First American Art Magazine No. 6, Spring 2015 | Page 11

is a board member and past president of the Cherokee National
Historical Society and served as interim director of the
Cherokee Heritage Center (1999–2004). She also serves on the
boards of the Oklahoma Humanities Council and Association
of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM). She has
curated art shows at the Center of the American Indian and is
an avid collector of Native American art.

JEAN MERZ-EDWARDS has studied and taught art
history since 2000, when she attended her first art history
classes at Hunter College in New York. She recently earned
her master’s degree in art history from the University of
Oklahoma, where she was awarded a certificate in women’s
and gender studies and received the Alice Mary Robertson
Award for her scholarship on the life and art of Linda
Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw). Merz-Edwards teaches
art history and English at Kansas Wesleyan University in
Salina, Kansas.

MASON RIDDLE is a critic based in Saint Paul,
Minnesota, who writes about visual arts, architecture, and
design. She was the director of the former Two Rivers
Gallery at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, where
she curated multiple exhibitions. Riddle has written about
numerous Native artists. Previously, she was the director of
the Goldstein Museum of Design and the Minnesota Percent
for Art in Public Places program. Riddle holds a master’s
degree in art history and museum practice from the University
of Minnesota and has taught art history at the college level.

MICHAEL SHEYAHSHE (Caddo Nation of Oklahoma)
is the author of Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical
Study (McFarland Publishing, 2008). He has also written
for Illusions, Trauma Magazine, Native Peoples, and Games for
Windows: The Official Magazine. Sheyahshe earned two bachelor
of art degrees in Native American studies