Meet the Artist: Jamie Okuma

Jamie Okuma, a Luiseño, Shoshone-Bannock, Wailaki, and Okinawan, is also an enrolled member of the La Jolla Band of Indians in Southern California where she lives and works. She specializes in one-of-a-kind pieces that she hand-executes in all details of the process. She also designs ready-to-wear fashion. As early as Okuma can remember, her life has been in the art world in one way or another. After high school, Okuma took graphic design classes at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, before attending the Institute of American Indian arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. From the age of 18, she has been a professional artist, completely devoted to her art. Exhibiting her work at the Heard Indian Art Market in Phoenix, Arizona, and at the Santa Fe Indian Art Market, she has garnered a total of seven Best in Show awards—four from the Heard, and three from the Santa Fe Indian Market. She is one of only two artists to have achieved this distinction. Okuma has recently become the first Native American inducted into the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Denver Art Museum, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, among others.