INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS (IAIA) ANNOUNCES FIRST RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

As part of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant announced this past January, IAIA welcomes the the first IAIA Scholarly Fellow, Laura Marshall Clark.

Laura Marshall Clark is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She's a scholar, published author, editor, independent curator, and Native business owner. She currently manages all aspects of the Visual Voices: Contemporary Chickasaw Art touring exhibition, now exhibiting at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Arts (MoCNA). Clark earned her bachelor's degree in political science at East Central University (ECU) in Ada, OK, and a MA in Native American Studies with a focus in Indigenous Arts and Media from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in Norman.

Clark was raised among artists of the Five Civilized Tribes in Muskogee, OK, the art influences of Bacone College, and received an early education in painting, creative writing, and other arts disciplines. After years in the corporate arena, Clark re-entered the world of Native American arts and culture, "coming full circle," as she describes it, at the Chickasaw Nation Division of Arts and Humanities in Ada, OK, as manager of humanities and literary arts and instructor in the Chickasaw Arts Academy. Today, her scholarly research and writing align with projects of her management consulting company, WildHorse Consulting, LLC, serving Native American fine arts, education, tribal initiatives, and businesses.

Laura Marshall Clark's research project, titled Morphologies: IAIA and the Art of Native Oklahoma, will examine the influence between IAIA and Oklahoma artists; and how they have been intertwined with one another from the start. The Research Fellowship will run from October through December 2019. During her residency at IAIA, she will participate in public presentations and classroom lectures, and will contribute materials from her research to the IAIA Archives.

Dr. Lara M. Evans (Cherokee), Program Director for the IAIA Artist-in-Residence Program remarked, "The IAIA campus has hosted more than 60 artists since 2015. It is a natural next step to begin hosting scholars of Native American art, too. The IAIA Archives and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts collection, both housed on the campus, are incredible resources for scholarship and curatorial projects. The field of Native American art history is wide open; there is so much work to be done! Making the processes of indigenous research methodologies visible to our students and the broader community is an important step in supporting the development of future generations of leadership in the arts, as well as current leaders."

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) Chief Curator, Manuela Well-Off-Man, states, "We are very pleased this inaugural research fellowship will include an exploration of IAIA's connections with another important geographic region for Native American art. Her research will contribute to advancing the scholarship on several Oklahoma artists in MoCNA's collection."

For information on events and opportunities to meet IAIA Scholarly Fellow, as well as updates on Laura Clark's research, please visit iaia.edu/air.