Oral history interview with Merlin Little Thunder, Doris Littrell, and Robert Taylor

J. Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is October 7, 2010. I'm here with Robert Taylor, Doris Littrel , and my husband, Merlin Little Thunder, and we're at Doris's home in Oklahoma City. My first question is to you, Doris. Can you tell us about the time you first met Robert Taylor: ?

Littrell: Yes. He came to the gallery with the owner of a gallery whose work he had shown with in Dallas, and that was ending, but they were friends. And so Dr. Bonham and Robert Taylor came into the gallery, and I don't remember, but I'm sure I introduced myself. (Laughs) Robert started looking at the gallery, looking at the art, but Dr. Bonham just chose a chair [across] from me. He was a psychiatrist, so he didn't really want you to know that he was watching, but he 1:00was sort of watching me. And later, he said to Robert he thought that might be a good gallery for him to go into. That's the first time I ever saw him, so I really didn't look at his work that day. The next time he came in, he brought his work, and I looked at some of the pieces and asked if they'd be for sale. They were more sketches, and he said, "Well, no, they were more preliminary work." And I said, "Well, if you tighten those up a bit, I think we could sell them." And he didn't do that, but he started another series for me, and I got to sell it.

J. Little Thunder: Robert, what are your recollections about the first time you met Doris?

Taylor: Well, that was the first time I walked into the gallery. The first time I met Doris, actually met her, I was at the same gallery Merlin was in. We were both in Tulsa, at Linda Greever's, at The Art Market, and we were having a show. It seemed like my work was always next to Gerald Stone, and Gerald became a 2:00mentor to me in a lot of ways. We talked a lot and visited, and he'd always tell me that there [were] other galleries, that I should be shopping around, because I was always asking, trying to learn. It was on a Saturday. I remember it was a Saturday, because it was in the daytime, and it was one of the group shows, where there were probably about twenty, twenty-five of us artists there. We were set up in the very back, and Gerald elbowed me, and he said, "Look, look." And Doris was walking through the front door. "That's Doris, and that's who you need to get with." And that's the first time.

I introduced myself to Doris, but I don't expect her to remember that. I just remember the way Gerald always talked about Doris, and I'll embarrass her here. It was almost like it was a destination to seek, and see if you'd be accepted 3:00by. So that became my mission after that. And Dr. Bonham, me and him came to Oklahoma City to view a show together, and I had brought up that I'd like to go over to this gallery, and he wanted to go with me. And he did. In fact, after we left the gallery, that's what he was talking about, because he knew that me and him were no longer really doing business, but he was very impressed with Doris.

J. Little Thunder: That wasn't actually the first time you asked her to handle your work, though? You hadn't asked her yet.

Taylor: No. When I asked her was after that visit with Dr. Bonham. I came back a week or so later with work. Dr. Bonham had told me to go back in the gallery that day and talk to her, and I said, "You don't walk in with nothing." I said, "She has no idea what I would be talking about."

Littrell: And I want to say something if I might about Dr. Bonham. Linda Greever had told me that he'd be calling on me sometime, and I was open Sunday afternoon 4:00at the time, and she advised me to be really careful because he'll take a lot of your time, but he won't ever handle anything with you. He'll go directly to the artist. So he came on a Sunday afternoon. He looked around, and he was with a lady friend, and he said to me, "Well, there's not anything in here I see I want," and he left. (Laughs) So I thought when he came in with Robert, "Well, I'm not going to get a very good report from that fellow," because that had been my first meeting with him! (Laughter)

J. Little Thunder: That's funny. Merlin, do you remember the first time you met Doris?

M. Little Thunder: Well, we'd already been dealing with some galleries in Tulsa, and Sapulpa, and Sand Springs. I think we'd been dealing with Linda Greever at The Art Market, and Otis Wilson at Western Heritage [Gallery], and Shirley Wells 5:00at Indian Territory Gallery. And Otis would tell me, "Clarence Wilson over there in the Galleria [in Norman], he's interested in your work." And then he said, "You'd better go to Clarence first, because I don't think you're ready to go to Doris yet." He said, "You have to tighten up, you have to get more professional, and you have to really get after it." The same thing with Shirley Wells. She said, "If you go down there and get in Doris's gallery, let me tell you, you got your foot in the door, and you're going to have to work hard to keep it there because she's real professional. She's going to be real short. Real short, and real professional. When Doris says, 'Thank you, dear,' that means get the hell out of here. When she says, 'Will that be all, dear?' it means 'What are you still doing here?' That's it. You just get out of there." (Laughter) So we came in, and she wanted to see more than one piece, so we brought her more pieces, 6:00and that's when we began dealing with Doris, and we got out of there (laughter) [when] she said, "Thank you, dear."

J. Little Thunder: Doris, do you remember the first time you met Merlin?

Littrell: Yes. I remember the first time I met him, but also, he's told me a story, so now I can't remember if I really remembered, or if he just [has] a good memory and tells a good story. So I'm going to say that I said, "I've heard of you, but haven't seen your work, and so I need about three pieces [that] I could look at to give me more of an idea." So forthwith, he came out [with more work], before I said, "Thank you, dear." And that was in 1987, which is 7:00twenty-three years [ago]. I think he and Robert came into the gallery at about the same time. Merlin, do you remember it at about twenty-three years ago?

M. Little Thunder: Yes. [Robert was brought in by Doris' employee Leslie Pate around 1991.]

Littrell: That was the year we opened [the gallery during] Red Earth [Indian Arts Festival in downtown Oklahoma City].

