Oral history interview with Gwen Coleman Lester

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Tuesday, March 13, 2012, and I'm interviewing Gwen Coleman Lester for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by Oklahoma State University and the Oral History Program at OSU. We're at Gwen's house in Claremore. Gwen, you've been entering shows since 1984 while simultaneously working as a commercial artist, but in 2000, you turned to fine art on a full-time basis. Your trademark images are contemporary Choctaw life in colored pencil and acrylics for which you've won many awards over the years. Thank you for taking the time for this interview.

Lester: Thank you for coming.

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

Lester: I was born right here in Claremore. I grew up here, graduated from high school, and then I moved around a bit after that. I worked in Tulsa for a number of years and then Norman. Then I moved to St. Louis, and Seattle for a year. 1:00Then we moved to Altus. Well, we moved back to Norman, worked in Altus during the week, lived in Norman on the weekends. (Laughter) It's complicated. We ended up back here in Claremore in about 2004.

Little Thunder: When you were growing up, what did your folks do for a living?

Lester: My dad worked for the Indian hospital here in Claremore. In fact, we're Choctaw, and we're right in the middle of Cherokee country, but that's how we ended up here. (Laughter) He got a job with the Indian hospital, and he worked in the maintenance department there. My mom, actually she started her working career at the old Mason Hotel here. She gave radium baths back then.

Little Thunder: Wow. Interesting.

Lester: It was unusual, yes. (Laughter) Later on, she became a nurse's aide, and then that's what she did.

Little Thunder: Did you have any brothers or sisters?

Lester: I have three sisters and one brother. Actually, I had four sisters. One passed away when she was only two. She's much older than me, or would have been.

Little Thunder: Your parents were both Choctaw. Your mom from Antlers, and your dad from Hugo. Did your family history on one side influence you more than another?

Lester: Well, we were around my mother's family more, probably, growing up even though I do have some good memories of some of my dad's family, especially an aunt on his side and some of his cousins that he was closer to, but mainly my granny and grandpa on my mom's side.

Little Thunder: Were there any other artists in the family?

Lester: My brother, growing up, was always kind of the family artist, but then he became an accountant, and he didn't pursue that. (Laughter) My mom was always into quilting, so I think she had a real creative outlet, there. She was always good at choosing patterns and colors and all, so I think that was an influence.

Little Thunder: What would you say is your earliest memory of seeing Native art?

Lester: Seeing Native art? I think it had to come from being around Tulsa. I can remember going to powwows and over to the Philbrook and seeing different art in 4:00these locations.

Little Thunder: At the Indian Annual? Did you go to some of those shows?

Lester: I went to some of those, yes, when I was a kid or a teenager, I can remember, especially. That, probably, was what kind of spurred me to do this because in all the years I would look, (I know I was just a kid and I don't remember everything) I can remember looking for what is Choctaw in here because they would always be labeled by tribe. The artists would be labeled by tribe. I never found any, and I grew up thinking that all artists must be Cherokee, Navajo, Kiowa. I was outside of Choctaw territory, I guess, and I just didn't see them.

Little Thunder: You didn't see that represented up here. What is your earliest memory of making art or doing art?

Lester: Oh, gosh, I drew all the time when I was a kid. That was like my toy of 5:00choice was a box of crayons. That would keep me occupied forever. I've always done drawing, but when I was a kid it was a little bit different. I drew clothes all the time. I thought I was going to be a clothes designer. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: An influence from your mom's quilts, maybe?

Lester: Could have been. Could have been.

Little Thunder: What kinds of art experiences did you have in primary school or secondary school?

Lester: The only art class I ever remember taking in school was in junior high. I had one art class in junior high, and that was it.

Little Thunder: Was the teacher pretty inspirational for you?

Lester: It was just such a different thing because we tried all different kinds 6:00of media, so it was constantly working with things I was not familiar with. (Laughter) I'm not sure it was inspirational rather than, "Oh, what is this?" We did paper mache. That was totally new and different to me.

Little Thunder: Did you think of yourself as an artist when you were young, or did that come to you a bit later?

Lester: I think that came later. I think I really didn't see myself that way when I was younger.

Little Thunder: You had art classes in high school, as well?

Lester: No, in high school, whenever I had the option, I always took the music classes. (Laughter) I don't know. That's what happened, yes.

Little Thunder: Were you studying an instrument?

Lester: No, that was always the chorus. I was always singing, so I enjoyed that a lot.

Little Thunder: You went to Southwestern Oklahoma State [University].

