wisconsin Public Television Wisconsin Life and the documentary, Owe.la’: The Music Within Jennifer Stevens. Stevens is a singer, composer, artist, researcher and educator, and her life philosophy is “community building through the arts.”