![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/31101747\/IMG_4870-1110x1412.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCraig Stone can still remember the intricate beading his grandfather adorned his riding gloves with, the ones he can still picture wearing as they rode horseback together when he was a child.<\/p>\n
The gloves were passed down to him to wear and dance in at one of the first Pow Wow celebrations held at Cal State Long Beach, destined to become the largest, longest standing American Indian gathering in Southern California.<\/p>\n
So Stone has history\u2014personal history\u2014with the event. Still, the American Indian Studies Program director and celebrated local artist didn\u2019t hesitate when it came to postponing the 50th Annual Pow Wow at Puvungna earlier this month. The postponement, of course, came about because of the possible spread of coronavirus which, for Stone, posed a threat to his community\u2019s most revered resource: its elders.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing an elder, well that\u2019s like losing a library,\u201d Stone said. \u201cYou lose all kinds of things like language, culture and wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cultural gathering was moved to Nov. 7 and 8 when Stone will officially be retired. He is set to hang up his 39 years of teaching in the university\u2019s School of Art and American Indian Studies Program this summer, but his legacy with the campus spans almost as long as the Pow Wow itself.<\/p>\n
Although he will stay on part-time as program director and Pow Wow advisor for the next five years, Stone will no longer teach the classes that have inspired students for decades.<\/p>\n
From activism to mentorship\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Stone, a longtime fixture at the institution, knows the campus community and its history well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always say he gives the winter count when he tells you about someone,\u201d said Professor Theresa Gregor, the program\u2019s first tenure track hire since the 1970s. \u201cHe starts almost from the beginning of time when he meets that person and then brings your forward into the contemporary moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s verbally through his lectures or visually through his work as a public artist, Stone is a storyteller at heart, something he picked up from his grandparents.\u00a0There\u2019s a forbearing gentleness to his voice with each story he tells, whether it\u2019s about how he met his wife on campus or a brief rundown of his favorite classes he\u2019s taught over the years, he prescribes meticulous detail to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s our historical memory for the program,\u201d Gregor said. \u201cHe\u2019s that figure that we revere in our community and to have that in our institution is really valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
His office is a miniature museum of campus history and items of American Indian heritage. The space is decorated in warm hues and painted red walls, similar to the colors that make up his American Indian regalia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat book right there is one of the first books to discuss homosexuality in American Indian culture,\u201d Stone said, indicating toward a large bookcase filled with American Indian art books and literature. \u201cI did the illustration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stone first set foot on campus as a teenager in the mid-1970s to perform in Pow Wow, back when the event was just a few dozen people.<\/p>\n
\u201cPow Wow used to happen in that little triangle of grass right there,\u201d Stone said, gesturing out the large window of his office, to a small area in the middle of the quad.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shortly after, he was recruited by American Indian Studies and enrolled as an art student. He graduated three times, first in 1978 with a bachelor\u2019s degree, second in 1980 with a master\u2019s degree and again in 1989, earning his MFA.<\/p>\n
He was hired by the university in 1981 as a professor, so he\u2019s never really left.<\/p>\n
He met his wife, Laura Imagawa Stone, on campus back then. She has contributed to the Pow Wow since she began working on the campus in 1980 as a clerical assistant in the University Library. Their daughter, who now lives in Sweden, also graduated from CSULB.<\/p>\n
But Stone\u2019s influence as an artist can be found in several corners of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
From the shadowcast pieces on Belmont Shore’s sidewalks and the first block of the downtown Promenade to the experimental hilltop perspective project, \u201cEarth Upon Water,\u201d at the top of Signal Hill, Stone creates multi-layered imagery that connects people to nature and to each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it\u2019s art, Native American studies or Pow Wow, he connects people,\u201d said Marcel Young, a 2014 CSULB graduate, and one of Stone\u2019s former students.<\/p>\n
Stone has been described by many as a calming voice of diplomacy, acting as a bridge to connect differing ideals and people between the two colleges he\u2019s tenured in, the College of Art and the College of Liberal Arts.<\/p>\n
American Indian Studies, currently offered as a minor, has grown from the days when it was merely a certificate program and Stone has been at the forefront of that growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always trying to build bridges wherever possible and remind people about the history of activism and the importance of these programs,\u201d Gregor said. \u201cHe\u2019s withstood changes and the shrinking of a program that he has fought to restore.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an advisor to the Pow Wow for the last 30 years and a prolific commissioned public artist in Long Beach, Stone says he\u2019s constantly working to bring people together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe philosophy between Pow Wow and the concepts I use in public art are similar,\u201d Stone said. \u201cYou have all these people coming together around a shared idea, that we\u2019re all related in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while Stone is looked up to as a wise mentor, he says it took the influence of his own mentors to develop this standing in the community.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/31101859\/CraigStone-CSULB-scaled.jpg\")