WINTER 2024
A PUBLICATION OF THE OKLAHOMA VISUAL ARTS COALITION
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CONTENTS // Volume 39 No. 1 // Winter 2024
4 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR JOHN SELVIDGE
IN THE STUDIO // 6 Green A Studios Sounds the Alarm SALLIE CARY GARDNER
REVIEW Any Color You Like // 10 Paul Reed: Works on Paper at OKCMOA KIM BASTIAN
FEATURE Keeper of the Fire // 14 An Appreciation of Benjamin Harjo, Jr. KRISTIN GENTRY
PREVIEW Joyful Returns // 18 Hattie Lee Mendoza at OSU’s Gardiner Gallery EMILY CHRISTENSEN
PREVIEW Western Echoes // 22 Cowboys and Indians at JRB Art at the Elms RYANN BEE GORDON
ON THE COVER // Benjamin Harjo, Jr., Grace in Beauty, 2021, gouache on paper, 10” x 14”, page 14; MIDDLE // Paul Reed, 11 30 89 9, 1989, gouache on two sheets of paper (diptych), 12” × 9” | Oklahoma City Museum of Art, page 10; BOT TOM // Hattie Lee Mendoza, Everyday Caution, 2022, mixed media, 11.50” x 10.50” x 0.75”, page 18 Support from:
Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition PHONE: 405.879.2400 1720 N Shartel Ave, Ste B, Oklahoma City, OK 73103. Web // ovac-ok.org Executive Director // Rebecca Kinslow, rebecca@ovac-ok.org Editor // John Selvidge, johnmselvidge@outlook.com Art Director // Anne Richardson, speccreative@gmail.com Art Focus is a quarterly publication of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition dedicated to stimulating insight into and providing current information about the visual arts in Oklahoma. Mission: Growing and developing Oklahoma’s visual arts through education, promotion, connection, and funding. OVAC welcomes article submissions related to artists and art in Oklahoma. Call or email the editor for guidelines. OVAC welcomes comments. Letters addressed to Art Focus are considered for publication unless otherwise specified. Mail or email comments to the editor at the address above. Letters may be edited for clarity or space reasons. Anonymous letters won’t be published. Please include a phone number.
2023-2024 BOARD OF DIRECTORS // Douglas Sorocco, President, OKC; Jon Fisher, Vice President OKC; Diane Salamon, Treasurer, Tulsa; Matthew Anderson, Secretary, Tahlequah; Jacquelyn Knapp, Parliamentarian, Chickasha; Marjorie Atwood, Tulsa; Barbara Gabel, OKC; Farooq Karim, OKC; Kathryn Kenney, Tulsa; John Marshall, OKC; Kirsten Olds, Tulsa; Russ Teubner, Stillwater; Chris Winland, OKC The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition is solely responsible for the contents of Art Focus. However, the views expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Board or OVAC staff. Member Agency of Allied Arts and member of the Americans for the Arts. © 2024, Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. All rights reserved. View the online archive at ArtFocusOklahoma.org.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
I recently heard a radio talk-show host remark on something that was puzzling her: so many of her friends professed pessimism about our times, swearing up and down that the world was going to hell. It can be hard to disagree, but it’s interesting that, when pressed, these same friends admitted their own lives had never been better. For me, this observation cut dramatically across the grain and set me thinking about art and artists and what they do. Admittedly, there’s much about the world as it is, as we receive it each day through our news media and the pained shrugs of our friends and colleagues, that seems like a total trainwreck. From this angle, our world often looks like a spectacle so idiotic that to call it a “clown show” would be ungenerous to clowns. But the world-as-given need not be our world entire. Like artists, we spend time creating our own worlds, leaning into a realm of possibility that can help us sidestep or transcend the other’s bleakness. Through the artful choices we make in our lives, how we populate our worlds defines us. That existential fact makes all the more inspiring an account of a life well-lived, such as the one ROBIN CHASE
Kristin Gentry gives us in this issue of renowned artist and singular worldbuilder Benjamin Harjo, Jr., departed only months ago in 2023 (p. 14). That’s also true for Kim Bastian’s multichromatic take on relentless innovator Paul Reed’s horizon-expanding work (p. 10), now on view at OKCMOA. Further, Emily Christensen shows us how, through a variety of mixed-media works and engagements with family history, Hattie Lee Mendoza consistently stakes her claim on choosing joy (p. 18), Ryann Bee Gordon explores how painter Mike Larsen and fellow travelers at JRB figure contrasting Western legacies (p. 22), and Sallie Cary Gardner’s interview with Green A Studios (p. 6) lays bare the duo’s commitment to ecological conscience as they expose how, as a species, we are more literally populating (or depopulating) our world. 2024 is already shaping up to be a doozy. What strange new world(s) will we create? Which can we? Which must we?
