Oral history interview with Jeanne Rorex Bridges

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is May 17, 2012, and I'm in Oktaha, Oklahoma, interviewing artist Jeanne Rorex Bridges. Jeanne, you're an artist of Cherokee descent, the niece of Willard Stone. You have created a distinctive style, focused largely on women. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

Bridges: Thank you.

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

Bridges: I was born in Checotah, Oklahoma, at the hospital down there and grew up right here on this land. I was raised about an eighth of a mile east of here. I've got deep roots. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: How many siblings in your family?

Bridges: I have four sisters and one brother. I'm the youngest of six.

Little Thunder: Is your Cherokee ancestry on your mom or your dad's side?

Bridges: Both.

Little Thunder: Did you have a lot of contact with your grandparents on either side?

Bridges: No because I was the youngest. In fact, I was an aunt before I was born, so I was really younger. Both of my mother's parents had died already. My Grandma and Granddad Walker, my dad's side, were elderly at that time. Grandma, I remember a few things about her but not very much before she died. Granddad was a very impressive man. He was tall. He was about--I don't know how tall he was, well over six feet. He wore a hat and never tucked the brim in. It was round. (Laughter) He rode the tallest horse he had at all times.

I called myself a "mid-life surprise" because Mom was forty when I was born, so I was the youngest. It was like being raised by really good grandparents because 2:00my parents were that age, so it was a different kind of life. I grew up, I tell people, like the generation before me because we didn't have running water until I was sixteen or a bathroom in the house until I was sixteen years old. Anytime anybody wants me to go to someplace where there's no electricity, there's no running water, outdoorsy, it's like, "I've done that, no thanks. I lived that." (Laughter) Anyway, it was an interesting life.

Little Thunder: In terms of earning a living, your folks--

Bridges: Had cattle, a farm. Had about 320 acres, and we rented a couple other places, too. Farming and ranching was their source of income. All of us kids--have you ever been raised on a farm or with a farm? I tell people that we 3:00never had a summer vacation. We had a small dairy, too. It was milking in the morning and the evening, and you were busy in the fields. We didn't just have a garden. We had two or three gardens and a truck patch. Do you know what that is, with the watermelons and cantaloupes and everything in it? Lots of potatoes. So we were busy. Then we raised corn and head feed, which some people call maize. What else did we raise? Never did soybeans. I don't know why. We were busy all the time.

Little Thunder: When did you see your first example of Indian art?

Bridges: Of paintings? Of course, I always saw Willard's work, but paintings in the flat style, which I dearly love, I don't know the first time I saw it. I 4:00remember the first time I saw what I thought was perfection, and that was Valjean Hessing's work. Have you ever looked at her things? That is pure flat style. No shading or anything, just a change in colors. She just was wonderful.

Little Thunder: Where did you see it? How old were you?

Bridges: At Five Tribes Museum. I was an adult when I saw it. I guess my main exposure was at Bacone College with Dick West.

Little Thunder: Before we talk about Bacone, can you talk a little bit about going to your uncle's house, being around Willard Stone's work?

Bridges: We didn't get to see them very often because we were about fifty miles away, but when I'd go up there, I just loved seeing that workshop when he was working and creating. He'd have some pieces that were finished and have stories for them. My parents and everybody else would be wanting to talk about gardens 5:00and all this stuff with Willard, which he liked to talk about, too. He really did. He was a farm boy. I'd be looking at his artwork, and then I'd read what his story, and then I'd look at the artwork again. I realized how important what he was saying, and he was getting to say it in such a simple, beautiful way.

Little Thunder: He was your uncle on your mom's side or your dad's?

Bridges: Mom, yes. He was my mom's brother.

Little Thunder: Any other family members who were artistically inclined?

Bridges: No. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: And how about you? When did you create your first piece of art?

Bridges: I think I was in my forties before I would really call it art. I was so humble. I really was. I didn't have any training. Oktaha school was just--you 6:00know in elementary school when you get to draw something special for Valentine's Day or Christmas and things? I loved that. I found out that my second grade teacher had kept the work that I had done back then and would show it to each year of her classes. She showed it to my sons when they were in her class later. As far as artwork, I always liked to draw. I didn't have anybody to teach me or anything. Just drew a lot.

I guess when I really got serious about it was when I took a tole painting class. Do you know what that is? I was twenty-seven. I had kids and everything. I took a tole painting class. I was painting on boards with a pattern, and I found myself changing, kind of getting away from the patterns and doing my own thing.

I was sitting in this classroom with these other grown women, and I was just appalled at how they didn't take care of their brushes. They didn't take care of 7:00their paints. (Laughter) But that was the best training, that tole painting class, for me. I learned so much about handling oil paints. It was really good experience. After that, I thought, "Well, maybe I'm just a little more serious than most people are about this," (Laughter) so that's why I applied to Bacone College and got a scholarship.

Little Thunder: Even high school, no art training, no art classes?

Bridges: No. After I graduated from high school and I was working in insurance, I bought the famous art school books. It was a correspondence class, and those books were great. I didn't do much with the course, itself, but the books, I learned a lot about how to do anatomy and how to divide up the body, the 8:00proportions. When you do a landscape, your horizon line, if you're going to make the fences look right, how to do that. There's a lot of technical information in those books. Those books were great. I've still got them, and I still refer to them, too.

Little Thunder: You were working in insurance, but were you experimenting on your own or just reading the books? Did you draw?

Bridges: Yes, for myself. As far as creating my first artwork was maybe the tole painting class. I've got some of those pieces I really liked. I hadn't really started till Bacone.

Little Thunder: You enrolled at Bacone. At that point, your children are pretty young because you had a family fairly young. Were you having to support yourself 9:00while you were going to school at Bacone?

Bridges: Well, I was married. Kenneth Rorex Bridges was my first husband. When we got married, I was nineteen. He was twenty-six. I was twenty-two and twenty-three, I think, when the boys were born. I was helping support the family, but I got out of insurance when I started having kids.

Little Thunder: So by the time you went to Bacone, you were able to focus on your--

Bridges: Yes.

Little Thunder: What was that like, studying under Dick West?

Bridges: That was one of life's blessings, I think. Did you ever meet Dick West? He was a big man. He was physically large, and this voice that was so deep and strong. He tried to intimidate you a little bit sometimes, but I was raised by those. My dad was kind of like that, so it didn't bother me at all. (Laughter) 10:00He didn't scare me.

He had braids. It was a blessing to get to study under that man. He really was such a good teacher. He didn't put anyone down. He'd tease them, but he didn't put anybody down. He was the first person that said I had my own style. You talk about touching your heart, when Dick West said you had your own style. He would just guide me, like anatomy and things like that, but didn't try to change what I was doing. When I did work for him, I felt like I did works of art. It was wonderful.

Little Thunder: So you were doing the flat style but already with some of the adaptations that you'd incorporated on your own? What was your early style like?

