Oral history interview with Dorothy Sullivan

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is February 1, 2012. I'm in Norman, Oklahoma, with artist Dorothy Sullivan. Dorothy, you're a Cherokee artist who has worked as a teacher and commercial artist, evolving a style that can be poetically realistic or decorative by turns, which always has a place for a certain spirituality. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Sullivan: Thank you.

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

Sullivan: I was born in Seminole, Oklahoma. I grew up all around in Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Sullivan: I have one sister.

Little Thunder: And what did your folks do for a living?

Sullivan: Well, my dad, he started working in the oil fields when he would have been in the eighth grade. They moved to Seminole, so that's where our family 1:00started. Then later, he worked as an insurance salesman and was pretty much self-educated, so I was pretty proud of him.

Little Thunder: Your mom was a homemaker?

Sullivan: She was until I was in high school, and then she started working as a sales lady in a department store, and she loved that. My dad was the Cherokee. He used to sit in the porch swing with my sister and I on each side, and he would sing to us and play the harmonica. Then he would tell us about being Cherokee and some of the family history and how we should be proud of being Cherokee.

Little Thunder: His folks had already passed on?

Sullivan: His mother passed away when I was six. She was one of my favorite 2:00people when I was little. She always lived close to us.

Little Thunder: What are some of your memories?

Sullivan: She always had hugs. She was really short. She looked Cherokee, and she was fluffy, I guess. (Laughter) I remember her holding me and rocking me and singing to me.

Little Thunder: Did she ever sing in the language?

Sullivan: I don't remember that, if she did or not.

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

Sullivan: I started drawing before I went to school. I remember one of my 3:00mother's sisters trying to show my sister and I how to draw something when we were driving somewhere. I don't know where we were going. I was just fascinated and was able to draw what she did. That's when I started. From then on, that was just what I did.

Little Thunder: Were any extended family members artists, as well?

Sullivan: No. No, just me. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you have experiences with art in primary or secondary school?

Sullivan: No, not really. The first art class I had, I was a senior in high school. Before that, I just self-taught.

Little Thunder: But you had discovered that you could draw something that looked 4:00like what you were drawing?

Sullivan: Yes. It was easier in a lot of ways. I was so right-brained and left-handed that it was easier for me to draw something than just talk about it or to say something.

Little Thunder: When you were doing these drawings around the house, did you have plenty of materials?

Sullivan: No, not a lot. I had some, but just anything I had, I worked with.

Little Thunder: What were your folks' reaction?

Sullivan: They liked it. They were encouraging. My mother, especially, encouraged me.

Little Thunder: You got into high school, and you had an art class. What did you learn in that class?

Sullivan: The instructor was the college art teacher at East Central University 5:00because our high school was part of the teacher training program, so we got to take a few classes, go across the street to the university. I did my first piece of sculpture there.

Little Thunder: With what materials?

Sullivan: Clay, and I liked that. I did my first oil painting, which I was thrilled with that. I liked the class. I made good grades, but I just didn't like that part. I just liked doing the pieces, but I didn't like the assignments. I guess I'll put it that way. (Laughs) I liked doing my own.

Little Thunder: What was your least favorite assignment?

Sullivan: I think a craft project. I can't even remember what it was.

Little Thunder: When did you decide that art was something you wanted to explore?

Sullivan: Seemed like I just always knew that that's what I wanted to do. I grew up in the '50s in southeast Oklahoma, and everybody, all the kids, we expected to get married when they graduated. My family didn't have money to send me to college, so I just dreamed about it. I didn't really plan on it. I got married 7:00right out of high school and had four little boys.

It was kind of a tough time then because we lived in Ada. If you didn't have a lot of education, you were a fifty-cents-an-hour person. My husband worked in a service station for fifty cents an hour. Pretty tough times, so he was in and out as far as the home. Finally, my sister graduated from college. She got a scholarship to go as a teacher. She encouraged me to try for that to take care 8:00of the boys. It was a pretty emotional time because the thought of welfare and that kind of thing just horrified me.

Little Thunder: By the time you were in high school, or even before you started to college, had you been exposed to any Native art?

Sullivan: Not very much. Not very much. I didn't really see any difference because--when I was really exposed to that was when I moved to Konawa, Oklahoma, 9:00after I'd been teaching for a while. There were a lot of Native American kids in my classes, and they were interested in doing their type of art, so I started one of the first Indian art programs in the state at Konawa. The kids had a choice. If they wanted to be in the Indian program, that was fine if they were Native American, but one requirement was they had to give a report by interviewing at least one elder. They had to learn about their tribe. If they were Creek, they couldn't do tipis, that kind of thing. They had to learn about 10:00their tribe and give reports on that as well as their artwork and why they were drawing this, trying to help them not just copy some of the Native art but to help them develop their own style of that, which was a lot of fun.

