There have already been accusations of fraudulent behavior following Kay LeClaire as she has been showing off her intricate bead and basket work on Etsy and on social media over the past two years. The posts described “visions” and dreams that led the Wisconsin artist – who identifies as non-binary and Native American – to create elaborate artworks.
But greater than once, the true creators of the work have come forward to take ownership of the pieces that LeClaire, 28, was attempting to usurp, said a Native American administrator who has known LeClaire since 2020.
“[LeClaire] they portrayed human handicrafts as their very own and made up visionary stories,” said Jon Greendeer, health and wellness coordinator at Ho-Chunk Nation in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. “In this fashion, they did more damage than all of the European colonizers within the old days.”
This week, LeClaire – who since 2017 has claimed to be of Metis, Oneida, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Cuban and Jewish descent – was accused on a web-based forum of being white, Madison365 reported on Tuesday.
Greendeer, former president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, a tribe of greater than 8,000 people, told The Post that members of his community were shocked by LeClaire, who wrote research papers and spoke at conferences, complaining about appropriation of indigenous culture in community events in Madison and elsewhere state.
LeClaire, who identified as “two spirits” – a term many Indigenous people use to explain a non-binary gender identity – also had a paid residency on the University of Wisconsin and board membership on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force on the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The group is working to finish abductions and killings of indigenous women within the state.
“I believe it was incredibly deceptive,” Greendeer told The Post of LeClaire. “They were targeting the identical people they were attempting to lift… I can only think they’ve serious mental health issues.”
Greendeer said that along with lying about native craftsmanship, LeClaire claimed to have worked tanning animal skins. but green, experienced tannerknew that LeClaire had no experience. The 2 met when LeClaire approached Greendeer for leather scraps for an art project they said they were working on.
“I’ve never seen them working on any type of art project,” he said.
In response to Greendeer, LeClaire was capable of pass as Native American by profiting from the “friendly and open” nature of Wisconsin’s indigenous communities.
“They fooled a variety of people regardless that a variety of what they said was Google and Wikipedia knowledge,” Greendeer said. “They were champions when it suited them, but they created a house of cards.”
This house of cards began to disintegrate just a few years ago when LeClaire helped found a collective, often called giige, of Native American tattoo artists in Madison.
“Evidence has come to light showing that Kay LeClaire has made false claims regarding their heritage, art and standing locally,” Giige said in a press release. Instagram page, published on Tuesday. “It’s with great relief and a legal feat behind the scenes that the Giige team publicizes our parting ways with co-founder Kay LeClaire, effective 12/31/2022.”
“They were a financial drain for us,” Nipinet Landsem, a member of the giige collective, told The Post Wednesday of LeClaire. “We paid them and so they didn’t come to work.”
LeClaire reportedly earned $750 per week for administrative work for the group, not counting selling jewelry or handicrafts.
LeClaire didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Wednesday. They apologized in a press release to Madison365 earlier this week.
“A variety of information has come to my attention for the reason that end of December,” LeClaire said. “I’m still processing all this and I do not know the way to react properly yet. What I can do now could be change the offer. Going forward, my efforts will likely be directed at harm reduction by following guidance provided by members of the indigenous community and community-determined proxies. This currently signifies that I’m not using my Ojibwe name and am removing myself from all social spaces, positions, projects and grants and is not going to seek recent ones. Any cultural items I own are redistributed back to the community…”
The artist, who was one in all the unique founders of the group, worked as an administrative assistant and event planner but didn’t work on any tattoos, Landsem told The Post.
Landsem said the employment problems at LeClaire got here before the recent revelations that LeClaire is white.
“We have already been mediating with them,” Landsem said, adding that giige members had been attempting to remove LeClaire from their group since October.
“They were aggressive, very hard to work with and all the time played the victim,” Landsem said of LeClaire. “They were excellent at making everyone feel bad. I cannot stress enough how good liars they’re. That is someone who is amazingly intentional.”
Landsem told The Post they found LeClaire’s alleged duplicity when a client of Giige got here forward after seeing a November blog post about LeClaire’s past. “Fraud Alert” on a page called newagefraud, which has since been removed, notes that LeClaire “fabricated and perpetuated a false identity and fraudulently resold other artists’ crafts as his own, directly violating the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act.”
Kay LeClaire, also often called Kathryn LeClaire and Katie LeClaire, is married to Adam Pagenkopf, a research specialist on the University of Wisconsin who graduated with a level in biochemistry in 2014. LinkedIn profile. The couple have been married since 2018, Landsem said, adding that she had not spoken to LeClaire since news of their alleged duplicity went viral earlier this week.
Was Kay married? Greendeer said. “It just shows that I do not know anything anymore.” None of us knew who Kay LeClaire was. I do not know what they said they did and what they really did.”
He said there was no such remorse for Greendeer and others to bring LeClaire back to the Native American community she was attempting to defraud. “Reconciliation is unattainable,” he said. “They’ve lost the religion of the community.”
LeClaire’s situation resembles that of Carrie Bourassa, a professor on the University of Saskatchewan who posed as an Inuit and a member of Canadian First Nations for many years until she was exposed by Canadian reporters last 12 months.