—John Selvidge
JOHN SELVIDGE is an award-winning screenwriter who works for a humanitarian nonprofit organization in Oklahoma City while maintaining freelance and creative projects on the side. He was selected for OVAC’s Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship in 2018. 4
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IN THE STUDIO // GREEN A STUDIOS SOUNDS THE ALARM by Sallie Cary Gardner
Given the educational thrust of Christyn Overstake’s and Robin
Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. The turtles had almost quit south
Baker’s work, it’s no surprise that the two are professors. The
Texas in the mid-eighties, then a researcher for the National
surprise is that they teach art, not science. Every element
Parks Service got a grant to start a conservation program
of their recent exhibition Decimation at the Tulsa Artists’
and get the turtles to return to the same beach and imprint
Coalition taught a lesson, from models of molecules to cast-
them to that location. We got interested because we lived
iron replicas of animal skulls. And the lessons, like the duo’s
there.
artwork, are multi-layered—most often explorations of animal species nearing extinction or those already extinct due to
What gave you the idea to replicate the skulls for species
adverse human behavior. For example, in Despeciation Study,
headed for extinction?
Vulnerable: Polar Bear, the bear-skull replicas are cast in
The skulls tell a story that is relatable and tangible. We
iron because advances in iron production were central to the Industrial Revolution, the historical forerunner of the climate change that now threatens polar bears.
are both passionate about the role of art in society, as well as what technology can do and can mean. Science is often about data. There are endless lists of numbers, and with
The artists have made art together since 2014 and now work as
them, a lot of people lose their emotional connection to
a collaboration they call “Green A Studios.” Years of passionate
environmental issues. But something art and sculpture can
environmentalism have led to their current artistic practice:
do really well is tell stories.
creating metal replicas of the skulls of extinct or endangered animal species, and then displaying them with reference to the
How do you choose the animals for the skulls you replicate?
activity that jeopardizes or has already fatally compromised
First, we have to do a 3D scan because if we used a
their existence. Speaking with a collective voice, as they most
traditional method of casting a skull, we would lose a
often do in this interview, Overstake and Baker have said that
priceless artifact. Skulls are really, really precious. Normally
“the decimation of diverse life on our planet is a crisis—as well
when people do this kind of work, they burn out the bone
as a challenge to process and contextualize in its scale and
and priceless specimens are destroyed. That led us to
scope.”
discuss using 3D printing to make molds from skulls. So we pick the animals based on getting 3D prints of them. We are
How did two artists become interested in extinction and
constantly looking at the IUCN (International Union for the
despeciation?
Conservation of Nature) Red List.
We both were interested in environmental issues when we met in grad school at Texas A&M in Corpus Christi. The day
What is an example of a 3D scan you found on the Red List?
after graduation, we went to a dawn hatching release of the
Martha. Martha is the name of the last passenger pigeon
OPPOSITE // Green A Studios; Despeciation Study, Critical: Kemps Ridley Sea Turtle. Habitat Destruction, Commercial Fishing, 2021; cast bronze, aluminum, fishing net, hydrophone audio: 120” x 60” x 40”, as exhibited at Tulsa Artists’ Gallery | Colleen Stiles
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IN THE STUDIO
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Green A Studios; Extinction Study, Documented: Martha, Human Consumption (detail); 2017; cast bronze, aluminum, and string | Robin Baker
that ever existed. She died in the Cincinnati Zoo on Dec.
perpetuated by human activities. What is one of the most
1, 1914. The Smithsonian preserved her skull. They lent it
interesting conversations you’ve had about that?
to Virginia Commonwealth University, and VCU made a 3D
At the exhibit in Tulsa, I talked to a young man who was
scan and put it online. We were searching for 3D scans of
wearing a motorcycle jacket covered in patches from oil
extinct species, and we lucked into it.
companies. He said he’d never thought about endangered species before. We get comments from people who have
Could you describe the process of replicating the skulls that
said they’ve never thought about the issues in such a
you make?
direct way.
We make a 3D print primarily using a plastic called PLA. We clean it up, and then it can go one of two ways: we
Robin, what were some of the influences that led you into
can either make a rubber mold and cast wax copies, or
environmentalism?
invest (i.e., make a mold around) the 3D print itself. For
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew its cap and leaked
investments, we use a ceramic shell mold. Then we melt
oil into the Gulf of Mexico for five months in 2010, and the
out either the wax or the PLA to cast the metal into the
cleanup was questionable. I’m from Kentucky, which is very
shell. The next step is to pour molten bronze into the shell.
green, but driving to campus in Corpus Christi, you drive by five oil refineries. I also got my unofficial education
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With your most recent show Decimation, you said your goal
in environmentalism from Christyn. I went from mildly
was to expand conversation about current extinction events
concerned to deeply committed.