Then I had a four-year planned art program for the other part. I had to work in the things that the Native kids needed with their program. It was a lot of fun, and at the end of that year, there was an art show contest at East Central University. Both art groups went, and they both won a lot of awards. They really 11:00liked the principal. They came back, and a representative of each group took their awards and dumped them on his desk. (Laughter) We had an art show at the end of the year. The kids had never had one before, and it was pretty exciting. They loved it.

Little Thunder: That's really innovative. I want to go back and then come and pick up this topic again. When you went through college to get your teaching degree, did you also have a minor in art? Was it with the thought of teaching art?

Sullivan: My major was in art education, and then I had another major in history because I loved history. At first, I thought I wanted a degree in industrial 12:00arts because I loved designing anything, houses, furniture, anything. I took one drafting class. I was born in the wrong time. (Laughter) I did well, but if I asked one question, I had all these guys over here trying to help me do it. I thought, "Okay, we'll go for a different major." (Laughs)

Little Thunder: It was because you were a woman. It was unusual for a woman to be in their classes.

Sullivan: I was told by a counselor that I wouldn't be able to get a job teaching industrial arts because I was a woman. That was in the '50s. Things are different now. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Yes, fortunately. You got a good foundation as you were taking 13:00that art education program? You got more of a foundation than you'd had in high school.

Sullivan: I got a very good one. I had two very good instructors at East Central at that time. They really taught the basics of how to draw, how to see, how to imagine, all these things that I think are important. I think drawing is the basis of it, so when I started teaching, that became the basis of my program to help the kids. I had a poster that I had up in my room. "In order to do your art, you need to learn how to see, how to think, and how to feel, and combine 14:00all those things into your own expression." That was the fun of it, especially with high school, trying to work with each kid individually and help them develop their style, not just copy, but they learned the basics first.

Little Thunder: By the time you ended up at Konawa, what time period are we talking about?

Sullivan: Seventy-five, seventy-six. I graduated from the university in '66.

Little Thunder: There had been some reforms in Indian education, but you pretty much singlehandedly had decided that you were going to take that approach in your art program.

Sullivan: Yes. When I started that at Konawa, I met with some of the Native parents and got all the information that I could find to try to make it what I thought it should be, and tried. Then every year, I worked on it if I had a Native in my class. When I went to Tahlequah, I did the same thing. I had a Native art program.

Little Thunder: You sort of implied that the principal was perhaps not crazy about the idea at first, or was he always supportive of that?

Sullivan: He was. He was supportive.

Little Thunder: After you started this Native art program, are you then going to Indian art shows or continuing to paint on the side?

Sullivan: I painted on the side. Where I got interested in doing my own Native art--I had always just kind of taken for granted about being Cherokee, but as far as trying to express that, I didn't that much. My dad was killed in a car accident in his fifties. There's two things that caused me to start. One was thinking of a way to honor him. Another is I went to the Trail of Tears Art Show just to view it. I think it was 1980, in the '80s. I was so thrilled by all of 17:00the art and the artists, and I just had a very emotional feeling that, "This is what I need to do." So after my children were grown up, I retired from teaching and started in 1990, I think, full-time.

Little Thunder: You did study under Fred Olds, who's a well-known--

Sullivan: No, I really didn't study under him. He was just a mentor. When I was 18:00teaching at a little town called Perkins, teaching art--

Little Thunder: Because you went to Konawa to Hennessey and then to Perkins?

Sullivan: No, I went to Hennessey then Konawa. Anyway, I also was the gifted teacher for the high school, and so I tried to find mentors for some of the kids who were in that program. I had one kid that was a cowboy kid, and he was the neatest kid and very talented in his artwork. I contacted Fred Olds. Didn't know him or anything, but just for the kids, you know. He said, "Come over, and we'll 19:00talk," so I did. Went to his studio, and I told him all about the kid, and I was all excited. He said, "All right, now let's see your work." I did, and then that summer I ended up going to Guthrie every day and working in the studio there with him and a couple other artists.

Little Thunder: Was it an official workshop or were you just--

Sullivan: Nope, just a little gallery he had and studios upstairs. It was a lot of fun. That's when I started really showing with him. He had cowboy and Indian artists. One really good friend I had that was also a mentor was Jerome 20:00Bushyhead. Those two are the ones who really said, "Now, you need to go for this." I was scared to death, but I did it.