Bridges: Then it was truly flat style. Everybody knows what flat style is, I 11:00think. I was trying to be pure flat style at that time, which is not an easy thing. Lots and lots of details. One of the pieces I did at Bacone was called The Chosen Leader. You mentioned that I did a lot of work with women. You do research, and Dick said the closest thing was the Iroquois for Cherokee. The Iroquois, the man was the chief, but the women chose the chief. They would hand him a set of deer antlers that he was awarded as the chief.

I did a very flat style, (kind of stiff when I look at it now) but it was a woman handing the deer horns to the guy. He's got the head ducked down a little bit. They were both in the Iroquois costume, beautiful. I did all these tiny 12:00little dots. Bacone has it in the collection now. That was one of my pieces I was really proud of. It won the show that year.

Little Thunder: At Philbrook?

Bridges: No, at Bacone.

Little Thunder: Did you ever enter anything at Philbrook?

Bridges: No, I didn't. When did they stop doing those shows?

Little Thunder: They didn't stop until '79.

Bridges: This was '79 and '80. No, I never did do Philbrook.

Little Thunder: Ruthe Blalock Jones, I guess, was another teacher who was there while you were there.

Bridges: She was a teacher. She was very laid back, just let you work on your 13:00own, mainly. Of course, I liked Ruthe's work real well, but I didn't really develop that--like with Dick, I loved that man. I just really loved that man. Ruthe was nice, but she wasn't the born teacher like he was.

Little Thunder: Who were some of your classmates that continued on with their artwork?

Bridges: I don't think any of them did. There was a young man that came later, but I think that might've been when I judged a show up there. Daniel Horsechief, he does wonderful work, and his sister, Mary. They were really good artists. I don't really know of anybody else. I was contemporary with several others, but that's not who I went to school with. Of course, I was an older student.

Little Thunder: Did your uncle ever get to see any of your work after you 14:00started painting?

Bridges: When I first started painting and everything, yes, he did. He said to paint what you understand and what you know. I said, "Okay." I didn't quite understand what he meant at the time, but I have recently. He didn't say a whole lot because Willard was kind of quiet, too, but his daughters, after he died, they said, "We got so tired of hearing your name from Daddy! 'Why don't you paint? Jeanne's painting!'" (Laughter) So that made me feel better.

Little Thunder: That's funny! You were doing the flat style, working primarily in gouache or tempera?

Bridges: I started out with watercolor and gouache. I took a little workshop over at Cherokee National Museum with Troy Anderson. Troy said, "I want you to use acrylics." I said, "I'll never use acrylics." He said, "When we get through 15:00with this class, you're going to use acrylic." I never went back to watercolor again. (Laughter)

The difference between--you can use acrylics like watercolor. You wet them, wet on wet and everything. What's so great about it is that after you get some effect that you like, then you put something on top of it, and guess what? It doesn't mess it up. Very forgiving. Very forgiving. (Laughter)

I have never used acrylic like most people think of it, putting it on a palette, the tubes and the palettes. I never have used it like that. Troy told me about using--you get pill bottles from a pharmacy and put a marble in it and some water. Then you mix your colors the way you want them from tube paints. That's why I have such different colors because I mix all my own colors. I never use it straight out of the tube. Pharmacies started putting on those childproof caps, 16:00(Laughter) so I now use urine sample bottles. I put two marbles. They're a little bit bigger. (Laughter) That's my main medium.

Little Thunder: That's a great tip. (Laughter) Do you remember approximately what year that was you took watercolor?

Bridges: I was trying to think. Must have been '84. Maybe 1984 or something like that because I did Young Widow's Journey in '85, and that won a lot of awards. That was one of my earlier acrylic pieces.

Little Thunder: While you're a student, you're entering competitive shows. Are you doing booth shows, as well?

Bridges: No. There wasn't really such a thing back then. There were gallery shows.

Little Thunder: What were some of your early galleries?

Bridges: The Art Market in Tulsa. I think everybody went to the Art Market in Tulsa. It wasn't a market. It was just a gallery. She'd have showings, and there were about seven or eight artists that would be there. They were really a lot of fun. I got acquainted with a lot of the artists there that I still have good friendships with.

Little Thunder: This was the time, too, when some women artists were still, by far, in the minority. Some women artists were starting to emerge. Who were some of the women artists that you admired?

Bridges: Valjean Hessing, like I mentioned before. Joan Brown, she had a very unique style, humor in everything, and those real touching small paintings that she did. Jane Mauldin, I loved her work. And Ruthe, I liked Ruthe's work. There 18:00weren't that many of us out there. (Laughs)

You were talking about women. Over the years, you don't know how many times I've answered the question, "Why do you paint only women?" My usual comment is like, "Why shouldn't I?" you know, to get back at them. Then they ask why I do so many pregnant women and women with babies and stuff, and I say, "Pregnancy is the most wonderful time in a woman's life, I think." And hands, the places where you can put hands, they're so meaningful, around that stomach and on that stomach and under that stomach. It's just a great thing to paint, I think. Anyway, I got off the subject.

Little Thunder: Thanks for sharing that. At some point, you decide you're going to get a degree in graphic art at Northeastern?

Bridges: At Northeastern, that's an old story. I got my associate of arts degree in art at Bacone. Then I went to Northeastern State University in Tahlequah to enroll, and I met Mr. (it's not even Dr., it's Mr.) Coons over there. I don't remember his first name. I was thirty years old. I didn't like the guy. I just didn't like the guy. (Laughs) The hair on the back of my neck kind of stood up. Then I saw some of his artwork, and it was so dark and medieval and gloomy. I just did not want to be around this person. He never did anything to me. I just --

Little Thunder: He was head of the art department?

Bridges: Yes. Then they said, "Well, what about art education?" and I met Dr. [Kathleen] Schmidt. She looked like she could have clicked her heels together. 20:00(Laughter) She was a very German lady. I thought, "I don't want to teach art. I want to do art." There's a big difference. I was looking in a school catalog. I saw graphic arts, and I thought, "Anything with art in it." (Laughter) I went to the head of that department, and it was Dr. [Don] Ruby. It was industrial arts with graphic arts. That's why I have my degree, bachelor of science in graphic arts.

I learned so much, not art but my talent for art, combined with the graphics industry, it was just a real knack. I learned one of my best art lessons: the focal point. When you design an ad, you lead whoever is looking at you, lead their eye to stay within that boundary, for them to end up with a focal point 21:00for that advertisement. It's the same thing with a painting. That's my theory, anyway.

Little Thunder: So it was valuable. It fed into your artwork.

Bridges: Right. I was at that point, too, that I was going to start reproducing my work, have prints made. A lot of printing companies, when that artist is going to come in, they're like, "Oh my gosh!" (Laughs) If you're real artsy, you don't understand that there are limits to what they can do. I ended up--I would go in the back. I could talk to the press operators. I knew what they were doing. I could understand it. It was a real good education for me.

Little Thunder: From your graphic arts background?

