Oral history interview with Benjamin Harjo, Jr.

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Thursday, October 14, [2010] and I am here with Benjamin Harjo in his studio in Oklahoma City. Good afternoon, Ben.

Harjo: Good afternoon, Julie.

Little Thunder: What are your tribal affiliations?

Harjo: I am Absentee Shawnee and Seminole.

Little Thunder: Can you tell me where you were born?

Harjo: I was born in Clovis, New Mexico, in 1945, September 19.

Little Thunder: And that's where you attended school?

Harjo: No, that is just where I was born. We came to Oklahoma because both of my parents are from Oklahoma. I started grade school in Byng, Oklahoma, which is a small community outside of Ada, Oklahoma. I attended first grade there. My mom 1:00and I moved back to Clovis, and I attended various schools until about the fifth grade, when we moved back to Oklahoma. So we were kind of nomadic at that beginning of my life. Then I went back to Byng, Oklahoma, to their school.

Little Thunder: Did your parents meet in Clovis, or did they meet in Oklahoma?

Harjo: Boy, I think they probably met at a bar or some other off location [in California]. I am not really sure where they met because they never really talked [about it], and we never really asked. I know that my dad was in the service because of the war then, and my mom was working, doing probably aircraft maintenance.

Little Thunder: There was an air force base in Clovis, wasn't there?

Harjo: Well, at that time, there were a lot of people that had moved out to California to go to work because of the war efforts there. And it was much later. My older brother was born in Sacramento, California, and my younger brother and I were born in Clovis, New Mexico. We kind of did a lot of moving around. I remember, after my dad entered the service, we went up and down the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington State, picking fruit and nuts, whatever. It was still, I think, a depression-type economy going on, and work was finding [whatever] it was, whether it was cotton fields picking cotton or 3:00out in the orchards.

Little Thunder: I remember you talking about managing to find some spare change for two of your favorite loves when you were young. What were those?

Harjo: When my mom and I were living in Clovis, before my brothers came and joined us, I would go to the western movies, which were just down from where my mom and I lived. In order to finance going to these movies to see Roy Rogers, or Gene Autry, or Johnny Mack Brown, or Lash Larue, who was an Oklahoman, I would get pop bottles--I think they were two cents apiece--to turn in. So I would get enough to go to the movies, five cents at that time, which was the cost of admission. Sometimes I'd be there watching the same movie three or four times 4:00until it finally occurred to me that that was going to be the ending of it.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) Do you remember any of your early art efforts in school?

Harjo: I was always attracted to reading comics, and sketching some of the Looney Toon and Walt Disney characters. Enjoyed that. Fascinated with Walt Kelly, and of course, Steve Canyon and Milton Caniff, and Dick Tracy, Chester Gould were some of the people that [made me think] I would like to be a cartoonist when I grow up.

Little Thunder: Yes, those are more sophisticated cartoons-- a lot of reading. (Laughter)

Harjo: Yes and, of course, Pogo was very politically oriented.

Little Thunder: When you went to live with your grandparents, how did that come about?

Harjo: Well, the reason my mom and I moved to Clovis is that my dad and she had gotten divorced, and she took me and my dad took my two brothers. Then, they finally came out and joined us in Clovis. And then she remarried, and that's when we moved back to Oklahoma. She gave us a choice. Did we want to live with her or did we want to go live with our grandparents? All three of us chose our grandparents. We did not want to break up the unit.

Little Thunder: And also, I know that Indian kids frequently are given that choice because it's sort of an opportunity to be raised a little more traditional.

Harjo: Yes, not only that, it was a more stable environment. My mom eventually gave birth to our sister. They, too, were a young family, and were moving 6:00around, going to different areas. I think being with our grandparents--of course, there were three cousins already living there, so that made a household of eight people--one bathroom. But it was a farm. We raised cows and pigs and chickens, and so we didn't have to go to the grocery store for those products, the eggs and the meat. But it was a labor-intensive environment as well. Once we increased the family, we had to do two gardens. It was our job to go out and hoe and weed, and make sure that we picked everything when it grew ripe.

Little Thunder: Wow. I think you were seventeen or eighteen when you headed out to art school, the Institute of American Indian Art?

Harjo: I was the ripe old age of eighteen, by then. I was held back a year from my first grade, so I had to do it twice. After that I think I learned I better stay on top of things

Little Thunder: What drew you to the Institute?

Harjo: I was sitting in the Shawnee Indian Clinic, just waiting to get some annual shots, and I picked up a bulletin. In the bulletin I read that Santa Fe had begun a school called the Institute of American Indian Arts, at that time. And in reading the description of the classes they offered, I saw a class in cartooning. I told my grandmother that that's where I wanted to go to school. My high school counselor wasn't too excited about that because they were grooming me to go to college. My older brother was the brain, so they figured I must be 8:00right behind him and, of course, I wasn't a brain, he was. I was more creative. So we made the application, and I worked for the summer in Tulsa at a bottling company, and then packed my bags and off I went to Santa Fe.

