Oral history interview with Robert Henry

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Friday, February 10, 2012. I am at Oklahoma City University at the home of Robert Henry, currently President and CEO of OCU. Robert, you've had a distinguished career as an attorney, as the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, Chief Justice of the US Court of Appeals, but Native artists in Oklahoma know you as an articulate advocate for and supporter of Native art and as a collector. That's the focus of our interview here. Thank you for taking time to speak with me today.

Henry: It's my pleasure.

Little Thunder: Your father was also an attorney and state district judge, I read, and your parents met in college. As a child, what were some of your earliest experiences with art?

Henry: My father loved art, and I remember one of the first pieces of Native American art that I saw him acquire or brag about was a Tony Ponkilla carving of 1:00Will Rogers. It's actually here in my library. Tony was Seminole. He took an old orange crate and did this amazing bas-relief of Will Rogers who was, of course, both Indian and cowboy, a member of the Cherokee tribe. That was one of [the first pieces of Indian art I recall].

We also had, in my bedroom, a Woody Big Bow. Woody Big Bow was one of the Kiowa painters, a ery enthusiastic painter. Sometimes he painted the same thing a little bit too much. (Laughter) I think I sort of developed my love for the Kiowa style from that. Then I became acquainted with Scott Momaday many years 2:00later and developed more love for the Kiowa tribe and its amazing culture. I guess per capita it's probably the most artistic tribe. Growing up as I did around Shawnee, there were Seminole, [Pottawatomi], Shawnee, and Creek painters. I saw their work from early times.

Little Thunder: Were you, yourself, interested in drawing or painting at all?

Henry: I am the most incapable artist that ever lived. People see I have a pretty extensive collection, mostly Native American, Western, some classical figures, lithographs, and they just assume that I must be able to do something artistically. I cannot draw a stick figure in a compelling way. (Laughter) I am totally artistically challenged, but that's good for art because I'm no threat 3:00to anyone and I buy a lot of paintings. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You were exposed to Native art as a child. Were you exposed to the culture at all, growing up in Shawnee?

Henry: Not so much. A little bit from Boy Scouts and a little bit from visiting a powwow or two. Actually, it was when I was in the Oklahoma legislature. I was elected to the legislature when I was twenty-three, and I began to study our Indian heritage more. Initially, I didn't understand sovereignty and was confused by it and thought it was counterproductive. The more I got into it, I began to understand the logic of it, the legality of it, and also the blessings that it provides.

Tribal wisdom is really great wisdom. It's sort of getting the world down to its least common denominator. The great Abrahamic works of faith are all tribal: the Torah, the Koran, the Jewish scriptures, and the early Christian scriptures. Now, the early Christian scriptures are not so tribal, but they have the tribal wisdom of the Jewish fathers behind them.

Tribal societies engage life on its simplest terms and have been able to develop some incredible wisdom. They are communitarian. They're altruistic. They're not individualistic. We have enough individualism, I think, in America today. We need a little bit more communitarianism, altruism, helping the group.

Little Thunder: When did you purchase your first painting by a Native artist?

Henry: Gosh, it would've been, I think, when I was in college. Then, subsequently, my father passed away, and when my mother sold our house, by mistake that Big Bow painting that I grew up with got away from me, got away from us. I was just horrified by that. I was sure it was packed away somewhere. Many years later, I was in the old farmers market down here in Oklahoma City 6:00that used to have some people that would go out to garage sales and find something. I turned the corner and I saw my painting, the one I grew up with, the one that was right over the television set in my bedroom. I asked the shopkeeper, I said, "Where did you get that painting?" He said, "I bought it at a garage sale in Shawnee." So I bought my painting back. It's really a great Woody Big Bow. Some of his are not as good, but this is a really great one. It's in my office now, so I see it every day.

Little Thunder: That's a wonderful story. As a student, you probably didn't have a lot of extra money. Was it a little bit of a sacrifice?

Henry: Yes.

Little Thunder: Do you remember what that picture was?

Henry: No, I don't. I think it's a time honored thing in collecting Indian art. 7:00You go to garage sales, and you go to antique shops, and you bargain and trade and so forth. I think it was probably when I was Attorney General I learned about the [Colonel Thomas] McKenney and [James] Hall lithographs that are not Indian paintings but paintings of Indians, which is a remarkable historical record. Thank God, Colonel McKenney liked Indians. He was fired from being Indian Commissioner by Andrew Jackson because he did like Indians.

