Oral history interview with Mel Cornshucker

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Friday, March 11, [2011]. I'm interviewing Mel Cornshuker as a part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Mel's studio in the Brady Arts District in downtown Tulsa. Mel, you're a potter and ceramic sculptor, a Cherokee tribal member, who found his medium at a very early age. Where you were born and where did you grow up?

Cornshuker: I was born in Jay, Oklahoma, in 1952, October 4. I stayed in Oklahoma until I was about four. We moved to Kansas City, Missouri, for my dad to get a better-paying job. All us kids went there and went to school. I went to Kansas City High School, [Kansas City] school district. Went to Bacone College 1:00for one semester, 1970, the fall of 1970. After that I went to Southwest Missouri State University in Malden, Missouri.

Little Thunder: You come from a family of artists. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Cornshuker: Yes, my grandfather, who was named Lincoln Trotting Wolf, who lived to be a hundred years old, had built his own rug loom. He made rugs and blankets. His loom was always on the porch. There was something for me to play on, something for me to get in trouble on. (Laughs) He was a rug weaver. I've 2:00had cousins who are basket weavers. My dad was a silversmith in later years, so art has always been there for me. It's always been there. When you're going through grade school, in first grade or second grade, you have these "Who can make the best looking Valentines Day's box?" little contests. Not knowing it, but for some reason, I'd always win. Or "Who would make the best looking Easter egg?" While all the rest of the kids are making theirs into faces, I'm making mine into birds, putting wings on them and winning these things. So art's always been there and it's always been easy.

Little Thunder: I'm struck by the fact they're dimensional, both the box and the Easter egg.

Cornshuker: Yeah, they are, hadn't thought about that. (Laughter) I went on to 3:00high school. In high school I took art. Art was always, like I said, easy.

Little Thunder: What kind of encouragement did you get in the public schools? You got reinforcement at the grade school level. In high school, was it also a positive experience?

Cornshuker: Yes. I had one art teacher, his name was Mr. West, and he was always saying, "Well, you know you can do this better. You can always add more to it." I didn't realize, but he was talking about my three-dimensional pieces. I worked in plaster, wet plaster, making figurines, things like that. I made a piece of metal sculpture that was kind of like a Venus fly trap, coming up like that. 4:00It's always been easy and I never thought about it as a career.

Little Thunder: I read that you did take a ceramics class at Southwest Baptist University. Were you taking other classes there, too, or just that particular class?

Cornshuker: Well, I was going to school and I was on track to be a tribal lawyer through the Cherokee Tribe. And I needed to take a studio art course. I went down to Silver Dollar City, saw a potter throwing pots. I was real enthralled, watching him do that. Went back to school, in my second or third year of college, signed up for ceramics, took a course, quit college and went looking for a job as a potter. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Just to pick up on the tribal lawyer thing, mainly [because] 5:00there was funding available if you followed that course of study?

Cornshuker: Right. (Laughter) If I made it through my bachelor's and had good grades, and got accepted into law school, they would pay for my law school. And I would be a tribal lawyer for them for four or five years to pay them back.

Little Thunder: Aside from the fact that you'd already been showing a lot of interest in three-dimensional sculpture and figurines, what was it about that ceramics course that proved a turning point?

Cornshuker: It sounds like I'm really making this up, but it's the ease of it, you know? There was an upper level--I think he was a senior art student there--and he showed me, "Okay, this is what you do. Real basic. You center the 6:00clay and then you open it up." (Laughs) He showed me basically one lesson. And then, I got in there. Any available time, I was in the studio, messing around with clay. My pots were ugly and crude but my mom saved them. I've still got them. (Laughter) They're thick and heavy, but they were up and had walls, so they were actual pots. But they were just heavier than heck. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You have an interesting story about when you left school and became an apprentice potter at Silver Dollar City, a resort town in Missouri. There were several other people competing for that job. Did you have to demonstrate your skills? How did that work?

Cornshuker: Yes. You fill out your application. You have an interview with the 7:00head potter. He says, "Okay. Let's see what you can do. I want you to do this." He shows me what he wants. I come kind of close to it, not as big, not as neat as his, but I showed him what I could do. (Laughs) I guess he was impressed enough because I got the job, and there was something like eight or nine people wanting a job. (Laughs) I pissed off a few people because they thought they were going to get the job. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: How long did you work there and what did you learn that you applied to your art later?

Cornshuker: Silver Dollar City was a good place to learn. I did it every day. I was on the wheel for three hours a day, at least, sometimes four hours. I was on 8:00the wheel four hours a day. It got me over my fear of being in front of people, because I had to do demonstrations in front of people. There was easily anywhere from ten to fifty people and it changed over every fifteen minutes. So, I was doing demonstrations all that time. It got me to the point where I could throw what I wanted to. I just had to learn how to master more amounts of clay, bigger amounts of clay. And it showed all the basics. It showed me how to mix glazes, what the process is, what's the process of firing, how to fire pieces. Everything you need to know as a potter, they taught me. Like I said, it was a great place to learn. Not a great place to hang out for any length of time, but 9:00it was a great place to learn. I enjoyed the time I was there. Then I thought, "It's time for me to get out," and jumped out. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What did you move on to next?

Cornshuker: After I quit work for [Silver Dollar] City, I took a break and went to Colorado and worked as a land surveyor, climbed mountains. I was in the mountains in and around Crested Butte for about six months. I enjoyed that very much. But it was one of those things--after three or four months, I couldn't wait to get back and start playing with clay. I moved back to Kansas City, Missouri, and I moved in with my folks. They said it was okay. I set up my studio in their basement. I built my own gas kiln outside in their backyard. (Laughs) They were very, very supportive. They thought it was great. And that's 10:00how I got started, doing shows, little local shows, in and around Kansas City. Not making any money, but I made very simple cups, simple bowls. At that time, I hadn't done any Indian motifs on my pieces. They were just strictly glaze on glaze. Let the glaze do the work. I was getting good success from that.