When I got there, I discovered that they no longer had their class in cartooning, and I figured as long as I was there, I may as well enroll in the other courses. So I started out with painting and drawing and color and design and pottery. Discovered a wonderful instructor there named Seymour Tubis, and at that time, they had some great teachers. Allan Houser was in the sculpture department as well as painting, and Fritz Scholder was painting, Charles Loloma 9:00was doing jewelry, and Ottlie [Loloma] was doing pottery. Seymour Tubis, who became my mentor, taught not only drawing, painting, but he taught woodblock printmaking or printmaking in general. It was a method of working that was new to me. I had never known what it was all about until I did my first woodblock and cut out the same areas in both blocks, and got yelled at severely. They enrolled me in pottery, and I sat there for a whole class period with this piece of clay, and I think I ended up making an ash tray.

Little Thunder: So many people did. (Laughter)

Harjo: I left that classroom the next time it met, and they were looking for me, 10:00and discovered that I was in the printmaking room. They decided that they would leave me alone because if that's what I wanted to study, then they wouldn't interfere. Going there, it was a two-year post -graduate learning experience for me because at that time they did not have a degree program. It was kind of an interim between high school and college, or the university.

Little Thunder: That sounds like one of the reasons it was such a successful program. It produced an amazing number of really prominent artists. Are there other aspects of the program you think that really made it successful?

Harjo: I think there were a lot of aspects of the Institute that made it very successful. [IAIA first formed to teach Indian students to do domestic chores for a living, but the arts eventually took precedence. Unlike Dorothy Dunn's teaching, we were given the freedom to create with no restrictions.] When I first started there, we had around three-hundred students, and the students came 11:00from everywhere in the United States. Alaska and all of the other tribal entities came there, and I had not realized how many there were until I went to school there. We had our own Aesthetics Day, and Lewis Ballard, who is also an Oklahoman, was a great composer, was our Aesthetics instructor. And we were grouped into divisions--the Five Tribes under Lewis Ballard--and we were taught some music and dance. At the end of the school year, we got together and each of us prepared a meal and built a structure from the various tribal groups there. 12:00Ours was a chickee [a Seminole dwelling that stands on poles, above the ground]. Then we all got together in the evening, and everybody got to go around and try other foods. That was a good part of it, too, as well as being at the Institute, and taking field trips, being exposed to a lot of other artists and their works, going out and sketching the landscape, whether it was along the Rio Grande, or up at a pueblo, attending some of their ceremonies. I think it was very enjoyable because we lived on campus. We were like a clique of creative energy. It kind of emanated from there. Like you said, a lot of great artists emerged 13:00out of those years in'64 and '66. A lot of them went on to make names for themselves.

Little Thunder: Who were some of your fellow Oklahomans over there?

Harjo: Fellow Oklahomans that I can name right off the bat were Sherman Chaddlesone, T.C. [Tommy Wayne] Cannon, Kirby Feathers, and Burt Russell, Patty Harjo: --no relation but a very good friend--

and a fellow named [MacArthur] Silverhorn. Some of these guys went on to pursue a career in the arts, and others found that art was not the easiest career to 14:00make a living at. You had to have kind of a hard shell, and bullheadedness, and I think that was me from the beginning. There were several times my dad tried to talk me out of going to be an artist. He said, "You won't make a living at it." I think before he passed on, he realized that, yes, I was so bullheaded that I was going to make a living at it.

Little Thunder: Thank you for that story. You went to Vietnam. Did you enlist or were you drafted?

Harjo: Oh no, I went kicking and screaming like all the rest of the guys of that period. When I got drafted, I had run out of my student deferments, and so I knew I was going, and I hung around Stillwater, waiting for the official notice. And then, when it came, I went to Fort Polk for my basic training, and then Fort 15:00Sill. And I figured, well, if I am going to Vietnam, I am going to go and enlist in their program for non-commissioned officers as a sergeant. So I went over as a gunnery sergeant on 175 field artillery.

Little Thunder: Good idea. So it was after you had enrolled at OSU that you were drafted?

Harjo: Yes. I wasn't headed to college until Seymour told me, "This is your option: you are going to college." (Laughter) [Once I'd graduated in 1966 I began that fall at OSU.]

Little Thunder: Well, it's interesting, because some of the Institute students were coming out and going for that career, full force, but you chose to get a 16:00university education, too.

Harjo: Well, there were a lot of students who went on. Some of them went to the Chicago Art Institute, or they went to the San Francisco Art Institute to pursue more education, because like I say, it was basics that we learned there. I remember going to OSU and meeting J.J. McVicker for the first time, and I told him that I didn't think his art department was up to snuff. I had no idea who he was at that time, and he turned to me and he said, "Well, we are not exactly an art school." He knew I had come fresh out of an art school.

Little Thunder: Is there a way in which having to go to Vietnam impacted your artwork?