Bridges: Yes. I understood a lot more. I know more about--I'm cheap. (Laughter) 22:00When I was doing prints, I would find the printing company that had the largest sheet size that they could run, and then I didn't do just one image. I laid it out to where I could do one large image, a couple medium images, and some little ones on the side. I knew they could do it, and I would lay it out and size them to where they could do that. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: At this point, your art's still supplementing your income. Did you get a job in graphic or commercial art?

Bridges: I got a couple of jobs right out of college in graphic arts at a couple of advertising agencies.

Little Thunder: In Tahlequah?

Bridges: No, one in Muskogee and one in Tulsa. I did my internship in Tulsa, in advertising, up there. Met some interesting people. I would still enter competitions while I was working. I was making more money in graphic arts, the 23:00commercial end of it, but when I would win an award with my work, it meant so much more. I did the graphics for probably two and a half years, maybe, before I went full-time with the fine art.

I did a lot of work with Jimmy Leake. I don't know if you know James C. Leake, an older gentleman in Muskogee. His wife was part of the Griffin Grocery Company, so he had money. I did some graphics for him. He was a very flamboyant, older gentleman with white hair, and he wore white suits. (Laughter) He was so creative, though, in marketing. He's the one that came up with "Green Country" for Green Country, Oklahoma.

He owned Channel 8 in Tulsa. When he was in charge, they had such creative advertising and everything. I really admired him. He was another older gentleman 24:00that really tried to intimidate people. I'd go to a meeting, (here I am, I was thirty-one or something) and he'd try to bully everybody at the table. I was the only that would talk back to him. (Laughter) I thought, "First of all, I'm not going to live my life for that." I'd just buck up to him like I did in the barn if Daddy was chasing a cow wrong or something. (Laughter) I'd buck up to my father.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) What was one of the early awards that was especially meaningful to you?

Bridges: Best of Show at Bacone, and I was absolutely shocked when I won Trail of Tears at the Cherokee National Museum in Tahlequah. It used to be a huge 25:00show. Do you remember?

Little Thunder: Yes.

Bridges: I thought they said the wrong thing when I went up. It was a painting called Young Widow's Journey. That was the first painting that I feel like was given to me. I was driving home from Tahlequah one night, and I saw it. This voice says--I don't know. I think God told me that "This will open many doors for you." As soon as I got home, I did a real rough little sketch and kept it beside the bed. That was the only painting that I literally saw it before I painted it, and it did. It opened so many doors.

Little Thunder: It won first place in painting.

Bridges: It got the Trail of Tears award. It was sold that night, and they used it for the poster for the next year. The judge (I don't know if it was a judge of that show or the next year's show) happened to be the editor for Southwest 26:00Art Magazine, so that painting got me an article, a feature article in the Southwest Art Magazine. That was in '89, right before the Act. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Let's talk a little bit about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.

Bridges: Can I interrupt?

Little Thunder: Sure.

Bridges: The Trail of Tears, I won that for three years straight. It was just shocking. In the Young Widow's Journey, she's actually breastfeeding a baby and has a little boy laying beside her. It talks about the fact that most Trail of Tears pieces are in the wintertime. They went in different sections. Part of the time, they was in the heat, even the heat in the fall. It talks about the humidity and her trying to take care of herself enough to support her child at 27:00her breast and also take care of her young child. That was what it was about.

Anyway, the next year was Pregnant Lady, and the third one--there's another artist who is a kind of contemporary, Anita Caldwell Jackson, that third year she got a little snippy about it. (Laughter) She said, "Well! Breastfeeding, pregnancy. What's next year? Conception?" (Laughs) I said, "Maybe." (Laughter) I ended up winning that five different times.

Little Thunder: That's a wonderful story.(Laughs) I was going to ask how the Native art scene changed from the '80s to the'90s.

Bridges: It was sad. It changed a lot.

Little Thunder: Let's talk about the Arts and Crafts Act, first, I guess, requiring the artists be certified by their tribe. Do you remember how that impacted artists and galleries?

Bridges: Oh, everybody was scared to death because it was the fine. If you were a gallery or museum, you could be fined from one to five million dollars. It was real confusing for everybody because those like me, like Willard--Willard wasn't enrolled. My parents, both, could have enrolled as young people. My grandparents, I should say. They were young adults at the time of the roll, and they didn't sign on either side.

If you know the history, you know there's lots of reasons not to sign it. It was really very confusing because everybody knew that we had Cherokee blood. Like Willard, he'd done the Trail of Tears logo and everything that the tribe uses.

You know how we found out about the Act? We had no clue, you talk about innocent. We're just going on about our business, and then the Muskogee Phoenix newspaper has a big huge bold headline, "Indian Art Fraud," big bold letters, and a lot of it was about my family, the Stones. It was like an attack. That's how we were treated. It went on and on.

Little Thunder: You don't know if that was an individual reporter?

Bridges: Oh, yes. Her name was Donna Hales, and she loved scandal. She wasn't a 30:00trained journalist, which I had a discussion with her later about. She'd made buddies with a guy named John Guthrie and David Cornsilk. It was so emotional, to have somebody tell you that you weren't what you are. "Well, yes, you are, but you can't say you are," and you couldn't sell artwork and say the truth. It was really hard.

One of the articles that she wrote at the time that talked about the Stones, that my grandparents didn't even come into this area until what date she said. I called her. I called the newspaper first, and she finally called me back late one night. I said, "Who are you talking about? Who have you talked to?" She 31:00said, "Well, so and so." I said, "I don't know who that is." She had the wrong Stone family because my grandparents were married in Oktaha in 1902. I mean it was just so sloppy.

Journalism used to have a real, what would you call it, honor about it, which I don't see anymore. Anyway, she was after us hot and heavy. Then she was after the museum in Muskogee. A lot of museums stood up for us, though, which was great.

Little Thunder: How did you work through that? How did you deal with the emotional--

Bridges: Well, I fought. I'm a fighter. I was on the newspapers. We had a real momentum going for a while to fight it, nationwide. There was a guy that did a 32:00column, a political column, James Kilpatrick, real well-known. He even wrote about it and had me in his column.

Then the Thomas Jefferson Center out of Charlottesville, Virginia, (they stood up for the First Amendment) they contacted me. They set up a panel discussion in DC, and they had me come. Flew me and my sister out to speak against the law. It was me and I don't remember the guy's name. There were about ten of us. Two of us against the law and the rest of them were for the law. I don't know what he did. He was drinking so much coffee that he just didn't even hardly make sense, he was so hyped up. I wanted to say, "Just be quiet and let me do the talking." 33:00(Laughter) It was an interesting panel because I knew the history. Anybody that knows the history of tribes, especially the Five Tribes, one roll and everything.

So I had that discussion. Then the State of Oklahoma was having a discussion at the state capitol. Jason Stone and his wife, my cousin and his wife--you know, I was so glad that Willard had died because it would have broken his heart, what happened. We were going to Oklahoma City to meet with the Capitol to have a hearing to fight this thing, for the State of Oklahoma to stand up against it. We got to noticing black Suburbans with big antennas and everything on I-40, the closer we got to Oklahoma City. I thought, "What the heck is going on?" Well, it was the morning they attacked--Desert Storm was that day, so all the momentum 34:00that we had going was just forgotten about. Years later, people say, "Oh, I didn't think that was still going on." I was like, "Yes, it's still going on." It passed in '90 or '91?

