About the Artist...

Joy Tonepahhote (born 1969, Doylestown, PA) is a Plains beadworker whose works have been shown at the Heye Center of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Indian City USA Cultural Center in Anadarko, and the Museum of Indian Culture in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Tonepahhote, who is a member of the Kiowa Tribe of Anadarko, Oklahoma and the Guaymi Maya people of Conquito, Panama, comes from a respected lineage of Southern Plains bead artists (her grandmother was Massalena Ahtone), and is well-versed in the iconographic traditions of Plains cultures. Her designs are sought after by native peoples throughout North America, who commission her to make beadworks for personal adornment as well as powwow regalia.

But Tonepahhote is not a “traditional” Native beadworker. She is a contemporary one who uses imagery drawn from American popular culture and integrates materials from mass-produced commodities, flexing her imagination and improvisational skills to create works that respond to the twenty-first-century aspirations of her Native patrons. She is an artist who is deeply informed about contemporary social and economic inequalities and is committed to making not museum pieces but affordable objects for everyday people. In addition to her art, Tonepahhote has a distinguished career in social service, serving as the Shelter Coordinator for A Woman’s Place (a domestic violence organization in Bucks County) and as the Relief Counselor for At-Risk Youth at the Community Service Foundation of Pennsylvania.