Oral history interview with Norman Akers

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Saturday, September 9, and I'm interviewing Norman Akers as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project, sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Norman's home, just outside of Lawrence. You're a well-known painter and print maker, a recipient of the prestigious Jean Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, and a professor of painting at the University of Kansas. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Akers: You're welcome, Julie.

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

Akers: Well, I was actually born in Fairfax, Oklahoma, so I was raised in Osage County. I spent pretty much all my youth there. I did go to high school at Skiatook for a while, which is not too far from Tulsa. However, it seemed like my life was so connected to Fairfax that every weekend, I went back to Fairfax. 1:00It was sort of an odd growing up, in a way, (Laughter) but Fairfax is my home, and it's an important place for me. I may be jumping a little bit ahead, but I know I have always had this strong connection to home and still try to maintain close ties with family and community there.

Little Thunder: How about your folks?

Akers: Well, I'm mixed-blood. My father is Osage. My mother is Anglo. My father was typical of most Osages from that time period. He grew up in Oklahoma. He went to boarding school and that whole experience. My mother, she had lived both in Oklahoma, around Tulsa, Fairfax, Pawnee, that kind of area. That's where her 2:00folks were from. They got married after she finished up her high school in Fairfax. That was pretty much it. She's still living in Oklahoma. She worked for the Osage County at the courthouse for a number of years and also the assessor's office.

Little Thunder: How about your grandparents? Were they around at all, either side?

Akers: I spent quite a bit of time with my grandparents on my mother's side. In one way, I felt like probably a good part of my youth was spent around them because she was busy working and everything. My grandmother on my father's side, 3:00she died quite young, and so I never knew her, but I knew my great-grandmother on my father's side. The early part of my life, there was a very strong connection with her.

Little Thunder: What was her name?

Akers: Her name was Eva, Eva Little Star. She went by Star, shortened the name. She was very instrumental in my life for the time that I knew her because I felt like, somewhere, that connection gave me a stronger connection to home, in a sense. I felt like I really did spend a lot of my growing up with my grandparents, which I think changed how I looked at people.

Little Thunder: In what way?

Akers: I don't know. I guess I was used to being around older people, for one. Also, there was something about a work ethic. My grandfather was not the type of person to sit around, and so I literally did grow up every weekend--every weekend there was some sort of project that we worked on, whether I was spending time just fiddling with his tools or being what I would call a tool monkey. That was just part of growing up. (Laughter)

I really haven't talked much about him, so this is kind of the first time in an interview I'm reminiscing, I guess, about my relationship with him because he was a real quiet man. Didn't have a whole lot to say. If something bothered him, he'd let you know. The best way I can describe it, he was very inquisitive. He 5:00was always fascinated with things, how things worked, and I think somehow, growing up and being around him, that sort of made me think that way.

I told someone a funny story a while back. It was like when microwave ovens came out. I can remember him taking me to the furniture store so I could watch them cook a hotdog in a microwave oven. (Laughter) I think that was his excuse for getting out of the house. (Laughter) I still remember that crazy experience of going to the furniture store in Fairfax and watching them cook hotdogs and hamburgers in a microwave oven. (Laughter) Yes, it's funny. I start to think back on it and I realize, "Wow, that's--"

Little Thunder: A sense of curiosity--

Akers: It's a curiosity, but we think of microwaves as being commonplace today. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are you Osage and Pawnee?

Akers: I'm actually Osage. That's always been sort of complicated, I think, as many people know in Native country. My grandfather was Osage. He wasn't Pawnee, but my last name, Akers, is connected to a Pawnee man. I knew him when I was young. I have memories of him, as well. I've got family over in Hominy, as well. 7:00In fact, I'm related to Anita Fields. Uncle Richard, her dad, was my father's uncle, so it's kind of a connection among Osage artists.

That kind of sorts a little bit of that out because I've read into that quite a bit in the past. Likewise, I know that my father, when he was young, after he lost his mother, there were a lot of things going on that he was raised over in Pawnee for a while. It was just that time, and it was how people were then.

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

Akers: There was a lady named Helen Bear who lived in Fairfax, and her grandsons and I were really close friends. Her daughter, Alice Couch, was a close friend of my mother's, so we had that connection. What I remember about Helen Bear's house was it was sort of salon style. She had photographs, old photographs, those old, round, oval photographs of her parents and great-grandparents or whatever, relatives' pictures. But she had a collection of paintings from people like Fred Beaver and [Acee] Blue Eagle and that whole Bacone school. Apparently, when she was younger, she must've either known or she had collected these artists.

Whenever I would go over to play, I always felt like I would spend a moment 9:00looking at all the paintings and things in her house. That was probably the first time that I could really think about, like, seeing paintings because I didn't grow up going to museums. Museums were something that we just didn't do for the most part.

However, somehow I had a very strong interest in drawing and sculpting clay. My parents and grandparents were very supportive of that because I'm pretty sure when I was involved in things like that I wasn't bothering them. (Laughter) I kind of joke about it because usually when I engage in some sort of project, I'm very obsessive. I remembered as a kid I was extremely obsessive about if I was going to sculpt something or make something. I would spend hours on it, and the 10:00same thing with drawing.

Little Thunder: So are we talking Play-Doh or clay?

Akers: Play-Doh, clay, just old modeling clay and things like that. Some of my very earliest memories were building little towns underneath this apricot tree that we had next to the house. It would flood the place. (Laughter) I would literally take the mud and start pushing it and carving and making all sorts of little buildings and things. Growing up, I was very imaginative and very involved, that notion of, as I said, just making.

It's funny because some of my earliest memories, too, I can remember the postage stamps. I would always tear the postage stamps off the letters that came to the 11:00house. It used to be like all you would get were images of George Washington, that same postage stamp. When the commemorative stamps started coming out, I would find a letter that would come, and it would have this little--I would tear it off, and I would actually glue it to the floorboards of the house. I can remember laying down on the floor and looking at these little postage stamps.

Little Thunder: Just enjoying the visual effect.

Akers: Enjoying the images on there. Then, it dawned on me: I was creating my own little museum. It was a little gallery, just tiny little pictures, in a sense. This was long before, as I said, I went to museums but for some reason was just really inquisitive, liked to make things. I don't think I was really a good student.

Little Thunder: I was going to ask about art experiences once you got into--let's start with elementary school.

Akers: Yes, because when I was in elementary school and grade school, I wasn't a good student for the most part. I think there were a number of issues I was dealing with. One was glasses. I found out, actually, I couldn't see, which set me back a year. Somehow, making art was one thing that I excelled at, and most of my instructors recognized that.

Little Thunder: They did?

