Native American Art Show begins Monday

Press Release Date: 04-03-2009

DURANT, Okla. -- Dr. Gleny Beach, president of the Red River Arts Council and Associate Professor of Art at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, has announced the opening of a Native American Art and Artifacts Show.

Entitled "First Nations: Art Selections from the Americas: Jereldine RedCorn, Traditional Caddo Potter," the show is sponsored by Southeastern, the Red River Arts Council, Oklahoma Arts Council, with some funds originating with the National Endowment for the Arts.

The exhibit opens at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Centre Gallery in the Visual and Performing Arts Center on the SE campus. Featured guest speakers will be Cecile Elkins Carter, renowned Caddo scholar and author, and Caddo ceramic artist RedCorn.

At 6 p.m., Carter will present an informative "Gallery Talk," sharing her knowledge of Caddo history and tradition. Jereldine RedCorn will follow with an "Artist's Talk" about her journey to recapture and self-teach the pottery traditions of the Caddo people.

Carter celebrates her Caddo Indian heritage by entertaining university, museum, conference, and folklife festival audiences with Caddo myths, legends and informative talks about the history, culture, and traditions of the Caddo people.

She speaks with authority based on her collection of oral histories from tribal elders and 30 years of scholarly research. She is the author of Caddo Indians: Where We Come From, winner of the Oklahoma State Historical Society 1995 History Book of the Year award.

She is involved in ongoing historical research, writing, and speaking, and actively supports tribal-sponsored cultural and historic preservation programs. She is an enrolled member of the Caddo Nation and involved in numerous tribal activities.

Proud to claim roots in Durant where she was born and grew to adulthood, she is the third of five generations of family members to attend Southeastern. Today, she writes and adds to her research at home on Lake Texoma.

RedCorn is credited with bringing back the pottery arts that Caddo potters had practiced for millennia. Her work was recently highlighted by the Native Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).

"I started making pots to concentrate on the past, to feel the ancestors, and it was like a healing process," RedCorn said. "Now when I make a pot, I can see the lives of my ancestors; what they suffered losing their land, their children, and their language. Going back is very important." (Vol. No. 02, Feb. 20, 2009.) www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.

Born of a Caddo father and Potawatomi mother, RedCorn was raised in Colony, Okla., on her grandmother's land allotment. Her early knowledge of the Caddo people was gained only from attending occasional dances. A 1991 visit with other Caddo Culture Club members to the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, Okla., brought an instant connection to her ancestral past that she had not previously understood.

She continues to make pots while teaching high school geometry in Oklahoma City. She lives in Norman with Charles, her Osage husband.