Portfolio > The Buffalo Project

I started the The Buffalo Project in 2021 while I was the Artist in residence at The Institute of American Indian and Alaskan Native Arts and Culture. I had a conversation with my cousin back home in Shawnee Oklahoma, where we talked about one of our tribal citizens reaching out to our Nation, for books from the tribal library. I was informed by my cousin that this request had been refused. This conversation inspired this project. I begin to think of how we are connected to the community when individuals in our community are displaced, removed, criminalized, and institutionalized. I began pondering what use is public art when community is removed from the public, and how can I create work that would facilitate a connection.
Within this project I began to decolonize the construct of belonging and challenge the constructs of public art. I decided then, to create a work of art that would exist as a symbol of reclamation, re-connection and hope. A symbol that is recognizable, one that holds familiar and beloved meaning to Native Americans throughout the plains. I began to draw a Buffalo.
I carved, inked, hand pressed and pulled the first print, I made a little over 300 prints that first couple of weeks. I then reached out to Native communities through social media, offering the prints as a gift to Native People to send to their relatives that are incarcerated, in rehabilitation care and recovery, and in nursing home care. I want this project to uplift my fellow Native American People and multiple communities. To remind them that, like the Buffalo, we will return to our lands, our communities, and the strength of our Spirits cannot be taken from us.

I facilitate this project through sales of other prints. The Buffalo Print is not for sale, and is only given as a gift. An act of Love, and a different approach to accessible art, this project will be my lifetime work.