Adrienne Keene

This fellowship has been my dream for years. Knowing about @tulsaartistfellowship is what gave me hope that I could find a path out of academia and create a life as a full time writer, in Oklahoma, close to my community and extended family. I’m still in disbelief that this is happening and so thrilled to start this new chapter. Wado to all of the current and past fellows who supported me through the application process, I truly couldn’t have done this without you. ❤️ Send me all your Tulsa favorites and recommendations please!!

A bit of a (long) reintroduction post is up on the blog! I’ve been talking with folks lately that it might be fun/important to revisit some of the blog archive to bring these conversations on cultural appropriation and representations to a new audience, and to contextualize the amazing representation wins we’ve been having lately. So in order for you to understand that new direction, I figure you need to be reminded of who I am, what the blog is, and how I came to this work. Native Appropriations (my blog) was started 14 (almost 15!) years ago, and we’ve come an incredibly long way since then. So hi, hello again, still here, still caring about representations, and ready to relaunch these conversations in an updated form…soon. 👀 Love to all of you who have been here since the beginning! Excited to be thinking alongside you still and again. And to those of you who hopped on at some point along the way, so glad you’re here. Nativeappropriations.com, or direct link is in my stories. Xoxo, AK

SE/4 of NW/4 of SW/4 of section 11, township 16 N, Range 19E: A Land Gorget My grandma passed away a month ago today. She was raised in rural Oklahoma, in this little red square, her mother’s allotment land. She was born at home, while her mom was home alone, and had so many stories of this land, the nearby creek, and running down the way to her grandparents’ house. This is the site of her emergence into the world. After removal from our traditional lands in the southeast on the Trail of Tears, in 1887 the Dawes Act carved up collectively held Native land in Indian Territory into land parcels for each enrolled tribal member. It was an attempt to assimilate Native people into farmers, to declare any unallotted land “excess” and therefore open to white settlement, and to move Indian land into private ownership, making it into a commodity. My great granny’s tiny 10 acre allotment was “contested,” and another family was also claiming it for their son. So as a result of a court case I have a map that shows her square marked out in red, and that map is the basis of the beadwork. But then in the early 1940s, the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam on the Grand River, making Ft. Gibson lake. Thousands of acres of Native allotments were seized by eminent domain and flooded out. Families forcibly displaced, again. Prime farmland, homesteads, and memories, all submerged forever. My great granny was given less than $900 (only $14,000 in today’s money) for over 300 acres of her family’s combined allotments. She had no choice. To be a Native person is to have a connection to land and place. A tangible, real connection. Because of settler colonialism my family’s land is unreachable, untouchable, and drowned. I’ve thought about this so much in my adult life, and about what it means to try and reclaim, touch, and undrown that little red square in ways that I can, especially now that my Gram has passed. (Cont. in comments) #LandBack #CultureBack #StoriesBack #EverythingBack

I’m thrilled to finally be able to share that I’m a mentor rider for the 2026 Remember the Removal Ride! After 4.5 months of spending every weekend racking up miles and elevation with this incredible group we’ll depart the end of May to trace 950 miles of the Trail of Tears from our original homelands back to Oklahoma. We’ll ride between 50-70 miles a day for 3.5 weeks. I had never ridden a road bike before December, and now have over 1100 miles and 55,000 feet of elevation under my belt! I’m so grateful to our fearless leader Heather Fite, all of our amazing support staff, my amazing teammates (I love you all so much), and my tulsa crew who have supported me through this wild training schedule. Huge wado to my Cherokee language teacher @fourae_ for helping me with my tribal council intro, @knausome and @statebarbell for building my muscles to get me up all these hills, and @tulsaartistfellowship for helping me no longer be an at-large citizen and finally be able to apply for the ride. 🥰 In 2013 @carmelizjohn was one of the students in my dissertation study, and she told me about her time as an RTR rider and said I should do it if I ever had the chance. It took 13 years(!), as well as teaching and getting to know alumni riders @anagali.dvgi and @hamminuh , and now I’m finally here. So grateful to y’all for planting the seeds. I’m a sappy long winded writer so I could go on forever but I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to be able to honor our ancestors and in many ways complete a long journey of return for me and my family. Keep us in your thoughts as we finish out our training and embark on the ride! ❤️🚴🏻‍♀️ (And now maybe my bike inner tube weaving makes more sense..😂)

