Oral history interview with Jeannie Barbour

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is May 4, 2011, and I'm at the Chickasaw Nation Communications headquarters, interviewing artist Jeanie Barbour. Jeannie, you're currently the Creative Director of Communications with Chickasaw Nation, but you're also a well-established graphic artist whose work has received many honors and awards over the years. Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Barbour: I was born in McKinney, Texas, and early on, my family moved to Los Angeles, California. So, I actually grew up and spent most of my younger years in Los Angeles. But in high school, our family moved back to Oklahoma. So, from high school, all the way through college and my adult life, I have spent here in Oklahoma.

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

Barbour: Well, my father, my biological father, is a metal artist. He works in metal, and he likes to make jewelry. But he spent most of his life working either for ring companies or for medallion companies, and he was a designer. My mother is a retired nurse. Of course, she loves the arts as well and dabbles a little bit in drawing and painting herself.

Little Thunder: Looks like you inherited talent from both sides. Are both sides of your family Chickasaw?

Barbour: No, just my father's side. Yes, as far as the Chickasaw side, we have many, many artists on that side of the family. In fact, my great-uncle is Clayburn Straughn, who was a sculptor and also a very excellent illustrator. He 2:00illustrated for The Journal Record and some other newspapers and magazines.

Little Thunder: Did you have much contact with either set of grandparents, or was that more after you moved back to Oklahoma?

Barbour: As far as the Chickasaw side, it was more after I moved back to Oklahoma. My mother's side, a lot of her family is in California, which is the primary reason why we moved there. So, I had a lot of contact growing up with her side of the family, the non-Indian side. But I always kept in contact with my granny, who was my great- grandmother. She was an original enrollee for the tribe. And also, my grandmother, her name was Lillian.

Little Thunder: What are your earliest memories of doing art?

Barbour: I can't remember a time when I wasn't drawing or painting or doing something. I think the earliest piece of artwork that was saved by my family, I was four years old. I attempted to draw my little brother after he was born. Of course, he's, like, enormous and my mom is like this little person. (Laughter) There's some sort of psychological thing there, I'm sure. But anyway, he was probably my first portrait. It's still in the family, that drawing. I was four.

Little Thunder: In elementary or primary school and secondary school, were you able to take art classes? Did they offer art classes?

Barbour: Yes. The Los Angeles school system had a tremendous program for arts and music and dance and that sort of thing. So, I felt very fortunate to grow up getting to take art classes in the public school systems. Also, I participated in different clubs, especially in Junior High where I got to paint and draw. I remember having the opportunity to work with the folks that created puppets with Jim Henson, and that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that immensely. For a seventh 5:00grader, that was terrific.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) You've mentioned some of your extended family members who were artists. When did you see your first piece of Indian art, your first Indian painting?

Barbour: When I was a kid, in different--I guess you would call them trips, that the school would take to museums in Los Angeles. Of course, once again, there are a lot of really wonderful museums to go see. I think my first piece of Indian art was a painting that I saw in a museum. Of course, they were Mission Indians, and I had always grown up knowing that I had Indian blood. My mom made 6:00sure that I understood the history and the connections that I had with the Chickasaw Nation. My sister and I always knew that that was a very special part of who we were.

Little Thunder: So, she encouraged your exploring that. Did you happen to go to any Indian doings out in L.A.?

Barbour: No, no. I do remember--and this is very odd--but I do remember going to a car dealership one time because we were looking for a new car. It was on the weekend. They were having some big celebration, and they had a Fancy Dancer there. This was the first Fancy Dancer I had ever seen and I was just fascinated, just fascinated. I probably was in the fifth grade. I just couldn't 7:00take my eyes off of him. (Laughter) I thought it was fabulous. That was probably the first time I actually got to see somebody in regalia, and it was very, very exciting for me.

Little Thunder: So, in high school, you're taking art classes. Did you have a particularly outstanding teacher at that level that really encouraged you?

Barbour: Yes. By then I had moved to Oklahoma, and I attended Wilson High School, which is a really small town near Ardmore. That's actually where a lot of my family is located. And I remember Mrs. Kanega, she was my art teacher. Loved her, just absolutely loved her. I don't know if she's still teaching, and I haven't heard from her since I graduated from high school many eons ago. But 8:00she encouraged us in one of our projects to do portrait illustrations, in stippling, of family members. I chose to do one of a really old photograph of my grandmother, back when she was going to Wilson High School as a young teenager. And I just loved that project. I used to have that piece of art, but I've lost it in one of my many moves.

Little Thunder: When did you sell your first piece of artwork?

Barbour: Let me think. It was probably after college. I sold my first piece of artwork at an art show. It was a local art show in Ardmore and somebody 9:00expressed an interest in it. It wasn't a piece of Indian art. I had illustrated a car, an old antique car, and this gentleman liked it, and he bought it. I was so excited because now I was professional! (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Do you remember the price?

Barbour: Sixty-five dollars, something like that.

Little Thunder: That's pretty good in those days. (Laughter)You got an associate's degree in Fine Art from Murray State College. How did your classes there help prepare you for your career?

Barbour: When I first started at Murray, I didn't know the first thing about what I was doing. I had always loved art, and I painted, and was sort of self- taught, except for the art that I did and the instruction I got in the public school systems. But, really, I didn't know what I was doing. I had stretched 10:00this enormous canvas and painted a giant fish. And my painting instructor was very kind in critiquing me. (Laughter) He showed me mercy. But at the end of all things, it was suggested that perhaps I should gesso over that and start again. His name was Mr. Milligan, and I owe a lot of gratitude, and I have a lot of respect for that man because he took this novice person who didn't know the first thing about what they were doing, who wanted to make a career of it, and really showed me the avenues to take in order to try and make a career of doing artwork. They always talk about starving artists, and he was always very honest, 11:00"It's going to be a rough road." But he helped me a great deal in my first attempts at trying to become a professional at it.