IN THE STUDIO
ABOVE LEFT // Green A Studios, Despeciation Study, Critical: Hawksbill Sea Turtle. Designer. Fashion, Commercial Fishing, 2019, cast bronze, porcelain; 6” x 20” x 12” I Colleen Stiles; ABOVE RIGHT // Robin Baker and Christyn Overstake of Green A Studios | Jacob Titus; MIDDLE RIGHT // Green A Studios, Extinction Study, Documented: Martha, Human Consumption, 2017, cast bronze, 20 gauge shotgun shells, 120” x 36” x 10” | Colleen Stiles; BOTTOM RIGHT // Green A Studios, Despeciation Study, Vulnerable: Polar Bear. Loss of Sea Ice due to Climate Change, 2023, cast bronze, found object, 48” x 30” x 30” I Colleen Stiles
Finally, what does the A in Green A Studios stand for? We went through a lot of titles and tried a lot of words. The A could be for artists, or it could be for activists, or other things, but we primarily just liked the sound of it.
To learn more about Overstake and Baker’s work together, visit greenastudios.com. You can also watch a video of Green A Studio’s Decimation exhibition, hosted by the Tulsa Artists’ Coalition in November 2023, at tacgallery.org/ november-2023.
SALLIE CARY GARDNER is retired from a long career in writing and public relations. Her assemblage art was featured in Reflections, a group show at the TAC Gallery in March. 9
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ANY COLOR YOU LIKE // PAUL REED: WORKS ON PAPER AT OKCMOA by Kim Bastian
A true artist or poet is nothing less than an eloquent
Matisse exhibition in 2016. It’s hard to talk about Paul
commentator on their time. It is the duty of the artist to
Reed and his love affair with color without mentioning
engage the present moment in a way the non-artist may
Matisse and his dancing explorations of color and space,
not consider, to make viewers tilt their heads to the side
so it’s quite apt that Reed’s daughter felt moved enough by
and see the world in a way that they’d never really had
the Matisse exhibition to select OKCMOA as the definitive
the chance to.
home of her father’s work. Reed has pieces in several
Paul Reed was a prolific and ever-exploring artist on these terms and, most strikingly, his own. Most famous for his involvement in the Washington Color School, which grew out of the Color Field painting movement,
museums in Washington, D.C., including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, as well as museums throughout other metro cities in the U.S., but there’s no collection quite like the one entrusted to OKCMOA.
Reed worked among a group of loosely affiliated painters
Curator Jessica Provencher explained that she was able
in Washington, D.C., who made color the subject of their
to choose pieces from Reed’s work for the museum, and
art from the late 1950s into the 70s. Their experiments
she was careful to select work from each phase of his
with complex color arrangements as well as brushless
career. Provencher revealed to me that the museum is now
painting techniques, like pouring paint and soak-staining
putting together a major retrospective of Reed’s work, of
their canvases, expanded the range of modernist painting
which the 18 works in the current exhibition Paul Reed:
beyond Abstract Expressionism and helped usher in
Works on Paper can be considered a preview. Especially
Minimalism.
impressed by Reed’s shaped canvases, which Provencher
In Reed’s life and times, acrylic paints become widely available commercially, and he probed deeply into the
described as “unlike anything you’ve ever seen,”
she
believes that viewers will be surprised by them.
medium, applying them through various inventive methods
Provencher explained that, in the 60s, Reed fashioned
to his famously unprimed and often unstretched canvases.
these shaped works as parallelograms of unstretched
Well beyond his early years among his Washington Color
canvas, painted to create illusions of volume and depth.
School peers, he continued to school himself in technique,
The museum’s collection also includes Reed’s steel
color theory, and multiple artistic mediums throughout his
sculptures that Provencher described as interlocking,
life, even experimenting in steel sculpture. Writer David
biomorphic forms that, in contrast to most of Reed’s other
Gariff notes that Reed continued to make art at 91 years
work, are distinctly lacking in color.
old, five years before he died in 2015.
Several works in gouache from 1989, however, combine
His legacy reveals much to show for his lifetime of artistic
painting with printing to arrive at arrestingly vibrant
experimentation. The Paul and Esther Reed Trust gifted
patterns of color. Reed painted opaque watercolor, or
125 works of art to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art
gouache,onto sheets of plexiglass and then pressed
after Reed’s daughter, Jean Reed Roberts, saw OKCMOA’s
them onto paper to create inky impressions that are
OPPOSITE // Paul Reed, 9 11 89 1, 1989, gouache on two sheets of paper (diptych), 7 1/4” × 11” | Oklahoma City Museum of Art. All works reproduced are gifts of the Paul and Esther Reed Trust, ©Paul and Esther Reed Trust.
