Vee Ola Corso
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Works by artist Vee Ola Corso (Kalama, Washington) are reflective of her Indian heritage. Born in 1922 in the Big Thicket on the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation in East Texas, her father was Creek and her mother was Alabama- Coushatta. Her interest and involvement with diverse art forms date back to very early childhood when she learned to make corn shuck dolls for herself and her sisters. Soon, she diligently began to save Bull Durham tobacco sacks. Carefully dipping half of each coveted treasure in polk berry juice, dying the other half with boiled white oak bark, Vee Ola patiently set about their slow unraveling for thread and at the age of seven hand-stitched her first quilt. In the sixth grade, with water colors as her medium, she painted her first landscape.
As an adult, Vee Ola has gone on to master ceramics and leather work. While spending time in Alaska, she discovered the intricate worlds of wood and ivory, and she has done detailed carvings on both for years. Other modes of artistic expression include oils paintings on leather jackets designed by Tony Novak of Palm Springs, California. However, her enjoyment and appreciation of nature and her talent for depicting its many faces of beauty shine their very brightest through her Native American and western works of art painted primarily on silk canvas in oils. The favorite subjects of her art consist of portraits of Indians of various tribes, western scenes and lovely mountain and desert landscapes.
Vee Ola exhibits her art nationally, traveling from her home in Washington to such states as Oregon, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming and Oklahoma to share her work. She has also had numerous Reservation exhibits, as well as regular showings at Galleries in Palm Desert, California. She has recieved many awards and her work is featured in the National Hall of Fame for Famous Indians, Anadarko, Oklahoma and is on display at the High Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California, Maxine Gallery in Palm Desert, California, and Lelousha Gallery in Ariel, Washington.
Vee Ola does many commissioned pieces including work for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Her all-occasion note cards featuring her Indian portraits and other paintings are published by Wintercount, New Castle, Colorado and are now available in the Smithsonian Institute Gift Shop in Washington D.C. and Wind Song Gallery in Pendleton, Oregon as well as internationally in such countries as England, Australia, Holland, Germany and France.