Akers: Yes, for some reason I was just, again, real fortunate that people picked up on it. I think in my whole experience in grade school and junior high and high school, I can think of only maybe a couple times where I had an instructor that really tried to push that down, who wasn't receptive to it, but just about 13:00everybody was engaged in. Also, I was extremely shy and backwards. It may not appear that way now, but I was very quiet. That took a long time for me to get over.

Little Thunder: What's one of your more outstanding memories of an interaction with a teacher or a project that you finished that you were happy about?

Akers: I did a number of projects. There was a doctor in Skiatook, (his name was Dr. Wolf) and he had just built a new clinic. I remember I did, like, two or three murals for him.

Little Thunder: In high school?

Akers: Yes, in high school.

Little Thunder: Wow!

Akers: This was during my senior year. He paid me appropriately for them. I 14:00can't even remember what it was. Actually, I never got the money. The deal was is that he would put it toward my first year of college, so that helped me go to the Kansas City Art Institute, which was a wise thing. Let's face it. An eighteen-year-old getting a lot of money? Mm-hmm. (Laughs) I remember he had a big grand opening and everything. They had a reception and like an awards ceremony, and it was the first time that I'd ever kind of dealt with this.

Little Thunder: For you?

Akers: For the whole, the clinic and everything and being the, I guess you could call it, the guest artist. It was a marvelous experience. Also, at the same 15:00time, the high school counselor had invited Brummett Echohawk to come to speak to me, talk to me. I showed my portfolio to Brummett, and we got to visiting. He knew my grandfather from my Pawnee connection. It was real interesting. What struck me about my meeting with Brummett was that he was--I respect the fact that he was generous with his time, and he provided some wise advice.

Little Thunder: What did he say?

Akers: He actually gave me a real critique. He didn't say, "Oh, this is nice. This is really good. Good, you're on your way to being an artist." (Laughter) That's not what I got. I got, "You need to think about this. You need to do 16:00this. This is kind of working, but you still have a long ways to go." (Laughter) I mean, that was good.

He asked me, "Where are you going?" I said, "Well, I'm looking at the Institute of American Indian Arts [IAIA], or I'm looking at maybe one of the state schools." He said, "Well, if you can go to an art institute, you need to do that because there's no sense in doing a two-year degree. If you can find you a good school and you can afford it, do that." So that kind of directed me to the Kansas City Art Institute because I'd thought about Chicago. Growing up in 17:00Fairfax, that wasn't going to work. I mean, Kansas City was big enough, and it was close enough to home because I was still having this attachment issue, too. It was like 250 miles was tolerable, but not 700. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Right. You didn't really know anybody in Kansas City, but it was closer.

Akers: It was close. It was close and--

Little Thunder: Had a good reputation.

Akers: --had a good reputation. My folks, they took his advice, and that was, as I say, it made a difference in my life. Eventually, I did go back to IAIA, which we can chat about.

Little Thunder: Before entering the KC Art Institute, what was your style and 18:00subject matter?

Akers: Probably just like about any other adolescent from that mid-'70s: record album art. I wanted to do record covers, cartoons. I drew airplanes instead of hot rods for some reason. (Laughter) Never had a fascination with cars. I did a lot of copies, too, of other artists' work. I copied a lot of Allan Houser. I copied a lot of--

Little Thunder: We're talking painting?

Akers: Painting, yes, like Fred Beaver. Things that I could find photographs in magazines and things. I copied those. I had an art instructor, and I don't know whatever happened to him. His name was Bob Wade. He was actually kind of I think a basketball coach/art instructor. This was when I was in Skiatook. He was 19:00giving me a lot of these things.

He gave me a book on [George] Catlin, and I remember I copied I don't know how many of those Catlin paintings. (Laughter) It was kind of interesting because I always enjoyed doing it. I remember growing up making these pictures of Straight Dancers and Roman soldiers because I liked that crested, you know. So there was this weird multicultural thing going on, even as a youth. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You already had that mix going.

Akers: I think like with all young people, you kind of rebel. It seemed like it was sort of being pushed. My father was like, "This is what you need to paint." And then, "No." Of course, what he considered art was that Oklahoma style but 20:00also [Frederic] Remington and [Charles Marion] Russell. It was that whole Western, let's face it, Cowboy Hall of Fame kind of aesthetic in a sense. I have funny stories about that, too, because he would sort of dangle the carrot. He'd say, "Yes, I'll give you some money to go to school on, but you got to make me a painting." (Laughter) So I've done my fair share of buffalo hunts. (Laughter) In retrospect, I look back, and they were fun.

Little Thunder: You were still practicing.

Akers: Yes, I was practicing my skills, but that was the kind of work that I was doing before I went to the Art Institute. I will tell you a funny story real quick just because it's on my mind, here, one of those incidences where my 21:00father was saying, "Yes, I'll give you some money to go to school on, but you've got to paint a picture of a headdress on a rock."

He kind of got impatient with me because it took a while. Finally, I said, "I've got it." He said, "Where's it at?" I pulled out this tea towel, handed it to him, and he just kind of looked bewildered. (Laughter) I finally looked and said, "You know, it took me a long time to find the right kind of rock to paint that headdress on." He just looked and said, "We really do think differently, don't we?" (Laughter) He wanted, of course, as you can imagine, a regular painting. I went out on the prairie and spent all this time wandering around trying to find the right kind of rock to do this painting on, which was kind of funny.

But kind of getting back on track here, my first year at the Art Institute was, 22:00I really--I had no idea. I was completely lost. I went into a foundations program and was introduced to all sorts of new ways of making art, new ways of thinking. It really shook and kind of destabilized my notion of what art was. I found that I think that experience was extremely good. I can remember calling home and saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing. I just hope I'm doing the right thing." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are you about nineteen?

Akers: I was eighteen. What I remembered about it was it was extremely rigorous, and having a work ethic was never an issue with me. That came from growing up. I just knew that if I had to be there all day to do it, then I did it. I remember 23:00my first art history class. I mean, I really did look at people like Picasso and Monet, the Impressionists. I just thought that was kind of strange painting. I didn't understand why it was good or anything. What I found was that I went to the library like once a week and checked out books. I wasn't really reading them. I was just looking at images, and I kept looking at images. I just wanted to know, "What makes this good?" Actually, that habit still kind of stays with me.

I've found over the years I've managed to purchase a lot of books, but even though I'm here at KU now, I still go to the library fairly regularly, go through and grab books so I can look at images. It's a little dated now, with 24:00the Internet and that accessibility to information, but for some reason, I enjoy just being in the library and being able to physically hold a book and thumb through it. There's something, as I said, very tangible about having a book in your hand, that that's important.

Little Thunder: Your take-away from the Kansas City Art Institute, would you describe it as basically foundational? What did you take away from that?

