Born in Texas, I am both Cherokee and Irish, and my art displays influences from both my Native American background and from my Irish 'high church' background. I was lucky to be nurtured in a home that both respected, encouraged and produced artwork--both fine and performing art--as well as to live in communities where art was the rule of the day rather than the exception. If my father wasn't doing pen and ink or woodcarving, my mother was encouraging dance and my step-mom was busy encouraging me in textile arts and painting as she produced artwork looking back on her life in Berlin before whe immigrated to the U.S.A.

My hometowns of Ft. Worth, Texas and Muskogee, Oklahoma were deeply rooted in the frontier spirit, and even though I've progressed beyond the Western style, the frontier mentality of exploration and not shaving off all the wild growth tends to haunt my work. While I was attending school, I can't tell you how many times I got lectures and belts across my rear when I doodled up all my school notebooks.

Growing up, I didn't realize that what I was raised in was a Cherokee Traditionalist household. After all, my father was a Baptist preacher (not practicing all the time, except for the occasional guest sermon at a local church) and my Mom and stepmothers were very church-oriented. But it's what it was. Words that, to my ears, were 'Slaw' or "See yall" were in fact names like 'Saloli' and phrases like "Osdah". We didn't attend stomp dances, but they did brave the occasional pow wow, and they made sure that I met people who knew the old stories and were steeped in the real Cherokee culture instead of what you found in knock-offs everywhere. So, when I started reclaiming my Native American heritage and began making medicine wheels, medicine shields, dream catchers and medicine bags, it was like coming home again.

The current purist trend in Cherokee art, that we should only explore those arts that Cherokees traditionally used like pottery, painting, beadwork and such to the exclusion of making dreamcatchers and so forth because those art forms originated with other tribes never served to daunt me from making them. After all, all the tribes came together here in Oklahoma, and there was a lot of borrowing going on. Also, it is the role of the artist not only to preserve the traditional forms, but to explore new ways of communicating and passing art forward using other, newly introduced forms and newly developed methods of creating art. If we had not done so, the watercolors of Cecil Dick and the oils of Joan Hill would never have been created. We'd all be weaving baskets and playing with mud. I say this with all love for my tribe and respect for the tribe's Arts and Crafts Act which closely mirrors, but is more stringent than, the Native American Arts and Crafts Act. Just like the updating of our language from something that dang near died out somewhile back into a re-emerging language, we need to update what we consider to be 'Cherokee' art as well, with an eye toward inclusion.

I consider myself very fortunate to come from what others may consider to be a broken home. Yeah, my parents divorced when I was quite young, but both my parents and those that they subsequently married were involved in the arts.

My mother was involved in dance and daydreamed about the day that I would be dancing under stage lights. That day never occurred, but I have helped design stage sets and run lights for those who were, in fact, dancing under those stage lights.

My father was an exquisite songwriter, pen and ink artist, and woodworker/woodcarver that also dabbled in making operational mobiles that worked using wind power. Wind power is everywhere in Oklahoma, so we had a lot of geese in our yard with propellers on their bills and wings. He also used to make miniature totem poles to put in potted plants that drew upon his life in and around Seattle, Washington.

My stepmom came from Berlin with a love of leather and of painting using watercolor, acrylic and oil. She even painted the big entrance sign that used to lead the way into Sequoyah State Park using a local postcard as the master image.

I've been lucky to see my writings in print, and now that I've picked up the paints and inks again, I'm fortunate to have been so readily accepted.

My Cherokee dreamcatchers and leather-and-bead jewelry have quite a following already, and my paintings have already been displayed in a number of shows, even winning the 2008 Tulsa PPD Art Show for my peice entitled "Dormition of the Black Madonna". I have also just recently had my first small installation at the Alisee Momo in Tulsa, OK, and have received very good reviews on my work from those who have had the pleasure of viewing it.

I look forward to creating more to share with all of you, and hope that my art inspires each of you to either bring art into your homes and businesses or inspire you to create art of your own.

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