About the Artist

Argus Dowdy is a self-taught award winning artist and member of the Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma. He has chosen traditional American Indian pipes and stone sculpture as his primary artistic mediums. He currently lives in Skiatook, Oklahoma where he works full time as an artist. Examples of his work have been shown at the Turquoise Tortoise Gallery in Sedona, The Art Market in Tulsa and the Heard Museum Gift Shop in Phoenix. The artist also exhibits in several major Indian art shows including the Heard Museum Indian Fair And Market and the Santa Fe Indian Market.

The artist not only supplies Native American pipes for traditional American Indian ceremonies but also creates museum quality traditional pipes for the serious collector of Native American art. His collector grade pipes often feature Minnesota pipestone or black steatite bowls inlaid with lead and contrasting color stone, porcupine quill wrapped stems, quilled feathers and hardwood display cases with acrylic dust covers. Each pipe is created as a unique piece of art using traditional Native American designs and materials which have been carefully researched. No pieces are ever copied.

The stone sculpture created by the artist is influenced by the carvings from many Native American tribes and by the Mississippian Period mound building cultures of the Southeast. Some of the artist's traditional stone effigies use pipe inlay techniques to inlay traditional petroglyph characters into the effigy figures. On other pieces design elements from Mississippian Period pottery and ceremonial objects are combined to produce unique pieces of sculpture representative of that culture.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I believe the traditional pipe is the most important pre-Columbian American Indian cultural item in both a spiritual and artistic sense. American Indian pipes have been used by many tribes in a sacred ceremonial context for over 4,000 years. The pipe is also an excellent example of a three-dimensional mixed media art object, combining stone and wood sculpture with quillwork, featherwork, leatherwork and jewelry inlay techniques. It is important to me as an American Indian artist to create pipes using traditional ancestral designs and materials and to treat the pipes with the respect deserved by our most sacred cultural items.

Native American spiritual tradition is also present in my sculpture. Some of the large animal effigies I carve have inlays of ancient petroglyph figures symbolizing spiritual connections between humans and animals. Other sculpture is representative of art produced by the Southeast mound building cultures and contains design motifs taken from ancient pottery and ceremonial items.

It is my hope that through my art the viewer can recognize the rich spiritual heritage of the Native American people.