Little Thunder: Where and when did you meet Michelle?

Cornshuker: I met Michelle in college and we dated all through college. We dated all through my work at Silver Dollar City and everything like that. We kept on dating and finally, "Well, let's get married!" So, we got married. (Laughs) And 11:00she was okay with me being a potter. She didn't make any demands on me like, "You need to get a job. We're getting married, so you need to get a job." She wasn't that way. She was all for me being a potter, and has been supportive all the way through my career.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. I want to pick up on Bacone a bit. When were you at Bacone?

Cornshuker: I graduated in 1970 in Kansas City, Missouri, and that fall I was in Bacone, the fall of 1970.

Little Thunder: Was that the time when you began thinking about incorporating Indian motifs, when you became more exposed--

Cornshuker: More exposed to it. I went to high school in Kansas City--it was 12:00Northeast Senior High School--and I was the only Indian out of a population of about 1500 students. I was the only Indian. So, it's not like there was a whole lot of interaction with other Indians. The only time I ever got that was when I would come down to Jay, Oklahoma and see my relatives and hang out with them for the summer.

Little Thunder: So you basically spent summers back in Oklahoma each year?

Cornshuker: Yes. [My parents would] drop me off and they'd come down and see me. Then about time to go to school, I'd go back to Kansas City.

Little Thunder: Were you around the language quite a bit, too?

Cornshuker: My folks spoke it fluently. Everybody, all my relatives spoke it fluently. For some reason my tongue doesn't work that way. It doesn't make the noise, the guttural sounds, that everybody else's does. So, I understood what 13:00they were saying, I just didn't speak it very well. And one bad thing was, they'd just look at me and shake their heads in disapproval about how I was saying things. So, I just stopped. I would just stop. Spoke back in English. But there was always that flow from English to Cherokee to English all the time. That was going on constantly.

My aunts and uncles, that's all they spoke was Cherokee, so if you hung out with them you had to speak some to get your point across. Because they spoke very little English and I spoke very little Cherokee.

Little Thunder: At Bacone, did you continue with ceramics or did you study other things?

Cornshuker: There I was more of an academic. I took Botany, English, History, things like that, to get those basic requirements out of the way.

Little Thunder: Were you aware of any art instructors there?

Cornshuker: Dick West was there at the time. I'd go in just to see what they were doing. A lot of my friends were taking art courses, beading courses, drawing courses. And I thought, "Well, if I come back here next semester, I'll sign up for class." But I didn't come back for that spring semester.

Little Thunder: That was when you were still on the lawyer track. So, you eventually set up your own studio in Seligman, Missouri? Did you build it yourself?

Cornshuker: During the course of my shows, I met and became friends with a guy 15:00who did leather, contemporary leather. We became real good friends, and I would come down to his place, which is in Seligman, and hang out and bring the family down--well, just Michelle and I at that time. We'd just hang out and do shows together. And I asked him one fall, "If you know of any place in the Seligman area, or any land for sale, let me know. I'm kind interested in buying some land and setting up a household." About three or four months later, he called me up, "How would you like to buy my place?" So, we worked out a deal. I bought his place. It's in the middle of forty acres. I still have the land. It had a studio already there. He had built a leather studio where he did all his leather work. 16:00It was kind of small but it would work for me, so I built my kilns, we moved in. I built my kilns and we set up a studio. That was our home for about thirteen years until I decided it was time to move on, try out other things.

Little Thunder: When you built your kilns, were they similar to what you had used at Silver Dollar City?

Cornshuker: Silver Dollar City ones were store-bought and mine were free-standing. They were built. I had to lay bricks. You had to be somewhat of a mason to get everything level, build it up so it wouldn't fall over. Things like that.

Little Thunder: What did you burn?

Cornshuker: Propane. I'm still a gas potter.

Little Thunder: Once you set up your studio, you began doing more booth shows? Did you combine them with galleries at that point?

Cornshuker: I started doing lots of shows all over the place, and I came across a woman, I know you knew her. Jane Mauldin. Jane asked me what I was doing, the shows I was doing.

Little Thunder: Which were straight arts and crafts.

Cornshuker: Right. Pretty contemporary. She says, "You need to quit doing those, and you need to start doing Native shows." It was her influence and her pushing that got me to start doing Native shows. (Laughs) And I haven't regretted it. It's been great. She became a great friend of mine. I started doing Indian shows, started being picked up by galleries. I dealt with galleries pretty much 18:00all across the United States, and this is all I do, just Native shows. I used to do a whole bunch of them. Fifteen or sixteen a year. Now I'm down to about six or seven a year, and I still do galleries. It works out real good.

Little Thunder: So what year are we talking about here?

Cornshuker: Approximately early '80s.

Little Thunder: There was a flourishing Indian art scene going on. Is that when you started to incorporate Native designs?

Cornshuker: Well, I had started doing that before that. I started remembering dragonflies. I had studied or looked at a lot of pottery from Japan and the Orient, and noticed that, occasionally, you would see a dragonfly in there, 19:00which started me thinking about my grandfather. I wanted to first do them in a stamp form where I could just stamp them on. But it wasn't doing anything for me. So, I started painting and learned how to paint them on the way I do now. And it's developed. The first Native design I started using was a dragonfly. Then I started doing dancers, and then it just opened up, to buffalo, deer, Indians riding horses, turtles, frogs, jackrabbits, occasionally birds, things like that. That's when it really kicked in, in the early '80s.

Little Thunder: Besides being just a powerful symbol for a lot of tribal cultures, you have strong associations with dragonflies because of your grandfather.