Harjo: I don't think it impacted my artwork. It was a break because when I was 17:00drafted, at that point in my life, it was kind of a low moment. It provided me with clothes, three square meals a day. Of course, it was also a learning, disciplinary environment again, and since I knew I was headed that way-- My older brother was at Fort Sill, stationed there because he was in officer candidate school. At that time, they had too many officers, so that's where he stayed. And my younger brother went in the Marines, and he was stationed in Okinawa. And he kept volunteering to go to Vietnam, so I would not have to go, but I think I probably would have went anyway, even if he had been able to go over to Vietnam. Some good experiences, some good people I met there. Beautiful 18:00country, but I felt like we were [people, and in my view] looking at Indian people because the Vietnamese [made] that impression on me. Here we were with military might, fire power, and here these guys were determined not to be overtaken, to be ruled.

Little Thunder: Sort of a colonial [situation]?

Harjo: Yes. I had written a paper when I was at OSU that we were not going to win the war in Vietnam, and one of the fellows that was in ROTC had questioned why we weren't. And I had laid out why we weren't, and the determination of the 19:00people was a major factor.

Little Thunder: I was wondering when you got back, and when you were in Tulsa, I understand you were one of the first Indian artists to visit Linda Greever, who had just opened the Art Market. She had inherited these Impressionist paintings, but you were one of the people who first convinced her that she should go in a different direction. Do you remember some of those early conversations with Linda?

Harjo: Oh sure. Along the way I graduated out of Oklahoma State University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Little Thunder: So you came back after the war and finished.

Harjo: Yes. I spent about a year and a half figuring out what I wanted to do, and the GI Bill was available to me, so I finished my degree at Oklahoma State. Then, once I was out of there, I moved to Tulsa and worked for the Tulsa Indian Youth Council for two years as their cultural and recreational coordinator. Of course, before I got that job, I was a janitor until she [Donna Rhoads] found out I had a degree. I kept reading in the magazines about some of my fellow classmates, what they were doing with their art, and I decided it was time to jump off and begin my career more seriously than I had in the past. [That was in 1976.]

Of course, all throughout going from Santa Fe to college, I continued to do 21:00woodblock printmaking. I would do that after classes, and in my spare time, working with a frame shop and art supply store there in Stillwater. I could get my art supplies at a discount, and I learned how to do framing and matting and cutting glass, which was something that every painter, every artist needs to take advantage of. When they find someplace they want to work at, do it in the art field they are concentrating on, whether it is dance or music.

Little Thunder: I can see the utility of that. Do you still frame some of your pieces?

Harjo: Yes, that way I know where it is, (laughter) and if I am working until 22:00the deadline, I can still matt and frame and do all of that right before the show. I would travel from door to door sometimes for businesses, and show them my portfolio of work I had, and I told them, "You don't have to buy anything, but if you would like to look--" That was my way of getting in the door, and of course, most of the time they found something that someone wanted, and they would end up buying it. But walking into the Art Market, at that time [Linda Greever] was doing shows with a Cherokee artist named E.G. Thompson, and I think he was probably the first that she worked with--and he would have, I think, the whole gallery [for his paintings] at that point. And she had a lot of the starving artist paintings that she was selling, the mass-produced things from 23:00Europe, the Orient, or from these houses that did the paintings. I talked to her, and I said, "Why don't you do an Indian art gallery?" And she said she would talk it over with her husband, Matt Greever at that time, and they would let me know.

Sure enough, they decided well, let's try it. So my friend, Terry Adams and I--Terry had worked with me and for me at the Tulsa Indian Youth Council--he and I got in there and we started stacking these display walls that she had. He was a bead worker and a feather worker, so we put his bustles on the stacked columns, and then we started doing art shows. We would take brown paper and cover the glass so no one could see in until we had the opening of the show. And 24:00then we would rip the paper down, and people would be standing outside waiting to get in, and it was a wonderful time.

Little Thunder: There was that much excitement?

Harjo: There was that much excitement. There were some artists that gathered for the shows. We had some great turnouts, some great shows. At that time, I was also a rascal.

Little Thunder: (Laughter) In what way?

Harjo: Oh, my gosh! Some people get to tell[ing] you stories, and I'm wondering how I lived through some of that.

Little Thunder: What Oklahoma shows did you do? There were some major shows at the time. The Philbrook Annual?

Harjo: The Philbrook Annual was going on at that time.

Little Thunder: Did you ever do that show?

Harjo: I did that show, usually with my woodcuts. Then we had small shows, bank shows, any show we could find that we could get into, because there were not that many that were available to us. Not a lot of the museums or places were 25:00doing Indian art shows.

Little Thunder: Was the Five Tribes Museum active back then?

Harjo: Yes they were. They were doing their show, and I can't remember if I even went to do their shows or not.

Little Thunder: Is that right? Because you are one of their Master Artists now.

Harjo: Eventually. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Do you remember when you earned that title?

Harjo: Oh, gosh! I do not. It has been so long ago.

Little Thunder: When and how did you meet your wife, Barbara?

Harjo: After a couple of marriages, I met Barbara at an art symposium just down the street from where we live now, at Oklahoma City University. My friend, Robby McMurtry, and I were attending the symposium and exhibiting our work. We were the only table that had extra seats when lunchtime rolled around, and so she and 26:00her mom came over and sat with us. Of course, I had no idea we would get together later on. We were just two rascal artists out there enjoying a good time.

