| NEW ON THE SITE: MAY 11, 2015 |
| JANUARY 10, 2016 - From the Winter Bench |
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| SHOWN ABOVE: Workbench, Turquoise Pendant and Ring in progress; completed, completed bolos and Byzantine bracelet [Click images to enlarge.] |
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| New works exhibited at semester's end jewelry-making classes, including first copy in hand of newly published book, "Spirit Talk" - NOW AVAILABLE in the Gift Shop! |
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Sun Hawk, Taos -Minisa Crumbo
Collection of the Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ
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| Artist, Minisa Crumbo |
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Bringing Spirit forth through art... |
I am an artist and craftsperson of several disciplines: painting, silversmithing, basketry, potting, as well as quilting, cooking, gardening and writing.
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| Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Year of the Earth Horse, to Lillian Hogue Crumbo and
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo. I am Muscogee Creek and Citizens Band Potawatomi Indian, Scots-Irish from my maternal Papa and French-German from my paternal Papa. |
| My education, in the ways of the Mother Earth and the Father Sky-Sun, who were and remain my first, most important and beautiful teachers, is grounded in the black jack hills of Oklahoma and the high mountain valleys of New Mexico. |
Art Studio at Spirit Horse Ranch |
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| As a child in Sand Springs, OK, as I laid on the grass and looked up into the starry night sky, an airplane flew over and I said, "I want to go there". And so it has been. The natural world is my University. The floor around Woody Crumbo's drawing table, my maternal grandmother Harriett Hogue's garden, milk cow and wood cook stove, my mother and first school teacher, Lillian Crumbo's kindergarten class at the Taos Pueblo Day School ... These places were where I would receive the first structured life lessons, lessons that would endure and reverberate endlessly to this day. |
 I am married to Jim Halsey, Impressario Extraordinaire.
I have two beautiful and talented children: Woodrow Rexford Carter; pilot and Tesla scholar, father and husband, of Prescott, Arizona; and
Cristine Heather Carter Rumford; wife, mother, skier and award winning realtor of Vail, Colorado. |
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| The arts... avenues by which we may initiate or re-gain access to that inspired Spirit Talk. |
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Life can be both hard and beautiful. Sooner or later we all derive benefit from forging and utilizing our proven and worthy tools, the hard won and personally/collectively crafted WAYS and understandings, that balance and harmony might be restored, begin to be restored and most importantly, to be maintained in daily life.
The arts: music, performance, writing, craft, painting, works of all kind, are among the avenues by which we may initiate or re-gain access to that inspired Creative Spirit atmosphere which precedes all expression and function. The arts, actually almost all positive activities, might be said to originate from a Spirit place which is beyond desire and distraction. Connecting with this/these Spirit places in a mindful and honoring way begins to allow the restoration and maintainance of balance and harmony to our minds, hearts, bodies and Spirits and our natural seasonal orders are restored. |
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| My Father... Artist, Woody Crumbo |
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Woody Crumbo, renowned artist... Minisa's first, and most influencial art teacher was her father.
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| Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Crumbo (January 21,1912-April 4, 1989) was a Citizens Band Potawatomi artist, flute maker and dancer. His paintings are held by The Gilcrease Museum, the Philbrook Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Koshare Indian Museum, the Wichita Indian Center and many others. A 1978 inductee into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, Crumbo became an 'ambassador of good will' for Oklahoma in 1982 under appointment by Governor George Nigh. |
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RECORDED INTERVIEW: Minisa Crumbo shares insights of her father and the influence of his dedication to art, and activities and events surrounding the Woody Crumbo Centenial Celebration in an interview Teresa Miller, Executive Director,
Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers,OSU-Tulsa. |
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Born in Lexington, Oklahoma on his Mother, Mary Ann Hurd's allotment, Woody later attended Chilocco Indian Agricultural School where he began studying art. He later studied at the Wichita American Indian Institute, Wichita University where he studied mural technique with Olle Nordmark and watercolor with Clayton Staples. Woody took his degree at the University of Oklahoma where he studied drawing with Oscar Jacobson.
From 1938 to 1941 Crumbo served as the Director of Art at the Bacone College in Muscogee, OK, succeeding Acee Blue Eagle. In 1939 the U.S. Department of the Interior commissioned him to paint murals on the walls of its building in Washington, D.C. |
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| The Last Sunset -Woody Crumbo |
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Crumbo served as Artist in Residence for Thomas Gilcrease in the late forties and during this time produced over 150 paintings which remain in what was soon to become the pre-eminent Gilcrease Museum, specializing in art and history of the Americas.
From 1948 to 1960 Woody Crumbo lived with his wife Lillian and two children Minisa and Woody Max in Taos, New Mexico. It was here that Crumbo conceived the award winning series of copper plate etchings and employed members of the Taos Pueblo to produce the renowned silk-screen series of Indian ceremonies, regalia and wild life works on paper.
Woody Crumbo 'walked on' in Cimarron, NM in 1988 and was buried in Pierce, OK. |
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| Deer and Blue Elements -Woody Crumbo |
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| DVD: Spirit Talk - The Life and
Work of Woody Crumbo |
A documentary video produced and directed by Minisa Crumbo Halsey.
Visit Gifts Page
for Art Prints, DVDs, Music, and more... |
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| Spirit Horse -Woody Crumbo |
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| SHARING HIS TALENT... |
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 Woody Crumbo was a long time friend and admirer of the Koshare Indian Dancers Founder, Francis 'Buck', Burshears. In the 1970's Buck, Jane and 'Ma' Burshears invited the Crumbo's to move from Taos, New Mexico to La Junta, CO where they made their home for a number of years. Here, Woody maintained a studio and Lillian taught in the La Junta public schools. Both Lillian and Woody Crumbo were enthusiastic supporters of the internationally recognized and accomplished Koshare Indian Dancers.
Woody Crumbo, and many, many other dedicated and specialized teachers, mentors, interested friends and sponsors, mothers and fathers, spent much time with 'the boys', discussing varied Native American traditions and broader American and Universal ideals, lecturing in art appreciation, studying dance, face and body 'paint', song, drumming, regalia understandings and construction and appropriate deportment as representatives of the Koshare Indian Dancer tradition. It was and remains to be a vast and complex organization that requires committed input and participation from a myriad of persons and directions to function smoothly, efficiently and with satisfaction for both the core performing Koshare Indian Dancer organization and the attending public. |
| In the midst of this microcosm of the Universe, they spoke of and considered: the arts, vision and aspirations, interactive and cooperative actions, focussing on the desirable, appropriate and attainable goals as identified by and within Buck's vision for 'his boys'. Within this microcosm they worked, laughed, sweated together, forging life long alliances, and growing into manhood while striving to incorporate and maintain the Boy Scouts of America ideals, teachings and traditions, high grade point averages in school and then, they danced their hearts out in the Kiva and on tour. And so, the Natural World and helpers, continued(s) to teach, inspire and support brilliant and inspired lives as they move out from their Kiva, the teaching and ceremonial place of what it means to truly be a Human Being and into their larger lives in the World. |
Spotted Wolf's Last Request |
| Woody Crumbo painted SPOTTED WOLF'S LAST REQUEST in the La Junta, CO studio and it was subsequently acquired for the Koshare Indian Museum, where it hangs on display today. |
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