Oral history interview with Jim Van Deman

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is January 15, 2013, and I'm interviewing Jim Van Deman as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project, sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Jim's studio in Oklahoma City, actually in Bethany. Jim, you're a Delaware tribal member from the Anadarko area. You started out as a graphic designer, but in 1990 you turned to art full-time. Your style often alternates between Impressionism and abstraction, which had you swimming against the commercial Native art current for a while. Since then you've become a well-known figure on the Native art scene, not just for your paintings but also for the Native flutes that you make. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

Van Deman: Thanks, glad to do it.

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

Van Deman: Anadarko. Graduated from high school there in 1961, which means that I grew up in Anadarko through the '50s, which was a really, really fun time. 1:00Anadarko was a really safe town at that time, and we spent a lot of time going to the theater on Saturday for twenty-five cents, eating ten-cent popcorn. (Laughter) It was a good time in Anadarko.

The Delaware tribe is one of the two Delaware tribes in the state. One of them is in Anadarko, and one of them is near Bartlesville. The Anadarko tribe has been there since 1859 or so. Well, the Delawares moved to the Oklahoma area in a roundabout fashion from the East Coast through Ohio, through Kansas, to Anadarko. Sometime in the middle 1800s, part of the tribe split off and went to Tyler, Texas, and then came back to Anadarko, and they were known as the 2:00Absentee Delawares. That's the group that's there now, and they are now the Delaware Nation.

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

Van Deman: She worked at Riverside for a number of years, the Indian school...

Little Thunder: Riverside Indian School?

Van Deman: --yes, in Anadarko, and retired from there and worked in various tribal functions for the Delawares as their AOA [Administration on Aging] director for a number of years, then finally retired from that.

Little Thunder: What about your grandparents on either side? Did you have any contact with them?

Van Deman: Oh, yes. My grandmother is my tribal connection. She is, let's see, the great-great-granddaughter of Black Beaver, a very famous Delaware. Both tribes, the Bartlesville tribe and the Anadarko tribe, claim relation to Black Beaver, and I'm his third-great-grandson, three-great, through my grandmother. 3:00There is direct historic connection to prove it.

Little Thunder: That's cool. So you knew your grandmother and went out and spent time at the house?

Van Deman: Oh, yes. She actually lived with us.

Little Thunder: What are your earliest memories of making art?

Van Deman: I remember in Anadarko this guy named Acee Blue Eagle, and there's still a guy there named Rance Hood. Those two guys were influential on my artwork in the beginning, but then I had a great opportunity with a graphics manufacturing company for about ten years to travel all over the United States. With that traveling, I got to visit most of the major museums east of the Mississippi, influences from Monet and Renoir, those guys. My artwork, even 4:00though it's abstract, is kind of loosely always based on landscapes and the impressionists. They start out that way, and then they end up abstract. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Did you like to draw when you were younger? Did you experiment with art when you were younger?

Van Deman: I was one of those guys that drew up the margins of his books. (Laughs) They were like two or three of us in my class in Anadarko, and two of us actually grew up to be artists.

Little Thunder: Who was the other one?

Van Deman: Billy Henderson.

Little Thunder: Were any other members of your family or extended family artistic?

Van Deman: No.

Little Thunder: Going back to your memories, I guess, of Acee Blue Eagle, was his work some of the first Native art that you saw?

Van Deman: Yes, and actually I have a relative who was kin to Blackbear Bosin, 5:00too, and I saw his artwork as well, a very refined artist.

Little Thunder: What attracted you to Blue Eagle's work or Rance Hood's work?

Van Deman: All the artists in Anadarko at the time were doing the flat, posterized, outlined artwork that's become kind of characteristic of the area, and they're still doing it there. My artwork started out being the same way. I majored in art at Southwestern [Oklahoma State University] in Weatherford, had a double major in fine art and commercial art. At the time, there was just a terrific watercolor artist there, Ken Watson, and there was a terrific abstract artist there, George Calvert. Those two were very influential. I think George won because I'm doing abstracts now. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You mentioned even in school you were drawing on your books and you knew you were interested in art. Did you get encouragement from your teachers?

Van Deman: No. There was no art class, no art anything in Anadarko at the time. Understand, that was probably about 1941 and '2 and '3. World War II was just over, so we were drawing airplanes and tanks. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So even up through high school, really no encouragement or anything?

Van Deman: Well, let's say no opportunities.

Little Thunder: No opportunities, yes. Were you thinking of yourself as being an artist?

Van Deman: Did I know I was going to be an artist? Yes, that's where I was headed.

Little Thunder: Okay, at a young age.

Van Deman: Yes, and I happened to hit Southwestern at a really good time with the instructors there.

Little Thunder: Let's talk about the base you got at Southwestern, first.

Van Deman: I was going to say what happened at Southwestern was--in the class of '61, there was probably about twenty guys and some girls there as well. Almost all of us made our careers. Out of twenty or twenty-two, I would say probably twelve or fifteen ended up being artists of one sort or another.

Little Thunder: Yes, that's a real tribute to the teachers. So what kinds of skills did you come away with from Southwestern?

Van Deman: Well, I forgot to mention Richard Taflinger. Richard Taflinger was the head of the Art Department at the time. In his drawing classes and basic art for freshman year, basic art and figure drawing and the art classes, Richard 8:00taught us composition and hammered it into our heads. He was kind of an old-school, Italian guy. Let's see. Our education would've been formal, I guess you would say, in that you didn't get by with not paying attention to composition. Then color balance came later with George Calvert.

