OCTOBER 5, 1952

KIOWA REGALIA MAKER VANESSA PAUKEIGOPE JENNINGS BORN

Granddaughter of famed Kiowa artist Stephen Mapope, Vanessa was born in the Gila River Indian community near Tempe, Arizona, but grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma (OK). At age 11, she began learning Kiowa artistic techniques from her grandmother. Jennings’ artistic career began in the 1980s with a Museum of International Folk Art commission to make a Kiowa bean-on-rawhide ceremonial child’s dress. Possibly the last active Kiowa cradleboard maker on the Southern Plains, she was a founding member of Artists for the Traditional Arts. Awards/Prizes: 1987 Red Earth Festival (REF) prizes–antelope headdress & mountain lion bow case; and Santa Fe Indian Market (1993, 2003, 2010 & 2016). Honors: National Heritage Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts (1989); REF President’s Award (1992) & “Honored One” (2004)—REF’s highest honor. She was honored in the seminar, Powerful Expressions: Art of Plains Indian Women, at the Buffalo Bill Center (1996). She lives in Red Stone, OK. 

Sources: 
 “Vanessa Paukeigope Morgan,” National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved 3/26/2022, Vanessa Paukeigope Morgan | National Endowment for the Arts Wikipedia
Image:  National Endowment for the Arts, 1989. Screen Capture. Vanessa Paukeigope Morgan (now Jennings), 1989 National Heritage Fellowship Concert, interview by Charles Kuralt, Washington, D.C., courtesy National Endowment for the Arts. Public Domain. Source: Vanessa Paukeigope Morgan – Masters of Traditional Arts