Oral history interview with Sandy Fife Wilson

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Saturday, December 1, 2012, and I'm interviewing Muscogee Creek artist Sandy Fife Wilson, who works in multiple media, for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Sandy's home just outside of Okmulgee. Sandy, you were a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts in the '70s. You and your sisters did Native clothing for quite a while, but you've also spent many years teaching in a variety of places. Since you've begun doing art full time in 2009, your resume is just full of awards at the rate of two or three a year. Thank you for taking time to talk with me today.

Wilson: Thank you.

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

Wilson: I was born in rural Okfuskee County, just outside of Dustin, and I lived 1:00there all my life on my grandparents' allotment. I attended Graham School, which is in Okfuskee County, also, through the ninth grade. In the tenth grade I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I graduated in 1969.

Little Thunder: What did your folks do for a living?

Wilson: My father worked various jobs. He worked for Stanley Oil. Was it Stanlin or Stanley? I don't know. My father worked various jobs in Tulsa all of our lives. He worked for Douglas Aircraft and for an oil company, Pan American Oil Company, where he was in charge of the tool shop, supervisor. He also did odd 2:00jobs, like he was a gardener for Mabel Bovard in Tulsa, and he did all that to support his wife and eight children.

My mother was a school teacher. She went to the Santa Fe Indian School after she graduated from Chilocco Indian School and went to a teacher art program. She was there along with some of the teachers I had when I went back to Santa Fe, when I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts, Allan Houser and Josephine Wapp. She said she was just a farmer, but she was more than that. Some people called her the Indian agent because anyone needed any help with applications or 3:00information, anything, getting highways built, just community worker all around.

Little Thunder: That's cool. How about brothers or sisters?

Wilson: I have four sisters and three brothers. Well, one brother passed away several years ago. My oldest brother, Bill, was the chief of the Creek Nation. My sister Jimmie Carole is a Master Artist for the Five Civilized Tribes. My sister Phyllis is a well-known artist, and we all do art, crafts. My sister Sharon is also a writer. My two younger brothers were mechanics, but they also were leaders in the Creek Nation and in the community, also. My youngest sister 4:00is an artist, also, but all of us girls are teachers. Everyone has attended college or received degrees all the way up to doctorates. We're all involved with the Creek Nation and the communities, also.

Little Thunder: Education and the arts, sounds like, run through the family.

Wilson: Yes, from the very beginning, from Mom and Dad. They taught us to help others and to be leaders and do what we could.

Little Thunder: What was your relationship with your grandparents on either side or both sides?

Wilson: My grandparents on both sides were deceased by the time I was born. I did know my step-grandmother on my mother's side just a little bit, for a couple 5:00of years when she moved back from California, but that's about it.

Little Thunder: Talk about your first memory of seeing a piece of Native art.

Wilson: My first memory, I think, is we had a four-room house, and in the long room in the back, up by the light, there was a picture of an Indian chief that my sister Jimmie Carole had drawn with chalk one night when she was up. (Laughter) It was on the wallpaper, and it stayed for a long time. That's my first memory of Indian art.

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

Wilson: Well, besides playing around in the clay and everything down at the 6:00creek, I remember drawing cartoons out of the funny papers, Henry and Sluggo and all of those. I remember doing that. I would get up in the window, on top of the bedstead, and I would be drawing and not paying any attention to anything else going around me.

Little Thunder: When you were attending, like, primary and middle school here, did you get any art classes or any art instruction there?

Wilson: No, all of my art instruction came from either Mama or Carole and Phyllis. We always had things to do, like with our reports. We'd draw a picture with it that would help, so we drew all the time.

Little Thunder: Your mom would actually sort of give a little coaching?

Wilson: Yes, she was a good artist, and she had gone to school for that. She coached us and would teach us how to do different things. She taught me how to--well, we went down to the back land and got some clay, and we put it in a pot and soaked it. Then we'd strain it and soak it and strain it and get it all ready to make pottery. When I was about twelve, probably, she taught me the basics of finger weaving. She had done that when she was younger also, and weaving.

We always had supplies. Daddy would always, he'd bring us pencils. We always had pencils. We always had some kind of paper. It may have writing on the backside, but we had some kind of paper. He'd bring colored chalks, colored pencils.

Our neighbor was the superintendent at Graham, and they had paint-by-number sets. When they'd get through painting their picture, they'd give me their leftover paints. I remember painting a picture of the moon, when they first shot pictures of the moon, with my fingers and with pounded matchsticks where I could make them into a brush. We'd have maybe a couple of brushes. We'd have some brushes. They were more watercolor brushes, and this was some oil paints, so Mama showed me how to make the stiffer brushes out of the matchstick. I had pictures like that, and I painted pictures of my brothers from their school pictures when I was about ten, twelve years old. We got to use all kinds of things. She taught us how to do all kind of things and how to play and have fun 9:00and enjoy life and creating.

Little Thunder: So you headed out to the Institute in tenth grade?

Wilson: Yes.

Little Thunder: Were one or two of your sisters out there already?

