Christie Duschel, Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Member Since July 2008
Artist Statement I was born Christie Dawn Taylor in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. My Father had a stroke when I was young. He was left with permanent brain damage. My mother was left supporting four kids and my father. She worked very hard every day as a nurse but her true love was art. She struggled as she tried to work and go to school to get an art degree but she was determined to do what she loved and take care of all of us. I admired my mother very much, I loved art work and I wanted to be just like her. She was commissioned to do bronze sculptures for the Smithsonian Institute. She had dreams that were finely comming true. It was as if things were looking up for her but then, at thirty-eight she was diagnosed with cancer. It was her last year of college, but she died four months later, without graduating. I, along with two siblings, was forced to move to a children’s home in Tupelo Mississippi. In the ninth grade I made a coloring book that the children’s home sold. I became part of a gospel singing group and went on tour every summer. These tours were used as a way to get people to give money to the home. I used this as an opportunity to perform dramatic works and sell my art work.
I began to enter in many national art competitions in many categories: sketching, pin & ink, pastels, watercolor painting, oil painting, acrylic painting, dramatic monologues, creative story telling, poetry reciting, and poetry writing. I also often entered many local computations such as the Gum Tree Festival and fundraisers in the community. I graduated high school at the top of my class. I had the privilege of teaching the art classes at New Life Christian School in Brighton, Missouri for two years.
Now my home and studio are now in Tahlequah, OK. I am graduating from Northeastern State University, with a Bachelors of Art. I have always enjoyed photography and painting. Most recently I have focused on my Native American culture, learning the technique of the Cherokee on coil building pottery. Since 2005, I have been making traditional Southeastern Woodland/Mound builders inspired pottery, also contemporary woodland style earthenware and Raku pottery. I create clay sculpture and slab built masks, platters and shields that are inspired by Woodland arts and artifacts. The images usually depict abstract animals, landscape and nature, with symbols of endurance, protection and celestial activity. My mother introduced me to clay when I was a child. We would pit fire small hand built pots in our back yard. I began making wheel thrown pottery, slab pots and sculptures at NSU with instructor, ‘Bo’ Lovelace. In 2004, I met Cherokee potter Jane Osti, who introduced me to traditional Cherokee pottery. She was teaching a Native American pottery class at Northeastern. I learned the basics of coil building and wood firing. My pottery is coil built then decorated by incising or cutting the design into the clay. Some are glazed for Raku firing. I have traveled and exhibited since 1995, doing Fine Art Shows, Museum shows and Indian Markets.
Art has always been a part of my life and will continue to be. In every piece I do, in some way, is in memory of my mother who encouraged me and implanted the deep desire to make a masterpiece. Art has helped me through so many times. I hope that my art work and teaching will be a reflection of me and who I am and somehow touch others.
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