Hand-Woven

Homeland Returns UGA, Fall 2021

3-4 pm Thursday September 2, “Hand Woven.” Master weaver and textile artist Margaret Roach Wheeler, enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, and founder of Mahota Handwovens, presents about her homeland land research on fibers and textiles, and other inspirations for her work. She will be joined by panelist Benjamin Britton, Associate Professor of Art, Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA.

Chickasaw textile designer Margaret Wheeler honors the legacy of her great-great-grandmother, Mahota, and the spirit of creative Chickasaw women today. Margaret is known internationally as a painter, sculptor, educator, Native historian, and award-winning weaver. From her earliest business in handwoven fashions and textiles as fine arts, Margaret’s weavers-mentoring studio and sales of original handwovens continues in collaboration with the Chickasaw Nation. Based on her creative work and also in collaboration with the Chickasaw Nation, Margaret founded and directs the national fashion brand Mahota Textiles. Her art has toured the United States, most recently in the exhibit Visual Voices: Contemporary Chickasaw Art. Through the legacy of Mahota, Nancy Mahota, grandmother Juel, and mother Rubey, centuries of tradition and craftsmanship continue to inspire contemporary generations of Indigenous makers through weaving craft and textile design. And through detailed historical research and creative innovation, Margaret tethers the work of her ancestors to textile manufacture and fashion today.

Margaret Wheeler’s art has been acquired by the following museums:

Eiteljorg, Indianapolis, Indiana

Museum of Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, and

Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon.

Margaret’s art has also toured in the following exhibits and productions:

“Visual Voices, Art of the Chickasaw,” Curator Manuela Well off Man

“Native Art Now,” curated by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

“Return From Exile,” Contemporary Southeastern Art curated by Native American visual artists, Bobby Martin and Tony Tiger

“Changing Hands, Art Without Reservations,” curated by The Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York, and 

She has created costumes and stage props for Lowak Shoppala (Fire and Light), a Chickasaw Nation stage production with music by Jerod Tate and words by Linda Hogan.

Margaret’s Awards and Recognitions:

Fellowship with the National Museum of American Indian, Washington, DC 2000

Chickasaw Hall of Fame 2010

Oklahoma Governor’s Award for the Arts 2018

Oklahoma Arts Ambassador 2020

Chickasaw Dynamic Woman of the Year 2020

Professor Benjamin Britton, Associate Professor of Art, Lamar Dodd School of Art, UGA; and panelist for today’s presentation:

Benjamin Britton was born in California in 1976, and grew up outside Seattle. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1999 and his MFA in painting from UCLA in 2008. He has had solo shows at Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, and Frederieke Taylor Gallery in New York. His work is included in the collections of the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia and the West Collection in Oaks, Pennsylvania. He is a recipient of the Chiaro Award in painting and an Artist-in-Residence awardee at the Headlands Center for the Arts; a recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, Ireland; and a recipient of the J.B. Blunk Residency from the Lucid Art Foundation in Inverness, California. Britton’s work is represented by Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. He teaches at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Register in advance for this webinar:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ryoyVvSFTwGQhvQngji6jA