Oral history interview with Sherman and Allie Chaddlesone

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Thursday, April 21, [2011]. I'm interviewing Sherman Chaddlesone and Allie Chaddlesone [for the Oklahoma Native Artists' Project, part of the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University]. We're at the Chaddlesone's house in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Sherman, you're a painter and sculptor and you've been a key figure in Oklahoma Indian art for a long time. I was fortunate to interview you in the '80s and it's really nice to check back in with you. You're a Kiowa tribal member. Where were you born and where did you grow up?

S. Chaddlesone: I was born in Lawton--at the time it was called the Kiowa Indian Hospital in Lawton, Oklahoma. From there, I spent most of my time out in the Wichita Mountains areas, around Saddle Mountain, a little community called Sedan, for most of my younger years. Then, when I was about five years old, we moved to Lawton.

Little Thunder: What did your folks do for a living?

S. Chaddlesone: At the time that we had moved from my original residence area, my father obtained a job with the Civil Service at Fort Sill. He did that the rest of his life, as a commercial illustrator. My mother, she had a few jobs. She mostly did a lot of sewing. She had a few full-time jobs during that, but most of the times, she did that at home on her own.

Little Thunder: So you were used to seeing your dad's artwork around, too?

S. Chaddlesone: Yes.

Little Thunder: Any other extended family members whose artwork you remember?

S. Chaddlesone: I remember, really early, my uncle, my father's brother, Kenneth Chaddlesone, he painted quite a bit. He didn't do it commercially to exhibit in 2:00galleries, or as income or anything like that, but he would finish a painting and just give it out, give it away to a family member. I have one of his original pieces. That was one of my first exposures, family members.

Little Thunder: What are your first memories [of] doing art yourself?

S. Chaddlesone: Drawing figures in the dirt with a stick. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How about at school? Were you in public school at Lawton?

S. Chaddlesone: Yes.

Little Thunder: Did they have art classes? [Were] you encouraged by your teachers?

S. Chaddlesone: Not when I first started in the elementary school, but my first 3:00grade teacher had me do silhouettes of my classmates. It was real easy. We just put them up against a backdrop and shone a light on them, and I just traced their outlines and we cut them out. And each one of the students paid me a quarter. That was like a million dollars to me at the time. That's what got me started. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Your great-grandmother, I read, kept a ledger calendar from 1856 to 1934. I'm wondering how old you were when you became aware of the fact that she had been a record keeper?S. Chaddlesone: It was prior to my early teens. Actually, my father was the custodian of that ledger book. The family had given 4:00it to him to keep, so that was when I was first exposed to it. He would bring it out, occasionally, and let me look at it. He was very protective of it. He had it specially wrapped and all that so we didn't get to look at it every day or when we wanted to. It was just when he felt like showing us something.

Little Thunder: Do you think maybe that influenced your interest in history or art a little bit?

S. Chaddlesone: Both. Yes, certainly.

Little Thunder: Do you know where it is now?

S. Chaddlesone: It's at the Fort Sill Museum. One of my aunts gave me a copy--she had a copy of it. It might be the only known copy of that ledger. Done in the old school [on]--I can't remember what they call those--a mimeograph copier? It's a really bad copy, but I took it. I was at home visiting from 5:00Washington State one time and she handed it to me. I guess she wanted to give it to me. But instead, I took it back with me to Washington and I made copies of that up there. I brought that back to her. It's sitting right there on the table, the copy that I have, because I refer to it quite a bit.

Little Thunder: Were you in high school when you went to the Institute of American Indian Art? How did you hear about it?

S. Chaddlesone: I think I just barely heard about it when it first opened. Back to the public school art, in junior high was when we started getting art classes offered. That's when I got more involved in it, formal training. The one thing I 6:00did during that time in junior high in Lawton was they had a school-wide competition with all schools in Lawton. That's when Ivory soap first came out with the large bars of soap, so I got one of those and I carved a horse head out of it. I won first place in the school-wide competition. I came home from school one day, I was looking for it, I couldn't find it, and I found my younger brother in the bathtub with that sculpture. (Laughter) But that was my first exposure to formalized art training.

Little Thunder: It sounds like you had a pretty good base before you went to the Institute.

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, when it first opened, I sort of took notice of it, [but] I didn't really consider it because to me, that was on the other side of the world. The only Indian people I knew were Kiowas, Apaches and Comanches. I knew there were others out there, but I wasn't that familiar with them. Karita Coffee, she's a Comanche, I had gone to public school with her all the time in Lawton. We were in the same grade, same age. She went out there first in '63, I believe. She came back and that's all I heard all summer, "You have to go to Santa Fe. You have go to IAIA." (Laughs) So, apparently, she even had an audience with my father about that. School had already started out there in '64, in the fall. And he approached one of his friends, who was a state senator, and 8:00got him to push those people out there to accept me that year, that semester. So, when we got the word to go, [my folks] loaded me up and drove me out there real fast and that was a shock. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What were your first impressions when you first got there?

S. Chaddlesone: I was wondering with all the mud houses, how they were going to stand up in the rain. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: Culture shock.

S. Chaddlesone: Total culture shock. Everything was still--most of the structures there were still real adobe. That's how different it was at that time. Of course now, everything looks adobe but it [isn't]. That was the first 9:00shocking exposure--the visuals there, the mountains and all that. And next was all the different tribal people. Beyond the three tribes I had spoke of, I knew there were Cheyennes and Cherokees here in Oklahoma. Then, all of a sudden these Washington people pop up. (Laughs) These others from Great Lakes areas and all that, I never knew about. So, that was my second shock.

Little Thunder: What kinds of classes did you take there?

S. Chaddlesone: All of the required courses that are the standard in high school. But I started a course in painting and graphic--it was called graphic design and print making. Those three.

Little Thunder: You took painting class from both Allan Houser and Fritz Scholder. What did you get out of Allan Houser's painting classes?

S. Chaddlesone: Nothing. (Laughter) We were--myself, T.C. Cannon, Parker Boyiddle--of course, there were others. Spencer Twohatchet from around here, he's Kiowa. We were in [that] class because they were thinking, at the time, we were from the Oklahoma school of art. So they put us in [with] Houser. He was teaching mostly traditional type art, tribal art. They thought we were going to sit down and do blue baby deer, but we didn't. We started doing all this abstract stuff. Houser, that was a surprise to him. It was the first time he'd 11:00seen Indian people do anything like that. So he threw us over into Scholder's class. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Was that a better environment?

S. Chaddlesone: Well, Scholder, of course, was doing his striped landscapes and butterflies and stuff like that. He was doing a lot of abstraction, his personal art. He had a couple of other artists from the North who were doing more contemporary things. That's why they moved us over with them. From there we were able to do whatever we wanted.

Little Thunder: Cannon had been out there for about a year before you?

S. Chaddlesone: No, we went at the same time.

Little Thunder: Had you known Cannon and Parker prior to going there?

S. Chaddlesone: I knew T.C. better than Parker. I'd seen Parker around, but T.C. 12:00and I were nodding acquaintances. We hung out in different circles. Our circles would occasionally overlap and that's how we knew one another. Our friendship grew out there in Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: You met your wife Allie, at the Institute. How did you get her attention? Or how did she get your attention? (Laughs)

S. Chaddlesone: She was chasing me. (Laughter) She ran me down. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you have a class together?

