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Wobliheca – “Energy to Create”
Tosa Two Heart – Graphic Artist

EXHIBIT February 14 – May 10, 2024
RECEPTION March 2 from  2 – 4pm

Artist Website →

Fashion Art Workshop Registration →

Wobliheca pronounced
Tosa Two Heart's design on male model. Two depictions of jacket worn by man in outdoor settings. Figure on right shows red sleeve with star designs, on right with focus on back front with designs and blue shirt with yellow designs.

Artist Statement

I like to feel comfortable, expressive, and happy wearing clothes I like. Sometimes, what I or others want to wear does not exist, so I create what I like. The aesthetics of my art are a composition of Lakota geometric designs with a futuristic view. I design everyday clothes for the ikce oyate (everyday people). My pieces are meant to be striking and bold yet simple and clean, not to overload the senses. Less is more to appreciate and soak in.

My Lakota heritage and the designs our ancestors used to get inspiration. I weave a snapshot of my life into each design, like an addition to a winter count where each design has a story. I then compose these designs to be printed on clothing. When composing my digital graphic designs on apparel, I consider the location and look of the design on the body.

Each piece in this exhibit is unique in that these pieces will not be mass reproduced. The pieces in this exhibit feature elements of hail stones, elk teeth (or cats), morning stars, animal vertebrae, and rolling hills. Wobliheca means to create. These are my creations, and I hope that you enjoy viewing them.
– Lila Pilamaya (Thank you very much)

Tosa Two Heart portrait in black and white with one of her fabric designs in the background. She is wearing a blouse made of fabric with her original design on it.(Polka dots, triangles, and lines).
Tosa Two Heart, Textile Artist

Artist Bio

Tosa is an ikce winyan, an ordinary woman. She is Oglala Lakota and is an enrolled member in the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Tosa was born and raised in the Pine Ridge Reservation. She is a local artist to He Sapa ( Rapid City, South Dakota). She has been creative since her first memories. She has worked with various mediums and has won first-place awards multiple times in the Heard Museum Student Art Show as a high school student artist.

Tosa grew up with the limitations of poverty but worked hard in her professional endeavors and during college to pursue a higher quality of life. Her time in undergraduate and graduate studies has exposed her to wonderful worlds different from the reservation life she grew up in. If anything, her adventures across the country and internationally, have only made her more appreciative of her beautiful and authentic Lakota culture and sacred homelands of the Black Hills. Tosa received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology degree from UCLA and completed her graduate studies at a private school in Massachusetts.

A UCLA alum and a Bentley University Master of Business Administration graduate, she decided to pursue her lifelong fashion interests by opening an online shop in the summer of 2017. Her aesthetic is of Lakota traditional designs with bold colors and composition. Her fashion has been featured in various fashion shows throughout the years. Her designs have been modeled in Native Max Magazine and the Hamiinat magazine. Tosa has participated in various local fashion shows, helped coordinate the Native POP Fashion Show for several years, and was honored to be invited by high-profile fashion designer Rebekah Jarvey to participate in the 2022 Honor Our Legacy Fashion Show. In 2023, Tosa was a fashion consultant for Wicoun, play by Larissa Fast Horse with Cornerstone Theatre.

Thanks to the Blandin Foundation and the McKnight Foundation for their support of programming in the Miikanan Gallery.

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