Alexis Clifton

My name is Alexis Clifton, and I’m a Native artist and writer who was southwest born and lakeside raised. As a creative person I try to carry my heritage into both the centers and margins of everything I do, using it as the framework and context of poems, paintings and more.

In past work, I’ve been published for creative writing pieces (poems, fiction, etc.) in magazines like The Amazine, Bending Genres and more. I was also part of a Indigenous writing collective called The Beauty All Around Us and have had paintings featured in editions of Celebrating Art.

This piece, which I’ve dubbed ‘that which runs through our veins,’ is focused on peyote, a ceremonial plant that is used in my culture as well as many others across Indian Country. Because of the recent loss due to commercialization and collection by psychedelic enthusiasts, peyote has become endangered in the southwest, and has become harder and harder to keep sacred as it becomes scarce to our land. Peyote is sacred to me not just because of it’s integral ceremonial meaning and value, but because of it’s resistance alongside as post-colonialism — here despite it all.