Little Thunder: In 1990, I think.

Bridges: This is '92 or later. I had an FBI agent come to the house. Have you heard any of this story with me and the FBI?

Little Thunder: No! (Laughter)

Bridges: I told you if you Google that Act, you'd find my name. (Laughter) In the middle of the afternoon in July, somebody rang the doorbell. You know where 35:00we live out here; we don't have company. My granddaughter was here, and she ran to the door and said, "Grandma, a man's here." It was an FBI agent. I had no idea. I mean, this was out of the blue.

His name was Deon--I can't remember his last name. He was a full blood. I have lucked out so many times in my life in meeting good people. He had already interviewed Chad Smith and Julian [Fite]. He was the Attorney General for the tribe at Tahlequah. He'd already talked to them about it, and they both took up for me. When he got here, he interviewed me some and told me that they'd had charges that I had been misrepresenting myself.

Of course, everybody knew what I was, and I'd been out everywhere fighting this 36:00thing. And if anybody asked me if I was Cherokee, I would be very clear about it: I'm not a Cherokee tribal member. But anyway, he said they had charges, and the Justice Department was doing an investigation. I said, "What did I do?" He said there was an undercover FBI agent at Red Earth in June.

Little Thunder: Of that year?

Bridges: Of that year. After I saw him, I thought, "I still don't remember saying or doing anything." When you get charged with something, they don't have to tell you anything, and it's scary. When you have a little taste of it, you really get a little paranoid about the government sometimes.

Anyway, Deon was extremely nice, and he told me his history. He had five tribes in him, his blood. He had to choose only one to be a member of, and he chose 37:00Caddo, but he had enough Creek, enough of five different tribes. Nicest guy. He and his wife come to the next show we had. He introduced me to her and his kids. (Laughter)

Then the Justice Department sends me a letter wanting me to plea bargain. I'm like, "What did I do?" I call over there. This guy named Arvo Mikkanen he was assistant whatever over there in Oklahoma City. It had to be an Oklahoma City district because that's where it happened. He wouldn't tell me what I had done, so I finally made them. I said, "I need to know what you're talking about. I'm not going to plea bargain to anything until I know what happened."

J. R. and I--it was really a sad time. I'd lost my mom in January, and his mother had just died. It was on the way to Kansas to her funeral that we stopped 38:00in Oklahoma City and had a meeting with Arvo Mikkanen and the FBI agent that was undercover. His name was Agent Black. He was a big, tall white guy, big guy. As soon as I saw him, I remember seeing him before.

The way I violated the law is, he was going around looking at my work. It wasn't very busy. It was kind of early. He was talking, he said, "Why do you paint corn?" I said, "Well, the Cherokees, the Southeastern tribes are very agricultural. There's a lot of corn." He said, "Why do you paint corn?" I said, "I'm part Cherokee." That was in the conversation. That was a violation.

Then he bought a five-dollar magnet (I have magnets with paper on them) from me for his friend who was Cherokee. He said he wanted to buy it for his friend. I 39:00signed my name. He asked me to sign, and I signed my name. Then he left, and he came back. We were extremely busy by that time. Had lots of customers. He kind of interrupted me and asked, "Would you mind putting your tribe on there because it would mean a lot to my friend," so I wrote "Cherokee." Two violations.

Then they went to my website, and I had Cherokee written one time without it being the "descent" or "ancestry," so that was three violations of a very, very bad act. During that conversation, J. R. had to hold me down a couple times. (Laughter) I was so aggravated. This Arvo Mikkanen is half Finnish, from Finland, and half Comanche and Kiowa. He claimed both tribes. I'm thinking, "You 40:00shouldn't do that." (Laughs) Anyway, I said, "Well, what can I say?" "Well, we can't tell you what you can say."

I said, "Can I say 'Cherokee descent'?" He said, "Yes, you can say that." I said, "'Cherokee ancestry'?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Can I say I have Cherokee blood?" "No, you can't say that." I said, "What the blankety-blank do you think 'ancestry' and 'descent' means?" That was just like this guy. He wasn't budging. He wanted to come after me, hard. I asked him, "If I plea bargain to this, this is a felony. Would I lose my right to vote in this country?" He said, "Well, yes." I said, "Well, I am never losing my right to vote in this country!" So I decided I had to get an attorney, which was a waste of money.

Little Thunder: But eventually they dropped the charges, or you came to an agreement of some kind?

Bridges: After spending about four thousand dollars trying to educate an attorney to fight this--because they don't know anything. They really don't. He spent all my retainer just learning. He sent one letter to Mikkanen and waited for the answer. After my retainer was gone, I'd get these little bills for seventy-five dollars every week. I finally called this attorney and said, "What's this seventy-five dollars for?" He said, "Well, when we have an open case, we discuss it every week if anything is going on about it. If there's not, then--" I said, "Richard, I can't afford this. You put my file on a shelf. You don't think about it, you don't talk about it, you don't do anything about it 42:00until something is going on." That stopped the drain of money for a while.

I finally ended up doing a (I probably wouldn't have, except J. R. talked me into it because I was still wanting to fight it) pre-trial diversionary probation, which is supposed to wipe it off. To do this, I had to have my fingerprints made. So there's supposed to be an appointment with the FBI in Muskogee. They did let us do all this in Muskogee, which is so much closer. J. R. and I go up there one morning where the FBI is supposed to be. They had no idea why I was there. I had a nine o'clock appointment, and nobody knew why I was there. Nobody knew anything about it. He said, "I'll call." He comes back 43:00and says, "I can't get any of them to answer the phone." I said, "Doesn't that concern you?" (Laughs) I thought that was funny. It wasn't funny to him.

So we made another appointment. The US Attorney's office is going to make my fingerprints, so they did some fingerprints the second time. Anyway, that wasn't enough for them, for Arvo over in Oklahoma City. They wanted not only my fingerprints but also my palm prints. You know, I'm very dangerous. So I had to go a third time and had to get the palm print done. This little FBI agent was there that time. He was just a little giggly young man. When I got to the middle finger on my left hand, I said, "You can tell Arvo that's for him." When I got 44:00to the middle finger on my right hand, I said, "You can tell Agent Black that's for him." (Laughter)

Anyway, I ended up having--I did the probation. You're supposed to have someone visit your home and everything. I ended up getting a woman who was over all federal probations in Oklahoma. She looked at it, I guess. I never got to meet the woman. Just talked to her on the phone. She said, "I don't see that anything's necessary here for me to have to--why don't we just let you send a report in once a month for six months?" I said, "Okay." Then I had to do a community service, which I thought was a punishment, right?

Anyway, there's a real nice place called Kids' Space up in Muskogee that takes care of children with court systems and stuff. I had done some volunteer work 45:00with them before, just donations and things. The director wrote down that I did so many hours at a time, and we turned that in. (Laughter) I became a member of a state-recognized tribe in Alabama, so that covers me for the law, right now.

