I have always loved creating things. I took Home Economics in junior high school where I was introduced to sewing and the wonderful world of cooking. My mother did an assortment of crafts from crocheting, cross-stitch and quilting. My maternal grandmother tanned her own deer hides for moccasins for her children. Her mother, my great-grandmother, made rawhide containers out of deer and elk hides. She stretched the wet hides and staked the hides to the ground with wooden stakes. She scraped the hair and fatty tissue off of each hide. She used the sun to dry and bleach the hide to a hard, white surface. I am proud to come from a long line of women artists.
I became interested in bead work and painted rawhide when my late husband, Michael Branson, took me to my first mountain man rendezvous in the Teton mountain range of Wyoming in 1981. I was the only Indian at this rendezvous but all the "Indians" were wearing Indian bead work on their belts in the forms of knife sheaths, belt bags, etc. There were traders who sold commercial tanned rawhide containers that were painted with bright acrylic paints, not 1830's approved! The next year my husband and I showed up to the rendezvous with our tipi decorated on the inside with painted rawhide containers for storage and bead work to wear. It was a busy winter! My husband was a high school history teacher who had a love of the American fur trade era and the Wild West. It was his confidence in my talents that led me to the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1987.
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I received a National Endowment of the Arts grant working with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM in 1995. I have won 26 ribbons for first, second and third place at the Santa Fe Indian Market over the years. I was awarded a SWAIA Fellowship Grant in 1992; an Excellence in Traditional Crafts ribbon in 1991 and the Bob Davis Memorial Award, Most Promising Artist Award ribbon in 1988 at the Santa Fe Indian Market. I have also won Best of Division at the Heard Museum in 1991.
I am an enrolled member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe based in Ignacio, Colorado. I am also a licensed private pilot. I am licensed in a single-engine, fixed-gear airplane. My husband and I owned a Piper Cherokee 180 and flew out of Meadow Lake Airport, 00V, east of Colorado Springs.
I live north of Colorado Springs in a log home, on 10 acres of Ponderosa pine in an area known as the Black Forest. I enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest and looking out of my studio windows at the trees, sky and the different animals that stop by. My home studio is where I do my rawhide and bead work. I also share studio space in downtown Colorado Springs with my sister, Karen Box Anderson. Our studio is located at Cottonwood Center for the Arts, 427 E Colorado Avenue, studio #132, Colorado Springs, CO 80903. Cottonwood is where we create and sell our jewelry.
I became interested in bead work and painted rawhide when my late husband, Michael Branson, took me to my first mountain man rendezvous in the Teton mountain range of Wyoming in 1981. I was the only Indian at this rendezvous but all the "Indians" were wearing Indian bead work on their belts in the forms of knife sheaths, belt bags, etc. There were traders who sold commercial tanned rawhide containers that were painted with bright acrylic paints, not 1830's approved! The next year my husband and I showed up to the rendezvous with our tipi decorated on the inside with painted rawhide containers for storage and bead work to wear. It was a busy winter! My husband was a high school history teacher who had a love of the American fur trade era and the Wild West. It was his confidence in my talents that led me to the Santa Fe Indian Market in 1987.
I received a National Endowment of the Arts grant working with the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM in 1995. I have won 26 ribbons for first, second and third place at the Santa Fe Indian Market over the years. I was awarded a SWAIA Fellowship Grant in 1992; an Excellence in Traditional Crafts ribbon in 1991 and the Bob Davis Memorial Award, Most Promising Artist Award ribbon in 1988 at the Santa Fe Indian Market. I have also won Best of Division at the Heard Museum in 1991.
I am an enrolled member of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe based in Ignacio, Colorado. I am also a licensed private pilot. I am licensed in a single-engine, fixed-gear airplane. My husband and I owned a Piper Cherokee 180 and flew out of Meadow Lake Airport, 00V, east of Colorado Springs.
I live north of Colorado Springs in a log home, on 10 acres of Ponderosa pine in an area known as the Black Forest. I enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest and looking out of my studio windows at the trees, sky and the different animals that stop by. My home studio is where I do my rawhide and bead work. I also share studio space in downtown Colorado Springs with my sister, Karen Box Anderson. Our studio is located at Cottonwood Center for the Arts, 427 E Colorado Avenue, studio #132, Colorado Springs, CO 80903. Cottonwood is where we create and sell our jewelry.