Anita Fields

Anita Fields (born 1951) is an Osage/Muscogee Native American ceramic and textile artist based in Oklahoma. She is an enrolled citizen of the Osage Nation.

Fields is recognized internationally for her work in ceramics, often rendering functional items such as purses, moccasins, and dresses in clay. She is also well known for her conceptual museum installations and ribbonwork.

Museums that have collected Fields' work includes the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; the Museum of Art and Design in New York City, the Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Fluent Generations: The Art of Anita, Tom and Yatika Fields at the Sam Noble Museum, and Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (2019–20), a traveling exhibition at Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Fields is working at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa,

Early life Anita Luttrell was born in Hominy, Oklahoma, on the Osage Nation. She is enrolled in the Osage Nation and is a descendant of the Muscogee Nation. She grew up on her grandfather's allotment until she was around eight years old, when her family moved to Colorado. Fields lived in Colorado until she was 18 years old. Her father was a guide, outfitter, and a welder who supported the family. Fields' grandmother on her mother's side was a seamstress, and taught Fields how to sew when she was a young girl. Fields enjoyed making clothes for her favorite doll and relished in these artistic outlets from an early age. It was after completing her BFA that she made the commitment to become a full time clay artist.

Artwork Early in her career, Fields made sculptures, such as little figurines. After witnessing the graffiti work of her son, Fields was inspired to start incorporating distorted messages on her work. For example, in her work "Finding Our Way to the Earth" she includes her grandmother's handwriting as background images. She said her grandmother kept detailed notes on calendars and stenographer notebooks. "My grandmother had really beautiful handwriting," she said. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN

Critical response American Craft Magazine interviewed Fields in its February/March 2019. Fields' art has been published in several works, including:

American Craft American Style Contemporary Ceramics First American Art Magazine Ms. Magazine Native Peoples Southwest Art Women Artists of the American West Encyclopedia of North American Indian

Awards and honors Fields is a recipient of a 2021 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. In 2021, she also received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award.