Akers: I think when I left the Art Institute, I realized I had actually achieved my objective. I had a good understanding of what art was. One thing I'll say is 25:00I dropped out for one year and worked in a factory and went over to Europe and looked at paintings. I had some help from my father. When I was over in Europe, I realized, "Oh, yes. This is what I want to do the rest of my life, is make paintings."

Little Thunder: What a great education that was!

Akers: It was incredible. I don't think my parents thought I was going to do it because I went by myself and spent a little over two months roaming around to museums and cities. As I said, it was a good experience. When I left the Art Institute, I felt like I was making competent paintings. I had a good basis in art history.

Little Thunder: Were you embarked on this path of non-realism?

Akers: Yes, I was. I mean, my goal was to try to go from realism to abstraction but to understand what abstraction was. Of course, good abstraction, from my perspective, is still based in some sort of realism. It has its roots to something real, whether it's emotional or physical. What I found was that was what was happening with my painting. More and more as it was beginning to abstract, in a sense, I was still seeing a connection back to something real. Of course, I think that echoes my life in many ways because, I mean, as an artist I've moved away from Oklahoma and moved away from that little community that I grew up, grown and expanded an awful lot. And yes, my ideas can be a little different at times, but the thing about them is that they still make this 27:00connection back to place.

Little Thunder: So, you are painting with oils and acrylics, basically?

Akers: I was primarily doing oil painting. I had just gotten introduced to printmaking when I was at the Art Institute, did some intaglio classes and did a little lithography class. It was mainly painting.

Little Thunder: Then you decide to get a Certificate of Museum Studies, is that correct, at the Institute [of American Indian Arts]?

Akers: Yes.

Little Thunder: Is there a time lapse between your BFA and--.

Akers: Actually, no, not very much. I think it was within a year that I went out to Santa Fe. Bear in mind, Wendy Ponca was at the Art Institute when I was 28:00there. Wendy and I are related, so of course I knew Carl, her dad. Carl went out to Santa Fe to teach at that time. He was in Norman. "I need some help moving. Do you want to come along?" I said, "Sure." Didn't have anything else to do. (Laughter) Somehow, after I was out there, he kind of coerced me into going to school. Actually, it was good because the minute I landed in Santa Fe I was like, "Oh, this is a very interesting place. I'd like to figure out how to stay."

Little Thunder: So, you weren't so much interested in museum studies, per se.

Akers: No. I went and did museum studies because I already had a studio degree. I have to admit, I was sort of worried about, "Well, how do you make a living as an artist?" This type of experience can translate into a job. I have to say that 29:00as a student, I was only at IAIA for probably maybe a year because, one, I just went in and did the certificate. There was no messing around. It was done. They were on a block system at the time, and I think I actually did it in the three blocks. I took printmaking courses there at the time because I had just got enough of a taste of it at Kansas City.

One of the things--I'm going to go back to my high school experience. One of the things I remember this fellow, Bob Wade, did, he gave me a book or a magazine that had a whole series of prints that were made at IAIA. They were artists like 30:00Kevin Red Star and Earl Biss, T. C. Cannon, (they're kind of like the big guys in my eyes) and other people.

I remember I was fascinated with those images, so that was the other thing that kind of drew me back to the printmaking. I have to say, I think IAIA--I don't know if people focus on it that much, but I think IAIA has had a very strong and rich history in printmaking.

Little Thunder: In that specific area.

Akers: In that specific area. There's been so many artists that came out of the school and have produced really incredible prints.

Little Thunder: And you were mentioning that Seymour Tubis wasn't there anymore.

Akers: No, he wasn't there.

Little Thunder: What was the instruction situation?

Akers: The instruction situation was, (and I probably am going to be a little critical with this) it was pretty loose at the time. I'm not going to name any names or anything, but I'll just say I felt like we were fending for ourselves, in a way. The time that I was working at IAIA in the printmaking studio, there was Michael McCabe, Bobbi Emerson Kitsman, Joe Maktima. There were a few others as well, but I think of those three, primarily. We kind of had free reign of the studio. We had the keys, and so we were printing until like one and two o'clock in the morning, almost every night. I can remember it was like in a semester 32:00we'd pump out six or seven editions.

Little Thunder: And you were marketing them in town?

Akers: Oh, yes, (Laughter) of course. I mean, I immediately realized I can take the work to the IAIA Museum. Chuck Dailey was the director there, and they had a little space where they sold student work. Of course, the minute we'd edition a print, you'd pull one out and get it shrunk-wrapped or matted and take it to the museum and wait. (Laughter) Did an awful lot of that. I think IAIA was an incredible place, is an incredible place, because it expanded my world view, particularly of Native America because, as I say, growing up in Oklahoma, it was very limited in my understanding. When I was at IAIA, I was connected with other 33:00people from the Southwest, Navajo people, Pueblo people, people from up north, so that, I think, was just extremely exciting.

Another thing, too, that happened, (and this kind of came out of my experience at the Art Institute in Kansas City) I realized everything that I was focusing on was very Western. It was looking at the history of Renaissance painting, contemporary American art, European art. My objective to become like an abstract expressionist was very Eurocentric in its direction, and IAIA kind of changed that. It was interesting because probably the one person I connected with at 34:00IAIA was Barbara Emerson Kitsman because she was a landscape painter. Both of us painted landscapes. We would get together, travel, and paint around Santa Fe, and things like that...

Little Thunder: Oh, that's cool. Do plein air?

Akers: --and do plein air painting. It was kind of funny because I think some of the other students at IAIA looked at it like, "Why are you doing that?" (Laughter) I said, "Well, because I like to be outside, like to paint landscapes." In a strange way, I didn't totally fit in IAIA. I think I was dealing with other things besides dealing with the Market in Santa Fe. I wasn't trying to make images that were simply about going into the Santa Fe Market, 35:00although I think the longer that I stayed there, the more I started doing that because I was there in Santa Fe for probably about four years the first time. The whole time I was in New Mexico from, like, '82 to '88, I was kind of bouncing back and forth between Oklahoma and Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: When you started moving that direction, was it just out of necessity, or was it that the influence was so pervasive--

Akers: It was definitely the influence. I mean, let's face it. Adobe houses fascinated me. We were talking a little bit earlier about the first time you had seen some of the work. I was doing these serigraphs because what I loved about the houses was that they were brown, they were pink, and they were earth colors, 36:00but they were skin colors. They had this very organic feel, and they reminded me of people, and they had a personality. I did. I started off with a series of serigraphs called Some Houses Remind You of People. I was strongly influenced by the Southwest and participated at Indian Market for about, I think, three, maybe four years.

Little Thunder: During the '80s?

Akers: During the '80s, I think, the last time I did it. It might've been three years because 1988 was the last year that I did that. During that whole time I was doing Market, I was really geared towards marketing work, selling work, and so I was really making a product.

