Oral history interview with Gordon Yellowman

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is November 21, 2011, and I'm at the Cheyenne Arapaho tribal [Department of Education], interviewing artist Gordon Yellowman. Gordon, you've worked for the C-A tribe in Culture and Heritage and Education. You're an adjunct professor at Southwestern [Oklahoma] State University, and you have important ceremonial and leadership roles in your tribe. You're also an artist, perhaps best known for your ledger art. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

Yellowman: You're welcome.

Little Thunder: Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Yellowman: I was born in Clinton, Oklahoma, at the Indian hospital there. I grew up in Watonga, Oklahoma.

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

Yellowman: My dad worked for the Pioneer Telephone Company. He was what you call a linesman. He would climb telephone poles, and he would be laying new lines 1:00across western Oklahoma. My mother served as a teacher's aide for the public schools there.

Little Thunder: Did you spend very much time around your grandparents?

Yellowman: Yes. From what I remember, I really was fortunate to be able to learn from my grandmother as well as my grandfather. My grandmother's name was Mary Alice Antelope-Yellowhawk, and my grandpa was Fred Yellowhawk. My grandmother was a bead worker but a ceremonial lady, as well, and so I was very fortunate to be able to spend time with her during the summer, as well as my grandfather, who I'm named after. He gave me his Cheyenne name, [Yellowhawk].

Little Thunder: You're fluent in Cheyenne? Is that right?

Yellowman: Depends on fluency. I can understand more than I can speak, but as I 2:00learn--I'm currently serving as the director of the language program for the tribes, and it's starting to come back, the memory of talking Cheyenne as well as talking Arapaho because my father was fluent and my mother was fluent. Father was Cheyenne, and my mother was Arapaho.

Little Thunder: What is your earliest memory of seeing art?

Yellowman: My earliest memory of seeing art is--I'm going to tell you a story of how it all began. We all went to my grandmother's house in the wintertime when it was snowing, and she gave us this Big Chief tablet and pencils, and she said, "You boys quit jumping on the beds and quit running around. Come to the kitchen table and draw." So we all sat at the table, and everyone's all looking at each 3:00other trying to see what we're drawing. I was about, I'm going to say thirteen years old when I was introduced to that tablet by my grandmother.

For me, I didn't want my siblings, my brothers, to see what I was drawing, so I get up, and I go to the window. It's snowing, and I look out, and I see the corral of our horses. There is the young yearling, the baby horse that's with the mom. I start sketching the horses, and I was so excited because I drew the horses. I couldn't wait to get home to tell my mom and dad. I was all excited, and I ran in, and I showed them my Big Chief tablet with my drawing on it, and I said, "Mom! Mom! Dad, look what I drew!" Their response was, "No, you didn't." I 4:00felt like a balloon losing its air.

I just kind of didn't know how to respond to that. I was disappointed. Little did I know, later on I realized that was their challenge. They challenged me to prove to myself to keep drawing, keep drawing, keep drawing. After that, so to speak, the Big Chief tablet was my very first introduction to ledger art because that's where ledger artists started drawing: in these journals, these ledger books that the Army officers had. I can relate to that story, paper being introduced to them as a new medium, and so it was introduced to me by my grandmother, Mary.

Little Thunder: Did you have any extended family members who were artists?

Yellowman: My dad was quite an artist. He always doodled around and did sketches. I remember one time--he was good at cartoons, and I remember seeing a dictionary where he would draw animals in a dictionary. If the animal was incomplete, he would finish the drawing. I never saw him paint. I never saw him draw, produce drawings, but he was always doodling. On my mom's side, there was a gentleman by the name of Wayne Arthur. He was very, very good at drawing. He was my mom's relative on the Northern [Arapaho] side, and he came one winter and stayed with us.

He would always draw. I remember this so vividly and clear because in December, the National Finals Rodeo always came on, and he would draw those ropers, those 6:00bull riders, those bareback riders, saddle bronc. It was just amazing how he could draw them. I'd always sit down and tell him, "Draw the bull rider. Draw the bareback," and he would sketch it in paper. So it was there that I started admiring what he was doing, how he drew to make it come alive. I just admired him for that, and I couldn't wait for him to come back to the next visit. I kept some of them drawings, and throughout the years they were misplaced. So he's the one that had a lot of influence on making me sketch every day.

Little Thunder: That was action, which is hard to do.

Yellowman: Yes, he was doing action. It was just amazing, such a photographic memory of all the action. The horse, again, the horse was very important to not 7:00only the Cheyenne people but Arapaho as well as Plains people. That horse was there when I looked out the window.

Little Thunder: Am I right that your signature, your artist's remarque, is a horse?

Yellowman: Now, yes, my signature mark is the horse because of the icon of how I draw it. It kind of has my own, so to speak, trademark, and I can identify that's my horse because of the way I draw it. There's always something that will tell you as a collector or person that knows my art, that is my work.

Little Thunder: Sherman Chaddlesone's grandma kept one of those Kiowa calendars, and he saw that when he was really young. I was wondering if you saw any ledger art at a young age or not.

Yellowman: Not really. The only thing that I remember seeing is, as I said, my grandmother was a bead worker. She made moccasins, and she made different types of beadwork. One of the things I remember is she had this strip of buckskin, and they had all her designs on it, all her beadwork designs. I don't know that there was a specific name for it, but every bead worker had that piece of canvas or buckskin with their moccasin designs, their dress designs, their shirt designs, their men designs, women designs, animal designs. That was where I was introduced to seeing images of art.

Little Thunder: Geometric.

Yellowman: Yes, geometric. For me, as far as ledger, throughout my career and 9:00repatriation work with this new law that came about, NAGPRA [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act] in 1990, I was the first Cheyenne representative to do repatriation and represent the tribes in going out to various museums, national museums.

I went to Denver and looked at the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers ledger book, and that was quite inspiring to me. Then I also looked at the Fort Marion [Florida] ledger artists there. That was the beginning of ledger art for how they were documenting history, actually telling real-life stories and history of what they experienced and what they missed as a culture, as a people. Then I went to New York and looked at ledger books there.

I started looking at ledger books through my work and started to study it and started interpreting these stories of what they were saying and started to find out that they're actually historical accounts that reflect not only their experiences but Cheyenne history.

Little Thunder: I want to come back to that a little bit. When you were in primary and middle school, in public schools, was there any art instruction? Up through high school, do you remember taking any art classes?