Wilson: Well, Carole, Jimmie Carole, was on the pilot program for two summers in Arizona. When they opened the school, my sister Phyllis went out there, and she graduated in '68, no, '66. She graduated in '66, and I went out there that fall. The funny thing is that that's the same school that my mom went to when she was at her teacher training, so we were all involved with the same facility.

Little Thunder: Right, all that history. So what was it like for you coming in, really with sort of an excellent background in a lot of media already but to be at an art school where they were just focusing on art?

Wilson: Well, I knew some basic things, and we'd done a little bit of things around the home. I got to go more in depth and everything. I had painting classes and jewelry class, printmaking. I love printmaking, and took traditional techniques with Josephine Wapp and she taught me a lot of the different patterns and a lot of different things.

It was traditional techniques from all the tribes. We learned about the 11:00different tribes all over the United States, their clothing, their foods, their dwellings, everything. Just knowing that a lot of the teachers were famous artists already, like Allan Houser and Fritz Scholder, it was uplifting. I mean, it just made you feel good to know that you were right there with them, Louis Ballard and--

Little Thunder: Who was one of your favorite teachers?

Wilson: One of my favorites was Seymour Tubis. He was in printmaking. We got to experiment with a lot of different techniques in printmaking, and it's just something I always liked to do, different media. Also, Josephine Wapp, I'm still 12:00in contact with her. She's 100 years old now, maybe 101 by now. Allan Houser was one. He took me on a trip to Wichita with him, and we demonstrated artwork. I did finger weaving there when I was like a senior in high school. They were all pretty special.

Little Thunder: Who were some of the classmates you had that we might know?

Wilson: Let me see. Joy Harjo, she was my roommate once. Francis Tafoya, he's from Espanola [High School], Santa Clara [Pueblo, New Mexico] artist. Larry 13:00Dejarlais, Peter Jones, his little sister was in my class. There are so many. Bill Soza, Earl Biss, Earl Eder, Kevin and Connie Red Star. There are so many, and I'm sure I'm leaving some out. Grey Cohoe. Some were there when my sister was there, but they had come back, like T. C. Cannon, so I got to know some of them. I was trying to think. Oh, I know. One of my favorite ones was Dan Namingha. I've got one of his prints from the Art Market in there. He was in my class, and I saw him last time we were out there. It's so good to see that he's 14:00been so successful. His sons are, too.

Little Thunder: What did you learn at the Institute that you think really carried over into your art, maybe beyond just the technical deepening of your knowledge?

Wilson: Could you say that again?

Little Thunder: What did you come away with from the Institute that really informed your art and maybe even your teaching, beyond that technical knowledge, the deepening of that?

Wilson: Well, it seems that when you're there, you're in contact with so many people and you learn that your art is special, especially if you use something 15:00from your region, from your tribal area, and that you can experiment and do more things with it. Like right now, I'm doing more traditional things with the Southeastern designs, but my art before, I would do more modern things, non-representational paintings, and more with using the design and the composition. You know, I think that you need to preserve what you know, too, because you can always exaggerate some more and change your art, but you still 16:00have that sense that your area is special and that you can contribute to the knowledge of that area.

Little Thunder: What happened after you left the Institute?

Wilson: After I left the Institute, I went to Northeastern State University and studied art there with some teachers. I loved the figure drawing classes. That's one of the things I liked with the charcoal and conte [pencils] and all. I did some painting and everything, but I still liked the printmaking. We did some serigraphy and things. I took education classes and became an art teacher.

Little Thunder: Were you kind of thinking that teaching would be a way of 17:00supporting yourself while doing your art, or were you just drawn to teaching, as well?

Wilson: Well, I think since I was little I'd kind of decided I wanted to be a teacher because Mama was a teacher, and it ended up all of us girls were teachers. (Laughs) I do enjoy teaching students how to manipulate materials and bring out their creativity. I also teach some about the history of art. I have had students from all different areas.

I taught in Dewey, when I got out of school, for two years. Then I went back--Mrs. Wapp was retiring, and I went back to the Institute and taught for two years. Then we had kind of decided to stay out there, but two jobs came open 18:00in Oklahoma at Chilocco. It just happened to be math, which my husband teaches, and art. We talked it over and decided we'd take those jobs. I had students from mostly Oklahoma, but there were some from other states and different tribes. It was interesting teaching them, and they were good in the classroom. They loved doing art. They say Indians have a natural talent for art, and it seems like a lot of them did.

Little Thunder: Which was your favorite? Which was your favorite teaching spot, do you think, up before you got your master's degree?

Wilson: Well, I got my master's degree when I was at Chilocco.

Little Thunder: Oh. Well, maybe tell us a little bit about that.

Wilson: I went during the summers. I went to school during the summers and got my master's degree the summer that the school closed in 1980. I liked all of them, really. They were all different. I also enjoyed going back to the Institute and teaching there because I love weaving. Weaving is one of the things that I love, and we had nice looms. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That's what you taught, specifically?

Wilson: Yes, and sewing. We did a lot of that. I took home economics in college, also, and I did some sewing there. It was good.

Little Thunder: When did you, sisters, start into the Native clothing business?