Little Thunder: You had to support yourself, too. You were out of school.

Akers: That was basically it. Yes, I think the last year that I did it, the last 37:00couple years I did it, I was starting to realize that was not where I wanted to be.

Little Thunder: Then you ended up having yet another layer. They're wonderful layers of these experiences. You went to the University of Illinois at Champagne? What drew you over there?

Akers: Actually, there was three of us who were recruited to University of Illinois. It was Marcus Amerman, Charlene Teters, and myself.

Little Thunder: That's a great trio.

Akers: Yes, it was. Marcus didn't stay very long. He was gone before the first semester. He realized that that was not his path. Charlene and I were in the painting program there. I think for both of us it was an eye-opening experience. 38:00I don't know if you're familiar with Charlene's work and her activism and Chief Illiniwek and that. I know when she was there, she was able to really route that whole issue, the frustration with what was going on in the community and the school, and turn it into an art form. She was very vocal and outward. For myself, I stayed in the studio for the most part.

Charlene would tease me. She'd say, "Come out. Let's go out." (Laughter) I went out a few times with her. I'd just go and say, "This is way too public for me." I've never thought of myself as an activist. It was so funny. About a year later I was making these paintings, and I was still saying, "I'm not an activist." I was looking at this big painting I was doing, and the title of the painting was 39:00called Collision of Heavenly Structures. I kind of went, "Oh. Yes, I am. I just don't realize it." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Certainly making a political statement.

Akers: Well, I think that's the case. If you've grown up as a Native person, politics has been a part of your life if you have to deal with the agency. I still think about when people would come to the school, and they would have these assemblies, and they'd want you to raise your hand if you were Native. I was, "Well, why are they doing that?" Of course, it was to get money for the school, or other things. You just realize that it's an inseparable part of your life, basically.

Little Thunder: When you graduated from University of Illinois, what skills, in 40:00terms of painting, do you think you'd added?

Akers: One of the things, I think my painting effectively changed. Again, it got more personal. It was one of the first times I started feeling like I was really actually dealing with much more cultural information, a notion about identity and place. For some reason in Illinois, it kind of manifested there. There was just something about really being away from home or being disconnected from people that I knew, so all of a sudden those issues became more important to me.

It kind of came out of this--I remember one of the professors basically said, "Your culture is dead. Why are you even dealing with it?" He said that early on, 41:00and that was a challenge to make sure that he was wrong. I think Charlene and I, both, we were dealing with that and making sure that he was aware that, "No, it's alive, and it's vibrant, and we're dealing with issues. We're people." That's what kind of happened. So I found my work. I was exploring these notions of identity.

It was also probably the first time that I really started engaging in research and utilizing research to support my painting, spending a lot of time going into the archives. I've got this strong connection with libraries, anyway. (Laughter) 42:00I was doing a lot of reading, looking at old Smithsonian journals, looking at [Francis] La Flesche's writings on the Osage, and what else I could find. I was making these kind of large-scale, mythological paintings. They were a conglomerate of all sorts of ideas, mythologies, and things. In a way, it was kind of creating these mythic worlds. That's all I can really say. Somewhere within them, I was in there.

I felt like the paintings were really much more about that feeling of being disconnected, that somehow psychologically that was something I was dealing with 43:00because Illinois, I spent five years there. I taught there two years after that, and I'm grateful. I'm thankful for that experience because it moved my life forward, but I have to admit I did not enjoy it. I remember calling one of my cousins up one time at home and said, "I'm ready to go home." "You're not welcome." (Laughter) He said, "Stay where you're at. Stay where you're at. Do not come back home."

The other thing I was going to say was teaching. It was the first time I'd been in a classroom, and I was teaching a wide range of courses. The chair of the painting department made sure that I taught, maybe, one or two courses a 44:00semester, so I actually got a lot of experience in the classroom when I was there. It started off awkward. I have to admit, I never thought I would be in the role of a teacher, but somehow that's just been how my life has unfolded.

Little Thunder: Has it enriched your art, do you think, in any way?

Akers: Yes. When you're working with young people, it's about an exchange of information. I don't think of myself as all-knowing, and I would never want to think that way. To me, a healthy relationship is about a dialogue. It's about 45:00exchanging information and coming up with solutions and finding new directions, something that moves that student forward.

What also happens is, as an instructor, that dialogue and that engagement moves you forward. To me, that's what I like about teaching, that when it's going good, everybody's becoming enriched. That was probably the one major thing that I really got out of being in Illinois.

Also, I think that shift in the work, that I started dealing more so with the notion of self and identity and place. Landscapes have been a part of my life and been a part of my work for a long time. Those plein air paintings, I felt 46:00like they were documents of my aimless wandering around in New Mexico, (Laughter) but finally what happens is that place became something real, and it was a place embedded with identity and culture, history.

Little Thunder: You mentioned in an interview in 2000 that you'd been painting in Oklahoma again at that point and feeling kind of isolated. I just wanted to follow up on that.

Akers: I actually like isolation. After my stint at the University of Illinois, I went back to Fairfax and got me a studio above the police station, which was 47:00actually a good place for me to be. (Laughter) I painted. I just continued to make work. Part of it was, I thought, "Well, I don't need an arts community. I can just paint here." Part of it was also economics. I didn't have a job, so it was easy to go home, cheap studio space, so I did a lot of painting.

Something happened that I think was really important. I was nominated for the Joan Mitchell award fellowship [Painters and Sculptors Grant]. Joan Mitchell's out of New York City. I remember I was in Fairfax. I got this letter from them, opened it up, and it said, "Submit six slides." That's all they wanted was images of your work. Did that, put it in the mail, sent it back to them. A few 48:00months later, I got a letter back from them saying that I won this fellowship.

Little Thunder: That's fantastic.

Akers: Something happened, too, and that was that I realized that home fed me in a good way, that I could make art anywhere and I could make work back in Oklahoma. You didn't need the art world, (for some reason, I don't know how to describe it) that there was enough there in that community for me to make my work. Right at the same time that that happened, someone called me up and wanted to know if I was interested in teaching out in New Mexico at IAIA. So that was like a very important, probably, six months of my life because not only did I 49:00get the Joan Mitchell but also went out to Santa Fe and started teaching at IAIA.

Little Thunder: And making some more prints, too?

Akers: And making more prints. Being a painter, (I have this discussion with my colleagues here) painting is a very solitary activity, and you have to be in that mindset. It's different from printmaking, or it's different from, say, glass blowing or ceramics where you're in a shop working, where you depend on other people to assist with the work. That's probably one of the reasons I want to be a painter and a printmaker. I like being able to go back and forth. I don't think a whole lot of collaborating that much, but the printmaker that I'm 50:00working with in the last few years in Santa Fe, we collaborate.