Lester: Yes, I went there to get my bachelor's degree, but I actually went to OSU Technical Branch in Okmulgee first. That's where I picked up my basics of commercial art. After working as a commercial artist for a while, that's when I decided, "Yes, I really need to finish out a bachelor's degree," because at that point I had an Associate's. It was after I started working on that commercial degree, I thought, "I really like the fine art side."

Little Thunder: In terms of your commercial art, did you get a job right after school?

Lester: Yes, I did. I felt so fortunate that straight out of school Williams Companies in Tulsa hired me, and I worked for them. That was my first job. It was about three years with them before I moved on.

Little Thunder: How do you think your commercial art has come to inform your own work, your commercial art background?

Lester: In a lot of ways. A lot. One of the ways I think it does is I was so used to working with type all the time. The other thing, the other interest I had was my own language, the Choctaw language. I found ways of working Choctaw language into some of my drawings, so I do have language in there. I think some of that drawing, drawing the letters, hand-doing the letters, came from the commercial side.

Little Thunder: Was there any particular commercial art job where you found 9:00yourself thinking, "I need to be doing my own work full-time"?

Lester: I don't think there was anything in particular from my work that made me feel like I needed to make that move. I think it was just always there. It was always like, "Oh, I'd really like to be doing that all the time."

Little Thunder: You started doing shows in '84, so you were working full-time and then doing shows. What were a couple of the early shows that you did?

Lester: Red Earth was one of the bigger shows that I got into, although they never let me into the fine art side. Back in the beginning, they had the fine art side, and they had what they called "the market."

Little Thunder: I don't even remember that. What year?

Lester: Oh, that must have been--what was that, '87, '88? Eighty-eight, maybe. Somewhere in there. (Laughs) They wouldn't let me in on the fine art side, so I got in on the market side, and I was just happy to be there. It was like, "Oh, my gosh. They let me in!" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Had you sold work of your own already? Do you remember your first sale?

Lester: I actually had sold some things, but they were more generic. They weren't really Native themes or anything, so that was exciting.

Little Thunder: Did you sell at that first show?

Lester: The first show, I did sell one big original. I was just ecstatic. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Was it water media?

Lester: Actually, it was a colored pencil. It was a large colored pencil, and it was a still life. I used to do a lot of still life colored pencil pieces back in the beginning. Because I was working full-time, it was the easiest thing for me to work on. I could pick it up and put it down in the middle, and I'd leave things set up and come and go.

Little Thunder: Was it with that Red Earth in mind that you specifically began doing Native subject matter? How did that evolve?

Lester: That evolved because I had been wanting to do something that was more strictly Choctaw for my tribe. I think, actually, I made a huge turning point when I turned thirty because I went to the Choctaw festival down in Tuskahoma 12:00for the first time, the very first time. It was so exciting to me. I saw all of these dances and the stickball exhibition games and all that. I thought, "Okay, now I know what I want to do." It turned around all of my thinking right then. Those are the subjects that I've been most interested in since then.

Little Thunder: And you regularly do that show?

Lester: Yes, I do it. Every year that I can possibly be there, I go. (Laughter) I'm just excited that now we're indoors. It's like, "Oh, we're uptown!" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Who were some of the Native artists that you admired when you first got into showing your work?

Lester: Believe it or not, R. C. Gorman, his loose drawings of Navajo women, I 13:00was always drawn to those back in the beginning. I was really drawn to his stuff. Then there were others that I really liked. I can't necessarily tell you all their names because in the beginning they weren't people that I was really familiar with. Or it wasn't like one artist that I saw all the time. I guess I just liked the genre. If you went to any place that had a Native arts show, I was just happy to be there and look. Even if it wasn't my tribe, I still enjoyed seeing what other people were doing with their tribe's culture and what they were doing with it. That and, I guess, finding a way to do that for my tribe was--I feel like that's still evolving, still evolving.

Little Thunder: You are working in a pretty realistic style, initially. Is that because of your commercial art background?

Lester: It could be. Also, I guess, because of going to school for commercial art and having to take art history classes and all the fine art in combination with the commercial side. There were some artists that were not Native that I tended to see a lot of. They were published enough for you to actually do some research on them, that kind of thing, and there were a lot of people doing really realistic work that I found fascinating. I guess that's why my work tended to go really realistic in the beginning.

I still have a lot that I do that's very realistic, but you can look at a lot of examples where I've tried that flat style. I like that, too, then the looser drawings, looser watercolors. My husband always says when he looks at my booth, it looks like it could have been done by five or six different people. (Laughter) I can't help it.

Little Thunder: Well, you have a great range, and that's good. Producing art is one thing, and marketing it is another. How did you learn the business side of art?

