No where in this article is it mentioned that Murv Jacob and Debbie Duvall are NOT members of any Federal or State Recognized Tribe!
Apparently he's just been telling folks he's Cherokee for 20 years! Another *self* identified Indian who started chumming around the Cherokee Artists in Tahlequah.
An example of *if you say it long enough* you convince folks you are Indian....and then boosts about how long he's been Indian....
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Published April 13, 2008 10:29 pm -
Art Under the Oaks gets rolling
http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/features/local_story_104222952.html
“With 30,000 azalea plants in full bloom, not to mention the myriads of other flowering trees and shrubs, Honor Heights Park in Muskogee is a lovely place to spend a memorable spring day,” said Murv Jacob, artist and book illustrator of Tahlequah.
This is the 24th annual Art Under the Oaks Market at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum atop Honor Heights Hill, on the west side of Muskogee. Jacob and his wife, Deborah Duvall, will be there on Saturday and Sunday. The market opens at 10 a.m. both days.
Jacob will bring a selection of his new plate designs celebrating Frankoma Pottery’s 75th anniversary — this brand new design features ruby-throated hummingbirds and trumpet creeper vines, and the plates are done in three new colors, light blue, cream and dark blue, and range in cost from $40 to $100. Last year, Jacob previewed his Frankoma Pottery Oklahoma Centennial plates at Art Under the Oaks for the first time.
Jacob and Duvall set up their tables around back on the southwest corner of the museum, away from the road and crowds, and with a spectacular view of Tiger Mountain — some 30 miles away to the southwest.
“It’s quieter there in the back of the museum, and our musician friends and relatives always manage to show up and liven things up with their guitars, mandolins and fiddles. It’s like that song ‘Sittin’ on Top of the World’ — I love that hill,” Jacob said.
“By a strange combination of luck and tenacity it turns out that I am the only artist who has been to this art market every single year since it began,” he said. “I came the first year and shared a booth with the famed Cherokee painter Cecil Dick — and Cecil’s best friend, the great woodcarver Willard Stone, was in the next door booth with his family — that was over 20 years ago — both Cecil and Willard have long since passed away — now look at me — I’m that old guy taking a nap over by the bushes. Har. Har.”
Their ninth book together, “Rabbit Goes to Kansas,” was published in the fall of 2007. The story line of the book has generated a lot of recent interest among Kansas Jayhawk fans, who are now celebrating their number one finish in the NCAA basketball tournament. Ji-Stu the Rabbit follows the North Star out of Indian Territory with his friend, Wildcat. They’re searching for mythical red and blue birds who live on a sunflower-covered hill far to the north. The birds turn out to be real enough and teach Ji-Stu and Wildcat a new game using a basket and a bouncy ball.
“I’ve been a KU basketball fan for generations,” Jacob said. “Go KU!”
Duvall and Jacob also will bring a stack of their newest book, “Rabbit and the Well” — just out this April, their 10th book together, published by the University of New Mexico Press.
“The well story retells an old Cherokee legend about dealing with a long drought,” Duvall said. “We started working on the book a couple of summers ago, when the hot Oklahoma wind dried up the water and the rain refused to fall. Oddly enough, when our storyboard was finished it began to rain again.”
In “Rabbit and the Well,” the ancient Cherokee animals suffer through a terrible drought. Ji-Stu the Rabbit comes up with the idea to dig a well because “there’s plenty of clean cold water underground.” Since he had the idea in the first place, Ji-Stu considers his work complete, and refuses to do any of the digging.
“Then you shall have none of our water!” the animals tell him. Little does Ji-Stu know there’s a sticky tar wolf in his future when he is forced to steal water from the well. The legend is thought by Cherokee historians to be the basis for the Joel Chandler Harris story about the Tar Baby.
Both new full-color books have been up for some time as free e-story-books on the couple’s Web site, www.jacobandduvall.com.
“You can go there and hear the story being told by Duvall while looking at my illustrations,” Jacob said. “Eventually all our illustrated stories will be available on-line as free e-books.”
Art Under the Oaks will include artists from all over the area – painters, potters, basket weavers and traditional artisans of all sorts, and traditional food and loads of entertainment.
“Round up your friends and come spend the day with the most beautiful flowers in Oklahoma,” Jacob said.
“The Cherokees are especially fond of azaleas. Forty-nine of the 50 species of azaleas are native to the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania down to Georgia, the ancestral home of the Cherokees. It stands to reason that when the Cherokees moved here the azaleas would follow. Art Under the Oaks is a great place to start your tour of this year’s crop of azalea blossoms. I think I’ve seen every species of butterfly native to Oklahoma hanging around those bright blooming bushes in Honor Heights Park. With record American gas prices, a memorable, fun, free, family event might be had in nearby Muskogee.”
For more information, call the museum at 683-1701.