Little Thunder: That was your first meeting.

Harjo: That was our first meeting. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's great. Well, all artists need a support system-- emotional, psychological. How has that impacted your career, to have been able to meet Barbara?

Harjo: Well, you know, looking at a support system, going back to [the subject of] Tulsa, working with D.F. Henry who had the Mobile Art Gallery at that time--

Little Thunder: What mobile art gallery?

Harjo: That was the name of it: D.F. Henry's Mobile Art Gallery. She was doing 27:00shows at a place called the Ramekin Restaurant, and I had met Jim Halsey, and Jim Halsey had talked to her about hosting a show for me at the restaurant.

Little Thunder: And Jim was?

Harjo: Jim Halsey [was] a music promoter at that time and I think he still handles the Oakridge Boys. He was with-- I think Leon Russell and he worked together, but there were a lot of people that he worked with. Roy Clark is another one of his musicians. When he talked to Diane, she paired me with Willard Stone for the Ramekin Restaurant show. That was my first experience with 28:00seeing that my artwork was going for more than what I had been able to sell it for, because she was also a promoter of the arts.

Little Thunder: Did she double your prices?

Harjo: Sometimes she tripled them. She made it where the people were willing to buy it, and that was something I could do, as well. Then, of course, along the way, meeting Doris Littrell, working with her, and then Linda Greever, then coming to Oklahoma City again, working with Doris. There have been some very supportive people along the way, and I have had some very lucky breaks. I have 29:00been able to travel and to promote my art and, I think, always being able to be out there and talk with people, always being friendly with them. I am not a hard-sell artist. If they like my work and they want to buy it, that's great. And I really appreciate the people over the years that have bought my work and have been able to support me. Like you say, it takes two, and Barb is the money manager. She keeps the agenda of where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing. I can create and she can manage. I think that's what every artist needs.

Little Thunder: Sometimes there is that element of protecting your time, too.

Harjo: Yes, there is.

Little Thunder: It's nice to have that. You mentioned some of the learning experiences that fed into your career as an artist. How did working in the gallery for Linda for a couple of years affect your art?

Harjo: Well, having the training of being able to cut mats and frame, things like that. If a show came up such as going out to California, and doing the Natural History Museum shows, they would help finance my transportation, getting me out there to do these shows.

Little Thunder: In terms of your painting, let's talk about all the different 31:00media you work in. What are those media?

Harjo: Printmaking. Sometimes it is monotypes, mostly it's woodcuts, occasionally it's etchings. Then painting, whether it's using acrylics or gouache. And then drawing, which is pencil, pen and ink, Cray Pas, which is an oil crayon, very little in the way of pastel, but then use of colored pencil, conte crayon, which is the forerunner of the pastel. It comes in the sepia tones, and I have always enjoyed working with the conte.

Little Thunder: That's a really amazing range. What is it that you like about woodblock prints?

Harjo: What I like about woodblock, or what I like about printmaking in general, 32:00is texture, being able to print things that have texture. Whether it's a flattened frog that I found in the highway and I have glued to a board and inked up (laughs), or you know, taken a fish, especially if I am teaching a class to grown-ups or to kids, exposing them to going, "Wow, I didn't know a fish could be printed." Of course, you don't want to eat it after you print it, but you can see what it looks like. Then taking the bottoms of their tennis shoes that have a design in it and having them do a rubbing across that, and seeing that, "Wow, I didn't notice this." There is a lot that's textural around us that we don't see, and printmaking [was] when I discovered it. I wanted to print everything that had some kind of texture, whether a crack in the cement, or a snake that I found--it had gotten flat, so I could glue it down. One year I took egg shells, 33:00and I took an old puzzle board, and I flattened the egg shells and glued them down and then ran my inks over it, and printed it to see what it would look like. I remember telling Terry a long time ago about coming home from a class. I had cooked some beans and the beans had spilled on the stove. And when I looked at the image there on the stove, I drew it down, and I made it into a woodcut, and I printed that. Influences for print making come from everywhere. It's just up to you to see what's there.

Little Thunder: So much of this ties into your love of picking out patterns in things. You stated once that you look for "the whole in the part" to come up 34:00with your designs. Can you talk about that?

Harjo: Well, you look at things, I think, a little differently. I have looked at bugs, and I see designs in them. One time I was drawing or painting a dragonfly, and as I started painting it, right in the center of the dragonfly there emerged a woman kneeling. I had not seen that until it came into my painting, and it was also a part of the dragonfly. I have seen spider images on the back of a turtle. Again, you have that different way of looking at things and it will spark a drawing or a painting, and then you can go in and draw it, and then put it down, 35:00and then start to paint it.

Little Thunder: Going back to your painting, how has your style changed over the years?

Harjo: Over the years, my paintings and my drawings and my woodcuts have kind of all merged together into the style that I have now. When I first started, I was doing a lot of photographs, drawing from those, or painting from those. I wasn't real happy with the way it was going because I was getting bored.

Little Thunder: Was it kind of hyper realism? Or was it just more representational?