Yellowman: No, I never took any formal art. I just really kind of like doodled around, never took it serious, and it's just something that I always thought was 11:00a challenge by my parents to keep doing it, and I did. Back then I was just doing it for a dollar here, dollar there, sell something. I'll tell you a story about how I started. I didn't take any formal education in grade school, junior high. Then I left, and I went to Idaho during my high school freshman year, eighth grade transitioning to freshman.

I went to Idaho, and I lived in Rigby, Idaho, for a year, and I learned to drive a truck there. I was very young, and I worked at the potato cellars. I had to 12:00drive the trucks through the cellars and load them, and then drive them to the fresh pack, they called it. One of the drivers didn't show up one day, and so the boss man comes down there, and he says, "You're going to have to drive the truck through the cellars." Didn't know anything about driving big trucks in stick shift. He gave me a crash course, and that's where I learned how to drive these big trucks.

After that experience, I'd gotten along, and I said, "Well, I want to go back home to Watonga." I was entering into the tenth grade, high school, and I befriended this white girl. She was pretty. Of course, you see her, you get there. When I first went back to school, she came and talked to me, and she was 13:00the president of the class. I admired her for coming over and talking to me because she made me feel like, she made me feel good as a student. She came and sat by me, and, of course, her being a white girl and me a Cheyenne, it made me feel like she was listening or acknowledging me than my own peers and friends.

So I had to transition into high school and then became acquainted with her. It was my junior year where she was the president of the play. They put on a play in the high school, and I can't remember what it was. She said, "Hey, I've got a favor to ask you," and so I said, "Sure, what is it?" Kind of like, "Yes, I'll 14:00do something for you as a friend." She said, "I need you to make my props for our play." She said, "I know you draw, and I've seen you draw." I said, "Sure." Her and I, we got to spend a lot of time together, so it was like, "Wow, I'm around her!" (Laughter) You know how that goes.

We go down, and we collect cardboard boxes, and I painted cars. I painted their backdrop with the windows, everything they needed. I painted a horse. Everything they needed for their play, I did it out of cardboard. When the art teacher, who at that time was Judy McCombs, she was the high school art teacher, she came down there when we were working on the set. She stopped there. She looked, and 15:00she asked my friend, "Where did you get these props? Where did you buy these props?" And she said, "I didn't buy them." I was sitting in the auditorium, waiting on her. I was sitting there, and she pointed at me, "He did it."

She came right over there, and she grabbed me by the arm, and she said, "You're going with me." I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble. I shouldn't have done that." We marched down to the office, and I thought I was in trouble. She said, "I'm enrolling you in my art class for next year, your senior year. Why haven't you enrolled in ninth, tenth, and eleventh? Why haven't you?" I said, "Because I felt like no one cared about my art. No one appreciated it, so I just never took 16:00formal art." That senior year, she gave me a little corner in the area of the classroom, and she blocked me off from everybody.

When she took me to the office, I felt like, "Oh, I'm the Indian, and she's going to get me in trouble again, or she's going to blame me for something, being around these white girls or something." That's how it was back then. It was very hard to befriend girls that weren't of your race. It just wasn't heard of. That year, my senior year, all I did was produce art. She said, "Just draw and paint, draw and paint." She lived a mile from me. I would run out of supplies sometimes, and I would walk over to her house, and she'd give me paper, give me whatever I needed to keep drawing. She's the one that really began my 17:00formal art career in how to draw and got me in an art class. That year, I was recognized. I got an award for my art, a high school student. I admire her for taking me into that office and enrolling.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Were you painting any Indian subject matter?

Yellowman: I was just kind of painting anything I could. I painted acrylic paintings and I painted--back then, the black light was very popular, so I did neon colors, black light colors on felt. I started drawing posters of bands back then: Grand Funk Railroad, Mott the Hoople. All of those bands, I would draw them and paint them, then I'd sell the posters in school, ten dollars, five dollars, and back then, then I would use the money to buy me more paints and buy 18:00me more brushes and buy me more canvas. Back then, we didn't have stretched canvas. We just had board canvas. I would have to buy my own felt just to stretch it and paint a poster and then put a black light under it, and it was like, "Wow!" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You went to OSU briefly.

Yellowman: Yes, my next step in my education was back in '87. I started working for the Cheyenne Arapaho tribes in 1979 under the CETA program. It was called Comprehensive [Employment and] Training Act, and I started working right out of high school from '78 to '79 for a year. Then the tribes picked me up after the program. Then in '87, I started out as a janitor, mopping floors, sweeping and 19:00vacuuming hallways, and emptying trashcans. In '87, I said, "I need to do something with my art. I can't be a janitor all my life."

So then I went back to school at Canadian Valley Vo-Tech. It was a commercial and graphic art program, and I finished that. It was a two- year program, and I finished it in one year, and that year I was voted the outstanding IT student of the year out of all the students. Then Oklahoma State University gave me a tuition-waiver scholarship, and that's where I went. It was Oklahoma City extension, OSU school.

They didn't have any art classes. They just had architectural. The tuition was paid for me free, so I went there from 1989 to '92. Spent two years there. I 20:00went on from there, and I came back to work as a consultant, learning how to do illustration design work there on illustration boards. I designed schematic designs of how the building was going to look at the end of when it was built.

Little Thunder: You had that architectural background.

Yellowman: Yes, and I loved it. I loved it because what I learned at OSU is I learned how to do things shortcut. The way I was doing them before was taking longer, and they taught me how to cut that in half. That's where I learned how to do floor plans. I had to learn how to draw houses, design houses from perspective drawings all the way to specifications of a house. I loved doing 21:00designs for illustration work, and that's where I found watercolor. Watercolor, I enjoyed it because it was fast. I didn't have to wait. On acrylic and oils, you have to wait until it dries. Or when you're applying, you can't hardly work with it as you can. You can't control watercolor. It controls you. You understand it's fast, and so I loved it.

That was my education at Oklahoma State University. Loved that school. Then I learned how to design houses, write specs, so I came back to work for the tribes as a consultant for the housing program, and I eventually became housing director.

Little Thunder: When did you make your first venture into Indian art shows?

Yellowman: Well, when I first started going out of high school, I went to different small shows. I went to the very first Watonga Cheese Festival, and I got best of show there and first place.

Little Thunder: Was it for Indian subject matter?

