Oral history interview with Merlin Little Thunder

J. Litttle Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Litttle Thunder. Today is October 31, 2010. I'm interviewing my husband, Merlin Litttle Thunder, as part of the Oklahoma Native Artist Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at OSU. We're sitting in our Tulsa home. Merlin, you're a member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho [C&A] tribe of Oklahoma, especially known for your miniature work. Can you tell me a bit about your background, your folks, where you were born?

M. Litttle Thunder: I was born in Clinton, Oklahoma, at the Clinton Indian Hospital. During that time, nearly all the C&A children were born at Clinton Indian Hospital. I grew up west of Canton along the North Canadian River, west of Canton Lake area. Close to that area they called Fonda, a small town, small 1:00trading post area that thrived for a time, and then just like a lot of other small towns, it shut down.

J. Litttle Thunder: Your grandmother was an important influence in your life. Can you talk a bit about her and your folks?

M. Litttle Thunder: At that time frame in history, a lot of things were practiced that [aren't] generally practiced [today]. The grandmother was usually responsible for raising the children. The grandmother would raise the children until they were around eight or nine years old. Then they would go back to their folks and be raised by their folks. The reason for that was that they had great respect for their grandmother. The grandmother never had to really have any 2:00disciplinary problems with those children. She would just give them a light shake on the shoulder and they would stop, they would behave. She was the disciplinarian and she taught them. She taught them during that time. She taught them and then the parents didn't have to be the disciplinarians. Whenever it was time for them to go back to their parents and live with their parents--at a doings, some kind of dance--the grandmother would point to people sitting in the distance and she would tell them, "There's your mother and father right there. Go to them. Go to them."

These children would have this Peter-Pan like effect, and they would go run to their parents and they would be really brand new. They'd be new, so in essence, 3:00the grandmother would have already done the groundwork for their parents. From that point on, they stayed with their mother and father, and their father and mother resumed raising them. That's essentially how we were done. We were mostly raised with our grandmother. Our grandmother took care of our early, formative years and she brought us along. She taught us. She spoke to us. She told us stories at night time. There were times when we couldn't sleep and she would tell us stories. Sometimes, she used to illustrate on the wall through the camp light. She would illustrate with hand shadows on the wall. She'd say, "It looks like this. It looks like that." Anyway, she'd done her best to bring us up traditionally.

Then they had a meeting over there, some of the headsmen and some of the principal men had a meeting. The concern was that the land people, the land management people, were continuing to bring papers before these people and these people would read them. They wouldn't read them, actually, because they couldn't read. These people would look at them and the land management people would explain what was on that paper, then they would sign it. A lot of them, it was just a thumb print. They would sign it, put their mark on that paper and off they would go. Then they would lose something.

These chiefs and these headsmen and these principal people started saying, "Every time they come around with a paper for us to sign, we lose something. We're going to have to have some of our children go to school and learn, learn these ways, so they can read us what is on that paper, so we won't continue to 5:00lose our land or lose our rights or lose something."

So they had a meeting and they said, "Some of you children are already going to school and some of you children are not. We're going to decide who's going to all go to school." So, they sent these people out to the community, these headsmen and these principal people. They came to our house and they said, "George, your kids are already in school. Continue to let them go to school." From that point on, the battle cry was, "Go to school and learn all you can. Ask questions. Participate." So, that's what we did, in essence. From that point on, we stopped talking Cheyenne. They wouldn't talk Cheyenne to us anymore after that. We talked English from then on. We'd come home from school and my grandmother and father was in the living room, they were talking Cheyenne. And 6:00they'd stop when we came in and they'd look at us. Then he would tell her to go to her house. "We'll continue the conversation there." So, he'd leave and go to her house and they would continue their conversation there.

We kind of grew weary of that and we told him, "We want to talk Cheyenne again. We want to learn Cheyenne." There was a principal man who was an Arrow Keeper. His name was Joe Antelope. He said, "Joe is coming over here this weekend. He's coming over here. Ask him. If he says alright, then alright." There was a [Native American Church meeting], a birthday meeting over there, across the river, and Joe came. He came and [our father] said, "There he is over there, go ask him." And we didn't want to go ask him. So, he said, "Come on, let's go." He led us over there and he said, "Joe, these boys want to ask you a question." He 7:00said, "Okay, yeah, what you want?" We said, "We want to learn how to talk Cheyenne again. We want them to teach us to talk Cheyenne." He stopped and looked at us and kind of pondered for a little bit and he said, "No. You won't need it anymore." And that was it. We stopped talking Cheyenne after that.

J. Litttle Thunder: What schools did you attend through high school?

M. Litttle Thunder: First, everybody went to Longdale. We went to Longdale Elementary School. It was what they call today a middle school. But back then, they said it was a grade school. Longdale Elementary School. That's where we started going to school. As time progressed, my father had the GI Bill, and he told us, "I can go to school on this GI Bill. I think I'm going to Okmulgee. I'm 8:00going to go to Okmulgee Tech. I want to go to school over there." He asked all of us, "What do you think about going to Okmulgee Tech? I'm going to take you away from here and you're going to learn new things. See different people, see different parts of the country." He said, "We'll come back. We'll continue to come back."

It was something that was kind of ingrained. My grandmother required him to come back for our annual ceremony. She wouldn't allow him to miss it. We used to always go to our annual ceremony, every year. She made sure that we went. It was very important that we attended. So, that was one of the stipulations that [if] he [went] off to school that he come back every summer for the ceremony. We had to move up [to Okmulgee]. We had to literally move everything up there because we didn't have the money to go back and forth. We had to just stay up there. We 9:00came home Christmas. Sometimes we didn't come home Thanksgiving--we had to choose Christmas or Thanksgiving. And then we came home summertime for the ceremony. But when he attended Okmulgee, we went to Okmulgee schools. I went to Lee School. I don't know if it was Robert E. Lee or if it was just called Lee School. My brother, Jimmy, went to Franklin. I don't know if it's Ben Franklin or Franklin. We just knew schools by their last names. I went to Lee, he went to Franklin.

Then we moved back after my father finished. First, he went to auto-body [school]. And all the hammering and working on metal was too hard on his hearing, his ears. He got earaches. He told my mother, "I'm going to switch. 10:00I've already talked to the people in the office. I'm going to go into offset printing." So, he went into offset printing and he finished offset printing and from there, we moved back to Canton. He went around all over looking for jobs around El Reno, Oklahoma City. He found one briefly in Oklahoma City, but we didn't want to live in Oklahoma City. So, he continued to look and he found one in Enid, Oklahoma. An elderly man, his name was Otis Phillips. The company's name was Otis Phillips House of Fine Printing.

This man, he didn't have any children. He liked my father. My father worked real diligently. He used to clean up. He used to sweep when he got through with his 11:00shift, and the old man would come in and say, "George, you don't need to sweep. You don't need to do that, you don't need to sweep. We've got people that come in and sweep at night." He'd say, "Oh, okay." And he'd just continue to sweep. It was the same scenario every evening, "George, you don't have to sweep." My father would say, "Okay, okay," but continue to sweep, finish up.

Over there, we went to two different schools. First, we went to Adams Elementary School, which was by Phillips University.

And then we moved across town. When we moved across town, we went to another school called Harrison, Harrison Elementary School.