Little Thunder: Encouraged you to think about doing it full-time.

Sullivan: Yes.

Little Thunder: In Hennessey, I'm thinking you probably did not keep up your Indian art program. You didn't have enough students.

Sullivan: No, we moved up there, and it was a whole different population. A lot of them were farmers, wheat farmers and oil field workers. A lot of the kids were German or German-type background, so they weren't as interested in that. When I moved, I moved to Perkins, and there were Native Americans there. From 21:00there, I went to Tahlequah, and we worked on it.

Little Thunder: What medium did you start out in? I guess you'd been experimenting in school, but what did you choose?

Sullivan: I liked everything. I liked drawing. I did a lot of pencil drawing, colored pencil. Then I mixed it with watercolor. But my favorite forever was oil. When I got to where I had to hurry and get something finished for the shows--because being an artist is a job. It's a lot of work and sometimes stress, trying to get ready for the shows, so I would switch to acrylic so I could get it done faster. Wasn't my favorite. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I remember seeing you, though, at art shows maybe in the mid-'80s. Once you'd had that Trail of Tears experience, were you visiting more shows and talking to Indian artists?

Sullivan: In the late '80s, yes.

Little Thunder: Who were some artists you especially admired and especially liked their work?

Sullivan: A lot of them. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: I think Daughters of the Earth were painting around the mid-'80s, the mom and sisters, and Mary Adair and Virginia Stroud.

Sullivan: I saw some of Virginia's work, and I liked it. I'm trying to think. Of course, Donald Vann, I liked his work. Your husband [Merlin Little Thunder], I 23:00liked his work a lot. (Laughter) Gosh, there's so many.

Little Thunder: Did you get any business tips from anybody when you started out, from any artists?

Sullivan: Yes, Jerome was pretty good about telling me, "You should do this or that," and that helped. So was Fred. Before I started the Cherokee art, I did a lot of Western art, too, because I loved history. I'd put all this together.

When I started the Cherokee art, I had what my dad had told me, but I did a lot of research, not just books but talking to elders, to people both in Oklahoma 24:00and in North Carolina and Georgia because I would go back there. Then I got to where I could have shows at the museum in North Carolina. Tried to go every year for a while. That helped a lot, and then working with the museums, as much as I could get out of them. I worked with them.

Little Thunder: To go in and you might ask to see certain artifacts and sketch?

Sullivan: Right, and learn as much as I could about the culture and history.

Little Thunder: Which museums?

Sullivan: There was two in Cherokee, North Carolina that I really liked. There was some in Georgia, and I can't think of the name now. The Cherokee Heritage 25:00Center in Tahlequah. Also did research on my family, Cherokee family. All that was really interesting and fun.

Little Thunder: When you first went to North Carolina, started visiting Eastern Band Cherokee people, did you and your husband go together? How did that unfold?

Sullivan: I got an invitation to come to Asheville, North Carolina, to a show.

Little Thunder: Because they had that Indian art show for a couple of years.

Sullivan: I think it was more than that. I went several times. Then we would go up to the Cherokee reservation after and spend a week there. Then I made several 26:00friends who were full-blood Cherokee that I always looked forward to seeing. A lot of them painted. I really enjoyed going there every year.

Little Thunder: In terms of your trips to Georgia, which is where your Cherokee family is from originally, what are some moments that stand out for you?

Sullivan: All I had to go on was what my dad had told me about the family coming from there to Oklahoma, so it's really strange. I had two distant cousins that I'd never heard of before that contacted me and invited me to Marietta, Georgia.

Little Thunder: How did they get a hold of you?

Sullivan: They just saw my work. I went there and got acquainted with both of them. One of them, he's like a local historian, and so he was a lot of fun. He wrote a column every week for the local paper. He took us up on the mountain north of Marietta where my Cherokee family lived. Well, there's several generations, but one of them lived at what used to be called Allatoona Town. It 28:00was a Cherokee town before the Trail of Tears. It's now part of Red Top Mountain State Park.

We got to go and see where he lived. His sister and his son actually came on the Trail of Tears from Georgia, but he was killed by the Georgians. They were south of the Chattahoochee River, south of Atlanta. The Cherokee land was north, and our family lived close to the Chattahoochee on the Cherokee side.

