Collections Spotlight with Jordan Poorman Cocker and Teri Greeves

During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown and through the reopening afterward, the Coe Center partnered with First American Art Magazine to present an interactive Zoom series in which Native artists discussed artworks in the Coe Collections. Collections Spotlight brought deep dives into objects from the Coe collection to the public from the artist’s perspective. These events were free and open to the public.

Jordan talks with renowned artist Teri Greeves about her shoes. Jordan is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe and of Tongan descent and holds a Master of Museum and Heritage Practice from Victoria University of Wellington, as well as a Bachelor of Design from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. 

Jordan’s artwork has been exhibited at local and international institutions, including the Jacobson House 2016, New Zealand Architecture Week 2014, and the Prague Quadrennial 2015. She currently works with Gilcrease Museum as a Curatorial Scholar of Indigenous Art, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Teri Greeves was born on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and was raised in her mother Jeri Ah-Be-Hill’s trading post. The powerful influence of growing up in this particular space, surrounded by beadwork and other Native arts and her mother’s wealth of deep cultural knowledge, continues to inform her work. Greeves began beading as a child, learning from the women in her life, continuing the thread of generations of women before her. Her work has won numerous prestigious awards and is held in museums and private collections across the country.

Greeves’ inspiration for the shoes began when her son was a newborn baby, and Greeves wanted to relay her own experiences through the shoes. She thought about her time as a powwow dancer and dance styles. It was also a way to challenge non-native sculptures of dancers, which Greeves calls false narrative.

Each side of the shoes depicts a different woman wearing a different style of dress. One side depicts a southern Plains cloth dress, part of a contemporary women’s dance, which is the southern cloth. The next one side shown depicts a southern buckskin dress next to the drum. On the other shoe, there is an image of a fancy dancer, which shows movement— her hand and shawl are up, and her legs are crossed. The other opposite side of the show depicts another dancer who is dressed in a jingle dress, with her hands on her hips. Greeves then talks about taking the shoes to an exhibit and selling them to Ted Coe.