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ABOVE // Paul Reed, 5 26 86 4, 1986, gouache on paper with photographs, 20” x28” | Ben Murdaugh; LEFT // Paul Reed, 8 30 84 1 and 8 30 84 2A, 1984, ink and pastel on paper, each approximately 18” x 12”, as currently on display at OKCMOA | Kim Bastian
of OKC’s old industrial areas, especially since OKCMOA is just blocks away from a former Ford plant, and the no-nonsense titles of Reed’s works are often numerical dates that read like VIN numbers etched onto cars just off the assembly line. Our city’s do-it-yourself inventiveness and “Boomtown” sense of itself seems naturally paired with Reed’s hardworking spirit, prolific productivity, and sleeves-rolled-up determination. simply inimitable. In another series from the 80s, Reed plays with assemblages that marry his gouache prints with photographs to achieve interesting effects through their positioning, almost as if Reed is telling a linear story. It’s
collection feel at home here. Reed’s eye-popping, vivid color palette recalls for me early show fliers for OKC bands like the Flaming Lips, an association helped along by the
important to note that, early on, Reed was employed in the
sometimes peachy, even uterine motifs in his artwork, like in
graphics department of the Washington Times Herald. You
his gouache drawing 8 4 91. It’s easy to correlate the bright,
can see the influence that his work in ads and graphics
surprising bursts of sound that Lips songs embrace with the
lends to his stylistic choices, especially in a gouache-
dazzling color palettes Reed mastered. Even some of the Lips’
on-paper and photograph construction like 5 26 86 4.
forward-thinking lyricism seems to apply to Reed—that sense
To me, walking into OKCMOA’s Reed exhibit was like walking into an old friend’s studio space. Reed’s art is accessible in ways that make me think his work belongs in Oklahoma City. His stamped-via-plexiglass gouache prints remind me 12
My sense of his artistic innovation also helps Reed’s
REVIEW
of “forging for the future” in tracks like” Race For the Prize” and many others that express the band’s experimentalism and sometimes unabashed positivity. Indeed, Reed and his Color School peers helped blaze a trail away from the early Abstract Expressionists, with their dark, murky palettes and
Paul Reed, 8 4 91, 1991, gouache on two sheets of paper (diptych), 30” × 22” each | Ben Murdaugh
even darker postwar themes, to usher in a less cynical, more
extraordinary in the prosaic and to keep an eye out for the
liberated and playful movement.
pattern emerging.
Reed and the Washington Color School changed the D.C. art world forever, lent force to a national art movement, and spawned a vibrant second generation of Color Field painters and devotees. The absence of expressive brushstrokes took the focus of the artwork away from the painter and placed it
Paul Reed: Works on Paper will be on display at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art through January 28, 2024. For more information, visit okcmoa.com.
on the viewer’s experience. The artistic anonymity of Color Field painting played well alongside other experimental art movements like Minimalism and even Pop Art’s attempt to topple traditional fine art.
KIM BASTIAN is the author of the slice-of-life memoir
Provencher maintains that Reed’s work “represents one of
Forever Elko and has also published a collection of poetry—
the most important movements in OKCMOA’s collection.”
Mother Wound, Accidental Whore, and Other Musings—with a
She hopes that Paul Reed: Works on Paper will let museum
second volume in the works. She works as a freelance writer,
visitors get to know Reed while the museum plans its larger
social media specialist, and in various capacities in the
retrospective of his career. To me, Reed’s work is a reminder
film industry. This spring, Bastian is slated as an artist-in-
that we are perpetually on the brink of a new discovery,
residence for OKC nonprofit SixTwelve, where she will lead
maybe a new movement. It’s a reminder to look for the
after-school workshops in writing, poetry, and creativity. REVIEW
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KEEPER OF THE FIRE // AN APPRECIATION OF BENJAMIN HARJO, JR. by Kristin Gentry (Chahta Nation)
“I didn’t invent the color wheel. I just turned it in another direction.” Benjamin Harjo, Jr. (1945 – 2023) The fine arts community around the world suffered a deep
Indian’s Annual Aspen Benefit in 1992 as well as 1993, and
loss with the passing, this past May, of award-winning
was named the 2003 Red Earth Festival’s “Honored One.”
artist Benjamin Harjo, Jr. (Absentee Shawnee and Seminole
In 2012 he was inducted into the OSU Hall of Fame. The
Nations). The Oklahoma community, however, lost not just a
world took note of Benjamin Harjo, Jr., and hopefully they
great artist, but a mentor, dear friend, and much more. Many
will never look away.
artists have related how he loved to teach throughout his lifetime, how he mentored them, taught them as students, and influenced their careers. Indeed, Ben maintained it was part of his tribal culture to help others who came after him. Those who knew him well described his ornery and cheerful temperament. His joy and zest for a happy life went into his art, and Ben’s bright personality can be seen and felt in his work.
secures how he will be remembered as an artist. His skilled drafting abilities sustained his fifty-year fine arts career, and Ben’s use of vibrant colors, abstract patterning, and purposeful negative space in his compositions became a hallmark of his style. Much of Ben’s art can be characterized by abstracted imagery formed into representational iconography. When creating his artworks,
Ben was Absentee Shawnee from his mother’s side and
Ben often rotated the canvas as he worked until it became
Seminole from his father’s side. Born in New Mexico,
something defined and captivating, turning the abstract
he came to Oklahoma as a young boy to live with his
into something tangible. He approached his art not as
grandmother. Ben enjoyed spending time outdoors with his
fashioning an inanimate object, but as creating new life
sketchbooks and enjoyed drawing new things as he saw
within the materials.
them. He excelled in his art classes in high school, and, heavily influenced by his comic books, he originally strove to be a cartoonist. He went to art school at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, before returning to Stillwater to finish his arts degree at OSU with the help of a grant he received from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Drafted into the Vietnam war in 1969, he returned to finish his degree in 1974.