Little Thunder: That's an amazing story. The other changes in the '90s, seems like the market wasn't quite as strong.

Bridges: No, it wasn't. It wasn't.

Little Thunder: Did you do any adapting, in terms of how you handled your marketing?

Bridges: I guess it was an oil boom in the '80s or something? I kind of missed all that. And then the law, I think it stopped me over a year, painting. I felt 46:00like Bill Glass and some of the others, Mike Daniel--they crucified Mike Daniel because--I can't remember. He was adopted, so they didn't think he should be able to claim his heritage. There were some real witch hunts out there. Bill Glass tried so many times to set up a committee to try to have a hearing to get the tribe to straighten it up. I told him, I said, "Bud, you're going to get your heart broken." And he did.

When they put in the law that you could be a tribal member or a certified artisan, I said, when they put that in the law, "They'll never do that for anybody," and they haven't. I said, "If they do that, they'll admit all the people of that tribe are not tribal members. They're never going to admit that, 47:00not in writing or anything official." It wouldn't have passed, I don't think, if they hadn't had that in there, but they didn't do it.

Little Thunder: Art is such a two-person business.

Bridges: Yes it is.

Little Thunder: I wondered if you'd talk a little bit about you had met J. R., and you had remarried. What role does he play in your business?

Bridges: A big role because he's a natural little retail guy. (Laughter) He really is. When he was in the military, he was stationed in Turkey for a while. His base, real remote base up on a mountain, he created like a BX or PX, whatever you call that. He created this store, got to buying and selling and 48:00everything, and they made all kinds of money for them. It's always been in his blood.

He didn't get to do much of it in the military, but he's real good with organization. I'm more organized than most artists are. I've got a pretty good business head, so between the two of us--I say he's left-handed; I'm right-handed. He's male; I'm female. We'll go round and round and round, but we always end up at the same place of what to do business-wise.

Things were slowing down a lot in the '90s. I still had lots of prints and things. One of the things he did when we got married, he said, "You're going to sit down, and you're going to sign and number all these prints." (Laughter) I said, "Oh, my gosh!" It took days, but it was the best thing we did because you don't have to wonder what number you're on. We packaged them up in envelopes and 49:00certain groups. It's all organized. I still appreciate it every time I get a print out to sell.

We discovered with Traci Rabbit and Bill--Traci's married to my cousin now, but back then, Traci found this sublimation printing for tiles. She was looking it up, and her and J. R. got to talking. We started, I think it was in January or February. Did the Tulsa show, and we didn't have any equipment at that time. Traci made us two or three tiles, and they sold as soon as people saw them, so we invested.

We didn't need a lot of money, but I went to the bank. I had all this proposal typed up, prospective of what we could make out of it, which was low-balled. I 50:00don't know if you've ever dealt with banks and art, bankers don't understand art. We got there and have all this stuff put together, looking for about five thousand dollars, I think, which would get us a press and a printer and stuff. The banker says, "Jeanne, you still got that old tractor?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Let's just put that on there." (Laughter) So we still have a tractor on our--my line of credit's always had a tractor on it, never art. Never art. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: And those tiles are wonderful. We're going to take a look at one towards the end of the interview.

Bridges: Okay. It has been great, though.

Little Thunder: You've done illustration work several times, I guess. Is Crossing Bok Chitto your first venture?

Bridges: It's the first.

Little Thunder: Will you tell me how that project came about?

Bridges: Oh, it's funny. I was at Red Earth Festival in Oklahoma City. They'd moved it to the fairgrounds. This guy comes by the booth. I have no idea who he is. He asked me if I'd be interested in illustrating a children's book. I was kind of busy. I hope I wasn't impolite to him, but I kind of let it go in one ear and out the other because I've had other people ask me to do children's books, and I just think I don't paint cutesy.

It was Tim Tingle who was talking to me. He did the storytelling that year. I guess he thought I wasn't really listening, so he calls his publisher because he had gotten the right to find an artist, which is unusual.

Little Thunder: That is very unusual. They must've really liked you.

Bridges: So he comes back, and he says, "The editor said if I did this, this, and this, that they'd look at it." I was like, "Yes," in one ear and out the other. (Laughter) Then he comes back, and he'd picked up my brochure. He gave the website to the publishers over the phone, and they looked at it. He came back about fifteen minutes later and told me what he'd done. He said, "They said if you want it, you've got it." My ego was rubbed then. (Laughter)

He gave me a CD that he had made with that story on it. After we'd loaded up Sunday night, we were going home, and I put that CD in. I heard that story, and I started crying, and I thought, "If I'm ever going to do a children's book, this is it," because it was just right. It was very human, emotions. It had a 53:00great storyline to it, surprise ending. Wait until you read it. It's a great story. I was very proud to get to do it. It was a lot of work.

Little Thunder: I bet. How do you approach it?

Bridges: They told me, some of the people, when I won some awards from it, Publishers Weekly reviews, (the book world is a whole other animal to me) they said that each page was a piece of art. I guess that was how I felt. I was trying to tell a story, like I do in my paintings.

Little Thunder: Through a series.

Bridges: Yes. It was a two-page spread, and you can't put anything important in 54:00the middle because that's the gutter, so you can't do that. You have to figure out an area where the type can be, and I argued with the publisher a little bit about it. I said, "I don't want just a big white blob in the middle of a painting," so all the print has got the painting behind it. It's transparent behind the print. The publishers were a little weird, but anyway. I had done three paintings before I finally signed a contract because I wasn't sure I was going to deal with them or not.

Crossing Bok Chitto won you the Illustrator of the Year for Oklahoma in 2007 and the Jane Addams and [Randolph] Caldecott Awards?

I didn't get the Caldecott. I got a Notable.

Little Thunder: It's won another award, though, hasn't it?

Bridges: It's won a lot. J. R. keeps track of the number. He says twenty-six awards.

Little Thunder: My goodness, that's wonderful.

Bridges: I can't remember, but it really has gotten a lot of good publicity.

Little Thunder: You were a wonderful choice for that because I remember when you started incorporating African American women in your paintings of Cherokee women. Of course, there's all that history, but I'm wondering what the reception was like.

Bridges: When I first started the Sister Series? I did Trail Sisters for the Trail of Tears show, and it didn't win anything.

Little Thunder: Do you want to describe the image for us?

Bridges: The image is a black woman (she has a turban on) and an Indian, a Cherokee woman. The Cherokee woman is pregnant, and they're holding hands. I talk about they're sisters on the Trail because there were a lot of blacks who 56:00were on the Trail of Tears. Not only did they have slaves in the Southeast, they also were mixed bloods and also friends. They were all together.

This little old lady at a college in Missouri--is it Cape Girardeau, Missouri? They had me come and talk about the Sister Series one time at this college. This little old lady who had written a pamphlet-type book called Tears of the Trail, she raised her hand and asked if she could interrupt me for a moment, and I said, "Please do." She said, "The difference between white people who owned slaves, the whites are Europeans, they own that person. With the Indians who had slaves, they own that person's work." That was the most enlightening thing to 57:00me, and I was so glad that lady told me about that.