Harjo: Some of it was, and some of it was representational. I enjoyed my pen and inks. I did one, one time, and it appeared very three-dimensional to me, because 36:00it just popped the face out. It was a face on black background. Doing the black background, of course, it was white paper, but I brushed ink over it to make it black. But I think it was intentional for me to take my woodcuts and try to merge them into my painting style as it developed, and to do a lot more geometric patterns and use of primary colors.

Little Thunder: I would like to hear more about your color. Do you mix color at all? Let's start with your gouache.

Harjo: With my gouache, I do mix color, just as I do with the acrylics, and with the oil-based printing inks. I think, sometimes, when you find that you run out of colors because there's only so many there, then you have to mix and come up with something that excites you.

Little Thunder: Well, there is one particular color that many people admire. 37:00It's not quite a blue, it's not quite a purple. You might know what shade or hue I am thinking of.

Harjo: Yes, I am not sure what it is either. (Laughter) You know, I have no concept of what my color scheme is going to be. I know what kind my drawing is going to be and then, when I sit down and I start to paint, my colors develop. They will come out of the tube first, and then I will hit the areas that I think I want to see the colors move around on my canvas or on my board. And then I will come back in and add another color to that to see if it will react to that. Sometimes it's complimentary and sometimes it's not. I just enjoy the paint, and 38:00then the reaction of color on color.

Little Thunder: And is the idea to keep the eye moving in a certain way that you would like it to move? Or is [that] not a huge consideration?

Harjo: Yes, I think it is a huge consideration because I like to have the eye moving and to experiment with how it moves, to see where it is going to move, and that's within my own self. If the viewer likes it, and the purchaser enjoys it, then that's great.

Little Thunder: How about your painting materials? Do you work on board, or what kinds of materials do you prefer?

Harjo: I like the 300-pound watercolor paper, but then I will use 140-pound water color paper. I like the Bristol board. I like the smooth, as opposed to 39:00the vellum, because it seems like the smooth will hold the line better and not feather as much as on the vellum. And I use pen staffs and pen points that are interchangeable. I don't use the rapidograph [pen], because I think the rapidograph is too much of the same line, and I like a varied line. Of course, using the pen points and the staffs, you have got to be real careful that you don't load it with too much ink or you get this great big blob. And then you've got to figure out, "Okay, what can I make out of this?"

Little Thunder: Those pen and inks seem like they would be very time-intensive.

Harjo: It's all time-intensive, but after awhile, you forget how much time is in 40:00there. Sometimes it's deadlines you are worried [about], and so you are painting all through the night, or up into the late morning hours, and you're working three, or four, five, six days straight to just finish something. For me, [it's] doing one piece at a time. It's real hard to do several pieces, because if I don't finish one piece, and I have several started, sometimes I will lose interest in the other ones. So I try to concentrate on one piece and then move to another piece.

Little Thunder: Are there certain subjects that recur in your paintings over and over? Or themes?

Harjo: Some subjects show up unintentionally. I didn't mean to put them in there, but it seems like the bird image shows up quite a bit in my works. Yes, I kind of enjoy all images. I'll be reading a book, and I'll be looking at maybe, 41:00say Mayan art or Egyptian art, looking at a magazine, and all of a sudden, in the background of a photograph will be an image that sparks my imagination, so I'll draw it down. I think it is important for an artist to keep a sketch pad because ideas come at the strangest moments, and if you don't write them down or sketch them down, you forget about them. I've done that before, and I'm going, "What was the idea?"

Little Thunder: One thing I get very strongly from some of your paintings is a feeling of continuity of Native cultures through the millennia. I remember paintings that specifically refer to mound-building cultures. Is there any 42:00special connection that you feel with those culture groups?

Harjo: Looking at petroglyphs, visiting some of the drawings and the paintings that they have put on the cave walls, looking at some of the paintings the Aztecs and Mayans did, looking at designs and patterns in their clothes and buildings, their repetition of objects. Yes, they have all had an influence on my work, and I think you will see in my work that I do a lot of repeating objects, a lot of times.

Little Thunder: And animals have often been a subject matter?

Harjo: Yes, they have been.

Little Thunder: I happened to read your comment that hooves are more pleasing to 43:00draw-- you like the design of hooves more than feet. And I was really struck by that because feet aren't really pretty.

Harjo: No, but you can make them really strange looking. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What role does humor play in your work?

Harjo: Humor, because I wanted to be a cartoonist, sometimes plays a very important role in what I am creating. Sometimes I will do a piece that makes me laugh. Other times, it also has its serious side. On occasion, sometimes, it's a protest piece, but I don't always tell people that because I think within me, it's my protest.

Little Thunder: So humor can be a way of making people open up to a protest, or 44:00challenge their thinking.

Harjo: Yes. I did a piece and it was called, The Times They Are A-changing. I used one of Bob Dylan's titles. It was the face of an Indian person, and it started out that it was very dark on one side, and as it progressed, it got lighter, and it progressed some more, and it got browner. And this was my statement, that not all Indian people are brown, and they don't all look alike. You have these many facets of color within the Indian races.

Little Thunder: How important is story to your paintings?

