Weaving History into Art: The Enduring Legacy of Shan Goshorn
October 9, 2020 – March 28, 2021

Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art
1400 N Gilcrease Museum Rd
Tulsa, OK 74127

There’s something about having a message in the vessel shape that makes people really curious … really engages them. They literally lean forward and look in and want to know more about it. It’s the perfect springboard for honest dialogue. I’ve never seen anything like it.

-Shan Goshorn

Weaving History into Art: The Enduring Legacy of Shan Goshorn features the art of Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band Cherokee, 1957-2018) and her legacy of influence carried forward through the works of four contemporary Native American women artists.

Shan Goshorn was internationally recognized for weaving archival documents and photographs into baskets using traditional Cherokee techniques to create historical, political, and cultural commentary on Native American issues that continue to resonate in the 21st century.

Central to the exhibition is the premier of Squaw, the last work Goshorn completed prior to her passing. Squaw was inspired by the Venus de Milo, an iconic symbol of female beauty. Juxtaposing this model with the title Squaw creates a tension and contrast to the Western ideal of beauty against a pejorative used to reduce Native women to disposable sexual commodities. Squaw will serve as a catalyst for much-needed conversations on why indigenous women suffer disproportionately higher rates of violence than non-Native women and the judicial system’s reluctance to prosecute these crimes.

Goshorn’s artistic legacy is also represented and complemented by the art of four Native American women whose works reflect Shan’s influence and vision: Carol Emarthle-Douglas (Northern Arapahoe/Seminole) is well-regarded for her traditional and contemporary baskets, jewelry and paintings; Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee Creek), is nationally recognized for her unique contemporary ceramic sculptures, mixed-media installations, traditional Osage ribbon work, and as an arts educator; Lisa Rutherford (Cherokee), a textile artist, potter and maker of traditional Cherokee clothing, beadwork, and baskets; Holly Wilson (Delaware/Cherokee), a contemporary multi-media artist whose works include bronzes, encaustics, photography, glass, and clay.

Through Goshorn’s hand-woven basketry, Weaving History into Art will encourage engaging, empathetic interactions with difficult subjects, including the loss of Native homelands, cultural genocide, violence directed at Native women, and inappropriate cultural appropriation in a non-threatening experience that promotes informed dialogue among Native and non-Native audiences alike.

May 2020
20 Anniversary Contemporary Realism Survey
Group Exhibition 
Opening TBA
M.A. Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue Tulsa, OK 74105

September 20 – October 8, 2017
Bloodline
Art Prize 9 Location
Monroe Community Church
800 Monroe NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Voting Code: 65643

http://www.artprize.org/65643

It is the stories of family, history, and identity that brought me to “Bloodline”. It is a long trail of my Native American history, my bloodline. To be ‘on the Rolls’ as an American Indian you must prove a quantum of blood verified through birth and death records until you match up to a name on the official “Dawes Rolls.” As I began walking through the past to document my blood, with the names and some faces, I wanted to hear them speak and tell their story. I wanted them to be counted.

The figures walk across a Locust tree base that came down in a storm. It is cut lengthwise exposing the rough center revealing the lines that show its life and history. I de-barked the exterior but kept the curve of the tree and its raw surface. You see the figures walking through time—their life above and the tree’s life below.

The Cigar Figures come from a childhood Native American story that my mother told of the “Stick People.” The “Stick People” would run through the night and call your name; if you went with them, you were never heard from again. She never described the figures and I was always drawn to the idea of what they looked like. The Cigar Figures are my reimagining of that story, now a story of family and my past—a complicated narrative of loss, survival, and resilience. The figures are made from real cigars and found sticks cast in bronze. The faces are the ancestors from my past as far back as I can trace.

There are sections for each generation, beginning with my children. Though I only have two, there are five figures. Each life is counted and the children who did not survive are remembered with a place on the wood in history; their forms small and their heads bowed. Next, I have my section with my sisters and brother followed by my mother’s and father’s history weaving back and forth. When hung, the light casts a shadow of the figures on the wall. This shadow represents memory for me. Like a shadow, these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on this earth.

BLOODLINE
Bronze, Patina and Locust Wood
29″ x 22′ x 9″, 2015
$120,000