{"id":19130,"date":"2026-02-02T07:08:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=19130"},"modified":"2026-02-01T15:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T20:08:27","slug":"rooted-in-tradition-driven-by-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2026\/02\/02\/rooted-in-tradition-driven-by-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooted in Tradition, Driven by Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Janaya Jones \u201926 remembers the car rides from her hometown of Syracuse to Hamilton every fall, starting when she was 8 years old, to sell art with her mom at the Native American Arts and Culture Festival in Colgate\u2019s Sanford Field House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved the open land along the drive and the towns we would pass through,\u201d Jones says. \u201cThe peacefulness of the ride was something I cherished.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones has gone from spending one day a year at Colgate as a vendor to a full academic year as a student. (The event itself has also undergone some updates, including a new name: the Indigenous Nations Festival.) Now both the campus and the faces Jones encountered at the festival throughout the years are part of her everyday life \u2014 including her thesis adviser, Professor Chris Vecsey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was pleased when I learned in fall 2022 that Janaya had begun matriculation at Colgate and even more pleased in 2024 when I heard that she had declared a Native American studies major,\u201d says Vecsey, the Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the humanities and Native American studies. \u201cWhat a fine student: conscientious, discerning, original in her analytics, and elegant in her writing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones\u2019 senior thesis is on medicinal plants \u2014 a subject she\u2019s also known since childhood. She\u2019s presenting a historical framework paired with current lab research using yarrow, a flowering plant. \u201cThe way the Natives will use it is they\u2019ll boil it, and my family does this, too \u2014 make teas out of certain plants,\u201d says Jones, who is of the Oneida Nation. \u201cMy mom would say, \u2018Go get the peppermint\u2026 You\u2019re getting a cold. We need to make a tea.\u2019 I\u2019d run outside and bring it in. I\u2019m very used to collecting and using plants when they\u2019re needed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the lab, she is using a Soxhlet apparatus to extract compounds from yarrow while carefully collecting the steam. Jones then takes the plant\u2019s concentrated extract and adds a sample to a spot plate containing the specific bacteria she is studying. She compares this plate with a control sample treated with an antibiotic. \u201cI\u2019m trying to test if yarrow can inhibit the bacteria\u2019s growth as the antibiotic does,\u201d explains Jones who, at press time, was too early in her research to report results. \u201cIt is truly a blessing to combine my research in the lab with what I have enjoyed learning from my family for years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a second major in biology, she\u2019s well-versed in lab work and finds overlap in her two concentrations. For her biology major, Jones is doing a research tutorial with Professor Ken Belanger, looking at the health of the gut microbiome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Colgate Jones hopes to work in a lab doing clinical research. \u201cI enjoy the aspect of working with people and collaborating on projects,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I also like to combine that with research at the bench.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as knowledge of medicinal plants has carried through the generations of Jones\u2019 family, so too have artistic talents. \u201cIt\u2019s a family blessing and gift that\u2019s been passed down,\u201d Jones says. Her grandfather was a wood-carver, using sticks he\u2019d find on the ground. \u201cMy mom said it was his way to bring life into the sticks again after they\u2019d fallen,\u201d Jones says. Her mom, meanwhile, is a painter and silversmith. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Pebble<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Jones\u2019 chosen mediums are painting and creating pebble art. The inclination to work with stones came naturally to Jones, who was part of a gem and mineral club at a very young age. She started collecting pebbles at her aunt\u2019s house on Skaneateles Lake and making little pictures out of them. Throughout the years she\u2019s refined her craft, using repurposed natural stone tiles as her background and \u201ca super-secret\u201d adhesive. \u201cI don\u2019t want people to know exactly what it is because it took me so long to figure out what works,\u201d she notes. The final products are simple but sweet portrayals: families, love birds, a hiker, a lacrosse player. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t go into it thinking about what I want to make; I look at the stones and see what they look like,\u201d says Jones, who sells her creations under the name Janaya Skye Pebble Art. \u201cI think it\u2019s a lot more meaningful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones has taken on additional responsibilities for the annual Colgate festival, starting as a first-year when she helped revive the event following its hiatus during the pandemic. As a member of the Native American Student Association (of which she is currently treasurer), she\u2019s also been involved in other efforts such as advertising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, though, she focused on preparing her art for the show and spending time with her mom. \u201cI love being able to see my mom. We\u2019ve been doing it together for so long, and especially now that I\u2019m getting older, it\u2019s nice to be able to have that thing with my mom that we\u2019ve always done.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her other favorite part of the festival is seeing the people she\u2019s known throughout the years and meeting new ones. \u201cI enjoy hearing people\u2019s stories,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd what I really like is when my art touches someone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janaya Jones \u201926 began her Colgate experiences as a child selling art with her mom at the Native American Arts and Culture Festival. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":20093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[3244,3245,3248,428,3247,3246],"coauthors":[388],"class_list":["post-19130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scene","tag-art-and-cultural-tradition","tag-indigenous-knowledge-and-research","tag-medicinal-plants-research","tag-native-american-studies","tag-oneida-nation-heritage","tag-undergraduate-research"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4Yy","amp_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/01\/scene-rooted-featured-v4.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19130"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19712,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19130\/revisions\/19712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19130"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}