Little Thunder: So, you knew from pretty early on, even at Murray, that you wanted to be an artist.

Barbour: Yes, yes I did. I knew since grade school that's really all I wanted to do. Now, I was interested in writing, but I really thought I was better at art, so that's what I concentrated on.

Little Thunder: You went to OSU after Murray State College, and you got a BFA in graphic design and three dimensional design. Can you explain three-dimensional design?

Barbour: Well, I just had a knack for it for some reason. It was sculpture, 12:00actually, and it was modern sculpture. Of course, my uncle did very realistic pieces when he was alive, sculpture, bronze sculpture, representing Indian people. I had taken a class--and I'm sorry, I don't remember the name of the professor right off the bat--but he really sparked my interest in modern art and sculpture. I participated in a group art project in his class in which we took objects, normal everyday objects, and took them out of what their normal reality would be, and put them somewhere else. And my object was a giant role of 13:00Charmin' bathroom tissue. I made it into a costume, and we walked around campus and videotaped me. (Laughter) I've got that videotape somewhere. We just did some crazy things, so the three-dimensional design was fantastic. I loved it. Never thought that that would be something that I would be interested in. But, of course, painting and drawing was really [my] first love, and my painting teacher at that time was Marty Avrett, just love him to death. He was always concerned with your artistic integrity. That seemed to be the speech I would get a lot. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Were you doing any Indian subject matter at all at OSU or not yet?

Barbour: Very little. Not really. My uncle was encouraging me to get into it, 14:00but most of what I was doing at that time--I was very intrigued with photorealism and doing objects and portraits of people I knew. That's basically what I was doing at college. I didn't really get into Native American art until later on, when I got the job here at Chickasaw Nation. That was twenty-one years ago. [I] really felt like if I was going to represent the tribe, I really needed to do a lot more study and talk to some of the tribal elders. That was actually a suggestion that Benjamin Harjo gave me at an art show once. He looked at some of my art--he was kind enough to look at some of my art and critique for me--and 15:00he said, "You need to talk to your elders. You need to really study some of the traditions and start representing your people." That's really how that started. And that was like twenty-some odd years ago.

Little Thunder: So, in the early--are we at the '90s at this point?

Barbour: Yes, late '80s, early '90s.

Little Thunder: I think a lot of Indian artists had a struggle with wanting to represent their own tribes, but feeling like there wasn't really a market for that if they were one of the Five Tribes. When you started doing Indian images, were you doing some Plains images?

Barbour: Yes. Started out with going and photographing at different pow-wows--dancers who would allow me to do it. I would ask first. And doing 16:00regalia and really trying to represent them as best I could, not knowing what their culture was. Ben Harjo liked what I was doing, but felt like I should really concentrate on my own tribe. It had never occurred to me, and I thought, "You know, I do need to do that!" Of course, Southeastern art really wasn't being done at that time. Nobody was out there representing Mississippian period symbolism or going to stomp dance and trying to do that in a big way.

And in the beginning, when I first came to the tribe, it was difficult to talk to different folks. It wasn't until maybe four or five years down the line when people felt comfortable with telling you things about certain cultural aspects of the tribe, about stomp dance, about the songs and some of the oral traditions that I began to really see, "Hey, there's just such a rich and interesting culture that we have." My mom told me all that she could when I was growing up, but she was non-Indian. Most of what I have learned has come from the last twenty years or so, talking to tribal elders that have shown an appreciation for 18:00what I'm trying to do and for the artwork that I've done. [They] have been really helpful--and attending stomp dance, and participating in that to a certain degree. I know it's a lifetime commitment if you really are doing stomp dance, but they've been kind enough to let me socialize with them, our stomp dancers. (Laughter) They've taught me a great deal as well.

Little Thunder: When you were doing booth shows, who were some of the artists that you admired?

Barbour: Well, of course, Benjamin Harjo, love his stuff. Mike Larsen, I've 19:00known Mike a long, long time. Back when Doc Tate was still alive, I loved talking to him. He and his wife were just wonderful, and she was Chickasaw. I enjoyed Mavis Doering. Would sit and talk to her about basket weaving and all of the wonderful things that she could put together that I just was at a loss trying to do myself. I felt very honored when she gave me a little honeysuckle basket that she had made once. Of course, Dorothy Sullivan, absolutely love her work. It's kind of similar to what I do as far as the women and family themes, 20:00that sort of thing. Don Nieto, I believe he's from Santo Domingo, Pueblo, love his jewelry. He came to one of our festivals once because he was curious about what we did here. (Laughs) He brought his jewelry and was very well received.

Then a Chickasaw artist, Joanna Underwood. Does fabulous pottery, she's an incredible artist. Of course, Gene Williams--he's no longer with us--but he's another Chickasaw artist. I had a lot of respect for his artwork because he represented little-known cultural traditions and beliefs that, to the untrained 21:00eye, when I first would look, it was like from another world. But after so many years when you learn some of these things and they're shared with you, suddenly it all makes sense, the paintings that he did. Just wonderful, wonderful pieces about the Tree of Life and the old Mississippian beliefs systems for how you belong in the universe and that sort of thing. We have a few of his paintings in our Council House Museum, and I could stare at those for hours. His work was fabulous.

Little Thunder: Approximately how many booth shows were you doing a year when you first got your feet wet?

Barbour: Well, there's like a season. We would start out--my mom did a lot of 22:00traveling with me. And then after Micah came along, he was sort of forced to come along as well. (Laughter) We sat him up under the booth, and he'd have all his toys and whatever. He kept himself entertained. But when I was doing that, we would start off in May, June. Red Earth would kind of be the kick-off and then go all the way through until October. That's pretty much where I would cut it off, in October.

Little Thunder: Did you go out of state quite a bit?