Lester: I think it just came with time, you know, hit and miss. (Laughs) I guess I picked up a lot from different sources, some of the jobs that I had in the 16:00past, because I did work for Williams Companies. I also worked for McDonnell Douglas. It was later bought out by Boeing. I've seen how big corporations do marketing. I'm nowhere near their level or anything. I don't have their resources, that's for sure, but I did see little things that could transfer over for me.

Little Thunder: What role does your husband, Rod, play in the art business?

Lester: Well, he's my framer, my driver, my resident critic. (Laughter) He's good at that. He's a big help. He really is. If there's anything I need a hand with, he really is right there. It's amazing that all the things I get him into, 17:00he tolerates it pretty well. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When you started doing art shows full time, you continued to do Red Earth and Tuskahoma. Did you do any out-of-state shows?

Lester: Quite a few. Some of these have come and gone in the mix. We used to go up to the one in Wichita at the Indian Center there. We have done Cahokia [Illinois] off and on. We used to go to the show out in North Carolina, the Kituwah. We went to that one for a few years. We used to go down to the one in Dallas put on by the Dallas Indian Chamber of Commerce. Let's see. I've been to 18:00the Heard [Museum] one time. (Laughter) Oh, and we have been to Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: You've done Santa Fe Indian Market?

Lester: Yes, I have! I'm always so excited to go. I'm kind of in and out with them. Some years they like me, and some years not so much. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: So, you reapply periodically.

Lester: Yes, I do. I do. They don't always let me in, but I love to go out there. I love Santa Fe. There's a lot of art galleries there to look at and learn from. It's really an interesting place.

Little Thunder: When you moved to Claremore, was that also when you decided to do this full-time?

Lester: Oh, no. No, [the move] came much later. Actually, we were still working 19:00in Altus. See, Boeing has all these little satellite offices here and yonder, and we worked at a little office that was on the Air Force base at Altus. Rod and I both worked for Boeing at that time. I did have some frustrations with my job out there, a few. (Laughter)

He's the one who started it. He said, "Why don't you just quit that and start working on your art full-time?" I kept saying, "Oh, I can't do that. I can't do that." Then, eventually, I thought, "Well, maybe I could do that." (Laughter) So that's where that started from. He continued to work for a couple of years after that, but I went ahead and bailed out, and that's what I've been doing since. My goodness, that was right around 2000, I guess.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the more important awards or honors you've 20:00had so far?

Lester: Well, award and honor, they would be two different things, I guess. I think that the first award I ever got in Santa Fe was probably one of my most exciting because I couldn't believe they let me in and then I won a decent award. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What did you win?

Lester: I got a Best of Division for drawing out there.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful.

Lester: Yes, a Best of Division and First Place for drawing. That was pretty exciting. I just didn't see that coming. (Laughter) Well, now, I have to tell you, though, the one and only time I've been to the Heard, I got a Best of Division out there, too, and that was pretty exciting.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Again in graphics or drawing?

Lester: In drawing, yes. I guess my biggest awards have always been for my drawing, although I've had some First Places in my painting. When it comes to Best in Division, it's been drawing. (Laughter) Now, for the honor, that would be having Choctaw Nation ask me to go with them as a representing artist when they went to the Smithsonian last summer, 2011. That was the first time that the National Museum of the American Indian asked Choctaw Nation to come up and put on the entire festival themselves because they wanted tribes to come up and represent themselves the way they wanted to be seen.

So Choctaw Nation handpicked everybody that went and was in that circle. It was so exciting because they asked me to go in that first year. I know they're going back, but I feel like, "Oh, that was such an honor." That was probably the biggest honor that I may have in my entire lifetime. I don't know. That was exciting.

Little Thunder: I understand the excitement there. It's a long trip. It can be expensive to stay. Did they help you out with your hotel and things?

Lester: They were so generous. They paid the expenses for all the people they invited. It was too expensive a trip for--we would not have been able to stay downtown like that. Even our expenses on the road to get there, they paid all that, as well, so it was very generous on their part.

Little Thunder: And they've been invited back. At least it's been a great success.

Lester: Yes. I'm not going with this group, but that's okay. I have friends that were invited, so I'm okay. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: In some of the early days, artists would report it was hard for them if they were artists from one of the five Southeastern tribes to market images of their own tribes because people were so focused on Plains images for a long time. Did you run into any of that when you started, or had that sort of passed?

