My name is Emil Her Many Horses and I am an Oglala Lakota bead and quillwork artist from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. I currently live in Washington, DC and I am a Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian for the last twenty-five years. I have had the pleasure of attend the Santa Fe Indian Market for over the twenty-five years. I work with seed beads for sizes 11 to 16. I create traditional dolls which I embellish with Lakota lane and floral style beadwork. I also work with dyed porcupine quills. I like to represent the geometric and floral style of beadwork of the Lakota and Meti. Since I am also a decedent of a Lakota and French grandmother who also worked in a Meti floral style I tried to represent her style of artwork. I learned the geometric style of beadwork from a Sicangu master beadwork, Alice Fish. She had a very distinct style which can be trace to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota where I grew up.