You can make a pretty compelling case that the Indian Commissioner ought to like Indians, but Jackson was a traitor. Indian people helped him all through his 8:00career, and his good friend Sam Houston was adopted in the Cherokee tribe, but Jackson was a total political opportunist. What he did to our Indian people is tragic. It's in many senses the Indian holocaust. The Trail of Tears was a creation of his perfidy. It is a black, black spot on America.

Thankfully, Colonel McKenney had Charles Bird King and others paint these great Indians, and then even though Jackson forbade him to, he made lithographs of them which were then hand-colored and distributed between, I think, about 1825 and 1845. So we have these remarkable collections of what the great Indians looked like when they went to Washington, what Sequoyah, who represented the 9:00Western Cherokees, looked like when he went there. He did have that turban. He did have that colorful clothing. He did smoke a little pipe. He did have the silver medal the Cherokees gave him for creating the syllabary. Or [how] Chief [William] McIntosh, who was part Scottish, [looked and dressed]. He wore a tartan with his Scottish sword and a big Indian feather. Or Pushmataha, who wore a blue military jacket he'd been given for bailing somebody out from time to time.

I bought a lot. I collected over the years a lot of those. Later, I fell under the spell of Doris Littrell. Just going to visit her at the Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery was just amazing. You kind of wanted to turn her on and just let her talk. She knows more about Indian art than anyone, I think, in history. I bought 10:00many things from her. She would let me pay things out, and she really, really helped me.

Little Thunder: Was that the first Indian art gallery that you started frequenting?

Henry: Yes, I bought things from antique shops and so forth, but she was the first. Then there were a couple in Santa Fe that I worked with quite a bit, but no one knew as much as Doris, particularly about Plains Indians but really just about everything, about basketry, about jewelry, about German silver, those sorts of things.

Little Thunder: When you were visiting with Doris and buying a bit in Santa Fe, 11:00were you conscious of collecting particular styles of work or a particular subject matter?

Henry: No, I initially started with Oklahomans, and when we bought a little casita in Santa Fe, well, I wanted to get some of the New Mexicans. Then I found that there were these great friendships. Woody Crumbo went to Santa Fe all the time. Quincy Tahoma and Harrison Begay and Beatien Yazz would interact with the locals here.

Of course, we had the amazing school of Indian art in Santa Fe where Ben Harjo studied and Sherman Chaddlesone, and [T.C. Cannon] was there. There was such a milieu, and they traded with each other. And the great Allan Houser, who was 12:00born at Fort Sill in the short grass country of Oklahoma, kinsman of Geronimo, relocated to Santa Fe. I remember seeing he started as a painter, and I remember seeing this first marble sculpture he did for some event. It was just fantastic because then all of a sudden he started sculpting, and he changed sculpting, I think. He just created a style.

I just collected the ones I really loved. Jerome Tiger got very expensive, and I wanted a really good Jerome Tiger. It took me a long time, and I finally got one. There's a few of the really beginning artists that I don't have that I'd 13:00like to have. Ernest Spybuck, I'd like to have. I have a wonderful Carl Sweezy. I love those folks upon whose shoulders [modern Indian artists] stand. I'd love to have a Lois Smoky, the Kiowa five you always hear about. Well, there were six. Her work is astoundingly difficult to find.

Little Thunder: Was your wife always on board with that? Sometimes it's something you have to negotiate unless you're both--

Henry: My wife was always on board in the jewelry category. (Laughter) Anything involving Indian jewelry she was all for. I think the painters were an acquired taste with her. I think she pretty much shares my passion now for painters.

I suspect her favorite is Ben Harjo. She loves Ben Harjo. We've just been close friends for a long time. She loves really intricate work. She loves Merlin Little Thunder's work because she is a dentist and she's very precise. Actually, she made my wedding ring. She knows how to do these things, and she can really value that precision. It takes a little more than precision, but precision is kind of nice, too.

Little Thunder: Do you think collecting is primarily an emotional impulse, or is it an intellectual kind of experience, or is it both?

Henry: I guess it's both. I remember seeing a painting once that was not Indian, 15:00but it was very much an Indian subject. It was a Benedictine priest in the Northeast who painted scriptural scenes with various Indian tribes, Indians from Guatemala, Navajos, Plains Indians. I remember he did a transfiguration with a Crow and a Sioux and a Blackfoot. It's Jesus and Elijah and Moses.