Yellowman: No, it was open, open categories. Indian subject matter for me, it was always there. I always sketched Indian things whether they were political statements or back then, everything was about AIM [American Indian Movement], "better red than dead," those kind of statements. It's like in high school, that was kind of the trend and the movement that was going on, and it was a very 23:00powerful movement. It's kind of like you sit there and read the messages but also would stay back as an artist.

Like, how can I use my art to visualize and express how I truly feel about what's going on with the situation now versus the expression through my art? That's how I took it. I would draw things, say, for instance, the Vietnam War. I would draw images of that era and turn it into Indian. That statement that I would draw was kind of transitioning from that era into the movement of the 24:00American Indian Movement, which we were actually living with it in that time.

Indian art could have been humorous at that time, could have been political, could have been--what do I say? Humorous? But it was a pop culture at that time. That's why I have the black lights and the neon paints. It was that type of movement that I admired because of the colors. It was a very powerful color to mess with, and that's what I enjoyed about it, seeing that color come out at you at that time.

Little Thunder: How and when did you meet your wife, Connie?

Yellowman: I met Connie through working for the tribes. She was working in the 25:00planning department as a grant writer, and I was working on art projects for the planning department. I had to draw the tribal service area and all the original allotments. I was working on a mapping project, and she was sort of the program specialist at that time. Then she came, and they said, "We want you to draw these maps," because back then they didn't have computer, and they knew I had architectural training and could read the architectural scales. I understood scales. Quarter inch equals a foot, or half inch equals a mile. I could do all of that. Everything was done freehand on illustration boards. I produced the 26:00very first map for the tribes on their tribal service area, and I researched all the original allotments, and I drew them. I drew them to scale.

Connie, at that time, she came to me, (I had no idea what budgets really were) and she said, "How much time is it going to take you to draw this?" I said, "Oh, I don't know. I could spend one hour a night. I could spend two. I could spend all night. I don't know. I can't tell you that." She said, "Well, what do you need to produce this?" and I said, "Why are you asking these questions?" She said, "Because we've got monies to buy you the stuff you need that you're going to do." I said, "Oh, okay." So she bought all of the supplies, and our working relationship had begun because she would help me do the research and then tell me what she wanted, and the end product was the maps. I told her how the 27:00technical illustration pens and architectural pens were very expensive, and so I was very careful about the quality of the supplies.

So that's where we met. Then that summer, two years later, she made a vow to put up Sun Dance and get involved in our Cheyenne ceremonies. That summer, she comes to the Sun Dance, and then being acquainted with one another and supporting one another, not only through work but on the personal side of it because it transitioned over to, "This is serious." We had to respect one another at that level of what she was carrying and what my role was at that time, and it still is to this day.

That's how we began our relationship. Right after that, she goes to the University of South Dakota as [an Indian] law fellowship. She was a Native 28:00American law fellow for a year. That's when she spent a year up there teaching law, researching law. After she came back, then that's when we really started getting serious about our relationship and eventually got married. Then we had our daughter, Cricket. That's where I first met her, was there at the planning [department].

Little Thunder: It's really neat how all of this work experience threads back into your artwork, and, of course, Connie does beadwork. When you started doing booth shows, what was that like? Did you exhibit together a fair amount of time?

Yellowman: Yes. Again, it was--when she went to South Dakota, we went up there in August, maybe July, I think it was July, to go look for an apartment. We went 29:00up there, and we found her an apartment. It was that winter that she wanted to learn quillwork, so she made contact with some of the elder ladies there, the Sioux ladies, and they told her how to do it and showed her how to do it. So during the winter, that's all she did, was did quillwork to teach herself how to do it. She already knew the beadwork. She did the beadwork. Learned her beadwork from the Clinton grandmothers.

While she was there for that year in South Dakota, that's all she did, and when she started coming back, she started making different pipe bags, cradleboards, soft cradles, and different quillwork materials. I finally told her, "Why don't you come to Red Earth?" My very first time entering Red Earth was in '94. The 30:00first year, I did it alone. The second year, I said, "Let's apply together," so she applied with me, and we both got accepted. We enjoyed having a booth together. She won awards, and I won awards. We just kind of supported each other through her beadwork, quillwork, and she supported me through the paintings and the drawings I was doing, ledger drawing style. I had to create my own ledger style to be, so to speak, different from other ledger artists.

Little Thunder: I wanted to talk about that. The ones that come to mind are Sherman Chaddlesone and Sharon Ahtone Harjo did a bit of ledger work. How did you approach yours to make it--

Yellowman: I didn't have any idea how I was going to do it, so I started 31:00experimenting with it, getting different paper, ledger paper. Then I would find ledger books, or somebody would give me blank pieces of paper, and someone said, "You have to use color pencils." I started using Prismacolor because I was introduced to Prismacolor at Oklahoma State University. They taught me how to use Prismacolors, and I learned that.

I started to say, "Well, I'm going to do watercolor," so then I transitioned into, instead of doing the Prismacolor, I started painting these paintings of ledger work, and that's when I realized, "Hey, I can do this." It's my own style. It's contemporary, using contemporary style, creating your own style but 32:00still historically following what they followed. Researching ledger art, all of the Cheyenne work goes from right to left.

Little Thunder: Are you a Fort Marion descendent?

Yellowman: Yes, my grandfather was there. Of course, we're related to everybody. Many of the Cheyenne Arapaho people are related to the Fort Marion. The lineage kind of comes down and expands to immediate family and also family in general, so somewhere there's a connection there with the prisoners of war. What I want to say is I commend them for having such a vast knowledge of history and documenting it through our ledger art.

Little Thunder: I was really struck, and I don't know if it's just been the ones that I've seen, but it seems like a lot of the ledger work was done by Cheyenne 33:00prisoners. Let's go back a little bit to your first visit to the Colorado Historical Society. You went for NAGPRA, but then you started looking at the ledger work. Was there any surprises for you, I guess, when they brought the first ledger books out for you to look at? Anything surprise you?

Yellowman: It was very surprising and exciting to see it, knowing that that ledger book was produced by the Dog Soldiers, Hotamétaneo'o, Tall Bull, White Horse. Those leaders back then, they were very prominent, strong leaders in that society, strong leaders of Cheyenne. To know that it was produced by them and 34:00telling their story, seeing the art but also seeing the vivid picture of history, their encounters with the army, their encounters with the white man, it was very powerful on its own.