S. Chaddlesone: No.

Little Thunder: You did go to Vietnam right after the Institute, is that right?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it was probably six months. I volunteered for the draft.

Little Thunder: You've shared in interviews that it was hard being creative after the war. How did you work through that?

S. Chaddlesone: I didn't really start painting again until I went up and was living and working with Allie's reservation. Then, all that exposure to culture, tribal traditional culture, that all came back. Gradually.

Little Thunder: You had been in San Francisco, too, directing an Indian art workshop. Can you talk about what its purpose was and what you did as director?

S. Chaddlesone: It was administered by the San Francisco Art Commission. They 14:00had several similar workshops in the Spanish community, in the black community, Oriental community, and of course, the Indian and the white community. So we had ours there, at what they call the San Francisco Indian Center. Actually, we had rented a storefront from the Indian Center. Set up there and we did painting and drawing classes. Design classes.

Little Thunder: You taught most of the classes?

S. Chaddlesone: No, I didn't. We had several people.

Little Thunder: It was kind of an exciting time for Indian activism. Was Allie there with you? You weren't, I guess, painting yet, but did that kind of filter 15:00into your sensibility a little bit?

S. Chaddlesone: I did a little bit of painting there. Not a lot. Not enough to do a one-man show or anything. The first day we left from Lawton, we drove for a couple of days and we stopped one night in Needles, California.

A. Chaddlesone: We spent the night with T.C. and Barb the first night.

S. ShermanYeah. The first night we spent with them on our way out. We eventually got to Needles, California and spent the night there. We figured the next day we would get into the Bay area. We got up early in the morning and got on the road, turned on the radio and there was a news flash that the Indians had occupied Alcatraz. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: Step on it. (Laughter)

S. Chaddlesone: So we just kind of went right into that thing. As a matter of fact, we worked with them quite a bit.

Little Thunder: Providing them with support and materials?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, all kinds of support.

Little Thunder: I read that you attended Central State University in Edmond for a while. After you worked for the Kalispel Tribe?

S. Chaddlesone: No, that was prior.

Little Thunder: Did you add anything to your art knowledge during those classes at OCU?

S. Chaddlesone: No.

Little Thunder: Were you doing any Indian subject matter there?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah. T.C. was there. He went there on the GI Bill. And our tours sort of overlapped [in Vietnam]. He came back before I did. He went into UCO. I was out still moving around a little bit after I was discharged. Came 17:00back to Oklahoma and he talked me into enrolling up there on the GI Bill, so I did. That's how I got up there. But I had already learned so much in Santa Fe in IAIA, that I felt I couldn't gain anything there, except maybe a degree, if I stayed there all the way through. I don't know, I was just too restless, I guess. I didn't want to sit there for four years and twiddle my thumbs.

Little Thunder: So the two of you went up to Kalispel Reservation and you were doing a little bit of painting while you were working for the tribe and absorbing some different artistic influences. What kinds of things were making an impression on you?

S. Chaddlesone: The Owl Dance. (Laughs) Things of that nature. It's very similar, their culture, and a lot of their stuff is similar to Kiowa culture. It wasn't like going to a foreign country.

A. Chaddlesone: They loved him there. (Laughter)

S. Chaddlesone: I felt like I was able to fit in real easy there. I picked up a lot--I even studied some of the Coastal art. To me, it was like Chinese when I first saw it. I kept looking at it, [thinking], why did they do this and that? And it all started dawning on me, why whales and ravens are shaped a particular way. Salmon and stuff. I was able to pick them out eventually. I even did some 19:00prints in the Haida style of their art.

Little Thunder: Woodblock prints?

S. Chaddlesone: No, they were silkscreen. On textile. As a matter of fact, there was a lady from Alaska that came down to Spokane, that used to come down and purchase my art because she couldn't get any of the artists up there to do that type of work for her. (Laughter). We were up there for almost ten years. We did a lot of stuff up there.

Little Thunder: Were any of your kids born up there?

A. Chaddlesone: Two of them. One was born in California, in San Francisco.

Little Thunder: What did prompt [your] move back to Oklahoma?

S. Chaddlesone: Art. When I started painting again up there, there was a show at 20:00the Smithsonian that was coming up--I can't remember the title--it was a group show. I decided to try to put something in, to get some of my works in there. And they did accept me for that. Following that show, they had moved to a gallery there in Washington, D.C. And just after that, the Southern Plains Museum contacted me and asked me to do a one-man show. Then it just started ballooning like that, real fast.

I told Allie, "That's where the art market is, in the Southwest, more so than up there." For painting--the type of painting I was doing. I had all the experience working with the tribal programs, with the government up there. I told her, "We'll just go back and try this for a while and if it doesn't work, then we've always got this to move back to." So, that's basically why we moved back down here.

Little Thunder: Around 1978, you and T.C. Cannon were planning a two-man show. Is that right?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, but it didn't get very far of course because that was the year that he died. I thought of trying [to do] retrospect[ive show] but that didn't happen either.

Little Thunder: That had to be really hard.

S. Chaddlesone: Oh, yeah. He did a large painting. I think it's eight feet high by twenty feet wide, something like that, it's more of a mural-type image. It's at the Daybreak Star Center, their museum in Seattle, they purchased it. We went out there to look at it. They put it up on the wall and it just covers a whole 22:00huge wall up there. He'd never seen it completed.

He saw portions of it. But his studio was so small in Santa Fe, he couldn't stretch it out all the way. I guess he had it all up here in his head and as he worked on it, he would start at one end of the canvas and he would work on it like that until he got to the end, the final scene. He just wrapped it up then, and shipped it up there. He was always threatening to come up there and look at, [to] see the whole thing at once. He called me about a couple of weeks before he died. He was planning on coming up there to look at it, and he'd come over and spend a few days with us. One of the things he was hoping to do also, while he was with us, is white water rafting, of all things. (Laughter) So we were 23:00waiting for that to happen. And all of a sudden, we got the phone call that he was killed in a car wreck.

A. Chaddlesone: Parker [Boyiddle] got to come stay with us for a while [while we were in Kalispel]. We went berry picking.

Little Thunder: Sounds like you were busy with your painting career when Allie decided she was going to start doing sculpture full time.

S. Chaddlesone: Well, she was dabbling in ceramics for quite a while, ceramic sculpture. I sort of remember her leaning towards the stone. I can't remember what her inspiration was but we do have a lot of the stone here in the area that she knew was available. So, I think that was another impetus for her to do that, try it.

Little Thunder: Did you both start doing booth shows that had both paintings and sculpture after that?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah.

Little Thunder: What were some of the early shows that you did together with both mediums?

S. Chaddlesone: Red Earth.

Little Thunder: Was Anadarko Indian Fair ever a factor?

S. Chaddlesone: No, not really. We did show there--(Gesturing)--there are some of my ribbons. Not when we were starting into it full-time.

Little Thunder: [You], Mirac and Parker and T.C. Cannon were all such a force as painters. What about Mirac Creepingbear? How did you guys become friends?

S. Chaddlesone: I think when we were babies. When we were still in diapers. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are you related?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah.

Little Thunder: He mentioned several times that you were so important in terms of giving him emotional and artistic support.

S. Chaddlesone: We grew up together around here and I've known him all my life.

Little Thunder: Did you stay on him, about getting his work out there?

S. Chaddlesone: Oh yeah. (Laughter) Crack that whip. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How would you describe the Oklahoma Indian art scene, the way it changed from the '70s to the '80s? I realize you were gone for chunks of time, too.