I was looking at his work, and I turned the corner, and I saw this little Navajo boy in this painting, very big eyes, sad eyes, beautiful Navajo features with a 16:00little lamb over his shoulder, and it was the Good Shepherd. It was the shepherd who leaves the flock to save the lost sheep. I turned and saw it, and my breath just went out of me.

I just sat there, and I said, "Jan, Jan, come look at this." We looked at it because it was telling a universal truth, and a truth that is so much Native in origin, too. Indian wisdom would completely understand that. I said, "I hope that painting is sold because it doesn't matter what the price is, I'm going to buy it." (Laughter) It was sold. I bought a copy of it, which isn't the same, but sometimes you will see a painting that does that to you.

I have a Harvey Pratt painting that's very much the other way. I love Harvey's work. I saw a painting across his booth span at Red Earth one time, and I thought, "Well, that's really interesting. I'll go over and look at it." When you get close, you just start laughing because you begin to see that it's a series of Indian warriors who had a very long ride, and they have stopped to relieve themselves, all of them. And the horses are doing the same thing. (Laughter)

You just sit there--it has this whimsy that many great Indian painters like to do. Sometimes you laugh in order to keep from crying. I'm just sitting there chuckling, and Harvey comes over, and I said, "Harvey, I love that painting! 18:00Where would you hang it?" He said, "In the bathroom." I said, "Sold!" (Laughter) I bought it instantly.

So that was a very different kind of emotional--because sometimes, you just want to laugh. I used to have that painting in my old house in Heritage Hills. It was so funny because people would come out of the little guest room. Many wouldn't notice it, but those that did would always-- (Laughter)

I have a Ben Harjo wood block that tells an amazing story from the annals of Cheyenne law. The Cheyenne, like all tribes, were opposed to the death penalty. There was war, but tribes didn't do the death penalty. They did restorative justice. The tribe needed every able person. If a person committed a murder, 19:00they might be sent away from the tribe for some time. They might be banished, but none of the tribes really had death penalties. They still don't. I don't know of an Indian tribe that has the death penalty.

Ben tells in this wood block this amazing story of a Cheyenne warrior who was killed, and his friends "spoil for revenge." It's translated. There was a stench, they were so angry. The peace chief said, "Please do not kill the murderer. We'll take care of that. Here are some horses. Take these horses that will make you whole. Leave the law to us." They said, "Oh, no, no. We're going to kill him. We're going to kill him."

Then the murdered man's father comes to them and says, "Haven't I had enough pain? Will you dishonor my name more by perpetrating another murder of that for my son?" He said, "Would you please take my horses? Take those, but please do 20:00not put me through more pain." Then the young warriors are ashamed, and they say, "We're not going to murder Sharp Nose's murderer." Sharp Nose was the one who was murdered. "We're not going to take your horses. We will take the chief's horses, but we'll make them community property so that anybody that needs them can use them." Ben manages to tell this in a single wood block. It's one of my favorite pieces.

Little Thunder: Sounds wonderful. As a collector, what is the difference between the experience of being at a show in a gallery and being at a booth show?

Henry: Well, in booths, you almost always get to meet the artist. That's really interesting. Some artists are quite sullen. Most are not. Most are really 21:00interested in their customers. Early on, I used to always go to all the Indian markets at Santa Fe. It's gotten so big and difficult now that I tend to miss it a lot. If I know certain people are there, I'll try to run and see them. I like to look at the award winners to see what new directions are going.

If you have a great gallery, as Doris's was, that's a great experience. That's a different experience. That's an experience where you can take an afternoon if you want. You don't feel this pressure. When it's someone like Doris, it's going 22:00to be an afternoon that's well spent because whatever she says, you need to know anyway.

Little Thunder: What percentage of your collection, then, do you think is Oklahoma-based or Native artists with Oklahoma ties?

Henry: I would say probably in excess of 50 percent. I'm not sure that it would be two thirds, but it might be two thirds. It's pretty much Oklahoma and New Mexico. I have a Canadian carving or two, and I can't remember the famous prints. The name won't come to me. I'm always interested in different areas of 23:00the country, but I'm pretty much stuck here because I have limited means, and you can make a more coherent collection.

I think it's so interesting that the Northwest tribes, for example, they have a geometry that is completely different from how Plains Indians see things. The same, I think, for the Eastern tribes, not geometrical, but the art is very different. Then you see the sort of modern fusion artists that have gone new directions. Some of them, you can see they've adopted some of the geometry of 24:00the Northwest tribes.