Cornshuker: Yes. Having him tell me the stories of his early life--he was born in 1865. The year Lincoln was assassinated, my grandfather was born. So, to honor Lincoln, they named him Lincoln. That was his name, Lincoln Trotting Wolf. He told me all kinds of stories about the late 1800s, having to ride on a horse to go anywhere, or in a wagon to go anywhere, or walking to go anywhere. He talked about a date [with] his first wife, on horseback. He had all kinds of 21:00stories about running into people who ran into the Territory to get away from the law. (Laughs) He said, "At one time I met Jesse James because he was running away from the law and ran into the Territory." He had all kinds of stories. He worked for Charles Page over here as a stone mason and helped build part of Tulsa, the original part of Tulsa, being a stone mason. He had all kinds of stories. He was a funny man. And after dinner, at his house, he would have a 22:00clay pipe that he always smoked out of. He had one bowl of tobacco that he'd smoke a day, and it was after dinner. In the wintertime, there was a big wooden stove, he'd sit around, and my folks and he would talk. He would tell little things about his life then, too. It was pretty interesting.

Little Thunder: Were your markets stronger outside Oklahoma or in Oklahoma?

Cornshuker: My markets seemed to be better outside of Oklahoma. I had a gallery I dealt with in New York City, outside of New York City. That was always a strong market. I would go there twice a year. I have a gallery I deal with in 23:00Chicago. That's always been a real strong show for me. I always seem to do better outside of Oklahoma. (Laughs) I don't know if it's because there are so many Indians in Oklahoma or what, but I do better outside of Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: There are some interesting Cherokee potters who work in very different styles. Have you developed friendships with them or spent much time talking with them?

Cornshuker: Yeah, I know Bill Glass. I know Jane Osti and there's Pat Gillian. I can't remember, but she was a local Cherokee potter. Anita Fields, who I 24:00consider a contemporary with me. The ones I mentioned before, Jane and Bill, are kind of traditional in a way. Anna Mitchell. After meeting her and talking to her for a while, she says, "Well, you know we're related." I said, "Are we really?" (Laughs) She said, "Yes. My maiden name was Six Killer and I'm from Piney Creek area," which is the area that I was born in. I said, "So you were a Six Killer." She says, "Yeah." So, distant, distant cousins. Very distant, but we are cousins.

Little Thunder: What kinds of art competition shows did you enter?

Cornshuker: Red Earth, their competition. They're usually competitions that have a market to go along with them. Santa Fe Indian Market, the Heard, Eiteljorg, the Tulsa Indian Arts Festival, the Tulsa Cherokee Art Market and the Five Civilized Tribes Market. They always have little competitions to go along with their retail shows. It works out pretty well for me.

Little Thunder: What is one award that is especially meaningful to you?

Cornshuker: Well, it's a small award, but I do the Five Civilized Tribes show 26:00and Art Under the Oaks, and they have a competition there. I entered a piece--it's been several years ago, five or six years ago or longer--and I got Best of Show. Getting Best of Show, that's really nice, but I found out that Ben Harjo was the judge. Getting an award presented to me and having Ben Harjo judge the show meant a lot to me because I respect Ben Harjo's work and enjoy it. I have several of his pieces. I really respect Ben because I think he's out there doing what works for him. He's a very talented artist. He works at it. I mean, 27:00people have an idea that artists work when they feel the urge. (Laughs) You can't do that. You've got to get in there and you've got to work. I respect his work ethics and his work, period. To have him judge my work, I liked that a whole lot.

Little Thunder: How about museum shows. Have you had many of those?

Cornshuker: I've had a few of them. There again, they always coincide with markets. But I'm having a museum show coming up in April of this year. It is going to be at the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko.

Little Thunder: And you'll get a nice catalog. (Laughter)

Cornshuker: Yeah, a nice catalog. (Laughter) That's one of the very good perks about doing that show. It's going to be a one-man show. There's other shows. I 28:00did a show here in Tulsa for Living Arts. It was the inaugural show for--they have a series for the Four Elements, Earth, Wind, Fire--and I was the only potter in that show of the four. I was one of the starters [of] that show.

Little Thunder: You mentioned the ceramicist, John Glick, as an influence. When did you first see his poetry and how did it influence you?

Cornshuker: John Glick is a potter out of Farmington, outside of Detroit, Michigan. And his use of color--he has basic pots and then he goes back with 29:00glaze, and does glaze on glaze. He does painting on glaze. He does all these things, and I thought, "Well, I don't have to strictly do glaze on glaze and rely on that. You can get very nice effects that way but it's not saying anything about me to the people." I didn't study his work but I liked the possibilities that he showed me.

Little Thunder: You're part owner of the Brady Artists Studio with Donna Prigmore, who's also a potter. When and how did you first meet Donna?

Cornshuker: It's been maybe ten years ago, I can't remember. Memory is one of 30:00those things that goes pretty quick. (Laughs) But they had a show. Do you remember Gilcrease [Museum] having a show of the masters like [Thomas] Moran, [Wilson] Hurley? They had a big show of his and Moran, and it brought in a lot of attention to the Tulsa area. At that time, this was a very young gallery and studio. And they wanted to do a show along with that, but a Native show. They asked, I think it was Anita Fields, who was in the area, if potters in the area that might want to do the show. Through her, they contacted me to do a show. 31:00Anita Fields was in it, Jane Osti was in it. I can't think of very many other people. Mike Daniels was in it, and a few other potters that were in the area were invited to the show. And I got to be friends with the owners, John Weisinger, and Donna, and Lisa Kahn, and they were talking about how they would like to expand their studio. [After] about twelve years of living in Seligman, I decided I was getting tired of watching trees grow. My studio was way out in the country, way out in the woods. No one ever came in and no one ever came by. I was pretty much by myself until the kids and wife came home, so I was getting a 32:00little burned out. I contacted them and asked them if they would rent out studio space for me. This little old box up here [points to room upstairs], they rented that out to me. I worked here for about a year, and John and Lisa got an opportunity to go to Tampa Museum [of Art] to work. They wanted to know if I would be interested in buying their half of the studio. I came up with the money and Donna and I have been partners for twelve, thirteen years, so I've been here for a while. It's worked out great.