Lester: I think a certain degree of that is still there. I really do. I find a lot of people, if they're truly interested, they will ask you questions. I've had so many people ask me, "What tribe is this?" or they'll say, "Is this Cherokee?" I think they've got some preconceived notions of what Indian art 24:00should look like. I think their knowledge of how many tribes there are, it's pretty limited. What I find so amazing is if you look at the Choctaw Nation, it's like the third largest in the country right now. That's part of why I stick with it, too. I may not sell the best, (I don't) but I'm still out there because I feel like we are underrepresented in the marketplace. Whenever you're out there, you don't find that many Choctaw artists. I feel like until there's enough of them that keep popping up, I'm going to hang in there. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Do you think a lot of Choctaws buy your work, or people of Choctaw descent that claim Choctaw ancestry? Is that a part of your collector base?

Lester: Some, yes. I have both kinds, people that see it as part of their own heritage. I do have other Choctaws that buy from me. I have some people who are just Native art collectors, and I have a few that will buy from me. One of my biggest clients, God bless them, it's Choctaw Nation. They have bought several pieces from me. That's always exciting to me because I feel like as long as they're still interested in my work, I must be doing something okay. That's why I love to sell anything to them that they see as worthwhile.

Little Thunder: Have you made any trips to the Mississippi Choctaws?

Lester: Yes. Our creation story is tied up with Mississippi. Choctaws' creation story is tied to the Nanih Waiya Mound, at least one of the stories. There are 26:00several. The Nanih Waiya Mound is an actual place you can go and see the mound in Mississippi outside of Philadelphia. We had to go down there. We went down there in the '90s, some time back.

Little Thunder: Your whole family or just you and Rod?

Lester: No, just me and Rod. That was when we were living in St. Louis, and we got to looking at the map and thought, "That's doable." (Laughter) We went down, and I took pictures of the area, just soaked it up. They have a little museum right there. I think they actually changed the name of their location to Choctaw Mississippi, right there on the Pearl River Reservation. Anyway, it's on the Pearl River Reservation where we went. You can see a museum that they keep 27:00there, and we went and looked at a lot of their artifacts and things. That was pretty exciting.

Little Thunder: So those kinds of emotions found their way back into your painting, as well.

Lester: Oh, yes, and genealogy, everything, because we don't trace our family too far back. I can't tell you who was the first person from my family that came from Mississippi. We don't know exactly which one came first. We've been doing a little more research on that, so hopefully we'll figure that out one of these days.

Little Thunder: Do you go out there fairly often now?

Lester: Rod's family is from Virginia, and I have a sister in Virginia, also, so 28:00sometimes when we take trips, we kind of swing out through Mississippi on our way to or from there. Yes, every once in a while we still make it back over there. It's kind of fun. That's where I bought a lot of my baskets, my Choctaw baskets, river cane baskets, from down there.

Little Thunder: Which show up in your paintings sometimes.

Lester: Yes, yes, they do. I still like still life.

Little Thunder: You were commissioned to paint a Trail of Tears mural at Tuskahoma. What year was that, and had you ever painted a mural before?

Lester: That was 2003. No, I had never painted anything that huge in my entire life. I used to like to paint really big, but that was in school and all. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You hadn't done much of that, commercially?

Lester: Commercially, no. In fact, I've never done anything else that big because the finished piece was six feet by eight feet. It was quite a jump going from a painting like this to six feet by eight feet. What I did was I painted it in my little workroom in Norman, and we transported it to Durant where they were going to frame it. All this time I'm working on it--I had dining room chairs set up. (Laughter) I didn't know how to do this. I had dining room chairs set up, and I had it kind of propped up against the wall on these dining room chairs because I didn't have any kind of easel or anything that was going to hold this up. Everything was at a nice eye level down here, and whenever I needed to get 30:00on the upper areas, I stood on the chairs, as well, and worked up at the top areas.

It was kind of interesting. It probably took me maybe three months. Included in there, though, was some time just doing some research because I felt like I've seen a lot of different Trail of Tears paintings, but I wanted to make sure that we were doing something that would be really more accurate for the route that the Choctaws took and some of the things that happened for them. They actually had steamboats in their route for crossing the river.

It was one of those other muddled up stories where [the steamboats] didn't work so well, but they were there in the mix, harsh winters, all that. Anyway, I did 31:00a lot of research to try and do something that would be historically reasonable. You're painting it like a historical novel, is what it is. You don't have photographs to go from, so you just want to be as historically accurate as you can get, even though your people are fictional.

Little Thunder: Did you discipline yourself to put in a certain number of hours a week or a day?