It seems to me that one thing Indian artists always got right was color, and [Oscar] Jacobson said that. Even though the colors were sometimes provided to them, they liked color, and they did things with color that I think were shocking to some of the art establishment. Maybe everything was kind of impressionistic and soft, and then all of a sudden you see this flat style. [Stephen] Mopope's reds and blues, and the other Kiowas, and the pochoir series that the Germans loved, brown paper, but these nice colors and this very flat, very primitive, but something new and something different.

Little Thunder: Are you collecting younger Native artists, too, in their twenties and thirties?

Henry: I have tended to go more with the patriarchs and matriarchs. Isaac Newton once said that if he saw more than anyone else, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. I'm very interested in those giants that modern artists stand on their shoulders. So many of them really had a very tough life. They had illness problems, alcoholism problems, diabetes. The federal Indian policies could not have been more destructive if they'd tried. If they'd said, "Let's 26:00really mess Indian life up," they would have never been as effective as these nutty on-again, off-again policies and trying to blend the cultures instead of learning from the cultures.

Little Thunder: If you were to describe the focus of your collection, part of your interest is getting an overarching historical and cultural [context]?

Henry: Right. [But] I [also] like to see the new directions. Think about literature for a minute. I prefer Scott Momaday to Sherman Alexie, but Sherman Alexie is a hoot, and he's also Indian. He's very Indian. He takes it a new and 27:00different way, and I think he acknowledges Momaday. He acknowledges those forces that they stand.

Scott Momaday is quite capable of pushing the envelope. Every now and then, he goes off in a different way, but he is primarily a storyteller. That is what Indian artists do. [They tell] a story. Tribal people know how to tell stories. The Iliad is a tribal book. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a tribal book, in a sense. The Torah is a tribal book. People know how to tell stories, and Indian art really excels at that.

Little Thunder: When you were Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma, did you often bring your artwork into the Capitol? I don't know how much Native art 28:00was at the Capitol to start with.

Henry: I fell early on under the tutelage of Betty Price. I became quite the advocate for things Indian in the Capitol. The thing I'm most proud of in my ten years in the legislature is not a piece of Indian art, but in a sense it is. I was the moving force behind getting Angie Debo's portrait painted by Charles Banks Wilson, who is not Indian but is one of the leading supporters and believers of Indian art and has done more with his pencil and the purebloods. Angie Debo is the person who spoke truth to power first. She, more than any other person I know, with very few resources, advocated for Indians, for tribal rights.

She never got a job at her alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, because she just kept naming the names of corrupt people who had abused Indians. She was made an honorary member of several tribes. Particularly the Muscogee Creek really venerate her, but all tribal people should. I have supported and worked on art in the Capitol for a long time. My most recent project is a portrait of John Hope Franklin, who has Indian blood, the African American historian. I have a study from Ray Kinstler here in my office and my study here at home. February 22, that will be hung. So, again, it is not by an Indian, but it is of an Indian.

Little Thunder: You've mentioned that in the process of collecting, you've developed friendships with artists and spent time with them in other settings and contexts. How does that enrich your life and enrich your appreciation for art?

Henry: Well, Indians are different just like everybody else. The Indian artists that I either become friends with or acquaintances of are [often] laconic. They're very terse. They don't say a lot. What they do say is right on point. Then, of course, there's my dear friend Scott Momaday, who is about as vocal as 31:00they come. And, again, everything he says is worth hearing. When he talks about the Kiowas learning Christian hymns and converting them to Kiowa, and he tells about it, you can hear that story. I remember he took me through the cemetery near the Kiowa Baptist Church near Rainy Mountain, the sacred Kiowa place. To have him show me these tombstones and talk about people that I had heard of...

One of the things that people who don't know about Indians are surprised is how patriotic Indians are. Despite all the nasty stuff that has been done to them, America is their country. Indians always volunteer in greater numbers than 32:00average and are decorated in greater numbers than average. When I became Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit and when I became president of OCU, I had the Kiowa Black Leggings [Warrior] Society out here carrying those flags in. I remember when Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor and I went to visit the Cherokees, every event we had, there was a color guard, there was prayer, there was singing. People don't know these things about tribal people, and it's good to know them.

When my dear friend Wilma Mankiller died, she had asked me to speak at her funeral. Her funeral was outside, and it was an amazing service. It was a long service. We needed it to be a long service. It was outside in sort of an arbor 33:00where the speakers were and open chairs. At the very end of the service, a single, solitary red-tail hawk came out and made circles right over the arbor. That hawk obviously wasn't hunting. There are not going to be any rodents. They've all been scared away by these people. But people that spend a lot of time, the very spiritual Indian people will say, "Oh, that's the hawk. We expected him here today."

