It’s here where she learned how to draw, recreating the toys her classmates had that her family couldn’t afford. Her parents, incredibly proud of her, supported their daughter in any way they could.
When Norma started her own family, her husband David encouraged her to enter the Red Earth Show in Oklahoma City in 1995.
“I was sitting there, and I was looking, and I was thinking…boy, wouldn’t it be good if they called my name?” Howard said in an interview with the OSU Public Library’s Oklahoma Native Artists Oral History Series.
And call her name they did.
“They said first place, and they said ‘Norma Howard’...and it was just surreal,” Howard said.
This was the kickstart for Norma’s artistic career, which now boasts several awards.
Her unique watercolor paintings embody nostalgia by showcasing everyday life through a Native lens. Norma was represented by the Blue Rain Gallery in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where many of her illustrations can be seen today.