Little Thunder: You offer classes here?

Cornshuker: Oh yes. (Laughter) We teach anybody who wants to do clay, doesn't have to be on the wheel. If they want to do slab work, we'll teach them how to 33:00do that. If they want to do coil work, we'll teach them how to do coils. Basically, we can teach you anything in clay. I'm the person who teaches the wheel work because that is my expertise. Donna teaches anything in slab built and coil built because that's her medium. We have one lady who drives in from Pryor, Oklahoma, which is about fifty miles away. She comes in once a week. She has for the last ten years. She has her own equipment, wheel and everything, but she still wants to come in. She says we give her inspiration and teach her little nuances all the time. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: [Teaching can be] a good way of supplementing your income. Was that part of the reason for that?

Cornshuker: No. I just wanted a place to work out of. (Laughter) I mean, I was committed to doing lessons. And, in actuality, the students help pay on the rent and pay on the utilities, so my out of pocket expenses for having my own studio is pretty minimal. That's basically it right there. Without them it would be kind of tough going sometimes.

Little Thunder: Have you gotten ideas from teaching?

Cornshuker: There have been a few things like, "Why didn't I think of that?" It's not like stealing but they've hit on a note that you can take, and you're 35:00gone. Already off on that note. They're here still, but you're off over here, using that one note they hit upon.

Little Thunder: What kinds of changes did you note in the Indian Art show scene from '80 to '90, specifically in terms of Oklahoma?

Cornshuker: Back in the '80s it seems like the art markets in Oklahoma were pretty strong. I had no problem making a living supporting my family, doing shows and doing galleries in and around Oklahoma. They seemed to be a lot stronger. I guess it's like anything else, there's ebbs and flows. It goes up, 36:00it goes down. I guess I built up a little reputation that I can weather out the low parts pretty good. They don't affect me too much. It seems like we're in a little low area right now. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: In 1990 the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was passed requiring artist to provide proof of enrollment or certification by their tribe. I'm wondering if you noticed how it impacted artists and galleries. .

Cornshuker: Well, people started wanting to see identification that you were who you say you were. And to be honest with you, I hadn't thought about it. I've always known who I was. Before. I didn't think about it. It really didn't enter 37:00my mind about having to prove that I was Cherokee. When that Act came in, I had to go back and prove who I was. That took me about three or four years to do because there were times that I could not get the birth certificates of my mom because the certificate was in the courthouse in Jay. And it burned down, so there went her birth certificate. I had to go and do all of this other paperwork to prove that she was born and therefore I was born. It was just a big mess and I didn't like it.

I really didn't care too much for the law. Then there would be some would-be 38:00Indians with this much Indian in them (gestures), but they could prove it, making a big issue of it out [at] the shows. That just really irritated me that they did that. At the time, there were some artists that are still around that can't prove their lineage, but I know that they're Indian. I think that knocked a few of them out, but there again, it let those little bitty Indians in. That just bugged the crap out of me. It just really did.

Little Thunder: We're going to get to look at one of your house sculptures, and 39:00this may not be the phrasing you use, functional pieces opposed to aesthetic pieces. I like to call them sculptures. Are they raku or ceramic?

Cornshuker: Well, everything I do is functional. Even my sculptural pieces are functional. There's a little bit of function there, so I call them functional. For me, they have to have function. That utilitarian "you've got to do something with this piece" has always been there for me. It's always stuck in my head. If you want to use this, you can use this. These pieces I make are cone cone-tinned stoneware, which means the clay has the ability to go up to the temperature of 2,381 degrees without falling apart. That's real high on the heat scale. If 40:00you're looking into a fire, a fireplace or something like that, and you see little flashes of bright yellow, that yellow means, that little spot for a split-second is maybe 2,200 degrees. If you go into white hot, then you're getting up into the heat range for the pieces that I fire. I do raku pieces, which is pieces that I fire up to around 1,800 degrees, which is 500-600 degrees lower than other pieces that I do. And those are considered low fired.

Little Thunder: But they're still functional?

Cornshuker: They are still functional if you don't mind leakage. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: I remember meeting your dad at one of your early openings here 41:00[and] family members. That must have been an especially wonderful moment the first time they came to a show that you had in a studio you co-owned.

Cornshuker: I have to say, when I first started out, my dad, for a real job, was a pipe fitter. He was in the Pipe Fitter's Union up in Kansas City. If I'd wanted to be, I could have been a pipe fitter because I worked on the job sites with him, being his apprentice, which made big money. And when I said I wanted to be a potter, go down to Silver Dollar City and work, they just didn't quite 42:00understand that route because, "Let me see, you'll give up good money here to make minimum wage down there?" (Laughs) So, they weren't too happy, but when I was working at Silver Dollar City, they came down. I gave them passes and they came in and watched me demonstrate. There was kind of a lull in the demonstration and I heard my dad say, nudge the guy next to him, "That's my son down there who's making that pot." And then I knew it was okay. After that, whatever I needed help on, they were there for me. And when they came to my first show, my one-man show here at this gallery, they were just tickled, tickled to death. We got a son that actually did something.

Little Thunder: In 2007, you were one of a number of Native artists who participated in a cultural exchange with African artists. Can you talk about that experience a bit?