Little Thunder: You mentioned that you acquired another residence in Santa Fe. 34:00Did you take artwork from here to there, and how did you choose what you took, or did you just embark on a new collecting adventure? (Laughs)

Henry: It's gone back and forth. Initially, I got to meet Beatien Yazz, the great Navajo painter. Spin a Silver Dollar is his book. Again, he is laconic, very taciturn. I love his work. I have a little burrow of his in the snow. It should be in Santa Fe where there are burrows that get in the snow, but it just is so sweet and so beautiful and so lovely that that one had to come back here 35:00and stay. I have some Ben Harjo there, but Quincy Tahoma stays there. T. C. Canon, who could go either place, but my two T. C. Canon pieces stay there. I have a Houser here and a Houser there. But mostly, the Santa Fe pieces are New Mexican and mostly, here, the pieces are Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: You have this practice of having wonderful parties out there in Santa Fe, which the artists come to and your friends come to, as well.

Henry: We used to always have an Indian Market party. One of the reasons we did that is it was so much work for the artists. It's expensive, you know, so we 36:00thought if we just made this huge buffet where people could come and not have to worry about trying to find a restaurant, which is all going to be full, and it's all going to be expensive, we could give everybody one night where they can just come in and have a blast.

It would be interesting because Scott Momaday would often come, and Paul Pletka would often come, and Ben Harjo would often come. You have been. People would say, "Oh, there's Pletka! Oh, there's Mrs. Houser!" (Laughter) People would go and talk and chat, and Jean Seth and Laurel Seth, the legendary gallery owners there, used to come. Finally, life got so complicated, the last year we were just not able to do it. It's a big, big project, and we found that if we did 37:00that, we couldn't go to Indian Market. (Laughter) We're trying to get enough energy to start it up again.

Little Thunder: It very much felt like, to the artists, a nice giving-back.

Henry: Yes. Nathan Hart would come. Chief [Lawrence] Hart, his father, is one of my favorite figures in Oklahoma history.

Little Thunder: What has been the best piece of advice or a tip that you've ever gotten about collecting?

Henry: I think it's probably that you should collect what you love and not collect as an investment, and that if you see something that you really love and 38:00the price is a little bit higher than it should be but if you really love it, go through a mental list of what you can give up for a few months to get it. (Laughter) I think you should get it.

I missed an Al Momaday the other day. Budget was a little tight that month, and I thought I could wait a couple of days to the next month. Went back, and it was gone. I'm really sorry about that because really great art is something that holds its value in the sense that you love it for as long as you can see it. I have over five thousand books in my library, now. I have hundreds of paintings. 39:00There will be a time when I have to size down, but a lot of these paintings will go with me to the rest home. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are there certain places that you go in the house at certain times of day when you have the time when you're at home to be around those particular pieces?

Henry: We have a guest room here that we have a lot of visitors in, and it's very Native American. I love to just go in there and sit. The cats do, too, for some reason. (Laughter) Also, in my den I have three of my very favorite paintings hung together. I like to go in there.

I like the sculpture, too. Some of my sculptures are not by Indian artists, but 40:00they're of Indian subjects. Those are fun to be with. People enjoy them. People come here and feel a certain warmth. Almost everything has a story, besides the story it's telling, the story of acquiring it or where it came from.

Little Thunder: That's a good point. You found a way of sharing your art. For example, I know you have some pieces at the library here, since you've been president. Is that the only place on campus?

Henry: Oh, no. In my office and the corridor in the administration building. Then I put some art in some other places. Most of the Indian art is either in the library or the administration building or here. I've given a lot of art to 41:00the OCU art collection, but most of that has tended to be prairie printmakers, not Native American.

I have a special feeling for Native American things that cause me to want to hang onto them for a while. I will probably give the entire collection to a museum at some point, or maybe part of it. I'm on the advisory board of the Heard Museum, and that's a very fine museum. I may give some things there.

Little Thunder: That's something collectors have to start thinking about, isn't it, at a certain point?

Henry: There's something about it. You sort of feel like maybe you should have a big auction and let people have the joy of doing what you did, but there's also the hours and hours and hours of putting a collection together. You think maybe 42:00it would be nice to keep that together so people can see what was going on in various styles of painting in various times.