Before the Trail of Tears, when the gold was discovered, people were wanting to take Cherokee land for that. They even passed a law that the Cherokee could not 29:00mine gold even on their own land. (Laughs) Anyway, they would send these marauders, people that would come and raid some of the Cherokee farms and things. Young Deer was my ancestor's name. He went down by a little creek near the Cherokee town to pray every morning. He was a Christian. His sister found him there. He'd been shot, and so that was his story. She came on to Tahlequah and lived there. Young Deer's son was called Indian John. He came on the Trail, 30:00but he ran away and went back to Georgia and hid up in the mountains north of Marietta and worked as a blacksmith. We have a lot of fun stories that I got from them, and how his sons fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and all that. It's kind of fun.

Little Thunder: How did it impact your art, that kind of really direct experience?

Sullivan: Encouraged me. I had always been interested in western history and Indian, especially that. The Cherokee, when I actually got to go back there, the first time that we drove into the Smoky Mountains, I couldn't keep from tears. 31:00It was so emotional. It's hard to explain, but I've heard there are a lot of other people who do that when they go back there. It was hard to explain, but it was like you were going to your home.

Little Thunder: What's an award that you won early in your career that was important to you?

Sullivan: The first time I entered the Trail of Tears art show, I had no thought of winning, and I won first in the Trail of Tears. It was a real shock. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Do you want to explain that category a bit?

Sullivan: The Trail of Tears category is where you do a painting that expresses 32:00what happened on the Trail of Tears, which was the forced movement of the tribes to Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: What was your image?

Sullivan: It was just a young Indian girl. She has on blue jeans and a t-shirt, and she's got her thumbs in her pockets, and she's acting kind of tough, you know. Behind her is a memory circle, which became my symbol. Inside of that is the people on the Trail. It's like, "Don't forget your heritage. Some of these changes are not that great." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You've spoken a bit about encountering prejudice sometimes as a Cherokee artist because you maybe weren't as identifiable as some other people. Was that from other Indian artists or non-Indians or a mix?

Sullivan: I really didn't even think about it when I went into it because I felt so strongly that I was supposed to do it, but, yes, I did run into some of that. Most of the ones who were verbal about it were white people who came to the shows, and they would say, "You don't look Indian." I said, "Well, I are one." (Laughter) It's funny. There are some, usually full-blood people--I never had anyone ever question it. The only ones that I really noticed were either white 34:00or part white. My dad looked like one, but I just happened to not get the darker skin. (Laughter) Some of my sons are. It doesn't bother me one way or the other because I just felt that I had a purpose for my painting and it's what I did.

Little Thunder: You weren't as immersed in the gallery scene as long as some people, but what changes did you notice, I guess from the ʼ90s, when you really started being active with galleries?

Sullivan: I did some galleries. I didn't a whole lot.

Little Thunder: You focused on your shows more?

Sullivan: Yes, I'd rather have gone to the show and sell my work myself because, as you know, the gallery takes quite a chunk out of the money. That part was kind of hard at first, but as I got older I decided to work with one or two galleries because it is very expensive to go to the art shows, travel and show fees and all that. It balances out.

Little Thunder: Of course, you were having a museum show back east for a while. Do you think your market is more in Oklahoma or outside of Oklahoma?

Sullivan: It's all over. The gallery I work with now, there's collectors from 36:00different places. Oklahoma, yes, but they're all over. There's one in Connecticut, several different places.

Little Thunder: Your two galleries, are they both in Oklahoma?

Sullivan: Both. Tribes Gallery here in Norman and then the Cherokee Gift Shop and Gallery in Tahlequah are the only two. I sell my prints and cards and things all over.

Little Thunder: Do you sell from a webpage, too?

Sullivan: Yes.

Little Thunder: What was your first sale or a sale that was very exciting to you?

Sullivan: Actually, this was when I was going to college. I went to college, all of it but one year at East Central in Ada, but one year I went to Southeastern. That fall, my boys and I were by ourselves and really needed some money. We had a little show at the school, at the art school at college, and I sold a painting. I was so thrilled! That was my first real sale. I went and spent every 38:00penny at the grocery store. (Laughter) That was the most important sale, I think.

Little Thunder: Right. Well, 1999 was kind of a banner year for you because you were Honored One at Red Earth. Is that right?

Sullivan: Yes.

Little Thunder: Best of Show at Red Earth, and here you've only been really painting full-time for about nine years when this happened. Starting with Best of Show, what was your image for that, and what did that award mean to you?

Sullivan: Well, I didn't win Best of Show at Red Earth. I won at the Cherokee Museum show. That [gesturing] was my piece, She Speaks for Her Clan, which was 39:00about our seven clans of the Cherokee. The models were all real ladies from the clans they represented.

Little Thunder: Wilma Mankiller was one of those models.

Sullivan: She represented the Blue Clan, which was one of her grandmother's clans. That's become my signature piece. It's been in so many publications and things, including Time Life Books, the Smithsonian.

