Carnegie, OK – Celebrating its third year, the Huntinghorse Tsatoke Kiowa Tribe Art Show showcased artworks across media at the Red Wolf Community Center. Running from July 1 through 3, 2026, the exhibition coincided with the annual Kiowa Gourd Clan Ceremonials and was open to all Kiowa citizens and descendants with kids, youth, adult, and senior/master divisions. This approach encourages young, emerging artists while honoring accomplished elders.
A. Monroe Tsatoke, a minister and an established painter who taught art at Riverside Indian School, and Toni Tsatoke, executive director of the Kiowa Education Agency, organized this exhibition. Today, the Kiowa Tribe, or Gáui k’yá[gôñbàu, is headquartered in Carnegie, Oklahoma, and shares a tribal jurisdictional area with the Comanche Nation and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. Kiowa artists have made their mark on the international art world, notably the Kiowa Six, who ranked among the most influential Native American painters of the 1930s.
Kiowa Tribe Art Show winners were announced in an honoring ceremony on Friday, July 2, at 11:00 am. With support from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation and the Jacobson House Native Art Center in Norman, which celebrates the legacy of the Kiowa Six and other Southern Plains artists, all winners won cash prizes.
Best of Show
Best of Show winner was Kiowa Legacy, painted by Jeff Yellowhair (Kiowa/Apache). In the acrylic painting, a vast, hazy sky hovers cloudless over an intricately rendered Western Oklahoma landscape. Translucent blue spirit figures of the Kiowa Six and their art professor (left to right: Monroe Tsatoke, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Oscar Jacobson, Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, and Lois Smoky Kaulaity) bridge the earth and sky. Their regalia, accessories, paints, and brushes lay scattered on the earth, presided over by jewel-toned wild birds and other local creatures.
Yellowhair is a self-taught painter based in Apache, Oklahoma, who began with Southern Plains Flatstyle but moved toward more representational painting. He says, “My teacher was Southwest Art Magazine.”
He doesn’t participate in art markets these days, saying, “I just burnt out from that.” Instead, he calls his collectors directly when he finishes a new work. “I’m satisfied with it,” he says. “I’d rather have people have it in their homes than me having it in mine.” He acknowledges that he does have work in the permanent collection of the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko.
Yellowhair’s independent approach affords him personal freedom. “I paint what I want to paint. Like this, telling the story.” Highly informed by Kiowa history and culture, his work draws inspiration from the Native American Church. Yellowhair is also accomplished as a featherwork fan maker. His work can be seen online at his Jeff Yellowhair Facebook profile.
Upholding Kiowa Values
Tribally specific art shows allow tribal communities to highlight their cultural values and art styles significant to them. Entries included painting, beadwork, featherwork, other regalia, digital artwork, and more. Two classifications highlighted ledger art.
Dorie Jill Parker-Fields (Comanche/Kiowa/Wichita) entered an original painting, as did her daughter Hayla Parker-Fields (Comanche/Kiowa/Wichita/Cherokee). Dorie Jill Parker-Fields says that she painted her ledger-inspired work, She Gave It All, “for the female warriors and for the female family members who have given their all for everybody. They give their all for the community.”
Jaylee Mule, daughter of Toni Tsatoke-Mule, entered two ledger-inspired digital artworks, Protecting What We Love, and Runners, which she created on her iPad, “specifically in honor of Billy Mills,” the Oglala Lakota Olympic gold-medal runner. She says she wanted to “represent who he is, and how he encourages us” through his achievements at the Olympics. To her Flatstyle rendering of a Native woman and man sprinting on a ledger background, she added the repeated Kiowa word Bѐ [bé:[dѐ, which translates as “never give up” or “you be brave.”
—America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
2026 Kiowa Tribe Art Show Award Winners
Adult Art Contest (ages 18–55)
- 1st place: Marcy Bladget-Arnold
- 2nd place: Jesse Bohay
- 3rd place: Daelena Tsonetokoy
- 4th place: Preston Tone-Pah-Hote III
Senior/Masters Art Contest (Kiowa Style Arts and Crafts)
2026 Dr. Joe Fish Memorial Plaque
- 1st place: Joy Tone-Pah-Hote
- 2nd place: David Baker
- 3rd place: Phyllis Whitecloud
- 4th place: Modina Waters
Original Art Style, Adult (ages 18–55)
- 1st place: Ty Gabehart
- 2nd place: Monte Mammedaty (Plains Apache/Kiowa)
- 3rd place: Michael Morgan
- 4th place: Jayden Hatfield (Comanche/Kiowa)
Contemporary Style, Senior/Masters (56+)
- 1st place: Jeff Yellowhair (Kiowa/Apache)
Original Art Style, Huntinghorse Memorial (ages 56+)
- 1st place: David Baker
- 2nd place: Ralph Mammedaty
- 3rd place: Ralph Mammedaty
Ledger Art, Adult
- 1st place: Ahnawake Dahn Toyekoyah (Kiowa/Caddo/Delaware/Seminole)
- 2nd place: Beau Tsatoke
- 3rd place: LeNeil SpottedHorse Jr. (Kiowa/Seneca)
Contemporary Art Style, Adult
- 1st place: Jayden Nicole Hatfield (Comanche/Kiowa)
- 2nd place: Michael Morgan
- 3rd place: Adrian Redbird (Kiowa/Cheyenne/Muscogee)
- 4th place: Kaylee Ataddlety
Children’s Art (Ages 0–12)
- 1st place: Cale Ware Jr. (Kiowa/Comanche)
- 2nd place: Brock Espinosa
- 3rd place: Lily Mule
- 4th place: C. Smith
- 5th place: Gracelyn Satoe
- 6th place: Trey Smith II
- 7th place: Nehemiah Goodson
- 8th place: Yvette Tartsah
- 9th place: Kingston Tartsah
- 10th place: Lily Mule
Youth Art Contest (13–17 years old)
- First place: Joan Perez
- 2nd place: Jaylee Mule
- 3rd place: Jonah Cole
- 4th place: Poh-Lah-ee Stumblingbear
- 5th place: Set-Tainte Stumblingbear
- 6th place: Joan Perez
- 7th place: Jessye Goodson
- 8th place: Jaylee Mule
- 9th place: Poh-Lah-Ee Stumblingbear
Unless otherwise specified, all artists are Kiowa or of Kiowa descent.
Links
- Kiowa Tribe, headquartered in Carnegie, OK | link
- Kiowa Language Program | link
- Gáuihòñàun Museum, Kiowa Museum, 100 OK-9, Carnegie, OK, open Monday–Friday, 8:00 am–4:30 pm | link
- Kiowa Gift Shop, 100 Kiowa Way, Carnegie, OK | (580) 654-6374 | link | online store
- A. Monroe Tsatoke Solo Exhibition at the Southern Plains Indian Museum (2023) | FAAM
- Dóñ:gyà!: A conversation with Dr. Toni Tsatoke-Mule, Kiowa Tribe District 7 podcast | link
- Kiowa Education Agency | link