I think the pull of the Cheyenne ways was hard on my parents because we continued to go back to Canton every single weekend. Fonda and Seiling area--that pull was really strong. He couldn't really practice his ceremonial 12:00ways while we were in Enid. It was really alien to us, it was different. Everything was different over there. So we ended up moving back to Canton again. He quit his job at Otis Phillips'. Otis Phillips, since he didn't have no children, he wanted to leave the printing shop to my father, as an heir. He wanted to do that, and my father, he just didn't have it in him. Couldn't do it. So, we moved back to Canton and resumed school at Longdale again. After Longdale--Longdale only goes to the eighth grade--we went to Canton High School. That's where we both graduated.

J. Litttle Thunder: When did you first get interested in art?

M. Litttle Thunder: A lot of artists always say that certain elements in nature caused them to want to be an artist. Certain structures or certain landscapes or animals. But for me, it was different. It was totally different how it came to me. I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say my experience was more of a spiritual one. It was a spiritual element that caused me to become an artist. I was in bed one night, sleeping, and this bright light came to me. It was a real bright light. It illuminated the whole room, but it wasn't physical light. It was like an inner light. It came to me. It hovered around and it came to me and 14:00when it got close to me, I got afraid. I was scared. I was real scared and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't talk. It just like, overtook my senses. I couldn't make a sound.

Then, for some reason, I was able to make a noise again. I jumped out of my bed and ran to my folks and said, "Something's in my room! It's a light! It's a big light! A bright light. Something's in my room." And I didn't want to go back in there. They said, "It was nothing, it was just a nightmare. Go back in there. Go back to bed." I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep in there with them and they said, "No, come on, come on. We'll take you back." So, my mother took me back to my bed and said, "See, there's nothing here. It's alright. Go to sleep." That experience continued four times. Four times, it happened the same way. It seemed 15:00like on the fourth time, I wasn't that afraid. I wasn't that afraid of that light anymore. There was a lot of anxiety there, but it was not as intense as before.

Shortly after that light came, I started drawing on everything. I drew and drew and drew. I drew on boxes. I drew on anything that had a smooth surface on it. I just drew. I continued to draw and draw and draw on everything I could get my hands on. Being at that young age, I never attributed it to that light, that light source. It didn't dawn on me until years later that something came to me. Something came to me, something touched me. Something caused me to have that talent because that's what I did as soon as I experienced it, I drew and drew 16:00and drew. Then, later years, it used to come again, but not so intense. There was not a lot of fear there.

J. Litttle Thunder: What kinds of things were you drawing after you started?

M. Litttle Thunder: I was drawing everything I seen. I would draw trees. I would draw cars. I would draw dogs, cats-- I drew telephone posts. I was already establishing the connection between perspective, mass, distance. I was already looking at how telephone poles used to differ with birds sitting on them. They used to have these insulators on these telephone posts, these big insulators, glass insulators. And those glass insulators used to look like birds. I continued to look at these poles and I seen those insulators. Pretty soon, I started counting them. I said, "Hey, wait a minute. There's more insulators on there." They were actually birds. So, I was distinguishing all those fine 17:00points. And I was mimicking everything I could.

I was watching how the grasses bent. I was watching how the leaves shake and how the wind blew them and caused them to shake differently. I was noticing everything. Everything was so strong and so intense. I was watching it and I was recording it. I was recording it. Back then, the dictionary had all these illustrations inside them. They had these amazing little highly detailed illustrations and so I would copy from the dictionary. I would duplicate them exactly like they were without tracing them. One of my classmates saw me doing that, and he said, "Why don't you do it like this, it's easier." She brought tracing paper over there and traced it. I said, "No, that's cheating. You want to do it on your own. You want to try to do it on your own. As close as you can 18:00get it."

J. Litttle Thunder: I know your Uncle Raymond was an influence on you.

M. Litttle Thunder: Raymond was a talented artist. He was really super gifted. He could only look at [something] once and then replicate it. Person, trees, river, anything. He'd just look at it once and he could replicate it. Make it look exactly like that. He was a very talented artist. He never did--well, I think he might have sold some paintings, but he never developed a career. Where necessity deemed, he would sell a painting or two or trade it. But he was very talented, very gifted. I spent a long time with Raymond. We'd travel down to the 19:00river bank and we would walk, and he would look at things. He would stare at things for a long time. I said, "What are you staring at?" He said, "Look over there, look at that water there. Look on the bottom where the reflection is. Look at the bottom there. See it? It's dancing on the water." I said, "Uh-huh." He said, "Look at the top of the reflection and the bottom of the reflection. Which one is brighter?" I told him the bottom is brighter and he said, "Yeah, that's right. It is brighter." It was brighter because it was in full sunlight and [light] was shining on it, so that's what made it brighter.

But then he walked down the river another place and he was looking in the water again and he said, "Look over here, now. That's the same tree over there. It's the same reflection. Which one is brighter?" I said, "This one on the top is brighter and the one in the river is dimmer." He said, "Right." He was looking 20:00at a lot of color. He was making distinctions between color in nature. He was showing everything. He would say, "Look at the green tree. Look how green it is. Look at the sky behind it. Look how blue it is." He would say, "They're the same. Blue and green are the same." I didn't know what he was talking about. I was just kind of intrigued that he was making all these distinctions toward nature.

When we were looking in the river and I was looking at the reflection of this tree in the river, I seen fishes swimming around way in the bottom, way in the bottom. They were catfishes. They were browsing on the bottom. He said, "Look over there. Look at that limb. It's making it a dancing reflection in the water." I wasn't actually looking at the limb or the water, I seen a frog over there, a frog, and then a bird-- I had a real acute vision. I could really see a 21:00lot of little things. I seen a dragonfly. I was counting the creatures I was seeing instead of paying attention to the dancing water.

J. Litttle Thunder: When you were in high school, you were already making money on your art. You even had commissions. Could you talk a little bit about that?

M. Litttle Thunder: I was always constantly drawing in high school. Always constantly drawing on notebooks and on papers. I would illustrate all of my homework, actually illustrate it. Some of these teachers would send it back to me and say, "Do not draw on your homework." Another teacher actually kept them. 22:00(Laughter) Another teacher gave me extra credit. She gave me extra credit for those illustrations on the homework. I continued to draw and draw and draw. Then in art class, I had the same art teacher from Longdale to Canton. The same art teacher all the way through and this art teacher was more like an old school art teacher. This art teacher taught us only to use the primary [colors and mix them]. So, that's what I used. When I went to Canton, he was my art teacher at Canton, and he put me in charge of the art class.

I was drawing quite a bit in art class. I was working out of subject matter because the [other students] were working on lithograph and I was still painting. Or they would be working on silk screen and I would be painting. Or they would be working on charcoal and I would be painting. Somebody said, "Why do you get to paint when we have to work on charcoal?" "Because I'm in charge 23:00here. He put me in charge. Now be quiet and draw."

So anyway, after that, I was drawing on notebooks. I had independent sketchbooks that I was drawing on and a lot of these kids they'd say, "I really like that." So I'd tear it out and give it to them. I did that for a couple years. I'd tear it out and give it to them. Pretty soon, they'd start competing for it. They'd say "I'll give you two dollars for it," or "I'll give you three dollars for it," so I'd say, "Okay, alright." Pretty soon they weren't free anymore.

Our high school logo was the tiger, so I did a lot of tigers. I did it for me, creatively, as a creative process, but people were looking over my shoulder and they were bidding. They said, "I'll give you four dollars for it." "No, I'll give you five." "If you make my number, the number of my jersey on this tiger, I'll give you seven dollars." I said, "Alright." So, I was making money in high school, selling these little drawings and sketches and prints and stuff. I got 24:00pretty proficient in painting. I started painting more and more. I started painting different scenes.