Little Thunder: Do they have the original at Tsa La Gi Museum [in Tahlequah]?

Sullivan: No, it's at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina. The Eastern Cherokee bought the site of what they call the mother 40:00city, Kituwah. It's in the mountains out there close to Cherokee, North Carolina. They are in the process of restoring that mother city into a museum complex, and they said that painting is going to go there, so I'm very thrilled about that.

One of my Cherokee friends, Tommy Wildcat, went to Cherokee, North Carolina, with us even way before they bought that painting. Some of the full-blood kids took him to that site, and at that time, just a little bit of the mound was there, and it was part of a farmer's field. On the way home, he took my husband and I by there. We had to walk down this little hill, across a railroad track 41:00and everything. We got there, and it was a beautiful little valley that was ringed with the Smokies. Very emotional for both of us.

I filmed him for a report for one of his classes at Northeastern University. He got up on top of the mound and was talking about it. Then when I shut the camera off and he came down, he had tears. He said, "Someway, somehow, this has to be brought back." Well, they're working on it now. It's very important to a lot of people. I'm looking forward to that. I hope I get to see it.

Little Thunder: It's kind of proof how art and social change interweave.

Sullivan: I used to teach a class called Drawing as a Second Language. Art, it's the best, I think, way of communicating that there is because you don't have to have language. People remember the picture more than they do the words. I really think that art is so important for Native people or any people to preserve their heritage and their culture and their history.

Little Thunder: You did win an award in '99 at Red Earth.

Sullivan: Yes, first in drawing.

Little Thunder: Was that with a bark drawing?

Sullivan: No, that was at Five Tribes, a painting on tree bark. The one at Red Earth was a pencil drawing. It's "Praise the Lord" in Cherokee. It's three ladies, three generations, and they're singing hymns in Cherokee. They posed for me at the museum. I took a lot of pictures of them and then did a pencil drawing, and that was it.

Little Thunder: Honored One, that's a special award. It's not just for achievement.

Sullivan: I know. I could not believe it when they called me and told me that I was to be the Honored One that year at Red Earth. They select one artist each 44:00year (and they're all different tribes all across the United States) to be the Honored One. That was like the Academy Award to me. (Laughs) It was wonderful. Then the next year, I was named Master Artist at the Five Tribes Museum. It was just a huge, huge year. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You've done several one-woman shows. A solo show is hard, I think, anyway, but what's the challenge of doing one?

Sullivan: I enjoy doing them. I had one at the Red Earth Museum in Oklahoma City. I've had several in North Carolina at the museums. Lots of different places. Tulsa, had one there. I believe it was Gilcrease.

Little Thunder: Did you prepare for a whole year?

Sullivan: Well, that was before I was selling as much, so I had some, and then I worked quite a while. Now I've sold all my originals, so I really have to work to get something done.

Little Thunder: Well, we're going to get to look at one, so that'll be great. I know your husband, George, has passed on now, but what was his contribution in terms of this is sort of a two-person business?

Sullivan: It really is. He was a minister, and then he retired because of health. He was always, from the beginning, very encouraging with my artwork and helped any way he could. When I decided to try to go full-time, we sat down and talked about it. I said, "I'll do the art. What are you going to do?" (Laughter) So he did all the business part, which is a lot. He taught himself to do all the 47:00matting and framing. He got to where he could cut real fancy mats and all that stuff, thank goodness. (Laughter)

Another thing, I had a very difficult time trying to use the mat cutter because I'm left handed and it's set up for a right-handed. So after he passed away, I finally got up the courage and tried to use my right hand, which is retarded, to try to cut. I finally can do it, but not near quite as good as he did. (Laughter)

The best contribution he did was encouragement, just being there when I was working on a painting. Sometimes he'd just kind of sit and watch me paint, and it helped. That's one thing that I really miss now. I think artists need a 48:00spouse to be there and just to help them keep going. Another thing, I think artists are the worst business people in the world, so they need that support. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You were contracted by the National Park Service to do a painting of the Trail of Tears that was going to be placed at a dispersal center. Can you explain what a dispersal center is, and then tell us a little bit about what you did?

Sullivan: Well, there were seventeen, I believe, different detachments that came to Oklahoma, of Cherokees. There was anywhere from five hundred in a detachment 49:00to fifteen hundred or so. When they got here, there were sites set up. There were several, but there was two that were the main ones. One of them was near Stilwell, and the people would go there. The wagon train would come in, and there would be government contractors or people who were in charge of giving supplies out. Each family would get one month's worth of supplies. That would just be flour, maybe some hog meat or something like that, a little bit of 50:00coffee, a little bit of sugar. It wasn't a whole lot, and corn. Every month, they would have to come back. They were given rations for a year, so they'd have to come back every month to get their supply while they were trying to find a home site, put in a garden or a crop. It was a pretty tough time.