Harjo: Sometimes story is pretty important because some of them don't have the story until I complete them. And then, people want to know, "Okay what is the meaning of this?" Some of them don't have a story, and so I'll have to make up something just to please them, the audience. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Do you always come up with something?

Harjo: Sometimes I say that there is really no story because it's just a drawing that pleases me.

Little Thunder: But that is such an expectation, and especially for Indian artists.

Harjo: It's like, you have to title your work.

Little Thunder: And how do you feel about titles?

Harjo: Sometimes they are pretty difficult to come up with, and other times, they roll right off my tongue. I always try to think up, sometimes, a humorous title to some of my pieces.

Little Thunder: Sounds like a good strategy. Speaking of sketch books, I always wondered if you had a secret sketchbook of cartoons, or something that you're not going to reveal the existence of until way later. I know that sketching is important to your creative process.

Harjo: It is. Like I say, a lot of times I am sitting, talking on the phone, and I'll be sketching, or I'm watching TV, and they'll pan across this room, and there's a photograph, or maybe even a painting in the background, and to me, it will look entirely like something else, so I'll have to quickly go and sketch it down. I think if you don't have a sketch pad around you, and you have a napkin or a manila envelope--anything you can draw on--it's helpful.

Little Thunder: This is sort of out of the blue, but did you ever do a drawing in exchange for a meal?

Harjo: I think so. I have gone to restaurants with friends, and if I'm bored or sitting there, and I happen to have a pen or a pencil, then I will draw something. Of course, if I leave it, they're ripping it off the table, then going, "I'll pay for your meal."

Little Thunder: So that worked nicely. (Laughter) Do you do a certain amount of printing each year? How do you know when you're ready to switch media?

Harjo: Lately, I have been working doing a lot of painting and pen-and-ink drawings. A woman right now has commissioned me to do a monotype, so that's what 48:00I am working on now. But like, for Santa Fe Indian Market, I'll do a monotype, generally, to put into their competition.

Little Thunder: That's been an important show for you over the years.

Harjo: Yes, I have been doing it twenty-seven years. First starting out, doing Santa Fe Market, I made $425.

Little Thunder: Which might not have been a bad amount twenty-seven years ago?

Harjo: It wasn't a great amount. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: For Santa Fe.

Harjo: For Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: Expensive Santa Fe.

Harjo: Yes, even then, it was pretty expensive: it didn't even cover our expenses, so you have to kind of look at that and go, "Oh well, maybe I should try it again." And it's gotten better over the years, and the people that come to see me, some of them are friends, some of them are collectors, and they always want to know what I am doing. It's been great to visit, not only with a 49:00lot of the artists that I only get to see out there at that time of year, but also people.

Little Thunder: How has your creative process changed over the years?

Harjo: Over the years, I think it has become a lot more influenced by shapes. For instance, I'll take, say, a cereal box container, or a Coke container, and I will tear it up to put it in the trash, and as I am tearing it up, the shape of it will remind me of something. And so I will save it, and then I'll come back and outline it on a piece of paper, and then start to fill in that outline of what I think I saw.

Little Thunder: Inspiration from the most routine but unexpected place.

Harjo: I think that's the great part of being creative is you get these unexpected inspirations. You'll be walking out on the highway, or the sidewalks, and there will be, say, a bird splatter, some kind of little image that has been ground into the pavement, and you'll sketch it down. I've walked across a bridge in Chattanooga and saw some rusted wood there, and took a photograph, and it looks like people having a conversation with each other.

Little Thunder: Were you in Chattanooga for a show?

Harjo: Yes. First time I had been there. It wasn't a particularly great show, but at least it was an experience. I met some good people, hung out with some 51:00fellow artists.

Little Thunder: That does seem to be one of the really nice things about being an artist, is the travel.

Harjo: Yeah, being able to go to different places. Like I've been to Japan with my artwork.

Little Thunder: Can you talk about that a little?

Harjo: Several years ago, the state of Oklahoma wanted some miniatures, and so I did four of them, and then I did a painting to present to the prefecture of Kyoto. They took over some dancers and some art from the Cowboy Hall of Fame, at that time, and then they showed my work along with them. And we did a fundraiser here through my friend Robert Vincent and got enough to pay my way over there and my way back, put me up in a nice hotel. Since I wasn't a part, really, of 52:00the state, I was able to be on my own in the day, and at night go wherever I wanted to. So I would jump on their subway and I'd ride it to the end, and jump off, and maybe at two o'clock in the morning, I would make my way back to the hotel room. But I was out there photographing and sketching and just enjoying being in Japan because it was one of my ambitions to go there.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. I know you've both relied on galleries to represent you, and you've also travelled to these kinds of shows. Do you think there are advantages to either route? Do you think a combination is best for an artist?