The Trail Sisters got a little strange reception at Tahlequah that year. I had that one, and I had added At Day's End, I think. The next year, I entered one that was called Harvest Visit. It was a small little painting, six inches by ten inches and then framed. It was an Indian woman carrying corn, and a black woman sitting, shelling the corn in the cornfield together. It won Best of Show, Best in Painting that year. I was really surprised because it's a small painting. It got a good reception.

People have asked me why I did it, and I said, "Well, being raised here in eastern Oklahoma in the country, every black family I know has part Indian 58:00blood. It's either Creek or Cherokee, mostly." My mom's best friend was half Cherokee and half black. My dad, one of his very best friends was Zach Robinson. I think Zach had a little bit of Creek Indian in him. My sister and I would be milking in the evening, and if Zach came, you didn't get any work out of my dad because they sat and talked the whole time. (Laughter) I had so much respect for the black families in this area. We worked together in the fields. They came, and we hired them. They had their own fields and things, but they would work for us, too. We were working together. My mom and dad called them "colored." "Black" was kind of a newer thing.

The name Sister Series came at Red Earth that year. I had several pieces there, 59:00and this black woman, a little bit older, came up. I've had people cry and thank me for painting them. She said, "Do you have any small ones of the sister series?" I said, "No, ma'am, but you just named it." She's the one that gave me that name.

It's gotten a lot of national attention. It's been used in a lot of books. Different images have been used in different books, you know, get my permission. There was one called the Illustrated Atlas of Native Americans. It's a beautiful atlas, color. They used Harvest Visit as their section on Black Indians because nobody else is out there painting it. I don't know why. Black Indians are very well known, now. They do videos, and they do music and everything, but I don't see the paintings anywhere else. I've been very proud of that series.

Little Thunder: Wonderful series. What are your most important shows these days?

Bridges: Rio Grande Show in Albuquerque. Red Earth changed rules on me a couple years ago, about three years ago. They decided they didn't like tiles, and they didn't like coasters, and they didn't like cutting boards, and they didn't like this. Well, everybody knows about the economy now. For the last ten years, the art market, if you didn't have something affordable, you could sit there all day and maybe not sell anything. Most people can't afford original artwork.

That's one main thing that J. R. and I have done in the past few years. We've produced my work on the tiles. I was talking about Traci with the tiles. We have developed it so much. Being the wife of an artist, you can understand. I can 61:00paint something, and in twenty minutes, if it's small enough to get on the scanner, we can have a tile and see what it looks like on tiles. It is so much fun. This process, the ink actually turns to gas, but it keeps all that fine, fine detail. It's just been a great way to market my work.

Little Thunder: It's allowed you to keep painting.

Bridges: Yes. It's kind of like residual income. You do a painting, and you can reproduce it yourself in different ways. It also opened up the gift market because a lot of gift shops are not going to handle prints and things, but they will handle tiles. It's gotten my name out, nationwide. I have calls every once in a while that say, "I was at the Phoenix airport, and I picked up this little tile." (Laughter) I always have a label with contact information on the back of 62:00every tile we sell, so it's been a real good thing.

Little Thunder: What are you currently working on now?

Bridges: I've kind of adapted, since I had a stroke last year. I had an idea. I did a couple of banners for the Muskogee Azalea Festival. I've done banners for them for a lot of years. You paint on a banner, and they auction it off after the festival is over. I always was loose with them; I could paint freely. I'm thinking, "I'm giving this away. It'll be loose," but I've really liked what I paint, so I did two of them. It was the first real paintings I tried to do since I had the stroke, and I liked them.

Little Thunder: They're pretty big!

Bridges: Yes, they're pretty big. Anyway, I thought, "Well, that's an idea. What if I had another little market glitch besides the Native American art?" Of 63:00course, I love to paint barns and flowers, too. If people would have a piece of artwork for outside, like on their patio--so many people are doing the outdoor living areas with the kitchens and everything now. That's been the latest thing I'm working on. Sold three of them so far, and I just started about three weeks ago.

Little Thunder: Outdoor banners?

Bridges: I thought about making banners, but I thought, well, then you have to sew this and do this and wonder how they're going to hang it. We made stretcher bars out of the fake deck material, cut it up, and made a stretcher bar. That's waterproof and weatherproof, kind of heavy, too, for the Oklahoma wind. Then we stretched the banner material, stretched that around those bars, and then we put two-inch blue tape, like if you're painting, around that on the face. I'm using 64:00a lot of different exterior house paints because on the banners I did for Muskogee, I used a red barn and fence paint. I used the house paint, I used up trim paint because I'm cheap. I wasn't going to use my good acrylics on their stuff. (Laughter) I started incorporating a little bit of my acrylics with it, but house paints, actually, regular exterior. You pull the tape off, and it looks like they're matted around them. Anyway, so that's my newest thing.

Little Thunder: What a great idea. Let's talk a little bit about your creative process and techniques. You've talked in an article, I think, I read about how your style is based on the flat style but you've adapted it for your own use, and you've introduced some more decorative expressionistic-type elements. Let's 65:00talk first about how you've adapted the flat style.

Bridges: A lot of shading on the faces and hands, even in the blankets and shawls and things have got shading on them. That's away from pure flat style. That's one of the things that I think got people's attention with the book, Bok Chitto, paintings because they're based on the flat style, also. They hadn't seen that before.

Of course, I love trees, my bare trees. And I call them moons, but some people call them suns. People ask me, "Why did you paint a black moon?" I said, "I don't paint them black but a deep plum." (Laughs) It's whatever color goes with what I'm trying to paint. It's fun.

Little Thunder: How has your palette changed?

Bridges: The oils, I do oils and acrylics now. I started doing oils a long time ago. They're mostly landscapes. Usually, I'll have a figure in there, at least one. I love doing the oils with it. They're a brighter, deeper, richer look to them. I love doing (it's a challenge) water and reflections in the water.

Little Thunder: On the oils?

Bridges: Yes, with the oils. I've done it with acrylics, but it has a little different effect with oils.

Little Thunder: On the watercolors, you'll have this effect of, it almost looks like batik with your use of watercolor, and you're painting wet on wet?

Bridges: That's acrylics. It is wet on wet. It's so much fun to see what happens 67:00with the paints. Back in the (when was it?), everybody was using airbrush. I remember when R. C. Gorman went to airbrush, and I didn't like anything he painted after that. I loved his pastels. (Laughter)

I bought an airbrush, and I couldn't stand it. It's too controlled, and you just do one color at a time. I thought, "I don't even like washing dishes, much less cleaning this thing out every time I want to change colors." I like that effect of wet on wet and put several colors in there and see what happens. You can't do that with an airbrush. I wasted money on an airbrush, and it was never used again. I like the wet on wet. A lot of my paintings, I start with a whole background, and I do wet on wet. Sometimes I will circle the moon. People say, 68:00"How do you get a moon so round?" I use a template. Why not? (Laughs)

I decide if I'm going to keep the washed colors over the background. If I keep the background wash colors, I paint the moon a solid color. If I don't, I circle the moon, leave the wash there, and I put in a solid color in the background for the sky. My trees with my acrylics are all flat. They're never shaded. I don't know what I'm going to paint. Like I said, Young Widow's Journey was the only painting I ever saw before I got it done.