Little Thunder: And were you working in acrylics at that point?

Van Deman: No, acrylics--

Little Thunder: They were newer.

Van Deman: I was there four or five years, and I think about the third year, acrylics started showing up as a possible art form we knew nothing about. I was painting with oils and watercolor at the time.

Little Thunder: Were any of your teachers interested in abstract art?

Van Deman: Yes, George Calvert was an abstract artist, probably more on the 9:00expressionist end of it than true non-objective abstract. He really was the guide into color balance, where Taflinger was teaching composition. Those two things now today are the main thing. The two elements that I dwell on in my paintings is composition and the color balance.

Little Thunder: So you really probably hadn't been exposed to a lot of abstract art prior to Southwestern?

Van Deman: Actually, abstract art in the '50s was kind of a popular thing, and yes, checking out art books from the college library is pretty good exposure for a lot of work. Here in later life, I've been accused of borrowing from [Mark] Rothko a little, but that's really not true. I like Rothko's work, but my work 10:00is quite a bit different. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: So after college, what happened? You had your double major.

Van Deman: What happened is I got married, and we had a baby, and we moved to Oklahoma City, and I began work for a company called Central Sales Promotion. That's a screen printing company, and they had a department of production artists, of which I was one. I worked in that capacity for six or seven years and then as a designer for the company with my own set of accounts that I was designing store trims for, seasonal store trims and interior things. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Were you also painting, doing artwork on the side?

Van Deman: The Oklahoma Art Guild, I got involved with them in about '67, and they kept the fine art side of me going, so I was never that far from being in 11:00the fine arts.

Little Thunder: So they would have shows and--

Van Deman: Yes, monthly meetings. Mostly at the time we were all Sunday painters and stuff, but we'd have two or three big shows a year.

Little Thunder: Was Bert Seabourn a member of that guild?

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: Is that how you first became acquainted with him?

Van Deman: Yes, I've known Bert since '67, '68, sometime back then.

Little Thunder: Can you tell us a little bit about how you met?

Van Deman: Well, when I met Bert, he was still working for ONG, I think. I don't know what his job was with ONG, but he might have been Art Director or something for them. Nice guy, known him for years. I admire his work.

Little Thunder: And like you said, both of you having to sort of do other things to support yourselves but wanting to do more painting. Did you get anything from the job, any kinds of skills that you think later on would manifest themselves in your art when you began painting full-time?

Van Deman: Probably the influence from the Art Guild and being around other artists. The Art Guild had pretty close to a hundred members at the time. I don't know what it has now, but back then it was between eighty and a hundred members. The conversations were about art, doing art, and then we actually were doing art. I've gone through the phases from really tight landscapes, through 13:00impressionist landscapes, and then finally settling on abstract art. It took me a while to realize that not everybody can do an abstract painting.

In the Art Guild one year I had the opportunity to do a workshop, and I had sixteen people sign up for it. It was a week long, and of the sixteen people, two understood the process, my process, of doing abstract art. That is that you've got this big blank canvas and you approach it with a blank mind. You don't worry about what goes on the canvas. You just start it off, and it ends up. (Laughs) I think there were two guys in there, and the rest of them were ladies. Almost all of them needed something to think about before they started on the canvas. I never actually ever worried about that.

Little Thunder: And what year was this?

Van Deman: Oh, gosh. That's been probably thirty years ago.

Little Thunder: Did you also take workshops when you were a member of the Guild?

Van Deman: Yes. In fact, I took one from Mike Larsen. I took one from Diane Ainsworth McDonald, I think was her name. I can't think of her last name. I took one in Taos from William Hook, who is a very well-known acrylic painter. He and I have two totally different styles. I took it to see if I could pick up any acrylic painting secrets from him, and sure enough there are none. (Laughter) I knew probably a few, and he knew a few. It wasn't my idea to go in and emulate his work. It was just mainly try to advance in acrylic painting as a media.

Little Thunder: You mentioned Diane Ainsworth McDonald as an influence. What kind of things did you draw from her?

Van Deman: Diane is from--is her last name McDonald? Do you know her?

Little Thunder: No, I researched her for your interview. I think it's Ainsworth McDonald.

Van Deman: Okay, I thought it was, but it's been a while since I've thought about her. She's from Taos and a really skilled impressionist landscape painter. I still like impressionist landscape painting, and I still dabble around in it, but as far as showing my artwork, like with Red Earth and in galleries, it's going to be abstracts.

Little Thunder: So you did have the opportunity when you were traveling, as you mentioned, to see a lot of artwork? Can you sort of describe for us maybe one of those pivotal moments?

Van Deman: Yes, it was. (Laughter) It was arrogance at its highest form. (Laughs) I caught a Monet show at the Chicago Art Institute. It was the traveling show, and I happened to be in town at the same time that the show was 16:00there. There was, like, huge rooms just full of Monet paintings and one wall--there was 180 haystacks on one wall that he had painted during different times of the day to, I guess, get the light right.

I'm standing and looking at one of his pieces thinking, "I can do that." Of course, there's no way in the world I could do that, but that's really kind of what got me started painting. I'll say this about Monet and Renoir and all those impressionist paintings. When you're looking at them in a museum as opposed to looking at them in a book, they are two totally different things. The colors are alive in the museum, especially Renoir pieces.