S. Chaddlesone: It didn't change a whole lot, not very fast. They were still doing Bambi deer when I came back. Moving back around, that took a while. The influence from the Art Institute didn't reach here fully yet. It was going full 26:00blast out there. I remember the first year I went to school out there. We had entered the Annual--I can't remember the name--it's a large show. They still do it. It's an annual competition.

Little Thunder: Scottsdale Annual?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, Scottsdale. We won a lot of the categories in that show with all this new imagery that we were doing. We caught a lot of flak from all the dealers and all the so-called art experts that knew everything about Indian art. They couldn't understand what we were doing.

Little Thunder: When you say "we," you're talking about Oklahoma painters--

S. Chaddlesone: No, not necessarily. The whole group of us--like I said there were some from up North. The Art Institute, students from there. It was such a shock to all of them I guess. (Laughter) They didn't have anything like that 27:00hanging on the gallery walls. I think that's what all the outcry was about. That took a while to infiltrate over here to Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: After being at Kalispel, what kinds of things were you painting and how would you describe your style?

S. Chaddlesone: A lot of it was like that painting there. (Gestures) My technique. A lot of traditional cultural things--

Little Thunder: Bright colors and pretty big. You like the larger format?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it's easier and faster.

Little Thunder: You and Parker and Mirac got the commission to do the Kiowa Museum murals. How did you decide who was going to do what portion of Kiowa history?

S. Chaddlesone: It was such an evolved process. We had a general idea, a general outline. Of course, the concept was to do tribal history from as far back as we knew, up to today. We were limited in space to ten panels. We could have done forty more panels and still not touched all of it. We got to the point where we had to bring in a lot of elders and sit and do listening sessions with them. They handed us all of these stories, tribal history. We had several sit-down sessions with them like that, and they basically ended up refining the outline 29:00for us. We were able to divide it into three main portions: pre history, early history and contemporary. But we had to leave out a lot that we wanted to cover. What we did was just the highlights of the tribal history.

Little Thunder: None of you saw what everything was going to look like side-by-side until the opening? Was that the first time you all saw your work together?

S. Chaddlesone: No, we had a studio here we all went to.

Little Thunder: Have you taught any workshops in art and painting?

S. Chaddlesone: Probably the only thing that I did was I taught some stone sculpture over there at the Southern Plains Museum. I did that for a week. I 30:00just showed the basic tools and how they work, all the way to polishing and all that.

Little Thunder: That was in the 90s. How do you think the Oklahoma Indian art scene changed from the '80s to the '90s?

S. Chaddlesone: From the '80s to the '90s, it didn't change very much. That's one thing about Oklahoma, you don't get a lot of movement. We produce a lot of artists, but for some reason, they don't move into other areas, other regions, to study. They just do what's there at home so there is not that mixture.

Little Thunder: You're saying Oklahoma Indian artists tend to be sort of regional in their interests.

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah.

Little Thunder: One change was the 1990s Indian Artists Arts and Crafts Act. I was wondering if you remember how that impacted the galleries and artists at the time.

S. Chaddlesone: I think it took a long time for it to soak in. I know there are still issues with that going on. Some of the galleries are still advertising Indian artists who are not enrolled or even recognized, profiting off that. That still happens today. To me, the Indians, the true Indian artists, they don't worry about it, and they need to, because there's other people shoving them out of the way, making money where they could be doing that.

Little Thunder: So, it hasn't really been effective?

S. Chaddlesone: Not here in Oklahoma. It works pretty well out in the Southwest with the jewelers, the rug weavers and them. A lot of that stuff is easily reproduced in China and Mexico. Maybe that had something to do with it. Doing original art, you can attach a signature to it like on canvas. But I know it's impacted the Southwest a lot more than here.

Little Thunder: You spent several years working for the Kiowa tribe. Did you bring anything away from that, that is going to be feeding into your artwork now?

S. Chaddlesone: I think it's going to help me do more art because it's like you 33:00walk away from that and say, "Don't ever do that again!" (Laughter) Learn lessons.

Little Thunder: You paint mainly with acrylics, is that right?

S. Chaddlesone: Right. I started out in oils but it was too slow.

Little Thunder: You know, you have such an interesting claim on ledger art. I wonder if you could define ledger art for us and then talk about how your approach to ledger art might be different from other artists'?

S. Chaddlesone: Ask me that first part again.

Little Thunder: How would you define ledger art?

S. Chaddlesone: To me, I think it is just an extension of earlier art forms like 34:00the pictographs on rock art, petroglyphs. A lot of it looks exactly the same. The ledger, the actual ledger, didn't happen until the white man came around. Prior to that they were painting on tepee covers, buffalo hides, deer hides. But it's the same imagery. What's regarded as ledger art now--it is just a misnomer, really--ledger. The art has been around a lot longer than the ledgers have for us. (Laughs)

The way that I do it, there's a wide range--I put a lot of contemporary treatments into it. And also, I stick with the traditional elements of it so I 35:00go back and forth. I see a lot of it moving nowadays just like the Bambi art did. It's starting to turn cartoonish, the ledger art is. It's because the people who are producing it now, they don't have the background, they don't understand it.

Originally, for the Kiowas, it was record keeping. When they painted images on tipis in what we call the ledger style now, they did that as a record of things that happened, either to the owner of the tipi or to somebody associated with the owner. They didn't go and make up things to put on there. (Laughter) To me, 36:00I see it drifting away from that right now. If it continues it will become the new Bambi art.

Little Thunder: How important is research to your painting?

S. Chaddlesone: If [I'm] using [the] ledger genre, very important, because most of my art is based on history. Most of things I do in the ledger style. But then again, (Gestures) that painting there, it's a part of our tribal history and it's not done in a ledger style. So, most of the paintings, I make sure I know what I am talking about before I do them.

Little Thunder: Are painting titles important to you?

S. Chaddlesone: Yes, I think they should be as expressive as the image.

Little Thunder: How about your signature? Was it a trial-and- error thing to come up with?

S. Chaddlesone: Signature? No. It just sort of degenerated over the years. (Laughter) Fell apart.

Little Thunder: What's your creative process, from the time you get an idea? Do you take a note about it, or do a quick sketch?

S. Chaddlesone: Sometimes I'll do a sketch. I am at the age [where] I've got to record everything. [So it's not], "What was that now?" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Do you do preliminary sketches before you paint?

S. Chaddlesone: Not every time, but now, most of the time.

Little Thunder: Do you have a different creative process when you sculpt?

S. Chaddlesone: No. Mostly, you'll just see an image in the stone, and it's 38:00there. You just remove the outer portions of it and it comes out.

Little Thunder: You don't do any sketching with your stone sculptures?

S. Chaddlesone: If it's something like a commission or something, we will.

A. Chaddlesone: Somebody has something in mind

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, a theme or something like that.

Little Thunder: You'll try some different approaches and then look for the stone that might work for that?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, we have to do that, too. Find the stone that will fit.

Little Thunder: Are there any concepts or treatments that consistently run through your sculpture, that would allow us to say this is Sherman's sculpture, not Allie's?

S. Chaddlesone: I think mine mostly have been male-oriented subjects, and the opposite [with] hers. Female. I did do one partially dressed female at one time though. (Laughter) But that was a commission.

Little Thunder: Are you still doing patterning inside the stone, engraving or incising?

