‘Across Generations’ features works by Theodore ‘Ted’ Moore and Dr. Jessica Moore Harjo

Written By: Chelsea T. Hicks

(OSAGE RESERVATION) For the first time, Theodore “Ted” Moore’s paintings are in the spotlight alongside works by his daughter Dr. Jessica Moore Harjo, who names her father as her biggest artistic influence.

Read this story on Osage News here. 

“I grew up with him making art,” Moore Harjo said. Her father’s influence on her work is visible first-hand in the show, she said, where the two artists’ works hang opposite from one another in the gallery. The resemblance is most evident in their use of detail and color, Moore Harjo said.  

Moore himself is grateful to have the show.

“Across Generations is about all these paintings I did over thirty years,” he said.

The show brochure reads, “Ted has been involved with his Native traditions and culture throughout his lifetime.

“As an artist, he paints to remember his ancestors and to leave a mark for understanding our Native culture and traditions, for being equal to all peoples as a Native American, and to emphasize the importance of being included and belonging within our larger diverse society.”

Moore is conscious of the importance of sharing his art. “I need to share this art with the community,” he said. The idea of having a show has been on his mind for decades.

After studying painting at the University of Oklahoma, he painted portraits in his mother’s kitchen. As he began his own family, he continued painting during evenings, weekends and on holidays. “I wanted to show my skills and keep on doing my art because I wanted to keep up my skills. Even at home, I would be in the corner of my home painting,” Moore said.  

While Moore has shown work in group shows over the years—such as at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa where he ran the cultural engagement center—he has never had a show where his work is the focus, alongside his daughter’s.

“During my lifetime, I always had to work,” he said. “This show at Phillips Theological Seminary is kind of my first art show.”

Moore taught at Bacone College and also Pawnee Nation College and loved it, he said. “I got to meet students, Indian students, and I really miss that … I remember this Tonkawa guy and I remember this Otoe guy used to come visit me every day because they were just Indian students trying to make it through college. Very little money, very little support from everybody, they liked talking to me, I guess … they were kind of ornery but I tamed them a little bit,” he said, laughing. As an educator, he has also taught K-12, the brochure notes.

Painting for the people and the culture

Both the father’s and the daughter’s art are full of cultural references and motifs, and they are both inspired by their cultures.

“My Osage life you can see in these paintings, my Osage cultural life,” said Moore. “I really believe in the culture—keeps our people healthy mentally and physically, the dances, the foods, and you meet different people. A couple years ago I saw these kids running around with other kids [at dances], and I said, ‘wow, this is the circle of life.’” Similarly, Dr. Moore Harjo said, “growing up around powwows and ceremonies … influenced a lot of what I create today.”

It was Moore Harjo who was able to share the opportunity of the show with her father. “They approached me and I asked if they would be open to the idea of me doing the exhibit with my dad … They said yes that would be great,” said Moore Harjo. “[It’s] something I’ve always wanted to do … makes me absolutely at peace being in this space.”  

A portrait of Moore Harjo hangs in the library alongside others of Moore’s family members including “Son Dillon (Chief of All) and horse with background of Grayhorse land,” done in Van Gogh’s style, said Moore. An acrylic of his daughter Erica, “Pretty Eagle” is done all in one color. “Dad’s portraits are some that have never been seen,” Moore Harjo said. “I never went that direction, but absolutely love dad’s portraits. He’s the best in my eyes.”

Portraiture was Moore’s first focus in painting after he graduated from college. The artist said he may return to that style. “Now I’m going to do my grandkids eventually, their faces, so I want to keep my art going through my family and my culture and things like that,” he said.

At the opening, he told gallery-goers some of the stories behind the paintings. A painting of flying and running horses, “In Spirit,” honors astronauts who lost their life in an explosion. “Lakota Girl” was painted from an image in an old magazine article. “Uncle Pete,” a 1992 painting of his relative, a famous traditional dancer, also came from a print clipping.

Beyond portraiture, Moore’s paintings in Across Generations employ a range of techniques. One uses tape in a process he learned at OU. “The blanket technique,” he calls it. In “Osage Ballet, Dancing Flowers,” Moore Harjo shows the influence of her father’s “blanket art” style in a hand-painted drum on display courtesy of her mother, Terry Mason Moore.

In recent works, Moore was inspired by a style of art that he saw on Facebook called drip paint. “It’s really messy though … I’m trying to turn it into more representative art,” he said, and described a process of trying to find and emphasize visions and patterns in the paint.

“I brought the one painting [‘Eagle’] home from my studio and I was looking at it late at night and the eagle, my wife was looking at it. I said where I saw it in there, and she saw it too, so I just emphasized it, because it was already there,” said Moore. Another painting, “White Buffalo” employed the same technique.

He said he has learned the most by simply looking at different techniques of different artists. “When you see that, see the different techniques of artists, it amazes me.”

Moore Harjo’s digital art prints, such as “Sunbeam Dance, v.2,” “Spirit of Resilience” and “Bird Song,” are created with innovative techniques emerging from technology, yet they still incorporate cultural motifs, echoing some of the same symbols from Moore’s paintings.

An Osage-style vest by Moore displays diamonds in yellow and green against a purple and yellow backdrop. The garment stands beside a skirt made of fabric designed by Moore Harjo, depicting dinosaurs containing designs on their bodies. The relationships between traditional art and the digital world are evident in the side-by-side textile display.

Before becoming an interdisciplinary designer, Moore Harjo got a minor in studio art. “That’s where I got to explore a lot of traditional art methods,” she said. And that is exactly the advice that her father gives to aspiring artists—to try different things.

“Try out different art techniques like beadwork, painting, medallions—all of it,” he said. Also critical to success as an artist is to make sure you are learning something you want to learn, he said.

“Number one, if you go to college, make sure you have an artist faculty that is going to teach you something that you want, because a lot of professors are on a different path. Some are abstract, some are portrait, some are not. Find out what kind of technique [you want],” he said.

Kurt Gwartney, senior director of communications at Phillips Theological Seminary, said that Moore Harjo and Moore’s works did not only harmonize beautifully with each other, but also with the opening night event speaker, Joy Harjo.

“We are so fortunate to have had Dr. Jessica Moore Harjo and ‘Ted’ Moore come to our attention. They were the perfect fit for the exhibit and our evening with Joy Harjo,” he said.

At the opening, Harjo read some of her poems and spoke about the importance of listening. She said that people can look at art and use their intuition to learn from it as one form of listening. She also remarked on art and community: “I think of the artists as kind of the point-people of culture, and beware when a community wants to shut down its artists, and wants to shut down books and wants to shut down diversity, because … diversity is what gives life,” she said.  

The seminary has four exhibits every year, each one with a specific focus. Across Generations honored Native American Heritage Month as the annual Indigenous North American exhibit.

Gwartney specifically invited Osages to apply for the Indigenous North Americans Exhibit.

“Knowing the great heritage and creativity of the Osage, it would be wonderful to feature those works in a future show,” he said.   

Osage artists are encouraged to apply at any time to be featured in the Indigenous North Americans exhibition at https://ptstulsa.edu/submissions/. To see Across Generations, visit the Phillips Theological Seminary weekdays through December 24. The exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, located at 901 N. Mingo Road in Tulsa, OK 74116.