About Me

When my children were young, we made frequent trips from the heart of downtown Dallas, TX, to the capital of the Cherokee Nation to stay connected with our culture. One of the more meaningful experiences during these trips was attending Ancient Cherokee Days at the Heritage Center. This biannual event immersed us in the history and daily life of our ancestors.

One activity that left an indelible mark, called Talking Leaves, was an interactive language session with a native speaker. As I watched my children at the activity table, an elder, tiny but mighty, grabbed my wrist and implored that I do everything in my power to keep the Cherokee language alive. At that time, I knew nothing of the language and thought, “Me? What ever good could I do?” But she was a force with an eagle-eye gaze and I promised her I would try.

That promise has stayed with me. Through trials and many errors, I forged my own way to honor and contribute to its preservation. Over time, I developed a concept that combined my love for intuitive art with my passion for our heritage through carving Cherokee words through syllabary into my paintings. The characters that emerge are designed like the pictures in a toddler's word book, where the ease of recognizing the word through its image mirrors the way we connect names and concepts to things.

While I still struggle with the complexity of Tsalagi, I verify the accuracy with native speakers—of which fewer than 2,000 remain. This is my small but spirit-led attempt at preserving the language, honoring its beauty, and lending to its survival for future generations. Every mark I make, every stroke of paint, every carved symbol of Sequoyah's syllabary is in tribute to all our beautiful language, to my ancestors, and to generations yet to come.