Little Thunder: Did it open up--had you done a lot of plein air painting? Did that become an interest of yours for a while?

Van Deman: Plein air painting took a nosedive in Sedona. (Laughs) I set up out there. One time my wife and I were vacationing there. I set everything up, squirted my paint out on the pallet, turned around and adjusted my canvas, 17:00turned back around and all the paint was dry. It was like you had to work it like a watercolor. Your paint had to be thin, water thin, and you got it on canvas and then finished up later. I would assume plein air painting with acrylics would be that way. I don't do it. (Laughs) I don't do it anymore.

Little Thunder: This was what year that you sort of tried that? Do you remember?

Van Deman: That was probably in the '80s, probably about '88, as a matter of fact.

Little Thunder: So in 1990 you decided to go full-time with your art. What sort of brought that decision on?

Van Deman: I resigned from the graphic arts company I was working for, the manufacturers, and worked around for a couple years trying to get something 18:00going. Nothing got going, and so I just leaned back on what I knew and started painting full-time. I was lucky enough to draw a gallery north of Scottsdale in the Boulders [Resort]. It was just a tremendous gallery, and over the fourteen years that I was there, we sold lots of artwork.

Little Thunder: What was the name of the gallery?

Van Deman: Es Posible, It's Possible. It was owned by June Gilliam, a woman from Stillwater. Do you know June?

Little Thunder: I don't.

Van Deman: Oh. You need to meet her.

Little Thunder: So did you just walk in with some paintings one day? How did that--

Van Deman: She picked me up at Red Earth, actually. She was coming through the Red Earth show. I've been at Red Earth shows for fifteen years, and she came through one year and liked my artwork. We had a business relationship for quite 19:00a number of years.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. So did she do any solo shows for you?

Van Deman: No, but within the gallery (the gallery was huge) there was one room that they called the Van Deman room because it was all my work. (Laughs) That was one of my highlights for my career. Oh, and one of the other highlights is out of that I got an eight-foot-by-eight-foot commission to go in an 8,000-square-foot home up in the Boulders. That was quite a deal.

Little Thunder: Yes, wonderful commission. So you did your first Red Earth show in 1990, actually, the first year that you started painting full-time?

Van Deman: Probably so. That's probably about right.

Little Thunder: How was the show for you?

Van Deman: That's probably more about '95 or '96.

Little Thunder: About '95, okay. You had attended the show a little bit previous 20:00to that?

Van Deman: Oh, yes. They celebrated an anniversary just recently, but I don't know which one. Was it twenty-five? Yes, I think I was at the first one downtown.

Little Thunder: Yes, at the Myriad Center. What was your reception like the first time you did the first Red Earth show?

Van Deman: Better than you might think for abstracts. (Laughter) I also had some pretty interesting-looking, I think, expressionist pieces there, which were animals that were--I had a series of paintings of birds dressed like Indians instead of Indians dressed like birds. One of those sold. It was about a $3,700 painting, first or second year. I can't remember. It kind of boosted my ego a little bit for being in those shows.

Little Thunder: Did you have a title for it? Was it a series, sort of, per se?

Van Deman: I think I just called it The Birds, and it was actually birds dressed 21:00in Native American regalia.

Little Thunder: Right, sounds interesting.

Van Deman: I'd like to see that painting again. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When did you enter your first competitive show?

Van Deman: Probably in 1990. There used to be a show, (and may still be down at McAlester) and the pieces I took there were all Anadarko-style artwork pieces.

Little Thunder: That is to say, you're saying flat style?

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: "Traditional."

Van Deman: On illustration board. I was trying to think of the type. They're not gouache. Well, they're kind of like gouache paints, which is a flat, more like egg tempera, actually. There's a company called Pelikan that made a group of colors called Designer Colors, and that's what I painted with. I probably had, I 22:00don't know, ten or twelve pieces. Sold about half of them.

Little Thunder: Wow!

Van Deman: Of course, I was getting like fifty dollars a painting back then, too. A little different now. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: But still, when you're able to sell flat style, but then you sort of take this chance on going a different direction--

Van Deman: You asked me about workshops. I had a workshop with Doc Tate Nevaquaya. Doc Tate is the one that got me out of that style because he did a demonstration. That one went for three or four days, too, or evenings, and it was at Putnam City. With his demos, when he did them, he would go through everything that you'd need to do. It all had to be real, and it all had to be traditional. I'm going, "I don't know any of that stuff. I just make them up as I go along," and so I got out of it. (Laughter)

I think a lot of those artists like Rance Hood and Doc Tate and Blackbear Bosin 23:00and all those other guys, Acee, really did concentrate on the traditional side of stuff. They knew what went in all the dance regalia, what went on the horses, and what kind of spear he was carrying, and the feathered staff had to be just exactly right. I don't know that stuff. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: They were focused on the cultural content.

Van Deman: Exactly.

Little Thunder: Did you ever do the Eiteljorg [Museum of American Indians and Western Art] show?

Van Deman: No. I have an invitation lying on my desk at home now for it, but I'm not going to do it this year, either. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What about an early award that was important to you?