S. Chaddlesone: No, I haven't, but we did do that with a commission that Allie had. Recently, [with] larger stone, two larger stones we did do that. I helped her with that.

Little Thunder: Have you ever done a painting of something that like spun off an idea for a sculpture or vice versa?

S. Chaddlesone: I can't think of any.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the pivotal moments in your career up to this point?

S. Chaddlesone: The Art Institute in Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: How about one of the highlights of your career so far?

S. Chaddlesone: Tough question. Maybe I'll think of something in the editing.

Little Thunder: An award that was especially meaningful to you?

S. Chaddlesone: I have to think back.

Little Thunder: How about one of the low points?

S. Chaddlesone: In the art? There's been several, mainly in the loss of my friends. T.C., Parker, Mirac, Benny Buffalo--there's several others. They were all such a surprise, the way they happened. It seems like they all had a lot more to do yet.

Little Thunder: Is there anything we didn't talk about that you would like to add? Any important things that we didn't cover?

S. Chaddlesone: No, not personal.

Little Thunder: Okay. We're going to take a look at a few or your paintings here. This painting here, what is the title?

S. Chaddlesone: Those We Left Behind. It comes from an old story the Kiowas have when we lived up in that northern habitat area, along the head waters of the Columbia River in what is now British Columbia. There was no such thing as Canada at that time. This particular creature, our name for that is Zone Ait Ghahnay, which means "creature with large teeth," very fearsome or bad. The 42:00creature appears in several stories, stories of Saynday, Spider Woman, and Zone Ait Ghahnay stories. The creature appears in those stories and we know there's a lot of petroglyphs in that area that also portray that creature. There remain a lot of tribes, northern tribes, in their stories also. Even Allie's tribe. Probably the most famous images that we have are one of our tipis, [it] has large paintings with that creature on it. Then there's others like Silverhorn, he did several paintings of that creature in the late 1800s. Also another fellow 43:00by the name of Zone Tahm, while he was a prisoner of war in Fort Marion in Florida. He did at least one that I know of.

Little Thunder: (Changing paintings) This is an example of your ledger work. The title of this is?

S. Chaddlesone: The title of this is The Winter They Dragged the Head. I expanded on an image from one of our tribal ledger keepers, whose name was Little Bear. It was the winter of 1837, I believe. It's an actual event that happened in Texas. It portrays a group of Kiowas and Comanches entering one of 44:00our camps, dragging the head of an enemy. The event was recorded by Little Bear and it was even later confirmed by a fellow named Boin Ale. That name describes somebody who is large and light in complexion. He was a German captive from the Galveston Bay area. He was captured as a young boy but he lived out the rest of his life with the Kiowas. He was offered repatriation one time, but he was already married and had his own kids, Kiowa kids. So he became Kiowa and he just stayed with the tribe until his death. Parker Boyiddle is a descendant. The Kiowa pronunciation of the name is Boin Ale and it was corrupted later to Boyiddle. I tried to portray him right here.

Even though it was an event that happened, that the Kiowas were involved in, we didn't start it. The Comanches drug us in to it. The Comanches made us do it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: (Changing paintings) Do you want to tell us what the title is?

S. Chaddlesone: The title is Owl Dancing North of the Snake. It's basically set in the Northwest region of the United States. It's a particular dance that tribes up there do, called the Owl Dance. Similar to the Two-Step that happens here on the Southern Plains. It's a social dance. It's the only time the men and women touch or even embrace, in any ceremonial dancing or social dancing. The 46:00little winding blue area there, of course, is the Snake River, so that is one of the reasons for the title.

Little Thunder: It's a beautiful painting. Well, thank you very much, Sherman, for sharing your time with us. [We're going to switch to interviewing Allie.] Where were you born and where did you grow up?

A. Chaddlesone: They say I was born in Creston, British Columbia. I was raised by the Black Bear family in Usk, Washington on the Kalispel Indian Reservation, and I learned their traditional ways. The Kalispel was my first language before I learned to talk English. I learned their ways but I didn't learn sculpture from them.

Little Thunder: But you were interested in art. What are your first memories of seeing artwork?

A. Chaddlesone: The grandma. She was the artist, I believe, of the family because she used to draw pictures of everybody on the reservation. At night, she would draw pictures of things that happened during the day or she saw in town. (Laughs) Some of them were funny. But it was so funny because she did that all time. I remember her drawing pictures all the time. And then, my sister and I drew pictures all the time, too.

Little Thunder: Did you have plenty of materials at the house?

A. Chaddlesone: Well, she always had a tablet and pencils. (Laughs) Of course, 48:00like Sherman, we always had the dirt outside to draw in. (Laughs) In fact, we used to draw highways and stores. We all had little bicycles we used to drive around the yard.

Little Thunder: Did you work three-dimensionally at all?

A. Chaddlesone: Not that I remember. Maybe some little rag dolls and that was all. That's about it.

Little Thunder: How about school? Did you attend a public school off the reservation?

A. Chaddlesone: Yes.

Little Thunder: Were art classes offered?

A. Chaddlesone: No, but the principal of the school there was really interested in art. I don't know where she got all this, but she used to enter the school in the veterans competitions in the state, and find [student] artists. And I 49:00entered one and I won.

Little Thunder: How old were you?

A. Chaddlesone: I must have been, gosh, maybe fourth, fifth grade? But I did a Veteran's poster.

Little Thunder: With watercolors?

A. Chaddlesone: I think it was watercolors, if I remember. She just handed out posters and we did them. She was always encouraging me. I don't know why she picked me. But after that, she always tried to get me to do things, to draw. And I was never really good at drawing, but that's what I went to school for. In Santa Fe, I went to school for painting.

Little Thunder: In between her and your high school years, [did you have] any 50:00other art experiences that were very significant?

A. Chaddlesone: No.

Little Thunder: How did you find out about the Institute?

A. Chaddlesone: One of my friends went to school there. And when he came back, he thought that I should go.

Little Thunder: Was it hard to talk your family into letting you go?

A. Chaddlesone: No. They thought I should go to school. (Laughter) Go do something. Something really good like that. I'd never been away from home that far. I'd been to Montana, which is a couple of states away. I'd never been anywhere at all like that, and I rode a bus out to Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: That was an adventure.

A. Chaddlesone: It was. By the time I got there, I was ready. I got off and I was going to get back on the bus. (Laughter) It was so different and I was so 51:00scared. But somebody was there waiting for me already. One of the dorm people. And this was like the middle of the night. I remember there was nobody around. It was scary. These buildings were so different. And the streets were tiny. I went to the dorm and rested a while. When I got up I asked if I could go home. (Laughs) I started in. Every time I seen somebody that was in charge, I was asking if I could go home. I was ready because I didn't unpack yet. It took over a week. I was wanting to go home. I was crying. I just didn't want to stay there.

S. Chaddlesone: Until she saw me. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: I didn't even see him for a long time. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How long did it take you to start getting into the classes? What were some of the first classes you took?

A. Chaddlesone: They just put me in classes. They put me in painting, in Mr. Tubis's class. And I enjoyed that a while. They put me in jewelry. I was not a jeweler. I disintegrated my silver or whatever I was using.

Little Thunder: Who was teaching the jewelry class?

A. Chaddlesone: I can't remember.

S. Chaddlesone: Was it Charles Loloma?

A. Chaddlesone: No, I can't remember his name because I wasn't in there long and he wanted to send me off to another class.