People used to bring me canvases and oil paints and acrylic paints and brushes. They would constantly bring them to our house. Farmers' wives and various townspeople would say, "Your son is an artist. I had a relative who passed away who was also an artist. They had all this art equipment and I don't really know what to do with it and I hate to throw it away. I know I can't sell it, so I'd like to give it to you." People were constantly giving us art equipment, art supplies. And I utilized them, I used them and I'd paint on them. Then, this woman who worked in a print shop that was actually the newspaper shop had an 25:00in-house printing press and she said, "Why don't you bring some of your paintings and put them in the window over here?"

So, I did that a couple times. I wasn't very successful at it because I didn't market it very well. I didn't make it attractive. I didn't put a nice frame on it, I didn't put a mat on it. I just bought a frame from TG&Y. It was the equivalent of a Target store, because it had everything in it. I bought a frame from TG&Y and I just put a frame on it and put a glass on it and put it in the window. I never sold it because it wasn't very attractive.

I distinguished that early. Early on, I knew that marketing was real important. So, at school, I would take some of those pictures and I would actually cut mats. Cut mats with an X-acto knife. I was just using poster board for mats, but 26:00I would double up on them and I would reinforce them and make them strong, and they sold. So, at an early age, I was learning marketing techniques and marketing skills. Knowing that people will buy something if it's attractive, if it's properly displayed. It's really important how you present things to people.

After that, I started getting photographs from townspeople. They'd say, "Look at this ship. Isn't this a beautiful ship? It's in this harbor and look at the mist behind it and the sun. Look at the sun. The sun is actually pink. Look at this." So, I'd take it home and I'd replicate it on an oil painting. I was replicating from photographs way back then. I was doing photographs and I would take them to these farmer's wives and they would buy them. They would buy them for forty dollars, sometimes sixty-five. That was a lot of money for a high school kid. I 27:00continued to paint and paint in high school and sell to these farmer's wives. Some of these merchants would buy them. The merchants and the townspeople would buy them. I was constantly selling in high school.

J. Litttle Thunder: How did you use that money? Did you use some of it when you went to Southwestern [Oklahoma State College]?

M. Litttle Thunder: No, I just spent all of it up. Just recreating.

J. Litttle Thunder: You went to Southwestern in what year?

M. Litttle Thunder: 1975.

J. Litttle Thunder: Did you go with the intention of pursuing art?

M. Litttle Thunder: No, I went over there to run track. I wanted to run track. Coach Thomas was instrumental in getting me up there. He wanted me to run track. But then, on the other hand, there was another coach who came to our high school 28:00to recruit me. His name was Glenn Stone. He was from Eastern Oklahoma State College. I don't even remember him, but here our high school superintendent said, "Stone really wanted you. He recruited you heavily." I told him I don't even remember meeting him. (Laughter)

J. Litttle Thunder: You won a couple of [state running] titles in high school.

M. Litttle Thunder: We were taught to be competitive from an early age. I was real fast. Really, really fast. We used to have these doings. One of our Arrow Keepers would have a meeting and they would invite all the people. All the people would come and they would eat and they would have races. They would have little contests. I would beat all the kids in my age group. So, they moved me up 29:00to the next age group, and I beat those guys.

They had a system where they would say, "Okay, everybody this high (Gestures) in this group, everybody this high. (Gestures)" So, I was beating everybody this high, which was my age group. Then they moved me up to that age group and I beat them guys and finally, the older, older guys, I would beat them. I would beat them and they got mad. They would chase me around and they would try to hit me. They said, "Quit beating us. Quit beating us." I'd say, "Okay," and then I would beat them again.

These older men came over because they were laughing at those boys. They'd say, "That little guy is beating you guys, isn't he? He's really beating you guys." They were really laughing at them. So, those older men came to me and said, "You better quit beating those guys. They're going to beat you up." I said, "Okay, I'll quit beating them."

So I let them win. That didn't leave a very good taste in my mouth, even at a young age. That really left a bad taste in my mouth. I went and told those old 30:00men, I said, "I thought you told us to try our best. I thought you told us to do our best." They said, "Yeah, you should do your best." I said, "Oh, okay." So, I went and beat them again. They used to chase me around all the time because I beat them.

Anyway, I excelled in athletics because that's what we were told to do. We were told to be very, very competitive. They said, "The best way you can be good is don't compete against other people, compete against yourself." I didn't understand that for a long time. My brother and I were very athletic and we competed with one another. So in school, naturally, we became competitors. We played football and basketball and ran track.

J. Litttle Thunder: You didn't take any art classes at Southwestern?

M. Litttle Thunder: Yeah, I did. I took some art classes there, but mostly just drawing classes.

J. Litttle Thunder: How did you get from Southwestern to Bacone?

M. Litttle Thunder: Southwestern was just too big an environment for me to be in. I needed to be in a smaller environment. I had a lot of trouble at Southwestern. A lot of problems, a lot of trouble there, and I went ahead and withdrew. The Superintendent of Schools, who was Jim Bradford, said, "We think you need to go to Bacone. You need a smaller environment. You need one-on-one with teachers." He said, "It's a great school." So, I went ahead and took his advice and I went to Bacone. I went over there because I thought Bacone had a track program also, and I was going to run track at Bacone. Turned out, they didn't. I think that was 1976. The fall of 1976.

J. Litttle Thunder: Were there any well-known Indian artists teaching at Bacone at that time?

M. Litttle Thunder: No, Dick West had just left, he'd just exited. I think he went to Haskell. My art instructor was Gary Colbert. His approach was just go upstairs and paint. Just go paint, that's all. Or go downstairs--

J. Litttle Thunder: (Laughs) I know there were a lot of students from the Southwest,

Zunis, Navajos and Apaches, in the art program. Your experiences with them-- How did they inform your work?

M. Litttle Thunder: My roommate was a Navajo. He was from Flagstaff, Arizona and 33:00he could speak his language really well. He was really into Native American church. He never really painted it. He never really painted Native American church. He spoke a lot of Navajo. Our styles were different. My style was more based on a realistic approach. His style was in between flat, two-dimensional and realism, so it was hard to characterize what style he was. We became friends. His friends would come to our room and they would talk Navajo. They would talk their language. I would sit there and I would listen. Listen and listen.

I just listened to their tones, the tones of their language. I kept looking at 34:00these two other guys, they were different than the main group and I finally approached them and said, "You guys are Apaches, aren't you?" "Yeah, yeah, we're Apaches." "How come you're talking Navajo?" He said, "Our languages are similar. There's a few words that are different." That was interesting to hear them.

Anyway, we kind of did a cultural exchange. Ray Joe would ask me about my tribe, my beliefs, and then he would tell me his. He would tell me his beliefs and his tribe and legends and lore, et cetera. He would say, "Paint a Navajo painting and I'll critique it. I'm going to paint a Plains Indian scene and you critique it. Tell me what I did wrong." So, we'd do that. We'd critique [them].

J. Litttle Thunder: How did you end up at Eastern Oklahoma State College in 35:00Wilburton, Oklahoma?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, I really wanted to run track. I did continue to run and train at Bacone. I used to get up every morning and I would run three, four or five miles every morning. Then I would run in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening. I did that for a while. I noticed I was cutting down a lot on that. I think the pull was pretty strong. And I wasn't really doing anything at Bacone, I wasn't really achieving anything. I wasn't going to the places I wanted to go because I wasn't there as an art student. Anyway, I finally did go to Eastern Oklahoma State College. I went to Eastern and I was introduced to Coach Stone. 36:00He said, "I wanted you right out of high school." He said, "We'll start you in. We'll start you with your track program." So [I] started the track program. That's where it all began right there. I realized that I was out too long. I was out too long to really have that kind of edge. I didn't continue over there in the track program. I only went a certain distance. I didn't go the whole distance.