Little Thunder: Why is it important to collect Native art?

Henry: I don't think anything tells as much about us as does our art. If a spaceship landed in my back yard and a little green person, probably not from Mars but probably from somewhere much farther than that, came out and we figured out a way to communicate, and he said, "What are you people like?" I don't think 43:00I'd try to say, "Well, here's what we do in medicine." If he's figured out how to get here, he's got a lot better medicine than we've got. Or, "Here's what we're doing in physics," or, "Look at this automobile, here. Compare it to your spaceship."

I think I'd say, "Let me show you some of the way that we express ourselves," like this Iranian artist that we're looking at here. It's an amazing picture. You can see the influence of Islam in it. It's not totally to that, but there's some animals in there. It's an animated Islamic painting, although Islamic painting doesn't always issue human or animalistic figures.

The same about our music. If I want to put our best foot forward, I might say, "Well, here's a Chopin waltz. This is what we can do when we're at our best," or, "Look at this Jerome Tiger painting. Look at this movement and this beauty and this story." I mean, Tiger almost always has a story, a specific story, as I said, Indian painting. I think art, good art, puts our best foot forward.

Little Thunder: Is there anything you'd like to add, anything we've left out before we look at some examples of the things you've collected?

Henry: As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. I think a painting might be worth ten thousand words. (Laughter) Can we look at three or four paintings?

Little Thunder: Yes, let's take a look. Would you like to tell us about this picture?

Henry: I thought we'd do about three quarters of a century of Indian art, quickly. This is Stephen Mopope with the Kiowa Flute. We talked about his color. Look at the beautiful colors. Look at that blue. It happens to be almost OCU blue on the tipi, and the yuccas and the beautiful tones. You can almost hear that flute. This is the flat style. This is the beginning of Indian art: very flat, very primitive, and yet just dynamic with color in telling the story. Those of us who've heard those cedar flutes can hear that music.

Little Thunder: That's really nice. How about this piece?

Henry: We're sticking with the Kiowa tribe here, but this is a little bit later. This is Al Momaday, Scott Momaday's father, a wonderful Kiowa artist. Here are 46:00either Kiowas or Apaches. You see a little more movement, a little more, perhaps, style, beautiful colors, but again, it's not so much color here as it is this wonderful scouting party. I think Al Momaday is moving a little bit in a different way. You can see the influence of the flat style, but it's not purely, purely flat.

Little Thunder: Some of that Southwestern influence in the back.

Henry: Exactly.

Little Thunder: How about this piece?

Henry: This is Jerome Tiger, and, again you see we're not flat anymore. There's movement in this picture. The buffalo is charging. The bison is charging. The hunter is in his quiver. There is one arrow left, so the last arrow tells all. 47:00There's been three arrows that hit, one arrow that misfired, and we have one chance to save our life. (Laughter) People are so passionate about Jerome Tiger, and this painting, I think, shows why.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Do you want to do Houser next?

Henry: The great Allan Houser, kinsman of Geronimo, Apache. Here is a woman, grinding corn. Beautiful, simple, but people that know his work see it and immediately know that is Allan Houser. Alas, he's so expensive. I only have a couple of small pieces of his. One of Oklahoma's greatest ambassadors of art.

Little Thunder: Great all-around sculptor. I love the colors on this one.

Henry: Finally, just to show we're going different places and new places, this is Ben Harjo, the Indian Picasso, he's sometimes called. The Flow of Creation. Maybe this is Mother Earth, but you see, again, very Indian styles. This may be Kachina, and the birds and the crosses, which are used in universal ways, this mountain symbol. Also, there's geometry and color coming back. It's very Indian, and yet it's very new and different and just a piece that evokes a lot of feeling in my wife and me.

Little Thunder: I see why. We'll do this one, too.

Henry: This is a Harjo wood block that I referenced earlier, telling a Cheyenne 49:00story from the Cheyenne way, a remarkable collection of Cheyenne stories about law and jurisprudence. Here are the two braves that are spoiling for revenge. They want to kill the person who killed their friend. The peace chiefs have said, "Please, take our horses and don't violate tribal law. We'll handle that in the council." The braves won't do it. When the father of the deceased Indian comes to beg them, "Please, do not add insult to injury. Please don't kill another member of our tribe. Take my horses and let the peace chiefs handle this," this story is told in this wonderful wood block.

Little Thunder: I'm glad we got to see that. Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Henry: You're welcome. You're welcome.

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