We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Tafoya a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kevin , thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

In 2020 my friend and I started a website for indigenous writers called Anikanohesgi, the site no longer active. It was a place for us and other indigenous writers to express themselves and share insight into growing up/living native. We began promotion through social media; Instagram was my favorite. In the beginning the IG posts were basic, but they grew to become small collective expressions of us and the writings that were to be posted that week. I did a writing titled “Artistry” in 2021. It was about growing up with artists on both sides of my family and how art lets you express yourself freely. I did a digital drawing to promote it on IG. The drawing is a green elephant head with a piece of black pottery balanced on the elephant’s head and a honeysuckle woven mat in the background. In “Artistry” I wrote about times making pottery with my Khapo’ Owinge family and weaving honeysuckle mats with my Cherokee family as a child. For a great part of my life, I neglected to recognize and understand the artistry within my family, I am blessed. The green elephant was also in the writing. I wrote about encouraging my children to create art and told my daughter I was going to make a green elephant and when she asked why, I said “because I have never seen a green elephant and I want to see what it looks like.” On top of all this my friend mentioned how he liked looking back at the IG posts and seeing the progression in style as we grew. I looked back too and saw what he was talking about. It was then that I thought I would like to start doing this (art) professionally. So, I trucked along slowly and learned by trial and error, I looked up other artists’ opinions on all things art. I got my first print made by an office supply store and it was terrible quality, mainly because it had no clue about resolution, formats, or dpi. As I continued things got better. My first art piece sold was to the Museum of the Cherokee People. The piece was my interpretation of the Deer Clan of the Cherokee. It was of men playing stickball (little brother of war) with deer.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My name Is Kevin Tafoya I come from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and Khapo’ Owinge (Santa Clara Pueblo). I am mainly practice digital art, but have found new interest in clay. I have been a drawer most of my life, mainly pencil. I began creating more art to encourage the artistic nature in my kids. I hope they will see the creativeness within themselves and practice art as well. I began drawing interpretations of our Cherokee culture and history, sometimes with a modern outlook. I want to bring attention to our culture an create new ways to showcase it. It a living culture and I am proud to be part of it. Professionally I began doing small art pieces for various local organizations, designs for logos, designs for local awareness programs. I also found lots of support for my personal art pieces through art markets, which led to more contacts. I would have to say I do both design and art pieces that clients can use, I try to create pieces that stay grounded in the clients vision. I do not feel that I have a specific style, and I think that is my strength and it sets me apart from others. I enjoy creating/depicting our culture in non-traditional ways. I want people to see our culture remains and there is place for it in the past, present and future.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I used to have the opinion that a normal 9 -5 job was more valuable that pursuing an living as an artist. This is something I am not proud to have believed in when I was younger. I failed to understand how many times art work created on both sides of my family took care of our needs. I went to work at 14 years old in a blue collar environment and worked that way for most my life. Seeing the creativity in my younger family members helped me change that opinion I had. I could have never grown in my art if I held onto that belief. I tell my children how I use to think and what the hinderance is to have that mindset. I will say one lesson I took from working in the masonry trade that is beneficial to me, is that the more you practice your craft the better you become. I can see my progression in art and tell anyone that will listen; keep doing what your doing and you will get better.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

A goal of mine is to encourage my children and any other person with the tiniest bit of interest in art to dive in begin creating. As part of this to I want to encourage people to illustrate and represent our culture to help future generations to know who we are a Cherokees

Contact Info:

• Instagram: kevin.l.tafoya
• Facebook: Kevin L. Tafoya