Wilson: I think it was about in 1978, maybe. Phyllis had already been designing clothing with Native American theme designs, and she decided to go into business. People, they kept buying her things, and so she decided to go into business. We all got together and joined forces. Sharon would run the shop during the week, and on the weekends we'd take turns running the shop.

Little Thunder: Because you guys were teaching.

Wilson: Yes. We had fashion shows all over, from Washington, DC, and Colorado, and I'm not sure where all they went. I know in Arkansas and Florida, different places.

Little Thunder: So that was a good introduction to the business aspect of art, which is sometimes the hardest for artists to deal with.

Wilson: Yes. We had people who would come from all over to our little shop in Henryetta. It was called the Fife Collection. We had our logo. I think that we are the ones that started the tags on the outside of the clothing.

Little Thunder: Wow. (Laughter)

Wilson: We had our signature on the bottom of whatever it was we made. The Fifes, whoever designed it would sign it, stitching. Also, a lot of times we'd put our Fife Collection tag, which was beautiful and has a logo of raccoons. That's our clan. On some of the things, it would be on the outside, like on the 22:00outside of pants, like Levis. It was pretty neat.

Little Thunder: Yes, and I think there weren't a lot of people doing Native design clothing in Oklahoma at that time.

Wilson: No. Georgeann Robinson was in Pawhuska, I think, and Ileda Smith in Dustin. She did Seminole patchwork, and she's the one that helped Phyllis learn a lot of the patterns. She did a lot of Seminole patchwork.

Little Thunder: Why did you decide to get out of the clothing business?

Wilson: We were all working and trying to run the business at the same time, and we also all had small children. We put our families before our work there, but we still continue to, you know, we'll do special things for people.

Little Thunder: I think your longest teaching time was at Morris.

Wilson: Oh, yes. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What were some of the rewards or challenges of teaching there?

Wilson: Well, I started teaching at Morris in 1980, and I retired in 2009, so that's quite a while. All along the years I would teach them, like, art history, art appreciation, art production, and we studied all kinds of things. I would have them doing pottery, sculpture, printmaking, appliqué, batik, basket making, painting, drawing, any medium we had so that they would at least 24:00experience these medias. A lot of them, they would find that they excelled in something.

Some may draw very well, but they can't make a basket. Others can do crafts, and they can't do the fine arts. I had one boy who was a Down's [Syndrome] boy, and he won several awards with his drawings. He'd take markers and a ruler and use that, and they were fabulous. I had maybe twenty-five students in a class, and they were all stages of knowledge. Some of them had been in my class for four years, and others had never had art at all. I had to work around that and try to 25:00get everybody to fit in and produce.

Little Thunder: Find what they were good at.

Wilson: Yes. Back in the '80s, '90s, mostly in the '90s, I guess, there were a lot of Indian art shows. The State Department had an art show. We went to the Kirkpatrick Center. We took artwork to the fairs, Tulsa and Oklahoma City. We had Indian art shows. We'd have four or five of those a year, plus the others, the open art shows. The students really enjoyed competing and seeing what other students were doing at other schools. It was fun.

I had a lot of students who would really participate and enjoyed it and the 26:00Congressional art contests. It seems like as the years went by, a lot of the students with more technology seemed like they lost interest in doing the hands-on things more. That's one thing I think about with the technology. They lose something because we used to do calligraphy, and now you can just type it in, get any font, any size you want. (Laughter) I think that's changed it a lot.

Little Thunder: In terms of your artwork, were you continuing to do a bit? Had you entered the gallery scene at all before you started teaching so much?

Wilson: No, I have never really had anything in galleries. I've entered some art 27:00shows and won a few awards (but I've done painting) like in painting. Some of my paintings are more realistic than what they used to be.

Little Thunder: Did you enter any of the annual shows, Philbrook Annual? The last year was '79, I think.

Wilson: No, I was in school still. Five Civilized Tribes, mainly, and the Cherokee Heritage Museum, there were some things there.

Little Thunder: Since 2009, you retired, and you were able to do art full time. 28:00What kind of an adjustment was that?

Wilson: Well, it was an adjustment because I had been at school from eight until about six o'clock every night. I never had time to finish anything. I had lots of things started, or I would start a project, and I had three children, and they loved art, so they'd say, "Let me do some." Pretty soon, they'd be doing their artwork. If you look around my house, it's everywhere still. (Laughter) They were pretty good at it, too.

I just didn't have enough time with taking care of family and teaching, so as soon as I retired, I hit the ground running. I got out my yarns and everything 29:00and started weaving, doing finger weaving. I took a class in shell carving. I took a class in Creek pottery, and Mary Smith taught me how to do the Creek baskets. I already knew how to do a lot of these other things and basics, you know. I wove a wall hanging and sent it to Santa Fe for their auction for the scholarships and enjoyed going back and seeing other people and seeing what people have done.

I try different things, like the copper tooling with the Creek designs. I had done some with leather before, leather tooling with the old designs, and beadwork, too. I used to make medallions even, like, with the snakes, the 30:00serpents and things in them and all kinds of designs. I don't have any now, but I remember I did them.

