Contemporary Caddoan art:
New visions, traditional themes
IDABEL, Okla. — Caddoan art often conjures images of beautiful old pottery and beadwork, but a new exhibit at Museum of the Red River shows Caddoan art is also alive and thriving with new ideas.
MoRR just opened its Contemporary Caddo Art Exhibition this week and hosts the exhibit through May 23 with several artists who’ve found success with Caddo themes.
Henry Moy, the Quintus H. Herron director at Museum of the Red River, says that contemporary Caddoan art can be classified in two categories: emulations, where the form is traditional and similar to historic examples of Caddoan art, or inspirations, where traditional methods and designs are reworked in new ways by the artist.
“They’re very traditional in look and feel. That’s particularly with the ceramics where they go out and they dig the clay, the same sources that the ancestors dug up. They fire it, it’s wood fired, and then they decorate it using a traditional style. They’re really contemporary expressions of traditional craft, but they’re very much made in the old way,” Moy said about emulations.
Inspirations consist of artists using new media. “Things that obviously weren’t done 1,000 years ago. That includes everything from graphic design to using computers to create to doing paintings and fine arts, that kind of thing that we just don’t have evidence of from prehistoric times,” Moy explained.
There’s both traditional beadwork and then a modern expression of beadwork, for example. Although one piece hails from 1994, most of the work is more recent.
One of the artists included, Jereldine Redcorn, only learned how to make traditional pottery later in her life. However, she found great success, so much so one of her works decorated the Oval Office
during Barack Obama’s presidency. That piece was from the National Museum of the American Indian, a Smithsonian museum.
Other artists include Chad Nish Earles, Chase Kahwinhut Earles, Wayne TaySha Earles, Raven Halfmoon, Yonavea Hawkins, Kira Poole, Jennifer Reeder, Alaina Tahlate and Mia River Whittles.
“One of our artists actually does have a beadwork portrait of a woman,” Moy said.
Moy said the museum’s connection with Caddoan contemporary art started when Redcorn visited with the Caddo Culture Club in the early ’90s. They were looking at excavated materials, working with the founding curator.
Redcorn, explained Moy, found herself inspired by the pottery. “She remembered being told about it by her aunts and grandparents, but her mother and that generation had basically abandoned all that stuff. So she was inspired that
“They’re very traditional in look and feel. That’s particularly with the ceramics where they go out and they dig the clay... They fire it, it’s wood fired, and then they decorate it using a traditional style.”
—Henry Moy
this was made by her ancestors.”
Moy said Redcorn started making pottery, teaching herself and working with other Caddo artists, also locating the original sources of clay. “Taught herself how make pottery, how to do the pit firing, how to do the decoration,” he said.
Thus, the Caddo ceramic tradition was revived. Redcorn started it and then taught, guiding the next two generations of Caddo potters. “The Caddo prehistorically were well known all over for the quality of their ceramics,” Moy said. Several of her pots are included in the show.
In a written description of the exhibition, Moy states, “The works in this exhibit are what the artists chose to represent their values and reflect their thinking about their current situation. All want to inspire their contemporaries, particularly other native artists. For the viewing audiences, the artists hope to interpret their heritage, apply a different perspective to native history than is popularly presented, and/or highlight the difficulties of being a native American artist in the 21st century.”
(Admission is free. Museum of the River is located at 812 E. Lincoln Road in Idabel, Oklahoma, and open both 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. More info: MuseumoftheRedRiver.org or 580-286-3616.)