His 1989 ink painting Keeper of the Fire demonstrates his early engagement with 20th century art movements like cubism. This circular work depicts a human figure, only anchored by their face, watching a fire brought to life through abstracted planes of color in red, orange, and yellow flashes of flame. While he created several pieces like this, he is more well known for works that feature repeated geometric patterns. With Before the Tears, which dates to
Along the path of an illustrious career, he won the Gold
1995, we see how a sense of order and structure arises
Medal Award at the American Indian Cowboy Artists Show
from the repetitive pattern behind the main figure that
in 1990, was honored as the Heard Museum’s 34 Annual
is then complicated by the deployment of other patterns
Featured Artist in 1993 and then as the Featured Artist
throughout. Ben spoke about how repeated patterns can
at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American
signify the repetition of events and emotions as well as
th
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The level of craftsmanship Ben manifested in his work
F E AT U R E
Benjamin Harjo, Jr., Before the Tears, 1995, gouache on paper, 29” x 37” | Collection of Joe and Valerie Couch
emphasize important themes. Here, as in other artworks,
For First Americans in the U.S., there are cultural norms
visually striking patterns draw a viewer’s attention, and
for becoming a respected, professional fine artist. Ben
Harjo’s composition leverages its negative space to
succeeded in every single market winning innumerable
encourage the viewer’s imagination to fill in the gaps and
awards, museums purchased his work for permanent
complete the narrative of the piece in a way that makes the
collections, and he was represented in gallery spaces that
work’s enigmatic storytelling more memorable.
contemporary artists—whether First Americans or not—
Overall, Ben’s art style has had a significant influence on contemporary art, especially considering the well-known stereotype of First American art as limited to a flat, two-dimensional, and strictly representational approach
strive for. Ben surpassed the career heights established for Native artists work and landed firmly into the contemporary art world without needing to be supported only by First American institutions and organizations.
untouched by contemporary styles. Ben’s use of abstraction
In 2022, Ben was awarded the First Americans Museum
through color blocking, diffused perspectives, and pattern-
Award for Artistic Leadership. His art and mentorship have
as-composition defied the idea of First American art as
influenced many First American artists like printmaker
distinct and remote from contemporary art. He pushed
Marwin Begaye (Diné), painter Brent Greenwood (Ponca
back against what the mainstream art world thought First
and Chickasaw), fashion designer Orlando Dugi (Diné), and
American art should be and showed what it could be.
dozens of Oklahoma State University fine arts graduates F E AT U R E
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Benjamin Harjo, Jr., Keeper of the Fire, 1989, ink on paperboard, 27” x 27” | Gilcrease Museum
from many tribal nations (including myself). It would be
deeper details and patterns in nature. The biggest
difficult to find many First American artists who haven’t in
inspiration, however, comes from growing up and
some way been influenced by his work.
developing a career among previous generations
During Ben’s final days in this world last spring, his final exhibition opened at Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center: Patterns of Knowing, which also featured Jordan Ann Craig and Jeri Redcorn. Ben’s artistic and cultural community gathered at the opening to honor him, pray for him and
of artists who helped pave the way many of us walk today. I have always been encouraged by their talent and determination, and I pay my respects by following their advice and hoping that, through their lessons, I may encourage and inspire those who come after me.
his wife Barbara, and honor the art he gave to the world. Friends and artists sang songs of prayer for his end of physical life and prayed with smoke as well through a smudging ceremony. It’s rarely every recorded, but Ben wrote the following statement that was read at his final opening reception:
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Benjamin Harjo, Jr.’s art can be viewed in Oklahoma in the permanent collections of the First Americans Museum, the Philbrook Museum of Art, and at the Gilcrease Museum, where several pieces can also be viewed online in the digital archives of Gilcrease Museum of Art, as well as at benjaminharjojr.com.
I draw inspiration from many sources like my
Nationally, his art can be seen at the Wheelwright Museum,
own life experiences, the history and legends of
the National Museum of the American Indian, the Eiteljorg
many nations, oral traditions, and an ability to see
Museum, and the Heard Museum.