Barbour: Sometimes. Would go to the Dallas market, went to Ashville once, but mainly here, in Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: Women artists often have different challenges as professional 23:00artists than men. Were there some special challenges that you faced as a woman artist?

Barbour: Well, I'm single and had a child. (Laughs) And of course, you have to haul your stuff. Some of it was really heavy, the panels that I used to put up, the panels and the lighting and all of that. I would just have to figure out how I was going to get it there because at that time, I had a car. I got a little Honda, and somehow, I got it all crammed in there, along with the baby stuff and my mom, and we'd be off! As far as challenges having to do with artwork being accepted, I really didn't have any issues that way. People were very accepting 24:00of the kind of artwork that I was doing. And I was able to sell art. At the time, though, if you wanted to make money at a show, you needed to win the competitions.

Little Thunder: I wanted to ask you, yes, what was an important award that you won?

Barbour: I did really well at Red Earth the first couple of years that I was there. Won in the Graphics Division. I did really well at Bartlesville, did well at Dallas Market as well. Once you've made your expenses for the trip, everything else was gravy. If you sold a piece, oh, wow, that was great! Didn't make a whole lot of money--or at least I didn't on the show circuit. The money 25:00came when people started asking me to do commission work. That's when I could actually make money without a whole lot of expense up front, so to speak. So, that's what I've been doing, really, for the past ten years is mainly commission work. I haven't done a show in a long time because with the work I do here with the tribe, I don't have a whole lot of time to build up an inventory. And you really have to have an inventory in order to go and set up a booth. I'll finish a commission piece and I've got another one waiting. So, that's really where the inventory is going. It's pretty much sold before it's finished, and I prefer it that way. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So, basically, the importance of awards is that you're getting 26:00these people requesting commissions?

Barbour: I think it got my name out there. Collectors, I would say, liked the idea that there was an award attached to a piece of the artwork, but for the most part, they were looking for a certain thing. They had certain tastes in artwork. I find that they want warriors or they want something that represents objects, like a still life. Different people like different things. The people that buy my stuff are looking for the kind of thing that I represent, which is 27:00usually women, children, and family-type themes.

Little Thunder: Before you came to work for the tribe, you worked for a couple of companies as a graphic designer. What did you do for them, and how did those skills carry over into your art?

Barbour: Well, I worked freelance first and came in contact with a lot of different advertising agencies in Oklahoma City. Probably my first job, though, was working for Award Design Medals. My father got me that job. He was working in the drafting department, and I was straight out of college and needed and wanted an art job. So, I was put in the art department, designing medallions and belt buckles. I see these belt buckles even today, walking around, on men, these 28:00big cowboy belt buckles. That was really my first job. After that, I decided to jump out there and see if I could get into the advertising field and do some illustration for different clients. I was able to introduce myself to some agencies in the Oklahoma City area. One of the agencies was Marcom, Incorporated--they hired me to do a lot of stuff for car advertising--Scholtzsky's Sandwich Shops, a mall in Norman, the Sooner Fashion Mall--they were one of my clients.

Little Thunder: Were you doing visuals or were you doing text or both?

Barbour: I was doing ads. I would illustrate, like a Schlotzsky's Sandwich and then built the ad. For the car dealerships, they always had their own clip art and stuff. This was back in the days when you had the wax machine, and clip art was actually clip art. You clipped it out and stuck it through the waxer, and then you set it into your ad. So, I did a lot of junk mail pieces that would hang on doors and be sent through the mail, that sort of thing. (Laughs) That was my beginning in the advertising world. And through that job--I worked there for four years--through that job, I met the folks here at Chickasaw Nation, who were in need of a brochure, an economic development brochure, that they were 30:00going to take to Germany and Japan.

They were going go to on a trip with Bellmon, I think it was. Governor Bellmon was doing some sort of trip for economic development for the state of Oklahoma. The tribe had unique economic development capabilities, being a sovereign nation, so through this agency, we put together a really nice piece, and that was my introduction. And the tribe wanted to work with us because I was Chickasaw and this was an opportunity for them to work with a Chickasaw artist. So, from that, I was offered a position here. It seems like forever ago, but I 31:00was offered a position in their marketing [department], which was very small. At that time we had 250 employees here. Everybody knew everybody else. Now, we've got well over 10,000 employees working for the tribe. But that's how it started out. They offered me a job if I would move to Ada and do the same thing for them, except working for them, not working with the agency so much. So, that's what I did, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.

Little Thunder: Working in the same place as your dad, that must have been kind of nice, too, because you hadn't had that much contact growing up.

Barbour: It really was. We got to know each other during that time, and I grew 32:00to appreciate his talent. He had a marvelous talent for three-dimensional, fine jewelry pieces. That's what he did in his off-time. Of course, on the job, he was like me. He was constructing belt buckles and medallions and that sort of thing. But in his off-time, he did some beautiful jewelry.

Little Thunder: Was it Indian jewelry or contemporary jewelry?

Barbour: It was contemporary jewelry. He would set stones and that sort of thing, and I really didn't have a whole lot of exposure to that. They were delicate, small, really tiny, delicate pieces, very feminine, pretty things. He did a lot of that for commission work as well. Then his brother, my uncle Lance--he's a marvelous painter--he works here as well. His work is just 33:00fabulous. He works in acrylics and oil paints, I believe. His work is on canvas, so I got really to know him better as well.

Little Thunder: Once you had come to the Tribe, had you already gotten your Master's degree in Native Studies?

Barbour: Oh, no. And I don't have my Master's--I have a first year of work in that. I had left the tribe because I wanted to get my Master's in Native American Studies and Museum Studies at OSU. This was well into my career here. Let me think, 2001. I decided that I wanted to become more involved in the 34:00construction and the exhibits at the Chickasaw Cultural Center, which had been a twenty-year process.