J. Little Thunder: Robert, do you remember the first time you met Merlin?

Taylor: I think I met Merlin the first time at Western Heritage [Gallery]. You were there talking to Otis when I walked in one day. I didn't talk to anybody, I just was asked by Otis if he could help me, and I just introduced myself, and he introduced me to you, because Otis was actually the first gallery I dealt with. But then, the [second] time was at Linda Greever's, during the shows, because like I said, Gerald Stone was kind of a mentor for me. At The Art Market, there 8:00was a lot of artists in their big group shows, and I was a new kid on the block. I didn't really know anybody, and Gerald took me around, and introduced me [not] to the artists, to their work, showing me the work as we'd walk around. And Merlin was one of the artists I wanted to meet. He wouldn't remember that, but I remember that.

M. Little Thunder: I remember [meeting Robert] the first time at Trail of Tears Art Show. I'd just won a first place in miniature on Medicine Storm, and he won, I think it was the Jerome Tiger Award on that [Indian Removal, Trail of Tears theme] where [Andrew] Jackson was holding those roots of that tree--

Taylor: That's right.

M. Little Thunder: That's where I first met him, actually shook hands and introduced myself. And we visited a little bit.

Taylor: I'd forgotten about visiting there. But before that, I wasn't introduced as any kind of an artist or anything at The Art Market. I met you simply because I wanted Gerald to introduce me.

J. Little Thunder: Doris, when you took on Robert, you were already carrying some of the newer, more experimental styles of painting. Do you remember any of the early reactions to Robert's work?

Littrell: I remember being surprised, because I'd been in the business so long as a wholesaler, and therefore I knew Steven Mopope, and some of the earlier painters, and dealt with their work. So I was known as a gallery that enjoyed traditional, very traditional, painting. And to this day, I don't remember why I responded to Robert's work, but I did. And obviously, part of my response would 10:00have been, I thought we could market and build that. And it did happen that way, but it still surprises me. Even Merlin, with his landscapes, was altogether different than a two-dimensional painting, and I felt similarly. I just felt they were good, and my hunch, my feeling has marketed through all these years.

I'd like to tell one story, if I may, about marketing with Merlin. I started helping this man, Dr. Richard Mansfield, build a [collection] of art. How I met Dr. Mansfield was, [my gallery] was in a strip shopping center, and the last [store] had Robert Redbird in it, and he and Joquita had opened, and they didn't 11:00have any money to advertise. And so I was advertising in this little publication that went into the hotels and motels. And I said to [Robert and Joquita], "Would you like me to list that you're opening there on Sunday afternoon?" And they said yes. So it was actually Redbird's name that brought Dr. Mansfield around, because I was just next door, so he came in and visited with me and bought some alabasters, and that began a relationship with him. His wife didn't really enjoy Native American work. She liked English watercolors, so as we got to know each other really well, I'd be having a one-man show for Merlin, and he would call and say, "I'm calling to wish you a good show, now put Merlin on." (Laughter)

And then he'd say to Merlin, "Sure hope you have a good show. Now put Doris on." And then he'd say to me, "I'm ready to buy a pony today. Does he have anything with horses? And I need some more of the humorous pieces, so the ones that you 12:00find are the most humorous, pick those out and put them aside. I'll buy those." So he went on like this, sight unseen, trusting Merlin and me. After all these years--he bought other [artists] as well--he said, "I'm going to donate my collection." He graduated medical school at Oklahoma University. "And I'm going to donate it to OU."

In the meantime, I was a friend of David and Molly Boren, and they had gone from U.S. Senate to the Presidency [at OU], and they were buying for OU. I met [the Borens], and I said, "I'd like you to meet Dr. Mansfield." And they met. And then Mansfield said, "I want Smithsonian to take half of the collection," so [OU and Smithsonian] picked, which put the artists that I had been working with and thought so much of in Oklahoma in the Smithsonian, which was a great thing. But 13:00[before] OU came, I had told [Dr. Mansfield] about a woman who was doing appraisals, because he wanted his work stored in my closet in the gallery, appraised. And there were eighty-three Merlin Little-Thunders. He bought more than that, but that's how many had been stashed [in my closet] over the last couple or so years. I always remember that number. Eighty-three. And so they got shipped down to OU.

J. Little Thunder: That's a neat story. I think some of the highlight moments for any gallery are the shows. Robert, I'm wondering if you remember the first show that you and Merlin were both at, at Doris's? And if not the first one, perhaps what some of those shows were like.

Taylor: Well, I don't really remember maybe the very first show. I think, what 14:00had been impressed upon me, [about] why to find Doris, was concret[ized] once I did shows with Doris. It was the way that we were each given our space, and room to display not only the work, but to also actually get the intimacy with the collectors. That was missing at a lot of other places that I'd been, starting out. And being juxtaposed against different artists. I'm like Doris. When you look at it on the face, you think, "This may not all congeal to be such a firm and solid show," but I think that all of our works complemented each other. And I think that the reason that that happened was--and I've told Doris this over the years--true gallery owners are just like artists. They are artist[s], and their painting is the artists that they groom, and collect, and mentor in their 15:00own ways, and the way it's presented to the public. And I think that really enhanced all of us. I think we realized that we were all becoming more and more professional from that.

J. Little Thunder: You know, just to pursue that idea about intimacy, collectors came to other shows. How was it different at Doris's?

Taylor: Well, I'll just say this. After Doris's, I picked up a gallery in Santa Fe, and I've been dealing [gallery owners are not allowed to appraise work they themselves have sold] out of Santa Fe, which is considered the art mecca. One thing I'd always tell people after being out there [is] I've never met as knowledgeable a crowd as you'd meet in Doris's gallery. I think that's why I was 16:00always excited to go there. First off, I was always honored to be with peers and contemporaries that I respected, Merlin and others. And the clientele, I won't say just a family feeling, but it was a very knowledgeable crowd. You could actually go in depth talking about your work, and it was readily accepted, whereas, in most galleries or in other places, they just want to touch the highlights, and they're ready to go on. So that was the one thing I noticed.

J. Little Thunder: Good explanation. Merlin? How about your memories of some of the shows, or comments on what Robert said?

