Английская Википедия:Anna Mitchell
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Anna Mitchell (October 16, 1926 – March 3, 2012) was a Cherokee Nation potter who revived the historic art of Southeastern Woodlands pottery for Cherokee people in Oklahoma. Her tribe designated her as a Cherokee National Treasure and has works in numerous museum collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, among others.
Early life
Anna Belle Sixkiller was born on October 16, 1926, near Sycamore, a small town near Jay, Oklahoma, to Oo loo tsa (ᎤᎷᏣ, Iva Louise née Owens) and Houston Sixkiller.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Her family were full-blood Cherokee, who spoke the Cherokee language in their home.Шаблон:Sfn Her mother worked as a domestic or waitress in Jay and at night often quilted. Her father worked on their farm, raising produce to feed his family. Sixkiller began her education in the public school system in Jay. She was unable to speak English, and her teacher was indifferent. Financial struggles caused by divorce and the Great Depression led her mother to take her and her siblings out of the school.Шаблон:Sfn Anna and a younger sister were sent to the Seneca Indian School, one of the federally funded American Indian boarding schools, located in Wyandotte.Шаблон:Sfn There Anna quickly learned EnglishШаблон:Sfn bub suffered from homesickness.Шаблон:Sfn Since the Seneca School only went to the ninth grade, after graduation, Sixkiller complete dher education at the Haskell Institute, her mother's alma materШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and an intertribal boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas.[1]
On April 17, 1946, in Oswego, Kansas, Sixkiller married Robert Clay Mitchell,Шаблон:Sfn a Cherokee and descendant of Sequoyah,Шаблон:Sfn the man that invented the Cherokee syllabary. The couple settled in Vinita, Oklahoma, and had five children: Nena, Clay, Victoria, Betty, and Julie.Шаблон:Sfn Busy with raising her children, most of her time was spent on domestic work and school activities over the next years.Шаблон:Sfn In 1967, her husband asked Mitchell to create a clay pipe for him similar to the one often depicted in portraits of Sequoyah.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Using clay found in their pond, she fashioned the pipe,Шаблон:Sfn which though she did not intend to become a potter, piqued her curiosity about how traditional Cherokee pottery was made.Шаблон:Sfn
Career
For the next several years, Mitchell embarked on a course of self study. She knew nothing about the properties of clay and had no idea what Cherokee pottery was supposed to look like. She began by visiting museums in Oklahoma and Arkansas and then made trips to the Eastern Cherokee lands in North Carolina. She also made research trips to learn about pottery traditions of the Southwest Pueblo peoples and the Northeastern Woodlands people, all the while experimenting with making different pots, though she was often not satisfied with her result.Шаблон:Sfn In 1973, Mitchell held her first public exhibition at the Tulsa Indian Trade Fair and met Clydia Nahwooksy (Cherokee. 1933–2009),[2] a director of programming at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Nahwooksy encouraged Mitchell's work and helped her access material in the Smithsonian archives.Шаблон:Sfn
Mitchell learned that the adopted of trade items during the fur trade era and the forced removal of the Trail of Tears of the Southeastern Woodlands people had led to a decline in their historic arts. Finding the book Sun Circles and Human Hands at the University of Arkansas of Fayetteville, she also learned the techniques used by precontact Mississippian artists to produce Eastern Woodlands pottery.Шаблон:Sfn Though similar pottery shapes and coiling techniques were used by Western and Wastern Indigenous people, Mitchell learned that the designs were different. In the Southwest, motifs were typically angular with geometric shapes and stylized depictions from the natural world of animals and landmarks, placed on the pot in specific locations. Designs of the Southeast tended to employ arches and swirls with realistic images of birds and human forms, with a free-flowing placement pattern on the vessel.Шаблон:Sfn Many of Mitchell's early works were influenced by precontact Quapaw pottery of Arkansas.Шаблон:Sfn
Aiming to remain true to the techniques and designs of Southeastern pottery making and determined to preserve ancestral methods,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Mitchell began with low-firing clay. She later mixed it with high-firing porcelain clay to obtain a stronger, but lighter, result. Grinding, pounding and sifting the clay to remove large particles, Mitchell worked to soften the clay and then tempered it with ground shells and sandstone before adding water.Шаблон:Sfn To shape the pot, she had to replicate stamping tools and wooden paddles based upon designs she had seen on pottery fragments in museums.Шаблон:Sfn After the vessel was formed and to maintain the historic color palette of gray, red, and yellow, she then brushed on slip, made from the clay on her land,Шаблон:Sfn and fired it over an open pit fire. Placing the pots on a metal sheet above a brick enclosure, where a wood fire was kept burning for an entire day, Mitchell allowed them to harden and gradually cool as the fire burned out.Шаблон:Sfn Once cooled, pieces were burnished with small stones to create a smooth texture.Шаблон:Sfn