Lester: No, I was in a rush the whole time. (Laughter) It was kind of accidental that I found out that they had wanted me to do the mural. It was complicated because whenever they were asking for packets to be submitted for murals, they were talking about a big history mural for the Choctaw tribe, just a big history 32:00mural. I submitted my plan and all, and then we waited for months, and I never heard anything. One day, my packet came back in the mail. I said, "Well, I guess they didn't want that." (Laughs)

Rod is like my number-one fan. He really is. Bless his heart. He wanted to know, "Who could they possibly have given that to? Who got that job if you did not get that? Of course, you should have gotten that." I said, "Yes, well, they didn't think so." Well, he couldn't let that go, so he called down there and was talking to people, and they kept trying to give him someone else to talk to. He finally talked to a lady there. It was Beverly Nelson. She said, "Well, no, she 33:00didn't get that job, but has she agreed to do the Trail of Tears?" The Choctaw Removal, just another name for it. She said, "Has she agreed to do the Choctaw Removal mural?" We said, "The what?" (Laughter)

We didn't know what she was talking about. She said she thought maybe the chief was going to ask me. I guess he thought she was going to ask me, so it was kind of accidental. "Yes, by the way, would you do this?" "Oh, my gosh. Yes!" That's when the fast and furious research began because they had a deadline in mind, and I had already missed like two months of it. That's why it was like, "Work as much as you can as often as you can." That's the way that went.

Little Thunder: It's a wonderful image. We're going to take a look at that, too. You did a painting for a Choctaw festival in Bakersfield, California. Explain how that came about.

Lester: Bakersfield, it's so surprising. They actually have a fairly large population of Choctaws centered in Bakersfield. Really, up and down the West Coast, I guess there's quite a few. I guess that came about during the Dust Bowl years.

Little Thunder: Urban relocation?

Lester: Yes, urban relocation. They ended up with a large population. They actually have a Choctaw festival out there. One year they just asked me if I would come out and be in their festival, and, "Sure."

Little Thunder: As the poster artist? Was your image chosen for the poster?

Lester: Actually, it was chosen for their t-shirt. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Okay! Well, that's good too! (Laughter)

Lester: I think that was probably the first time anybody ever asked me to do that, so I was thrilled. Yes, it was just fun to go out there and to meet so many people. You don't expect to find Choctaws way out there, but they're there. We've gone back a few times since then, but it is a long trip. We don't always make it.

Even when we can't go, we send them some art for their festival. (Laughter) It's nice. Bill and Theresa Harrison are our contacts out there. They had a lot to do with--it's the Okla Chahta Clan. That's what they call themselves. The chief will go out there, and the councilmen go out, and they help them with their festival.

Little Thunder: That's great. Have you done any book illustrations or book covers?

Lester: Yes, I've done two. They were both with the University of Oklahoma Press. One of them was Choctaws and Missionaries in Mississippi, and then it's got the years. I can't think of the years [1818-1918]. Then the other one was Choctaw Music and Dance.

Little Thunder: So they were books of scholarship.

Lester: Yes, pretty much, I think.

Little Thunder: What are the challenges? You had your commercial art background. Did that make it easier, in a way?

Lester: Not really because they were only asking me to do the illustration. That was like the cream. The cream of the crop was right there. In the commercial side, I would be doing everything but the illustration because you don't have 37:00the time. You farm that out to an artist that will do only the illustration. Well, finally, I got to be that artist. That was kind of exciting. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How has your subject matter changed, do you think, since you first started showing in Native art shows and doing them professionally?

Lester: My subject matter has become more focused on the Choctaw tribe, which is what my intentions were to begin with. I really wanted to go that direction. In the beginning, like I said, I started off doing still lifes. I think they were kind of a Pan-Indian type of still life. I would use little pieces from a lot of different tribes and put them together, different artifact-type things.

Now, whenever I do one that's a still life, which I will still do, they're going 38:00to be more directly Choctaw-related. I guess I do more people now than I used to in the beginning. There's just no way around it. (Laughter) I guess I just want to illustrate things that are important to Choctaw culture, and you can't hardly do that without the people in there, so, yes, I do a lot more people than I used to.

Little Thunder: How about landscape elements? Do you use many of those?

Lester: Yes, I try and do things that would be typical for either southeastern Oklahoma or for Mississippi, even. I try to be careful with the kind of 39:00landscapes that I put in. Now, in my Trail of Tears mural, that is more of an Arkansas landscape. What I tried to put them at was the location in Arkansas where they had just probably crossed the river, the Mississippi River. That probably is a little bit different, but most of it I try and be careful to do things that should be Southeastern.

Little Thunder: Colored pencil is one of your specialties. What kind of mood or effect can you get in a graphic piece with colored pencil that you can't get with paint?

Lester: I don't know. I guess I just like the way that you can constantly layer it, and your original color will always be there. It all blends and shows through. I used to really look at a lot of impressionist-type paintings. The 40:00colored pencil, if you look at those really close, you can magnify those, and you've got an impressionist painting, I think. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: In terms of water media, do you primarily work in acrylics?