M. Little Thunder: Well, I think the most memorable show was probably in 1990 during Red Earth. Everything was really upbeat, and we were all moving around 17:00real quickly, and there was a lot of activity, a lot of excitement. It's like the air was full of electricity. And people were coming in for Red Earth, people were flying in. They were coming in to see our show. I think Manuel from Canada came to view the show. The most extraordinary thing about being there was that you could actually be yourself in front of these patrons. You didn't have to feel like you had to put on any airs, be stilted. You could just be yourself. Although [you] had a lot of butterflies, and it was really stressful, you could still be yourself and talk about your work, and enjoy being with everybody at the gallery.

Taylor: I'd also like to say, it was truly a family. You didn't have the petty 18:00jealousy that you do encounter in some galleries, not with the gallery owner, but the other artists. Everybody was as willing to talk about somebody else, as they were their own work. And everybody was happy when anybody made a sale. And like I said, it was just a good feeling.

J. Little Thunder: Doris, when did you first have the idea of doing a Red Earth show? I believe Red Earth, as we knew it, sort of started in 1992--

Littrell: 1987. I ran the print tent down there for '87 and '88, and the artists would put their prints in that area, and I would sell them, and then they were paid at the end of the show. They decided they wanted those in their booth, to handle it themselves, and I stopped then. There wasn't anything I could see that 19:00I could do to assist its growth, so I went back to the gallery. I don't know if it was '89 or '90, the first show I had during Red Earth. I know in Santa Fe, and other metropolitan areas that are known for painting, and great numbers of shows, and the Santa Fe [Indian] Market, everyone has something during that time, and that's just accepted. But here, there weren't very many galleries, and I wasn't really sure. I didn't want to interfere with their marketing down there and have that controversy. So, say Merlin had a booth, and then I had a show. [For] all that time until I retired, that was the way Merlin and I worked. I 20:00would have his booth number up on the wall by his work [in the gallery], they could look him up there. They could view what he had [at Red Earth], view what he had given in the gallery, and he would spend his time in the booth, allowing some time in to come to the gallery as well. So it worked out just fine as long as you were considerate of one another. And the customers seemed to like that. It gave them a freedom to discuss with me what they'd bought from Merlin down there. That's always a good way to work at things, I think.

J. Little Thunder: And Merlin, that was kind of a balancing act for you, wasn't it?

M. Little Thunder: Yeah, it was a balancing act.

J. Little Thunder: Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

M. Little Thunder: Well, you have to always strive for consistency. You have to do some really high quality art for your booth, and I had to do some really high quality work for Doris's. So we had to split them in half, and put half of them 21:00in the booth, and put half of them in the gallery

Littrell: And it worked well.

M. Little Thunder: And the prices had to stay the same. I never lowered the prices, or raised them in the booth, and we did the same at the gallery. They had to stay the same. They had to reflect one another.

Littrell: And that's why people weren't always trying to get him to come down, because they learned that right away--if you're going to take the commission off [away] from the gallery, and then sell it to them-- All of my artists were ethical. They, therefore, built a good career for themselves, because they saw what was important and acted on it.

J. Little Thunder: Robert, what kinds of special pressures did you feel for Red Earth shows?

Taylor: I'm like Merlin. A show is a show. Now, I didn't have to do that balancing, so that actually made it a lot easier for me. And Doris's shows have 22:00never been, once I felt comfortable--I thought Merlin put it real well--you could just let your hair down and be yourself.

Littrell: And I want to say that the customers enjoyed that. They knew the painters were having fun. A man I've known since 1968, he's never bought a thing from me, or anywhere I was, in a gallery where he was visiting an opening. He bought in maybe distressed situations or so forth, he built a collection that way. But he always went to all the shows, because he said, "I wanted to visit with the artists about their work, and what they were doing, and they enjoyed having me do that even though I was not a buyer." I thought that was interesting, from 1968-2010, I was hearing that. So there had to have been lots of kinds of ways to enjoy. I wanted to say to some of my friends sometimes, "It 23:00doesn't matter that you're not buying this year. We enjoy your energy. Just come bring that."

Taylor: And I'd just like to throw out here, because of that atmosphere, our shows had good turnouts because we were so comfortable. Merlin would sit and give a talk about his work going around a wall. I would do the same thing. Other artists were doing the same thing. I always thought we were doing a lot, not only just for our own careers, but for the industry itself, because there's a lot of education that took place under Doris's roof. Not only for the patrons, but also for the artists.

J. Little Thunder: I remember thinking, too, what a lot of work for you, Doris, because there was a tremendous number of artists, and weavings and the pots. How did you display everything for a special show?

Littrell: Well, I didn't know very much when I first opened. I had been a wholesaler, and that means that I took Oklahoma Indian art into other states, to museums and galleries, and either put on shows, or wholesaled their work, if that's what they wanted to do, so they got exposure. And so I was accustomed to being around galleries through my work, and as much as you can learn from just observing someone, I knew. But [it wasn't] anything like what I knew once I opened my own. So when I opened the first show, I had forty painters. That was too many, even though I had a large space. It was too many, and they were too crowded, and so I cut down on the number of painters that I had, until when I 25:00retired--not to say that I wouldn't work with [Virginia] Stroud, or someone whose work was requested, but we generated our income together on a regular basis, Merlin, and Robert, and me. That was the way it was for a number of years before I retired.

