TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – Thirteen platforms in the heart of the Cherokee Nation show off the latest exhibit created by Jeff Edwards, with a focus on tribal iconography and language, and how the language has evolved into modern times.
Edwards said all of his artwork promotes the Cherokee language or mythology. He is the fourth Cherokee artist to be featured on the Cherokee Cultural Pathway, which runs between the museums in the downtown area. Edwards is a graphic artist, and his exhibit will be featured until April 12, 2025.
The pathway opened in 2022 to improve safety and accessibility between downtown cultural sites, states a press release from the Cherokee Nation Cultural Tourism team.
“It has now transformed into an immersive experience, allowing visitors to connect with authentic Cherokee artists through rotating displays and permanent large-scale art installations,” states the release.
Some of the pieces chosen had never been displayed before, and Edwards said it was “neat” to see what was selected for the exhibit.
“I’ve worked at the Cherokee Nation for about 24 years, and it’s always been in some capacity with the Cherokee language,” Edwards said.
He works at the Durbin Feeling Language Center, and he said it felt natural to bring the language into his artwork.
“The Cherokee language is heavily endangered, with 2,000 fluent speakers at this point,” Edwards said.
“We lose about 130 speakers a year, and that’s one of the incentives.”
When Edwards first started working with the Cherokee language, he was put in the curriculum development team for students age 3 and older to the sixth grade, and they are taught entirely in the Cherokee language. There were no materials to teach from, so the team had to develop what the school needed.
“I’m not a trained graphic artist; my work with the Cherokee language in the curriculum department gave me enough skills to do artwork later on in life,” Edwards said. “Everything I created for the school naturally is going to be in the Cherokee syllabary.”
Incorporating the language into his artwork was a “no-brainer,” Edwards said. He said he’s only been doing artwork for 11 years, and in the process of creating content for his students, he taught himself how to use graphic programs.
“When I started doing art, I thought it was important to incorporate the Cherokee syllabary in the artwork to highlight it,” Edwards said. “If you can get someone interested, then that gives you a chance to say, ‘That’s the Cherokee syllabary, there are 86 characters and they represent sounds.’”
This is an opportunity to give a history lesson in Sequoyah’s creation of the syllabary and draw people in from an artist’s perspective, and hopefully people want to learn some of the language, Edwards said.
“I don’t give any translation of my artwork because I always incorporate sentences and words, and when people ask what it means I tell them they need to learn Cherokee,” Edwards said.
He said he teases people about it, but usually goes into detail of what the pieces represent. Edwards said he isn’t a fluent speaker, doesn’t claim to be and never will be, because he doesn’t have the time it takes to become fluent.
“One of the pieces is ‘Cherokee On The Brain,’ and it was one of the first pieces I created,” Edwards said. “It’s an X-ray of a brain and I embedded random Cherokee syllabaries, because that was how I thought my brain might look.”
The “Sequoyah Warhol” piece represents the claim that Sequoyah only commissioned his portrait painted one time, and a conspiracy theory is it isn’t Sequoyah that was painted, Edwards said.
“That one image that’s on the Warhol piece, is how he is [thought of and represented],” Edwards said. “That’s kind of boring, so I take that one image and I incorporate it into other art styles to make him still modern – even though it was an image from [the original painting].”
He does this to show the Cherokee language has been modified and transformed, and he likes to take Sequoyah into modern scenarios, Edwards said. “People ask, how could Sequoyah be that way or why did you do that, and I tell them they’ve answered their own question. He’s not supposed to be there, but he is,” Edwards said.
Karen Shade-Lanier, Cherokee Nation Cultural Tourism exhibits manager, said when the team first started looking at Edwards for the pathway, they asked for a sampling of work he has done over the years. The team found there were many pieces from Edwards’ career that coincided with his evolution from graphic designer to graphic artist.
“You see an awareness of learning more about Cherokee history, culture, the appreciation of Cherokee language – that comes through with the selections,” Shade-Lanier said. “The 13 selections in this display really speak to Jeff’s interest, and his own growth in how he sees himself as an artist.”
Edwards said “Sequoyah Warhol” is based on the portrait by Charles Bird King. The original was hanging in the Smithsonian Institution when it burned Jan. 24, 1865. There have been additional paintings done based on that original and that is how the image has survived, Shade-Lanier said.
“[King] traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1828 as one of the diplomats to negotiate a treaty with the United States,” Shade-Lanier said. “At that time, the Department of Interior was commissioning portraits of many of these Native American leaders coming into Washington to talk about policies that affected their people.”