Little Thunder: What did you end up sticking with?

A. Chaddlesone: They finally tried me in modern dance and that's where I stayed.

Little Thunder: And who was teaching that class?

A. Chaddlesone: Rosalie Jones. I was more into moving around a lot. I liked that instead of just sitting. I'd danced all my life. I came from a very cultural, traditional family. Did all the cultural things in the tribe there.

Little Thunder: Did you perform with the students when they took that piece out to Washington D.C [to represent the Institute's performing arts program to Congress members?]

A. Chaddlesone: No, I think it was after. But I knew everybody in the class who went.

Little Thunder: Was Jane Lind in your class, by chance?

A. Chaddlesone: She was from Alaska, and the other Alaskan girl. I can't remember the name right now. That was a lot of fun. I liked that, but then, I was in shape and I could jump around. (Laughter) Do those deer--(Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you ever kind of hang out around anybody who happened to be sculpting at the Institute?

A. Chaddlesone: Well, there were some friends of mine, like some people from Taos. I never knew any women sculptors at all. Just guy classmates. Houser, of course. He was doing something there. I think he was teaching there, sculpting 55:00and painting. I saw him around quite a bit. But the guys that I knew that were doing sculpting were from Taos.

Little Thunder: Were they working in stone?

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah. I used to kind of watch. It was always there. It always bothered me, "Gee, I could do that." (Laughs) And then, we used to go through Santa Fe a lot and see all the sculptures in the windows and go in the galleries. Even as we left IA[IA], I used to see [sculpture] and I--(Laughs) I just could do it. I could do that. I know I could.

Little Thunder: So, that was percolating--

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, for a long time. It kept bothering me. And then, we were visiting with Doug Hyde, and I kept asking little questions.

Little Thunder: After you and Sherman had been married, in the '80s?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. He sat with us and talked to us about steps. That's how it started. We were in his gallery. He had a gallery there, a studio den. We were in there and he was showing us all big sculpture stones that he had there. It was his house, too, way up there in the hills.

Little Thunder: You also visited Allan Houser's house.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, briefly. It was something I've always wanted to do. Really really wanted to. But I didn't know any women that did it, did the sculpting. 57:00So, it was just like, go for it.

Little Thunder: How did Sherman get your attention at the Institute?(Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: He chased me, as I remember. (Laughter) He was following me everywhere.

Little Thunder: Did he come to some of your performances?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, he was everywhere. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you visit Allan Houser's sculpture garden before you visited with Doug Hyde, or was that on the same trip?

A. Chaddlesone: I can't remember.

S. Chaddlesone: I think it was after--

Little Thunder: So, all these ideas are percolating about the fact you could be sculpting--then Sherman serves in Vietnam. That must had been hard time for you.

A. Chaddlesone: Oh yeah. I had a job and I stayed with his parents in Lawton. I worked at the Indian hospital there. When he came back, I worked at the museum there at Fort Sill.

Little Thunder: Did you enjoy that?

A. Chaddlesone: It was interesting. I wasn't there too long but it was real interesting. We dealt with photos, old photos. Categorizing.

Little Thunder: What was your first impression of Oklahoma the first time you came down with Sherman?

A. Chaddlesone: I came home with him on Christmas. It wasn't hot here. Maybe if I came in the summer I might not have came back. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You hadn't been painting or drawing anything yet?

A. Chaddlesone: No. [Just] office work.

Little Thunder: Were you involved with the arts workshop?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, we hung around there a lot. As far as teaching anything, I didn't. We were just there to have fun. (Laughter) We had Angela then. She was the baby. I did one show, didn't I? At the-- What's the name of that place? That was a group show, too. I did a painting.

S. Chaddlesone: Palace of Fine Arts.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, that was a good show there.

Little Thunder: In San Francisco?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it was several artists. They had all these movie stars --

Little Thunder: You must have been producing, then, in between taking care of your daughter?

A. Chaddlesone: I had a couple of paintings out there in a gallery. But it wasn't like major, you know, working. Total art.

Little Thunder: What was your style like then? Your painting style?

A. Chaddlesone: More abstract, I would say. It wasn't anything like he does. Shield-type things.

Little Thunder: In Kalispel, were you starting to get into painting again?

A. Chaddlesone: No, I started working in clay. Tried that. And I did another 61:00group show with the Daybreak Star. I was doing sculptures with them. I remember the piece that I sent, sold before the show started. So, that kind of encouraged me. I said, "Hey, I can do more of this."

Little Thunder: What kinds of clay things were in the show?

A. Chaddlesone: One I did was mother and child. That was one of my favorite subjects that I do.

Little Thunder: Did you put any kind of color? A slip?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. The lady had a Hudson Bay blanket which is Northern. And that's about it. She just had long hair, she had the baby and a cradle board. 62:00So, I got encouraged there. I just kept it up, but [the clay] was too slow for me. I like to get in there and just do it, finish it. Like stone. Stone is real easy to do for me.

Little Thunder: When you visited with Doug Hyde, did he tell you how to look for your stone or did you just have to figure it out?

A. Chaddlesone: I think he got his from Fort Collins. In fact, he gave me a little piece of stone. It was so small. I think we still have that. I didn't do 63:00anything with it. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: When you were leaving did you swing by Fort Collins, after that visit?

A. Chaddlesone: The next thing I knew Parker was here and he was all excited because he had found some stone. Remember that?

Little Thunder: Here in the area?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. That was crazy. We were all happy. (Laughter) He was so happy. We were out there as soon as we could.

Little Thunder: Parker had been sculpting, I guess, since the Institute. In any case, he was a sculptor that you could also talk to, right?

A. Chaddlesone: Oh yeah, he used to work in our backyard all the time. We were all working like crazy. (Laughter) This stone around here, it's like alabaster. 64:00It is not like the Colorado stone. Probably a little bit softer. But it was easier to start working with, and the colors are a lot different than Fort Collins. They have more sand in it so it has more--what would you call it? What's the word? Spots? Mottled?

Little Thunder: When did you start placing your sculpture with galleries? Do you remember some of the early galleries you started?

A. Chaddlesone: I did the [Anadarko Indian Fair] show.

Little Thunder: Was that your first show?

A. Chaddlesone: I think so, but I was just kind of messing around a little bit 65:00with it already.

Little Thunder: Did you sell a couple of pieces?

A. Chaddlesone: No, I just entered that one.

Little Thunder: In a competition?

A. Chaddlesone: And I won. (Laughs) For stone.

Little Thunder: Was that your first award for sculpture? What was that like?

A. Chaddlesone: It was fun. Then I knew. I always knew I could do it. There just was no doubt about it.

Little Thunder: There weren't a lot of Indian women sculptors.

A. Chaddlesone: No, not that we knew of at all.

Little Thunder: Did you feel like you had to work harder to prove that you could do this?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it was work. Really hard work. (Laughter) There was a lot of mistakes. Did a lot of terrible things to my stone. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What is one of your more memorable mistakes?

A. Chaddlesone: Dropping it when it was almost done. The garage has a cement floor. If you don't have it down good, it slips and it's gone. I don't know what it would do on marble. I don't think marble would break that easy, but with this stone here it does.

Little Thunder: When you first started sculpting, did you discover muscles you didn't think you had?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, you get that elbow thing from hitting. (Laughs) I remember 67:00I used to just get real sore but I didn't care. You just want to get through, get finished. It's really an exciting feeling to get started and get it done. (Laughs) We used to just have so much fun when we would go to this quarry out here. We'd go in there and you see all those--if you could bring all the stones home, you would. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Here in Anadarko?