They Carry the Land (2026) Rubber bicycle inner tubes, copper tubing, copper wire. 5’x6’ (my biggest piece ever!) I’ve taken up cycling recently and have spent the last several months tracing rural roads of the Cherokee reservation on my bike. As a Cherokee person raised at-large, my long rides have given me the opportunity to experience our homelands here in Oklahoma in a deep way for the first time. After my first flat tire, I became interested in how discarded rubber inner tubes could be used as a weaving material. I think about the ways these tires have carried a rider across our homelands, rolling across the land with each pedal stroke, and the ways the land is then carried into the tire, and now into the weaving. This piece will be in the @visitcherokeenation Trail of Tears Art Show in Tahlequah April 11-May 16, 2026. (I also love that IG suggested the homie @kalynfay for a soundtrack to this post. This song in particular is perfectly resonant with this piece in a lot of ways. ❤️‍🔥)

No one is illegal on stolen land. [crocheted grocery bags, used caution tape from the gym, and black garbage bags. ICE is trash.]

First Flat (2026) Inner tube, copper wire, copper tubing I’ve recently gotten into cycling! This was my first flat tire. 😂 Happy 2026!

Meet #TulsaArtistFellow Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) @nativeapprops , a writer and scholar whose work challenges how Native people are represented in mainstream culture. She is the creator of Native Appropriations, co-creator of the All My Relations podcast, and author of Notable Native People. Beyond her writing, Adrienne is building a visual arts practice rooted in Cherokee tradition and experimentation. She creates baskets, beadwork, and twined forms using unexpected contemporary materials — and has recently been exploring e-textiles and soft circuits, bringing light, code, and electronics into her work to imagine vibrant Indigenous futures. Before joining Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Adrienne taught Indigenous studies at Brown University and holds degrees from Stanford and Harvard. Images courtesy of Adrienne Keene.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time on here you know I’ve been deeply interested in the story of how Native land, including my own family’s land, was taken and drowned to build hydroelectric dams and man-made lakes throughout the state of Oklahoma. I know my family’s story is one of thousands, so if you share this family history I’d love to talk with you. I’m working on several projects on this topic, including a reported story, but would only share publicly what you feel comfortable sharing, and anonymity is an option as well. We also can just talk story with no sharing out at all. Please reach out! Even if you just know a tiny sliver of the history or just know how it impacted you, all of the pieces of the puzzle are important. Wado! Happy to answer any questions or concerns. Please share widely!

As a student at Harvard University, Cherokee Nation citizen Adrienne Keene started blogging to document the many instances of Native cultural appropriation she experienced. Her voice grew along with awareness and followers. Through advocating for authentic Native representation, Adrienne has learned that giving confidence and empowering Native students who stand where she once did is her greatest accomplishment. Check out Adrienne’s story from our “Cherokees For Change” collection at the link in our bio. 🔗

ᎠᏥᎾ/Cedar (2025) Beaded gorget. Size 11 seed beads, LEDs(!), conductive thread, 3v battery/holder, leather backing. Cedar in spaceee 🌲🌌 My second piece in the Cherokee Nation Homecoming Art Show. Also listed with an absurd price hoping I can keep it. 😂

Caution (2025) Twined bag. Caution tape (sustainably “harvested” from the homelands at a Cherokee Nation traditional games event in Tahlequah, OK), garbage bags, glass beads I really enjoyed making this! Caution tape and garbage bags are surprisingly great to weave with. One of my pieces accepted to the Cherokee Homecoming Art Show. It has a really high price on it because I wasn’t really ready to part with it yet!