Little Thunder: Yes, may pick those up again. Starting with finger weaving, can you talk a little bit about the importance of it to Muscogee culture?

Wilson: Well, the finger weaving, I think a lot of different tribes did finger weaving, and there's samples found in caves and the Southwest even of similar weaving. When they started trading a little more and they could get fibers, I guess they used different animal fibers and all and plants.

The men have always been the flashier dressers. I said it's like the birds: The 31:00colorful birds are the males; the plain ones are the females. The men wear the belts, the sashes. The finger weaving is the traditional style because if you look at the old photographs, any pictures you might find, the designs are angular with the chevron design, the diamonds, the zigzags, anything like that.

In the stomp dance, the men, and the women, too, wear sashes. They've gotten flashier, too, because they have bigger tassels on their belts now. The men also wore them across their chest. They'd wear a sash with their bandolier bag. They wore them as a sash. They wore them as garters to hold up their leggings, and 32:00some, I've even seen some pictures with them using them as a turban.

Little Thunder: How about shell carving? You mentioned that you took a class, I guess, to get started in that.

Wilson: Yes, I took a class at the College of the Muscogee Nation with Dan Townsend, who's quite well known. He's from Florida, and he taught us the basics of the shell carving, using a Dremel tool. Now, I've yet to carve them without one, but I'd like to try that, too.

I use the Southeastern designs on mine. Sometimes I might change them up a little bit to make it a little different. Most of the designs come from southeastern North America. Some of them were found on copper plates, some were 33:00found on shells, and sometimes it's just fragments of designs that are found. Sometimes I'll create the rest of what I think it might have looked like or what might look good.

Little Thunder: It seems like with some of the traditional arts, getting materials is very time-consuming. I was wondering with your basketry, do you gather your own materials?

Wilson: No, what I've used mostly is commercial cane or commercial reed. Mary Smith and I are going to go gather some river cane and split it and get it ready for that. I've also used some pine needles when I do pine needle baskets. I have 34:00a cousin in California that does pine needle baskets, and she's teaching me how to use those, some of the easier ways to do that.

Little Thunder: How is Creek basketry different from that of other Five Tribes?

Wilson: I think the Creeks use cane, river cane, and the Cherokees, I think, use a lot of--well, also, the Creeks use honeysuckle and buck brush. The Creek baskets, they will have--the cane baskets have a double rim on the top. I've seen some Choctaw baskets that have a double rim, but I don't know if they're made exactly the same. Oh, and also some of the Creek baskets have holes in the 35:00bottom for sifting, sifting materials.

Little Thunder: How about pottery? What are some of the differences between Creek pots and other Southeastern [pots]?

Wilson: I'm not sure, actually. The Creek pots, though, one thing about some of the Creek pots is that on them they might have little knobs or little nodules. Those are kind of used to keep the heat distributed evenly so that you don't 36:00get--maybe if you're handling it, it doesn't have as much heat on the bowl.

They had certain pots, taller pots, for sofki pots. They used a lot of the clay for pipes, different kinds of pipes. I know we found some different pipes up in our pasture where one of the older houses had been. They'd have the stripes, you know, the parallel stripes going in different directions. Also with the pottery, they used, like, paddles to put their designs in and corncobs, different things. To make the black color, the darker coating, they would smoke them in, like, oak 37:00leaves, smother them in leaves and smoke them to get that darker tint to the clay.

Little Thunder: Now, do you dig your clay for your pots?

Wilson: No, the clay that I had used, some of it came from Georgia, but I have dug clay, and so you can get clay around here. The Creeks came from Georgia, so I went ahead and used that clay for some of my pots.

Little Thunder: Have you made a couple of trips to the homelands?

Wilson: I've been out there one time.

Little Thunder: What was that like?

Wilson: It was nice. It was, you know, the trees are a lot taller and the dirt's 38:00redder. (Laughs) It was different going out there. We went to Hickory Ground [Alabama].

Little Thunder: Did you go with your sisters, too, or others?

Wilson: I went with my sister Phyllis and my daughter, Laura. It seems like the rivers have a lot of water in them. They're wide, and they look so deep as compared to the rivers here that dry up half the time. (Laughter) It was kind of a strange feeling to think that we could still be out there if things had been different.

I guess I did go twice. We went to Macon, Georgia, with a group of Creeks in the 39:00early '90s, my sister Carole and I, and we talked to students out there at several schools. We went to schools and talked about the Creeks and what they're doing now and where they came from, everything.

Little Thunder: Did you take artwork, too?

Wilson: Yes, we took artwork, a lot of different samples of things to show them.

Little Thunder: Now that you're going full time, how would you juggle the production side and the marketing side?

Wilson: Well, it's not much of a juggle right now. (Laughter) I kind of make what I want to do. I do what I want to when I want to do it. If I feel like making baskets, I've got reed all over the place or cane everywhere. I might 40:00work on baskets for a week or so, and then I'll work on finger weaving.

Finger weaving I can take and do it in the car, any place I can do finger weaving. The baskets I have to be around where I can have water with me. The shell carving, the shell is actually toxic, so you have to be in a well-ventilated space or outside. I do that mainly in the warmer months if it's not too hot.

