Alan Groves is a member of the Northern Ute and Hopi tribes. Professionally, he is a high school teacher and also serves as a teacher coach in his school commu-nity as well.  He earned a master’s degree from Brigham Young University.  

In his youth Alan primarily used drawing and painting as his preferred media for his artistic expression, but as he has grown older he has learned the traditional Native American arts of beading and porcupine quillwork. He makes and sells jewelry and also makes pow wow regalia for his family’s personal use in their cultural practice. 

Before contact with Europeans, Native Americans used natural media for their art and using porcupine quills was a very common practice.  This changed after contact with Europeans because trading offered them other materials to use.  The Utes were one of the first tribes to have horses which allowed them to trade for glass beads early on.  Today, Utes are known for their intricate beadwork us-ing glass seed beads. 

As a teacher and an artist, Alan implements ideas from Native American culture and art in his classroom.  He strongly believes exposure to a broad variety of per-spectives will help our youth deal with the global issues that they will face.   

Available for: 

Art workshops (children and adult) with Native American groups, Secondary education cultural training and Native American curriculum integration