Son of a Botanist Productions Presents

Victory

on the big screen

A three-project slate honoring the art and life of Cherokee-Choctaw painter Poteet Victory — feature film, prestige docuseries, and monumental immersive experience.

Feature Film  ·  Docuseries  ·  Immersive Art Experience
The Feature Film The Art Partner With Us
Scroll
The Subject

Poteet
Victory

Cherokee-Choctaw · Idabel, Oklahoma

He rode bulls bareback at thirteen. By thirty, he had built a million-dollar T-shirt silkscreening empire in Dallas — clients included Frito-Lay, CBS Records, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson — and sold it.

His first contact in New York City was Andy Warhol, introduced through his early mentor Harold Stevenson, the abstract expressionist whose work hangs in the Guggenheim. He studied at the Art Students League. He moved to Santa Fe in 1989 with nothing, bartended at Vanessie's, hung his paintings on the wall — and they sold.

He invented the palette knife as his singular voice. Abandoned brushes entirely. Created an abstract style unlike anything in the Western canon — glossy, layered, carrying Indigenous symbols and archetypes without illustrating them literally. The work emerges from a subconscious space. Collectors say it does something to them they cannot fully articulate.

He has been called the "Forrest Gump of the art world" — a man who keeps appearing at every pivotal moment in American history, brush in hand, bearing witness to what others were never even allowed inside to see.
— Terry Victory, his wife  ·  subject of Outside the Frame
Hall of Fame · 2022
First Inductee — Semple Museum of Native American Art HOF
Collection
Smithsonian Institution Permanent Collection
Gallery
Victory Contemporary
124 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe, NM
Biography
Poteet Victory
J. Robert Keating · Atmosphere Press, 2022
Heritage
Cherokee-Choctaw
Born Idabel, Oklahoma, 1947
J. Robert Keating, 2022
"One of the most-honored Native Americans of the past half-century"
A Life in History

The Arc

Raised 90 miles from the Trail of Tears' end
1947
Born in Idabel, Oklahoma — Choctaw heartland
Raised by his Cherokee-Choctaw grandmother Willie Victory. His bloodline runs directly to survivors of forced removal.
Riding bulls bareback · ranch hand · military service
Early 1960s
Rodeo circuit, military service, hard labor
Bull rider, ranch hand, enlisted soldier. Before he ever held a brush, Poteet Victory lived more lives than most people get in one.
Mentor called Warhol to say he was coming to NYC
Late 1960s
Discovered by Abstract Expressionist Harold Stevenson
Stevenson — a New York modernist who ran with Warhol and Rauschenberg — spotted Poteet's schoolboy horse drawings and changed everything.
Lived on a hippie commune on Maui, Hawaii
Early 1970s
T-shirt empire — Hawaii to Dallas
Founded "Divine Designs" in Dallas — the first of its kind. Clients: Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, CBS Records, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson.
First person he met in NYC — Warhol opened the door himself
Late 1970s
Sold the business · Art Students League · Consulted with Warhol on silk screening
Sold Divine Designs for a substantial sum. Met Warhol through Stevenson at his Factory — consulting with him on silk screening technique.
First Santa Fe job: bartender — hung his paintings, they sold
1989
Arrives in Santa Fe — invents the palette knife as his voice
Bartender at Vanessie's — hung his paintings on the wall and they sold. Abandoned brushes entirely. Created a style no one had seen before.
Mural rejected mid-completion — imagery too controversial; funding collapsed after 9/11
2000
Trail of Tears Mural — commissioned, then rejected
University of Oklahoma commissioned a 56×16-ft mural for the Sam Noble Museum. Still sits rolled in warehouse storage — an open wound.
First inductee — Semple Museum of Native American Art HOF
2000s – 2022
Hall of Fame inductee · biography published · gallery owner
First inductee to the Semple Museum of Native American Art HOF. Full biography published by J. Robert Keating. Victory Contemporary at 124 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe.
Project I
Narrative Feature Film
Alt.
Prestige Limited Series

Victory

The Forrest Gump of the art world. Based on the biography by J. Robert Keating.