To hold it in your lap and look in it and hold it and see those images of history, that was very powerful, me as an artist and them as an artist, connecting with one another, not only through pages of time but pages of art, but also expressing their message and interpreting that piece of art they drew, the messages encoded in there. As an artist, you can see and interpret what they're saying, their actions and what they're doing. We had that connection as 35:00artists, and we had that connection as leaders, and so it was powerful for me to hold it and see it. I had to wear white gloves. It's like it's all about standards in museum practice.

There's a story I tell about the white gloves when I started working with the repatriation, when I very first did consultation with the Cheyenne elders, Mary Armstrong, Willie Fletcher, and also Annabelle Medicine Chips, Bertha Little Coyote. All of those elders are gone.

I took them to Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman, and when 36:00I get there, I told them, I said, "You've got to wear these white gloves." They said, "Why?" I said, "That's a standard policy before you handle objects or artifacts. You've got to protect yourself and protect the object. There's acid buildup on your fingers, and your fingerprints could get on the object. These objects have been treated, some of them chemically, and we don't want the poisons to get on us. So these gloves are our white sage. We use our sage to purify ourselves before we work, anything we do. These gloves are that sage." They said, "Oh, okay," so they put them on. That was it.

I had to be creative in transitioning the traditional value versus the museum 37:00value of how they do that. I always remember that story about the white gloves, how I had to be creative. Then, when we started the video camera recording, they said, "What is that?" I said, "Well, when we look at an object, it's going to spark your memory, and you're going to start telling stories about your grandmother, your mother, or perhaps yourself, of what you know about that object. It sparks your memory. This video camera is the white man's memory." They said, "Oh, okay." So that was it. (Laughter) I had to be creative again in explaining and making them comfortable and accepting that it was okay. That was 38:00my work in NAGPRA, learning how to be creative.

Little Thunder: Once you had seen that ledger art at the Historical Society, you also looked at it at the Denver Art Museum and then at the Smithsonian?

Yellowman: Yes, the Denver Art Museum, they had contemporary ledger art done by contemporary ledger artists, and that's where I learned. I looked at theirs, and they're very powerful, colorful. One thing there that certainly caught my eye was the parasols, the umbrellas. That's when I started drawing parasols and umbrellas, incorporating it into my ledger art.

Little Thunder: Who were a couple of the artists that you particularly thought did a good job?

Yellowman: There was a lady at the Denver Art Museum who had one drawing. I can't remember her name right off the bat, but her colors were so bold and the umbrellas and the way she drew the horses. I remembered that one painting in the collection at that time on the wall, so I marked that.

As far as artists like the Dog Soldier artists, the more you study ledger art, you can start seeing, start determining who the artist's style was because one artist drew a horse different from the other. You start to recognize through looking at and studying these ledger drawings. You're starting to see a consistent pattern of, "Oh, that may be drawn by White Horse." "Oh, that might be drawn by Tall Bull." You start to see.

There's no signature on it. There's a name glyph, but the name glyph is identifying who's in that ledger drawing. It may not be the artist, or could it be the artist drawing himself. Those are some of the questions that still remain, but you can see the pattern of how that horse is drawn. "Oh, that's by--"

Little Thunder: One of the problems with the Native art, when the work is created for the commercial market, is that it may be missing part of its context. How do you address that in your own work, your own ledger art?

Yellowman: Going back to the economics of it, you're going to make your artwork or transition your artwork into what's selling. It can be very popular culture art, so whatever's happening at that time, they all want to be part of that 41:00economic boom or value, and we automatically as artists will render something that's going to reflect what's popular.

Ledger art, when I first started doing it back in the '90s, I want to say '95 to 2000, was very popular. You were competing with everybody because everybody was doing ledger art. Today, there's very few that are doing it, especially Cheyenne artists. I think there's me that's doing it, James Black, Frank Sheridan, that are truly dedicated to putting our work for ledger art. We continued it. We didn't stop. Others that were doing it, they stopped because it was just an 42:00economic time, a value. "Oh, well, that's not popular anymore, so I'm not going to do it."

You have to be very dedicated if you're going to do it, to stick with it. A lot of it is, so to speak, generic. A lot of it is stereotyped. Big Chief Indian, commercial. The commercial of it is sending off stereotyped images. They're not really the true image of that tribe, so you're going to have that type of situation. It can be very controversial. It can be very sensitive. It can be very disrespectful. That's how I would answer that and see it from an artist's 43:00perspective. We're very fortunate to be able to understand what is the true expression of that art.

Little Thunder: In 2000 you won first place in miniatures, was it, for your miniature ledger book?

Yellowman: Yes.

Little Thunder: How did you get the idea for a miniature ledger book?

Yellowman: Actually, I struggled. I was getting discouraged because I never won an award at Red Earth. I got honorable mention, but nothing-- That was their first year of having a miniatures division, and I thought, "I'm going to enter this. I'm going to turn my ledger art that I produce into a miniature." Connie said, "How are you going to do that?" I said, "Good question." (Laughter) I 44:00found an old billfold, and I found paper, and I made my own ledger paper. They gave me dimensions of the qualifications of a miniature, so I took those dimensions, and I just condensed it into making my own. I did twelve--no, I think it's ten. I think it's ten pages.

Little Thunder: Did you hand-reduce--you made the ledger paper?

Yellowman: I hand-drew all the lines of the paper, and I drew the little numbers in. Each image tells a history of my life, and it ends with Cricket and Connie standing in the last page, standing there in their dresses. It started out from my great-great-grandfather Sharpnose to Sand Creek 1864 to Washita, highlights. 45:00My grandfather Sharpnose, he was a second lieutenant at Fort Robinson in 1878. I started there and started recording significant parts of my life and history. That's why I call it Chief Yellowman's Ledger Book. I produced it, and it got in there and just thought, "I just got to try." I hand-sewed all of the paper images into it. I won first place on it, and I about fell over and died because I didn't expect to win first place. (Laughter) I finally won it, and then that just gave me an answer that I can do this.

To me, the commercialism in art is, whenever I started my art, it was my getaway. I went into other travels, other parts of the world, other parts of time, but when it became a have-to-do thing, commercial, and people demand my art so I've got to produce it and sell it, that takes the fun out of it, and it's no longer my getaway. It's no longer my escape to never-never land or dreamland of how our people were, their time zone. Now I've got to the point where I get to pick and choose what I do, and it's me doing it.

Artists have to be in a mood to do it. You can't just clock in eight o'clock and clock out five o'clock and say, "Okay, this is how many I produced." It don't work that way. You've got to be in the mood to paint and draw. Every artist 47:00knows that, and so there's a little imagination tapeline around me when I'm working. I zone out. I don't hear the phone ring. I don't hear the TV on. I don't hear anything. Connie and Cricket, they know that zone line. They can't cross into it, and that's just the rule.