Cornshuker: This was through the Kellogg Foundation. They worked with the IAIA [Institute of American Indian Art] of Santa Fe. They wanted about forty to forty- five artists in certain fields to go to South Africa to work in and around South Africa [and in] some of the other countries like Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique. I was part of a team who worked with potters. There were four other 44:00potters and me. The other four potters worked in traditional pottery and I was the only contemporary potter out of the group. The selection committee--I don't know how they did that, but I got picked. So, I went and we worked in a little Zulu village and we gave a workshop to the Zulu potters. It should have been more like they gave us a workshop, because they were so talented and so sure about what they were doing. All we could offer them was maybe a few new ideas they hadn't thought about, maybe try to think of different ways for them to market their wares. That's what part of our goal was. To incorporate new ideas 45:00and to help them market--there was a better way for them to market their pieces.

If a Zulu potter made a pot and she sold it for, let's say, $20 at her studio, by the time it got to the gallery in Durbin, it'd be about $120. But she would still only get $20. So we were trying to figure out different ways for them to market. And we came up with new designs as far as making masks. I was involved 46:00with the gallery here [on Brady Street] when we started selling African pieces. I looked at African masks. So, when we went down there, we came up with, "How about making clay African masks?" It was a real inspirational moment because all of a sudden this light goes [off] above all our heads. "We can make masks!" And they had a ball with it. They made all kinds of masks. Not necessarily representing their tribe, because every tribe had different masks, just the free spirit of making masks in the way they wanted to. And they make some really nice masks. So, if you see any clay masks coming out of Africa now, that's partly because of our influence.

And rattles. They had never thought about rattles. That one was my idea. I started making rattles and showed them how to make rattles, and they started making rattles after that. It was more [about] inspiration for them because when it came to their ability to work in clay, they'd just blow us away. Things we would make [that would] take us a week, they would do in a day. Things they would fire up--we would wait two weeks to fire ours up, they were firing theirs up the next day. Little short cuts they would do. And tools. Here we'd go to the clay store, clay manufacturer, and we'd buy little rubber ribs, wooden tools, little knives. What they would use was broken butter knives, Purex bottles--the 48:00plastic--they would cut those out and that would be their ribs. Their tools [were] little bits of plastic they would use to help shine the clay up. Their methods were very austere because they didn't have very much to work with.

The village we were at had no running water, no electricity, nothing like that. We had to bring in our own bottled water to drink. Lunch was always an experience because they did their best to feed us. When it was lunch time we 49:00would go down, and it was kind of like a little buffet style. "Give me some of that, that and that." One time I saw something that looked like mushrooms, like the button side of mushrooms, so I said, "Give me some of that." The cooks looked at each other and looked at me. "You want some of that?" They pointed down. They didn't speak English and I didn't speak Swahili. "Okay." They gave me some of that and I take it back to my table, and I'm eating on it and eating on it, chewing on it, chewing on it. (Laughter) There's an interpreter, sitting there, eating lunch with me, and I ask her, "What is this?" She looks at me. She smiles. She says, "Stomach of a chicken." I said, "Oh, okay." (Laughter) "Real, 50:00real chewy!" (Laughter) But we had crocodile, we had ostrich, we had all kinds of things. It was quite an experience. And I realized I wouldn't want to live or stay in a third-world country very long. I am too spoiled, far, far too spoiled by all of the conveniences we have, that we take for granted. It's just amazing about how people live. And I thought, "There's got to be a better way."

Little Thunder: Have you traveled out of the country any other place besides Africa?

Cornshuker: Canada, Mexico. That is about it.

Little Thunder: With your artwork?

Cornshuker: No. Because of it. I went to a show and I made money so now I can go 51:00up to Canada.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) You have a number of high profile shows including Santa Fe Indian Market. Do you remember your first show in Santa Fe?

Cornshuker: I do. I was sharing a booth with Gina Gray. Gina Gray talked to me and said, "Get into Market and we can share a booth." And so out of a five by ten foot, those small booths, I had about this much space, about that much length to display what I wanted to sell. (Gestures) Because being a painter she needed all the wall space. (Laughs) I still made money. It wasn't much. Paid for 52:00my booth, paid for my expenses and everything. And still came out with a few hundred bucks after that, but that was my first show. I was really amazed at watching what goes on and how that show is run. How early people come there. I mean early, before the sun comes up, they're out there with their flashlights.

Little Thunder: Did you try and get your own booth the following year?

Cornshuker: Yes, after that my main goal was to get my own booth. I eventually moved in to my own five by ten and then they moved me into a ten by ten, sharing with someone else. (Laughs) I felt real bad for anybody who shared with me because I would overwhelm that person. People would come in, and I'd have people 53:00standing in line to [buy] stuff and this poor person, no one got a chance to see their work because of all these people standing in my booth. That sounds boastful but that's the way it was.

Little Thunder: You have a lot of repeat collectors, especially for stoneware. Do you think you get to know your collectors in a deeper way maybe than a painter or sculptor?

Cornshuker: Especially as you are starting out, people--I don't know if they recognize talent or they like what you do--[but] I've had people who've been buying from me from when I sold my cups for $12 dollars. And now I sell my cups 54:00for $25, but they still have been coming up with me. As I go up in price, they've come up with me and bought bigger pieces. Let's say a bowl. I would sell my bowls for $20, and now my price range for my bowls is $80 up to about $400-$500. These people are now buying the bowls for $400-$500. And you get to know them. I'm real bad with names. I am real bad with names, but I use the adage, "Oh, I know you, so I must be in Chicago." (Laughs) I know them and I know they've got a dog or little things that you pick up from talking to them 55:00over the years. "How is your son doing? Is he still in college?" Little things. You start talking, you build a rapport with them. They know my family. They know my two kids. "How is your daughter? Is she married now?" All of this kind of stuff. "Your son still in college?" You build up a rapport, and because of that you build up a friendship. The nice thing about it is they come along with you for this journey. My career. It's kind of strange in a way because I've never thought about it as a career until about ten years ago. This is my career. (Laughter) This is what I am doing. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You order your clay commercially. Have you ever dug your own clay, or are you interested in that?