I also started [my collecting career] with Bob McCabe, and we bought a Santa Clara pot, and then we bought Navajo rugs. And his mother lived in San Diego, and we'd go there every summer. After a couple of years, I said, "You know, I came from Apache, and there's a lot of painters down there, and there always have been. Caddo County's always been known for painters. Let's go down there, and see what's there." And so my uncle, Everett, my mother's brother, had been, by the time he retired, forty years running the scout camp down there. He was quiet, he was a cowboy and he loved Indians. He was close to Alan Houser, and 26:00close to Spencer Asah. And George Geionety lived half a mile [away]. So George was a painter, and he'd come up to Everett's, and would sell him art. And Everett would put [it] on his wall with a push pin, and I would go and look. And he'd mark them up fifty cents, and sell them to me. That's how I started buying Caddo County Indian paintings. And then after awhile, the Indian artists would hear [about us], because not a lot of people bought in those days. And so our name was dropped that we were buying. Some of the artists would come to the house. And that's how it started. I worked for the telephone company and then for General Motors. I worked in corporate endeavors, and then on my lunch hour I'd sell Indian art.

And on the weekends, I'd run an ad. Stuff like that. And there was a collector 27:00here, his name was Mr. Silberman, and Shifra, his wife. I'd met them in 1968, and they were seriously collecting, and I had a friend who lived some distance from me in Bethany, and she was having a garage sale, so of course I gave her some Indian art. And he went over, and he called and he said, "Mrs. McCabe, are you everywhere?" (Laughter) He was thoroughly discouraged.

J. Little Thunder: And you helped them build their collection. How you would define what it means to build a collection for someone, or to help them build one?

Littrell: Like a lot of things I did, I really didn't even think about it or know what I was doing. I wasn't taught or anything, I just felt the way I would 28:00feel about it. I just felt it was God-given, that I had a talent for picking fine painters. And that's why I loved my work, because in the same way I was close to them, then I had this other wonderful experience with the people that bought it. So I had it coming and going, great work, and [people] would maybe not even ask, just watch. And if they were a Merlin customer, pretty soon, they probably were going to be a Robert customer, and vice-versa, though some stayed with only one painter. Mostly they bought things that were quite diverse, like Doc Tate's traditional work, maybe a dancer on black. And then, I'd just point them in the way of what I thought was very good. If I had a Mirac Creeping Bear 29:00customer, and I got in one that I thought was just exceptionally good, then I'd call them and say, "Come and look." And they'd usually buy.

Taylor: I think it was best put [by] a collector, when I worked for Doris for a couple years in the gallery. I'll put Merlin on the spot on this, because it was a collector of his. And what I always said about Doris was that she had a natural artistic point, the way she approached picking her artists. I used to joke you could tell her artists by going in [their] houses, because you'll find we've all traded [work to] Doris. (Laughs) She has actually equipped us with our own furnishings. But, this collector was looking at Merlin's [paintings] and I said, "This is one of the newer pieces that had come in, and you would really 30:00like." And they said, "We like everything Merlin does that we've seen because he has a passion with storytelling." And I thought that was an apt description of Merlin. I always said, "People always will react to somebody who shows passion in what they do," and if there's actually something that they're saying with that passion, it carries a lot of weight. And Doris knows that.

Littrell: Over and over they would say to me, "We heard [Merlin] that day at an opening, he told the stories around the room," like they would say about Doc Tate, "And he played the flute that day." That's what they say about you.

J. Little Thunder: I remember at some of their shows, Merlin, you would come in with paintings in progress, and sometimes those would sell as well. People seemed intrigued by that.

M. Little Thunder: Well, I kind of went against my grain, bringing "in progress" 31:00work. Of course, my wife made me. But I had a good friend, who was becoming better friends with me before he passed away, and his name was John Clymer. I got to be friends with him and he advised me.

J. Little Thunder: Can you explain who he is?

M. Little Thunder: John Clymer was a historical [western] painter. He'd done paintings of the history of the West. He was not an Indian, he was an Anglo-painter. I think he was from the East Coast, but I admired his work, because he was real truthful in his art. He did his best to research, and get all of the implements right on different tribes. So that's why I watched him, and admired him. And I talked to him quite a bit about his technique, and the way he paints. He used to advise me. He told me I had good color, and I told 32:00him, "Well, I use primaries only." He said, "Good, that's good. That's good." Anyway, he told me, "I don't ever take anything out of the studio unless I'm one-hundred percent satisfied with it." So that kind of stuck with me. I didn't like to take anything out of the studio until I was one-hundred percent satisfied with it.

But, as we began selling more in Doris's gallery, and we started moving pieces quickly, then, it was a necessity that we had to bring things out and show progress. And people began to look, and they found it real interesting to see the various stages of a painting. And then they would say, "What are you going to put in it? What else are you going to put in it?" And I explained it to them. A lot of the times, the painting didn't come back that way. It came back different. And they said, "Oh, well, we thought you were going to do this." And I said, "Well, it didn't work out." Because a lot of times, those pieces were 33:00only in the problem-solving stages, and after working on them, then they began to develop, and they developed on their own. They went their own direction, however they were supposed to go. So that's usually [what] I told them, "It didn't go that way, there was a lot of problems with this, and then I went ahead and changed it. It went the direction it was supposed to."

Littrell: That's interesting. The last show we [Merlin and Robert and I] had together was in 2010. There was one [painting] in progress. And one of [Merlin's] regular customers--his wife was out of town, and he hated to buy without having her there, too--but he just couldn't resist it, so he bought it unfinished. And he told you, "Actually, to me, it is finished, you could sign it 34:00right now." But Merlin said no, there was going to be something else in it. Of course, he loved that, too.

M. Little Thunder: He said, "Will it cost extra?" And I said, "No." (Laughter)

Littrell: I think so, maybe. I'm not sure real sure. It would've been a good thing to cover. He's still our patron, so I guess whatever was said was a good thing. But I was wondering when he told me what he was going to put in it, if that would be the thing, or if the animals might change. But they didn't. He added an extra buffalo or whatever.

