Okee-Chee (Sharon Skolnick) is a registered Ft. Sill Apache and a cousin of the noted Apache sculptor Alan Hauser. Raised in Oklahoma, she attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1965-66, and remains a proud booster of IAIA. After leaving school, Sharon migrated to Chicago, where—in addition to raising her four children—she quickly became a staunch supporter of Indian community activities and a champion of Native American arts in Chicago. For ten years she functioned as owner/manager of Okee-Chee’s Wild Horse Gallery, a showcase of American Indian art. She also spent a year as Executive Director of Chicago’s American Indian Center.

As a gallery owner, and earlier as founding member and Chairman of the Chicago Indian Artist guild, Okee-Chee has helped organize well over one hundred exhibits of Native American Art. In recent years she has also served as judge at fairs and powwows. In addition, Okee-Chee has become a well-known speaker on Indian subjects at schools and other functions. One of her most intriguing projects has been the Native American Christmas tree at the Museum of Science and Industry’s “Christmas Around the World exhibit” and Okee-Chee’s exciting work on animal skins is a featured part of the décor at Orlando’s Frontier Hotel in Walt Disney World.

Working in oils, acrylics, pastels, and colored pen, Okee-Chee draws on traditional Indian symbolism and her own experience. Her stylized horses have become a widely recognized signature to people who admire her art, but her style and subject matter continue to change. Among her important projects has been the coordination and execution of Portraits, Indian Chicago—a series of large-scale portraits in oil which was the subject of a 30-minute documentary by the Chicago NBC affiliate. She has also functioned as a designer of Native display items for leading floral designer, Rentokil.

Okee-Chee’s fascination with dolls and habitats has been highlighted in two exciting museum exhibits. She created a native diorama for the Kids Bridge exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum. Her doll diorama portraying a contemporary powwow appeared at the Mitchell Indian Museum in Evanston. Her increasingly sophisticated work as a doll artist has been showcased in the Sisters of the Great Lakes exhibit and a full color art book.

In Oklahoma, where she resided while caring for her ailing mother, Okee-Chee has dolls on exhibit at the Gilcrease Museum and at the Indian Heritage Gallery in Broken Arrow, and her dolls and yarn horses have earned Blue Ribbons in competition. She has been the subject of several newspaper articles and was featured on the KOTV Oklahoma Traveler news segment.

Okee-Chee, with her husband Manny, has authored an autobiographical memoir of her year in an Indian orphanage entitled Where Courage Is Like A Wild Horse, published by University of Nebraska Press. In addition, she is preparing a second biographical memoir covering her student days at the IAIA.