shelby rowe she began connecting with her tribe and with the Oklahoma City urban Native community. “My grandmothers/ancestors are the sources of my inspiration,” Rowe said. “I feel my relatives guiding my path. When I can quiet my mind and listen to them, I can follow Hina Chokma or ‘The Good Path.’ They are the ones who told me to come home, and to bead, and they have inspired some of my pieces of art.” “My grandmothers put something else on my heart,” Rowe said. “I began to ask myself ‘What am I doing to carry our culture forward?’ I sat down and had inspiring conversations with Chickasaw artists. I had never been good at anything artistic, but I did love to tell stories, and could see how these artists were telling stories in their work.” This experience was a catalyst for Rowe to begin beadwork, starting with small strips of beadwork and attaching them to hair barrettes. She loved the work, and aspired to do more. With numerous mentors, and after more attempts at beading, she found her artistic passion. Rowe uses software to generate and 昀椀ne tune her helby Rowe is an inspirational speaker, nationally patterns, in an effort to make each piece appear as recognized suicide prevention expert, and award- realistic as possible. She brings her subjects to life by Swinning bead artist. Born in Las Vegas, Nevada, she mixing multiple bead 昀椀nishes and tones. grew up in Tulsa. “Beading is meditation and prayer for me,” Rowe “First and foremost, Chickashsha Saya, iska said. “It allows me to tell stories and connect with my inkonihumma,” Rowe said. “I am Chickasaw, descended customers. I love seeing our traditional stories and life from the Red Skunk Clan. I am descended from a experiences come to life in many different forms. My Chickasaw healer, midwife, and business owner Mourning favorite pieces to create have been commissions. These Tree Allen Gooding. She was a 昀椀ve-year-old orphan at the usually involve beading portraits of family members, time of our tribe’s forced removal from the homelands or something deeply meaningful for my clients. I like near modern-day Tupelo, Mississippi, to Chickasaw creating an heirloom they can pass down. I pursued being Territory in Oklahoma. Like my ancestors, my purpose is an artist because I was pursuing what it meant to be a to mend brokenness. As a survivor of countless traumas SACRED BOND BETWEEN FRIENDS myself, I have spent years mending the brokenness within Shelby Rowe myself. I celebrate healing and am a champion for hope.” Inspired by her elders and many of Oklahoma’s other Native artists, especially her fellow Chickasaw artists, Rowe began pursuing art at age 45 during 2017. “The year before, I had been named the 2016 Chickasaw Nation Dynamic Woman of the Year,” Rowe said. “That was a life-changing moment in my life. I was living in New York City at the time, and came home for the awards ceremony, and stayed for the entire Chickasaw Annual Festival. I realized that although I was making a difference across the nation with my career, suicide prevention, my work wasn’t impacting the lives of my people. I had a calling to come home.” Rowe’s grandmothers told her to return home to Oklahoma, and she moved back in 2017, at which time 8