When I first came on board here, I attended meetings with tribal folk in different towns to talk about what they would want in a museum or cultural center. This project really meant a lot to me, enough that I wanted to learn how to put together exhibits and that sort of thing. So, I decided to take a sabbatical and go back to school. For a year, I studied to get that degree and 35:00then got a phone call from Governor [Anoatubby], who wanted me to come back to work, and so I did, and still got to work on the cultural center and its exhibits and see that to fruition, which was really exciting.

Little Thunder: It's a fabulous museum. You've taught some art classes at various times. Has your teaching impacted your art in any way?

Barbour: Most of the art classes that I've taught have been beginning classes. They've been classes for beginning students. And you actually learn a lot from beginning students. That was a lot of fun. I haven't gotten to do that much in the last few years, I just don't have the time. But going back to the basics is always good. Going back and remembering all of those foundational aspects of 36:00putting a piece of art together, I find refreshing, really. It reminds you of really proper technique. Those things that you're trying to show students, they're learning it for the very first time. So, I would say, as far as my own art work, it reminds me a great deal of the foundation of what you're supposed to be doing. Sometimes you don't think of that, but you're forced to when you're trying to teach it to somebody else.

Little Thunder: Were you named a Master Artist of the Five Tribes?

Barbour: No, and I don't know where that came from. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: It came from the Internet. But thank you for clarifying. (Laughs)

Barbour: A lot of people--I will show up at different things that I am making a presentation for--and that will be on my [bio]. And it's so embarrassing because that is something I have not achieved yet. I'm sure the Five Tribes Museum is out there thinking, "Well, that's a little pretentious." So, no, I haven't got there yet. But my Uncle Clayburn, he did, he's a Master Artist.

Little Thunder: I realize you weren't immersed in the gallery scene as long as some people, but I'm wondering what changes you might have noticed from the '80s--the Indian art scene in the '80s and the '90s.

Barbour: I think artists, Native American artists, are a lot more savvy now in the business end of things. They can deal with the gallery owners, I think, a 38:00lot more effectively than when I first started out. I didn't care for the whole gallery scene, quite honestly. I didn't like it much. I've had some not-so-good experiences with some of the galleries as far as, you do a lot of the work and weren't making a whole lot of the money at the end of all things.

Little Thunder: Or being paid promptly, did you have problems like that?

Barbour: Yes, yes, that sort of thing as well. But because I haven't really involved myself with galleries for some time, I really don't know what the scene is like, but I see artists out there now, the young artists coming up, who are, I think, a lot more savvy than I was and a lot more business minded than I was, 39:00twenty-some odd years ago.

Little Thunder: In 1990 the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was passed. You were already working for the tribe, and I don't know if you had to--artists also could ask for letters from their tribe, allowing them to call themselves Chickasaw artists. Did you have any experiences with that?

Barbour: Well, it was interesting because most shows and galleries didn't really, in the beginning, understand the law very well. They required a CDIB [Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood]. And really, if you look at the law, CDIB really doesn't have a thing to do with it. It's whether or not a tribe recognizes you as an artist that belongs to them.

Little Thunder: That can represent this particular tribe.

Barbour: So, there was a lot of confusion in the very beginning and a lot of controversy. Oh, my goodness, a lot of hurt feelings. Some artists that had been working for years and had built a career and reputation as Indian artists suddenly are being questioned, and that was really unfortunate. I never really had to deal with that because I had a CDIB, and that seemed to be all that anybody was interested in. We had discussed here at the tribe, several artists. And, of course, Lona Barrick, who's over our Arts and Humanities division, had discussed several years ago, the law and what the law seems to require, and the 41:00possibility of putting together a letter that Governor might sign.

But it's not something that they ever did because I think, quite honestly, it's not something that anybody really requires. They ask you for your CDIB. And for the most part, Chickasaw artists have a CDIB, and they present that. It wasn't really an issue here so much. It was kind of an interesting time to look at other tribes that did have major issues with it, and also, the whole state-recognized artists. That was an odd thing that was happening as well.

Little Thunder: What's one art award or honor that's been particularly important to you over the years?

Barbour: An honor? I have to say, I'm always thrilled to death when I meet a 42:00complete stranger and they know my art, and they'll say, "Oh, I just love your art," or, "I just love what you wrote in that book." Because I've also had the opportunity to write while working here and publish a couple of books. That's the biggest honor. As far as the awards and that sort of thing, I think recognition from Red Earth that one year for Graphics really meant a lot, because I had, I felt like, finally reached that place where the tribe and the traditional customs and the theme and the different things that I'd hoped to come together must have, or they wouldn't have recognized that piece of artwork 43:00as being superior that year. That felt good because then I knew I was on the right track.

Little Thunder: In 1996, you were a part of a select group of artists that got to show their work at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Did you apply for that?

Barbour: I'm really not sure how that came about. I was contacted by Lona Barrick. Right now, she's the administrator over at the Arts and Humanities and she said, "Hey, we're going to get together a group of people," and I think this museum contacted her. They were part of the Olympic program in which they were trying to represent artists that were indigenous to the area. These countries 44:00from all over the world were coming in, and they wanted to show Native American art. They had to contact us here in Oklahoma because we no longer are in our homelands, so we said, "Yes, we'll come there." It was just two of us representing the Chickasaw Nation, me and Joanna Underwood. She brought her pottery, and I brought my paintings, and we loaded up a van and drove out there. Lucky me, I got to fly. (Laughter) But Lona and Joanna and another lady, Gingy Nail, they drove all of my paintings and the panels and all the stuff you have to haul, and, of course, all of Joanna's wonderful pottery out to Atlanta. We set up, and it was really a terrific week because we got to meet so many 45:00different people, not only people from the Olympics, but other artists from the area were represented as well. We were just the Indian faction. We never really got down to where the Olympics were going on. Most of our activities took place there at the museum.

Little Thunder: That might have been fortunate because I think they had that terrorist bombing there, too.

