Ryan Red Corn, (Osage): Graphic Artist, owner of Red Hand Media and Demockratees.com
Ryan
is an Osage who spent his early years on the Osage Reservation in the
largest of the three existiing traditional Osage Indian Villages, the
Wa.hxa.ko.lin district. He is a member of the Tsi.zho Wa.shta.ke Clan
(Peace maker/Gentle Sky Clan) and was named accordingly at age five .
Ever since age six, he has been a participant in the Osage In.lon.shka
dance. Ryan attended the University of Kansas, where he graduated in
2003 with a B.F.A in Graphic Design. While at KU, he served four years
in the First Nations Student Association, and two of those years as
Co-president. In 2004 he was named the Big XII Conference Native
American Leadership Graduate Student of the Year. Among other things he
curated an all Native activist art exhibit for the Mid America American
Studies Association, sat on several university wide discussion panels
dealing with the issue of Indian mascots and American Indian Identity,
helped organize a protest at the Kansas City Chiefs/Washington Redskins
game, and is currently working on a documentary on the Indian mascot
issue. Ryan's graphic design clientele is almost exclusively Native
American tribes, Native owned businesses and Native American non-profit
groups. He is very familiar with protocol and the proper use of imagery
of Native American populations and producing work on a national level
through the integration of tribally specific designs to each one of
their respective communities. Ryan bridges the long standing gap
between traditional Native communities and the graphic design world
that is used to represent them to the general public. He has earned the
trust and respect of indigenous communities throughout the country with
his hands on communal level approach and understanding of their wishes,
desires, and maintenance of their specific tribal aesthetic designs
systems and symbols. Bringing American Indian graphic representation
into the 21st century with a no holds barred unapologetic philosophy,
Ryan aims to disassemble the publics perception of Indigenous peoples.
He currently lives and runs his company Red Hand Media, among his people of the traditional Osage community in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.