05/20/2026
Mvto, Four Mothers Collective & Mid-America All-Indian Museum!
Meet the Artist: Okcate Evita Smith McCommas (Mvskoke)
We’re honored to feature the work of Okcate Evita Smith in Ripple in Traditions, a traveling exhibition curated by Four Mothers Collective.
Okcate is the Mvskoke word for scarlet. Though it was chosen as her name from a CreekDictionary before she was born, Okcate entered this world at dawn in Aurora, Colorado, wailing like a fire engine, brick red, and sporting ginger hair. The name fit! To this day, she strives to be as bold as her name. Her art reflects her lived experiences through vivid chroma, distinct shapes, various textures, and evocative poetry and music.
A lifelong multi-media artist, Citizen of the Mvskoke Nation with Purépecha, Scottish, and Eastern Band Cherokee ancestry, Okcate approaches art as a powerful tool of expression and an agent of change. Through her work, she addresses intergenerational trauma and celebrates the sacred relationship between Body and Land.
She grew up in the Ancestral Homelands of the Mvskoke in Georgia. Her respect and appreciation for nature grew from daily exposure to the power of the ocean and the delicate balance of the marshland ecosystems. She learned firsthand that respecting and protecting the balance of Mother Earth is essential for the health and survival of all beings.
Okcate approaches each project with the utmost thought and care, and each piece is brought from idea to fruition with throughlines and backstories for the shapes, content, colors, and medium. She is influenced by a great deal of loss and survivalism, and she uses that pain to bring awareness, thoughtfulness, imagination, and positivity into the world.
Okcate’s piece, Sew the Seeds: Three Generations, reflects the role of women as carriers of knowledge across generations. Through hand-painted earrings representing Grandmother, Mother, and Daughter, the work honors the ways Native women have protected and carried culture despite forced assimilation and removal from their homelands.
You can view Okcate’s work as part of Ripple in Traditions, now on view at the Mid-America All-Indian Museum.
Learn more: www.fourmotherscollective.org/ripple