Lester: Well, I do some watercolor. I probably do more acrylics than watercolor, though.

Little Thunder: Have you tried your hand at oils at all?

Lester: Yes, I have. I like that, but it is a totally different way of working. I guess part of my problem is the way it has such a long drying time, and as a commercial artist, I feel like I need to work faster than that. (Laughter) So 41:00that is different. I do like the effects, though. If you can hang in there with the time element, I like the way they look. I don't know. Rod keeps saying I should do more oils, so I don't know.

Little Thunder: But your format with acrylics is usually on board or canvas?

Lester: Usually canvas, yes, usually.

Little Thunder: I thought I saw a painted gourd on your website.

Lester: Yes, I do that, too! (Laughter) That is a crazy thing. One time, well, more than once, I get this idea in my head that I'd like to do something three-dimensional. At the same time, I haven't had a lot of time. The time I have to give to my artwork is like, "I need to go ahead and paint." Then once in a while, "Yes, I'd really like to do something three-dimensional."

One day I just decided that I was just going to try these gourds. It came about 42:00because a friend of mine, I told him what my ideas were, and I said, "I would love to try even making ornaments, like Christmas ornaments on gourds, just to do some painting on a gourd because then there is an actual three-dimensional item, even though you're painting still." He wanted a painting of mine, and he says, "Would you trade?" I said, "Well, sure I'd trade." He says, "Well, I've got a box of gourds at home. I can mail you those gourds if you want to trade for a painting." He just wanted a miniature, and I thought, "Oh, he's going to send me a couple dozen gourds, small." He sent me like a hundred gourds! (Laughter) I thought, "Oh, my gosh! What am I going to do with a hundred gourds?"

Little Thunder: You still have some, I take it?

Lester: Oh, no. No, we've long passed that hundred-gourd point. That was way 43:00back there. I do them all the time, now. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: It's kind of an opportunity, too, to do a more decorative--

Lester: Yes. A lot of my subject on the gourds is going to be wildlife, but sometimes I can really tie that into the Southeastern motifs and Southeastern animals and birds, especially. Some of the design work, like the beadwork for the Choctaw tribe, I can incorporate some designs that come from the beadwork into designs on the gourds, too. I enjoy that. It's a little different.

Little Thunder: Do you visit much with Marcus Amerman?

Lester: Only when we happen to be at a show, at the same show. Marcus and Roger Amerman were at the Smithsonian, so we had a little more time to visit there. I'm always excited to see other Choctaw artists. I like that.

Little Thunder: You've incorporated text, as you mentioned already, in your paintings and often in Choctaw language. What do you like about using a text inside an image?

Lester: Well, it just tells a different facet of the story, like the portrait of my grandmother that I did, that one. The words in the background there are actually the words to the Twenty-Third Psalms, but it's written in the Choctaw 45:00language. That was so much a part of who she was. She was a very Christian woman. She was brought up--her beliefs at the time were that if you were a Christian, then you were turning away from your Native ways. That's how that got started where we started losing pieces of our culture. She was taught that way from a young person that she was a Christian, and so she didn't do a lot of things anymore that she might have done otherwise. Still, she had a Bible that was written in Choctaw language. She was very active in her church, Hampton Chapel.

I think it just tells a different facet of the story. Now, I do have a painting 46:00where the words in the background are actually like the ledger page from the Dawes Rolls. I put names from my family in there. You've still got text, type, but it's just a different facet because in that painting, that one was a self portrait, more or less, because I'm in there, my dad's in there, and names of other family members are there. In fact, the Nanih Waiya Mound is in the background of that one, and it's just, "Yes, we're all Choctaw." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When you do portraiture, they sometimes say artists will often draw themselves subconsciously. The face that they draw will often resemble their own.

Lester: I hear that. Sometimes I think I have used my own face, but whenever I've done that, I know when I've done it.

Little Thunder: It's more conscious.

Lester: Yes, it is. Sometimes I look at different family members' facial shapes and things. It's not that I intentionally want to paint them, in particular. It's just that I want them to have Choctaw characteristics. That was one of the nicest things Mary Robinson ever said to me over at Five Civilized Tribes Museum. She says, "Your people look Choctaw." I thought, "Oh, that is so nice to hear," because she sees enough art from the Five Civilized Tribes. She says, "Your people look Choctaw," and that was so nice that she said that. That's the main thing I work on, though, is trying to make my people look Choctaw.

Little Thunder: In terms of your prep, do you take photographs of people, or 48:00work from live models sometimes?