Barbour: Yes, that was the one evening that we had free, and we thought we would go down there, and I just wasn't up to it. (Laughs) I was dead tired, so we didn't end up going, and it was a good thing. It was a good thing we didn't.

Little Thunder: That's a blessing. Had you been to the Southeast prior to that or visited historical sites in the Chickasaw homelands?

Barbour: No, my first trip, actual trip, that concentrated on the Homelands in 46:00different sites was probably about five years ago, and that was an extraordinary trip. I had been to the Southeast before, but it was mainly to Memphis and places like Elvis Presley's Graceland, and that sort of thing. And to have the opportunity to actually go and take a tour of historic sites along the Natchez Trace in Alabama on Bear [Creek], that was great, that was fantastic. I had a great tour guide. She's Chickasaw. At that time she was working for the National Park Service, and she agreed to take us around and show us all of these little 47:00known places and tell us stories about them. And you get a wonderful feeling. I don't even know how to describe it when you visit where your ancestors came from and where they're buried. I have to take that back. I did go to various museums during my NAGPRA days. I worked as a NAGPRA representative.

Little Thunder: Do you want to explain the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act?

Barbour: Yes. I was asked to participate on a negotiations type of committee for the tribe and also for the Five Civilized Tribes [as] one of their representatives during the first part of the NAGPRA days when museums were having to declare what they had. I went and visited the homelands then because 48:00there were human remains and funerary objects that we had to decide what to do with and develop a policy for that. We could either allow the museum to continue to curate, or we could take them and put them in our own museum, which I don't think was ever a consideration. Or rebury them, which nine times out of ten, that's what we did. But that was the first time I actually went to the homelands. I had forgotten about that. That was such a big part of my learning experiences, especially with traditional people, because they would accompany us as well for a better understanding of what was proper in dealing with the deceased and their objects.

Little Thunder: So, here at the Chickasaw press, you've obviously used your artistic skills as well as writing skills on several of the publications. Do you like that particular combination?

Barbour: Oh, I really did. I was real nervous about it because I had never really published a book before, and we were required to publish four books a year from the tribe. They wanted us to at least put out four books a year. They would always come out in October, so we had, basically, a year to get four books completed.

Little Thunder: That's not a lot of time. (Laughter)

Barbour: It was not a lot of time, but fortunately, we had some really, really nice manuscripts that had been submitted to us [by] people who'd been waiting 50:00forever for somebody to take an interest in their work. And there just wasn't an interest in some of the books that were being written about Southeastern history and culture because there wasn't a market. Most publishing houses, they're looking at the numbers, "Who's going to buy this? How much money are we going to make?" That was never the goal or the mission of the Chickasaw Press. They just wanted to get the information out there to people and to allow for an outlet. Not only Chickasaw Native American authors, but authors that wrote about us, for them to have an opportunity to have their book published. So, there were a lot of really good manuscripts, and that made it a whole lot easier and very exciting.

Little Thunder: And you proved there was a market after you published them. (Laughs)

Barbour: Yes, there was.

Little Thunder: You've done some different types of board and service work, but one of your positions has been on the Oklahoma Film Commission. Can you talk about that?

Barbour: Early on, in my career at the tribe, I had the opportunity to serve on that commission, and I think it's because I served on several committees with the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. So, my name was submitted, and I was appointed. It was really an eye-opening experience to meet a lot of the folks that are in the film industry here in Oklahoma because when you think of 52:00film--or at least when I thought of film--I thought of where I came from, which was Hollywood, California, maybe New York. But we had, really, quite an active film industry here. If you're looking at locations or if you're looking at actors--oh, my goodness! Native American actors here from Oklahoma are the best anywhere. I had the opportunity to meet Casey [Camp] Hornik and Richard [Whitman]. And the projects that they were working on, it was very exciting. During that time, there seemed to be a lot of friction between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but that seems to have subsided somewhat over the years. It was an 53:00exciting time for me because I was learning new things and meeting a lot of new and interesting people, and learning about the film industry and how it worked here and how it worked anywhere else. I still can't believe that I had that opportunity and it has led me to what I'm doing right now. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That segues nicely into your latest project, which is?

Barbour: It's a movie. The Chickasaw Nation for the last several years has committed themselves to producing family-friendly Native American-based movies because there seems to be a need for Indian tribes to tell their story in their 54:00own way instead of being interpreted by others. This was something that Governor Anoatubby was interested in. He jumped out there with the first movie, Pearl, which was about Pearl Carter Scott, a lady that was an early aviator, a very young early aviator. And the movie has met with great reviews.

I wrote a play about Pearl eons ago, but I wasn't really involved in the movie itself. However, the United Nations had a program that was interested in showing indigenous peoples' films to high school kids, and ours fit right into that 55:00program. They asked me to participate, me and several others here, to participate in writing curriculum for that, and we did. We presented not too long ago to the U.N., to a group of kids that had come, and that was a lot of fun.

So, I was asked to move into this project, which was about Te Ata. It's going to be a film project about somebody that nearly every Chickasaw knows about, Te Ata Fisher. She was a storyteller and an entertainer, from when she graduated from high school in 1919 all the way up until she was unable to perform anymore. She retired in, probably, [the] 1980s. She had this hugely wonderful, long career of 56:00telling stories and singing and representing Native American culture to the King and Queen of England, to the Roosevelts, and just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds--maybe thousands and thousands--of children, which seemed to be her favorite audience.

I've had, this past weekend, the opportunity to sit down and interview several of her family members, people that knew her the best. And that was an exciting thing to do. But we are now engaged in trying to write a script about her life. That's the project I'm working on now and pulling my hair out. (Laughter) But 57:00it's very exciting. It's something brand new for me, once again, but it's a chance to use my writing skills to do a movie script now. That and some of the cultural knowledge that I've gotten over the years can also be used. It gives me a little bit of an insight into where she came from because her family were language speakers, and her father was very traditional. It's, I think, a unique opportunity for myself, but also for the tribe to show some of their oral traditions and some of the things that she was known for and what she had hoped to accomplish with her career and her life.

