My 2025 Artist in Residence in Everglades donation piece — a pair of traditional eastern moccasins.
The side tabs tell the story of my (via my grandfather) Spanish-Seminole ancestors who were detained and separated by the Army during the Seminole Resistance (Seminole Wars). The red background represents their community and the blood that united them - specifically from the Miccosukee-speaking town of Chokonilka, who lived in a fishing Rancho on Sanibel Island in the early 1800s. The light blue around the edge represents the pristine waters that surrounded them. The yellow and bar across the center represents the separations and forced removals that divided families as hundreds from the ranchos were taken to (present-day) Oklahoma in the 1830s by the US.
They serve to remind us that the past should not be repeated and that policy and legality doesn’t make such evil actions right.
Deer skin, cotton calico cloth, ribbon, sinew, glass beads, brass cones, and dyed deer hair; hand sewn.