A. Chaddlesone: No, it's out of town. Where they do some blasting and you go in there. I don't know if they do that anymore. Probably not. (Laughs) You could just see everything in there. You see all these sculptures already almost made.

Little Thunder: It must be kind of hard because your initial expenses have got to be more than like for a painter.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. When we do up to Colorado, it takes a lot of money. You have to pay for your stone by the pound. Then you have to have it shipped on a freight track. So, it's expensive.

S. Chaddlesone: And then, the tools are special tools--

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, they're expensive.

S. Chaddlesone: You've got to search them out--they're pretty expensive--and they don't last long. (Laughs)

A. Chaddlesone: In Denver is where we usually get our tools. It's a very expensive art when you come right down to it, if you can't find your stone yourself.

Little Thunder: Sherman picked up sculpture more seriously after you started on your work, right? Was it pretty soon after?

S. Chaddlesone: No, she'd been doing it for a couple of years before I tried it.

A. Chaddlesone: I don't even know what he was doing after that. (Laughter) I was in my own world.

Little Thunder: He hadn't been polishing or anything? You were doing the whole process.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. At first, and then he helps, and vice versa. Whoever needs help, We both know what we are doing.

Little Thunder: Among the galleries in Oklahoma that handle your work, I know Doris Littrell did, and she had been already showing Sherman's paintings. Do you remember the first time you brought a sculpture in to Doris?

A. Chaddlesone: No, because I had other galleries that I was approaching then. The one in Norman. I can't remember their name.

Little Thunder: The Olsens?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, and then the Art Market. So, I had a few different places. 70:00In fact, I think there was one in Yukon and Colorado Springs. I just, I was ready.

Little Thunder: I remember reading that, when you were starting to sculpt seriously, you were doing from thirteen to fourteen shows a year.

A. Chaddlesone: It was a lot, yeah. Maybe more. From here to Washington, I had galleries. So, I'd always have to have several sculptures ready to take off and they'd be waiting to buy them. We had a lot of people up there waiting for them. It wasn't just Oklahoma or one gallery. It was along the way. That made it 71:00really helpful when we traveled.

Little Thunder: I am trying to remember if you did Santa Fe Indian Market for a while?

A. Chaddlesone: No. That was weird, we never did. We'd go and look around. In fact, we would be up in Washington about then. We'd be up there--going up there to dance. We had other things to do, too, besides art. So, we weren't just one thing.

Little Thunder: How do you think your sculpting style has changed over the years?

A. Chaddlesone: I really don't know. I do a lot of them because they're an order and they stay the same because that is what people want. These two commissions that I did, I tried to keep them kind of northern, for the area. It was for the Kalispel tribe, the Northern Quest Casino and Hotel. That was for their grand 72:00opening. It's a very elegant hotel. Just beautiful as can be. One's in the dining room and one's in their long hallway. They'll probably change it around, but they're in very prominent places.

Little Thunder: What were the images?

A. Chaddlesone: One I titled On the Flowery Trail, which used to be a trail from the Kalispel Reservation over to Chewelah, and the Indians went back and forth on that trail. I did this sculpture of a lady with flowing hair and that blanket and I called it On the Flowery Trail. The other one was a warrior, just a bust of a warrior. Not of Masselow, but in memory of him.

Little Thunder: He was one of the Kalispel chiefs?

A. Chaddlesone: Yes, so they were pretty happy with it. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What kind of stone did you use for those?

A. Chaddlesone: Colorado stone. I was really happy to do it, that they let me be the artist to do that.

Little Thunder: You were the right one. When did you begin incorporating stones like turquoise, in your work?

A. Chaddlesone: It was pretty early on in my work. I thought it was pretty neat, putting stone on stone and then the pots [inside the stone sculpture].

Little Thunder: Did you make those pots?

A. Chaddlesone: Some of them are made out of stone, some of them are from New Mexico, Santa Clara [Pueblo], and that's about it.

Little Thunder: Were there any other sculptors that inspired you or were maybe an influence?

A. Chaddlesone: Well, all of the sculptors. I think they were all really neat. I like all of them. The ceramicists--Bill Glass, Mike Daniels. They do the pottery. And then Parker and Sherman. And the bronze. I like the bronze. I think I might be starting that.

Little Thunder: You've done a little bit of bronze work as I understand.

S. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it's old school. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What was your first time you tackled bronze?

A. Chaddlesone: I helped [Sherman] with his bronze out there [at the American 75:00Indian Hall of Fame]. So, I have a little bit of experience with the wax.

Little Thunder: [Was this] the bronze bust of T.C. Cannon?

S. Chaddlesone: I did five of them total. Late '80s through late '90s.

Little Thunder: So [Allie], you helped with the wax process?

A. Chaddlesone: So, I kind of got a grasp of that. (Gesturing) I don't care for the wax. I don't like it. Now I've heard there is an easier way they have been doing it for a few years now, so I am going to try it again. It's messy. I don't like that wax. (Laughs) (Gesturing) And then I did that one, [mother and child]. 76:00I forgot all about that until [we] got it [out]. (Laughs) That was done with kind of like plastic clay, I guess --

S. Chaddlesone: Original form.

Little Thunder: To make the mold? It's got some really wonderful detail.

A. Chaddlesone: See that cradle board? That's like our cradle boards up north. They [have] the round board.

Little Thunder: We didn't get to talk quite so much about how you [two] help each other with the sculpting process but when you were both doing sculpture, as I understand it, if you had roughed out the stone, he might switch off and polish for you for a while or vice versa.

A. Chaddlesone: Just when we needed help. No, I want hands on.

S. Chaddlesone: There were times when she had rush orders and then I would help her then. I would do the rough work and she would do the detail and I would help with the polishing.

Little Thunder: As Sherman said, you've a lot of times done women and children. You've also kept this simplicity, this elegant, minimalism to your work.

A. Chaddlesone: I don't do very much detail. I don't like to do that. Just my style is the other way. Have to keep the lines real clean and smooth.

Little Thunder: You've done a lot of dancers and there's something that stone 78:00conveys about dancers really well, the way someone carries themselves. There's a nice emotion to your dancer figures.

A. Chaddlesone: You can go around [the sculpture] and look, too, and [get] a lot of movement, the feel of movement there.

Little Thunder: When you were at your busiest doing sculpture, how many pieces were you putting out [in] a month?

A. Chaddlesone: I have no idea. One time, I tried to figure it and just couldn't. It was crazy there for a while. There was even one time where I about went crazy. Indian Territory Gallery in Sapulpa. Remember that? She ordered fifty little sculptures that were to look all the same. We should have done that 79:00[in] bronze, but she wanted them all in stone. I about went nuts. (Laughs) Insane.

Little Thunder: That must have been a lot of work. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: It was. I wondered why I agreed to it after a while. (Laughter) Those were some of the crazy times. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Your miniature sculptures were always just wonderful. How did you get the idea for doing the small pieces?

A. Chaddlesone: From some stuff I messed up in there. (Laughter)

S. Chaddlesone: It was one of her broken stones. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: I hated to waste it. I didn't want to waste pieces that could be used, you know. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What are some of the solo shows that you have done over the years?