Little Thunder: I think that sounds really exciting. Your primary tools are 58:00colored pencil. What do you like about colored pencil?

Barbour: They're very forgiving, and so is oil paint. But the pencils are a whole lot cleaner and easier to manage than oil painting. It takes longer to work with colored pencils because you have to layer one color over another to get the desired effect or the type of light that you're hoping for. It takes a tremendous amount of time. That's why most of the pieces you see in colored pencil are small, because it's so time-consuming. But once you get through with one, it's so rewarding because you've got what you've wanted and hoped for. I like to deal with a lot of very intricate pattern and that sort of thing, and 59:00pencils are great for that. Paint, not so much, but pencils, you just grind that pencil down to a fine tip, and you can pretty much get what you want. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When you say forgiving, I hadn't thought about it, but does that mean you can erase colored pencil?

Barbour: Yes. If you treat it right, you can erase, and you can pick things up. But you have to plan ahead of time. It's not something you just slap on there and then think you're going to erase a large section of it, because that's not going to happen. You have to have it well planned out ahead of time, but if there's something that you don't quite like, you can pick it up in small areas.

Little Thunder: Portraits seem to be a strong thread of your work. What do you try to convey with those?

Barbour: I find people so interesting. I love talking to people and finding out what they're about and what their interests are, and I just find people's faces interesting, what they wear, how they do their hair. All of that is something that I enjoy depicting. I guess it just simply comes from the fact that I'm a people person. I just love talking to people and finding out what they're about. As far as themes for people, I get to know people, and I try to represent what they're about through portraiture. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not. But I find that if I know them very well, the artwork comes out better for some reason than if I don't know them very well at all.

Little Thunder: I've heard that the eyes in a portrait are kind of challenging, is that something you found true?

Barbour: Yes, and I've taken a lot of classes with folks who can do eyes well, because eyes and hands seem to be difficult. Not only the structure and trying to replicate them on a two-dimensional surface, but also, if you don't get the hands and the eyes right, you don't get the person right. You don't get the essence of what maybe they're doing or who they're about. That's why I always do a face first, because if you don't get the face right, there's no point in moving on, as far as I'm concerned. If you don't get the eyes in there correctly, and they're not doing what they need to represent that person's 62:00personality, then you've lost the piece. It's time to start over.

Little Thunder: Obviously, drafting skills are important for you. Do you do preliminary sketches for your colored pencil work?

Barbour: Yes, I work entirely from photographs, because people are just bored to tears if they have to sit there for you. That's just excruciating. (Laughter) Most of my people are real people. They're not models. They're not people that are used to it, so I work with photographs. In the early days, I would use my own photographs, but I didn't much care for the lighting. I didn't know enough about photography to really light them the way that I wanted them to be lit. Of course, I didn't have the person there, so it would be hard to really try and remember, "Okay, how did that actually go?" because the photograph, it'll lie to you.

So, I made friends with a very good photographer. His name is Matt Bradbury, and for the last several years he's been setting the lights--I'll stand back and I'll say, "Nah, don't like it that way," and he'll move it around and adjust it. I don't know what I'm talking about. I just know what I like, and he'll get the lights right and shoot the photographs. And I have been much happier with the final results in the artwork when I use his photography.

I don't know if that's cheating or not, but I prefer to use photographs that I've had some input on the lighting. When I am trying to do the photography myself, I don't have input because I don't know what I'm doing. (Laughs) And I suppose I should take the time and do a photography class, but it takes years to 64:00understand the whole lighting thing. (Laughter) And I've been very fortunate that Matt likes doing it. It's exciting for him. I've been fortunate that he has allowed me to prevail upon him to shoot my folks.

Little Thunder: Sounds like a good solution. How important is humor in your work?

Barbour: Oh, I think it's very important. I want folks to feel good when they take a look at a piece of my artwork. That's why I've never really done a Removal piece. I know that it's a popular thing among the Five Tribes for artists to do Removal pieces. But, for me, I feel like it's been done. It's been done and it's been done. A Chickasaw removal has been done--it's an outstanding 65:00piece by Tom Phillips--it's like the quintessential Removal piece. And you get a certain feeling when you come back from it, but it's not the feeling that I want people to have when they look at my art. I know it's important, but it's really not something--I would probably get so depressed trying to complete a Removal piece.

Most of my work I try to infuse family, and women and children, and those events and activities that might be something considered small and not very important, but are tremendously important, not only to the families, but to the tribe as a whole. Those story-telling moments, those moments when recipes are shared from 66:00one generation to the next, taking care of a child, nurturing, that sort of thing. That seems to be what trips my trigger. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Just following up on representations of women and children, mothers and grandmothers and those nurturing bonds, can you comment on the importance of women in Chickasaw Culture?

Barbour: Oh, tremendously important. Women are tremendously important and always have been down through the centuries. We were a matrilineal society. You belong to your mother's family when you were born. It's not to say that men weren't important, they were, but women and their roles were always the glue that sort of kept everything together, that kept the tribe together socially. It was the 67:00elder women that knew who was related to who, and who could actually marry who, that sort of thing. It's a little-known fact, but there was an elder group of women down through the centuries that was always consulted before any decisions of war took place, because they came at it from a totally different perspective. It was always considered important to consult with these ladies.

So, I think, today, we have women in really important positions at the tribe on a government level, but on a family level, there's always that matriarch. There's always that one lady who everybody goes to, who's got all the answers, 68:00who knows pretty much everything there is to know about how you're related to other people, still, and the important decisions in life. Everybody goes to that person because they're the ones with the experience and the knowledge. Grandfathers are important for that also, but Grandmas seem to know what the family is about. They seem to know everything there is to know about anything having to do with the family, and I think that is extremely important, especially in this day and age. And for Chickasaws, Governor Anaotubby and this administration also seem to want to provide whatever they can to help the family, and I agree with that. I like to represent family. I had a great family, 69:00growing up. I have wonderful memories, and I like to depict those.