Cricket kind of got upset at me because one of my friends came over, and she said, "How come they get to pass through the line and we can't?" (Laughter) I said, "Just trying to be courteous." They know the rule. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. In the end, the whole outcome is positive because if people are that appreciative of the art that they want to buy it, then you know that 48:00it's not just the value in that art. It's the quality.

The quality is what collectors look for, the true accuracy of what you're painting as far as an image or sending a message, and that's what they're buying. They're not just buying a piece of work. They're buying a piece of history. They're buying a piece of culture, and they're buying a piece of voice. But most of all, they're buying that spirit of what you're producing from that art.

Little Thunder: In 2005, you had a show at Southern Plains [Indian] Museum. Was it a combination of new paintings and older work? I know Connie had work in there, too.

Yellowman: Yes, we did it as a family, Cricket did work. She has been a Red Earth award-winning artist, as well, in the youth art, so we felt like we'd do it together, combine pieces. I take my artwork, ledger art, and she takes her 49:00beadwork, and Cricket brings hers. I thought that was not only convenient but honorable to have three, parents and a daughter, there and the show at the Southern Plains Museum to highlight our work. They made these brochures and helped get our art out there to the public but also to collectors. Making artwork known at that level, national level, to be recognized at the Southern Plains Museum, to me, that was awesome.

Little Thunder: You've also done a couple of book covers. One was for a Jumping Mouse story, and the other was a book called Eagle Catcher. Were these from paintings that you did especially as cover art, or did the authors or the 50:00publishing company see an image of yours that they thought would be good?

Yellowman: It was the authors that I worked with. They want specific illustrations, and they want specific things tying into their-- The first book jacket I did was Eagle Catcher by Margaret Coel. She was from Denver. It was published by the Colorado Press out of Boulder, so I worked with her. It was very good. It was kind of simple. I did maybe two what we call--one was a schematic design, and the second one was a painting that I sent because she told me what she wanted, so I sent it. I had one modification that wasn't much. It was on color. I got my name in the system of the publishers as an artist.

Authors will say, "I'm looking for this." Then they'll send you the artist's name, and then you work with the authors. That's how I got the second one, which was Tell Me, Grandmother. That was by Dr. Virginia Sutter. Margaret referred her to me. That one, we worked with the publisher, and it was more difficult working with the publisher than the author. The publisher wanted certain things. I painted this very beautiful, I thought, appropriate painting of Tell Me, Grandmother. I painted my grandmother holding a cane, telling the story, and she had her scarf on and her cane and her little dress that she wore. I painted her. 52:00The colors were so powerful, the images, I just knew that that was going to be the cover, and they said, "No, that's not it."

Then I thought, "Well, what is it?" I kept sending different modification sketches and went back and forth for a while, and finally I said, "You know what, this is it. If this isn't going to do it, then I'll just pull myself from the project. I can't continue to keep--" So I did this painting and kind of changed up the colors, made it more appropriate. I put it in the mail, and I said, "This is the final. Accept it or not. Mail it back." They said, "This is it. This is what we've been waiting for."

It's ironic how the author, the publisher, then you, you work around each other. 53:00They all get frustrated. You get frustrated. Then pretty soon, you are ready to throw the towel in, give up, and then it's like, "This is it." That cover turned out to be nice, and we did some little changes on it graphically. So Tell Me, Grandmother is my ledger art.

Little Thunder: There's lots of issues involved when non-Indians paint Indian subject matter and they don't do their research, or sometimes they don't even question the appropriateness of painting certain subjects. I know there was an incident at Santa Fe Indian Market a couple years ago when a non-Indian artist was showing a painting of a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. Some C-A tribal members confronted him about that. Can you talk about that?

Yellowman: Yes, first of all, you see the painting in the [American] Indian Art 54:00Magazine. It was one of the very prominent magazines there. We're thumbing through it, and we see it. Of course, we're saying, "Oh, I don't know. I wonder who he is," and, "Look at this." It's very sensitive, an image of a Sun Dancer, and in there it says "Cheyenne Sun Dancer." He has the image of the sacred ceremonial dance that the Cheyennes still, we still have that among our religious traditions and practices. It's a part of our ceremony. It's our ceremony. I saw it and read it and then just kind of thought, "Hmm, I want to meet this artist and talk to him and find out exactly why he painted it and who 55:00gave him permission to paint it. Why did he paint it?"

It got to that point where I was aware of it, and when I get out there, I run into several artists who are Cheyenne but also society members, and they said, "We need to go over there and talk to this artist and tell him that this is sensitive. We just need to go talk to him." I think his name is, I want to say DJ or D-something Challenger. I said, "Okay, I'll meet you over there in front of that studio," the gallery where he was showing. He was showing there the paintings of what he did. He wasn't in Santa Fe Indian Market because I don't think he could meet the qualifications of being accepted into the Market because 56:00he's non-Indian.

We go into the gallery where he's having an exhibition, showing. When we get there, one Cheyenne member's already there, and then the other one shows up. We look up, and we see the painting hanging in the window. Then we kind of gather our thoughts and said, "Hmm, yes, we're artists, but we really don't expose things like this that's this sensitive into our art. We know what we can and can't do." They felt like we needed to do something because when we come home as Cheyennes and we were aware of it and didn't do anything about it, we would be the ones that would catch it from our people. We would also not be fulfilling 57:00our duties and roles as chiefs and society members.

So we went in together as a group, and we walked in and introduced him and signed the guest book as Cheyenne chiefs and headsmen. Then we called him over to the painting, went over to the front of the painting and we looked at it, and we asked him specific questions. "Who gave you permission?" and, "Why did you paint it?" He said, "I've got a good friend who's Cheyenne. He gave me permission." The next question was, "Have you ever been to a Cheyenne Sun Dance," and he said, "No." Then we asked him if he was Cheyenne, and he said, "No." So we told him, "Well, what gives you the right as a non-Indian, non-Cheyenne, to paint this?" He said, "Well, I'm aware of the Sun Dance. I read 58:00about it, so I felt like I could paint it. What do you want me to do?"

I said, "You need to take it off display, put it in the back. Just take it out of the showcase window and put it away. Honor our requests that way. But, too, you're making money." This painting was listed at forty, fifty thousand dollars. "You're making money off of these types of paintings. You're calling it Cheyenne when it's not produced by a Cheyenne, but yet you're calling it Cheyenne to enhance the value of it to collectors. You're making money off of it, and that's inappropriate.