To me, I get to go out three to four times a year for about a week and just stay engaged in making prints. It's just the most incredible collaboration because he'll look and say, "You can't do that." I'll say, "Why can't I?" "Oh, so it does work." (Laughter) Sometimes, "Yes, yes, you're right." (Laughter) We talk. It's like banter about ideas and things.

I worked with this fellow named Mitchell Marty who has a press out in Santa Fe, outside of town. It's just been an incredible working relationship in the sense that--he's just starting to publish some lithographs. When we work on the 51:00lithographs, it's not me coming in with an idea, but I like to present three or four images and we talk about it.

I go, "Which one are you interested in working on?" As a printer, there's a creative element, too. That's a part of that process, so we have this long dialogue about it. Then say, "Well, okay. This one. Let's work on this one. What are the possibilities?" I think the last set of plates that we started, we said, "Well, let's try to keep it to no more than five plates." We ended up doing seven plates. I think we had close to--it hasn't been proofed yet, but we were looking, and, "This is going to have almost fifteen colors in it." (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Wow! I'd like to talk a little bit about your creative process here in a minute, but I'd like to ask, in terms of a group show or solo show 52:00that was particularly significant to you, what comes to mind?

Akers: Well, I think the Who Stole the Tee Pee? show was a big show to be in.

Little Thunder: You want to explain some of the artists and the premise?

Akers: To me, it was like a show that sort of encompassed all the important Native artists who were working at that time period. You had Bob Haozous, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith. I mean, there was countless others that I could name. There were artists from Canada, as well. As I said, to me, I thought it was a really, really great show. I think in terms of smaller shows, there was a show a number of years ago that Louis Ballard Jr. and I did up in Chicago, and it was called 53:00Pathology of Symbols.

It was a show that was done in a very nice location in Chicago. Never got any press or anything, but it was a show, I think, that really kind of clarified the direction of the work because Louis and I would sit around and joke and talk about disturbance, like how there was this disturbance that exists in our culture and how our culture has been disturbed and became the catalyst for making images that we were making. So playing with that. I felt like that was also kind of a summation of all that work that was done when I was in graduate school, as well.

Little Thunder: And Who Stole the Tee Pee?, that traveled, right?

Akers: That traveled from--

Little Thunder: With NMAI [National Museum of the American Indian]--

Akers: Yes, in New York City, and then it went to the IAIA Museum, which is now 54:00the--what is it? It's got a new name. It's still the IAIA Museum to me. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: And you did an all-Osage show. Did you enjoy that?

Akers: Oh, yes.

Little Thunder: In 2006, I guess. Did you go out for that?

Akers: No, I actually didn't. I didn't. I was trying to remember. This was down in Norman?

Little Thunder: Yes.

Akers: That was one of those, I was teaching, and I couldn't get down at the time. I was trying to think of some other shows.

Little Thunder: It is neat that you guys are so few in number, but you--

Akers: I think we're tied together, like Anita [Fields] and Yatika [Starr Fields]. We visit at the dances and that, and Anita and I visit quite a bit as 55:00it is. It's good.

Little Thunder: In terms of your creative process a bit more, you still prefer painting in oils on canvas when you're painting?

Akers: Primarily oils. I've never liked acrylics. Acrylics feel plastic to me, and there's something about the oil paint that it's malleable. You can scrape it away. It takes a while for it to dry. You can build with it, in a sense. I like the notion of an additive and reductive painting process. To me, painting is not just about adding paint, but it's also removing and scraping away and uncovering and revealing.

Little Thunder: Like editing, you might come back to your canvas and decide you want to get rid of some portion or rebalance it.

Akers: Exactly, yes, and oil paint, I don't know, just the feel. I'm pretty much a dedicated oil painter. When I was teaching at IAIA, because of health and safety issues, we only taught acrylic painting. I remember when I left IAIA, I kind of jokingly told the dean, I said, "Yes, I get to teach oil painting now," because they all knew. (Laughter) I kept on telling them I said, "Yes, I'm teaching this, but I really do not like acrylics." Oil paints and then printmaking, I mean, primarily, serigraphs and monoprints. I did a fair amount 57:00of intaglio, but monoprints are probably where I'm focusing more.

Little Thunder: Stone lithos are something you've also mentioned.

Akers: I have worked with stone litho in the past. I don't think it's my favorite.I'm doing lithos now, but basically I'm just doing the imagery. The printer at the shop is actually doing all the printing. There's something about lithography that--as I said, this is kind of new for me now. I've always kind of struggled with the notion of editions. I like single pieces, so the monoprints have always allowed me to create a smaller original of what I would call--I 58:00wouldn't use the word unique, but singular works.

When I got into doing monoprints--this has been something that's been going on for the last ten years. I did a whole suite of prints back in like 2001, 2002, and I laid off for a while. I think it was about five years ago I started doing monoprints again. Part of it was I wasn't really thinking of them being finished pieces. I was thinking of them as a means of generating ideas, so the first few suites of prints that I did, they were very rough. It was just simply about getting ideas down on paper for the most part.

Then something happened when I was in the shop. I started realizing, "Wait a 59:00second. I can take these further," and I got much more engaged in the making of them, cutting out stencils, started doing gum Arabic transfers, reduction printing. All of a sudden, what I found is that I had much more control over the image. The one thing I didn't like (and this is kind of ironic, me being a painter) is I actually didn't like the painterliness of monoprints.

When I found that I had more control over the image, I started embracing it. I found now I'm probably doing more printmaking than I'm doing painting right now, but I'm transitioning out of that. Also, the monoprints that I've been doing, 60:00they've led me to the lithographs because the printer I was working with was going, "Why don't you just do the lithos, because, essentially, that's what you're trying to recreate in your monoprints?" That's kind of what I'm working on now.

Little Thunder: Because of this non-realism, you probably don't do sketches. Are you sort of attacking the canvas, playing with paint?

Akers: It varies. My approach to painting really kind of depends on what I'm trying to communicate in the end. I rarely plan things out. When I say "plan 61:00things out," I'm not doing a whole series of preparatory drawings and then all of a sudden trying to recreate that drawing on a canvas. I may do a quick sketch of an idea and then sit back and determine, "What process do I need to approach this to realize that idea?" Sometimes I am very painterly, and it's about moving the paint around until I see an image and then go with that.

I like that relationship between conscious and unconscious image-making. There's something that occurs when those two are working together that creates a fresh kind of work. To me, it also leads to discovery. A painting is about developing 62:00a dialogue. I have a dialogue with a piece. I'm not copying a piece. And in that dialogue, hopefully some new conversation, a new direction, a new tangent will occur that allows me to grow and find something new in the work. I approached painting that way for a long time.