Little Thunder: Do you get a lot of commissions, like for sashes and things, moccasins?

Wilson: Yes, I get quite a few, moccasins and sashes. I have done some classes, taught some classes in moccasin making and sashes and baskets and helped with the communities in doing that. I have sold different things at different places. 41:00The sashes, lots of people want to order, and they want a certain pattern, certain colors, sizes. They can customize them more.

Little Thunder: What are some of your major shows right now?

Wilson: That I have been doing? (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Or maybe you have been focusing on producing more than shows?

Wilson: I have been demonstrating at a lot of different places. Now, let me think.

Little Thunder: The Red Fork Film Festival, that was one.

Wilson: The what?

Little Thunder: Red Fork.

Wilson: Okay, yes. I have done demonstrations at the Red Fork Film Festival, at 42:00the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, at Under the Oaks.

Little Thunder: Art Under the Oaks.

Wilson: Yes, I've done baskets and finger weaving. I demonstrated finger weaving and shell carving at the Tulsa State Fair at the Creek Nation booth. I've taught some classes to different organizations and different departments of the Creek Nation. Some of the communities around, I've helped with their summer work, summer programs for students, and taught some of the little kids the finger weaving. I have some small looms and let them work on looms. I've also helped with some of the churches and all types of organizations. It hasn't just been 43:00one thing.

I've entered a lot of--I think in the last, well, since 2009, I've been at Art Under the Oaks and the Cherokee Holiday Art Show at the [Tahlequah Municipal Armory Center], and I've won awards there each year. I was actually surprised at that because I hadn't done anything in so long. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: And sometimes for media, like the shell carving, that you had just begun to explore.

Wilson: Yes, but I love doing that. I love the shell carving. Get the shell, cut it out, grind it down into shape, polish it. I might draw my design on there and 44:00carve it, and then I have to polish it again by hand. I put pigment in it, in the etched part, and then wipe it all clean. Then if I make it into a pendant or necklace or anything like that, earrings--doing from the very beginning to the end, that's something because a lot of people don't do that. I think that's one of the things that I want to do, like the river cane, gathering it and start from the basics and all the way to the finish.

Little Thunder: The whole process.

Wilson: Yes, the whole process and all that.

Little Thunder: What's so satisfying about that as opposed to starting with ready-made materials?

Wilson: Well, just the idea that I have done the whole process, I think that's 45:00really something because there are too many kits and easy ways to do things. I enjoy doing it all. My mother has--we have a coat and a sash she made when she was at Santa Fe, and she actually had to take the wool, clean it, card it, dye it, spin it. She designed the coat. She wove the fabric, put it together, even carved the button that was on it. Everything was from start to finish, and I think that's really wonderful if somebody can do that.

Little Thunder: Right. Let's talk a little bit, I guess, about your moccasins, 46:00and then we'll talk about some of your techniques and research and things like that. How often do you do moccasins, or does it just depend?

Wilson: I do moccasins whenever, you know, if there's a need for them because leather, like deer skin, is so expensive now. I can't just buy it and make moccasins. I usually do them for, like baby moccasins or for family. My daughter has a couple of pair. To me, they seem simple because it's just one piece of leather. You have to figure out how to measure the foot and sew it up. They are really comfortable. On the flaps (they have the big flaps) and you can decorate 47:00those with beads or ribbon or even patchwork, different things.

Little Thunder: How much of your time do you pick up painting or drawing?

Wilson: I thought I would paint a lot after I retired, but actually I have not painted anything since, except the sign, a couple of signs. (Laughter) I have not had a chance to do any painting. I have done some drawings in the last several months, actually.

Little Thunder: Oh, for a particular project?

Wilson: Yes, for an Oklahoma history project with Catherine Sharden. She's coordinating--she has a program to teach each county some of their history, and 48:00I'm doing some sketches for her.

Little Thunder: That'll be wonderful. Tell a little bit about a highlight or two from going to the Smithsonian with the Mvskoke Etvlwv [Muscogee People] project, the festival.

Wilson: I think that the Muscogee project at the Smithsonian was wonderful because they had an exhibit outside, and they had a full range of services that the Creek Nation provides for right there in the rotunda or the round room. I think there were like seven or eight artists there and--

Little Thunder: That's not very many.

Wilson: No, it's not.

Little Thunder: It's a select number.

Wilson: I thought there were going to be--they were taking forty. I thought they were taking forty artists, but they took Creek singers, elders, and a stomp dance group from Duck Creek. There were several pastors that I knew and ladies from churches around that I knew and the artists. We had pottery, flute making, painting, and stickball making. There was one with some Seminole patchwork. I had my shell carving and baskets and finger weaving, and it was very enjoyable.

I met a lot of people, and I saw some people I hadn't seen since I was a 50:00teenager. Met a lot of people that knew my family and had a great time because I could sing with the Creek singers when we sang the hymns and listen to them. There was something going on all the time. There was not hardly any time that was dead because there was something happening all the time. A lot of people from different countries, different states, that came through and visited.