Poteet Victory's life is episodic, picaresque, and insistently American — unfolding across decades and geographies that few audiences have ever seen on screen. From the rodeo circuit of southeastern Oklahoma to Andy Warhol's Factory to the galleries of Santa Fe, this is the story of an Indigenous man who refused to be erased.

The story doesn't travel in a straight line. It circles back on itself, the way memory does. And at the center of it all is Terry — who arrives late in real time, but haunts the film from its opening frame. The Jenny model: her presence makes the whole arc legible in retrospect.

Production Budget
~$10 Million
Creative Comp
Pollock (2000)
Structural Model
Forrest Gump (1994)
Target Writers · Not Confirmed
The Coen Brothers ***
IP Foundation
Keating biography + Life rights
Status
Option & shopping agreements in place
Structural Architecture

How the Story Moves

I
The Forrest Gump Model
Poteet's life is episodic, picaresque, and insistently American — unfolding across decades and geographies that few audiences have seen on screen. The story circles back on itself, the way memory does. Each chapter a new world, each world producing a man who should not exist.
II
Three Actors · One Arc
Young, middle, and elder — each with a distinct visual register, a distinct relationship to paint and identity. Authentic Indigenous casting throughout. The throughline is not continuity of face; it is continuity of spirit.
III
Terry Is the Spine
She arrives late in real time, but haunts the film from its opening frame — appearing in fragments, half-glimpsed, before being fully earned. The Jenny model: her presence makes the whole arc legible in retrospect. She is the fifth wife. She is the key.
IV
The Trail of Tears Mural
The 56×16-foot canvas commissioned by the University of Oklahoma, rejected mid-completion when the truth became too visible, still sitting rolled in warehouse storage. The wound that cannot heal is the wound the film circles. The mural is the film's unfinished sentence.
Project II
Prestige Documentary Series

Outside
the Frame

Eight Indigenous artists. Eight nations. The American West as you have never seen it.

Season One follows eight extraordinary Indigenous painters of the American West — each a master, each erased from the dominant art historical record — and asks the question Western art never dared: whose story was never told, and why? Poteet Victory leads the way.

The thematic spine is Poteet's Trail of Tears mural: commissioned, censored, and stored — a wound that opens in Episode 3 and resurfaces in the finale. Three voices per episode: Artist, Narrator, Historian.

Season One · 10 Episodes
01–03
Sovereign Ground & The Trail We Walk
Cherokee-Choctaw · 3 Episodes · Poteet Victory
04
Riding the Circle
Apsáalooke / Crow Nation
05
The Invisible Brushstroke
Navajo / Diné Nation
06
Medicine & Memory
Lakota Nation · Artist TBD
07
What the Galleries Missed
Hopi-Tewa Nation
08
The Nation Sees Itself
Comanche Nation
09
The Birch & the Sky
White Earth Band of Ojibwe
10
The Frame Is Open
Walla Walla Nation · Finale
Three Voices · One Story
The Artist · Primary Voice
The Artist
Not interview subjects. The driving intelligence of every episode — the ones whose hands are on the canvas, whose lives are the argument.
On-Camera Guide · Audience Surrogate
Celebrity Narrator
Travels on camera with the featured artist — from studio to homeland to archive to ceremony. A culturally respected Indigenous or allied voice. TBD post-funding.
Institutional Credibility · Archival Access
Resident Historian
Opens the archives. Translates the treaty documents. Provides the evidentiary backbone that transforms personal story into documented history. TBD post-funding.
Creative Commitment
For Season One, the showrunner and all episode directors will be Indigenous. The creative authority behind the camera matches the cultural story being told on screen.
Project III
Immersive Art Experience

The Invisible
Canvas

Alt. Titles Sovereign Vision Enter the Sacred

Indigenous art transformed into monumental immersive experience — with celebrated immersive artist Max Sicarri.

The paintings of Poteet Victory and fellow Indigenous masters, rendered at architectural scale through cutting-edge immersive technology. Art that has been kept outside the frame — marginalized, censored, or simply never shown — made impossible to look away from.