I think painting is shifting for me now a bit more because when I first started off, I was doing plein air paintings. I was working from observation. As I've grown as an artist, I deal with more resource materials. One of the things, (and I say this to my students) when you understand how to work from perception and looking at nature, looking at an object, analyzing it, and interpreting it in 63:00paint, it informs your work in a way that when you are working from resource material, you're going to have a better grasp of it. If you've never had that experience, you're not going to know how to translate it because you're going from 2D to 2D, and that can be problematic.

As I said, the work that I'm doing now, I'm using primarily resource materials, so it's a different type of process. There's a little bit more planning in it. I don't know if you can see the painting behind me. I had to break down and, again, use the grid because I needed to translate that visual information on a canvas in a somewhat accurate way because a lot of the iconography that I'm 64:00working with today is maps. We assume or associate that maps are going to have the correct information, so that's forcing me to be a little bit more rigorous about how I'm trying to communicate information. I have to be a little more specific in a way.

Little Thunder: I want to talk a bit about your iconography and your use of symbols, but let's just start with maps because, of course, it's an important tool for a lot of Native artists in terms of communicating information about different things post-colonial, a perspective on maps that's different for Native people than for non-Indians. Do you want to talk about how you might use maps differently?

Akers: For me, I think maps were about identifying with place and understanding the boundaries and borders that were being set. Of course, that's a whole colonial thing going on. I was fascinated--when you look at the state map of Oklahoma, the one that's published by the Department of Tourism or whatever, it says "Osage County," but you look at the Rand McNally map, and it says, "Osage Indian Reservation." Of course, that's a whole other issue now, after the court case, but I was fascinated with that, about how maps name place. The other thing that occurred to me is that Osage lands extended well up into Kansas, into Missouri, so the notion of place when I look at a map, it's very restricted for me.

I had talked to my colleagues here at KU. I made a comment when I first came out as a visiting artist. I was driving through the tallgrass prairie just west of Emporia. Growing up in Fairfax, Osage County, that's the southern tip of the tallgrass prairie and Flint Hills. I said, "This is home to me." So when I look at the maps that are given to me, I realize they only show a certain perspective on place.

I tell this story because when I drive home I go down 99. I will turn west from 67:00Sedan. I hop on this little dirt road, and I drive home. I start up in Kansas, around Hewins. There's no sign that says, "Leaving Kansas, entering Oklahoma." None. I cross, maybe, a paved road, 60, and I can take another dirt road, and I could end up at my mother's house. It's marvelous because there's nothing that says I've left and I've entered a place.

Maps, to me, they are about colonialism. They're about defining and clarifying place, claiming. In my prints, I like to distort maps, and I like to move the borders around and shift things and make it confusing so that when someone looks at it, they're wondering, "Why is Omaha, Nebraska, next to some little community 68:00in Central America?" Something that's been happening with a lot of my work is about dealing with and has dealt with personal iconography, personal symbolism. It's been very connected to the notion of identity and place and expressed in a very, as I said, personal way. I've found that maps have allowed me to broaden my conversation.

A lot of the maps that I'm working with now are of the Americas. We're looking at North America, South America, Central America. I think in the United States when we say "America," we have a tendency just to think of us, borders and boundaries. When you look at indigenous people, as I said, our homes, our memories, and our understanding of place extends beyond those boundaries that 69:00have been prescribed to us, and the worst thing that could happen is we could agree to live in that.

I mean, let's face it. The reality is, yes, you have to, in a sense, but it doesn't mean you can't have that understanding of one place to another. To me, when you move those boundaries around, it's about acknowledging that indigenous people have actually have lived all over the Americas. What's called a reservation, where we're put on a reservation or whatever trust lands we have, that's just a small portion of what we had.

Someone told me one time, they said, "How can you have a sacred place? How can you have a connection?" This was a young man out in New Mexico. I understood what he was saying. I said, "Well, you know, we have that, too. We weren't 70:00totally dislocated from our lands." That's why I came to KU, because to be connected or close to Missouri, to be connected to Kansas, that's still our homeland, or it was our homeland. We still have a memory of that place, a blood memory, that ties us to the landscape. It's the tallgrass prairie. I chat with my sister, and she'll say the same thing. One of the most beautiful places on this earth is that area west of Pawhuska, going to Pawhuska, to Fairfax or Gray Horse. That's it. There's nothing any better.

Little Thunder: I've read what you've said about your particular mix of symbols 71:00and iconography, and Shanna Heap of Birds wrote about it a bit. You're using some things that symbolize different elements of Osage stories or culture, and you're using other Western symbols, mixing them all. Is one of your goals to sort of bring people into your personal iconography, or is it to let the viewers free associate?

Akers: It's kind of a mix of both. To me, as an artist, I particularly enjoy creating narratives. Exploring narrative is a part of the painting, and that's a part of why I use this iconography. I want the viewer to engage in the work, but 72:00I don't necessarily want them to see the world exactly how I see it, that somewhere, when they're looking at a painting, they'll find something that they can connect with on a personal note.

I do want the paintings to inform and enlighten the viewer. It's kind of like political art. I struggle with political art that screams at the viewer. I like political art that's much more subversive, that somehow engages the viewer in looking and all of a sudden shifts their thinking without them knowing it. So, painting, to me, is very much, it's storytelling. I explore a lot of iconography, and my iconography comes from a number of different sources. That's, I think, just my makeup.

I think that's a makeup of young people today. I'm looking at Osage. I'm looking at Western. I'm looking at whatever influences me at that time. I think about being a part of I'n-Lon-Schka. There's things that you hear in there and you've heard growing up, and they influence and they inform how you're willing to move forward in life.

Then there's things that you read, like La Flesche. Being an academic and being in college, I realize that I'm intrigued with past writings. I think with everything that you get, there's something suspect about that. Now, there are people who will praise or condemn, and that's just natural. That's part of it. I 74:00try to utilize what I can to make rich paintings.

I'm definitely not an authority. I would be the first person to say, "I don't know anything." I know what's been given to me in the sense that I try to utilize that to make my work. It's complicated because I think being an artist when you're dealing with certain types of knowledge, things happen. There's always that notion of things being misinterpreted. I had mentioned that to you, I think, a little bit earlier, not in this particular interview. You do deal with that.

I realize a lot of times as a painter, I self-censor myself because there's one 75:00side of me that's just simply an artist, and it's about personal exploration and expression. There's another side where you have a commitment to a community. If you have any sort of awareness to your obligations to that community, then you become extremely aware of what's being said and what you're trying to communicate.