Among her many awards and honors were the first prize in Muskogee′s Five Civilized Tribes Museum annual juried competitive art show in 1973; first place in the Oklahoma Arts and Crafts Show of Tulsa in 1977; a solo exhibition at the Southern Plains Indian Museum in 1978; and winning the first and second place prizes in the 1979 Five Civilized Tribes Museum annual competitive art show. In 1981, she participated in a group exhibition Oklahoma Cherokee Art hosted by the American Indian Community House gallery in New York City and won an award at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum annual art show. In 1982, Mitchell exhibited at the Frontier Folklife Festival in St. Louis, Missouri, and at The Night of the First Americans, held in Washington, DC, at the Kennedy Center. That year, she took first, second, and third prize in the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folk LifeШаблон:Sfn and was designated as a National Treasure of the Cherokee Nation.Шаблон:Sfn
In 1983, Mitchell was invited to participate in an exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in Manhattan.Шаблон:Sfn Winning a first place at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1985,Шаблон:Sfn she had two solo exhibitions that year — one at the Creek Council House Museum in Okmulgee and the other at the Cherokee National Museum, in Park Hill. In 1987, she held one-woman exhibitions at the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual in Cherokee, North Carolina and at the Tekakwitha Indian Crafts Center of Helen, Georgia. In 1990, Mitchell was featured at a solo exhibition at the University of Arkansas and the following year won first, third, and honorable mention at the Intertribal Indian Market of Dayton, Ohio.Шаблон:Sfn She continued to show her work in local art shows like the annual Cherokee Art Market until her death.Шаблон:Sfn
Mitchell's goal was to revive the art of Cherokee pottery-making for Cherokee people in Oklahoma.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn In 1987, Jane Osti (Cherokee Nation), a student studying at Northeastern Oklahoma State University in Tahlequah, conducted an interview with Mitchell for a heritage course. She became fascinated with the craft of pottery-making and began studying with Mitchell.Шаблон:Sfn Osti was later commissioned by the Cherokee Nation to create a bust of Mitchell, which was unveiled in 1990 and housed at the Bacone House on the campus of Northeastern State University.Шаблон:Sfn Other students who studied with Mitchell and have professional art careers her daughter, Victoria Vazquez (Cherokee Nation) and Crystal Hanna (Cherokee Nation).Шаблон:Sfn Mitchell also inspired Martha Berry (Cherokee Nation), encouraging her to revive the art of Cherokee beadwork.Шаблон:Sfn In 2008, Mitchell was honored with the Educator of Arts and Humanities Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cherokee Nation.Шаблон:Sfn
Family
Many of Anna Sixkiller Mitchell's family are important leaders in the Cherokee Nation. Her brother Dennis Sixkiller is a leading language instructor, who has a Cherokee-language online radio show.[3] Besides being a ceramic artist, Victoria Vazquez, Mitchell's daughter, serves as a tribal councilperson.[4]
Death and legacy
Mitchell died on March 3, 2012, in Vinita and was buried in Fairview Cemetery. A memorial scholarship fund was created by the Cherokee Nation in her honor. Her artworks are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian,Шаблон:Sfn the Eastern Trails Museum in Vinita,Шаблон:Sfn the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art,Шаблон:Sfn and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,Шаблон:Sfn as well as other venues abroad and in private collections.Шаблон:Sfn In 2015, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the completion of Mitchell's bronze bust, it was removed from the Northeastern campus and placed on display at the W. W. Keeler Tribal Government Complex in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.Шаблон:Sfn In 2016, the Cherokee Heritage Center hosted a six-month exhibition, Anna Mitchell Legacy that featured pieces in various museum collections to show her development as an artist throughout her career and showcased work by her artistic protogées including her daughter Victoria Vazquez, Jane Osti, and Crystal Hanna. The exhibition also included some of the tools she used to work on pottery.Шаблон:Sfn The following year, a mural by Dan Mink depicting Mitchell and her work was erected in Vinita along West Canadian Avenue and South Wilson Street.Шаблон:Sfn
The Cherokee Art Market offers an Anna Mitchell award each year to honor the artist's memory.[5]
The Cherokee Nation opened the Anna Mitchell Cultural and Welcome Center in Vinita, Oklahoma, the fall of 2022.[6]
References
Citations
Bibliography
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External links
- Examples of Mitchell's pottery
- Oral History with Anna Mitchell
- Cherokee Nation Anna Mitchell Cultural & Welcome Center, Vininta, OK
- Английская Википедия
- 1926 births
- 2012 deaths
- Artists from Oklahoma
- Cherokee Nation artists
- Haskell Indian Junior College alumni
- Native American potters
- American potters
- Native American women artists
- People from Delaware County, Oklahoma
- Women potters
- 20th-century American artists
- 20th-century American women artists
- 21st-century American artists
- 21st-century American women artists
- 20th-century Native American artists
- 21st-century Native American artists
- 20th-century Native American women
- 21st-century Native American women
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