Little Thunder: Taking up this notion of the council of women that would be consulted before Chickasaws went to war, when you focus on these less well-known aspects of Chickasaw culture, is one of your goals to educate other Indian people as well as non-Indians?

Barbour: Yes, and there are certain things you don't depict. There are certain things in our culture not allowed to be told, at least, not by me and not in artwork that will be seen by non-Chickasaws. But a lot of the work that I do, I 70:00have the opportunity to educate about things that are special in our culture that can be told, and that's great. Writing about the illustration is just as important to me as doing the illustration itself, because it allows me the opportunity to explain something about what somebody's wearing or what somebody's doing or the event that this person may be involved in. Those things are important and may be lost on folks that aren't familiar with the culture. Unfortunately, with our tribe, we've lost a lot of that, and there's a real hunger out there, especially among Chickasaws outside of Oklahoma who want to know more, who want to read more. It's like they just want to absorb whatever 71:00they can because it's part of their identity. And being able to share those things is immensely rewarding for me, personally, because I was lucky enough to have them shared with me at one point or another.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process?

Barbour: Sometimes it's dreams. Sometimes I'll see something and I'll think, "Oh, that was so neat, I need to do that." And sometimes, with commission pieces, I'm just asked to put together something that represents a central theme. The last really big project that I worked on was for St. Anthony's Hospital. Somebody came to me and said, "I will pay for this project, but we're 72:00donating it to St. Anthony's Hospital." So, they wanted something--they really didn't nail me down on anything. They just said, "We want something that will represent abundance and good health and just fullness of life." I had seen a lady here at the tribe who reminded me a lot of all of that in her traditional regalia. I decided to use some symbolism with her, and she very graciously allowed me to photograph her. We photographed her with corn and a black bird, which represents a lot of very positive things having to do with good health and abundance and that sort of thing. It was a very large painting, probably one of 73:00the largest ones that I've ever done, and I decided to do it in oil.

That was a different way of going at it. I was given the general idea of what they wanted to have hanging on the wall, and then I was left to try and pull it together. But for the most part, it could be anything. Like I said, a dream, something I just see in passing--

Little Thunder: Will you sketch it real quickly or just keep it in your head?

Barbour: Yes, with my little stick figures. (Laughter) I'll talk about it more than anything in a little diary that I have. "Okay, I saw this and this, and this is what it represents to me," and, "I could use this, and I could use that." All of these little ideas get stored up in a diary, and eventually, I'll get around to them. But for the most part, it's just a diary of a lot of little ideas because, right now, I haven't had the opportunity to really do a whole lot 74:00of my own artwork.

Little Thunder: You've explained very nicely your interest in people. I don't see a lot of developed landscapes in your work, but I do see a lot of animal imagery, often people and animals coupled together, and I wondered if you could talk about that from a Chickasaw cultural viewpoint.

Barbour: Well, animals played a really--and still do play a really big role in a lot of cultural ideas, a lot of cultural belief systems within the tribe. Oral tradition, for instance, a lot of our stories are animals talking to each other about complicated issues. And I'm lucky enough to get to illustrate a book with some of those animal stories in it. But I use the animals usually to try and 75:00illustrate either a cultural statement that I'm trying to make or, for instance, with the Raccoon clan and the Bird clan, the little boy and little girl, sort of my interpretation of Pinky and Blue Boy, it was an opportunity to represent a couple clans. The Bird clan was a big warrior clan for the tribe, and the Raccoon clan was also a very interesting clan. So, it was an opportunity to talk about those two clans, and so I put the animal figures in there to also illustrate that. That's pretty simplistic, there.

Some of the other things that I've done, like The Journey, where I'm using animals and different objects, are a little more complicated and in-depth. That 76:00takes a little more explanation to go into because not everybody understands what some of the symbolism means, especially the Mississippian period symbols. You have to do a little bit of study to figure out what some of those different symbols represent. I try to use those to basically harken back to that old system of belief that everything was based in Nature, everything had a purpose, and the purpose wasn't always right there in front of your face. Some of it was hidden. Talking about the three different levels of what Chickasaws used to believe the universe was about, the tree of life, those types of things, I find 77:00just immensely interesting. And all kinds of opportunity arise from these things to talk about how intricate and how special Chickasaw culture really is and was.

It's kind of a new avenue that I'm going in, lately, but it's something that I think is important. We really started using a lot of that with the cultural center and trying to explain what some of this means in some of the programs down there. A lot of our printed pieces have the different symbols from that period, and they're beautiful. They're beautiful symbols, and they each have a 78:00meaning, and they have a purpose. And putting them in the art work not only gives it a Southeastern flavor or feel, but there's meaning there, that I can convey beyond what I've used in the past.

Little Thunder: What has been one of the high points in your art career so far?

Barbour: Getting to work on books and using some of the cultural knowledge and art in designing books, that was pretty cool. Having the opportunity to paint and actually get paid for it, or to draw and actually get paid for it, that people will pay me money to do this, that's really a high point for me. 79:00(Laughter) But also, I think in my art career, just having the opportunity to study and to talk to the elders about our culture and our traditions, because they are the receptacles of all that knowledge. To just be lucky enough to get to talk to them, not only about what they know about culture, but about their lives. What exciting lives they've lived. They grew up in a time when it wasn't very popular to be an Indian person. In fact, federal government was trying to assimilate them, yet they hung onto the language. They hung onto these beliefs, and they lived events in their lives that were exciting and sometimes horrific and have seen so many things in the twentieth century and what their perspective 80:00is. That's a high point, and really, the art is what brought me to that more than anything else.

Little Thunder: What has been a low point in your art career?