Van Deman: One year I won Best of Show at the Art Guild show, the main one for the year, and then I've won several awards for Red Earth, one of them on a flute 24:00that I made, which, by the way, was stolen two weeks from Christmas from Red Earth gift shop. It's gone. (Laughs) That was probably, among my flutes, my masterpiece.

Little Thunder: Heartbreaking.

Van Deman: Well, it's like, let's see, D. G. Smalling, we were at a get-together a week or so ago, and he said, "You've reached a plateau when you're an artist and some of your work has been stolen." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's a kind of ironic recognition, isn't it? I think you also had a gallery in Sedona, Goldenstein Gallery?

Van Deman: Yes, Goldenstein. It's probably the best gallery in Sedona, but Sedona is a tourist town and not an art town. People do not buy big paintings 25:00and carry them around. I was there for four years, and we pulled out. I say "we," my partner and I, Doris, my wife.

Little Thunder: What was enjoyable about that show the first time, the first time you went out there?

Van Deman: In Sedona? Being in Sedona. You've been there. It's a beautiful place. Every direction you look is a vista, and being in the best gallery in town, too, was pretty cool. When June Gilliam closed the gallery in the Boulders, she set all of the artists up that were with her in that gallery up in Sedona. We had our choice of about two or three different galleries. She did her homework. Beautiful lady. Anyway, I chose the Goldenstein Gallery, and it just really didn't work out.

Little Thunder: What aspects of the art business did you find especially 26:00challenging when you started full-time?

Van Deman: People turning loose of big money. (Laughs) It's a funny thing, but you can hold a painting for two years, and then all of a sudden somebody will come along and buy it. It's not that people don't like it. It's just it's got to be the right person for the right particular painting. The economy plays a role in whether artwork sells or not, as well, expendable cash or something.

Little Thunder: Right, right, because, for example, in the Sedona Gallery, I know they had the Cowboys and Indians show. Did you notice a difference in the pricing structure between Native art and western art?

Van Deman: Not so much between, say, Sedona and the gallery Es Posible at the Boulders. The pricing was pretty much the same there. Between there and here, the pricing is different. You have to lower the prices here in Oklahoma somewhat.

Little Thunder: What changes have you observed in the Native art landscape since the '90s?

Van Deman: There are more guys doing abstract artwork than there was when I started, and I'm glad. I'm proud of them for pursuing it. Even when I first started, there were a couple of guys (I can't think of their names right offhand) that were major abstract artists, Native American abstract artists. Fritz Scholder, to start off with one, and I believe, Nieto. Nieto?

Little Thunder: John Nieto.

Van Deman: Yes, was doing coyotes and buffalos, yes, in odd colors. I wouldn't call them abstracts, particularly. They're more expressionist works.

Little Thunder: Do you get to interact with some of the other abstract artists these days at shows?

Van Deman: Being an older guy at the show now, yes, the young ones will kind of talk to me some. (Laughter) I kind of like that. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What role does your wife play in the art business?

Van Deman: Supporting me, and she's one of my biggest fans, so that helps. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: It does. It's kind of a lonely business sometimes. When did you first become interested in Native flute?

Van Deman: I don't know when I made the first flute, but I can tell you I've made about 120 of them since I first started. If I can, I'll just reach right 29:00here and grab one?

Little Thunder: You're welcome to.

Van Deman: Okay, this flute is not a copy but a representation of flutes from the Anadarko area in the early 1900s. Now, as I get my flute history from a guy named Doc Payne, who died several years ago, (Doc Payne was a flute collector and a flute expert) is that flutes really in this style don't go back much past 1850. There are some ancient Anasazi flutes, but they're not this type of flute. A guy named Coyote Oldman (his name is Michael Allen) says that he's the first guy that put a pentatonic minor scale to a Native American flute, and he may be. That happened in the early '60s.

Flutes are very basic. Start at one end, (plays flute) five notes, and there's six with an octave. This one is one piece. A lot of flutes are in two pieces where there is a seam, and they're glued. This one is bored from each end and then finished from there. A guy named Belo Cozad from Anadarko is producing a short, big-bore flute similar to this one, and so this flute is kind of styled after his flutes. I don't think the Cozad flute had an actual scale. It had a scale, but it wasn't a western music scale that we're used to hearing. Probably if we heard him play it, it would be a little dissonant.

Little Thunder: That's beautiful wood. What kind of wood is that?

Van Deman: This piece right here is actually from Geary, Oklahoma. It's giant 31:00red cedar.

Little Thunder: Cedar, yes. Were you aware of Woodrow Haney's work with flutes or Doc Tate's work with flutes?

Van Deman: Doc Tate's, yes. Woodrow, not so much.

Little Thunder: Did you and Doc visit a little bit about flutes when you--

Van Deman: Actually, by the time I got to flutes, Doc was gone. I do have some of his CDs and recorded music by he and his sons. I have, actually, a fairly good collection of flute music on CD.

Little Thunder: Wow, that's neat. So when you started making flutes--why don't you take us through the process of making your first one?

Van Deman: I've got the first one. (Laughter) It's right here. This is prototype 001, and it's not in a pentatonic minor scale. (Plays flute) From there, I 32:00actually worked out the pentatonic minor scale for myself, and then I met Doc Payne, Dr. Payne. I can't remember his first name. I think Richard. He said, "That's a pentatonic minor," and I'm going, "Okay?" (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So was it an accidental discovery?

