New Mexico Art Tells its History

Yee Tah-lee

Yee Tah-lee, 2006
Teri Greeves (American, Kiowa, born 1970)
Tennis shoes (size 13), cut glass beads, seed beads, 6 x 12 1/4 x 4 1/4 in. (15.2 x 31.1 x 10.8 cm) each
Gift of the Dobkin Family Foundation, 2006
2006.21ab

Teri Greeves was born on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Her mother owned a trading post on the reservation, which helped her gain a broad knowledge of different beadwork from tribes around the country. Greeves took up beadwork at the age of eight and although she is primarily self-taught, she also received instruction from other Native bead workers; she received a B.A. in American Studies. Enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma, Greeves both follows and updates the Kiowa tradition of beadwork to tell the story of the American Indian, both contemporary and historical. She says: I must express myself, and my experience as a twenty-first-century Kiowa, and I do it, like all of those unknown artists before me, through beadwork.

 

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