If you truly want to help our people, donate some of that money to our people, to the elder, to the youth that have needs, their general welfare needs. We've 59:00got people at home suffering from illnesses. We've got people at home that may not have nothing to eat right now. If you were to turn that into a scholarship or some kind of fund to help our people, maybe we'd appreciate you trying to not just make money off of us but give back to our people. You could help that way." He said, "I'll get back with you guys on it," and to this day, we've never heard from him.

Little Thunder: But he did move it from the window.

Yellowman: Yes, he did. I took a picture of it hanging in the window, which I still have. I'll e-mail it to you if you want. You'll have it for your file. I went back the next day and took the picture of the same window, and it was gone. So he did honor that request. At the same time, when we were at the reception, when he was standing there talking to us looking at the painting, guess what he 60:00was doing. Big bottle of beer, drinking, and I said, "That's another thing." So anyway-- (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You've curated a number of shows in collaboration with museums, but there was one you did with the Denver Art Museum, Cheyenne Visions II, in which you brought together traditional work that the museum had, museum holdings with contemporary Native artists. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you got the idea for that?

Yellowman: The first curation show, I had no idea what curator was, or what it was like to curate an exhibit, a show. I went to Chicago Field Museum. There was a guy by the name of Robert Spooner, the late Robert Spooner, and he was 61:00curating the Arapaho show. He had died suddenly halfway through the show, putting the show together. I happened to go up there that summer and looked at the collections. Dr. Jonathan Haas, I got acquainted with him when he came through Oklahoma. He was wanting to get in touch with Cheyenne people and Arapaho people, so he called me. He said, "Hey, Gordon, I have a dilemma here. The guy that was curating the Arapaho show, he suddenly died, and we've got to finish this show. Give me some suggestions."

I said, "You can probably call some of the Northern Arapahos and get their guidance and suggestions," and he said, "I'll do that." He didn't call me back 62:00for about two or three months, and he said, "I haven't gotten a response. Can you come finish this show for me?" I said, "Yes, I'll do that." I went up there for a week and finished the Arapaho show for him, and it went on exhibit as planned. He called me, he said, "I appreciate you seeing this show through. It was a success. What can I do for you now?" I said, "I want to curate my own show." So then I go to the Field Museum, and I worked with the collections for 870 objects in there that are Cheyenne, somewhere around that number, and I got to see every one of them.

I curated my own show there. I spent two weeks pulling collections and photographing, and I had to visualize what I was going to do. That was where I 63:00began Cheyenne Visions I. I wanted to call it Cheyenne Visions I because not only is it the vision of the people of our past but it's the vision of our future Cheyennes. I had to do it creatively, to express what I was trying to do. That's where I did, at the Field Museum with Cheyenne I.

Then the Denver Art Museum called me and said, "We really liked that show. Can you do Cheyenne Visions II here?" I said, "Sure." So we wrote a grant. Matter of fact, Ben Nighthorse Campbell was involved and provided some of that grant funding through his foundation, and he's Cheyenne. I went up there, and I curated that show, and it just kind of went on its own. I looked at the collections, I separated the women, the men's, the boys' and different society 64:00things, and started putting together the contemporary transition of history, but contemporary Cheyennes.

We merged them together to reflect we're still a living culture. We never went anywhere. That was my whole point in showing them who we are as Cheyenne, our communities. We're still here as societies. We're still here as bead workers. We're still here as song people, and we're still here as ceremonial people. We haven't gone anywhere. We're still living and breathing, and it's that culture that reflects our identity as Cheyenne people. That was my whole goal in that.

I had other museums inquire, like Sam Noble out of Norman. They agreed to be number three. Then the National Museum of the American Indian, at that time Rick West was the director, and he agreed to be four. Who knows where it's going to 65:00go from [here]? That was my whole point, to make it evolve and keep going. Buffalo Bill Cody wants to be five. It takes a long time to plan a show because museums' exhibits, they go on books. They're scheduled two to three years in advance. In the meantime, you're looking for funding. Their exhibits are major, and you've got to be on their schedule three, four years in advance. It's not just something that, "Oh, let's do it this year, and then we'll show next year." It's not like that. I learned that. (Laughter) It's a hurry up and wait thing.

Little Thunder: Shifting to your philosophies and practices of art, these days is your principle media still water media?

Yellowman: Yes, watercolor.

Little Thunder: You mostly work on paper? Do you do canvas sometimes?

Yellowman: I paint on canvas just to keep the feeling. I took a class at OU, a painting class, under Professor [Edgar] Heap of Birds, and he said, "You've got to get back to painting. You've got to get back to canvas." His whole point was "Get back to canvas." It was twenty years since I'd been painting on canvas. It's like I had to relearn myself. I had to learn the feel and texture of it. Not only that, but the scale of it. It was frightening. I sat there and struggled with it and struggled with it, and pretty soon I just said, "Oh, I'll do this." He said, "Just paint what you're feeling. It doesn't have to be perfect."

My assignment was to do four paintings: two personal and two exploratory. The 67:00personal ones is what got me the grade, and that came later. All he wanted me to do was feel the paint, feel the brush, and feel the canvas. He really made me understand what that meant, feeling that, and the texture. Now I'm not afraid to go back to it because I started out painting on acrylic, using acrylics. I started out painting big. Now I'm getting comfortable where I want to go back to canvas, but right now, I do my ledger work on watercolor ledger and technical illustration pens and pencil on cold press archival paper, 150-pound cold press.

You've got to understand the quality of the paper for collectors, for acid-free 68:00paper. You've got to understand all of that language. You've got to know that when a collector buys it, they're going to ask you specific questions. What's it on? Is it archivable? Is it acid free? You've got to know all of your thicknesses and weights so you understand that. You've got to understand the type of paints you're using. Is it different trades of paint? There are certain paints that are going to last longer than the other. I never knew that. There's some that may be poison.

Understanding the supply as a painter, the paint set you're actually working with, and through experience, which ones are good and which ones aren't. I'm 69:00comfortable with the one I use now and the brushes. Back then when I first started, I had TG&Y camel hair brushes. (Laughter) It's so frustrating, the quality. You're going to pay thirty, forty bucks a brush, especially on a wash brush. I didn't know what a wash was. I didn't know how to do a wash. I learned that at OSU.