There's times where you pull back simply because that information doesn't need to be known by someone else. That's actually what makes you and your people a unique group. This is a struggle as an artist because I'm constantly getting questioned about iconography. Some people, I'm quite willing to share, and other 76:00times I'm just very quiet. A lot of times what happens is someone simply invents something, which is absolutely the most terrifying kind of experience, and it ends up in press or something. (Laughter) I think all of those things happen when I'm thinking about making work. I definitely do not want to offend anybody from home, but I also want to be an artist, and I want to express myself in a way that I can.

Little Thunder: One of the things I love about your Western symbols, like the lunchbox in the top one, is I think they really give a real whimsical quality.

Akers: They are.

Little Thunder: I wondered if you ever aimed at whimsy in some of these because 77:00that comes through pretty strong with me.

Akers: I don't think about it. It's funny. I rarely think of myself as being a humorous person. It just doesn't seem like my nature, but I do find, given the chance to kid and joke, yes. I'm around people at home that constantly, constantly, constantly are always teasing. I do think that work can't be serious. I mean, there's a serious element, but it can't all be that. There has to be a plaything.

If you're not having fun making it, then there's a problem. Some of the things that I put in, they may be very serious in my connection to them, but they may come off as being playful. I don't feel necessarily obligated to have to explain 78:00that because there's parts of a work that, as I said, are simply yours. It doesn't have to be explained, and that's it.

There was an elderly lady at home one time. She was looking at some of my paintings. She is like the age of my grandmother who I never knew, and I've always had a connection to her. I always enjoyed visiting with her, having a cup of coffee at the café or whatever. I remember one time she looked at the painting, and she said, "I know what you're painting about." These were these large-scale, abstract paintings. I walked away, and I felt so good because I realized that something was making a connection. Yes, it just was really good.

Little Thunder: That was the best compliment.

Akers: That was. No one's ever--I mean, that's the best compliment I've ever had about my work, and it simply came from someone from home who just took a quick look, saw the lunchbox, saw a few other symbols in there that I was looking at, and kind of went--

Little Thunder: Can you tell me about your creative process (we'll keep it to painting) from the time you get an idea?

Akers: Ideally, if things are working for me, I have uninterrupted time in the studio, but that's not the reality of being a teacher. (Laughter) I like to 80:00paint. I really have a preference to paint every day and to work four or five hours a day because, to me, there's something about that engagement. I can be obsessive, and I need that to really make a work. When I'm shifting and I'm breaking and I'm having to get away and it's a week or a few days before I can get to the studio or whatever, then it becomes problematic, that I always feel like my ideas are changing. Something new is beginning to enter the picture, in a way, and I find it much harder to make paintings.

Little Thunder: So, ideally, you start one project and see it through.

Akers: I'll try to. I've got to the point now where I start to get four or five paintings in the studio, then I begin to have problems because I start to slow 81:00down because I'm having trouble shifting from one to another. I think that's why I like printmaking, is because I'm in the shop and I know I've got a set time to make it happen. Paintings, they've ranged anywhere from the large-scale works--sometimes they'll happen in a month. Sometimes it takes a year and a half for them to really be realized.

Little Thunder: In that case, you're leaving them for chunks of time and coming back.

Akers: Yes, so I'll leave. The piece behind me is one of those. I took it to the stage that I needed to take it, but now I'm stuck. I'm trying to figure out, "What am I going to do next?" because I really didn't plan it out completely. I 82:00just simply went, "I've got this great idea." (Laughter) I found this nice Google Earth image of this old village site in Kansas, so I simply transferred it to this large-scale painting. I'm doing research. I'm reading, like [William] Cutler's History of [the State of] Kansas, which he wrote in the 1880s. I'm reading accounts of this area, and I'm trying to find, "Okay, what kind of iconography can I integrate into this painting that is not just about the past but it's also about the present?" The iconography that I work with, and one reason why I'm fascinated with using symbols, is that they don't function as stop signs. They don't simply mean one thing. They have multiple meanings and that the symbol or the image can convey thought that transcends time. It's both 83:00about the past, it's about the present, ideally something that's connecting, that's going to allow you to move forward with your life. I think about that a lot when I'm painting because the last thing I want to do is to simply just recreate the past. That's not what it's about.

Little Thunder: We're going to have to take a look at that unfinished one, too, here in minute. Looking back over your career so far, what's been one of the high points? You might have mentioned it.

Akers: I think the high point is the fact that I'm still able to do it. (Laughter) I mean, I can't really think of anything. I've been very fortunate, 84:00and there's been a lot of things. I did the print project with the National Museum of the American Indian and the Art in Embassies Program. That was, I think, 2006. They did a little reception for us at the Blair House. I got to meet Laura Bush, the First Lady. It was fun. It was one of those nice--you know what I mean. It was nice.

Little Thunder: The embassy exhibit traveled, also, internationally?

Akers: It's traveled, and it's going to different venues, consulates and that, all over the world. I don't know if it was the reception as much as simply being a part of the project. That's turned into--there's been a lot of interesting 85:00things happen out of that. I had a friend who emailed me a while back, a few years ago, and he said, "I happened to see one of your prints in a consulate in Germany. I was getting my visa renewed." He was living overseas at the time, so it reconnected with someone. I think it's just the fact that I'm still able to do it. That's the main thing. I don't get real excited about--it's another thing.

Little Thunder: How about one of the low points?

Akers: Oh, boy. As an artist, I think you put a lot of emotion, you put a lot of 86:00belief, you put a lot of yourself into your work. When I finished up the work when I was in Illinois, I was real discouraged. There was something about painting about dislocation that really bothered me. I looked at all that work--this actually might be my high point. (Laughs) I looked at all that work, and I didn't believe in it anymore. It was five years' worth of work. Then I started making paintings about home in a different light. Do you see what I'm saying?

Little Thunder: Wow, yes, it was a big fork in the road.

Akers: It was the shift. Part of it was about losing faith, in a sense, as an artist. I've always felt fortunate, extremely fortunate.

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

Akers: I feel like we've talked about quite a bit. (Laughter) No, I think--no, I'm fine.

Little Thunder: Okay. We'll take a look at some of these paintings and prints. We're looking at the painting that I know is in progress. It's not completed, but do you want to talk a little bit about it?

Akers: Sure. One of the things that happened when I moved to Kansas, I started thinking about the Osage people, our history to Kansas, the fact that it was our 88:00former homelands. I started doing some research, looking for old village sites and trying to find whatever information I could. I was looking at an old history book, Cutler's History of [the State of] Kansas, which was written in the late 1870s-'80s, I think. I may have to clarify that to be sure. I was reading these physical descriptions of places where we lived. The book itself was broke up into, like, original inhabitants and then settlers. I thought it provided a very interesting historical perspective on place.