Van Deman: It was. It was accidental in that I was shooting for the way I heard the flutes being played on CD at the time. Who was that first guy? I think it was Nieto, wasn't it?

Little Thunder: Nakai? Are you talking about Carlos Nakai?

Van Deman: Nakai, Carlos Nakai. I wanted my flute to sound like his flute, and 33:00so it was just my ear adapting that scale. I knew nothing about a pentatonic minor scale at the time. I know a lot about it now, but not then. Anyway, just that's the way it developed: me by ear and drilling holes until I got them in the right place.

Little Thunder: Right. So your first flute, which sounds like a Native flute that we're used to hearing, when you learned to play, did you learn to play a number of different songs from the area, or did you sort of start creating your own songs?

Van Deman: You know, I never really thought about those songs being actual songs because they're from the 1850s. I just thought you picked up a flute and played what I call flute licks. (Laughs) You listen to Carlos Nakai, and there's certain things that he does in a song to get the song to start in one place and 34:00end up another. To me they're just kind of flute licks, and so you just string all these flute licks together, and you've got a song.

Little Thunder: So there wasn't anybody you knew, either, in the area that knew about Delaware flute songs or anything?

Van Deman: As far as I know, I'm the only Delaware flute guy there is. I do not know if there are any more flute makers, and I don't think so. Most of the flute players in Oklahoma are, what, Comanches and Kiowas maybe.

Little Thunder: Plains tribes.

Van Deman: Yes, Plains tribe guys.

Little Thunder: So when you developed a pentatonic--

Van Deman: Minor.

Little Thunder: --minor-- (Laughs)

Van Deman: It's a five-note scale. That's why "penta."

Little Thunder: --what kinds of possibilities did that open up?

Van Deman: Well, every flute I've made since I developed the scale has been a pentatonic minor. Almost all flutes--I can't say all flutes because Tommy Ware 35:00from Anadarko is a flute player and he plays a diatonic. That's a chromatic-scale flute. What I can say about that is if you're going to play "Amazing Grace" you need a diatonic flute because it's difficult to play on a pentatonic flute. Tommy plays a lot of "Amazing Grace" at a lot of funerals, so he plays a diatonic flute. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Did you have a music background at all before you started?

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: Oh, you did. Okay.

Van Deman: I started playing trumpet in fourth grade and played all the way through three years of college, so I was well-based in music. Then I got married, and the trumpet went by the wayside, and I picked up guitar. I've been playing guitar for quite a number of years. I ought to be a whole lot better than what I am.

Little Thunder: And making some instruments, too, which I'd like to talk about a 36:00little bit, but first let me ask you, do you ever perform on the flute, or do you just play for yourself? Are you more interested in creating them?

Van Deman: I'm more interested in creating and playing them for myself. On occasion, I have performed with other players, but it always makes me a little nervous. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You've also experimented with some other--they're both artistic creations and instruments. Can you kind of talk about those a bit?

Van Deman: Well, I got into cigar box guitars quite a number of years ago, too. I've made about sixty of those. Recently, I gave one to Kyle Dillingham. Do you know Kyle? He's a well-known Oklahoma fiddle player. He and I see each other on occasion, and I made one for him. I don't know whether it will show up in his 37:00work or not. They play pretty well.

Little Thunder: Yes, because I was wondering, is your primary interest the sound that they have--

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: --or is it sort of the look to them.

Van Deman: Here's how they look, and here's how they sound. (Plays)

Little Thunder: That sounds very nice.

Van Deman: So it's really not a kid toy. I think it sounds--it's got a great sound, and it has possibilities. Most of them are electric. They'll plug right into an amp.

Little Thunder: If you have the same size box, is it pretty much the same sound, or does it really vary?

Van Deman: No, in fact, they vary even if you have the same size box. Every one of them is different. They all sound--

Little Thunder: They all have a unique voice.

Van Deman: Yes, they have a unique voice is a good way to put it.

Little Thunder: How did you get the idea to do that?

Van Deman: I think that I might have picked up off the internet, but at the time 38:00there wasn't much there. Now, these days, there's everything you need to know about a flute, and there's everything you need to know about cigar box instruments on the internet. My latest I don't have here, (I wish I did) is a Taos hand drum that has a banjo neck on it, and it sounds terrific. I wish I had it here to play for you. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That sounds really interesting. Basically when you were experimenting with the flute the first time, you were sort of reinventing the wheel, trying to figure out how to make your first flute. Is that right?

Van Deman: Yes. I bought a flute from a guy named Billy Wells in Edmond, and his flute is sort of in a pentatonic minor scale, but it's off. There are several notes that are quite a bit flat. There's a song in every flute, no matter how 39:00it's tuned. I mean, you could take a hollow tube and get it to blow like a flute and poke holes in it, and you can play a song. I'm not much of a stickler on it being tuned to perfection.

Anyway, Billy Wells built a beautiful flute, and I didn't necessarily copy it. In fact, I didn't copy it at all. I just worked from it, listening to it and Carlos Nakai's CDs, and that's how it came. I forgot about Billy's flute a while ago or I would've mentioned it.

Little Thunder: You had a two-person show at Red Earth in 2011 with Lisa Rutherford, is that right, the potter?

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: How many paintings did you put into the show?

Van Deman: About twelve.

Little Thunder: Were they all new pieces?

