My parents made some life-long friends on a bus trip back to the Cherokee Homelands in the 1970’s. The trip took the group to see some of the important landmarks, but also to meet up with the Eastern Band of Cherokees to bring the long-separated tribes back together. There were Dawes Roll original allottees still living at that time, people who had been born before statehood and two of them were from our hometown, Vinita. The experiences on that trip created a bond. And after the trip my son and I took a few months ago, I could truly understand the serious nature of what they viewed and experienced together and the feeling of connectedness they came to have.
One of the women who took that trip came back inspired to learn the simple but lost art of constructing or creating Cherokee pottery. Her husband simply requested she make him what we all call a “Sequoyah” pipe, with a small clay base and rivercane for the stem. Annabel Mitchell’s first projects met Bob, her husband’s approval, but she continued working with clay. She researched the traditional shapes and uses from the past, and began beginning to make both larger and more complicated pieces. She experienced traditional firing of her pots and found pots surviving the firing more often than not. She gave many pots away, some with flaws before she started selling her pottery at craft shows locally and around the nation. She began allowing people interested in learning the skills she had acquired through trial and error to come and learn directly from her in her studio.
What came of all this? A renaissance of pottery throughout the Cherokee Nation. Sometime along this process, my Dad dug a new pond out here on the land and found some very good clay to share with Anna. Since that time, many Cherokees, other tribal potters and local artists have come to dig and create works of art from the clay beneath our feet.
Time has passed and so have my parents, Bob and Annabelle Mitchell, the original allottees. But the clay remains. Pots are constructed and fired becoming vessels and museum quality items.
Through that time, Anna’s legend and standing grew and her daughter, Victoria was elected to the Cherokee Council, just as Vinita’s Chuck Hoskins, Jr. gained the position of Principal Chief. With these two in leadership positions and with the support of the tribal council a decision was made to honor Anna and her accomplishments, but to do so in a built structure that would serve also as a Welcome Center to the Cherokee Nation, but also to provide a respite for visitors traveling on either Route 66 or the Interstate Highway 44.
Madeline Geiger was an NEO student 10 years ago, who knocked on the door at LEAD Agency and asked if she could spend some time volunteering with us. The projects she inspired have continued since her leaving, we still have our Community Garden, and our painted Rain Barrel project with NEO has carried on, year after year. And it was her return visit that caused my son and I to show her the Anna Mitchell Cultural Center.
It was in that building today that I discovered yet another potter inspired by Anna to create pottery. Troy Jackson’s unbelievable entries are on display. Each one awe inspiring. The styles from bowls to covered dishes progressed to vases as well as drawings and paintings. Then we rounded the corner to see bolts and little fishes adorning a weapon of war, never used. It was a moment later when we turned to see the people he had created, all reaching, longing and inspiring us as we stood astonished by the talent with clay that Troy Jackson had learned to express and the joy and sense of true wonder as we experienced the pieces on display. He used steel and clay in some designs. How he came to art could be read on the walls and he ended with this remarkable hope that viewers of his contemporary pottery “may see humility in me and in my artwork.”
With those simple words, I saw the humility that Cherokee artist is sharing with the random visitors who stop in at a welcome center at the edge of the Cherokee Nation.
It was as Madeline was driving away, that I grasp what she had said before she left, she had called me her mentor and the responsibility of that role rushed forward as I hoped like the artist Troy Jackson, to know that I carry it with humility. That same feeling must also have been Anna’s, should she have known her work and the inspiration to create culturally would live long after her passing.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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