Phyllis Fife (born 1948) is a Muscogee Creek painter and educator from Oklahoma.

Personal life and education

Fife was born near Dustin, Oklahoma to James Fife and Carmen Griffin Fife. She belongs to the Raccoon clan and Tukvpvtce Tribal Town. She was first educated in a rural school before enrolling in the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe from 1963 until 1966. She studied under Howard Warshaw at the University of California, Santa Barbara and transferred to the University of Oklahoma in 1970. At OU, she earned her BFA degree in 1973. She then earned her Master of Education degree at Northeastern State University and her Doctor of Education degree from the University of Arkansas.

Phyllis Fife

Fife has three daughters.

Phyllis Fife

Art career

Fife was a fashion designer and painter, who exhibited in Oklahoma and nationalwide. Along with her sisters Sharon Fife Mouss, Sandy Fife Wilson and Jimmie Carole Fife Stewart, who are also visual artists, she launched the Fife Collection, a fashion design company that incorporated Southeastern Woodland aesthetics and was based in Henryetta, Oklahoma.

Phyllis Fife

Education career

Phyllis Fife has taught at Northeastern Oklahoma State University (NSU) and Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She served as the director of the Center for Tribal Studies at NSU from 2003 to 2014 and coordinated NSU's Symposium of the American Indian for many years in Tahlequah.

Honors

In 2013, Fife was inducted into the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's Muskoke Hall of Fame.

References

External links

Oral History Interview with Phyllis Fife

1948 births

Living people

Native American painters

Native American women artists

American women painters

20th-century American painters

20th-century American women artists

21st-century American painters

21st-century American women artists

University of California, Santa Barbara alumni

University of Oklahoma alumni

Northeastern State University faculty

Southeastern Oklahoma State University faculty

Muscogee (Creek) Nation people

People from Hughes County, Oklahoma

Painters from Oklahoma

Indigenous fashion designers of the Americas

American women fashion designers

American women academics

20th-century Native American artists

21st-century Native American artists

20th-century Native American women

21st-century Native American women

American educators

American women educators