Little Thunder: When did you take the class with Edgar?

Yellowman: That was in 2008. I'm currently continuing my education at OU, University of Oklahoma. I took art history courses and anthropology courses, so I'm still in school. The last couple of years, I got the Rick West art 70:00scholarship. The art scholarship was a way to pay for my tuition, but I was honored to be the scholarship recipient.

I teach at the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribal College [Weatherford]. I've been there since 2005. When they first contacted me, they said, "We want you to teach this class because we want someone in there that's not only going to know the traditions of Cheyenne Arapaho people but as an artist. We want to develop our program into providing this type of traditional art and really understanding the history of our people to provide that to the students. Kind of unique in its own self. This is my sixth year in teaching at the tribal college at Southwestern.

Little Thunder: Is it a combination, history, applied traditional art?

Yellowman: I apply the arts through time, from rock art to buffalo hide 71:00painting, the animal itself, the animal, the hide, the hide painting. But in between that, there's a process. You've got to skin the animal. You've got to stretch it. You've got to tan it, and then you're going to paint it. It's important to know all of those steps of traditional art, and you're not going to find that in a book. It's hands on. To me, that's the value.

Little Thunder: Do you do preliminary sketches before you start to work on a piece of ledger art?

Yellowman: Yes, everything's up here in my mind. I visualize it here, and then I'll do thumbnail sketches. Once I do a thumbnail sketch, it's down. Then I'll start doing the sketches on paper. Then I'll come in with the next step. I'll 72:00ink. After I ink, then I'll paint.

Little Thunder: How important are titles to your work? Do you ever get an idea for a title before you see the image?

Yellowman: It depends on what the request may be. They'll tell me what they want, and then I'll produce it, and then I'll have the title.

Little Thunder: Like for a book cover or a commission?

Yellowman: Yes, a book cover or a special commission. I've already got it up here, and I just need to put it down here. Right now, currently, I've been commissioned to do a painting at the new Oklahoma Supreme Court building. It's up here right now. It hasn't gone to paper, but it will here shortly. I'm going to start it.

Little Thunder: Will it be more of a large-scale painting?

Yellowman: It's going to be a large-scale painting, and they already told me what they wanted. They even took me over there to see the wall where it's going to go.

Little Thunder: Will it be a mural?

Yellowman: No, it's a painting. They wanted me to see the color of the room, and they wanted me to put colors that's going to reflect that room.

Little Thunder: Narrative is obviously important to ledger art, but is it more challenging to tell a story through ledger art, or realistically, or does it just depend?

Yellowman: I think the ledger art is probably more accurate and very simple. You're going to have very simple designs, very simple lines, whereas a realistic 74:00one, your challenge is going to be to reflect that realistic image. Sometimes you can't really do it because sometimes you see it as self portraits. Sometimes you see it as an image that may be a still image when, in fact, you're trying to express the life of it. Being simple is very important. One of the famous quotes that less is more. When I see it, I try to be simplistic in what I'm saying because if you add on more to it than it really needs, you're losing the subject matter, but you're also going on the side of what they call gaudy. You're adding things on there that don't need to be on there. So you've got to be very careful with how the simple message of what you're doing in your art, but being very 75:00clear, and that bold color plus the fine lines, the contrast of the lines is very important and what makes it pop out at you as a piece of art.

Little Thunder: We've kind of talked about your creative process a bit, in the sense that once you're in the groove, you've got to protect your time if you're inside your mind. Tell me a little bit about how your creative process goes, like from the time you get an idea. Do you keep a notebook of sketches, or just walk through it?

Yellowman: I keep a journal, my own personal journal, with some of the contemporary things that are happening now. Like when we lose a chief, I'll write the chief's name down. I'll write some notes of what I might know of that 76:00person. If there's something like the ceremonials going on, something that I do, I'll highlight that. If I'm going to be sketching something, I'll definitely put down symbols. I'll sketch something that's going to remind me of what I have up here. It all comes out together because you've got it up here, and you can visualize it.

Like with this painting I'm going to do with the Supreme Court building, it's up here. I envisioned the camp circle, but I also envisioned the chiefs. It's going to be reflecting what we call the justice systems among the Cheyenne people, how we handle the violations among our own people, violations of other enemies, 77:00violations of traditions. Some people call it restorative justice, whereas me, I'm going to call it traditional justice because it's a system that--traditional law is very powerful, and traditional law has existed before written law. That's going to elevate a higher level of dealing with the justice system.

When you violate traditional law, the punishment or the sentencing is harder for us in the traditional system than it is the civil, the white man, the law, the federal law, the Indian law, the state law, the county law, the city law. Our 78:00tradition is very high. It has a high standard. You've got to maintain that justice system because a lot of that--the most punishment you can ever get or receive from that is humiliation and understanding that, but that's how we are as people, Cheyenne people. So I'm going to paint an image of that system. There's going to be several cases. I've already done my research. One's going to be about the young lady that aborted her child, and the other one's going to be about one of the warrior societies that violated--he went hunting when he wasn't supposed to. He didn't wait on all the warriors. He went on his own, and he paid 79:00a price for that. It's case studies of our history.

Little Thunder: I look forward to seeing that. Looking back on your career, what's been one of the pivotal moments, kind of a fork-in-the-road moment?

Yellowman: I think one of the fork-in-the-road moments was losing that getaway, losing that stress-free time to get away and just enjoy it. Today among our people, money, we have to have money to eat. We have to have money to get gas to go to work. We have to have money to pay the light bill, pay the telephone bill. Money is very important economically, that helps us live comfortably. It's not 80:00much, but it's among us. You can't live without it.

The economic side of it was, you get discouraged. If they say, "I want twelve paintings next month," you just laugh at them, say, "Yeah, right!" (Laughter). It's frustrating. At the same time, I try to keep in mind the appreciative. People appreciate it. The appreciation of my art, it increases the value. That was sort of the fork in the road for me.

The other thing, meeting that fork in the road, was the formal education and the informal. I saw two worlds there. I was living one, and I had to learn to educate. I learned that formal education is very important. If I can do it, then 81:00so can others. I want to be the model of that educational side of it, too.

You're never too old to learn, but education is important. Stay in school. Utilize your art, your talent, whatever it may be. Utilize your talents to exceed yourself, to make yourself a better person. Education for me, from sitting there, waiting for my senior year in high school to get recognized by an art teacher to--it's funny because it's kind of come full circle. When I was first hired at Southwestern Oklahoma State University Tribal College to teach 82:00art in the Art Department there, Joe London was the director at Southwestern. He was dating my high school art teacher. They became friends, and he said, "Do you know Judy McCombs?" I said, "Yes, that was my high school art teacher."