F E AT U R E
TOP LEFT // Benjamin Harjo, Jr., in his home studio | Courtesy of OSU; TOP RIGHT // Harjo with students at the Philbrook, Tulsa, in the 1970s | Courtesy of Philbrook Museum of Art; ABOVE // Benjamin Harjo, Jr., Nocturnal Visions, 1981, pen and ink, 14 7/8” × 14 5/8” x 1” I Collection of Jauvanta M. and Albert L. Walk; RIGHT // Members of the local Indigenous community gathered in May, 2023, for a ceremony of traditional song and smudging for Harjo as he began his end-of-life journey. | Cody Giles
KRISTIN GENTRY is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. They are an award-winning multidisciplinary visual artist, arts writer, curator, educator and the Director of Community Engagement and Outreach for Native Realities, LLC. They were born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and live with their daughter, Jewell Shooting Star, in Oklahoma City. You can view their artwork at kreativenative.com. F E AT U R E
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JOYFUL RETURNS // HATTIE LEE MENDOZA AT OSU’S GARDINER GALLERY by Emily Christensen
In the three years that Hattie Lee Mendoza lived in Thailand,
repurposes her own creative labor into a new, more expansive
she developed an appreciation for the nuances in how
work. But then she’ll be in a thrift store, or perusing piles of
different cultures interpret and use form and color.
trash on a curb, and her eye wanders again. One opportunity
“But also the similarities,” she said, “because I love that I can see a Cherokee basketry pattern reflected in so many different cultures around the world. There’s something so human in those forms.”
her possessions. From a pile of items marked for donation, she rescued a pile of her grandmother’s dickies—out-offashion articles of clothing meant to look like the front of a shirt and designed to be worn under a sweater or other
Mendoza’s embrace of pattern and color are evident in Hattie
garment. Mendoza used the dickies (and one apron front) to
Lee Mendoza: Gathering Joy at Oklahoma State’s Gardiner
create Dickies (Grandmother’s Tribute Series) one of her more
Gallery in Stillwater from January 16 through February 15.
personal series of work. Its seven pieces reference aspects of
Though she has never lived in the state, the show is something
her grandmother’s life. Like her embroidery hoop collages,
of a homecoming for the Illinois-based artist.
Mendoza embellished them with oodles of materials.
While living in Thailand and traveling through Asia, Mendoza
“I included some beadwork she made when she was six
felt a longing to reconnect to her own culture. On visits home,
or seven in the Campfire Girls, way back in the 1920s or
she and her mother began the process of registering with the
1930s,” Mendoza said. That dickie includes references to her
Cherokee Nation. That decision led Mendoza to an art practice
grandmother’s three generations of descendants. “Thinking
that mixes disparate materials and methods in an open-
about her legacy started the whole thing,” she said. “All the
minded and thoughtful manner. Her work reflects her Native
generations that followed her, and even the dickie itself...the
heritage but also contends with other facets of her identity
decades when it was worn, and how things pass on but yet
and personal history, including her travels and rural Kansas
still remain.”
upbringing. When it hangs in a gallery, she said, “my life story is basically on review for people to criticize or comment on.”
Both Mendoza’s maternal grandmother and great-grandmother are also present in Intertwined (Wedding Quilt), which includes
Collage and combination define Mendoza’s approach. Even
unused quilt blocks and piecework by both women that
when making paintings and drawings, she interlaces patterns
Mendoza collaged together with Hmong stitchwork squares
she’s learned from her travel and studies. She uses ribbon,
and batik fabric from Indonesia and Thailand. Mendoza
bias tape, and fabric to weave works using Cherokee basketry
brought the stitched piece to her wedding reception for
patterns. Within the open plane of an embroidery hoop, she
friends and family to use as a guest book of sorts. Only then
combines materials as disparate as caution tape, playing
did she consider the piece complete.
cards, and vintage embroidered fabric. “I’ll bring something home and look over my pile of many things and think, ‘Oh, those two things would look interesting together,’” Mendoza said. Her eye wanders, then focuses on familiar patterns and themes. By printing images of paintings on fabric, she even 18
presented itself when she helped her grandmother downsize
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Visitors to the Gardiner will experience the spiraling nature of Mendoza’s works, which cover the walls and even, in some CONTINUED OPPOSITE // Hattie Lee Mendoza, Joy Beams, 2021, gouache and watercolor, 24” x 18” | All images provided by the Gardiner Gallery
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places, the floor of the gallery in visual and thematic echoes of one another. Mendoza first picked up a needle and thread at the behest of her paternal grandmother, who taught her cross stitch. She continued sewing in 4H, but it wasn’t until she entered the MFA program at Bradley University that Mendoza learned about contemporary textile art. To inform her work, she turned to books, articles, and catalogs to learn about Cherokee basketry and pottery design. Eventually, she picked up a pile of bias tape in her studio and made her first woven piece that used a traditional pattern. “I’d look at a picture and think okay, that’s three over, three under, and then try to mimic it,” she said. “They’re not perfect— I’ll make a skip in a pattern, but I usually try to leave it, because it’s saying I’m still learning. I haven’t sat with basket makers who have been doing it for decades...I still don’t know all the names of the patterns.” Her great-grandmother grew up in the Cherokee Nation in White Oak, Oklahoma, an unincorporated town near Vinita. She was proud of her heritage and talked about it often, but she died before Mendoza was old enough to fully understand or ask questions. “In the two generations between us, it wasn’t emphasized, Mendoza said. “It was, ‘Oh, we’re Cherokee, and grandma’s very proud of being Cherokee,’ and that’s kind of where it was left. I always grew up interested in my Native heritage, but I wasn’t in a position to know what to do about it.” Her grandmother kept in touch with her Oklahoma relatives over the years, but she’s no longer sure who to reach out to for family news. Mendoza hopes to pick up the thread herself one day. Though she has yet to connect with members of her family tree here, Mendoza’s art practice has brought her to Oklahoma in recent years. She has won awards at two Native art shows in the state, including first place in the Emerging Artist category at the 51st Annual Trail of Tears Art Show and Sale in 2022 and first place in the Contemporary Basketry category at the 28th Annual Cherokee Homecoming Show in 2023.