The National Park Service, they are putting these historical markers up at several of the sites. The first one that I did was Mrs. Webber's Plantation, which, I think, the majority went to that one. There were several different 51:00groups of Cherokees that came to Oklahoma. The first ones came, they were the Old Settlers. They came before the others did and had already settled and set up their own government. Then the second group was the Treaty Party, who were considered traitors by some of the majority that were still in the old Nation. And then the Trail of Tears group.

Mr. and Mrs. Webber had a plantation set up where the site of Stilwell is now. In fact, their home site is now part of the Stilwell cemetery. I went out and took a lot of pictures in all directions from where the home site was. There's a 52:00little hill that's down here, and the stream, below the site. I thought, "Well, if my family had just gotten their rations--"

A lot of them had to hang around the site because they didn't have anywhere else to go. Some of them had old ragged tents and things like that, but I thought, "Well, I would want to go down and grab that site by the creek." So I have a family that's there, and they're cooking and setting up their stuff. Then, way in the background is Mrs. Webber on her porch, and all these wagon trains coming in, and people standing in line to get their stuff. This was special to me because my grandmother's Cherokee allotment land was just north of the edge of Stilwell and not far from that site. It meant a lot to me to be able to do that.

Little Thunder: Are you active with the Cherokee Artist Association at all?

Sullivan: I haven't been. I would like to be, but it means driving to Tahlequah for the meetings. When my husband was ill, that was impossible to do. Now it's a little hard to go, but I would like to.

Little Thunder: What do you see as some of the benefits of being in an association, an artists' association?

Sullivan: I think just supporting each other, encouraging each other. That's good. That's another thing that was good about going to the shows, was just visiting with the other artists and being able to encourage each other and share.

Little Thunder: Good interaction. It gets kind of lonely sometimes, doesn't it?

Sullivan: Yes.

Little Thunder: How has your color palette changed over the years? I know it depends on whether you're working in acrylics or oils.

Sullivan: Well, I pretty well just use a basic palette, just earth colors.

Little Thunder: Do you think it's gotten lighter or darker?

Sullivan: No, it just depends on what I'm working on.

Little Thunder: You mentioned that you like to draw. Do you do a lot of preliminary studies before you do a painting?

Sullivan: Not a lot. I used to do, not as much anymore, a detailed pencil drawing before I would do the painting.

Little Thunder: I see. And then once you've done your drawing, paint directly on 55:00the board or canvas?

Sullivan: Yes, I usually transfer an outline of the drawing but not the drawing itself. The reason I do the drawing is, first of all, the composition and design. The second thing that I think is important is the shading, the light and dark, determining where the light's coming from and all that. I think it's important to get those two things before you start putting the paint on there. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: When you're working with acrylic, are you working on canvas or a board or both?

Sullivan: Both.

Little Thunder: How often do you do oils anymore?

Sullivan: It depends what I'm working on. If I have something I have to finish in a hurry, I use acrylic. I started doing a lot of dancing turtles for fun. When I need to get one of those done, (they're usually in a hurry and for fun) those are acrylic or watercolor.

Little Thunder: Family interactions are a strong thread of your work. What do you try to convey with those images?

Sullivan: Well, I just really think that family is very, very important. I have five sons, and they've been my life. I have a large extended family from them, 57:00so I think that family is very important, love of family, support of family. I try to show that.

Another thing, I've painted a lot of women, strong women. I think that was a part of the Cherokee and a lot of other Native people, the respect and love for their women as well as the depending on the strength of their women. That's something I'm kind of proud of, so that's what I was trying to show with that.

Little Thunder: You use live models, and you take photographs. Will you also do on-site studies, have somebody sit or stand?

Sullivan: Just stand there and pose for me? Sometimes, but not as often because it's so hard to get people to do that. Sometimes I can grab a family member, but sometimes it's easier to work from--I don't just copy a photograph. A lot of times I will take two or three or more and work from that to do the person, so it's not just a copy of a photograph.

Little Thunder: Is the same true when you're doing a landscape? Are you working straight from the photograph as much as you can?

Sullivan: Well, if I can, I'd rather work from the place. On this painting we 59:00were talking about a while ago, Mrs. Webber's Plantation, I took a lot of pictures a lot of different ways of the site, and then I worked from that. There really wasn't any way just to set up and paint there. I did most of that from [photos] and remembering the site. A lot of it is in your head.