But as I was doing that, I started thinking about, "Where are these sites?" and 89:00began to research them, looking at whatever materials I could that gave me an idea as to where these old village sites might be. So this is one of those. I've got a few more that I'm working on, too. As I said, it is an unfinished painting, but what struck me about it was that I would take these road trips down to southeast Kansas. I know good and well that the minute I get in the truck to go down that it's not going to be what I think it's going to be. (Laughter)

There's something about engaging in the road trip, the memory, and all of that. You go through these emotions, this excitement, "Oh, boy. I'm going to reconnect with a place in history." You drive down, and you find out, "Oh, it's a gravel quarry. It's a plowed field." And you know that, but there's something about 90:00making that kind of pilgrimage, that kind of connection.

I've been looking at a lot of different sources, and I've identified about six places that I'm trying to create these paintings from. I'm utilizing Google Earth technology, maps to discover these places. I think about that. That's interesting that now, today, that's how I'm finding place. It's not by car. It's not by horseback. It's not by walking, whatever, when you think of the history of going and leaving a place. So this is one of those particular pieces.

It's interesting that I'm finding more and more because I'm dealing with maps that the computer is becoming like a sketchbook for me. It kind of came out of 91:00an experience one time where I happened to just discover Google. I really focused in, and I found my house at Gray Horse. I thought, "Wow, this is interesting. They actually have an image of the house at Gray Horse that I have." I thought about this, and I went, "Well, wait a second," and I kept it at the same scale. I thought, "Can I move it, step by step? Can I find Roan Horse's Camp?" which is where my family comes from.

So I started moving it, like one little bit at a time, at a bit, at a bit. I would follow this dirt road, then I found this creek. Lo and behold, I found myself at Roan Horse's Camp. I thought, "This is interesting. This is like a new way of navigating space." And then it dawned on me, too, that there was no way I could do that unless I had an intimate knowledge of the landscape of place.

Little Thunder: It's still the base.

Akers: It's still the base. It's still the base for doing that, so the paintings that I'm working on now are trying to utilize more Google imagery and thinking about how technology plays a role, and how we interpret place, our own home, as well, because I think there's a lot of scary things that are connected with technology, too, and how to utilize it to define home.

Little Thunder: Would you like to talk about this print?

Akers: Yes, these are a couple of prints that were done in the last year. This one piece is called Arrival. The other piece is called Pale Bird. As I said, these are examples of my monoprints, and what you see is quite a bit of layering in them. I'm working with a gummer to transfer, and then reduction printing, and naturally utilizing stencils that I'm inking up as a third technique that I'm 93:00working with.

What this does, it allows me to create a stronger composition. It also allows me to emphasize a sense of depth or that layering. What I like about the printmaking process in monoprints, in traditional monoprints, when you pull the image off the first print, you have residue of ink left over. A lot of times artists can reprint a second sheet, and that's called the ghost. It's a term. They'll just say that's the ghost image. I like that notion of a ghost image because it reflects something about past or residue from the past. So the printmaking process, to me, it's a process that goes back and forth in time. You deal with the past, you deal with the present, and that layering is what really 94:00excites me about this.

I think early on in the interview I talked a little bit about that at certain times current events affect me and my work. I have to admit that notion of immigration, the idea of who's an illegal alien, who's Native, those are terms that I'm a little bit at odds with, critically, with what's been happening in Arizona and this whole notion of creating a fence because you realize there were indigenous people that did cross the border into Texas, into Arizona, California, going back and forth.

In a way, that's why I'm playing with some of these maps in my work. That's why I'm expanding the dialogue to include the Americas and not just Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, and also realizing that immigration and that moving 95:00across borders is driven by economy. Everybody wants a better life. It doesn't matter who you are. We all want a better life. I've kind of been playing with this in a very tongue-in-cheek way because I've got Alexander Hamilton, Grant, and Washington. They're sort of floating in these flying saucers like they're aliens waiting to cross the border. Of course, they're also being welcomed. (Laughter)

What I find within the print, the print's all based on stereotypes. They're all stereotypes of Anglo people, historical figures, and Indians, too, because we see this particular image. It's the typical image that we see, and that 96:00particular image was actually appropriated out of a dictionary. It was the illustration for the word "tom-tom," which I was going, "I've never heard a Native person call a drum a tom-tom." It's a very playful kind of image.

The darker print next to it is from, probably, the last series of works. I started realizing with notions of immigration and everything that there very much so is a dark side to this whole colonialism. I'm playing and poking fun with it, and somehow the work started shifting to a darker pallet. It may be a little bit difficult to see in there, but I'm actually using ship plans. You may not see it very well in this. Of course, the imagery is changed to a conquistador.

The birds, to me, have always functioned as a symbol on a number of different levels, the notion of migration, that birds migrate from one place to another. Also, we migrate. Also freedom. As a kid I can remember back at home watching birds, and what fascinated me about birds was they can navigate a space I could only imagine. There was a top, a bottom, and all the way around, whereas we're stuck with gravity. So this is a couple of the prints.

Little Thunder: And you've got a woodpecker, a crow--

Akers: Water birds in there. If you look--

Little Thunder: That looks like a chain.

Akers: --there is a chain. The image is actually inside a cathedral if you look 98:00at it, too, so there's all these different layers that are occurring. I find as an artist, as I said, I really struggle at times because sometimes my work will say something or it'll be very critical of a certain institution, and yet I find as a person I don't necessarily completely feel that way. It's a struggle that I've always kind of dealt with in work. I don't know if that's making sense, but--

Little Thunder: Yes, sure it does.

Akers: It's for iconography because you realize part of the history--it's a part of the history of how you got to who you are. These are a couple of pieces. I've been appropriating a lot of imagery lately. One of the images I found was this 99:00image--actually, I first found the image in, I think, [Robert] Berkhofer's book, The White Man's Indian. It was of a German or an Austrian wood cut that was done in somewhere like 1506, 1503. I looked at the image and thought, "Wow! This is supposed to be one of the first real representations of indigenous people of the Americas." As I was looking at the print, it was obvious that they were nothing more than Europeans dressed up as Indians. Full beards, the poses were very European. They weren't indigenous. I just found it's really intriguing.

At the same time, I kept on thinking, "What's the most important element in this piece?" Obviously, first of all, it's a misrepresentation of indigenous people. 100:00Then it dawned on me it was actually the two ships on the horizon because that signifies the moment when the world changed. So that's something I'm still kind of playing with in my art a bit more. I always describe it as, that's the moment indigenous people discovered the Europeans.

Little Thunder: These are wonderful. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Akers: I feel like I'm kind of talked out. I enjoyed the interview quite a bit, an awful lot.

Little Thunder: I appreciate your taking time for me today.

Akers: Oh, thank you.

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