TOP LEFT // Hattie Lee Mendoza, Vibrant Migration, 2023, gouache and metallic watercolor, 10” x 8”; MIDDLE // Hattie Lee Mendoza, selection from Dickies (Grandmother Tribute Series), 2021, mixed media, various sizes; BOTTOM // Hattie Lee Mendoza, various mixed media works as displayed in the Heuser Gallery at Bradley University, Peoria, IL
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“It felt like coming back to the homeplace, even though it wasn’t someplace I had been or truly knew a lot about,” Mendoza said. “Feeling accepted was huge because it’s hard to fight that imposter syndrome. I wish I could have grown up in the community. I didn’t get that chance, but people say, ‘you’re still part of the tribe, and you can still learn our ways and our culture.’”
Hattie Lee Mendoza: Gathering Joy can be seen at the Gardiner Gallery on the OSU campus in Stillwater from January 16 through February 15. The exhibition will then travel to Cameron University in Lawton, where it will be on view from February 29 through March 29. Mendoza will deliver a lecture at 6 p.m., March 28, at Cameron and will also facilitate a two-day collage workshop there March 28-29. To learn more about Hattie Lee Mendoza’s work, visit hattieleeart.com.
EMILY CHRISTENSEN is an arts and culture writer based in Wichita, Kansas, where she is the journalist-in-residence at the Wichita Art Museum. She is a 2020 fellow of the National Critics Institute and a recipient of a 2023 Arts Writers Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation. For more about Emily and her work, visit schmemily.com.
TOP RIGHT // Hattie Lee Mendoza, Vintage Spring, 2021, mixed media, 54” x 27”; MIDDLE // Hattie Lee Mendoza, Intertwined (Wedding Quilt), 2023, hand and machine sewn quilting materials and raw-edge appliqué, 74” x 62”; BOTTOM // Hattie Lee Mendoza
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WESTERN ECHOES // COWBOYS AND INDIANS AT JRB ART AT THE ELMS by Ryann Bee Gordon
JRB Art at the Elms, in OKC’s historic Paseo District, hosts
in Oklahoma who are Indian—Cheyenne, Crow, Arapahoe. I
two renowned Oklahoma Hall of Fame artists from January
have used them as subjects for a long time.”
5 through February 24. The artwork of longtime friends Mike Larsen and Harold T. Holden shares space for Cowboys and Indians, an exhibition that showcases the contrasts between the two artists’ western styles and historically divergent Oklahoma legacies.
These works in the exhibition vary from traditional portraits, with and without full headdress, to renderings like an Indigenous man training an eagle, touting a shield, or dancing. One of Larsen’s famous murals, Flight of Spirit, which can be seen at the Oklahoma State Capitol, depicts
For Larsen and Holden, the show is a passion project. The
five world-renowned Native American ballerinas. One of the
real-life kinship between these celebrated artists becomes
dancers from Oklahoma, Yvonne Chouteau, is the subject
interesting considering the traditionally opposed character
of the painting Yvonne Study. Another painting at JRB, The
of their artwork’s subject matter, since Larsen paints Native
Chickasaw Heritage, features a Native American man bearing
Americans and Holden sculpts cowboys.
a shield and a horse-headed staff while horses run in the
“They approached me and wanted me to show them
partially rendered background behind him. Dances in the Sun
together, which I thought was a wonderful idea,” said JRB gallery owner Joy Reed Belt. Both Larsen and Holden’s works have been regularly represented by the gallery throughout
shows an Indigenous man dancing before a white background that, somewhat like that of The Chickasaw Heritage, sharply delineates the figure of its subject’s form and colors while
the years, and the two make sense next to one another.
highlighting his traditional clothing.
