Yvonne Miller

BEYOND BEAUTIFUL SKULL – This is a skull to remember, no doubt. It's a Watusi (African longhorn), related to the ancient auroch (bison). Wichita artist Lisa Kellerby brought her exquisite art inside the Medicine Lodge Stockade during the Indian Peace Treaty weekend. Her animal skulls celebrate the animal spirit by reasserting the beauty of life juxtaposed with the inevitability of death. She embellished this skull with gold and copper leaf, tempered glass, copper beads, agate, jasper and glass beads. When students came up and asked Kellerby "how much" as I was taking pictures of her work, their eyes opened as big as silver dollars when she replied near $5,000. That was their fine art lesson for the day.