Little Thunder: And your husband came with you. Does he go to shows with you periodically? Does he help out with the art business at all?

Wilson: My husband helps out some. Every once in a while, he'll say, "So and so wants something done." He goes to the shows with me, and he's real proud to hold 51:00my purse while I go get an award. (Laughter) He has a background in industrial arts, like woodworking. He has designed some things. Like he has a table in there that has a light, and the light shines through all four sides, which has a forked eye design in it. He has done a lot of things like that, different kinds of crafts and a little bit of jewelry and different-- He knows what he likes. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: It seems like a lot of the shows are doing that. They're cutting down on the amount of work you put in. I guess there's more artists, too.

Wilson: Yes, more work for them, I think. I'd have an art contest every year at school. Since the first year I was there at Morris, we'd have an art show, and we invited students from all the other schools around, any students that wanted to enter. We would have everything on all the tables, all the walls filled, all 52:00down the hall, down the other way.

We'd have K through 12, so lots of times we'd get--my sister taught at Dustin, and so she'd send some of her work. My other nieces would send things, different ones from different schools in different areas. We'd get a few from the other schools around the county or the region, and it was good. We'd have so many things and it took--I finally started getting some of my top students in the high school to judge the little kids' things.

Little Thunder: Oh, that was good, a great experience for them.

Wilson: It gave them a chance to do that because somebody would come in to judge things and the middle school and high school, they'd be there three or four hours!

Little Thunder: Right. That was a great experience for them. What kind of research do you do for your Southeastern designs?

Wilson: A lot of my research comes from museums, some museums that I've gone to that have exhibits. Also a lot of them come from the book Sun Circles and Human Hands. Emma Lila Fundaburk edited that. There are--let me see. James Howard's book on Southeastern Indians. A lot of the designs I've seen, and we used in our fashions. When we did the fashions we used a lot of the same designs: the serpent designs, the forked eye, sun circles, the king bird, just everything, 54:00warriors, a lot of the different animals.

Little Thunder: Did you ever get to make a trip to the Smithsonian, too, or have the museums been closer in?

Wilson: We went to the Heye Museum [George Gustav Heye Center]. My sister and I went to New York, went through the museum there, saw some things. Then we went to Macon, Georgia, and Spiral Mounds, different places we'd see things.

Little Thunder: For your shell carving, do you sketch the design on paper beforehand? How do you approach that?

Wilson: Usually I do. I'll sketch it, or I'll sketch it right on the shell. I 55:00don't hardly ever do it with no sketching at all because I would really get off. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Yes, I was wondering if you'd ever, like, accidentally ruined a shell because--

Wilson: No, I usually do something else to it. I'll fix it some way. I hate to ruin a shell or anything like that because if you go out of line a little bit, you can always make it a deeper line or do the background a different way. There's always something. I've learned that from my mom and my sisters. If you make a mistake, you can change it. That's one thing about when I was teaching school. Some of the kids, if they'd make a little line crooked, they'd wad it up and throw it away. It's a process. You've got to figure out how to be creative 56:00with all of these things.

Little Thunder: Right. And are they expensive, the bigger conch shells?

Wilson: Well, I found a bunch of shells at a rock shop. I think the owner had passed away, and some younger people were taking it over. They sold me a whole boxful for five dollars when they had higher prices on each one. (Laughs)

I have a friend who gave me some pink mussels, mussel shells, and those are really pretty when they're polished up, and they're easy to carve, too. Some of the shells I got from my son's father-in-law. You can order them, shells, 57:00different places. Now that I carve shells, people bring me shells a lot, just give them to me. I use old buttons, too, the pearl buttons. Those make really nice carvings.

Little Thunder: So that involves a little bit of searching around.

Wilson: Yes. Well, my sister Jimmie Carole, she sews a lot, and so she is always finding some. Dan Townsend gave me some one time. It's just, you know, sometimes you can find them.

Little Thunder: Do you trade off between different media? Do you keep several 58:00projects going concurrently when you work?

Wilson: Yes, I keep several projects going. Right now, I've got four sashes I'm working on. I was working on some corn to put on some baskets. I keep things going all the time. I am never bored. I haven't been bored. I don't think I've ever been bored in my life, actually. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are you doing any loom work at all right now?

Wilson: No, but I plan to. When we were in Tennessee, I saw some real pretty scarves, woven scarves, and I thought, "I can do that." I'm going to get them out as soon as I have a chance because I love working with looms, on the loom. 59:00When I was in college, we used to come back on weekends, and we'd go to the Creek Nation, and they had several looms there. Hepsey Gilroy would be down there, and she was in charge, and we'd weave different things.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process, starting with how you get your ideas?

Wilson: I might get my ideas from, like if I'm weaving, just the colors, putting together colors for weaving. Or if I see something, like the baskets--the baskets, I'm always wanting to do something a little different, anyway. There's so many different weaving patterns you can do on a basket, also. With that flat 60:00cane, it makes such a pretty tweed or herringbone. Anything, a plane tabby weave, anything like that.

