Martha Berry, Cherokee Art Market, Catoosa, Oklahoma

Martha Berry is a Cherokee beadwork artist, who has been highly influential in reviving traditional Cherokee and Southeastern beadwork, particularly techniques from the pre-Removal period.

[edit] Background

Martha Berry was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. Her grandmother and mother both taught her how to sew at age five. She made her own clothes and became a professional seamstress. She has expanded her skills by developing elaborate beadwork art.^[1][2]

[edit] Artwork

Berry creates beaded bandolier bags, moccasins, belts, garters, and sashes. She often uses white outlined spirals that are traditional in 18th and 19th century Southeastern beadwork. Berry discovered a unique stitch only used on Southeastern sashes.

She has won innumerable prizes for her beadwork at the Cherokee Art Market, the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, the Heard Museum, and the Cherokee Heritage Center.

[edit] Projects

Berry participated in the Community Arts Program of the National Museum of the American Indian. She has visited their collections to do further research into pre-Removal Southeastern beadwork, which has informed her own work.

Berry recently curated Our Fires Still Burn, a Cherokee beadwork exhibition at the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma.^[3] The exhibition included beadwork from Scottish collections which had not been seen in the United States in almost two centuries. Berry wrote the text for the show catalog, Beadwork Storytellers: A Visual Language.^[1]

[edit] Personal

Berry lives in Tyler, Texas^[2] with her husband, David. Her daughter, Christina Berry is also a beader and publisher of "All Things Cherokee."^[1]

She served as a delegate to the 1999 Cherokee Nation Constitutional Convention in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.^[1] She is currently an active member of the Cherokee Artists Association.^[4]

[edit] External links

• Martha Berry: Cherokee Beadwork Artist.
• All Things Cherokee Art Gallery: Martha Berry.
• Cherokee Artist's Association: Martha Berry.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} About the Artist. Martha Berry (retrieved 17 March 2009)
2. ^ ^{a b} Power, Susan C. Art of the Cherokee: Prehistory to Present. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2007: 209-211
3. ^ Special Exhibits. Cherokee National Museum. (retrieved 17 March 2009)
4. ^ Martha Berry. Cherokee Artists Association. (retrieved 4 Oct 2009)