Barbour: A low point-- Not getting to do it as much as I want to. I feel very guilty about that. I really do. I get irritated at myself because I'll come home dead tired, and I might have two hours that I could be working on artwork, and I just want to hit the hay, you know? And then I lay there and feel really bad about it. (Laughter) But I would say I wish I had more time. I wish I had more time to do the artwork, but the projects that I work on for the tribe are just as important to me, and they're very time- consuming. It's never been a 81:00nine-to-five job. It's weekends. It's nights. It's whenever other people are available to talk to me. That's when I get a lot of my work done. So, I would say artwork, not getting to do it. That's a low point.

Little Thunder: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about or anything we forgot to mention?

Barbour: I have a son. He is also very interested in art, but in his younger years, he did a lot of drawing and a lot of painting, but he has sort of transferred that to videography. It's a medium I don't know anything about, but 82:00he has that same kind of drive and interest and obsession that I had about drawing. He has it for videography and putting together video projects, and that's exciting to see. That's really neat because I can see in him a lot of the way I was when I first started out with the artwork, only he's into video. And I'm very proud of the projects he's put together, I have to say. He's very good.

Little Thunder: That's neat. So, that artistic legacy is--

Barbour: It's another generation down, yes.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) Alright, well, we're going to take a look at some of your artwork. Would you like to tell us about this piece?

Barbour: This piece is called A New Day Dawning. I was asked to participate in a project a few years back in which we celebrated the 150th anniversary of our 83:00Chickasaw Constitution. I was asked to put together a piece of artwork that they could put on print pieces and develop a poster out of and note cards and that sort of thing. And, of course, I immediately went to what women might have thought about this constitution. At the time, there was a newspaper called the Chickasaw Intelligencer that was out there. I did a little bit of research, could not find the actual newspaper, so I made my own.

I thought women would be reading about this, Chickasaw women. They would be interested in knowing what this new constitution was about and when it was going to be ratified, and they would be attending the big constitutional discussion and event that took place at Pennington Creek, down in what was then Tishomingo 84:00City. It's Tishomingo now. So, I thought, "We'll have these two ladies read the newspaper and find out what this constitution was about." It was a brand new way of looking at tribal government for us and, of course, the ladies would be involved. I used ladies that work here at the tribe as my models, and they, again, very graciously allowed me to photograph them reading the newspaper.

Little Thunder: A good example of your realistic style. Now we're looking at a couple of cards, reproductions of originals. Would you like to talk about those?

Barbour: The one with the man, the Indian man with the baby, that's actually my son, Micah, and his father. He was not very old at all, and I just took a 85:00photograph of them sleeping, not in buckskin. He was in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, but I included the buckskin. I just thought, "What a sweet, sweet picture." This seems to really resonate with a lot of moms. A lot of moms like this.

Little Thunder: And this one?

Barbour: The other one is the Story Teller, and it is a piece that I did several years ago with Glenda Galvin. She was telling stories with a group of children, and she's one of our traditional story tellers. Her stories have been passed down in her family for many generations, and of course, most of them are about 86:00animal stories. In the background, the trees back there are actually animals, some of the animals that you would see in these stories. I did this as something I wanted to do. This is a piece that I wanted to do, and the tribe liked it so much they used it as a theme that particular year for their festival--oral tradition and paying homage to the elders and like that. So, it worked out well. It worked out well for them to have a printed piece and for me to get to do a piece of artwork that I've been wanting to do for some time.

Little Thunder: I think I'll have you hold up those original illustrations for the book.

Barbour: Okay. This is the Tree of Life, and I wanted to do something that would represent one of the central ideas in old Chickasaw beliefs about how the world 87:00was and how it was put together. But I wanted to do it in such a way that it would be of interest to children, that children might be able to connect with it. It's a tree, and the upper part of the tree and its branches stretch into the heavens. The middle part of the tree is actually where we are at on earth, and then the roots of the tree go into the underworld. It's an explanation of how the world is, basically.

You have the heavenly body, which everything is in order, everything is the way it should be. Then you've got chaos that takes place down in the underneath world where the roots are. And we are in the middle, constantly being impacted 88:00between chaos and perfect order. Of course, animals are part of that. And if you went with this strict Mississippian belief of what these animals are, anything with wings would be from the heavens, anything that flies is from that part of the world that has got perfect order. Anything that is below the water would be from a place of chaos. And then there are super natural animals, which I did not represent here. Some of those animals can travel in between all of these different parts of the universe, through different, I guess, portals, in old Mississippian belief. But I tried to represent that in a way that kids might connect with and make the animals whimsical and kind of fun. And this was a 89:00departure for me. It's more cartoony kind of illustration. And it was fun.

Little Thunder: I bet. We'll just go ahead and look at a couple of the other illustrations for the same book--

Barbour: This will be the cover of the book. This is Crawfish and the creation story. That's one of the illustrations for that first story in the book, which talks about how the earth was created. The story starts out where all the animals of the earth are on a raft. And I got to thinking, "Well, how am I going to represent that?" And I thought, "They're going to be really crowded, and they're just going to be somewhat uncomfortable." Some of them looking off into other areas, wondering, "Hey, what are we doing here?" So, that's how I 90:00represented the raft. Then I put some Mississippian period symbols in the raft itself. But the story is basically about how Crawfish was able to fix the dilemma. Because they're on this watery waste, floating aimlessly, and he said, "Why don't I go down and bring some mud up? Why don't I create earth?" (Showing the artwork) So, that's what this one is. It'll be on another page, basically, like that, on that side. He's got his mud chimney there. And he's starting to create earth and, of course, I included the buzzard on the first one because the buzzard created the valleys and the mountains with his wings later on. But this 91:00is the first story. The next story will be about a duck, her babies, and a wolf. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Well, we look forward to seeing this book come out, and I want to thank you, Jeannie, for your time today.

Barbour: Well, thank you. This was such a pleasure. I've had a great time.

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