J. Little Thunder: Well Doris, I'm not sure [how long], but you invited Robert to come work at the gallery. . .

Littrell: Well, I had some health problems, and so it was going to be unknown, but hopefully it wasn't going to be too long. He was good enough to say he would 35:00do that. If I might say something that I've never said to him at this point, I knew [with] his God-given intellect, he could do anything I needed him to do. But what I didn't think about was his ethics, and we lost all kinds of money, because I was making all kinds of money with his art, and he wouldn't show his [own] art. He was afraid the other artists would hold it against him. So there they hung. He never told a story [about his own work] for two years, I don't think. I think it hastened me to recovery. So as soon as I got back in there, we started selling Taylor: s again.

Taylor: I thought she was going to [say] we heard through the grapevine that there was a bet whether I would last two months, before I either quit or Doris fired me, or killed me. One of the two.

J. Little Thunder: I remember you actually [rented a house] right across the 36:00street, and I know were planning on dividing your time between painting and helping with the gallery. Did your commission from the State Arts Council come while you were working for Doris?

Taylor: It actually came after. But what that did teach me, which I would advise young artists now--I thought I'd hung out at a gallery enough to have an idea, but actually working a gallery gave me a whole different perspective on the business side of art, and exactly how much work is involved. It was quite an eye-opener for me. But Doris, to her credit, just said I wasn't doing things the way she thought I should. I guess you did fire me, in that you said, "You know, for your career, you actually need to get back to painting." And we came to a 37:00mutual agreement on that.

Littrell: Well, it was true. You'd given enough [time] away. A painter needs to paint. I thought I was lucky that you kept the gallery open so I could come back. You know, one of the artists said the other day, "Well, you've retired five times." I really lost track! (Laughter) I was glad he was making a note.

J. Little Thunder: Well, I did want to talk a little bit about how being so close to the gallery was helpful with the Oklahoma Arts Council Public Works commission that you had. As I understand it, Karen Sharp was really instrumental in helping secure that.

Taylor: Oh, the proudest thing [about] that is that me and Ms. Shirley 38:00Thompson-Smith, what we both claimed to be proudest of [was that] our commission was the first actually juried commission [under the Arts Council]. We were juried into it. Karen Sharp of the Arts Council, who worked under Betty Price, was the liaison for all the Centennial stuff, and she was very instrumental. She was the one that demanded that the [Arts Council] use some kind of a commission. I have to give Drew Edmondson, our state Attorney General, the actual credit, because he walked into the meeting and told them there would be two committees: one to jury which artists would be considered; and a different jury to pick the paintings. He demanded that, since it was going to be done for his offices-- And being [that I was living] straight across the street, Doris was very kind [to let me use the space here]. I actually didn't have room in the studio to do the canvases the size that they wanted.

J. Little Thunder: Remind us of the size again.

Taylor: Well, they're eight foot by four foot, and there's three of them, and I said, "Well I can only work at one at a time, and I'm going to be a contortionist by the time it's over with." Doris just basically demanded that I use the extra gallery space. So I would set up over there, and she allowed me to use it as long as I wanted to, on that commission.

J. Little Thunder: That was my next question. Were you ever painting when Doris was open for business, and were you kind of aware of each other's presence, or did people try to come in and see how it was progressing?

Littrell: I wouldn't let them. I wouldn't let them.

Taylor: No, Doris kept me protected and away from that. Yeah, I would work at whatever hours I wanted, but Doris kept me protected from all that. It was partitioned off from the rest of the gallery, and so I had complete freedom [from] that--

Littrell: And I never went in either. Rarely ever. I went in one time, and he'd 40:00gone up a ladder and was standing on the second table, and I thought, "My God, he's going to kill himself," and I never went in again. (Laughter)

Taylor: I had quite a jerry-rigged easel for these canvases.

J. Little Thunder: That was a real feat, and they're wonderful canvases. Doris, I always got the impression, you enjoyed when somebody bought something, but it wasn't just about the fact that you made a bit of money for the gallery. There was much more to it than that.

Littrell: When you asked earlier, and I really wasn't quite sure how I could answer, [about] building collections? I think the patron always knew that. I was excited to see a finished collection, and part of that [was], we all have a limit. Sometimes it was more or less. Robert and I used to say, we'd just 41:00tighten our belt and keep painting or keep working, because there's always work to do. In [19]83, and '84, I'd heard there'd been a recession in galleries. I didn't even know it, we were so busy working. So I think if you're not afraid all the time, then you're free from money worries. On faith, just work, and have fun, and the money comes. But I always was aware of where [the collection] was going, and what they had already, and who they were already buying.

J. Little Thunder: Merlin, I know that, besides just representing your work, Doris also advised you about pricing. I wonder if you could talk about that a bit.

M. Little Thunder: Pricing [has] always been a real tender subject, because we 42:00always watched artists when they priced their work, and a lot of times they priced it too high. What we learned is to go by the fair market value, and we always charged for the frames and mats and stuff. That kind of brought the painting up to where we could all live with the price. And the most important thing [in] pricing, to me, is I didn't want the painting to hang around in the gallery and gather dust. I'd rather see people living with it. I'd rather see the painting in people's homes during Thanksgiving, and during Christmas, and during birthdays, in their living rooms, living with it. That, to me, was more important than money.

Littrell: That's very good.

M. Little Thunder: We always were very gentle in pricing. We kept our prices 43:00there. We rode our prices to the level where we couldn't keep them on the wall, so we had to raise them just a little bit. Each time we [raised] them a little bit more, and a little bit more. We didn't want to just shoot them way up there. People wouldn't be able to enjoy them, and we wanted them to enjoy them, to be able to live with these paintings. To me, that's what pricing is all about.

J. Little Thunder: I remember, on the flip side, Doris, when you sat down with us and said, "It's time to raise your prices a bit." Do you remember that?