Cornshuker: I've done that once. (Laughter) I've done that once and realized, "Oh man, this is way too much work!" I appreciate the traditional potters who do that. There are a lot of traditional potters who will go out and dig their own clay. I appreciate that and realize why their pieces command such high prices. Because they're so labor intensive, wow! I'm lazy. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Dinnerware is kind of your bread and butter. What are the pluses and drawbacks of that?

Cornshuker: For the pluses, they're pretty much no brainers. I just make them. I use my designs. Each one of them is still an individual piece but it doesn't 57:00take very much thought, whereas my structural pieces, I think about them. I put them in the back of my head and let them percolate or whatever, and then they'll come back out. "This is the way I want to make them!" That requires a lot more thought process. The dinnerware sets and the functional pieces, I enjoy making them because I enjoy the whole process of throwing a piece, taking it through the whole process and, hopefully, coming out like I want them to. In the beginning I wasn't so sure, but I'm to the point now, I know what they are going 58:00to look like. The majority of the time, I'll already see them in my head. "Okay, this one's going to have this design on, and this is how it'll look."

Little Thunder: You don't lose many in the firing process?

Cornshuker: No. I might lose one piece out of, let's say, three, four firings. And I've never counted the number of pieces I put into a firing. My kiln is about twenty-four cubic foot on the inside, so it's a pretty good size. And that's stacking area. Maybe one out of 200 or 300, something like that.

Little Thunder: Electric kiln?

Cornshuker: Gas.

Little Thunder: That quality of movement comes with all your designs. It takes 59:00good drafting skills. It's not like doing geometric designs.

Cornshuker: Yeah, and without knowing it, when I was in high school I started--in eighth or seventh grade, I can't remember--taking drafting classes. I had no idea why. I just did it. And you develop a sense of spatial relations. How, as you're moving away from something, things should be moving. That has been ingrained. But because of those drafting classes, I can go back and say, "This is the way it should look as it trails back." The movement, I think, comes from that technical drawing. I never thought, when I was taking it, that I could 60:00use it later on. But everything you learn helps out. It doesn't matter. I can go to painting workshops and pick up something out of that painting workshop that will help me in my work now.

Little Thunder: Do you do that occasionally?

Cornshuker: I do. I've gone to painting workshops at TU, watched other people in other mediums work. I've gone to the glass blowing shop two doors down, and I blew glass for a little bit. Nothing big, but understood the qualities of the glass and how it works, and picked up dimensions, how I want to incorporate some dimensional things in my work. Things that I'm trying to work out now, ideas 61:00that you might see within a year or two.

Little Thunder: You've had some trademark color schemes which were blue, black or brown. A green [and] brown. Can you talk a little bit about the design process and your slips?

Cornshuker: Well, I fire up to code ten, like I said. When you fire up to that temperature, you're starting to limit the number of colors you can work with. I can work with green, I can work with brown, I can work with blue underneath the glazes. Now, these are strictly underneath the glazes. Anything else is going to burn out. I can't work with yellows. Yellows won't show up or reds. Reds won't show up. They'll burn out. But these three colors I can work with, and you have 62:00to think about your designs in those three colors. As far as glazes, I can do purples. I can do yellows. I can do reds. I just chose not. "Purple? I don't know." (Laughs) "Pink? I don't know." I can use those kinds of glazes. I use red glazes as accent pieces, accent glazes. But purple and pink just don't fit in my palette.

Little Thunder: You're not using so much green anymore.

Cornshuker: I use green and I mix my own glazes. Why I don't use the green so 63:00much is, I mix my glazes. All the elements I use to mix my glazes are natural Earth, so they come out of the ground. They mine them. As you go through a vein of, let's say, copper. The copper has a certain molecular composition, but it doesn't stay true with all the copper that is mined. There are some little nuances, always, in different areas of that vein. Even in that vein of two feet, there'll be little differences in it. That's true with all the elements that I use. Flint--I use flint. And marble, which is calcium carbonate. There are 64:00always little variances and over the course of the years, a certain kind of mineral will change because its composition has changed a little bit. So, you've got to incorporate that and you've got to figure out different things to counteract that. The greens, the copper has changed since the first time I used it. So, now I have to make adjustments on it until I get to the point I'm happy with it again. Then I'll start using it more. (Laughs) It's always adjustments, there's always adjustments to make. You have to be somewhat of a chemist to work with it. You know that periodic table you see up on chemistry boards? (Laughs) I 65:00have to deal with that and it's no fun.

Little Thunder: What's your creative process from the time you get an idea?

Cornshuker: Creative process. On my shows I go to a lot of times, when I'm out in the Southwest, I'll go to places like Chaco Canyon, the Four Corners area, and look at petroglyphs. I've been up in Missouri, looking at petroglyphs. I've been in Arkansas, looking at petroglyphs, and seeing those designs. Sometimes I draw them down. Sometimes I just keep them in my head, and I will borrow from 66:00those. Not verbatim, not the same design, but I will loosely use those designs. I'll draw them out and then I'll do little mockups of that. See how it works. See how it works with the color palette that I use, and try it that way. There are several designs--a lot of designs are "Aanh! This isn't going to work for me." And then, I have to feel it. "I like this and it feels good for me. I can use this." But there are some designs that I tried, and I thought, "No! That is not going to work for me."

Little Thunder: Do you keep designs hanging on the wall as you're trying them?

Cornshuker: Or little strips of paper. (Laughter) "Oh yeah, that design! I like 67:00that one!" Things like that. (Laughter) A lot of times, they're on the walls. Sometimes, when I do sculptural pieces, I make baskets. I like to make baskets--loosely called baskets--they're clay. Anything that has a handle and has an opening, I'll call a basket.