Lots of times I'll be working on something, and I might change it around. If I have a clear idea of what I want to do, sometimes I might add some color to it or try a different design or try putting something else with it just to be a little different. Lots of times it's in progress I change things up. Like for the finger weaving, you can start out with a chevron design and change it to a diamond. You can split that up into something else and change your pattern right in your hands.

Little Thunder: As you're working.

Wilson: The finger-woven wall hanging I did, I started out with, some were arrowheads, and I changed them to chevrons. It was kind of a plaid in certain places and changed it around. Get creative. The materials, too. I've done some with the silk cord. My niece is a fashion designer and she designs handbags. When she was the designer for the Native American Fashion Week in New York City, she had me do some sashes for straps for her bags or for sashes for the girls to wear, the models to wear, so she'd have something else Creek in there. It was fun doing things like that.

Little Thunder: What is your creative routine? Do you like to work more during 62:00the day or at night or just when you get a chance?

Wilson: I like to work whenever I get a chance, mainly, but a lot of times it's at night. My husband gets after me for staying up until three o'clock in the morning. (Laughter) I work good at night and, I guess, any time I have time.

The weather, like I said, the weather has something to do with it, too, if I can get out on the back porch or someplace to carve. Right now I'm getting a studio out in the back. The old garage, I get it for a studio. I'm getting some shelves and tables and things, and also a vent, a vent table, so I can carve out there 63:00because right now, you know, you have to wear a mask to do the carving.

Little Thunder: When will your studio be finished?

Wilson: He's going after the door today. (Laughter) Hopefully in the next month I can get in there and get some things, move my looms out of the old garage, the house garage, into there because they're in storage right now and I haven't got the chance to use them. I have some table looms I bought from the Firehouse Art Center in Norman, by the Jacobson House, I think.

Little Thunder: Oh, yes.

Wilson: We used to use them at school. I'd take them to school, and we'd have, like, eight looms going at once. Four of them were mine, so I brought those home when I retired. I'm just waiting. Right now I work in front of the TV, or I do 64:00my baskets and weaving in the living room and my shell carving on the back porch.

Little Thunder: Talk a little bit about the Fife family show, too, that you did because I forgot to ask about that.

Wilson: Do you remember when it was?

Little Thunder: About two years ago, does that seem right? Two or three years ago?

Wilson: It was about--I'm not sure, maybe three. I'm not sure. (Laughter) Several years ago we got together with Betty [Gerber], who was the curator at the Broken Arrow Historical Society. They had just redone their building, and Phyllis had done a painting for their exhibit upstairs, and they had a big room 65:00downstairs for shows. We got together with her and decided to have a family show.

It was artwork. My dad made my mom's wedding ring out of a stainless steel pipe. He polished it down and made the ring. My mom, like I said, was an artist, and she had done art all her life, too, and so she had some things. The woven jacket she did, her sash, some carved buttons, some pottery, a doll. I remember when we were little she had a puppet that she'd made.

We had seventy-five years of art from the time she did her artwork to then. I think there were like twenty-four people in it, in the show. We had painters, 66:00printmaking, the copper, the shell work, the moccasins, beaded work, fashions, saddles, leather tooling, poetry, photography--

Little Thunder: Every medium was covered.

Wilson: --just about everything. Any kind of art you could have, we have done in some way. Even some of the younger children had some things that they had done. They'd always come over in the summertime and want to do something, so we'd teach them to do things, weaving or beadwork, finger weaving, all kinds of things. I think there were like twenty-one to twenty-four of us that had artwork 67:00in the show.

Little Thunder: That's a really wonderful show. Well, looking back on your career so far, what's been one of the high points?

Wilson: Let's see. I think that one of the high points was that show because it was a family thing and that it was our parents, our generation, and our kids. That was three generations was all there was in it. I don't know. There were so many high points, the Fife Collection, the fashion shows and all. The first time I won an art award in a long time, that was a high point to me. (Laughs) I said 68:00I felt like I was on--I was really excited because I won something. Every time I win an award, I'm always surprised because--

Little Thunder: That was at the Five Tribes Museum. Are you talking about the first time--

Wilson: Yes.

Little Thunder: Yes, I bet that was--if you could talk about that a little bit more because you recently, you had just retired.

Wilson: Yes. When I entered the exhibit at the Five Civilized Tribes, Art Under the Oaks, it was mostly crafts and three-dimensional art. I was entering the things because I wanted to see how I'd do. I was really elated because I had won 69:00some awards. It's been good. Then going to the Smithsonian with the tribe, being asked to do that, that was great because I feel like I represented the tribe and our family and could show what I could do and share that with people, share some of the traditional crafts and art.

Little Thunder: Looking back on your career so far, what's been one of the low points?

Wilson: I can't think of any low points. (Laughs) I mean, to me, I've enjoyed it all. I have. I've enjoyed doing all the work, even if it doesn't sell or 70:00anything. Lots of times I don't even want to sell anything. It's doing the artwork and producing these things and sharing them.