Little Thunder: There's another effect that you got that almost looks granular, but it doesn't have a texture, of course. It's flat. I didn't know if you might be using a wax crayon or something. It's very interesting. Maybe it's just the 69:00wet on wet.

Bridges: You mean the oils or acrylics?

Little Thunder: It's on the acrylics. It would make small little circles that would appear--

Bridges: Well, I probably painted those circles.

Little Thunder: Oh, very small ones?

Bridges: Oh, yes, I use tiny little liner brushes, and I do dots.

Little Thunder: And then let those be wet on wet?

Bridges: Usually I have a background--

Little Thunder: They were kind of transparent, like little moons throughout. Maybe it was in the printing. Drafting skills are obviously important to you, and I've seen some really nice sketches in your studio. Do you do a lot of preliminary sketches?

Bridges: When I'm doing hands and everything, I do a lot of sketches and put those on tracing paper. Then, if I get that the way I want it, I'll do the 70:00graphite paper and press that onto the canvas or the watercolor board, what I'm painting on, to get the main features and where they're going to be.

Little Thunder: What kinds of research do you do for your paintings?

Bridges: Native American books and some of the research books with baskets. The clothing I've more or less kind of come up with it on my own. I used to try to do real detail. I've got a card called "Iroquois Legend." It has an old wampum belt in the background, and then she's laying there with her hand on her belly. She's pregnant, kind of reclining. I had a dark blue background, solid, and I was doing little dots for that wampum. (Laughter) I got about halfway through that, and I thought, "What have I gotten started?" (Laughter) I didn't think I was ever going to finish that painting. I do a lot of research like that. Lots 71:00of my paintings now, anymore, just kind of happen.

One thing I do, I don't have any right now, but people buy them because the Cherokees and all the Southeastern tribes were "civilized." When they got to Oklahoma, they started building schools, and they dressed like everybody else. Have you ever seen the female seminary photographs? They've got the black and white dresses and the collars, and the hair is put up or back? I would love to do a whole series with those kind of paintings, with the women like that.

Another thing I really want to do in the future--being a farm girl, we raised cotton. That was another thing we raised. I really would love to do, say, a 72:00series, of nothing but women in the fields working together. That's my goal in life. I've always thought, "I've got to do something to be able to support myself, so I've got the time to paint enough paintings and not sell them." But I would love to do that.

Little Thunder: That would be neat. What's your creative process from the time you get an idea?

Bridges: When you say "process," I don't have anything structured.

Little Thunder: Do you have an image in your head, and you put it down on paper first? How does it develop?

Bridges: One thing J. R. found out when we got together is don't throw anything away. I'd have these little--like when a show's slow, when you're sitting there, I'd do little sketches on whatever paper I had at the table. I've written them on napkins. You just come up with an idea of how to position a woman or hands or 73:00a painting. I've done a lot of paintings with the backs, and they're stacked. It's a long, tall painting, but all you have to do is put one woman in front of another one, and it gives you that effect. I think I came up with that one time when I was sitting at a slow show. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: They're not neatly organized in a book. (Laughs)

Bridges: No, not at all. I never know. J. R. says, "She'll have these quick little sketches. You can barely tell what it is. Next thing I know, she's got a big painting of it." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What's your creative routine? Do you paint in the morning? Do you paint at night?

Bridges: I have no routine, never have. People used to say, "What's your inspiration?" I was so bad, I'd say, "A deadline." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's true for many artists. How about titles in your work? How important?

Bridges: They're important. I write stories on a lot of my paintings. Sometimes it's hard to title. Some of them are very hard; some come just like that. They come so quick. Others are very difficult. Anymore, it's because we've got so many of the tile images that we're marketing now. I use initials on the codes to put them on the website. My sister works for us part-time, one of my sisters. Sometimes I cannot come up with a name. All three of us are out there trying to think of something, and, "Oh, we've already used those initials." (Laughs) You 75:00kind of know it when you hear it. Like I said, some of them come so easy.

Little Thunder: Talk about your signature because that's an art, discovering how you want to sign your paintings.

Bridges: Yes, it is. J. R., we were married for ten years before I put Rorex Bridges-Bridges. I was married to Kenneth Rorex Bridges for right at twenty-five years, so my career was with Rorex Bridges. I used to be Jeanne Walker-Rorex Bridges, then it was Jeanne Rorex Bridges, then it was just Rorex Bridges. Now it's Rorex Bridges-Bridges. He said he had to prove himself for ten years before I'd put his name on a painting. (Laughter) I said, "No, I just couldn't figure out how to write it." (Laughter) I went from the X with Rorex Bridges, the X at the end, at the bottom, now I do the R, and I'll do the B and take the B down instead of the X.

Little Thunder: And you use the syllabary, too, a little bit, don't you, on some of them? You don't.

Bridges: You're probably looking at some of my older pieces, that my maiden name's Walker. Those are little footprints. I've had a lot of people ask me what they were. When I say footprints, they look and see it. I said I have a high instep. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Looking back on your career so far, what's been one of the pivotal moments, where you could've gone one way and you went another way?

Bridges: I think going into the business making the tiles, printing the tiles, was a major step. My open house is something that I've had for years. It's not easy to do an open house, but it's really good. I've got a mailing list of 77:00almost 5,500 names now. I send out postcards. When I'm going to be in an area for a show, I do that. I think combining business in that kind of a sense--marketing, to my work, has been very important because you can paint the best thing in the world, but if nobody sees it, you're not going to expand your name or anything, so I send postcards out.

Then for open house in July, we do two weekends. I make homemade cobblers, and J. R and I make homemade ice cream. We invite my entire mailing list. We're going to be in deep trouble if half of them came. (Laughs) Sometimes we've had right at 10 percent over two weekends come out here.

Little Thunder: That's an amazing return on a mailing list. (Laughs)

Bridges: Yes, it is. It's such good advertising. I write on the back--I love to communicate in words, too. I always say something funny or unusual or something. People over the years that have never been here, I'll see them again at a show out of state or whatever, and they say, "Don't stop sending me that card. We're going to make it one of these years." They really feel like it is a personal invitation, and I think that's great. I could have gone the lazy way, just depend on somebody else to do it for me, but I've always done a lot of that myself.

J. R., our personalities work out real well together with that. He doesn't like to do the names and things, but I do. (Laughter) He makes sure that we have ink and makes sure that we have supplies and things like that, which is good. One of the best compliments I ever had over the years, and I get it pretty often from 79:00different people, is that my work makes them feel calm and peaceful. I thought, "What a compliment." They get a feeling from my work.