J. Litttle Thunder: You had lost your parents, too.

M. Litttle Thunder: Yeah, lost my mother and father. So, that really took a lot out. Took [out] a lot of drive and a lot of passion. Kind of left you listless, 37:00so to speak.

J. Litttle Thunder: You did meet someone and got married and moved to Arkansas for a while where you worked in a factory. What did you do there?

M. Litttle Thunder: I worked on a paint line for Ream and Rudd air conditioning units. All I did was take these painted parts off the line and put them in baskets or stack them up. It was a pretty mundane job, a factory job. It wasn't any fun. But I kept journals and sketchbooks and I continued to draw and sketch.

J. Litttle Thunder: How did you end up in Tulsa?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, the marriage failed over there in Wilburton and I just 38:00walked away from it. After the divorce, I just walked away and went to Tulsa. A lot of people were saying, "You should go to Tulsa. You're really talented. You're wasting your talent over here." I was painting signs, being a sign painter. I was selling paintings to people, here and there. I wasn't really doing anything with it. Anyway, they used to encourage me, "you should go to Tulsa." So I went to Tulsa.

J. Litttle Thunder: I know that you had a rough time at first, until you hooked up with Jim Hewlett. Do you want to tell us how you met Jim and how he helped you out in your career?

M. Litttle Thunder: At my wit's end, I finally decided to go to Tulsa from 39:00Wilburton and I went literally with the clothes on my back. And this preacher was going to Henryetta. He was going to Oklahoma City [but] he was going to go through Henryetta. He said, "I'll give you a ride." So, he took me to Henryetta. He said, "I'm going to buy you lunch over here. You continue on this road and you'll get to Tulsa. You ought to get a ride between here and there. The next time I see you, you'll be so dang rich you'll be buying me lunch." (Laughter) So I said, "Oh, okay." I continued on and I went to Tulsa. I didn't have a clue what to do. No clue what to do.

Anyway, I continued to just wander around in Tulsa and these street guys said, "Hey, this guy over here, his name is Jim Hewlett. He collects Indian art. You 40:00should go over there and you should show him your drawings." When I got to Tulsa, there was this printing company--I didn't know it was a printing company, but I was walking, taking a shortcut through the alley and I seen this dumpster. It was just overflowing with paper of all descriptions and sizes. I guess these guys were just throwing out their stock that was no longer available. So, I took a bunch of that paper. I took it and I put it under my arm. I was walking downtown to the big buildings and I found pencils on the ground along the way. And I went to the ice rink over there. It was called Williams Center Forum. I went down there, I started drawing pictures. Sitting there, I had all this paper, and I was drawing pictures.

And all of a sudden, all these people started coming out of nowhere. They were dressed up like they came from church. They had these suits on. It was the 41:00Williams Company's employees. They came down for lunch. On the bottom, [by] the ice rink was a restaurant and they would go eat lunch there. I continued to draw pictures and people would walk behind me and look over my shoulder and they said, "Oh, man, where are you seeing that? Are you just drawing that from memory?" I said, "Yeah." And they said, "Wow, that's really nice." Pretty soon, someone would say, "How much you want for that?" I'd say, "Oh, I don't know." They said, "Well after work, we'll come back down and see how far along you are. If you want to sell it, we'll buy it from you."

The security guard was kind of watching me, too, and he was part Cherokee. He said, "Man, that's really good. That's really nice." And he started telling me about all the artists he knew. He said, "Are you going to sell it?" I said, "I don't even know how to price, I've never sold this kind of work before." And he started looking through there and he looked at one and said, "How about this 42:00one? I really like this one. How much you want for this one?" I said, "Oh, I don't know. I'll let you have it for ten dollars." He said, "Are you kidding me?" "No, I'll let you have it for ten dollars." He started digging through his pocket and he said, "I only have eight dollars. Wait a minute, let me see." He started digging through this other [pocket] and he got change. He gave me eight dollars and change for that pencil drawing.

J. Litttle Thunder: Was it a portrait?

M. Litttle Thunder: No, it was horses. It was horses. Indians on horses. It was a big old cedar tree. They were all standing around a cedar tree and they were all on horseback. One of them looked like he was looking on the ground. I think that's what this security guard was attracted to. So, he bought it. Anyway, I continued to draw. And those people did come down. Quitting time, they all came down and they asked, "How much for this, how much for that?" I was selling for 43:00twenty, twenty-five dollars. Next thing you know, I had, like, seventy dollars. I was really amazed.

Anyway, these street guys, these street chiefs said, "This guy named Jim Hewlett, he collects Indian art. Our friend, Troy was going to make a deal with him. He was going to give Troy a space to paint [at his office] and he was going to pay him. He was going to buy his paintings from him and he was going to trade him a space to paint, give him a studio space. But Troy messed up and he went to prison. I bet you he'll do that with you. Go on in and show him. Show him."

[Jim Hewlitt's] place was really, really not very attractive. It was a really desolate-looking place, [a labor hall]. It was a harsh environment, and I thought, "This guy is not going to buy art." Later on, a week later after they 44:00told me, I took a number of drawings and I showed them to this man. And he looked at them and he said, "Actually, I don't really collect Native American art. I collect Oriental art, but Oriental art and Native American art, for me is really, really close. So, I like Native American art. Let me take this inside the office and see what they think." He took it in there and I thought, "Oh man, that's it." I was just thinking about who I was going to go visit [after that]. He brought it back and said, "You know what? You're a winner, man. They love your work."

He told me about the deal he was going to make with Troy. He said, "Come back here, look at this space. There was another Indian artist I was going to give this space to paint and I was going to buy paintings from him and I was going to trade him this space for paintings. You think you'd be interested in the same 45:00deal?" I said, "Yeah, sure, I'd be interested." He said, "Okay, let me buy a number of these drawings from you. You paint, don't you?" I said, "Yeah, I paint." He said, "Well, you can go get you some supplies, paints and stuff. What else do you need? Whatever you need, let me know, I'll see what I can do to get it for you." I didn't need any lights or equipment because I could still see really, really good under regular hundred-watt light bulbs.

So I painted there for a number of years and Jim Hewlett continued to buy paintings from me. Continued to buy them and trade me paintings for the space there. I didn't have any driver's license. He had a labor hall and this guy up and quit on him--he was a van driver. He said, "I need a van driver, I need a van driver. Can you go and pick up these men over here?" I said, "I don't have any driver's license." He said, "That's alright. I just need them picked up. 46:00They have to get here. Nobody's here, nobody's here." I said, "Okay, I'll go get them." So I get in the van and take off and I went to get them and they showed me how to get back. I said, "How do you get back to Tulsa? I don't even know my way around here." They said, "Go down this way, go down that way. Turn here, turn here, exit over here." They showed me how to get down and I got them back safely.

I thought that was the end of that. I got back there and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I don't know what I was going to do. I'll try to get another van driver." But he didn't get another van driver because they were hard to come by, those that were really reliable. Some of them were not very reliable. So, I continued to drive the van for him as he needed and he would pay me for it and I didn't have any license.

J. Litttle Thunder: (Laughs) You were also selling a bit to galleries, then, weren't you? What were some of the galleries that you were dealing with?