Littrell: Yes, I do. There were just a few things that aided us in that. If you can't keep the work, if you don't have any inventory, ever, because the marketing is so active, then it's time to go up. And awards--if you're entering competition shows, awards help, though they're not as important as some of the 44:00other aspects. The fact that you're interested in competition shows, and interested in when to slow down on that, and encourage younger people to come in and get that exposure. But it's exposure. Merlin has always gone to shows like Red Earth, and that exposure is very good. And with Robert, who didn't make shows, but he had a Santa Fe gallery, so that gave an added exposure to another part of the nation. So those kinds of things might be one thing for one, and something else [for another artist], but they're the same in the end: the exposure. And, of course, keeping your prices where [paintings] can go [to a] home, and other people can see them. There's nothing greater than having your home open to people, and they get acquainted with your work through having 45:00friends or family own it.

J. Little Thunder: Robert, did Doris ever help you with pricing?

Taylor: I want to interject on this. I agree with Merlin, pricing is probably the hardest thing an artist has to deal with. I think that that's one of the reasons that I was told to find Doris, and one of the reasons it's just been such a good fit, is that the ego is left at the door when you walked into that gallery, especially among the artists. That's back to where we're all family. Like Merlin said, we didn't need our ego fed by having this big high price tag on a painting, hanging on a wall, that everybody may ooh and ahh over, but nobody's going to buy. But also, the flip side. With the galleries I had experienced, and was doing my research into, was that Doris, for our industry and the Indian art industry, was demanding a living wage for her artists. That 46:00was a major step in this industry, and a lot of people don't know that. A lot of the earlier collections were built on distressed situations, and Doris refused to allow that to happen with us, and so once again I wanted to say 'thank you' to her.

Littrell: Sometimes, not serious collectors, but people in the gallery, buyers or prospective buyers, would say to me, "Oh yeah, we bought this at a garage sale. We got it for ten dollars." That was okay to tell me that, but don't keep on telling me, because, when are you going to help a painter? It's okay to occasionally find something, but what's wrong with letting a gallery have a commission? Which we earn by our work, which they never will acknowledge, so they want to cut that out first of all. And then, even [artists might] take them 47:00outside the gallery, show it out of their cars, sell it out there. Once that would happen with me, then [those artists] were never in the gallery again, because it isn't fair to the ones that are acting ethically. It's like me taking a dollar that I could invest in Merlin, and giving it to someone who is not ever going to go anywhere, really, because they don't trust that they can go in the right direction, and develop where you can feel that you can be a painter the rest of your life, because you've laid the groundwork.

Taylor: Back to me, the mother of my daughter, Susan Leggett, she was my most [important] confidante and critic, and I'd say, "Price-wise?" And she'd always defer, "What did Doris say?" And when I'd show it to Doris, she never presumed, 48:00she'd always say, "What are you asking for it?" And then I would always try to give a ballpark [price], and say, "Well, I was thinking in this range," and I would be trying to read Doris the whole time, whether she's rolling her eyes, or what. And once she agreed to this price range, that's the price it was going to be set at.

J. Little Thunder: That sounds like our discussions, doesn't it, Merlin?

M. Little Thunder: Yeah. (Laughter)

Littrell: I had this feeling come out from him, I've lived that.

M. Little Thunder: Yeah. If you look at it too long, it means it's too high. (Laughter)

Taylor: That's true.

M. Little Thunder: And if you look at that painting too long, "Well, what do you think? Think $1500?"

Littrell: I want to tell you something.

Taylor: And if she reaches for the checkbook, you know you're too low. (Laughter)

Littrell: And I'm grabbing it too fast. That is funny, Robert. Most of my regular patrons, I have told that I'm closing the gallery, but I'm going to be a 49:00broker for Merlin and Robert, and maybe a fine Navajo rug or something. It's not going to be a vast amount. I have a small home, and I'm not going to necessarily have shows, but when I get a Merlin [painting] in, I'll call some patrons, and we'll have a little time together with that piece. But it's already gotten out that I'm going to do that. So yesterday I get a packet from one of the painters of photos, and he would like me to handle these. Well, some of them I'd seen before, a long time before, because he's too expensive. And when I told him his price structure was off a bit, he said, "I have to have this money." And that was his answer. So here's the envelope, they're still in there, and he's really an able painter, and I know he would like to sell, but he will not listen. And I 50:00know what his things would sell at, because he [is] a good painter.

J. Little Thunder: But he wouldn't be guided.

Littrell: And he's not at all guided by the fact, if they're never selling, there's something wrong, because he must know that he's capable. And he enjoys [painting], but I would feel badly if nothing ever turned--not to say nothing, but for the most part. And [sometimes artists] will look at someone who has been marketing for years and years, and see what they're bringing [for] maybe their major piece. One of my dear painters from Caddo County said, when Robert Taylor: got the $100,000 commission, "Well, don't they know that I'm a painter? I could give them a $100,000 commission piece." That's Mr. Redbird, and he was dead serious. He said, "I told a friend of mine in Phoenix I'll probably be getting 51:00one soon, because I'm as good as he is." (Laughter) "And some of the things he knows, I taught him"

J. Little Thunder: And that was kind of a positive stressor, wasn't it, to get such a big commission?

Taylor: It was positive [because] for one thing, it introduced me to people who would never look at my work. Secondly, it challenged me because what they wanted was not my usual work. But career-wise, it was a big boost. It really was. It was one of the highlights of my career.

J. Little Thunder: The unveiling of the painting was a little tricky, because, I guess space was not quite ready the first time. Doris, did you get to go to the unveiling?

Littrell: No.

