Through the Years

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, 48” x 34” x 7.5”, 2022

To grow a garden is a belief in hope. You plant the seeds, the earth, the sun, and rain whisper to the flower that it is time to grow. It is the perennial flowers that come back year after year, their roots get stronger with each year, and some send a tap root deep into the earth to hold onto their place in the high winds and thick snows. That tip of green that shoots up in the early spring brings me a feeling of joy the dark winter is passing and spring with all that it brings is on the way. I can hear the buzz of the bees as they made their way from flower-to-flower fat with the bright yellow pollen and the crackling hum of the cicadas in the Oklahoma air. I can close my eyes and am transported back Through the Years.

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

Exhibition History

• On Turtle’s Back, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University, Dallas, Pennsylvania (September 8 – October 11, 2022)

We Rise

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Steel and Cedar, 36”x 17” x 8”, 2022

There is that moment in your life when you realize you must stand no matter how exhausted your body is or how tired your mind feels, your soul must rise to hold up not just yourself but for the ones around you that cannot, the ones who need you to hold them while they rest. We Rise, we carry on, to be counted, to seen, to be heard.

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, all cast in bronze. The faces are of the ancestors and family shaped from the idea of a cameo or silhouette painting to capture the faces of the families.

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.

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

Night Garden by the Light of the Fireflies

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Encaustic on Birch, 30”x 24” x 5”, 2022

The garden in the summer nights is a place of magic. The fireflies fill the air with their warm yellow glow. I am transported to another time, one where you would run after the glow with amazement trying to capture the rings of light in a glass jar. We would put holes for air and watch for hours as they would bling on and off all while lying in the thick summer grass. As the night came to a close and our beds would beckon us to come, we would open the jars and watch as the magic light would fly away. It is in those moments that time in the night garden was frozen, and we ourselves were magic.

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

False Face

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina on Crape Myrtle, 57”x 10” x 5”, 2022

My Dad taught at the Fort Sill Indian School and there where many evening that the different staff and faculty members would have each other over for dinners and they would tell stories of their people and as a kid I remember hearing the many different stories and thinking of them as ours, the Delaware. One of my favorites was of False Face. As I grew up, I remembered parts of the story, I then learned that the story was of the Iroquois and more about it and its importance. The Iroquois were close to the Delaware in location many years ago. This figure is of my own interpretation of the story I heard of False Face from that time long ago.

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

Birds Eye View

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Encaustic on Birch, 20”x 16” x 4”, 2022

Removable Bronze Mask

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700

Lost in My History

Unique Cast Bronze, Patina, Glass, Brass, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2022

As a young girl my dad had these amazing, beaded work of art that he made and from time to time I would start but then stop or walk away from learning, leaving pieces in mid process. I was young, then later my life was busy and one reason after another keep me from the history and the time. My dad has passed away and that time I could have spent with him learning and hearing his stories of how and why the thread it pulled through the beeswax and the cut of bead and the way to hold the needle are lost. I lost not just the history but him and that time with him. I am now looking to teach myself these ways and I hold him in my mind and my heart as I go forward.

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For inquiries, please contact:

MA Doran Gallery
3509 S. Peoria Avenue | Tulsa, OK 74105 | 918.748.8700