M. Litttle Thunder: I walked up to the Art Market, which was on 51st and 47:00Memorial. They told me about that gallery. Somebody said, "There's an Indian art gallery here in town. It's a really nice gallery. You should go over there. I bet they'll deal your work for you." So, I said, "Okay, I'll go over there. Where's it at?" "51st and Memorial." So, I asked Jim, "Where's 51st and Memorial?" He said, "It's over there by where I live." He lived at the Falls Apartments on 61st and Memorial. He said, "It's way out there. I can get a van and let them take you out there if you want." I said, "No, that's alright, I'll walk." He said, "Walk? You're going to walk out there?" I said, "Yeah, I'll walk." He said, "You better let me use a van to take you out there." I said, "No, that's alright." So, I walked out there with a painting under my arm and I 48:00thought to myself, "I should've let him send a van out here." It was a long, long way. It was like ten miles, eight miles, something like that.

Anyway, I went over there. I told the gallery lady, "My name is Merlin Litttle Thunder: . I'm a traditional Indian artist." I had a painting that was matted. It was on mat board because usually, back then, Indian artists used to paint on mat board. I showed it to her and she said, "That's really nice. I really like this." At that time, her resident artist was Ben Harjo. She showed it to Benjamin Harjo and she said, "What do you think?" He said, "Yeah, it's nice." She asked him, "Should I buy it?" and he said, "Do you want it?" So, she bought it.

I didn't know how to price it. I said, "What will you give me for it?"

She said, "You have to price it." "I don't know. I've never sold a painting this 49:00big before."

So, I told her eighty-five dollars. She said, "Eighty-five wholesale or retail?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know what that is." She explained to me the process of wholesale and retail. I told her "Wholesale, I guess." She gave me forty-something dollars. Then she said, "I'm having a show [in] three weeks or so. Would you like to be in it?" I said, "I don't know. I'd have to think about it." She said, "Do you have any more paintings?" I said, "Yeah, I have some more paintings." Ben Harjo said, "Of this quality?" I said "Yes." "Well, you can put them in the show." So, that became the relationship between me and the Art Market. That was the first gallery I was able to get in. I think it was 1981. I 50:00came up with a few paintings. I met all the Indian artists there and was able to show a few paintings over there.

J. Litttle Thunder: Was it your first experience, mingling with people who were there just to buy Indian art? What was it like?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, it was a big crowd. It was real brisk activity. People were actually buying. They were in there buying. They were meeting the artists and they were talking to them. I seen them in little groups, here and there. They were meeting their favorite artists. They were getting them to sign things for them, and they were talking to them about their work. Then Ben Harjo started 51:00with a round of people, "This is a new artist. His name is Merlin Litttle Thunder: . This is his work. Go show them your work." So, I'd show them and sit and discuss and talk a little bit. I met another artist there at the same time. His name was Randy Wood. I befriended Randy. We became friends and he done the same thing. He said, "This is Merlin Thunder, he's a new, new artist. I want you to look at his work. This guy's going to go really far. Where else are you showing at? Tell them where you're showing at. Where else?" I said, "This is the only place." They were real aggressive at first.

J. Litttle Thunder: We met around 1985, but in addition to selling to galleries, you were selling to individuals at different businesses, and you had people 52:00selling for you. How did you know what individuals to visit with what paintings?

M. Litttle Thunder: Mostly, it was from word of mouth. People would say, "Go to so and so, they collect Indian art. Go over here and go over there." I cultivated friendships with some people and I would send them out to sell art. I was living at the YMCA and I was painting there. They would come up there and I would send them out with paintings. I'd say, "Take this one to--" and I would name the name and address, and they'd take it over there. (Laughter) They would come back and say, "He wasn't there." So, I'd say, "Okay. Take it over here." And I would send them another place. Send them to various places. I said, "Do the best you can to get cash. If they don't have no cash, just bring the check 53:00back." Sometimes they'd bring cash back and sometimes they'd bring a check back. At the end of the day, I'd pay them. I would pay them some money. I would give them a percentage of what they sold. Continued that relationship for a time and it worked pretty well.

J. Litttle Thunder: What kinds of things were you painting?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, I was selling mostly warriors on horseback. I had this starburst effect where I did a series of templates. Smaller moons, bigger moons, sort of mimicking [the] aura around a bright object. I would use that as a background. And a lot of toothbrush spray. I didn't have no airbrush, and I wasn't really interested in doing airbrush.

J. Litttle Thunder: That was pretty popular back then?

M. Litttle Thunder: Yeah, that was pretty popular, toothbrush splatter. But I 54:00done it with a baby toothbrush. I got the toothbrush and I frayed it on the cement, like this. (Gestures) I frayed until it was real, real super fine and I had to control the effect by applying a light, light, light color on it. Then I would gently tap it and [that] would give it the airbrush quality.

J. Litttle Thunder: Describe what the 1980s Indian art landscape was like.

M. Litttle Thunder: It was a real interesting style back then. I think the majority of it was still flat, two-dimensional work. With the addition of certain artists that came onto the scene, it became a departure from the flat 55:00two-dimensional into more of an individual style. People used to say, "You have to make a voice of your own. You have to have your own voice. Don't rely on these old Indian artists to carry your voice. You have to make your own voice."

We didn't really know what that meant. We continued to try to do flat, two-dimensional work. Then we tried to evolve from that. Tried to evolve into a different style. Every time we tried to evolve to a different style, we always ran up against a wall where people would say, "This ain't Indian art. This ain't Indian art." We had that trouble for a time. It was just the end of the 56:00Philbrook Annual show where they had their competition. It was the end of it. It was the end of that show. And they were designating Santa Fe as the Indian capital, the Indian focal point, the universal center of Indian art. So, Indian art in Oklahoma kind of fell off.

People started looking toward other progressive artists. I think R.C. Gorman came on the scene. R.C. Gorman said to leave the flat two-dimensional work to those who brought it to glory and do your own thing. Do your own thing. So we started to try to do our own thing.

Throughout the years, I used to paint landscapes. I done a lot of landscapes. To me, landscapes was the pull, it was the draw. I really enjoyed doing landscapes. 57:00Growing up along the riverbed, we were down there all the time. We watched it change, watched the seasons change, come and go. That was real strong for me. I think that's why I was so drawn to landscapes. I done landscapes and I couldn't sell them because it wasn't Indian art. I would put Indians in there, riding horseback and tipis and everything, and people just were not buying them. They'd say, "It's not Indian art. That's not Indian art."

So, I had to kind of sneak them in there a little at a time. I would put a bush in there or a tree, and do it real, real sneaky like. Next thing you know, they were buying landscapes. They were actually comfortable enough to buy them. I think the battle cry back then was "Buy what you like." People then were saying things like, "Don't buy art for investment purpose. Buy what you like."

J. Litttle Thunder: Was it a new generation of collectors?

M. Litttle Thunder: Yeah. I think the oil boom was partly to blame for that because [back then], people were coming to the gallery with disposable income. They would say, "I want that, that, that and that. Ship them to me." They would write out either a check or a credit card and they would leave. That was it. They had a lot of play money. Then, as time changed, people didn't have that kind of income and they wanted to know what they were buying. They wanted to know. They were asking questions. Their buying habits were different. They didn't really have that much disposable income, they didn't have that much play money, so it was really different. The patrons were different because they wanted to know. Suddenly, these paintings have to have a narrative. They wanted to know what they were buying.