Taylor: Health[wise], you couldn't make it for that. Shirley Thompson-Smith was the sculptor. They didn't tell either of us, before they had the unveiling, that we were going to have to talk. They did that purposefully, they said, because they didn't want us to be nervous. They told us that morning that we had to do a talk, and Shirley ran off and disappeared, and I didn't know where she went. And I was talking to some people, and [Shirley] comes back. And then this assistant came and got us and took us back where we were going to have to walk up on the stage, and she said, "Now, when we introduce you, each of you will have your chance to talk, and Shirley, you're going first." And Shirley pulls out these pages she'd been writing. She goes, "Did you write something down?" And I pulled 53:00out this little napkin. I had like six names, and I said, "Yeah, I've got to remember to thank all these people right here." And she goes, "That's all you wrote?" And I said, "Well, they said that you were going to give the whole story." And I saw the lady come down and grab Shirley, and she goes, "What?"

About that time, the woman's grabbing her to go onstage. She came off the stage--I can't [repeat] what Shirley said to me when she came off. (Laughter) But other than that, I don't remember, because I don't like speaking in front [of people]. [No artist is] a public speaker usually. I don't even remember what I said that day, but I remember the look on Shirley's face when I said, "You're supposed to speak for us." (Laughter)

Littrell: At the time, I was in a walker, and I thought it was a small space, and it was going to be crowded, and it wasn't appropriate, and so I've always been sorry I missed that. Go ahead.

J. Little Thunder: But you did often go, sometimes after the crowds, to various shows that Merlin or Robert were exhibiting in.

Littrell: Oh yes.

J. Little Thunder: I remember you going to Cowboy Hall. And you arranged the show at the Capitol for Merlin, didn't you?

Littrell: I helped but Karen [Sharp from the Arts Council] was involved with it. And they said, "No, we don't serve refreshments." I said, "I want to serve a little something. Merlin will kill me if there's not even a sandwich or a drink." (Laughter) So they said, "Well, keep it down, because it's going to be awkward getting it up there." The first thing I saw Merlin do was look at that sick table. I couldn't believe they'd had all those shows there and never had refreshments. One time I went to one [reception at the Capitol], it was right after Robert had one there, and Betty Price said, "You know, times are hard. The 55:00Taiwan show was here. [There are] great crowds to both of these, so our friends have baked some cookies." So they had coffee and some friends' baked cookies. Times were hard.

Taylor: Well, at Doris's openings, food was just as much of an unveiling as the artwork was. (Laughs) It was like all Indian events. We did start on time, but there was always more food than anybody could eat.

Littrell: And I always had people that helped me do that. At one time we had Tilly, and Tilly would do it all, but she got more and more expensive, and when I heard that Tilly had said to one of my artists, "Will you give me this? She doesn't pay me enough," I thought, "Okay, Tilly, that's your head, right there." 56:00We never had Tilly again. And we were just as well off, but she was over there asking for donations because I wasn't fair.

J. Little Thunder: It was pretty remarkable that collectors, who were also friends, would chip in and help. I mean, they'd help with hanging paintings, they'd help with the food--

Littrell: And do dishes. I'd say to one of my friends, "You are not doing those dishes." She has such a tedious job and works so hard, and she almost cried. She told her husband, "She won't let me do dishes." I thought, "Never again, she can do those dishes as long as I am here."

Taylor: But for those openings, Merlin and I did educate people how to make coffee.

M. Little Thunder: Yeah. (Laugher)

Littrell: Amen. Amen. Amen.

M. Little Thunder: You drop a penny in the coffee cup, and if you can't see Lincoln, tell if it's heads or tails, then it's good coffee.

Taylor: It's ready.

M. Little Thunder: It's ready. Yes.

J. Little Thunder: I'm winding up here, but I wanted to ask, starting with you, Robert, what Doris's work in Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery has meant to your career?

Taylor: Well, I owe a lot to this lady. I think a lot of us are so self-taught, and the art business is a strange business. You're not only dealing with your product, as everybody likes to say, but you're also dealing with emotions. And the artists, we tend to get in our own world. And to be successful at this, you have to come out of that world, to the business world, to be able to sell. And Doris helped you take baby steps to do it. She would tell you what to do, and 58:00then you'd hear, "That's it, sweetie." (Laughs) "Thank you, sweetie," or whatever, and you knew you were going in the right direction.

About every third or fourth visit I'm with Doris, I'll bring this up. I've always viewed Doris as being just a fellow artist, and her sensibilities are exactly the same as all of ours in the way she approached things. Part of her palette was her artists, and she took very good care of us. Something that a lot of people know, and I've learned a lot more of it by working for her--I've learned what not to say to Doris, also. (Laughter) I like to tell people that 59:00ever since I've been affiliated with that gallery, Doris always wanted to know where else we showed, what else we were doing, where we made sales, and she always promoted that to our collectors, and other people. That's an oddity in the art world and other galleries--it's always territorial. Not only that, come fall, about this time of year, Doris would start the phone calls, talking to the artists, or when you'd show up, she wanted to know how things [were going], because this is the slower time of the year. Shows are winding down, and I'm telling [stories] out of school on this, but I learned from working [in the gallery] every November she'd gauge who'd had sales and who hadn't. Remarkably, if you hadn't had a good going-into-Christmas season, things always sold at the Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery. You were always getting a check. There wasn't an artist that did not have something for Christmas come that time. And we 60:00[artists] may have walked around thinking, "Boy, I'm sure glad we made that sale." Well, I learned after working with her, a lot of those sales were put in those closets, because Doris was buying them, and she would sell them at a later date. But she was making sure, she never wanted to embarrass any of us, [and] some of us didn't know she was the one buying the work. But she was.

