heather ahtone, PhD ( Chickasaw), is director of Curatorial Affairs at the

First Americans Museum The First Americans Museum (FAM) is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. It was previously known as the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum. It officially opened on September 18, 2021. Background The center was initiated in the 1990s ...

Background and education

Heather Ahtone is enrolled in the Chickasaw Nation and a descendant of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She received an associate's degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1993 and her master's degree (2006) and doctoral degree from the University of Oklahoma (OU).

Career

Ahtone previously worked at the IAIA and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA). In 2007, she began researching at the OU School of Geology and Geophysics while teaching courses in Art History in Norman, Oklahoma. She served as the James T. Bialac Curator of Native American and Non-Western Art at the

Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma. Overview The University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art holds over 20,000 objects in its permanent collection. The museum c ...

, part of OU, from 2012 to 2018. She became the senior curator at the

in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 2018. Involved with the museum's planning, ahtone is responsible for creating exhibitions for the museum, managing publications, and coordinating research.

Writing

Ahtone has published in journals such as ''American Indian Horizons'', ''International Journal of Arts in Society'', and ''

Wíčazo Ša Review The ''Wíčazo Ša Review'' ("Red Pencil" in Lakota) is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal of Native American studies. The journal was established in 1985 by editors-in-chief Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Dakota Santee), Dr. Beatrice Medicine (Lakot ...

''. She has authored and contributed to catalogues, ‘’OKLA HOMMA’’, ‘’WINIKO: Life of an Object, Selections from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’’, ''Warhol and the West'', ''

Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts James Lavadour (born 1951) is an American painter and printmaker. A member of the Walla Walla tribe, he is known for creating large panel sets of landscape paintings. Lavadour is the co-founder of the Crow's Shadow Institute of the Arts. ''I bel ...

at 25'', ''Hopituy: Hopi Art from the Permanent Collections'', ''From the belly of our being: Art by and about Native Creation'', ''Seeds of Being: A Project of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Native American Art & Museum Studies Seminar'', and many more.

Awards and honors

In 2007, '' Oklahoma Magazine'' named ahtone a "40 Under 40."

Select exhibitions curated

* 2020: ''Re/Convening: Native Arts of Oklahoma'', Hardesty Arts Center (AHHA), Tulsa, Oklahoma * 2017: ''Photo/Synthesis'' with Will Wilson, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art * 2016: ''From the belly of our being art by and about Native creation'', Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, OK * 2015: ''Enter the Matrix: Indigenous Printmakers'', Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art * 2013: ''Hopituy: Hopi Art from the Permanent Collection'', Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art * 2012: ''James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection: Selected Works'', Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art

References

External links

heather ahtone
profile, Chickasaw TV {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahtone, Heather Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Chickasaw Nation people Chickasaw people of Choctaw descent Native American academics Native American women academics Native American curators 21st-century Native American writers People from Norman, Oklahoma Native American women writers 21st-century Native American women American women curators American curators Institute of American Indian Arts alumni University of Oklahoma alumni Writers from Oklahoma