So, I've made baskets. When I've gone to Phoenix and have come back the southern route, there is a range of mountains called the Chocolate Mountains. I like that layer of mountains where one layer is in front of a layer, in front of a layer. And I've incorporated that into handles for these baskets that I make. Just 68:00about anything I look at, I don't realize it, but you store it back. You put it back and when you don't think about it, it'll pop up. That's how I do a lot of my more creative work. I want to make a man. I want to make a figure. I'll think about it, of course. Think about it, for lack of better term, in the front part of my brain, and then send it back and let it percolate, then let it come back up to the front again, and think, "Oh! This will work." And then, I can visualize it. I can turn it around three-dimensionally and [say,] "Yes, that will work." In my mind, I'll turn it around and think, "This is what I want to make." And then make that piece. It's not going to be exactly what I see, but 69:00it's going to be very close to what I see in my mind.

Little Thunder: What is your creative routine?

Cornshuker: When I come into the studio, I try to come in the mornings. I'm usually here by nine. There's always some things that you have to do. Computer work. Check on things, like the kiln that you've fired the night before--electric one or the gas one. Check on things. Go up on the computer and see if there's anything I need to look at, messages. Just kind of slowly start working into the process. And as I'm doing these other tasks, I start thinking, "Okay,"--if I'm making pie plates-- "You need to make pie plates." Set it in my 70:00mind. "You need to make ten pie plates today." So, I'll go down there and get my hands on the clay. Start working up the clay, start feeling of the clay. I weigh out the clay, I work the clay up, then I set it aside and take a break. I'm real big at taking breaks. (Laughs) Go do something else for a while, then come back down and get ready. I'll sit at the wheel, and I'll do what I need to do to get it done. Then take another break, or in between, take another break. There are lots of breaks. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You're problem-solving on your breaks. (Laughs)

Cornshuker: Yeah, that's it. Thinking about something else, unrelated to the clay.

Little Thunder: It's always a balancing act to have enough inventory for yourself for a show, but at the same time supply the galleries that sell your work.

Cornshuker: (Laughs) I'll put it this way. The galleries probably would like to see me more often than I choose to see them. When they have a show for me, I will work for that show for them. How it's been for the last number of years is I don't consign any pieces. I'll do a show for you and I'll give you the option to buy whatever you want to after that show. Nine times out of ten, I'll do a show and whatever is left, they just buy outright because they know they're not going to see me for a while. (Laughs) That keeps them kind of happy. I used to 72:00be able to take my January off, or I used to be able to take July off and just do family things or think about working. There's a lot of thinking about working because you can do it physically, yeah, but there's times you need to think about working and what you want to get done, what you would like to get accomplished. I don't know, maybe other artists do this but I have to think about working. Then I'll get in here, go through those spurts where you're just gung ho and you're working. That feels good.

Little Thunder: Have you ever sought any casino commissions?

Cornshuker: No, I haven't. There's the Cherokee Casino out here, the Hard Rock. And there's a group of artists who seek them out and want them to buy their work. I'm not one of them. If they want to buy something, great, but I'm not going to seek them out and get them to buy. They seem to be doing okay without me, and I seem to be doing okay without them. (Laughs) I guess it would be nice for the notoriety, but that's okay. I am not worried about that.

Little Thunder: Looking back on your career in terms of any real pivotal moments, what do you see?

Cornshuker: I think it's been meeting people. I have said this for a very long time. Meeting Jane Mauldin.

Little Thunder: A Choctaw painter.

Cornshuker: Yes. She was very personal[able], easy to talk to, very intelligent, I thought. And she was the one who really got me going in the direction I have taken. She was a very big inspiration because she would [say], "I like this." I would do things, and she'd say, "This looks good. I am not too crazy about that. But this looks good." (Laughter) She was critical a little bit, not 75:00over-critical. But she would express her opinions. That said a lot, that's always said a lot to me. Because there again, I respected her work. I've got a lot of her pieces.

And meeting other people, like Jane's sister, Valjean Hessing. She was always very supportive, and basically, they were my first two contacts in the field I'm in now. Running into Ben. I'll bring up Ben one more time, Ben Harjo. I meet him at a gallery, Linda Greever's [gallery]. I was selling pots to Linda because 76:00Jane told me to go see Linda and Ben was hanging out there. Ben came out to my car and was looking at my pots--Linda had gone back in--and he said, "Why don't you do traditional pots?" I said, "Because I am not a traditional potter." Little things like that. (Laughs) He probably never remembered that, but for me, I thought "Well, I'm not a traditional potter, I'm a contemporary potter. This is what I do." He said, "Well, you do a real good job at what you do. But why don't you do traditional pots?" (Laughs) "This is it, Ben." It's always meeting people...

Little Thunder: [Who] confirm the path you are on or make it clear for you?

Cornshuker: Make it clear. Sometimes, not knowing it, they do show you this is 77:00the way to go.

Little Thunder: What has been one of the low points in your career?

Cornshuker: When I burnt my kiln shed down. (Laughs) I was doing a high fire and it taught me a couple of lessons. Don't work till you're just exhausted. [That] was one big lesson.

Little Thunder: Was it in Seligman?

Cornshuker: No, when we first got married, we lived in this little town called Nevada. I had built a studio--well, a kiln in this old, very old, old, let me stress that, old garage. (Laughs) The wood was, oh gosh, the wood was dry rot. 78:00It was just barely standing. I'd worked all through the night and I was doing a high fire, getting ready for a show. Something went wrong with the kiln, caught the roof on fire. I'm sitting there watching TV and I'm looking out the window. And I see this smoke start coming by my window. (Laughs) So, I jump up and run out there and I'm seeing my whole kiln shed just burn down. The fire department's coming and it's a big hoopla. That was a very low point for me because my kiln was ruined, that load I lost, the shed was down. It was just a miserable point.

Little Thunder: How about one of the high points?

