Cherokee Nation Art Classes and Art Show in Tahlequah, Oklahoma
In 2022, Evermore recognized the alarming trends in childhood bereavement and had to act. After partnering with Penn State and the University of Southern California to release America’s Forgotten Orphans, the nation’s first report documenting a 20-year rise in the experience of parental death across every race and ethnicity, and every state. We found an alarming statistic: Indigenous children have experienced parental loss at a higher rate than every other racial or ethnic group — 2.2 times the national rate.
Following the release of that report, Evermore provided a microgrant serving the Cherokee Nation to provide space for coping and creation. Over six weeks, Cherokee Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) artist Dena Coleman, a local art teacher, led students in reading “We Are Grateful,” a picture book by Cherokee poet and author Traci Sorell. Each student received a free copy, and Coleman worked with them to react and process their emotions through art, a practice she’s developed by working in local schools.
The students then had the opportunity to display their work at the Tahlequah Art Show at Coleman’s local studio, Dena’s Art Den, and all went home with gift bags of candy, snacks, and art supplies. Local singer-songwriter Steve Fisher accompanied the festivities, and Cherokee TERO artist and author Molly Brewer selected a handful of drawings to appear on a set of Evermore notecards that are now for sale for a limited time. Brewer, an artist, writer, and motion content producer, has received commissions for portraits and murals, and her work appears in the National Cherokee History Museum.
The drawings by the Tahlequah elementary schoolers — who were excited to see their own creations featured in an art exhibition — carry the charm inherent in all children’s artwork and are full of love and respect for the natural world: Fifth-grader Greyson’s aptly named drawing “Bison” shows an impressively detailed rendering of the animal crossing a stream; Kase, a first-grader, draws flourishing crops and livestock under a sunny sky in “I Am Grateful for Food,” showing a knowledge of food systems that rivals that of many adults. One student who participated, Lydia, reflected on the experience Coleman led, saying that it made her “feel like I am a part of my community.”