A lot of times I might put a high price on something because I don't want to sell it. If it sells, then that's all right. (Laughter) Keeping the traditions going is one thing because the basket making, there's not that many basket makers. Finger weaving, there's not that many finger weavers left. If I can teach somebody how to do that, then that's great to carry it on because I don't want that to die out.

Little Thunder: Is there anything we've forgotten to talk about before we take a look at your work, anything you'd like to add?

Wilson: I can't think of anything. Well, one thing--I don't know. Like our family, we kind of collaborate together on a lot of things. If we have, you know, like, the show up there, Carole might make the jacket for the Creek man, and I'd make the sashes, and Robin would make the bandolier bag. We all work pretty well together and learn from each other. Whenever I have a technical question or a historical question, I like to call my sisters, good resources there. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You might have to start your own shop here in the near future. 72:00(Laughter) Well, we'll get ready to take a look at this artwork. All right, we're looking at one of your conch shell carvings.

Wilson: This is a medicine dipper used by the Creeks and the ceremonial grounds during their busk. They would drink the black drink from this dipper. It's cut out and smoothed out. The design here, the picture is choosing sides. You can see that they're wearing the sashes, the garters, just like we use the finger-woven sashes for. These, they say, are the voices coming out.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. There's a lot of carving in there.

Wilson: Yes, I carved this, and then I carved the background, put the background 73:00on there to make it a little different. I also lightened parts of it so that it would be kind of like highlights. You can see in the face there where the cheeks and the nose and the chin are kind of highlighted, and the brow. I use different textures on these for different areas, learning from my etching background. I know how to make different textures and different shades of the brown from the amount of texture you have on there.

Little Thunder: And the pigment that you used?

Wilson: The pigment I use is oil paints, and I use the colors, the natural colors that you see around. Sometimes I use a brown; sometimes I use a red.

Little Thunder: That's really neat. Okay, so this is an example of Creek moccasins. These are your moccasins, I guess.

Wilson: Yes, they're my daughter's moccasins. These Creek moccasins, they're made out of one piece of leather. It's just one piece. It's gathered, and it has a puckered toe. You sew them from the inside, and you gather up a little bit from each side as you go along and gather it up so that it puckers there. That will make it fit over your foot. These are real comfortable. The Eastern tribes, a lot of the tribes used the big cuffs, wore the big cuffs on their moccasins. They might be decorated different ways. These I decorated with a serpent design, 75:00serpentine design, on the side and with ribbon.

Little Thunder: Nice.

Wilson: These are soft-sole. They're one piece, like I said, but the sole is soft, and that's because in the woodlands there is so much foliage and the ground is moist that they didn't need the hard soles.

This is a Creek sifter basket. You can see the little spaces left on the inside and the bottom so that they could take their corn or whatever and sift it to get the small particles out. If you make the holes bigger, you could make the right size corn come through, and the larger corn wouldn't go through there.

This is woven. You start on the bottom with a weave, flat tabby wave, and then 76:00as you come up, this one is--I've gone across it with more like a herringbone weave. You don't have to add any more spokes to it or anything. You fold this up and weave. Then this top three or four rows kind of binds it together, and it's woven in a tabby weave again, just a plain weave. Then the top, the Creeks have a double rim on the basket, and this is pretty difficult. You do one rim at a time, and there's a lot of folding and wrapping. It's pretty difficult to do the top of these baskets, but they last a long time.

Little Thunder: Okay, we're looking at some medallions, necklaces. Do you want 77:00to tell us about those?

Wilson: This first one is the king bird, and you can see that it has the spots on it. This one is on a melon shell, and I used the red oxide color and the handmade copper beads, also. If you look close, you can see that the darker areas are actually crosshatched in it.

This is a chunky player, and you can see he has that spool in his left hand, there. These are little petals around there. These are also old pre-Columbian 78:00designs from the Southeastern United States.

This one is a black mother-of-pearl, and it is a double woodpecker. See, a lot of the Creek designs and a lot of the Southeastern designs used birds or animals, and they would be doubled like that. You can see the four directions of whirlwind there. This one is like mother-of-pearl. This is a Muscogee knot, and it has little inset feather-looking shapes inside there.

Little Thunder: This is an example of your finger weaving. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Wilson: This is a man's shoulder sash that I designed. One side, it has chevrons, the triple chevrons, and the other side is triple diamonds. I wove and changed from one pattern to the other. That's one of the things about finger weaving: you can change your pattern if you want to. With this I continued on down and wove the fringe and made the tassels, tied the bottom for the tassels. This is made out of wool. It's real soft.

Little Thunder: Nice colors. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sandy.

Wilson: When we were up there, my niece was over there, and this guy came over, 80:00"Oh, that's pretty." She said, "Yes!" and she stuck it over him and stuck it on his neck.

Little Thunder: Oh my goodness! (Laughter)

Wilson: She said, "That'll make a nice scarf for you!" I said, "Yes, or you could wear it like a sash."

Little Thunder: Like it's supposed to be worn.

Wilson: Yes. (Laughter) They really ought to get me to do the banners for the Creek Princess, huh?

Little Thunder: Yes, they should. (Laughs) Well, thanks a lot for your time today.

Wilson: You're welcome. It was fun, made me think.

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