Van Deman: They were all new and some that had been around to other shows.

Little Thunder: What are the benefits of being able to do a two-person show like that?

Van Deman: The benefits is I sold one piece and picked up two commissions out of that show, so that was a pretty good deal. We had a very, very nice turnout for the reception. I was real pleased with the Red Earth management and what they did for the show.

Little Thunder: Well, great. How important are commissions to your work? How much of a percentage of your income are commissions?

Van Deman: These days not so much as, say, ten years ago. I've got two that I should be working on right now and will be, starting tomorrow. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Are they from a previous show last year?

Van Deman: Actually, one is a true commission, and the other one is from friends. You know, is a friend really a commission? (Laughter) I don't know how 41:00you can look at that, but it's money.

Little Thunder: Have you taught? You mentioned the one class that you taught for the Guild, but have you taught any other classes or workshops, either in painting or instrument making?

Van Deman: No.

Little Thunder: Any interest?

Van Deman: Actually, being in this studio here, I'm pretty isolated, and I rarely see people or talk to people. I belong to a radio-control flying club in Yukon, and so I see those guys once a week or every two weeks. Other than that, I don't see many people here unless I'm doing a show like Red Earth, which is nonstop talking for three days. It's kind of an interesting existence.

Little Thunder: And you mentioned you'd had this studio here in Bethany for--

Van Deman: Fourteen, fifteen years, yes. I've been here for a long time.

Little Thunder: What project are you working on now that you're especially excited about?

Van Deman: Well, I'm pretty excited about the two commissions and the hand drum banjo. I've got four hoops back there and the rawhide, and I'm going to, instead of using a drum from the Taos Drum Company, I'm going to make my own. I'd like to get the head a little tighter than what's on the Taos drum. That interests me greatly. I'm going to get on those. I hope to have about three of them for the Red Earth show in June.

Little Thunder: That's still your principal booth show.

Van Deman: Now, this is interesting in that Red Earth likes them. I thought the management there would go, "What connection do you Native Americans have with banjos, anyway?" But I get such a positive response from them that they're glad 43:00to have me show them.

Little Thunder: Right, they're unique. Let's talk about your techniques and process a bit. In terms of paintings, you no longer work in oils and watercolors. It's primarily acrylics.

Van Deman: It is 100 percent acrylic, and I use a lot of pure colors. They're all layered many times with thin washes, rather than--well, I do mix a lot of colors on the palette and mix them up in jars ahead of time. I'm kind of guilty of using color straight out of the tube, too, because they're so close to bead colors. A lot of my abstract work is based on bead colors and blanket colors and those blanket combinations of colors like the Kiowa sunburst, which is used a 44:00lot in their necklaces that starts with white, yellow, orange, red, and blue, I think, and those colors both directions. You will find that a lot in my work if you look close enough.

Little Thunder: When you're looking at a blank canvas, rather than approaching it with a composition in mind from the start, you have this repertory of colors that you know are going to come into play some way?

Van Deman: Actually, I start with two colors on a canvas, and that is Raw Sienna and Prussian Blue in the Liquitex color. Those two, when you mix them together, can go all the way from a cool color to a warm color. Using them really thin, you get all the way from brown through green to blue. Those go up on the canvas 45:00with a wide brush, and we just kind of wash it up there, paying attention to the golden mean.

If I remember this correctly, there's four points on your canvas where you want your center of composition to be, so I work around one of those four points and just keep the color coming up until I go, "Aha, it needs this here, and needs that there." Actually, it's a feedback from the canvas telling me what it needs. That's about the best I can do with that. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Do you work straight through, or do you like to let canvases sit in various stages?

Van Deman: Since I'm working, I'll get it going, and I can get a canvas pretty well done in about three hours, but then it might take two or three weeks to finish it because of the thin overlays or thin washes. If you put a thin wash 46:00on, you can't go back in, say, ten or fifteen minutes on top of it or the water will rewet it and open it up. It has to sit for a day or two, and then you can go back and work on top of it. Sometimes they stretch out for weeks until I get them to where I like them.

Little Thunder: Do you give titles to your paintings?

Van Deman: Funny thing about titles, (Laughs) they'll get a title, and then they'll go to a show, and I'll forget what the title was, so they get renamed for the next show unless I've got it written on the back. Sometimes I do. Titles are kind of important, and I've gone through everything from titling it to what it looks like to titling it to what it doesn't look like. I had two paintings, one of them named Not Sedona and one of them named Not Santa Fe. I'll title them 47:00for what they're not. (Laughs) Then I went into cyber titles with dots for a while, and now I'm back to maybe opening a dictionary, pointing a finger, and saying, "Aha!" I've done that for titles. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Why are titles important?

Van Deman: I've often wondered that. You see a lot of paintings untitled. I don't like that either. I think it should have some title, and maybe it should relate to the painting or not. Maybe it shouldn't be obverse to the painting.

Little Thunder: Is it more an expectation that both the artist has and viewer has?

Van Deman: It's more of an expectation of a client or a viewer that a painting should have a name. Well, you go in museums, and all paintings are named even if it is Untitled One.

Little Thunder: As an abstract artist or even when you're approaching something 48:00impressionistically, what role then does sketching play in your work?

Van Deman: Actually, the wash is the sketch. I used to do a lot of sketching in books. I still do that occasionally, but only if I have a character or something in mind that's going to go on canvas. Otherwise, the wash is the sketch.

