Yá'át'ééh everyone,
There have been some awesome updates these last two weeks in regards to future exhibitions, and some exciting updates from the First Americans Museum. First, is that I updated my exhibition list on my home page. My current exhibition, up at the 21c Museum Hotel, will be extended out to the end of September of this year, and this is fine with me. I would rather my art pieces be sitting on a wall, out in the public view vs. in our guest bedroom wrapped in plastic. I have already sold my piece "Sunday Morning with Chei" that is in this exhibition to the NBC Bank of Oklahoma. I contacted them asking if they were ok if the piece stayed up a little longer, and they said they were happy to have it up for a while longer. If you would like to see these art pieces at the 21c Museum Hotel please visit their website, give them a call, and schedule a visit to view my artwork and various other artists. The hotel is actually really neat and I would love to stay there just for one night. It’s contemporary in their design and the focus of the hotel is art, which is right up my alley. The link is here to learn more: https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/oklahomacity.
Back in June, I believe, I applied for an online exhibition called EMERGENCE, hosted by the Tulsa Community College. I received an email last week announcing I was accepted for their online exhibition for two of my pieces: "The Greetings and Clans of My Ancestors" and "Notha's Prayers". You can view these on my portfolio tab on my website if you would like to see them and listen to the audio accompanying these pieces. The exhibition is pretty neat and it can be viewed by anyone with access to the internet, and its sort of like a virtual gallery where you can view artwork on the wall, and zoom in on them to learn more. This exhibition will be up from August 2nd to August 31st. I will add the link when it becomes available ASAP.
I have been working with some local community outreach programs and businesses for some possible exhibitions in the future and those are currently in the works. The news from the First Americans Museum is that I received some photos form the curators and they started the process of adding the mural like wall paper of my original oil painting I created for them. I am so excited to see the completed project when the museum opens. I was invited to the pre-opening, which is for project artists (like myself) and museum staff to take a peek before the grand opening of the museum later this next month. I found myself a little emotional, yet proud to be a part of this project. Some may want to see the process photos, but I would rather you see it in person when the museum opens, so I won't be sharing the images except with close friends and family. I myself am looking forward to stand in front of one of the biggest projects I have ever done currently to date. I believe tickets and information about the grand opening will be available on the FAM website so please check it out. To see the oil painting I created for FAM please visit my portfolio tab on my website. Here is the link to FAM's website to learn more: https://famok.org/ .
Some other updates are that I recently taught an online art class from my studio for the Absentee Shawnee Culture is Prevention Series. The grant coordinators were great at facilitating the program and one of them came out to my studio to help record and provide the equipment to stream it live. We enjoyed making some mixed media watercolors and oil pastel drawings. In regards to studio work, I have been working on finishing all my greetings cards. This will be the last few sets I do for a long time. The plan is to create printed greetings cards in sets based off original artworks. So, if you would like one of the last few handmade greeting cards I make you will have to come visit me at a future market or show, or you can email me or message me on social media to see what I have in stock. Recently I have been using my cards to give to family and friends for birthdays, "thank you"'s, and various other reasons. When I give them to others they really enjoy the fact that they got a one of kind card with a message from me. I think in the future I will still make them for myself to give to others but I won't be selling them anymore. What is taking these greeting cards place is original small pieces of artwork that are not framed. I believe this is better because, I have so many people that end up telling me that couldn't give away the greeting card once they purchased it from me... they end up getting it framed! That makes me feel good and happy that they get so attached to the art. Instead I will just create some greeting card sets so maybe they can send those to their loved ones, and then purchase a small original for themselves to keep at home. I really enjoy hearing these stories from clients that tell me later what it means to them. I am just happy to spread the joy through the things I make.
Once I finish these cards, I plan to spend a bunch of time painting some small to medium original oil paintings! I have so many small canvases I have gathered the last few months, they are starting to get in the way. The white blank surfaces are ready to be painted with my ideas. I have already spent a good majority of the end of 2020 into the beginning of 2021 making some of the biggest artworks I have created to date, that I need some R&R with some fun small ones... so keep an eye out on my social media and my art store online toward the ends of August into September to see some new artwork that will be up for sale. Again, thank you to everyone that has supported me on this journey so far. I greatly appreciate it. I hope I continue to bring you joy and happiness through my artwork. Take care!
A. L. DuBoise-Shepherd
Image from my art class I taught for the Absentee Shawnee Tribe.