A. Chaddlesone: I don't think I did any, did I? I always did group shows.

S. Chaddlesone: The closest one you ever did was the State Capitol. You and I showed there.

A. Chaddlesone: I never did really do a one-man show.

Little Thunder: How about your Southern Plains show? Was that an important show for you?

A. Chaddlesone: It was real nice. It was a really good turnout. I think they said it was one of the best ones that they had here. Ladies' show. And I was in a ladies' show in Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: Who were the other women sculptors or painters?

A. Chaddlesone: There was a Fragua. I can't remember her name. She did sculpture. I think there were only two, though. I can't remember her first name.

Little Thunder: Nowadays you're mainly working on commissions. Do commissions present a challenge?

A. Chaddlesone: Not really. It just depends on what subject it is. They usually know my style, anyway, before they'll ask--just like these two ladies [who ordered sculptures]. I guess I have to do the potters, but those are easy to do for me so it's not a real challenge. I can do that.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process, from the time you sort of get your ideas?

A. Chaddlesone: Just look at the stone and start. I don't sketch. I just look at it, and then decide what it is going to be and get started.

Little Thunder: Even picking it up at the quarry, are ideas already kind of percolating?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it's that simple. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What's the next phase of the process? Let's talk about your tools a little bit.

A. Chaddlesone: Use your files. Just file it down until it is fine enough to start sanding. Sand then polish. I use several grades of sandpaper to get it to where, when it polishes, it will be super shiny. You have to get to your ultra sandpaper. From your coarse clear to your ultra, all of the different grades of paper to make it however you want it. You polish it and then you're done. Put it on a base.

Little Thunder: And you build your own bases?

A. Chaddlesone: He does. He's the base maker. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: The special tools for sculpting in Denver, what are [they]?

A. Chaddlesone: Filing, mainly. All kinds of different files you have to use for different parts of your stone.

S. Chaddlesone: Sizes and shapes.

A. Chaddlesone: That is the word. Sizes and shapes. Then you have to buy your--what do you call that stick, that buffing stick you use?

S. Chaddlesone: I can't remember.

A. Chaddlesone: It looks like chalk, but it isn't. That is what we used to put on our buffer to polish it.

Little Thunder: You have your space set up in the garage. Is that right? Where you work?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, but I can work anywhere. He always says he has to have a studio. (Laughs) I could sit here and work if I had the chance, but nobody wants me in here working.

S. Chaddlesone: She trashed out a motel room in Colorado one time. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Working on the road is just something so many artists have to do.

A. Chaddlesone: Isn't that fun?

Little Thunder: I would think it would be really hard with sculpture. (Laughter)

S. Chaddlesone: She wrecked the air conditioner. (Laughter)

A. Chaddlesone: And probably their sink after sanding all of that stone. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: But you got it finished.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, I got it done. There was a lot times we had to work on the road and those were all fun times. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Over the last few years, you've run into challenges with your sculpture. Went through a period where you weren't able to work for a while.

A. Chaddlesone: Oh yeah. Came down with breast cancer. It was caught in time. So, I was out of commission, you would call it, for a few years. I just finished 85:00my five years of survival last October.

Little Thunder: Congratulations.

A. Chaddlesone: They've let me go, except for once a year, I have to go back. But that slowed me down quite a bit. Due to the--they severed some of my nerves [in the operation]. That took a while for me to get back. To get my arm back, too.

Little Thunder: That was your right arm, the one you depended on?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, it still numbs up quite a bit and I'm still numb back here (Gestures to back of shoulder), but otherwise, I'm okay. I thank the Lord.

Little Thunder: Have you adjusted your approach to sculpting, working shorter periods of time?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. I just work when I feel like it, when I'm able, and I still love it just as much as ever. I am just so happy I learned how to do that 86:00because it's something I really, really enjoy doing.

Little Thunder: How important are titles in your work?

A. Chaddlesone: I'm not like Sherman about titles. (Laughs) Because usually sculpture, you can look and it just speaks for itself. A painting, he feels like he has to have a story title to it. Most of his stuff has stories to it. I like to do just images, and most of the time they tell what they are. There's really not a big story about it. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: In terms of your more important awards, would Red Earth be one of the places you won? Do you remember the first time you took an award at Red Earth?

A. Chaddlesone: Oh, yeah. I was going (gasps), "Ahh,"--I didn't want to walk up there. I knew I would probably fall down or do something. (Laughter) It's crazy because I have been known to fall. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What was the image, the first award that you won at Red Earth? Do you remember the sculpture?

A. Chaddlesone: I can't remember.

Little Thunder: Did it sell at the show?

A. Chaddlesone: I think so. The other one was, I remember Doug Hyde and Kevin Redstar and Bill--what was his name?

Little Thunder: Prokopief.

A. Chaddlesone: I think they were judging one year and I got second there. They were teasing me about finding a scratch on it. (Laughs) They said, "Do you know why you got second?" (Laughter) I said, "What?" And they said, "Can't you see it?" And I went all over, I looked. I could never find it. They said, "Somebody 88:00covered it." I said, "What are you talking about?" They said, "Well, that's what did it, a little scratch on there." (Laughs)

Little Thunder: When I talked with both of you in the mid '80s, there was a lot of sculpting activity among the young people here in Anadarko. Is that the case today?

A. Chaddlesone: It started out--I don't know what happened. I think they found out it's not as easy as it looks, for one thing. I don't know. It just disappeared. There's a few people still doing that but not as much. There was one point where we thought they could do it too, but you have to stay with it. 89:00And then, you have to find the people that want to buy it, if that's what you want to do.

Little Thunder: That business part is hard, isn't it? Did you ever get any good business tips from another sculptor?

A. Chaddlesone: I think we just learned from our mistakes. We had to live and learn and some of them were pretty costly. First time, we didn't keep receipts [for] the business part of it. We just went out and did whatever. (Laughter) I mean, just like it was nobody's business but our own. Wow, tax time. Whooo! (Laughter) You will learn real fast what you have to do.

Little Thunder: Pricing's kind of tricky.

A. Chaddlesone: That's another thing. A lot of people don't realize the business part of it. Somebody should tell them. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Maybe you can have a workshop.

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah, I should. I think they had one here at one time but probably nobody listened.

Little Thunder: In terms of pricing, did the galleries help you or did you just sort of figure that out?

A. Chaddlesone: I think we probably just figured it out ourselves and went from there. Well, Parker was around, too, and we all kind of decided on prices, didn't we? (Laughter) Because if somebody really sells low and the others are selling super high, it gets crazy. And we have to decide, too, who is more experienced in it. A newcomer just can't go and sell something for a high price 91:00unless they're super good. (Laughs) It takes time to build up.

Little Thunder: As far as you know, there's no young women who are taking up sculpture here in the area?

A. Chaddlesone: Ted Creepingbears' wife was doing it. I don't know what happened to them. I think they just don't sell anymore.

Little Thunder: You have grandkids. Anybody among the grandkids who is kind of interested in art?

A. Chaddlesone: Oh yeah. (Laughter) Her grandpa steals her ideas, she says. (Laughter) She's eight. She's the artist. She really draws a lot. Pictures. She's supposed to start painting this year. She hasn't started yet.

S. Chaddlesone: She says I stole one idea from her. (Laughs)

A. Chaddlesone: And that other one. At lunch she said, "Grandpa stole my idea. I was going to do that." So serious. (Laughter.) (To Sherman) Well, maybe you did. She's a real artist.