Little Thunder: So, for example, I saw a few nice crow paintings in here, so those would be a sketch in a book first?

Van Deman: This one back here was very specific and went through several sketches until I got the crow looking like an actual crow.

Little Thunder: Do you keep a notebook of ideas or titles?

Van Deman: I did. Not much anymore. You reach a certain point where you kind of know what's going to happen. There are some watercolor artists. Ken Watson was one, and--I can't think of his name. Anyway, they'll prep their paper, and those 49:00guys know exactly what's going to happen when they touch the brush to the paper. In forty-five minutes they have a finished piece because they knew from the very beginning what it was going to be. That doesn't necessarily happen with me. (Laughs)

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

Van Deman: In the beginning I did a lot of research on the Delaware tribe and the various aspects of it since they came to Oklahoma and before. I do some abstracts that are just kind of mainstream abstracts, but then I also do a series usually for Red Earth that will be based on spirituality. There'll be 50:00spirit characters floating through the abstract somewhere if you look close enough. I'm kind of fascinated with a character called Mesingw. With the Delawares he was, I should say it was an animal spirit. Like this guy back here could be a mesingw of a crow.

Little Thunder: So you've been exploring that theme a little bit?

Van Deman: Yes, pretty much, even in writing. I've been doing some writing, so the characters show up in my stories.

Little Thunder: That's interesting. How did you come up with your signature?

Van Deman: That's funny because our instructors in college had us work on signatures. I have two. I have one that's script, and I have one that goes on 51:00the paintings.

Little Thunder: When you say script, that's just--

Van Deman: Like signing my check.

Little Thunder: Oh, I see. Okay. But, yes, it's an art, sort of.

Van Deman: Yes, well, when you have a name like Van Deman, it kind of opens up some possibilities, too. (Laughter) With a capital V and a capital D, with the letters in between, it works out. I think it's a decent looking signature.

Little Thunder: I do, too. In terms of your creative production, how much is focused on painting and how much is focused on producing instruments?

Van Deman: Lately, it's been mostly instruments and less painting because my interest kind of isn't there right now. With the commissions and--oh, and I've 52:00been contacted by a designer back in the Boulders again in Arizona, so painting may take precedence again. That'd be kind of nice if it did, but I really enjoy making the banjos right now. The drum banjo's my new baby, (Laughs) and I have to make more flutes, too. I stay busy.

Little Thunder: You don't have time to try your hand at sculpture or anything then?

Van Deman: Sculpture with me--I like sculpture, and I can do sculpture, and I had a lot of classes in sculpture, but it's a way not to paint. (Laughs) I could work six hours on a sculpture, and I'm not going to do anything with it when I could've been working six hours on a painting that I know is going to go in a show or be sold. That's kind of the way I look at it.

Little Thunder: Are you still involved with the Art Guild?

Van Deman: No, I've been out of the Art Guild for a number of years. No reason 53:00why. I just kind of drifted away.

Little Thunder: You do go visit your mom in Anadarko once a week, isn't it?

Van Deman: Yes, once a week. My mother's ninety, and she says she's the oldest living Delaware. I don't doubt it. She probably is. There was a ninety-three- or ninety-four-year-old in California, but she died not too long ago. If she's not the oldest Delaware, then she's right next to the oldest Delaware.

Little Thunder: So does making that trip, landscape-wise, does that sort of keep you grounded, too?

Van Deman: I actually enjoy driving that. It's right through a territory I grew up in, right across H. E. Bailey, through Chickasha, from Chickasha to Verden, Verden to Anadarko. It's kind of interesting territory there, a lot of history, and I like it. (Laughs) I like Anadarko. It's a pretty cool town.

Little Thunder: Take us through your creative process, if you would, from the time that you first get an idea for something.

Van Deman: Okay, that could be an idea for a banjo, an idea for a flute, an idea for a story, or an idea for a painting, and they all just seem to pop into my head. It's hard to say about that. I think that's part of being an artist. I don't know. I know that not everybody can do it that way.

Little Thunder: Switching back and forth from media, is it just whatever grabs you on that particular day, sort of?

Van Deman: Well, with the banjos, they're pretty much--it's kind of a linear thing. You start at one end, and you end up another and with all these boxes in between. These boxes, themselves, kind of dictate what happens to a banjo.

With the flutes, I settled on a style, which I'm going to back off on. I really 55:00like the big-bore flutes, but they're really difficult to make and difficult to tune. I'm going to go back to a smaller-bore flute, which is what you hear on the CDs. Carlos Nakai plays with probably a seven-eighths-inch F flute, and those are the most popular. That's probably what I'm going to be making again.

The flute that was in the Red Earth Museum that got stolen was an oval flute. I like the oval flutes, too, and so I'll probably go back to making some of those. Rather than being round, they're kind of that shape.

Little Thunder: I meant to ask you, too. Do you order your cigar boxes, or do you find them?

Van Deman: There are two cigar box stores in Oklahoma City. The last raid I made on them I got about 120 boxes, so I'm good for a while. (Laughter) They're a dollar apiece.

Little Thunder: You don't have to take the cigars. You can just buy the boxes.

Van Deman: Right. I'm not a smoker, never have been. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So what's your creative routine?

