After Lily Gladstone's SAG Awards earrings, Oklahoma beadworker works on an Oscars dress

TULSA — Tucked away in her snug home studio, Molly Murphy Adams is making a delicate orange flower bud in her hands.

Although she is an avid gardener, the acclaimed Oglala Lakota artist is creating this particularly luminous blossom out of tiny glass seed beeds and fine thread, her hands maneuvering a needle with practiced swiftness and smoothness.

"It's interesting to do this kind of work, where you've been working very quietly and very alone for a long time, and then all of a sudden, there's this massive burst of public attention," she said, steadily continuing to bead during an interview in her studio.

"Working on things like 'Killers of the Flower Moon' or doing these earrings or the 'Reservation Dogs' work that I've done has meant that in this very slow, quiet pace, all of a sudden, I get pulled very quickly and very publicly into this conversation and this limelight that is the opposite of how I work."

The new earrings Murphy Adams was crafting on a sunny March afternoon were a smaller, less glitzy version of the glamorous crimson pair Lily Gladstone wore to the Feb. 24 Screen Actors Guild Awards. Before the "Killers of the Flower Moon" breakout star won another historic best actress trophy at the SAG Awards, Gladstone, who is NiMíiPuu, or Nez Perce, and Siksikaitsitapi, or Blackfeet, walked the red carpet in a red custom Armani Privé gown paired with the earrings Murphy Adams had beaded for her just a few days earlier.

"That was wonderful and incredible," Murphy Adams said. "Seeing the moment, it felt pretty intense, because I was like, 'Did she just say my name in the same sentence as Armani?'"

Since she also beaded yards of fabric for the costume department of Martin Scorsese's made-in-Oklahoma movie "Killers of the Flower Moon," the Tulsan plans to tune in to the 96th Academy Awards, airing live at 6 p.m. Sunday on ABC.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" is competing for 10 Oscars, including best picture, best costume design for Jacqueline West and best actress for Gladstone, who is the first Native American ever nominated in the category.

Like Lily Gladstone, Tulsa-based Lakota artist grew up in Montana

Like Gladstone, Murphy Adams grew up in Montana and earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Montana.

"She's been aware of my work because of 'Killers of the Flower Moon.' ... But it's kind of crazy that we've never met in person because our lives have overlapped in so many ways," Murphy Adams said.

Filmed in and around Osage County in 2021, "Killers of the Flower Moon" focuses on a dark and often-overlooked chapter of Osage and Oklahoma history: The 1920s "Reign of Terror," a series of ruthless murders of oil-rich Osage Nation citizens. Along with her SAG Award, Gladstone also has earned a historic Golden Globe win for her powerful lead turn as Mollie Kyle Burkhart, a real-life Osage woman who was marked for death in the Reign of Terror.

Hundreds of Osage Nation members appeared in or worked behind the scenes on the $200 million historical drama, including Julie O'Keefe, a Tulsan who was the lead Osage wardrobe consultant on the movie and worked closely with the costume designer. West, whose previous credits include "Dune," "Dune: Part Two" and "The Revenant," earned her fifth Oscar nomination for the costume design on "Killers of the Flower Moon."

To make the nearly 4,000 costume pieces for the film, West's department hired dozens of Native American artisans, including accomplished Osage artists like Jennifer Tiger, Terrilynn Laird Salisbury, Sean Standingbear, Moira RedCorn, Jessica Moore Harjo, Anita Fields, Janet Emde, Ruth Shaw and William “Kugee” Supernaw.

"It took an army of people because we were dressing an army of cast ... and tons of background people," O'Keefe told The Oklahoman. "To make this truly authentic ... was the No. 1 goal and mission that we all had."

As an esteemed artist, art appraiser and art historian who has honed her skills through more than 20 years of practice and scholarship, Murphy Adams also was tapped to help with the film's costumes.

"You have to be not only right to this tribal style, but to this exact era. So, I was brought on to make reproductions of very specific historic items. I made beaded vests for masculine characters. And those were based off of black-and-white photos ... and working from those historic photos, comparing that to my experience with collections and going, 'What would the colors have been here?'" said Murphy Adams, who earned her master's of art history from Oklahoma State University in 2023.

She also made for the movie recreations of War Mothers' blankets, which have special significance to the mothers of tribal members who served in the military during times of conflict.

"That was a little bit different, because Julie O'Keefe did a lot of work with the community and talking with families who still have the ceremonial rights to these objects and with other concerned Osage community members in figuring out ... how should these blankets be represented? Because those blankets are only brought out for those actual ceremonial moments," Murphy Adams said.

Oklahoma beadwork artist created Lily Gladstone's red carpet earrings in seven hours

Raised primarily on the Salish and Kootenai reservation in Montana, Murphy Adams was as influenced by those tribes' traditions as by her own heritage.

"That's where a lot of my love of floral beadwork comes from," she said. "So, I really mix up my styles between the tribal heritage that is my lineage, and then the tribal heritage that is the community where I grew up."

Those colorful floral designs caught the eye of Gladstone, who sent the Oklahoma artist a personal message shortly before the SAG Awards asking if she could do a fast turnaround on a pair of beaded earrings. Murphy Adams agreed and received a swatch of red fabric from Gladstone's gown on the Wednesday before the Saturday event.

In just seven hours on that Thursday, she crafted the large, luminous floral earrings for Gladstone. She sent them by overnight mail the next day, just in time for the awards show, which streamed live on Netflix for the first time.

"I was given a free rein to do whatever I wanted, so it was fortuitous that the style that I chose to do, which was a flower but Art Deco-inspired, worked so magically with her fringed 1920s kind of style," Murphy Adams said. "It could have been a swing and miss, but it was a hit."

Red carpet earrings get a strong response for Oklahoma artist

Her work on "Killers of the Flower Moon" wasn't Murphy Adams' first project in the Oklahoma film and television business. Before that, she created uproariously naughty beadwork medallions for the first season of the celebrated series "Reservation Dogs."

"It's been fun seeing those out in the wild," she said.

Still, Murphy Adams admitted she underestimated the enthusiastic response she would get for her contribution to Gladstone's red carpet look.

"I really did not have a very good understanding of how big the SAG Awards are or how many people were going to be watching. I knew it was going to matter. I knew she was going to wear them there, and I know she's so great about giving credit to everybody that does independent artwork for her. But I had thought, 'Well, the SAGs aren't even on TV, so I'll just hear about it tomorrow,'" the Tulsan recalled.

In the middle of cooking dinner that fateful February evening, her phone started blowing up with people who had heard Gladstone's red carpet name-drop. Her Etsy store quickly sold out, and she has been taking some requests from people who want their own version of the movie star's SAG Awards style.

Although she primarily creates contemporary sculptural beadwork for exhibit in museums and galleries, Murphy Adams' red carpet moments with "Killers of the Flower Moon" aren't quite done. She agreed to add intricate beading to the dress O'Keefe is wearing to the Oscars.

"I've had a lot of other kinds of success with beadwork. I've won Best of Show at the Heard (Museum). I've had solo exhibitions, I'm in permanent collections, I have all these other career moments that some groups of people would say were more important," Murphy Adams said.

"But I think there's more conversations that I'll have as a result of making one pair of earrings than maybe some of my work that's been in major group shows curated by like the Museum of Art and Design. ... There's all this big constellation of ideas that are happening, whether it's representation or seeing the unique things about your culture suddenly on a screen, and it's been interesting to navigate."

How to watch the Oscars

The 96th Academy Awards will air live the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood at 6 p.m. Sunday on ABC.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tulsa artist who worked on 'Killers of the Flower Moon' looks to Oscars