Little Thunder: You've talked about the kinds of research you do for your paintings. How important is humor in your work?

Sullivan: I think it's important. I think emotion is very important. Trying to portray a feeling or an emotion, that's part of the communication of the art, 60:00whether it's humor or something else. I like to try to show strength, love, some humor, especially with the turtles, the dancing turtles, because the way that came about, the dancing turtles--would you like to hear that?

Little Thunder: Yes, I'd like to hear that story.

Sullivan: Well, my husband had been sick for quite a while, and it was kind of a tough time. One summer, he was sick. My sister had a stroke, and my mom almost passed away. My grandson wrecked a car, so there was a lot of things. We even had a storm that blew our fence down, so a lot of stuff to deal with. I was in 61:00my studio one day, trying to get myself to where I could work and concentrate, and kind of having a pity party. I collect little miniature turtles, have for a long time, just because I think they're fun.

All of a sudden in my mind--my imagination works overtime sometimes. All of a sudden, I was dancing around the room with my turtles. It just made me feel good, made me smile, and so I did a painting of three turtles dancing because I needed a piece to donate to OU. It was the arts department. They were having a fundraising thing. That's what I did it for. Then from then on, I've had people 62:00wanting dancing turtles. It's been a lot of fun to think of different ways to show dancing turtles because, you know, why are they dancing? (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When you look back at your career, what do you think was that fork-in-the-road moment where you could have gone one way, but you chose to go another?

Sullivan: You mean to be an artist? I think I've always, always felt like that's what I needed to do. To go full-time as a full-time artist, that was scary 63:00because I had depended on income as a teacher, and the art business is tough. It's hard work, and it's a gamble of whether you're going to sell or not.

One thing that had happened was I moved from Tahlequah to Oklahoma City because I was working so many long hours in Tahlequah. I was not only the art teacher, photography teacher, humanities teacher, but I also was in charge of the news for all the schools. All kinds of things. I was working all the time. I decided that I was wearing out and was offered a job in Oklahoma City. It was supposed 64:00to be in upper-elementary and no sponsorships or anything. When I got there and reported for work, it was in a huge junior high that was horrible. I had thirty to thirty-five students in a class at a time, and it was just a disaster. I finally got ill from it.

It's like I had to have a real hit on the head to realize what I needed to do because I had a lot of friends who were encouraging me to go ahead and go 65:00full-time, but I was too scared to do it. My husband at that time had retired from his job, so we sat down and talked about it and decided what he was going to do, what I was going to do, and we went for it.

Little Thunder: You brought up your memory circles, and I think we're going to get to see one or two in a couple of the images here, but I wonder if you can talk about how that device came to you.

Sullivan: Well, a lot of my paintings have come from when I just wake up in the morning. I see an image, a picture finished in my mind. It's like a color slide. In those, a lot of those, especially the Trail of Tears pieces and some of the 66:00Cherokee culture pieces, I would see those. To me, it would mean all the wonderful things we've inherited from the past, what we're doing with now, and our hope for the future. That's what those mean to me.

Little Thunder: You described part of your creative process. What else is involved? Do you keep a little notebook of ideas?

Sullivan: They're here. Sometimes they stack up too deep. (Laughter) Sometimes there will be one or two that will be very emotional to me, that keeps bugging me until I have to do it. (Laughter) I don't like to do commission work because 67:00I have too many of the others that I'm wanting to do, but sometimes the money helps.

Little Thunder: Are you a daytime painter, or do you prefer working at night?

Sullivan: I used to work all hours. I used to work all night sometimes, but now I don't. My best time to work is early in the morning until about one or two in the afternoon.

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

Sullivan: I don't know. We've already talked about some. The achievements are good, but I think the most important thing to me is just being able to feel that 68:00I'm doing what I need to do. It's nice to be recognized for doing that, but it's not the most important thing. It's doing the art that's important. I think that's the best part, is just being able to do it.

Little Thunder: How about a low point in your career?

Sullivan: When my husband passed away, because nobody really understands that, going through that, until they go through it. It's like half of you is gone, and 69:00he was really half of the job. I mean, because art, you're an artist. It's work. So that part was gone, and then trying to figure out who you are again. I wasn't sure I could even do the work. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

That was why it was such a blessing to get--I think God took care of me because I got the commission from the National Park Service and all of the encouragement from that. I got several things of recognition that helped. The Cherokee Nation 70:00was very encouraging on a lot of things. It was like every time I sat down and said, "I quit. I don't want to do this anymore," then it was like, "No, you're not through. You have other things to do. Get with it." That, I think, was good. It was not time for me to quit yet.