So in a sense it's like, "I know she put in a good word for me. Thank you! Thank you!" (Laughs) It was full circle to the education she gave me. She gave me the opportunity and enrolled me. Here, twenty, thirty years later, her name comes up again. It's like, "Yes, I know her." It's like she was always in my life, and she still is. I know if she wasn't my high school art teacher, I probably 83:00wouldn't be at Southwestern. You think of those kind of things, understanding how much they really saw the artistic value in what you have. They were the ones that helped you along, and it was up to you to accept that help and run with it.

He retired from Southwestern, and she was working. I don't know if she's still teaching there at the school at Chickasha, the art school there. It was kind of funny when he called me on the phone and he says, "Oh, by the way, do you know Judy McCombs?" "That was my high school art teacher!" He said, "Yes, I've heard. I've heard." (Laughter) That was kind of full circle.

Little Thunder: We're going to take a look at some images that you've done. Is 84:00there anything you'd like to add or anything we forgot to cover?

Yellowman: Well, one of the things I always remember is as an artist, whether it's music, dance, song, or singing, whatever it is, always take full advantage of that. Learn more and more about it. Study it, study it. Read. I learned different expressions of art through different thinkers. I certainly learned that at University of Oklahoma. You can add a lot to that, too. You bring into that realm of education from what your knowledge is, how you produce or how you express art. It's not just a medium. It's a form of expression. It's the beauty 85:00of who you are, but it's also the beauty of your people and your culture, your language.

Never get discouraged. Yes, you're going to get frustrated. You get frustrated in everything you do in life, but there's always a positive that comes out of it. When you get to that point of understanding what I'm saying about the positive, the comfortable, you've elevated and reached that goal of what you set. That's the payoff. That's the appreciation of "I did it." Never say, "I can't do it." Always say, "I am going to do it."

If it's not for you as an individual, do it for your people. Do it for your family. Do it for the children that's going to learn from your art. They're going to look up and say, "He did his artwork for us." That's what I'd like to 86:00see, remembering that art is a beautiful thing. It's an artistic gift that the Creator gives us. Always share that gift. Don't ever keep it to yourself. Share it because it doesn't just belong to you. It belongs to the people.

One of the things that I've always admired in artists is they're still doing it and just keep doing it. I'll keep doing it as long as I can continue to be creative, as long as I can continue to relate a story through a sketch or a painting or a photograph. I'm starting to do photography now. I've won awards in my photography, and it's a new media. It's starting to go that direction, so I 87:00experiment. There's nothing wrong with experimenting. But I just want to say I encourage all the youth to continue their education and never forget where they come from, who they are, and who their people are.

One of the things that I want to say is I certainly want to say thank you to my mother and father for challenging me and discouraging me and saying, "No, you didn't." That was their way of making me do it and do it and do it. I thank them for it now. I didn't know that's what they were doing, but that was their way of teaching me. I want to say thank you to my mom and dad for doing that. I still remember a lot of the things that they taught me, and I learned from it.

There was also something else I was going to mention. The most distinguished award that I've ever gotten was being the Red Earth Honored One. I got nominated, and my brother-in-law who's an artist as well as other artists said, "Gordon, you're too young. You're too young to get recognized as the Honored One." I thought about that, and then I said, "No, look at it this way. I'm the youngest artist, the youngest artist to ever receive this award," and I challenged it.

Little Thunder: It's for not just your individual artwork but also what you've done for the Native arts.

Yellowman: My contributions to art, yes, so I put it back on them. I was the 89:00fifth Cheyenne to receive that. To me, that was an honor. To be in the names of Doc Tate Nevaquaya, Archie Blackowl, Dick West, to be part of that list, it made me feel proud to be Cheyenne. It also made me proud to be a distinguished artist among that caliber of artists. I always look at things like that, from a positive, and now I challenge other young artists. "Go and get it. Go and do it!"

Little Thunder: Great. You want to tell us the title on this one?

Yellowman: This is titled Sand Creek. It was a contemporary painting that I've done. The top represents the before, and the bottom represents the after. The 90:00before and after is very powerful. Very peaceful village, and then it turns to chaos and massacre at the bottom. I wanted something to express the contemporary view of Sand Creek 1864 massacre by Colonel John Chivington. He led his troops against a peaceful Cheyenne village of [Chiefs] Black Kettle and White Antelope, and this was my interpretation of that scene.

Green represents the life of the Cheyenne, and the Cheyenne refer to that day as "The sky was filled with blood." Then the soldiers burning our village, I burned 91:00the paper on the bottom to highlight the effect of the burning. The four hands that are mutilated represent the mutilation of the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, but it also reflects one of our traditions. When we lose a loved one, especially the mothers would lose a son in war, she'd cut off her finger. That day, a lot of our ancestors' blood was shed, so I wanted to burn the paper on the bottom. Before I did that, I said a prayer. I knew that I only had one opportunity to burn it. Either it was going to burn too thick or too light, so I prayed before I lit the match. I used a big kitchen match, and it came out the way it's 92:00supposed to.

Little Thunder: Very powerful. How about this piece, Gordon?

Yellowman: This is a piece I done this past year, one of my latest ones. It depicts the Calumet Lady Chieftains that won the state basketball championship. They defeated the Cyril Pirates. The Calumet Lady Chieftain, she has the war bonnet. She's got the school colors, and the horse has got the orange school colors. She's got her Nike moccasins on. It was an image that I donated to their fundraiser. I wanted to highlight them. The dots represent all the team members on the horse.

Little Thunder: This was one of the pieces you had at Southern Plains?

Yellowman: Yes, I wanted to depict the trade blanket, how the women would always dress themselves around that time of Bent's Old Fort, because that's where the original parasols came from. It reflected that they were all talking Cheyenne to one another. You can just imagine their conversations. Their parasols of color were a social icon of their richness, of the ability for their husbands to trade for the parasol. They had to be extraordinary hunters to trade hides for their things at Bent's Old Fort. They're talking, telling stories among one another, and they're Cheyenne women, so that was just something that they're content, 94:00they're happy, but they're beautiful.

Little Thunder: And the eagle feathers on the parasol. All right. Thank you so much for your time today.

Yellowman: Thank you.

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