Van Deman: Creative routine on paintings is to not have anything in mind, especially if it's an abstract. If it's a spirit painting, the spirits'll happen after I get the painting established. On the other things, it just kind of depends on the box or the wood.

Little Thunder: Do you come into the studio every day?

Van Deman: I'm here every day.

Little Thunder: Certain set hours?

Van Deman: Nope. (Laughter) It drives my friends crazy when they try to visit me here because my hours are inconsistent. I usually don't get in until about ten thirty, and I'll stay until five thirty. Currently, I've been working on writing some stories, so I spend about a couple hours a day writing, and then the rest 57:00of the time I'm working on either instruments or painting. Oh, I also work on my guitar. I manage to get at least twenty minutes to an hour practice on guitar every day, too.

Little Thunder: Wow! (Laughs) Renaissance man! With your writing have you published any stories?

Van Deman: I have not published anything. I send copies out to friends on e-mail, and they feed back to me whether the stories are coherent or parts they don't understand and that sort of thing. When I was working for the graphic arts manufacturing company, I wrote our manuals. I got into technical writing then, so I had kind of a basis in writing and carried it over into fantasy short stories.

I had one that 165 pages later was no longer a short story, and it's still 58:00going. (Laughter) So evidently it's a novel. I don't know what's going to happen to it. I have one that is kind of interesting and could possibly make a stage play in that it's based on a blues player from Binger in 1930 who lives next to an Indian dance ground that's still there. There's a blend of blues and powwow music, and a Mesingw character shows up in the middle of it. It's kind of an interesting thing, I think.

Little Thunder: It does. It sounds really interesting. I look forward to hopefully seeing those in print at some point. So looking back at your career from the time you entered art full-time, what do you think was kind of a turning point or fork-in-the-road moment for you?

Van Deman: Probably when I resigned from the graphic arts company and tried a 59:00few things unsuccessfully and decided that if I was ever going to do art as an artist, it was time to do it and start it. That was in '90. Being sixty-nine years old now, I think the decision was a pretty good one. On wishing, I wish I maybe had started earlier, but you know the way life works out, it probably worked out the way it had to work out.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the highlights of your career so far?

Van Deman: Being married to Delores, having a son and two granddaughters, and having an art career that was, at the very least, semi-successful. I didn't 60:00achieve the status that I would have liked, but it's been pretty good. I've had a good life all around, anyway. Growing up in Anadarko in the '50s was something, too. Every time we have a reunion, we talk about that. It was a pretty cool place.

Little Thunder: And there's more of your career to come, hopefully, too.

Van Deman: Hopefully.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the low points for you?

Van Deman: I don't know that there are any low points. I've had some health issues that haven't made me real happy, but that's one of the hazards of getting older, too, except for the emergency appendectomy. That had nothing to do with age. It's just one of those things that happened, and the reason I'm sitting here talking to you now is I had a brilliant surgeon that saved my life. That was both a low point and a high point. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Yes, a blessing to come through that. Is there anything you'd 61:00like to add or we've forgotten to mention before we take a look at your work?

Van Deman: You've covered it well.

Little Thunder: Okay, let's take a look at some paintings and hear some more about them. All right, so we're looking at one of your abstracts. Do you want to tell us a little bit about this piece?

Van Deman: It features the spirit sticks, and they have present the Kiowa sunburst I was talking about a while ago, the color combinations in each one. They just represent spirit characters flowing up through the painting. I have no idea what the title of this one is. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's really a nice one, though. Again, starting with the two colors that you mentioned, every time you start an abstract.

Van Deman: Yes. In fact, some of the background is in this painting. This is a Prussian Blue through the Raw Sienna, pure color I was talking about right 62:00there, and then it fills in from there.

Little Thunder: All right, great.

Van Deman: Okay, this one's called Kachina. Delawares have absolutely nothing to do with kachinas, but I like them anyway. This one also features the spirit sticks. The spirit sticks are based on story sticks, and they do have to do with Delaware history. Story sticks are a bundle of sticks that the storyteller can pick up and read like a book because of symbols or colors or markings along the stick that he put there so he could get the story in order while telling it. These really kind of are a spin-off of those.

Little Thunder: So those are kind of present in a lot of your work, then?

Van Deman: Oh, yes, they're present in a great deal of my work. They don't always look the same, but they're there.

Little Thunder: They'll be there.

Van Deman: Yes.

Little Thunder: Okay, and then do you want to do a crow or would you rather do a different picture?

Van Deman: You want to do a crow, this one?

Little Thunder: Sure, just kind of a nice contrast.

Van Deman: This one has a feather bundle inside. See, down at the bottom?

Little Thunder: Oh, yes. Oh my goodness!

Van Deman: Okay, this is a crow. It's not a raven. It's a crow. I'm a firm believer in totem animals, and this one's mine. Everywhere I've been--I used to travel a lot, even in Germany. I was in Germany one year, and there were six crows in a tree outside my hotel room, and in New York City I was running into crows. Crows follow me around. This, I would call probably an expressionist painting. The ever-present spirit sticks represent the crow in spirit form.

Little Thunder: That's a nice one. I like that. I forgot if you told me the title or not.

Van Deman: It's called The Crow.

Little Thunder: The Crow, okay. (Laughs)

Van Deman: If it needs a title.

Little Thunder: All right, well, thank you so much for your time today, Jim.

Van Deman: Thanks for doing this.

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