Little Thunder: What do you strive for with your artwork beyond that?

Bridges: I don't know. I guess just human relationships. Like I said about pregnant women, I love the hand placements and things. Children, I don't paint a lot of children with their parents, but I do some. I don't know what it is. Maybe I feel calm when I'm painting them. The women with the bags going into the woods, they're not complicated. I don't know the feeling that I have while I'm 80:00painting because I'm just looking at them.

To me, each one of them are a different person. I don't know why that is, but they're very quiet, and they know where they're going, no doubt. They're not confused. I don't like chaos in a painting. Some people put so much in a painting, you get tired of looking at it. There's so much stuff in one painting. That bothers me. That's where the advertising part of it, focal point, keep their eye, lead it, and say something, what you want them to see. My paintings are pretty simple.

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

Bridges: I think the Trail of Tears show back then, that was really an honor to get to win that and participate in that. It was a really fun show, years ago. 81:00They had the big dinner out under the trees. The collectors had fun. I made such good friends, not only with artists but also collectors. That was fun. Over the years, I've made dear friends with people that just come to shows. When you do booth shows and people come to see you, of course, they just become part of you. There's a lot of bad stuff in the world, but there's a whole lot of good stuff in the world, lots and lots of good people who would do anything for you.

Little Thunder: And what's been one of the low points in your career?

Bridges: I would say the law, me and the law. (Laughter) I've got a photograph of me in my studio in there. It's when I had a briefcase, and I was in DC for 82:00the talk. I wrote on the outside of my map, "I fought the law, and the law won." (Laughter) It's still there, and they're trying to do away with the state-recognized tribes. I've been trying to take that out of it. It's such a shame. People shouldn't be jealous of each other.

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

Bridges: I think I've said a lot. (Laughter) I can't believe I get to do what I do. It's really a blessing.

Little Thunder: We're glad you get to do that, too. We're looking at one of your bigger acrylic pieces at the moment.

Bridges: Yes, it's called Woodlands Moon. That's one that I started--I washed in the color where the moon is. Then I picked out the area I liked, so I do a 83:00circle around that. Believe it or not, I put scotch tape all around the edge of that moon, and I paint the main color, which is kind of green.

I discovered sponge painting not too long ago, a few years ago, so I do sponge painting. There's two or three different colors on top of that green. Can you see that? Then, I take the tape off the moon so it keeps that edge because you can't control the sponges that well. Anyway, then I paint in the trees. I have the two figures, and it just looked like Woodlands Moon, that color.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Can you tell us about this piece?

Bridges: This painting was an illustration for Oklahoma Today Magazine. They had contacted me. That was the second painting that I did. They had Wilma Mankiller 84:00doing a story that come out every three months, I think. They had her do a story, something about her area of where she lived and memories.

The first one, I did an illustration with an older woman at the Strawberry Festival in Stillwell. Then she talked about another one. This one--she mentioned going to church on Sunday and the church in the woods. You'd drive into church in the springtime, and it's dogwood trees. So this painting is called Wilma's Dogwood. I did the illustration, and we ended up doing tiles. This is actually reproduced on a piece of metal in a tray, but I did that in honor of Wilma because she died not too long after that article came out.

Little Thunder: That is a beautiful piece.

Bridges: Thank you.

Little Thunder: Can you tell us about this drawing?

Bridges: That was my dad. I had taken a snapshot of him out under the maple 85:00tree. We always had this large shade tree in the front yard. We had those old metal lawn chairs that kind of leaned back. They were yellow or green or something, had the metal arms. I caught him in a photograph.

When he sat out there, he always had his pocket knife out, and he would strip the bark off a little limb from that maple tree. He told the best stories. He never told jokes, and he didn't tell lies. He just told stories about people over the years, something his father had done or other people. It was just an observation of people over the years. I caught him telling a story. He had that stick in his hand, and I called it Conductor of the Story because it looked like he was conducting it. Had his old boots on, the kind that lace up above your 86:00ankles, and overalls. That was his standard attire.

He was a very, very interesting man, very intelligent, and a farmer and rancher. He went to college. I think he went to Connors College back in the 1930s. I don't even know if he finished one semester because he said he was going to take agriculture and he figured out they couldn't teach him anything he didn't already know. (Laughter) He was real good with mathematics and stuff, too. I had a lot of respect for him. Still do.

I don't think he really understood my art, my paintings and things, up to that point. Then I did that portrait of him, the drawing, and people asked for him to sign it for them. Man, you talk about getting some attention. He liked it then. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Then, this one--

Bridges: This one, everybody was waiting for me to do a drawing of my mom. It just never seemed right yet until one of my sisters had taken a snapshot of her and showed her hands. See how she's holding her hands? I thought, "That's Mama." She worked so hard. Both of them worked so hard. She was always working, being a 87:00farmer and rancher. She used to get aggravated because people would think she was a housewife and Daddy was a farmer-rancher. She was a farmer-rancher, too, because she did just as much for the farm and ranch as he did, and, of course, in the house. She made the best fried potatoes. Even her great-grandchildren would talk about when she was still able to cook. Best fried potatoes. The biggest compliment you could get is if you fried potatoes and one of them would say, "This tastes like Grandma's." (Laughter)

She was a pretty, pretty woman. She had a pretty face and always cared about her looks. She always wanted to make sure her hair was fixed and everything. She never went to a beauty shop. One of us girls was always taking care of her hair. Very sweet lady. Saw her mad one time, and that was at a son-in-law. (Laughter) Everybody talks about how sweet she was.

Little Thunder: I love that drawing. And this one is one of your oils.

Bridges: Yes, it's called Journey of Reflection. I love doing landscapes in oils 88:00because I can play with color again. It's a different feel than the acrylics. On my canvas, I'll do an undercoat of either Indian red or burnt umber. I saw that in a little cheap book one time. I got that major tip from that cheap little book. Anyway, do that, do a turpentine wash on the whole canvas. That ties your painting together.

I put white in the sky, and I start putting colors in there. Any color I'm thinking about putting in the ground, I try to get some of that up in the sky, too, in trying to figure out how to do a cloud and everything. I always have a little purple mountain in the background. Trees, just do a stipple brush. You always think of the distance, what's farthest away, to come to you in a painting.

When I'm doing the sky, I'll be cleaning my brush out down in the foreground 89:00where the water is going to be because all those colors need to be in the water and in the sky. I do trees with a palette knife now. The first oil painting I did with trees, I used a little flat brush, and each little tree had brush strokes blending the white and black together. I didn't think I was ever going to get finished. (Laughter) I found out about a palette knife, so my trees are all palette knife, now.

Little Thunder: It creates a neat effect.

Bridges: I use a palette knife on the blankets now, too. I like this [painting] because it's got the two women, and the main woman in the bright red has a baby in her arms. It's a challenge to do it, but I love painting reflections in the water.

Little Thunder: Well, thank you so much for your time today, Jeanne.

Bridges: Thank you, Julie. It's been fun. I've known you a long time, so it's been even more fun. (Laughs)

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