Lester: Most of the time I'll take photographs, yes. Sometimes I'll use old photographs, like old family photographs. I don't know. Most of the time it's not a case, like I said, of wanting to paint someone specifically. It's just trying to get some facial features that would be correct for them, for what I'm trying to do.

Little Thunder: What other kinds of research do you do?

Lester: I read a lot. I really do. Sometimes that's where I get some of the subject matter that I paint is from reading things. I think, "Oh, that gives me a visual." I don't have to think about it too hard. It just gives me something, so I do a lot of reading. In fact, when Rod and I are driving--we have gone 49:00coast to coast for art shows and family visits and all that. Sometimes on our driving, I will read to him in the car. I feel like he knows as much Choctaw history as I know, now. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Can you talk us through your creative process a bit, starting with when you get an idea?

Lester: Oh, that's kind of difficult. A lot of times, I'll have ideas that will float around in my head, sometimes for years before they ever really come to the surface. They really do.

Little Thunder: You're not consciously aware of them, even.

Lester: Well, no. It's like I have an idea like, "That's a subject I want to do." It's just a little seed. It really does start that way, starts as a little seed, and it kind of builds, and it's only whenever I have enough pieces put together in my mind that then it starts coming out on paper. Either it's a finished drawing, or it's an idea for a painting. But, yes, I think about things for a long time before I ever get them out, I think.

Little Thunder: You don't feel obliged to make a preliminary sketch, thumbnail sketch, or write it down?

Lester: Sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel like if I have an idea that's full-blown enough, I'll put that idea down. I do have little scribbles. I've got all kinds of notepads and sketchbooks where I have little things that I have 51:00sketched out. Sometimes they are on little scraps of paper, and then I stick them in a drawer in my flat-art file, and they fall out of there. (Laughter) There's a lot of different places where I have little ideas of things that I put away for later.

Sometimes that's a good thing because between the time whenever I put it on that little thumbnail-type of paper and the time whenever I come back across it, I think, "Oh, that would be all right, but this might be better." By the time I get back to it, I don't think it's that I've had an instant, "Oh, that's what this needs." I think it's something in the back of my mind. It's been working on that same idea for a long time, so when it comes out, then I can adjust it a little.

Little Thunder: Do you sketch? Do you do a preliminary sketch before you paint with acrylics? Do you sketch on the board or the canvas?

Lester: Yes, I do. I do. I guess that's the commercial artist in me coming out. I feel like I want to work with the placement beforehand. Actually, I do draw on tracing paper a lot (Laughs) just for that. That's a commercial side of me coming out there. I want to know if I have something like this, I can move it around on the canvas. Even if I've painted for a ways, and I decide this is not going well or not quite what I expected, I can redraw something and then move it around on whatever I've got painted so far. Sometimes I will adjust later.

Little Thunder: How important are titles to your work?

Lester: I don't always have a good title. Sometimes it gets whatever I tend to 53:00call it before it goes out in public, like the Nanih Waiya painting. That might have had a different name except when I talked to Rod. "We need to load that Nanih Waiya painting in the car." (Laughter) That's how some things get a name.

Then other times, whenever I've really got time to think about it and have the time to give them a good name, I like having a good name on there. Talk about informing your piece, that can do it. It can change the whole way you look at something sometimes, by having a good title.

Little Thunder: How important is humor in your work?

Lester: Oh, I like that whenever I can do it because, first of all, I think it's part of our nature to want to laugh and have a good time. My dad was like that. 54:00My dad was always one to tell a good joke. Nothing better he liked than to trade jokes. That was his personality.

I like having humor in a painting whenever possible. There are stories. Some of the stories, traditional stories, that Choctaws have, some of them are kind of funny whenever you think about what they're really telling you. I have some paintings that I did for the Child Development Center in Durant, the Choctaw Nation's Child Development Center. They were looking for Choctaw artists to do some paintings of some of the traditional stories, and one of the ones I did for them was The Raccoon and the Possum.

Little Thunder: So you've got animal figures there. How fun.

Lester: Yes, and the story is kind of funny because the raccoon tricks the possum, of course, into burning his tail off, is where that story goes, anyway. (Laughter) I like doing that sort of thing.

Little Thunder: Looking back on your career, what do you think was a pivotal moment when you could have gone one direction and you went in a different direction?

Lester: I don't know. I think when I turned thirty and went to that first Choctaw festival, I think that was probably a real turning point for me right there. I felt like, "I know what I've got to do now." That was a real turning 56:00point because my artwork, I was already working on that, working on techniques and working on the mechanics of how you draw, how do you paint. That was already beginning, had already been there for a while, but going to Tuskahoma that first time, I think that set me in the right direction.

