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Published:7/21/2010 9:37:10 AM
Cherokee artist wins awards in North Carolina competition
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| Cherokee Nation citizen and
artist Connie Jenkins displays her award-winning sculpture "Keeping the
Tradition" along with the awards it won. PHOTO BY EMILY TURNER
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By EMILY TURNER
Phoenix Intern
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Cherokee Nation citizen and artist Connie Jenkins recently won several awards at the fourth annual Cherokee Art Market in Cherokee, N.C.
Jenkins’ sculpture “Keeping the Tradition” won first place, best in show and the judges’ choice at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians-sponsored event.
Her winning work was sculpted from low-fire clay and depicts, in detail, an elderly Cherokee woman carrying a baby on her back and a bag of food in her arms. The woman wears traditional clothes with a four winds design on her back and a scarf on her head.
“It was just really a humbling feeling to be able to compete against, you know, some really fine art,” Jenkins said of her win. “It was just amazing.”
Jenkins said most of her artwork depicting mothers and babies may subconsciously be inspired by her life.
“When I look back at it after it was completed, it actually reminds me of me,” she said of the winning sculpture. “We’re raising two grandbabies, and all of a sudden it dawned on me, that’s me.”
Jenkins said she gets inspiration for her art from various sources.
“It’s just a matter of watching people, watching kids, things someone says, something you read,” she said. “You’re just influenced by all kinds of things.”
However, her biggest influences are her friends and fellow Native American artists Jean and Bill Shoemaker, who she said taught her a great deal about art.
The 54-year-old from Salina has been an artist for 21 years. She works out of her home studio while she raises her two grandchildren – David,1, and Grace, 2.
Jenkins made a name for herself painting and creating graphics, which predominately portrayed “mothers and babies.” But in the past six years, she began sculpting using clay, stone and wood. Her artwork has also been displayed in three books: “Earth Song Moon Dream” by Patricia Janise Broder, “Cherokee Women in Crisis During the Civil War” by Dr. Carol Johnston and the “Biographical Directory of Native American Painters” by Dr. Patrick Lester.
emily-turner@cherokee.org • (918) 453-5269
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