The Invisible Canvas operates as a standalone cultural event and as a live complement to both the feature film and the docuseries — extending the slate's reach into the experiential economy and creating a physical presence that neither film nor television can replicate.

Creative Lead
Max Sicarri
Celebrated large-scale immersive artist · In development
Victory on the Big Screen
Kickoff Party — You are warmly invited
Celebrate the launch of landmark multi-media projects honoring the art and life of Cherokee-Choctaw fine art painter Poteet Victory. Join us at his gallery in the heart of Santa Fe. Free and open to all — no RSVP required.
Victory Contemporary Gallery →
Date
May 30thSaturday 2026
Time
11am – 3pmOpen House
Admission
FreeNo RSVP Required
Location
Victory Contemporary Gallery124 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe, NM 87501
Phone
(505) 983-8589victorycontemporary.com
Presented
Son of a Botanist Productions& Name & Like, Inc.
Market Context

Why This Slate Matters

The market for prestige Indigenous storytelling has arrived. Reservation Dogs, Prey, and Killers of the Flower Moon have demonstrated that audiences seek out these stories when made with authenticity and craft. What has not yet been made is the definitive portrait of a living Indigenous visual artist — someone whose biography is as compelling as the work itself, and whose IP has been properly secured.

This slate is a three-track strategy across narrative film, prestige documentary, and immersive experience — each self-standing, each reinforcing the others, each approaching the same subject from a different angle and reaching a different audience.

Comparable Works
Pollock (2000)
Reservation Dogs
Killers of the Flower Moon
Prey (2022)
The Team

Leadership

Creator · Producer
Marc Sternberg
MA, MBA, MFA (Chapman University · Dodge College of Film and Media Arts). Fulbright Specialist 2024–2027. Founder of Son of a Botanist Productions, with a slate of 10+ properties documenting how historically underrepresented communities use excellence to reclaim their place in dominant cultural narratives. Producer, 2025 Infinity Festival Monolith Awards. 200+ commercial productions. Negotiated all IP rights; leads creative development across the full slate.
Producer
Andrea Bari
Entertainment attorney, producer, and educator with over 12 years of industry experience. Former in-house roles at De Line Pictures (Warner Bros.) and Tom Hanks' Playtone. Legal research for the UN Special Rapporteur in Cultural Rights. Co-Executive Producer, 2025 Monolith Awards. Head of XR, Infinity Festival. Entertainment law faculty at UCLA, Chapman University, Musicians Institute, and University of La Verne.
Producer
Doug Dearth
A multi-talented filmmaker whose journey began in front of the camera, working as an actor with esteemed directors including Stephen Frears, Bruce Beresford, Clint Eastwood, and Harold Ramis. His deep passion for music and its interplay with visual storytelling drew him behind the camera, where he collaborated with John Cusack's New Crime Productions on the music selections for Grosse Pointe Blank and went on to serve as Music Coordinator on the hit feature High Fidelity.
Biographer · Stakeholder
J. Robert Keating
Author of Poteet Victory (Atmosphere Press, 2022) — the primary source and IP foundation for the entire slate. Active collaborator in the development of all three projects.
Subject · Principal
Poteet Victory
Cherokee-Choctaw fine art painter, Santa Fe. First inductee, Semple Museum of Native American Art HOF. Smithsonian collection artist. Owner, Victory Contemporary gallery. Directly engaged in the development of all three projects on this slate.

Partner With Us

The legal groundwork is complete. What moves forward is creative and financial.

We are seeking creative and financial partners across all three tracks. For Victory: writer attachment and development financing toward a first-draft screenplay. For Outside the Frame: network or platform conversation. For The Invisible Canvas: venue, sponsorship, and co-production partners.
Marc Sternberg · Son of a Botanist Productions LLC
marcsternberg13@gmail.com
(480) 567-4021
Andrea Bari · Name & Like, Inc.
bariandrea@gmail.com
(323) 352-6352
Contact the Producers Victory Contemporary Gallery