Harjo: I think a combination is best for an artist because if you don't work 53:00with an outlet or a gallery that shows your work, what are you doing with it when you are not travelling to a show? If you store it in your house, no one is going to see it. If you have it on a gallery wall, you don't always have to sell it to them. You can put it there on commission or consignment. Then, when you get ready to go do a show, you can pull it and take it to a show. Again, that's up to you and the gallery, however you want to work it. It's better to stay consistent on your prices, if you are working with a gallery and going to a show, because in the long run that will hurt you. People will go, "Well, I'm not going to buy it in the gallery because I can get it from him or her for a lot less than the gallery." It's an old concept, here in Oklahoma especially, that 54:00artists will sell their work for a lot less if they hit on hard times.

Little Thunder: That's been unfortunate, because it is a struggle to convey to people that's not how most artists do business. Every artist has a following of collectors, and as you said, they sometimes become very good friends. Does it get complicated if they are still buying and they are also close friends?

Harjo: No, because I think there's certain collectors that you can have as 55:00friends and still sell them artwork, and they will still be a collector. Again, that is something between you and the person. There are other people that you only see maybe once and they'll buy something from you and then they'll disappear. Some of the people that have supported you over the years, and you have a closeness to--I think that's a great feeling.

Little Thunder: It is a great feeling. What are some of the art awards that you are most proud of?

Harjo: Oh, gosh. Art awards that I'm most proud of. One that comes to mind right away is the Woody Crumbo Memorial Award that I received one year in Santa Fe. I had known Woody from the beginning of my art career in Tulsa. He and I would 56:00discuss marketing. He had this concept of how I should approach it. I appreciated his advice. Then being made an Oklahoma Treasure by a group here, [those are] two of the honors I can think of right off the bat.

Little Thunder: Those are great honors. Did you meet Woody Crumbo at the Art Market or did you just meet him?

Harjo: I met Woody through Jim Halsey.

Little Thunder: Through Jim Halsey, yes, because Woody's daughter [Minisa Crumbo] is married to Jim.

Harjo: And Jim was promoting Woody's work and taking it to places.

Little Thunder: You have mentioned his art also as kind of an influence along 57:00with Kandinsky and Klee, Mondrian, some of the [European] abstract painters. I was wondering in what way Woody Crumbo's work had influenced you.

Harjo: I think just looking at [it], because you look at his originals and you see a lot of texture in them. You see a lot of buildup of paint and, of course, like I said, I'm attracted to texture.

Little Thunder: (Laughter) What have been some of the other highlights of your career?

Harjo: Other highlights of my art career, besides meeting the people I have over the years? Being able to travel to other countries? Being honored by the various awards I have received over the years? I think that being able to help younger 58:00up-and-coming artists. Because I am getting old, getting to the age where the people I admired [were] when I first started. It's good to be out there in these various markets and to see what is being created. And to see who is going to be shining as they continue their art careers, and being able to offer them advice or encourage them, or to maybe find a marketplace for their work. That's probably been something that I appreciated being able to do, along with my wife, Barbara. And then teaching, not only adults, but kids, and seeing how their minds work, and seeing what they can produce. One time I was doing a printmaking 59:00workshop in Tulsa and one of my students had put a blob of ink on a piece of paper, and I looked at it, and I [said], "Wow, I can see an image in that." So I asked them if I could have that blob of ink, and they said, "Sure."

Little Thunder: Was that through the Philbrook Museum?

Harjo: No, this was a teachers group that was there. There were a couple of years where I did work for the Philbrook Museum, when they weren't as big as they are now, or where they had me working out in the tipi, and I would talk to kids and tell them a legend. Well, when I would tell them a legend, I did cartoons to emphasize my legend, and so I could remember the legend as well. (Laughter) I remember, one time, I cooked a meal for them toward the end of the 60:00session and I told them it was something and they were very afraid to eat it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How do you define Oklahoma Indian Art?

Harjo: How do I define Oklahoma Indian Art? I think we have some very outstanding creative artists here in our state that, a lot of times, are overlooked by our fellow Oklahoma staters. And when they travel out, and they do, to these other markets, they are "discovered" by some Oklahoma collectors and brought back here.

Little Thunder: So [part of what makes Oklahoma Indian art] is this notion that its artists are just not recognized, not a prophet in their own country.

Harjo: A lot of, I think, people see [the possibility of] bragging rights. Say, for instance, when they go to Santa Fe, and they buy an Oklahoma artist's work out there, and then they bring it back, and they say, "Oh, I bought this in Santa Fe." And they could have bought here, just as well, but it's more romanticized. Looking at fellow artists out there, and doing these various markets--that's why it's important to always look around and see what's done. Some of it will influence you, and some of your work will influence them, and that's always great to see.

Little Thunder: So did you show with Imogene [Mugg], too?

Harjo: I did, having been here in Oklahoma City. Imogene Mugg had her gallery going on. She was at the fairgrounds for a number of years, and then she opened up her own gallery, and then Doris Littrell was here.

Little Thunder: In 1990, a newer version of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was 63:00passed, and as you know, it required the artists to have proof of enrollment to call themselves Indian artists, or be certified by their tribe. Do you remember the impact that had on the Oklahoma Indian art scene?

