Dianna (Perkins) Adams with a large photo of her portrait of Mary (Qwasawa) Finkbonner. The painting in the photo is actually a smaller version of the 5’ by 7’ original.
Choctaw Artist Creates Lifetime Legacy
You may have seen the image in the background of this photo when reading about Choctaw Nation’s monthly Heritage Day events. The original is a painting of Mary (Quasawa) Finkbonner, a Lummi elder and great-grandmother-in-law of Choctaw artist Dianna Perkins Adams, the painter of the portrait (also shown in the photo).
The oldest of five children, Dianna is the daughter of Harold and Nell (Richardson) Perkins. Her father was born in Atoka, Oklahoma the year that Oklahoma became a state. He was a truck driver, mostly for gasoline companies. Her parents met when her father, then driving a taxi, drove his soon-to-be wife to where she worked as a waitress.
Dianna’s grandfather, Hugh Henry Perkins, was the owner of a livery stable in Atoka. He moved his family to Wichita, Kansas where he became a bookkeeper.
Her great grandparents were Lyman “L.H.” and Hattie (Stewart) Perkins, donators of land for the town and school at Indianola. Lyman was a member of the Tribal Council and believed to be a Choctaw Light Horseman. Lyman’s parents were George Perkins and Jane Folsom (niece of Peter Pitchlynn). George Perkins was noted in history for taking a case against the federal government to the Supreme Court in regard to illegal selling of Indian lands.
The love of art first came when Dianna was 10 years old. In school, she felt she had talent, but always thought someone else could do a better job than her. She says that even today, after all her years in the art field; she constantly sees work she feels is better than her own and strives to learn from others. She admits she is a perfectionist and it carries out not only in her art, but in everyday situations.
At the age of 17, Dianna knew she wanted to become an artist. She started art classes at Wichita State University, paying for her first semester of college with babysitting money she had earned at fifty cents an hour and a summer job with a pilot program of Head Start, working as the assistant teacher. It was through that job that Dianna learned the love of teaching. At one point, she struggled with whether she should become an artist or a teacher. Little did she know her future would be a combination of the two. Having received a rare fifth year degree, a Bachelor of Art Education from Wichita State University, she went on to complete her Master’s Degree and all but her dissertation toward a doctoral degree in Art Education from the University of Oregon.
At the early age of 27 years old, Dianna became Director of Art Education at Oregon State University.
She later worked as case manager for the largest sexual discrimination case in the country involving women’s equity in salary, tenure and assignment, taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Dianna went on to be hired by the University of Oregon as advocate for people who had suffered racial discrimination, and as a counselor. She continued her commitment for social change and also continued to paint and draw, even teaching night classes.
Eventually, Dianna decided she wanted to work primarily with Native American students. After a short time with the University of Minnesota as Senior Counselor of the American Indian Learning Resource Center, she took a position on the Lummi Reservation to work at Northwest Indian College as Director of Admissions and Director of Talent Search.
Two years ago, Dianna married the love of her life, Perry Adams, a member of the Lummi tribe, after 40 years of being single. Dianna and Perry married at an elder’s dinner on the Grand Ronde Reservation in Oregon with over 400 elders from tribes all over the Northwest in attendance. The couple had met after she began working at Northwest Indian College eighteen years ago where Perry served as Chair of the Board of Trustees on two occasions. He was also a Tribal Councilman, Vice-Chair for several years and director of his tribe’s Veterans program.
Dianna has volunteered with the Lummi tribe since meeting Perry, leaving her regular employment after getting involved with the tribal elders. Her areas of volunteer work with the tribe have included teaching classes to tribal elders of the Dislocated Fisherman’s Program, painting an original art series called “The Grandparents of the Grandparents” and helping to keep Native American children from being fostered out off the reservation. She continues to do work for a research institute she founded called the Lacqtomish (People of the Sea) Research Institute where family structures of the Coastal Salish People are studied. She has aided many individuals in learning how to find their Indian names, a vital part of the northwest culture. She has also helped date back families into the 1700s in the region in connection to the names through history and ancestry.
Though she has mastered many areas over the span of her 47-year career, Dianna considers her primary art field as portrait painting. Dianna says her paintings are monumental in scale, and they satisfy her soul. One was an 8-foot portrait of her mother’s father with his fiddle at age 19. Even though her paintings are extremely detailed, Dianna is known for painting an entire large portrait in five to seven days, with the refining and finishing processes taking another week. She has an ability to sit before a blank canvas and already have an idea of what the composition will be when finished. Some special projects call for studies beforehand, but most times she relies upon her own expertise. Dianna chooses not to make her art into prints, postcards or greeting cards, as she prefers to keep her work exclusive and one-of-a-kind.
She has also over the years enjoyed working on her pieces in public areas. Being able to tune out the interruptions, or sometimes drawing them in as needed, she says people have enjoyed watching her work live. She particularly enjoyed doing so in the Lummi Tribal School foyer, where she loved talking to the children of all grades who came to her asking about what she was doing. She says she even let the children help a bit on her pieces in order to teach them.
Dianna is most pleased with her work when she knows that it moves someone. She considers her greatest compliment being after her work was completed of a portrait of a warrior she did that hangs in a tribal school, grandchildren of the man came in to approve the painting and they were each brought to tears over the likeness. In addition, a shaman who was in the school to perform a ceremonial cleansing saw one of her paintings and offered a plate of food to it through dance. She is grateful for her ability to communicate feelings and emotions through her work, saying it “speaks to the heart of people.” She believes that in her art, if she has done what she set out to do, her work speaks for itself.
Dianna loves talking about her own tribe’s culture and about art. She said, “Today, I see the young people making pottery in the old ways, and I understand that it is more than a connection to the art. It is also a connection to the land. And our heritage is as much about the land as it is about the language. It instills in us a sense of belonging.” She hopes to soon begin work on a painting of Chief Pushmataha at the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Dianna says she feels a special connection to Chief Pushmataha because of her family line.
Dianna has one son, Matthew Kale and one granddaughter, Marie, who the family tragically lost earlier this year at the age of 23. Matthew often sat with his mother as she taught art classes, and he in turn taught his daughter. Matthew is a “maker”, someone who solves problems through design. Marie was a sculptor who was very proud of being Choctaw and carried the Choctaw name, meaning “fire cloud.”
Dianna credits her husband and son for much of her success, as she says they have endured the disruptions to their lives and her marathon painting sessions. She also notes that in addition to her family, her connection with a small group of other artists over the years has helped her to get to where she is today.
Today Dianna lives in Washington State, where she and her husband are both retired. Dianna and Perry are in negotiations to develop their own art studio. In their shared space, Dianna will work on her art, hoping to expand into sales for art galleries and Perry will work on carving mortuary canoes.
Dianna reflects that in going back to her days of teaching art education, she feels that all teaching must begin with the question of “why do I believe this is important?” Dianna has answered this question many times over in her own work. From single working mother to the people’s advocate, art teacher, artist, administrator and tribal volunteer, working 80-100 hours a week most of her professional life, Dianna Perkins Adams has indeed created a legacy.
(Artwork by Dianna Perkins Adams is listed under the name of Dianna Kale).