J. Litttle Thunder: Did this shift happen in the late '80s or is this a shift 59:00between the '80s and the '90s?

M. Litttle Thunder: I think it was a gradual change between '83--it really started gaining a lot of momentum around '89, '90, '91, '92. People wanted to know what they were buying.

J. Litttle Thunder: What kinds of shows and competitions were you entering at that time?

M. Litttle Thunder: I was entering the Trail of Tears art show in Tahlequah--I don't think Red Earth was even started yet. Mostly the Trail of Tears art show. There was a few little art shows, here and there, that I went ahead and entered. Pow-wow shows, things like that. Mostly galleries. Another gallery opened up in 60:00Tulsa called the Western Heritage [Gallery]. Galleries started opening up. [There was] one in Sapulpa called the Indian Territory Gallery. So, I was dealing with those galleries.

J. Litttle Thunder: The owner of the Western Heritage Gallery was sort of an inspiration for you in terms of developing miniatures.

M. Litttle Thunder: Yeah, he did say some things about miniature painting. He said, "If you look around, all these galleries are full of large paintings, full of bigger things. You don't hardly see very many small paintings. You see some small paintings, but they're not what you would call fully realized paintings. They're just small, small expressions. There's not very many miniature painters 61:00around here. Just a very few miniature painters. Even nationwide, [there's] not very many of them. You could actually make a profession as [a] miniature painter."

So I explored it. I was already doing smaller work. He knew I was doing smaller work. The only thing I could really do at the time was smaller work. I didn't have the time, the space or the money to do larger paintings, so I was doing a lot of smaller works, really small. And people were attracted to them. I noticed how they were attracted to them. A lot of the people that we were selling to outside of the galleries were actually buying smaller paintings because they could afford them. They could afford them space-wise and financially. So, they were buying a lot of miniature paintings. That's what Otis Wilson picked up on. He said, "These miniatures will always sell. When these shows are happening and these big paintings are not moving, miniatures are going to sell."

J. Litttle Thunder: I think Red Earth started in the late '80s, but what was the importance of entering shows and competitions for you? Why were they important?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, back then, in that time frame, it was important to garner some first place ribbons. Get recognized as some of the top artists who are able to win ribbons, win competitions. They started pinning artists as "award-winning artists." A lot of people seemed to go by that. It carried a lot of weight for some collectors to say, "He won first place here or he won first place there."

J. Litttle Thunder: In 1990, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was passed and in 63:00addition to protecting from knockoffs, say, of "Cherokee pottery" made in China, the act also required artists who claimed a particular tribal affiliation to provide proof of enrollment or be certified by their tribe. Do you remember how this impacted some of the galleries and individual artists?

M. Litttle Thunder: From the onset when I first came to Tulsa, from that security guard over in the Williams Center who bought this painting, he said he was a Cherokee, but to me he was Anglo. It's really hard for me to distinguish between Indian and Anglo here in Tulsa because a lot of people were more Anglo than they were recognizably Indian. They would say, "I'm Indian, I'm Indian. I'm Native American."

The same goes with the artists. A lot of them were Indian artists, but they have blond hair and green eyes. To us, where we came from in Northwest Oklahoma, an Indian was an Indian if he had black hair and dark eyes and dark skin and that was it. There was no other distinguishing qualities for an Indian other than that.

So it was real different for me to come up here and see these people in galleries who were saying they were Indian artists, and they were not. And it was particularly hard on them whenever you had to finally say, "I have documentation that I am an Indian--not just a letter saying, 'I have Indian heritage.'" It was hard on them.

Some of them were more Indian in the sense that they had all of the qualities of 65:00an American Indian person. They had the temperament, they had the beliefs, they had all the strong points that you would give a Native American more so than the others, and these ones were affected really, really strongly. It was hard for us to see some of them not do Indian art anymore because of this. I think it really hurt them, it really hurt them because this is what they started with, before a lot of those other artists came on the scene.

J. Litttle Thunder: Today, what media do you prefer in painting?

M. Litttle Thunder: I prefer painting acrylic. I usually use rag board, paint on 66:00a rag board. Acrylic on rag board. I like to paint on rag board because it absorbs all the color. It's like a sponge. You continue to absorb color, absorb color. I usually paint in layers of color. Slips and undertones. That's why I like to use that board instead of canvas. Canvas is really hard to do slips and it's hard to make layers of paint.

J. Litttle Thunder: How many layers do you typically do?

M. Litttle Thunder: It depends on if it's a strong light or if it is suffused light. If it's a strong light, then it's going to take at least ten, twelve, fourteen layers of underpainting to really be effective. If it's suffused light, 67:00like a cloudy day, it doesn't take that many.

J. Litttle Thunder: Your work has developed three distinct branches starting with fully developed landscapes with 19th century Cheyennes. Why do you like those? Why are they important to you?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, for me, it's like I'm putting the Indian back in their environment. I saw that Dorothy Dunn school and the environment was blank. There was nothing there. Just a few rocks in front of them and maybe some blades of grass. Maybe a bush here and there, and that was all. That was taking the Indian out of its environment. It was saying that you have nothing, you have no land. 68:00There's no landscape behind you. It was getting Indians kind of used to the fact that they had no land anymore. Blank canvas, just blank behind them. You have nothing now. Just a few blades of grass and a few rocks. To me, that was symbolic of that.

I used to ask my father, "Where did we live?" "Oh, man, we lived in the most beautiful places on this planet. We lived over there in Colorado around Estes Park. It's a very, very beautiful scenic area. We lived high up on the mountains. We lived on the plains in the summertime towards Kansas, between Kansas and Colorado. We had these beautiful, beautiful places to live. We lived at the Yellowstone Park. Our backyards were national parks."

I really pondered that quite a bit. I used to look at these cowboy artists and they were actually doing that. They were putting Indians in their environment. That's what attracted me to this type of work. I wanted to put Indians back in their environment, where they came from. To see them in their natural environment, doing what was natural to them. That's what I strive for.

J. Litttle Thunder: How about your medicine paintings? How are they different in terms of your palette and the subject matter?

M. Litttle Thunder: Medicine paintings originally started out as a tool to relax. Relax everything, relax principles. In landscape paintings, you have to adhere to strict principles. In medicine paintings, you don't have to because they're spiritual. They're spiritual. You can go out of the realm of physical 70:00restrictions and you can make it whatever you want because these are spiritual paintings. You let your spirit free to roam and you do the same thing on the canvas or on the surface where you're painting. You're free to roam. You have unlimited artistic license to do whatever you want because these are spirit paintings. You're guided by the spirit, not by the restrictions of landscapes. You're guided in that sense. So, originally I started doing those to relax. To relax and to take it easy and to have a good time with what I was doing.

Then we had a show at Doris Littrell's gallery, [Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery], where I had a limited supply of paintings. We introduced these medicine paintings to that show and they just took off like mad. People started buying them. They really, really connected with these little small spiritual paintings. 71:00That's where that spiritual painting business came from. I didn't originally intend to be part of the market. I intended them just for me, to relax. And then, I was doing these different styles. I was doing this realistic style and this spiritual style, these medicine paintings, and I noticed I was constantly reinventing myself. This reinvention, to me, stems from--there are four seasons in a year. Each season is kind of consistent with what our styles are. We'll go to the realistic style and we'll go back to the medicine painting style. That's sort of like seasons, to me.

J. Litttle Thunder: There's another vein of work that you do that, '50s period 72:00work. I'm thinking about your Hawk Eye paintings. Can you talk a bit about the importance of that?

