Video

 

Click on Photo for more images
                                                                                
Cherokee Nation citizen Dino “Oogeloote” Kingfisher, of Salina, Okla., paints on a feather that will eventually become a hatpin, which is the most sought after art piece he makes. JAMI CUSTER/CHEROKEE PHOENIX
 
 
 
 
 




BY JAMI CUSTER
Reporter

SALINA, Okla. – Cherokee Nation citizen Dino “Oogeloot” Kingfisher has been an artist most of his life. He said he didn’t find art, but that art found him. That discovery has turned into a 2–decades-old profession. 

“It’s been 20 years now… I worked regular jobs for a long time and I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to do,” Kingfisher said. “I used to play music a lot when I was younger. So we used to play at the bars, and I met my wife and we got pregnant…the bar scene just wasn’t going to work for what we had in store if we was going to make us work. So I got out of that and worked a few jobs and I just wasn’t happy. I done art in high school so she encouraged me to do that, and it just kind of clicked.”

The art Kingfisher creates includes framed art pieces, dream catchers, earrings and necklaces. But his most popular items are his painted feathers that are used as hatpins.

“We paint on just about anything we can get our hands on,” he said. 

He added that he doesn’t stay with just Cherokee art because he attends a lot of intertribal powwows and tries to make art for all tribes.

“It’s not just all a Cherokee thing with us, we’re just Native art.”

Kingfisher said he has set up art booths at the Tulsa Powwow, Choteau Day and Grove’s Pelican Festival, but never misses the Cherokee National Holiday. 

Kingfisher has sold pieces all over the United States, but the “cool” thing, he said, is that he’s represented on each continent.

“And to me that’s just cool because I may never get there myself, but it’s cool that part of me has made it somewhere else.”

Kingfisher and his wife Cheryl, who handles the “business side” of his art profession, said it wasn’t always easy over the past 20 years, but they never wanted to stop.

“It was hard at first, and we set up at a lot of places where we didn’t make anything hardly,” he said. “And kind of had to work two or three jobs to kind of get us through, and it just kind of slowly caught on.” 

That tenacity is his biggest piece of advice to new artist: don’t quit if it’s in your heart to do it.

“Just have patience with it, and honestly, I guarantee if you’re meant to do it you’ll know. You’ll feel it,” he said. “If it’s art that you’re into, you know, then you can’t let it go. There’s not a day that I don’t want to paint. I always want to paint.”

Cheryl said her husband signs most of his art in his Cherokee name “Oogeloot,” which he laughingly said means “stomach sticking out.”

“That’s what they told me anyways. I was 2 years old when I was named,” he said.

Cherokee Phoenix linguist Anna Sixkiller said oogeloot translates into “something blowing up,” while “stomach sticking out” in Cherokee would be ugaludi.

Most all of his art is reasonably priced and can be purchased anywhere from $3 to $1,500.

Those interested in seeing Kingfisher’s works can visit his Facebook page at Dino Oogeloot Kingfisher. The Cherokee Gift Shop at the Tribal Complex also carries his artwork. 

For more information, call 918-434-7770.

jami-custer@cherokee.org

918-453-5560