Displaying bronzes of cowboys next to paintings that depict
Working closely with the Chickasaw tribe and others over the
Native Americans highlights the historical context both bodies of work share in a way that draws on the irony of the exhibition’s theme. Featuring them together, rather than against one another, as “cowboys and Indians” have been regarded in the past, offers a different take on Oklahoma history through the lens of these western motifs. Mike Larsen’s realistic paintings represent a facet of Oklahoma culture that primarily involves his Native heritage. Larsen’s paintings of indigenous people draw from his personal experience and depict real-life people he sketched in person.
years, Larsen has painted hundreds of living Native elders on canvas, in person. “Emphasize living, because we do not rely on historical pictures,” the artist said. “We have been able to paint, interview, and spend time with nearly 100 of the tribe’s elders for the Chickasaw Nation in Ada.” Larsen’s paintings in Cowboys and Indians draw from his wider Oklahoma heritage, as well as his Chickasaw heritage and feature other western themes, landscapes, and skyscapes from his home in the Oklahoma countryside, along with religious motifs and even a lone cowboy. American Cowboy features a man with stars on his boots standing in front
“I have, since the 80s, done Native American work because
of a horse, clutching an American flag whose pole stands
I am Chickasaw,” said Larsen. “We have several friends here
higher than his head, possibly showing a view of the CONTINUED
OPPOSITE // Mike Larsen, Yvonne Study, 2022, acrylic paint on canvas, 11” x 14” | All images courtesy of the artists
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LEFT // Mike Larsen, The Chickasaw Heritage, 2021, acrylic paint on canvas, 40” x 30”; RIGHT // Mike Larsen, Dances in the Sun, 2023, acrylic paint on canvas, 40” x 30”
cowboy representation as intrinsically aligned with overt
“Western art, per se, it seems like there’s a lot of it that’s
patriotism and American pride.
very nostalgic, set in the past, and I don’t really do that,”
Contrasting Larsen’s works are Holden’s intricate, bronze cowboy sculptures. An accomplished sculpture and painter, Holden began to gain recognition in Oklahoma
could be set in 1880 if you wanted them to be, which is great. I just don’t happen to do that.”
in the early 80s when his sculptures were commissioned
Fowler’s works exhibit a modern sensibility that sets them
by the National Cattlemen’s Association, leading him to
apart from the more traditional styles of Larsen and Holden.
complete a variety of monumental sculptures over the
His stylized, even kitschy representation of the West can
years for commissions both large and small in Oklahoma,
be seen in Badlands, whose Pop Art desert-highway scene
Texas, and Kansas.
includes a soaring eagle against patterned clouds, a mesa
Most of Holden’s sculptures in Cowboys and Indians align with the more popular, heroic representation of the cowboy figure. A cowboy himself at heart, Holden’s sculptures are known for their keen attention to detail and movement, and many of them show, in dramatic action, cowboys riding horses. Strike Lightning presents a cowboy figure reeling back on his horse, as if the animal has just witnessed a nearby lightning strike. The sculpture’s bronze reflects every muscle on the horse’s body and all the cowboys’ features are clearly defined and realistic, from his mustache and wrinkles down to his buttons.
and range of plateaus along the background horizon, and then, a “Deer Crossing” sign, riddled with bullets, that gives this scenic vista a contemporary and ironic twist. Fowler swaps out his typically bright, multicolored palette in this show for a series of black and white paintings that falls in somewhat with the aesthetic of the adjacent Cowboys and Indians. “I think it’s a great idea, given Oklahoma’s history,” said Belt, whose gallery brought this group project to life. “Harold knows more about cowboys than anyone I know, and Mike certainly knows more about Native Americans than anybody I know. To have them—and then Jack
In a side gallery, a room away from Cowboys and Indians,
showing how all that looks in today’s world—to have all
is Jack Fowler’s smaller show Chrome, which gives a more
that perspective all in one building at the same time, I
contemporary take on Western art. Fowler’s Pop-Western
think it’s great.”
paintings offer a much different, less traditional variation on western motifs. 24
said Fowler. “A lot of western art, a lot of the paintings
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RIGHT // Mike Larsen, American Cowboy, 2023, acrylic paint on canvas, 30” x 40”; BOTTOM RIGHT // Harold T. Holden, Strike Lightning, 2005, bronze, 19” x 13” x 12”; BOTTOM LEFT // Jack Fowler, Badlands, 2023, acrylic on birch panel, 12” x 12”
Cowboys and Indians, along with Chrome, can be seen from January 5 through February 24 at JRB Art at the Elms in Oklahoma City.
RYANN BEE GORDON is a multifaceted writer who lives in Tulsa. Author of the novel The Bridge Inside and host of the podcast What Daddy Doesn’t Know, she contributes creative writing, journalism, copywriting, and design for leading periodicals in Oklahoma and Texas. After attending the University of Oklahoma, she began writing for publications such as the Dallas Observer, Preview Magazine, and Katy Trail Weekly, where she is the face of the “Uptown Girl” column.
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