Cornshuker: High points were getting into Indian Market and having a booth of my own, a big booth of my own. (Laughs) Boy, that was a high point because I thought, "Well, if I can keep this, I'm there." (Laughs) Being asked to go to gallery openings or having a one-man show at these galleries has always been a high point. Being treated, for a lack of a better term, like a rock star. Having people lined up, waiting for you, to buy your work. There's ten people standing outside waiting to come in and buy your work. That's always a high point. Yearly, it's happened. "Alright! This is happening again! It's still happening!" 80:00I like that.

Little Thunder: I'm thinking about what Bill Glass said about how nice it is to have Cherokee families of artists who continue that art tradition within their family. While your children aren't necessarily engaged in the arts right now, I've seen them at shows. How has that impacted your art, and what kinds of things have they helped with?

Cornshuker: My kids have come to shows with me. And my wife, also. Just their support. They get a big kick out of going to my shows, and people talking to 81:00them about me. And my kids and my wife talking to them about me. They think that's a pretty big deal. Like there's one show, Eiteljorg Indian Market, where my daughter would go with me on a regular basis. There again, we talked about people, starting friendships--they'd be asking "Where's Morgan?" They're so used to having Morgan there and dealing with Morgan, because they know Morgan can talk about my pots and things like that. And Lincoln [my son], Lincoln has gone to several shows with me, and people start looking for him and asking him 82:00questions, "Aren't you wanting to get into this?" (Laughs) They have their own paths to go. I'm not going to try to get them to go the way I went. My parents didn't try to make me go the way they wanted me to go. It's strictly up to them. But Lincoln used to make some pieces, little pieces, buffalo that would hang on the wall. He saw how easy it was to make these little pieces. He didn't do anything. All he did was made them. I took care of them for him. Fired them and everything like that.

Little Thunder: Did you ever take any of them to the shows?

Cornshuker: Oh, yeah, and he sold at shows. (Laughs) I had people, "Well, does 83:00your son still make those buffalos?" "No, he stopped. He is in college now. He's not doing those anymore." (Laughs) "Oh, I was wanting to add to my collection!" (Laughs)

I've talked to Lincoln about it, especially, because he's shown more interest in the artistic part of the world whereas Morgan's pretty academic. We've talked about, "If you wanted to be something in the art world, I've started a path. You could just step into that path and go. My name's not a big name, Cornshuker: , but there's some people who know it and recognize it. You could go that way." But he's more artistically inclined the music way. He likes music. It amazes me to watch him play drums. I mean, to be able to do something with the right foot, 84:00do something with the left foot, and beat on the drumsticks at the same time. That is totally beyond me. (Laughs) I could never do that. He has his own path and so does Morgan. Maybe grandkids. (Laughs) Maybe grandkids.

Little Thunder: Is there anything you would like to add or anything we forgot to cover?

Cornshuker: No, I honestly think we covered a lot. I probably talked way too much but I think I said what I wanted to say.

Little Thunder: Well, let's take a look at some of your work. Tell us about this sculpture.

Cornshuker: This sculpture is number two in a series of boarding school places 85:00that the government sent students to assimilate into modern society. This one's called "Journeycake Hall," which is a building down in Bacone College [in Muskogee, Oklahoma]. What bothered me when I was at Bacone, was there was a building, Journeycake Hall, and behind Journeycake Hall is a cemetery. And the students who were sent there in the early 1900's--1914, 1915, 1916--about that time, there was a flu epidemic. And instead of sending the bodies home, they 86:00buried them behind Journeycake Hall. That's what this represents. There's an open door. I don't know if you can see through that, but you can see the tombstones in the back, back behind the building. When I was there in 1970, there was a lot of tombstones. I went back about five years ago, and they took a lot of the bodies or what was left and moved them back to where they had come from. Arizona and things like that. That's what this represents.

I did one, "Carlisle Dreams." It was another building similar to this, but it had a picture window, a big picture window, in the middle of the building. I had 87:00done little creatures with round humps on their backs, and they were carrying back the dreams of the students that were going to Carlisle School at that time. Taking dreams back home. So, that one was called "Carlisle Dreams." And there was another one, "Chilocco," because my mom had gone to Chilocco as teenager. Gone to school and didn't care too much for the treatment [there]. So, that was a very plain building, because if you've ever been to Chilocco, there's nothing out at Chilocco. That's what I wanted to represent, was the starkness. And that's a little series I've done. I keep thinking I'm going to do a few more but the inspiration hasn't hit me.

Let me make one comment about the last piece you saw, my functionality. This a box. This is the lid. So, it does have functionality to it. (Laughter) It's not strictly a sculptural piece. You could put things in here if you wanted to. It holds air real good. (Laughs) This I call "Guarding the Old Ways." This is mostly a Plains setting. I watched a special on George Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. I was watching that, and I was listening to, I think it was Colonel Reno, and he mentioned that coming up on to the campsite, the tipis were like blades of grass on the prairie. And the bottom of this, these little spiky 89:00things, represent tipis. For me, they represent tipis, and they're guarding the old way of hunting. The buffalo hunt. That's what this piece represents to me. There again, the functionality. You could actually use this as a pitcher, if you wanted to, because it's a big beaked pitcher.

Little Thunder: You can see the movement of the buffalo there.

Cornshuker: Yeah. Let me grab another one. This piece reminds me of going cane pole fishing with my grandfather. The brown representing the Mother Earth, dragonflies in and around the water. It sounds kind of far off, but these little 90:00straps just remind me of talking, getting back to my grandfather. The way he loved us. Whenever he saw us, he'd always just hug us. That's like him wrapping himself around us. Basically, that's all that piece is, just something that reminds me of my grandfather.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful, the dimensionality of it. The contrasting shapes.

Cornshuker: He was always open. Whatever we were doing, he would back us up. He was great about that.

Little Thunder: Mel, thank you for talking to me today.

Cornshuker: My pleasure. I hope it was worthwhile.

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