TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation has added an extra $1 million dollars to their Cherokee Artist Recovery Act, making it a total of $4 million dollars invested.
After the pandemic, the nation noticed its artist community was hit hard.
The act aims to keep artists afloat by supporting art market access, landing art opportunities and even buying art from artists.
Lisa Rutherford is a full-time artist who also teaches native art customs to people at the Cherokee Art Center.
Rutherford is one of the artists benefiting from the act who has received funding to teach at the art center.
She’s loved art her whole life and has closely studied the ancestral art of the Cherokee.
She said she wants to help keep these art traditions alive for generations to come.
She said with assimilation efforts like the Trail of Tears, boarding schools and even tourism, many art forms were lost and had to be rediscovered years later.
2 News has previously covered the impact of boarding schools on Native American tribes:
“As soon as we recover from one hit, there's another one," she said. "Tourism promoted a lot of stereotypes and inaccuracies, and it got to the point that Cherokee people couldn't recognize their own artwork.”
She said the act makes it easier to do what she loves while also educating people.
“It's really nice to be able to share the arts and sustain them," she said. "A lot of these arts were endangered at one time, and we're preserving and promoting them to make sure that they're not lost again.”
Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. said he is proud to be able to help sustain local artists while reinvigorating the Cherokee culture through the act.
“It was enacted at a time in which we were all dealing with the pandemic and then looking to recover from the pandemic," he said. “When our artist community takes it on the chin, so to speak, economically, it can have real negative impacts, not only for them, but for all of us as we're trying to revitalize our culture.”
Artists like Rutherford couldn't be happier.
"I just really appreciate the efforts of the Cherokee Nation," said Rutherford. "To help the artists and to support us."
For Cherokee artists interested in participating in "calls for art", there are several open submissions in the coming months, including a Freedmen sculpture that will be placed in Tahlequah's Court Square.
More information can be found here.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- SUBSCRIBE on YouTube
