Amanda Crowe

{{short description|Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Amanda Crowe

| image = Visitors to the Craftsmen's Fair at the Cherokee Indian Reservation, Cherokee North Carolina, watch Amanda Crowe... - NARA - 281632.jpg

| alt = Amanda Crowe demonstrating woodcarving at the Craftsmen's Fair in Cherokee, North Carolina

| caption = Amanda Crowe demonstrating woodcarving at the Craftsmen's Fair in Cherokee, North Carolina

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1928|07|16}}

| birth_place = Murphy, North Carolina, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2004|9|27|1928|07|26}}

| death_place = North Carolina, U.S.

| nationality = {{nowrap|Eastern Band Cherokee, American}}

| education = School of the Art Institute of Chicago

| occupation = Woodcarver

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works =

}}

Amanda Crowe (July 16, 1928 – September 27, 2004) was an Eastern Band Cherokee woodcarver and educator from Cherokee, North Carolina in the United States.{{cite web|url=http://www.heritagewnc.org/WNC_women/crowe_amanda.htm | title= Amanda Crowe | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090502165354/http://www.heritagewnc.org/WNC_women/crowe_amanda.htm |date=2009-05-02 | archive-date= 2009-05-02 |publisher = Ramsey Library |website = Women in Western North Carolina}} A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, her work has been widely exhibited and is held by a number of museums. Crowe dedicated much of her career to teaching and training the next generation of Eastern Cherokee artists.{{cite web|url=https://www.blueridgeheritage.com/artist/amanda-crowe |title = Historic Artist – Amanda Crowe |publisher = Blue Ridge National Heritage Area|website=blueridgeheritage.com}}{{cite journal |last1= Krause |first1= Bonnie J. | date = Spring–Summer 2012 |title= Passing on the Ancestors' Traditions: Amanda Crowe, Woodcarver and Teacher |url= https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/ncpi/view/19510 | journal = North Carolina Folklore Journal |volume= 59 |issue= 1 |pages= 59–71 }}

Early life

Crowe was born on July 16, 1928, in Murphy, North Carolina.{{cite web |url=https://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CherokeeTraditions/People/Carvers_AmandaCrowe.html |title=Cherokee Traditions, People, Amanda Crowe (1928-2004) |publisher=Western Carolina University |access-date=July 31, 2021}} By the age of four, she had decided to become an artist. Of her childhood, she said: "Every spare minute was spent in carving or studying anything available concerning art ... "Power, 184 At the age of eight, she was already selling her carvings.

Both of Crowe's parents died when she was very young. By the time she reached high school, her foster mother arranged for her to stay in Chicago, where she graduated from Hyde Park High School and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She earned SAIC's John Quincy Adams fellowship for foreign study in 1952, and she chose to study sculpture with Jose De Creeft at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Crowe also earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from SAIC that year.Leftwich, 93Conley, 77

Art and teaching career

File:Wooden Bears by Amanda Crowe.png Department of the Interior collection]]

In 1953, the Cherokee Historical Association invited Crowe back to North Carolina to teach studio art at Cherokee High School, where her uncle Goingback Chiltoskey was already teaching. She set up a studio in the Paint Town community and taught wood carving for almost four decades to over 2,000 students.

Her sculptures were often animal figures, and she was particularly known for her expressive bears. Her work is streamlined, highly stylized, and smoothly carved.Leftwich, 101–02 She also worked with stone and clay, but wood was her favorite medium, and she carved with local woods such as wild cherry, buckeye, and black walnut.

Her art is sometimes compared to the work of Willard Stone.Power, 156 Art scholar Esther Bockhoff writes that Crowe was "undoubtedly one of the primary influences on the resurgence of Cherokee carving."Power, 185

Public collections that own her work include the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the United States Department of the Interior, and the National Museum of the American Indian. She exhibited her work in such museums as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Atlanta Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, the Asheville Art Museum, and venues in Germany and the United Kingdom.{{cite book | url = http://www.ashevilleart.org/exhibition/cherokee-carvers-tradition-renewed/ |title= Cherokee Carvers: Tradition Renewed |publisher= Asheville Art Museum | date=2009-05-01|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160331140316/http://www.ashevilleart.org/exhibition/cherokee-carvers-tradition-renewed/ |archive-date= March 31, 2016 }} Among many awards, Crowe won the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 2000.{{cite web | title = People: Amanda Crowe (1928–2004) |url = https://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CherokeeTraditions/People/Carvers_AmandaCrowe.html |first = Anna | last = Fariello

|publisher = Cherokee Carvers: From the Hands of our Elders |date = 2013}}

She also illustrated the book Cherokee Legends and the Trail of Tears, first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since.{{cite book | title = Cherokee Legends and the Trail of Tears | date = 1956 |publisher = Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology}}

Death and legacy

Crowe died on September 27, 2004. Many of the contemporary Eastern Band Cherokee sculptors today studied under her.{{Cite web| url= https://www.newsweek.com/who-was-amanda-crowe-legendary-cherokee-woodcarver-celebrated-google-doodle-1208433 | first = Aristos | last = Georgiou | title= Who Was Amanda Crowe? Legendary Cherokee Woodcarver Celebrated in Google Doodle|work = Newsweek|access-date=2018-11-09| date = 2018-11-09 }} On November 9, 2018, Google recognized her with a doodle.{{Cite web | url = https://doodles.google/doodle/celebrating-amanda-crowe/ | title= Celebrating Amanda Crowe | website = google.com | language=en | access-date=2018-11-09}}

Notes

References

{{cite book | last= Conley | first= Robert L. |title= A Cherokee Encyclopedia |location=Albuquerque |publisher= University of New Mexico Press|isbn= 978-0826339515| date = 2007 |url = https://unmpress.com/books/cherokee-encyclopedia/9780826339515}}
{{cite book | last= Leftwich |first= Rodney L.| date= 1970 |title=Arts and Crafts of the Cherokee |location=Cherokee, NC|publisher= Cherokee Publications|isbn=978-0935741117 }}
{{cite book | last=Power |first= Susan C. | date= 2007|title=Art of the Cherokee: Prehistory to Present |location= Athens, Georgia|publisher= University of Georgia Press| isbn = 978-0820327662 }}

External links

{{Commons category-inline}}
{{cite web|url = http://www.cherokeeheritagetrails.org/elderart/eld05.html |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040823043910/http://www.cherokeeheritagetrails.org/elderart/eld05.html |url-status = usurped |archive-date = 2004-08-23 | title= Amanda Crowe, Cherokee Heritage Trails}}

Category:Eastern Band Cherokee women artists

Category:Eastern Band Cherokee artists

Category:Native American woodcarvers

Category:Sculptors from North Carolina

Category:1928 births

Category:2004 deaths

Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni

Category:Instituto Allende alumni

Category:People from Cherokee, North Carolina

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:20th-century American women sculptors

Category:Women woodcarvers