Little Thunder: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about or anything we've forgotten to mention before we look at your work?

Sullivan: I can't think of anything. We covered it pretty good.

Little Thunder: All right, great. We'll take a look at some of these paintings and reproductions. Would you like to tell us about this piece?

Sullivan: This is called War and Peace, but it's also Man and Woman. My art has 71:00sometimes been described as spiritual abstraction, so this illustrates some of that. This is the memory circle. This divides--this side is male. To the Cherokee, the man is the moon and the winter. The falcon is the war bird. This is still the symbol for the Cherokee veterans, and the seven feathers for the seven clans. Man went to war in the winter. This side is woman. The eagle is the peace bird or the messenger. Woman is summer and the sun. She brings life, and the harvest is in the summer. This is the rattlesnake design. This is the peace design.

Little Thunder: Great. Okay, let's take a look at the next one.

Sullivan: This is a poster of Mrs. Webber's Plantation. This is the one that we discussed that was the first painting that I did for the National Park Service. This shows a family that have gotten their supplies, and they're sitting down here by the creek preparing a meal. This is the first one [in the series].

This is a print of the painting I did for the Trail of Tears. It's called But This is My Home. The actual site is in Georgia where my ancestor lived. It's got the red clay of Georgia. This is the background they would have seen out of their cabin, the Smokies. We got to go to the New Echota and found that their 73:00cabin was sixteen foot by sixteen foot and got the description. I tried to show that. I even put the newspaper here, Cherokee paper on this porch. You'll notice, these are the soldiers, shadows of the soldiers that are coming to take them away from their home, and they're saying, "But this is my home."

The Georgia Trail of Tears Association and the National Park Service used this image on some of their historical markers there in Georgia. That was thrilling to me because that's where my family came from originally.

This painting is Gifts of Our Ancestors, Fourteen Generations. This is a painting about my Cherokee family, fourteen generations of them. It's based on 74:00family history and also on a dream that my eldest son, right here, James, had about this. He described what was going on in the dream. There were seven men around the fire. There were five women in the background in his dream. There was a medicine man that stood behind this old man, sang a song in Cherokee, and then he gave him a gift which was a deer hide. Then he stood behind this man, sang a song, and he gave him a red arrow, and so on.

My son had never studied the costumes, the history, or anything, so it was quite 75:00an event for us. Anyway, after we got through all this, we realized that the gifts represented what went on in their lifetime. The Cherokee were slaughtering the deer to trade to the whites. In his lifetime, he was given the red arrow because he lived during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War.

His gift to Young Deer in Georgia was the turtle rattle. That was during the forced civilization policy of the government. It says, "Hang on to the culture." See, he's got it right here. Then Young Deer gives his son, Indian John, the talking stick. The man who is speaking in the council holds the stick. When he's finished, he gives it to the next one.

He lived in Georgia, (he was killed by the vigilantes or whatever) and then he came to Oklahoma. His gift to my father, who is right here, who was born in Stilwell, he gave him a little gold ring with a hole in it. We couldn't figure out what in the world, but during his lifetime, my great-grandmother's lifetime, his daughter, my grandmother, my dad, they worked really, really hard to try to hang on to what little they had, and it always had a hole in it. Also, the gold that was discovered in Georgia during their lifetime wasn't really that good. It always had a hole in it. We thought that was pretty good. Then my dad's gift to 77:00James was a little black book. We didn't know for sure what it was. He thought it might be a Bible.

A couple of years after I did a sketch for James, (he said, "Mom, you've got to do this," so I did a sketch for him) I didn't think any more about it, but when we went to the Jacobson House in Norman to hear Chad Smith and one of our tribal elders, Hastings Shade, give a talk, Hastings was telling some of the old stories and things. He talked about a bunch of stuff, but then one of the things he said was, "The Cherokees believe life goes in cycles of fourteen generations. The fourteenth is now. What we do to prepare that fourteenth to start it all 78:00over again, that depends on whether it will be good or bad, what we do to prepare them."

So we went, like, "Whoa! That's what that was about." The woman on the far end is James' daughter, my granddaughter, and her daughter. Her daughter is the seventh woman in the picture, and she's also the fourteenth generation, which we thought was really interesting. My dad was real involved in his church, and so is he, so we thought, "Well, the Bible does make sense after all." So that's what the painting--this is the blue timeline and the memory circle showing the gifts, except right here, Young Deer giving Indian John the gift.

Little Thunder: That's a wonderful painting and a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing that.

Sullivan: Thank you.

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