M. Litttle Thunder: The importance of that came from my [great-]grandfather, Old Bear, who was a cowboy. He was an Indian, but he was a cowboy. I would sit and listen to them talk about his experiences on the trail. He would go on a cowboy trail drive [and there were] different outfits that he worked for. I heard my grandmother talk about Charlie Daylight. He rode on the Daylight-Loving Trail and I think he rode on the Jesse Chisholm Trail. He rode on that trail, too. Anyway, he rode on various cattle trails back then.

They would talk about his exploits on those trails. How, when they wanted to pay him money, he would look at that money and he would say, "No. No good. No good." They'd say, "What do you want, then?" He wanted those livestock--he'd point to the stock. He wanted stock, so they would give him what he wanted, equivalent to whatever he worked for. Whatever the money was, he would get those livestock. He was an Indian and a cowboy and he also rode in the 101 Ranch Wild West Show.

That's when it was out there in Western Oklahoma, not in Ponca City. He started out there. One time, he was coming off of a trail ride. He still had his chaps on, he still had his cowboy uniform on, and he threw a vest on real quick, a beaded vest. He threw on a black silk shirt and beaded vest and threw his arm 74:00bands on. Then, he waited in line--still had chaps and boots on--waited in line. Had a big hat, too. Big old ten gallon hat. He waited in line and waited and waited and finally the man came over and said, "That's okay, that's alright. We've got enough now, everybody. Go home." Then Old Bear started cussing. Cussing in German. That man looked around and said, "Who said that? Who said that? Come on, who said that?" Then that man turned to walk away and [Old Bear] cussed again in German. The man looked at him and said, "You're saying that, aren't you? Come over here, come over here." He took him to another person and that person talked fluent German. He spoke German to Old Bear and Old Bear replied back to him. He said, "I can use you. I can use you. You can be my 75:00interpreter." Because he was a linguist.

He could talk German and he could talk Cheyenne, he could talk Arapaho and Sioux and limited, limited English. He started out interpreting for that 101 Ranch show. Anyway, that goes back to Hawk Eye. Where I lived in Canton, we used to have fights with these cowboys. We fought them. I told my dad, "I don't like those cowboys. I just don't like those cowboys." He said, "What for?" I said, "Because I just don't like cowboys." He said, "What do you think you are?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You ride a horse, you fix fence, you do everything those cowboys do. What do you think you are?" So, my experiences with Hawk Eye go back to those experiences.

J. Litttle Thunder: What is your creative process?

M. Litttle Thunder: Creative process-- The creative process stems from memory. It all stems from memory back then. Growing-up years. Things that influenced me, stories I heard. We used to hide underneath the table and listen to the [adults] talk. They wouldn't talk freely in front of us children, but they would talk freely when we were gone and we would hide under the table. Back then, the table was huge and round. They had a table cloth on it that draped all the way to the bottom and we'd hide under there and listen to them talk. They talked and they talked, and the wheels were turning in our head. Imagination. What they were talking about, we were imagining. So, over the years, it's stored it in a 77:00databank up there. (Gestures) A lot of times, when there's a strong scent or a particular event will happen, it will cause me to think about those stories or things that we heard as children, and they filter through into paintings.

J. Litttle Thunder: Sometimes you'll show me a background for a painting. It will be this empty landscape but you'll have this entire story line in your head. When you develop the landscape, does it develop along with the story? Does 78:00the story come first or does the story sometimes come afterwards?

M. Litttle Thunder: The story comes first. The story comes first and the landscape develops around the story because it has to be that time frame, it has to be that location, this particular location where this event happened. A lot of times, they told us where it happened. They'd say, "This happened in New Mexico," or "This happened in Colorado. They were coming back from Montana when this happened. It happened over there in Western Oklahoma by Fonda or by Woodward." They'd tell us the locality of the story. I develop it according to the story and the location.

J. Litttle Thunder: How important is humor in your titles and your subject matter?

M. Litttle Thunder: Humor is important because we were always portrayed as stoic Indians with a stone face. We were never portrayed as people that laughed. But 79:00all throughout our growing up years, we were always around laughter. In the hardest of times, in the worst of conditions, these people were laughing. That humor. They saw humor in everything. They were a happy people. Even if they were poor and hardly had anything to eat, they were still happy.

J. Litttle Thunder: You mainly paint Cheyenne subject matter, and you do a lot of research, so you can portray that era accurately. What about other Indian artists depicting Cheyenne subject matter or going intertribal? What are your thoughts on that?

M. Litttle Thunder: I was always taught to paint what you know. Paint what you 80:00know. I see these other artists trying to paint other tribes and they don't do it truthfully. You look at their paintings and you see a lot of discrepancies. If you know about your tribal ways, then you're going to tell right away when somebody's paintings are not authentic. They're not expressing what is supposed to be portrayed there, in a truthful manner. It's off historically and it's just off. If it's [about] Cheyenne[s], I'm going to look at it and say, "This ain't right, because this is not Cheyenne."

In order to paint another person's tribe, you have to experience it first. You have to first experience it. You can't rely on your artistic license. You have to actually experience it. I used to paint Navajo paintings because my roommate taught me some of those things. He said, "This is how you do it or this is how you don't do it." He said, "The women have the wealth in the family, the men didn't."

A lot of times, the men will ride first and the women will ride behind them. Sometimes in other tribes it's different. It's different, it's reversed. You have to know these ways before you can actually put them down. People will look at those paintings and say, "Why is this here? Why is that here?" You have to be able to explain it to them or else you're not selling a product that is truthful.

J. Litttle Thunder: So, you have to do the research and have a background. How 82:00about non-Indians who are painting? I'm thinking about the incident in Santa Fe. Do you want to explain what happened?

M. Litttle Thunder: This man was a non-Indian. He painted this Cheyenne Sun Dance piece. He painted it inaccurately. It was really, grossly inaccurate. There was hardly anything accurate about it. Now, whenever you paint something like that, a ceremonial object like that, these things are not to be taken 83:00lightly. What these men don't realize is that you earn those rights. You earn them. You earn them through suffering, you earn them through sacrificing and suffering. You sacrifice a whole lot to go down there and to have those ways. This man that painted this picture, he had no sacrifice. He didn't earn it. He didn't have the right. He didn't even earn the right to try to portray it. So, we got together. Some of us went over there and we told him that he didn't have no right to paint this picture. He said, "Well, I was told earlier that I portrayed everything right on the money. It was perfect. Just right." We told 84:00him, "No, nothing's right on this painting. It's all off. Nothing's even correct."

We told him why it wasn't correct and we told him that he had no right to paint it. You've got to have the right to paint it. Even if you was to ask permission to paint certain phases of this ceremony, you wouldn't actually have that much. But he didn't even have that much. He was not supposed to paint that picture. It belongs to the people, it doesn't belong to one person. To add insult to injury, he had $30,000 on that painting. And these [Cheyennes] are poor people. They sacrifice quite a bit. They sacrifice a lot. To see a painting in the window that says $30,000, it's overwhelming to the people because these things do belong to the people. They don't belong to one individual. They belong to the 85:00people as a whole.

J. Litttle Thunder: Looking back on your career, what do you think have been some really pivotal moments, where you could have gone in one direction, but you went in another?

