Red Earth Art Center presents: ‘She Persisted’

Oklahoma City’s Red Earth has partnered with Science Museum Oklahoma for its latest art exhibition entitled, “She Persisted,”  on view through May 28 on the second level Art Gallery of the science museum located in northeast Oklahoma City’s Adventure District.

This spring Red Earth has invited six artists to exhibit their artwork in a show of diverse artistic styles. “She Persisted” features award-winning female artists with artwork that runs the spectrum of artistic mediums from stained glass mosaics to leather sculptures, basketry to watercolor, and pottery to oil. Each artist has significant ties to Oklahoma, has participated in the annual Red Earth Festival, and has a story to tell through art.

Oklahoma City’s Red Earth is home to a small yet impressive permanent collection of over 1,000 pieces of contemporary art and historical artifacts. The collection includes artwork by some of the nation’s most acclaimed Native artists – many with a backstory that features strong ties to their Oklahoma roots.

Long time artist and instructor Carol Armstrong resides in Norman where she teaches painting to a following of over 100 devoted students weekly. She is well respected for her bold and colorful portraits of Native American people and their regalia. Armstrong’s twin 24x48 oil paintings entitled “The Princess” and “The Prince” reveal a young couple in beautiful tribal regalia. Carol has three additional pieces in the show. She is the recipient of the 2016 Governor’s Art Award for Community Service.

Enid resident Renee Hoover was born in Tahlequah and adopted away from the Cherokee Nation at an early age. She was raised in Enid where her adopted mother taught her how to pay attention to detail and the joy of practice and discipline in acquiring and perfecting skills. She has applied her lessons as a child to create her beautiful award-winning baskets for the past 20 years. For this Red Earth show, Hoover selected four pieces with whimsical touches including baskets entitled ‘Green Corn Harvest” and “Autumn’s Wisdom.”

Although practicing her art for a relatively short while, Claremore resident Karin Walkingstick has quickly risen through the ranks and has quickly become recognized among the best potters in the country. She has committed her time to create one-of-a-kind works of art that echo her Cherokee culture. Her small piece entitled “Flower Bowl’ features a black palette inside while a delicate bouquet of colorful flowers surrounds the outer wall of the pottery. Karin has won multiple times at the Red Earth Festival, including Red Earth’s 2014 Katherine Everett Upshaw Award, as well as art markets across the country.

Lauretta Newby-Coker lives with her large family in Noble, OK, and has taught elementary art to hundreds of students as a teacher in the Norman Public Schools. She works in many mediums and has several colorful glass mosaic pieces on view in “She Persists.”  As in all of her glass mosaics “The Trade,” on view during the Red Earth Show, features hundreds of glass shards in all sizes, shapes and colors. When pieced together, the broken pieces of colored glass blend into a stunning bouquet of spring flowers. Newby-Coker is a master at creating beautiful images out of colorful shards of glass. She has experience in forensic art, book illustration, large-scale murals, and scrimshaw for musical instruments. Lauretta has exhibited throughout the region and is a recipient of the Choctaw Nation Cultural Award.

Anita Caldwell Jackson recently left her lifelong home of McAlester to join her new husband in Canton, TX, and although she loves her new home, she says she will always be an Oklahoman at heart. She began her pursuit of art at an early age using leftover paint-by-number paints to create her first oil painting. Today, she is a Master Artist with the Five Tribes Museum in Muskogee and was named recipient of the 2014 Governor’s Arts Award for Community Service presented by the Oklahoma Arts Council. Jackson has created two leather sculptures an oil painting and a feather and pencil piece for the show. She is accomplished in numerous media and especially likes creating sculpture out of leather.

Diana Beach-Stamper developed a passion for art as a young child growing up in Casper, WY, where her parents encouraged her natural talent by supplying art materials and private lessons. She spent her formative years in a culturally rich area where she developed a love for Native American and western art and later majored in Fine Art at North Texas State University. Stamper’s paintings and drawings have garnered over 180 major art awards and are in the permanent collections of 33 museums including the Red Earth.  Stamper has four impressive oils featured in the Red Earth show.

Red Earth is an Allied Arts member agency and is funded in part by the Oklahoma Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Oklahoma City Convention & Visitors Bureau, Chickasaw Nation, Choctaw Nation and the Kirkpatrick Family Fund.

The Red Earth Art Center exhibit, “She Persists,” continues through May 28 and is included with regular paid admission to Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place at NE 50th and Martin Luther King in Oklahoma City.

Red Earth, Inc. is a non-profit organization with a mission to promote the rich traditions of American Indian arts and cultures through education, a premier festival, a museum and fine art markets.