Harjo: We were, I think, a close-knit community of artists before they passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Law, as it was then. And when they did that, it created a lot of tension, and a lot of finger-pointing at people that could finally come out, and [say], "Well, they are not truly an Indian artist." It hurt me to see the friendships over the years that had been there all of sudden disintegrated. And shows closed off to a lot of fine artists that weren't creating Indian art because there was a profit in it, they were creating Indian 64:00art because that's who they truly were, that's who their people had told them [they were]. "You are of Indian descent, although we can't prove it." I think the Indian Arts and Crafts Law originally was created to stop the imitation that was coming into this country from overseas, and then it went awry. And it was used for a different purpose, because we still have those imitations coming in.

Little Thunder: Yes, we do. I would like to talk about something fun. We are getting ready to wind up here, but I know that you have a passion for garage sales. (Laughter)

Harjo: Oh boy.

Little Thunder: I just wondered if you would explain what it is you enjoy about that.

Harjo: What I enjoy about garage sales is--and I'll tell you what I am looking for when I'm doing garage sales. I'm looking for an old World War II film, showing a movie star at a USO program.

Little Thunder: Why?

Harjo: Because they went over in the various wars, whether it was WWI, WWII, Vietnam, or [the] Korean War, and they would do these shows. You know, Bob Hope when I was in Vietnam was always there with these various people. And I think Ann Margaret was an outstanding performer that really complemented and paid tribute to the veterans there. Someone out there had to do a video, a film of 66:00one of the performances.

Little Thunder: So they were really important to the morale.

Harjo: They were. Definitely important. But I look at old photographs, and I have a collection of, not only women in their period dresses with the flowing gowns and things, but I look to see if there are Indian people in some of these photographs. I picked up, on one occasion, a slide presentation of the celebration in Anadarko.

Little Thunder: Oh, Indian Fair?

Harjo: Indian Fair, yes. So I've got those. You know, things that I can use, whether it's a person or a landscape on a slide, or in a photograph for my painting, so that way I don't have to use a book. I can go to what I've got in my collection. Some of the people [have] family photos that they no longer want, 67:00and I find those things that are humorous to me. And books--I am always collecting books. When I was growing up on the farm, we didn't have a whole lot of books in the farmhouse then. The school library-- you know, you read the Hardy Boys, you read the Just So Stories of how the animals got the way they did. There weren't a lot of books on Indian people. I collect those [older historical books] to see how Indians were written about, and to see what we were portrayed as. And in some instances, we're the brutal savage out there, we're 68:00the heathen person that has no God, and the people that wrote those, you go, "Alright, this is a terrible book, but it's a part of history and how we were portrayed."

Little Thunder: That's true, and it makes you appreciate the sixties, doesn't it? We are going to talk about a few pieces of artwork, starting with part of a woodblock print.

Harjo: This woodblock print, what you see here (and I don't know how well you can see it) is the key block for this print. It's called a key block because everything else will fit within this block here. It's more than an eight-color 69:00woodcut. When you draw it out, and you put it on your wood, you have to flip it so that when you get ready to print it, it comes out the way you had drawn it and imagined it to be. So all of these are colors that will fit into this particular block, and produce this print. Because of the distance, I can print three colors at a time in some of my blocks, instead of having to cut three different blocks. That's done on a mahogany-grain plywood piece of wood. Sometimes I'll use poplar, which will hold a really nice line.

Little Thunder: I take it they are pretty easy to work with--

Harjo: They [are]. This one, because it is plywood, you don't have to cut real 70:00far once you cut down below the surface because it is all surface printing. Then you can take a chisel point and knock out a lot of the wood that is there.

[Another favorite is not a woodcut.] This piece is called The Spirit Gatherer, and it's a woman collecting the spirits. The spirits are represented by these little balls of light all across the landscape. And the birds are the ones that are coming to try and get the spirits before the woman collects them and puts them in her apron. This is a pen-and-ink with watercolor. It's one of my favorites.

Little Thunder: And it's one that you kept in your personal collection?

Harjo: Yes. When I talked to some of the earlier artists here in Oklahoma, and 71:00when the end of their life came, they had nothing of theirs in their family that they kept because they were trying to make a living, and they were selling everything that they produced. I made it a point that I would allow some of my work to be out on the market so long, then if it didn't sell, it would end up on our wall, and in our collection, and would never be sold.

Little Thunder: That's so important.

Harjo: This one is called My Daddy's House. I told people if I ever sold it, I could buy my daddy a house with it. That's why I titled it My Daddy's House. It's a piece that was created for an organization out of Washington, D.C. one year. It [shows] the Four Directions and four cultures. The red circle 72:00represents continuing life, and remains unbroken; the hands represent communication and friendship; the trees represent the rainforest of the earth; the half mounds represent the earth; the bird coming from the center, flying out, represents prayer to the Creator. And this is just decoration to make it vibrate on the eye before I closed in these circles. It had a lot of movement to it, but once I closed those circles in, it made it very static, so then I went back and added this design.

Little Thunder: It's a wonderful, wonderful piece, and that's gouache on watercolor.

Harjo: Yes, that's gouache on watercolor paper.

Little Thunder: Thank you so much for your time, Ben.

Harjo: You are very, very welcome.

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