J. Little Thunder: Thank you for that story, Robert. Merlin, what has Doris done for your career?

M. Little Thunder: Well, I grew up in Doris's gallery. Both artistically and physically, emotionally, spiritually, we grew up in there. And I think it was that we always had to have a standard of excellence. We always had to do our very, very best, and her gallery was the hallmark of Indian art. You just had to do your best. And some of these galleries that we used to deal with, used to try 61:00to steal work from her. They used to say, "One of our patrons saw a painting at Doris's gallery. Can you bring it over here?" And we'd say, "No. We can do you one similar, but no, we're not going to go to Doris's and get that painting, so your patron can buy it." So some of these galleries that we dealt with over there, like Indian Paintbrush Gallery [in Siloam Springs] and Indian Territory Gallery [in Tulsa], they used to say that quite often. So we'd have to do a painting similar and take it to them, but we never did ever take a painting out of [her] gallery, to go sell it to another gallery because they wanted it. Because that was Doris's gallery, and we just didn't do that. We learned quite a bit from dealing square. You dealt square, and you do your best, and you be honest. You try real hard, and one thing that I learned is that I'm not through yet. I'm still learning. I'm still pushing and striving to be better and better and better.

Littrell: That's wonderful. We all should, at any age. That's great.

J. Little Thunder: How about the Oklahoma Indian art scene in general? What role do you think the gallery has played?

M. Little Thunder: I think it's done a lot to educate people about Indian art, because a lot of people right now, at this time and stage in Oklahoma history, they don't know [about it] anymore. It's all passing away. It's all slipping away, and what the Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery does is educate them, remind them. Remind them, and they keep the light burning. They keep it burning brightly, so other artists can see it and come forward and continue, and that's what it's all about. Continuing on. The school of Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery is a continuation. Pass it on and carry it forward for the next generation.

J. Little Thunder: Robert? What do you think?

Taylor: I had somebody ask me to put something in writing about Doris not long ago, and I sent them a letter, and I've shared this with Doris, so she knows this. The best way I can put it is the old adage of, "A pebble in a brook causes all these ripples." We say Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery, but we all know that's simply Doris. Everybody has known that since the inception of it. It went by that name, but it was Doris's gallery. Doris was a boulder in the Indian art world. It was waves, not ripples. Like Merlin, I grew up under Doris. We all learned so much under her tutelage. She encouraged us to actually be, basically, ministers, out there. That's why she gave us the forum, for Merlin to be able to explain [his art], not just so Merlin would have a chance to sell the work. Because we're not doing it for that. I mean, we're wanting to make a living, but none of us are doing it for that reason. We have something we want to say, and Doris gave us the stage to say it. And not only did she not try to steal the spotlight, she shined it on us. That's what I would say.

J. Little Thunder: Doris?

Littrell: First of all, I want to say something to you, and then you can ask me the question. When we were talking about being artists, one of the first shows Merlin was in--I'm a gardener, and I had iris in bloom. I was in the back room arranging these irises, and Julie came back, and she said to me, "You're an artist, the way you arrange those flowers." And she was an artist's wife. And then another artist came in, at another show, another time, and said, "She's back there messing with those flowers." (Laughter) So, it takes one to see one, Julie. I love thinking that Julie always thought I had something going there.

J. Little Thunder: Does anybody have any final thoughts or anything we didn't cover that should be covered?

Littrell: I'd like to say something that I thought maybe was one of the things that contributed the best [to] the gallery. I was a friend of Henry Balink, and Henry's father was a great painter, and he, the son, had put on a retrospective of the father's work at the art center in 1968. [Henry Balink was one of the famed Taos Five artists, who moved from the East Coast to New Mexico and painted many Indian subjects.] And I went and I met Imogene Mugg, and so it gave me the idea to show her Indian art, and so I did. And the lady in the little tiny bookstore there--Imogene was with her getting coffee when I said, "Could I show you?" And Imogene didn't like change. She said, "Oh, I don't think so." So this darling little lady said, "Either you take them, or I'm going to."

There was a great old big Rance Hood, and she had no space at all, but it challenged Imogene. She said, "Well, come on back. I'll look." And she took them. And that was in March, and in August, she called and she had a show for us. And what the artists learned, I think, was because it was in a museum. It was a very large gallery, and it was very pretty, and they could say they were in a museum. They were in a museum gallery, but instead of just painting something and selling it, they learned consignment. And usually if you find a way to teach something, you're also going to learn. So Imogene had fourteen invitational [shows], and I'd often thought, how many artists like my friend Doc learned to work through Imogene. I want to say that about her, and me with her.

J. Little Thunder: Yes, thank you for that story.

Littrell: I can't think of anything else except just what a joy, and what an honor.

Taylor: I'd just like to say, with the gallery, it's been an honor. Not only that, getting to know everybody, the friendships that have bonded from it, I think we all became good friends through the gallery, always spending more time with each other, getting to know each other. Like I said the first time, I wanted to meet Merlin, just from his work. I didn't even know what he looked like when I first wanted to meet him, but I'd seen his work and wanted to meet him. And I think that that was the respect that Doris demanded of her artists that came in there. The respect of the work. Not only that you do, but that the other people around you. And I think that's another important point. And it's just been an honor, with both of these people.

Littrell: And I'm glad about what Merlin said about continuing to grow, because so often we've lost our painters early in life. Mirac Creepingbear was a great painter, and he died at forty-two. Doc was sixty-three. Molly Boren is a friend of mine, and she said to me, "I asked Allan Houser the other day, 'Who do you think was the greatest painter of the older people, painting [at the time] you painted?' And he said, 'Oh, Blackbear Bosin, hands down.'" Untaught, but I just love the fact that he saw what Blackbear was about. And that was a nice thing to pass on to me. [Doris Littrell: handled Blackbear Bosin's work at the start of her career.] So you learn in different ways. It might not be your real opinion, but it might be, too. We've lost a bunch, but we have these two still. And I don't know what people think when I say it, because I don't mean it to be bragging, I mean it as the truth. You can take it as bragging if you wish, but I say I have the two finest [painters] in the state of Oklahoma, and used to, I would have put Mirac in there.

J. Little Thunder: Well, thank you all very much for your time.

Littrell: Thank you, Julie.

Taylor: Thank you.

------- End of interview -------