M. Litttle Thunder: Well, I got into playing music with various bands in high school and college. I could have continued doing that. I could have continued playing music. I could have continued in that direction. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. It was kind of like painting for me. There was a lot of personal enjoyment and there was a lot of satisfaction in doing it. But the lifestyle is what really didn't appeal to me. It wasn't a very healthy lifestyle. A lot of 86:00people who are very talented in this music industry, for some reason, they always want to party a lot, real hard. That was the thing in this music industry, you would be partying all the time. You would be living this lifestyle. And I had to weigh the lifestyle between painting and the lifestyle between traveling with the band and playing with the band and chemical abuse. Alcohol, drugs-- A lot of my family members succumbed to alcoholism. And it would be like going back to that. That's something I didn't want to do.

J. Litttle Thunder: Was it around 2006 when you began teaching in the Canton Alternative Education program?

M. Litttle Thunder: No, it was earlier than that. I think it was the year 2000.

J. Litttle Thunder: What do you find rewarding about that work?

M. Litttle Thunder: These students are last-chance students. They're problem students and they're hard to work with. That's where I was in high school. I would have been in alternative education in high school because I was like that. I remember those teachers whenever you were a last- chance student, how they used to talk down to you. You wanted them to just talk to you like a human being, that's all. That would've made things a lot easier. That's how you handle them over there. You handle them like human beings. You don't have to talk down 88:00to them.

You just treat them like human beings and they respond. They respond to you. They're lost. They're at a junction they don't know how to get out of, and they're trying to look for a way back. They're trying to look for a way to get back on the main stream of high school, the high school experience.

So as we paint--I paint with them hands-on. It's an accelerated formula where I do the work and they do the work. We do it together. We do a painting. I paint on it and they paint on it. I say, "What did you do wrong here?" I show them what they do wrong, and we correct it, and we work on it and it unfolds. It totally unfolds and then, these students have a new look on their face after they finish a painting. Then, after we mat it and frame it and hang it on the wall, they have a marvelous sense of accomplishment.

You notice their demeanors change throughout the course of the class. When they first sit down to a blank piece of paper, they have no idea what they're doing. They just have this disgusted look and they're ready to fight, you know. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" They want to sleep. But after the program starts and we start accelerating, then they start accelerating. They wake up. They wake up and their energy level starts to rise. They get energy from this art. Their energy level [rises] and they have this really, really, really marvelous sense of accomplishment that they never had before. They never, ever had it before. This is the first time they ever had it and they change. And they're different people. They're totally different people. That's why I work 90:00with these students because it's worth it just to see their reaction when they look at the painting they completed.

J. Litttle Thunder: Is there anything else you'd like to add to our discussion? Something we didn't talk about that you feel is important to talk about?

M. Litttle Thunder: It's hard to give interviews, especially people who are visual artists. I always feel reluctant to give interviews. I just want to tell these people my words are painted. If you want to know everything about me and my background and my art, go look at those paintings. My words are painted. It's 91:00all right there.

A strong point that I want to make right now is about all these ledger artists. These ledger artists are doing this ledger work because it's easy. It's easy. It's easy to do. It's popular. It's kind of like a bandwagon thing to me.

They don't ever attribute it to these Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, who first made ledger paintings. They made the first ledger paintings with a book that they confiscated from some teamsters. They wrote their daily happenings, important events, important events that happened, they portrayed it in there. They wrote 92:00it in there. They made a record of it, these Dog Soldiers.

Nobody ever says, "I'm attributing--" or "I'm going to dedicate this ledger drawing to the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers who brought it into being." They never say that. These Dog Soldiers are the ones who made these ledger drawings. The first ledger drawings were made by Dog Soldiers. They were not made by Kiowas or Comanches or Pawnees or none of those guys. Those Dog Soldiers did these ledger drawings, and all over everywhere, the Southwest and the various art centers, they never attribute it to the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. That's what really, really needs to be said.

They need to tell people these things. And whenever they found the Dog Soldier ledger book with all of their exploits in it, they looked at it. They looked it over real carefully. Some of those people took it to those old Indian chiefs and those surviving Indians. They showed it to them, and they were able to say who it was, who painted it, who drew it, who did this. They laughed and they looked and they lamented. It brought back a lot of memories because these Dog Soldiers 93:00portrayed very, very accurately what was happening in those books. After they got through looking at it and after the researchers were finally able to get a reaction from these older Indians, they said, "What do you people think?" An old Indian man responded to the interviewer, he said, "A picture is a rope, tight, strict, tied firmly to the stake of truth."

J. Litttle Thunder: We're going to take a look at a few of your paintings, now. What's this painting called?

M. Litttle Thunder: This painting is called Crane Woman. What it portrays is that this young woman got a calling to be a healer. A lot of times, people would come forth with a call to be a healer, but it wouldn't be authentic. Sometimes 94:00it was just a passing thing. But this young woman got the call to be a healer, so she went to the principal men, the ceremonial men, and relayed her message to those men. She said, "I'm going to be a healer." These men told her, "Well, you have to go to the Four Directions. You have to go to the Four Directions. Go to four places, four directions, and go be among four people. And when you come back, you'll be a healer."

Her name was Crane Woman. She went to the Northeast People and she told them, "I'm going to be a healer. I need something from you. Whenever a time comes and you need us, I'm going to be over here, and I'm going to be able to give you something to take back." So, she lived with them for a time. A time means one 95:00season. She lived with them for a time and they let her go.

And then she went to the Southwest People and she told them the same thing. She lived with them for a time. And she went on to the next people and she lived with them for a time. She went to all the Four different Directions where all four different people lived and they gave her something and she went on.

The thing was, if she went to these people and they kept her--because, a lot of times, in that time frame, these people used to capture women, they wouldn't let them go. [But] her calling was authentic because she went over there and these different people [were] compelled to let her go.

Right here [in this painting], she's coming back from the people from the Southwest. As she's coming out of New Mexico, going towards Utah, towards 96:00Montana, all these cranes are following her. So, her name is Crane Woman. When she gets over there and they keep her for a time, these cranes will follow her back home again. Then she'll have a new name because they'll deem her to be a healer. She'll come into the camp from the East and they'll recognize her and they'll know that she's a healer. She's real. She's authentic.

J. Litttle Thunder: You want to talk about this one?

M. Litttle Thunder: That one's called Cradle in the Minnehaha Gulch. This area from Estes Park all the way through Snow Mass and Aspen area, it curved around, came around that way. It was called the Minnehaha Gulch, and this was a route. 97:00Those Cheyennes used to go back and forth to this area, from their hunting, wintering grounds to their hunting summer grounds. They used to travel through here.

These are two scouts, two Bowstring scouts. They smelled and they seen smoke, so they went to investigate. And when they came upon this tipi, they saw it was a Cheyenne tipi [at] this place, Cradle in the Minnehaha Gulch. What they're going to tell this man is that a big storm is coming. Better hunker down, this big storm is coming. In fact, they're probably going to end up staying with him for a few days because that big storm is coming in. They're going to call all his people over there, call them all in from hunting and they're going to put up another lodge and winter there, in the Minnehaha Gulch.

J. Litttle Thunder: What's this painting called?

M. Litttle Thunder: This one's called I Ain't Morning People. This is one of the Hawkeye paintings. It talks about growing up years, when you were into staying out all night and playing cards and doing the things you were told not to do, but also, this kind of stems back to when my grandmother used to play cards with all her friends.

They used to play cards late in the night. They used to play cards because there was no casinos, no bingo, so they used to all play cards. Way out in the country. All the relatives used to come around and there would be seven or eight old ladies around the card table and they would all play cards until the wee hours of the morning.

It was a good thing. It was harmless. It was just for them to visit and to be with each other and talk and all that. It was really never about money, more 99:00about gathering together and visiting and talking.

J. Litttle Thunder: Alright. Thank you, Merlin.

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