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

Lester: Well, let's see. I don't know if I've had a true--well, I'll tell you, it's up and down. That's the truth. I think if you let yourself, you can get 57:00depressed over having a show where you don't win an award and you don't even sell well, one of those things where you drag home everything you took, or almost. Those can really get you down if that was all you were looking at, but I keep trying to tell myself, "We've got to look at the bigger picture here. We're in it for the long haul." I feel like, "Well, that's a bad show, but you might have a better one next time or farther down the road." Some of the best opportunities I ever had, I didn't look for. They found me. That's why I feel like you can't rule out anything. Life is going to throw you curves you just don't see coming, but, fortunately, I feel like all the curves have been good.

Little Thunder: How about one of the high points? You may have already--

Lester: Oh, yes, I think the Smithsonian. Let me tell you one of the other reasons why that was such a high point to me, personally. First of all, just to be asked by my tribe to represent them, that in itself would've been plenty, but it made me feel so good on a more personal level than that, even. My dad was always such a, I guess you could have called him a history buff. He loved to read history books all the time. I think it's too bad he did not live long enough to see the History Channel on TV. He would have loved that. He read all the time.

Like I said, I have a sister that lives in Virginia, in Falls Church, so anytime when I was younger and we'd go up to visit her, he loved going through the 59:00Smithsonian, any and all of the Smithsonian buildings. He loved that. He was fascinated by that place. I feel like that was so exciting. I thought, "I hope he knows I was there!" I feel like there is no way I can look at that and not feel that is truly a high point. My dad would've been so thrilled to see that and to know that Choctaw Nation wanted me to be there. I feel like I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Little Thunder: That is wonderful. Is there anything we left out or you'd like to add before we look at your paintings? I'm remembering your mom coming to the shows, too. That must have been a good feeling.

Lester: Yes. See, my dad passed away. He went to a couple of the smaller shows, but he had already passed away when I started really getting into the Native shows. He was already gone. I really hated that he didn't get to see that because I know that I would've had a hard time keeping him away. (Laughter) My dad was so bad. He thought that I had so much talent, which you know that's just a dad talking about their kid. That's all it was. When I was first starting to paint, I was so glad I wasn't here at the time. He would carry my paintings down to the bank and show them to his friends. (Laughter) I can't believe he did that, but he would do that. My mom was very supportive, too. She just wasn't 61:00quite as--she never was as outgoing as my dad. That was just his personality.

Little Thunder: Well, should we take a look at a couple of your pieces?

Lester: Sure.

Little Thunder: I'll have you talk a little bit about this image which is the mural Choctaw Nation commissioned you to do.

Lester: Yes, this one is titled The Choctaw Trail of Tears. It was done in 2003. I wanted to do a painting that was really specifically about Choctaw Removal. I wanted to show the terrain. At this point, they've already crossed the 62:00Mississippi River, and you can see in the upper right-hand corner that there's a steamboat up there. There are some wagons in the painting. There are soldiers on the left. I really tried to do research to get wagons and soldiers that should've been typical for the time period.

I wanted to show a range of ages, too. That was really important because it was men, women, children, old people. We have the burial going on, on the side, in the back, because that really happened. People were buried along the Trail.

Little Thunder: The wonderful texture on this, which was done in colored pencil, right?

Lester: Oh, no. That one is actually a watercolor.

Little Thunder: It's a watercolor. Oh, my goodness. You've got such subtle shades and colors with this. It's fantastic.

Lester: Thank you. I just love Choctaw baskets. I really do like doing still lifes.

Little Thunder: These are ones that you got from Mississippi?

Lester: Yes.

Little Thunder: This particular picture you said had a good title, too.

Lester: Well, it's called I Shall Not Want. The words in the background are words to the Twenty-Third Psalms. I took my words from there. I thought it seemed so fitting because corn was such a staple food for a lot of tribes, and 64:00Choctaws were included there.

Little Thunder: You really got the look of the cloth and the apron and all the folds. Were those hard to do?

Lester: No, actually, the cloth is the easier part for me. The harder part is that necklace she's wearing, the collar. You see?

Little Thunder: The collar, yes. She's got a beaded collar, too, plus the medallion. I see that now.

Lester: For some reason those collars are always difficult to me.

Little Thunder: Yes, but they're so gorgeous, and then you picked some Southeastern flowers, trees.

Lester: Yes, and there's some birds in the background.

Little Thunder: Beautiful. Thank you so much for your time today, Gwen.

Lester: Oh, thanks for coming. I appreciate you having an interest in Choctaw art.

Little Thunder: Absolutely. I'm glad you're out there representing them. (Laughs)

Lester: Thank you. I keep trying.

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