Meet Indigenous Artist HarmonyStar Straub at Colter Bay!

Join us June 16–22 at the Colter Bay Visitor Center for the Indigenous Arts & Cultural Demonstration Program featuring HarmonyStar Straub, an Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne artist who enrolled in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and currently resides in western Nebraska.

Harmony has been sewing and beading for over 36 years, a practice she learned from her grandmother. Harmony is an educator, a mentor, an artist, a seamstress, and an international fashion designer. She works with a suicide prevention program for Native American youth, where they use cultural preservation as a tool to combat the epidemic of suicide on reservations and within Native communities. As a fashion designer, Harmony has had the privilege of showcasing her work across the country and internationally.

 Special Evening Program 

Join Harmony to learn about native culture through the art of quillworking and beadworking!

 Saturday, June 20
 8:00 PM
 Colter Bay Amphitheater

Come experience Indigenous art, culture, and storytelling in the heart of Grand Teton National Park. For more information and a full schedule of artists, visit: Indigenous Arts and Cultural Demonstration Program.

Artist Biography:

HarmonyStar Straub is Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, enrolled in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and currently residing in western Nebraska. Harmony has been sewing and beading for over 36 years, a tradition she was fortunate to learn from her grandmother.

Being born with weak lungs, meant she couldn’t play outside or do many of the things her siblings did. Instead, Harmony’s grandmother sat her at her table and taught her how to sew and bead—her way. She never used patterns, only her hands, fingers, and keen eye for measurement. Harmony has continued her tradition, working without patterns and measuring with the same intuitive methods her grandmother passed down.

Harmony vividly remembers her grandmother saying, “I am teaching you this because someday I will be gone, and if I don’t teach you, no one else will-” a sentiment that hit hard when she passed away. The weight of her words became even clearer when Harmony battled COVID a few years ago. Harmony realized that she carries her grandmother’s knowledge, and now it’s her turn to share it.

Today, Harmony is an educator, a mentor, an artist, a seamstress, and an international fashion designer. She works with a suicide prevention program for Native American youth, where they use cultural preservation as a tool to combat the epidemic of suicide on reservations and within Native communities.

As a fashion designer, Harmony has had the privilege of showcasing her work across the country and internationally. This year alone, she’s shown at New York Fashion Week, in Canada, and in Lincoln, Nebraska—with more shows to come in Utah, Georgia, Ohio, South Dakota, and beyond.

Despite all the exciting travel, what Harmony loves most is being an artist in different places—especially in the Grand Teton and Yellowstone areas. These landscapes inspire her, and being able to share a piece of herself—and her grandmother’s legacy—with others along the way is deeply meaningful. It is Harmony’s mission to ensure her grandmother’s knowledge doesn’t end with her, and she is grateful to now be able to pass it on to her niece, who joins her on many of these journeys.