Little Thunder: So she will have your blessing to explore that?

A. Chaddlesone: Yes. She is real fun.

Little Thunder: What is her name?

A. Chaddlesone: Summer. In fact, she was trying to work on my sculpture. I caught her on my commission. (Laughter) She had that file in there. (Laughter) She's a character.

Little Thunder: Allie, as you look back on your career so far, what was one of the major turning points for you?

A. Chaddlesone: Turning which way? Better or worse?

Little Thunder: Just kind of a fork-in- the road moment.

A. Chaddlesone: Where I decided what I was going to do? Probably that Daybreak Star show. That's probably when I decided I was just going to do that. Do art. In fact, I was working in an office most of my life then, and we just let all that go and went totally into art. People said we were crazy.

Little Thunder: It's hard when both people are doing art full time, isn't it? A lot of artists will have spouses working.

A. Chaddlesone: Sometimes we wondered what we were thinking. (Laughs) But something was always there with us to get us through, and inspire us and keep us 94:00going. Of course, our kids, they grew up in the art world. They were all little hors d'oeuvre kids. (Laughter) There were several artists' children that used to always see each other at shows. (Laughs) Other people wouldn't dare let their kids in a gallery.

Little Thunder: I know you have lost some of your artist friends, but are there others that you keep in contact with?

A. Chaddlesone: Mostly everybody we see at the shows and see all the time. Familiar faces. Small world.

Little Thunder: Will you do Red Earth this year?

A. Chaddlesone: No. I'll be around. I've been dancing there through the years. I 95:00don't think I'll compete this year. I'll probably just go dance. Our little grandson may dance there this year, so I need to be ready. Summer, she's dancing, too. If they want to dance, we'll have to be there for them. Last summer, during the Indian Fair, it was so hot. She wanted me to dress, so she could go dance. And I couldn't say no. It was so hot. I had a buckskin dress on. (Laughter) I'd just smile and get out there.

Little Thunder: That's what we do for our grandkids.

A. Chaddlesone: Oh, you have to. (Laughs) If that's what they want to do, you've got to do it.

Little Thunder: What has been one of the highlights of your career so far?

A. Chaddlesone: Highlights? Probably that commission [for the casino]. I wanted 96:00to do it.

A. Chaddlesone: Because all of my work's always been here, south, in the stone. They always heard about me doing that, but they'd never seen my work. And they finally got to see what I really did for a living. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Were they doing research and contacted you or had you contacted them?

A. Chaddlesone: They contacted me. They always knew I did this type of work. I just never had enough to bring up there. Sometimes I would bring stone and work in the yard up there at the house. I never did finish anything there. (Laughs) I was always too busy, visiting. But I'd sit outside and I'd work, chip away. The family would sit around and watch. They'd never see me finish anything. (Laughter)

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

A. Chaddlesone: Like he said, we lost some friends and that's really, really sad. It happened so quick, and like him, (Sherman) he's the last of the mural guys. It's really, really rough. Parker, every time he was around here he would come over here. He was our brother, Indian way. And it was really a shock to us. He painted and sculpted, too. [We] just miss him a lot.

Little Thunder: Is there anything we overlooked that you would like to talk about?

A. Chaddlesone: I can't think of anything right now. I think I have talked enough, the most I've talked in a long time. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: We're going to look at your cast paper picture, which is beautiful. We'll try to catch up with your sculpture in another session. Do you want tell us what this piece is called?

A. Chaddlesone: This is titled Mother and Child on the Prairie. It's an edition of 15/100 and it was done in 1986. It's cast paper, and the subject is a Northwest or Northern tribe, with the cradle board. The shell dress and the shell earrings makes you know where it's from.

Little Thunder: Can you talk a little about the cast paper process?

A. Chaddlesone: I did the clay on a table. I flattened it out and then started cutting away the outline and the figures. Kind of like sculpting it out until 99:00you get to what it's like, and then you put a mold over it and let it dry. Once you get the mold, you get the paper and leave it sitting there.

Little Thunder: It's got such nice dimension, the face.

A. Chaddlesone: It takes a while for the paper to dry to get that pulled out of your mold. Let it sit and then you're done. I didn't do the actual casting, I had Linda do that, but I did the image.

Little Thunder: Well, Allie, thank you so much for your time today and thank you for talking to me.

A. Chaddlesone: Thank you.

------- End of April 21, 2011 interview -------

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson- Little Thunder. I am here with Allie Chaddlesone on May 21, 2011 at the Art Market. We are looking at an example of 100:00Allie's sculpture. I wonder if you would talk to us about this particular piece.

A. Chaddlesone: This is a dual piece, I guess you would call it. This stone is Colorado alabaster that I went and picked up in Fort Collins, Colorado. I just looked at it and I saw this.

Little Thunder: You saw two images [back to back]? Does that happen very much?

A. Chaddlesone: No. For some reason I just thought it would come together like that and I guess it did.

Little Thunder: The drummer, maybe doing an honoring song or something, is that 101:00what you had in mind?

A. Chaddlesone: Yes, and it just felt right to do it that way, so that's how it happened.

Little Thunder: What a wonderful idea. Your cast paper sculpture, which we did look at, I understand, went to a celebrity. Can you tell us about that?

A. Chaddlesone: Willie Nelson. He was selected as Indian of the Year [at Anadarko Indian Fair]. I can't remember the year. I guess it was in the '90s, and he ended up with one of my cast papers. I hope he still has it. Whether the IRS got a hold of it, I don't know. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Were you the one that got to present it to him?

A. Chaddlesone: I just gave it to him and we got our picture taken together. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You did a series for Shirley Wells at Indian Territory Gallery called the Collectors Club. It would be hard for a sculptor to do a series.

A. Chaddlesone: Yes, it was. That was a chore. Fifty little pieces that had to look alike. And all of them had the little turquoise, so I had to find all these miniature turquoise to put in them. To get them, that was a real challenge.

Little Thunder: How did you even get the stone to [match]--A. Chaddlesone: I know. I don't know. (Laughter) A miracle.

Little Thunder: Could you get a couple of sculptures per stone?

A. Chaddlesone: Oh, I can't remember. I did it somehow to keep the stone color uniform. Keep it as close as possible. That was really--I don't know how I did 103:00it, but it happened. (Laughs) I pulled that one off. I think there were several artists that did that [series], too.

Little Thunder: But I don't think there was another sculptor. I think you might have been the only sculptor. That's quite a feat. (Laughs) Thank you very much, Allie, for your time.

A. Chaddlesone: Thank you for having me here and doing this. I enjoyed it.

Little Thunder: Sherman, we're looking at one of your [sculptures] now if you want to talk about this one?

A. Chaddlesone: The stone is alabaster. I believe that particular stone came from Colorado. I did that in 1992. The title is Buffalo Chief. The inspiration 104:00loosely honors one of my grandfathers who had a headdress of eagle feathers, some call a war bonnet. And he also had buffalo horns on it, attached to it. It's not an exact portrait of him but that was just the inspiration.

Little Thunder: It has some wonderful incising for texture, a beaded section on the war bonnet and the necklace, too. So, pretty much when you saw this piece, the image came to you?

A. Chaddlesone: Yeah. It was more or less just built into the stone.

Little Thunder: That's beautiful.

A. Chaddlesone: Thank you.

Little Thunder: Thank you for talking to us about it.

------- End of May 21, 2011 interview -------