Oral history interview with Jereldine Redcorn

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Thursday, January 23, 2013, and I'm interviewing Jereldine Redcorn as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Jeri and Charles' home in Norman. Jeri, you're Potawatomi and Caddo. You spent much of your life as an educator, but in 1991 you started making Caddo pottery. Since then, you've been a Rockefeller fellow, a community scholar with the Smithsonian, and one of your pots was chosen by First Lady Michelle Obama to reside in the White House. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

Redcorn: You're welcome. Happy to do it.

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

Redcorn: I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Indian hospital. I grew up mostly in Colony, Oklahoma, on Caddo land, my grandmother's allotment, a 1:00farm. That's what we did. My father was a farmer, and so we helped with the farming and the animals.

Little Thunder: So you were close to your--is this your mom's?

Redcorn: This is my father's allotment. He's Caddo. When we were young and we were working in the fields, like chopping cotton or pulling cotton, we would find a lot of arrowheads and a lot of artifacts and pieces of pottery. Some were pretty big, so we just kind of wondered, "Wow, these things are pretty old, and we're seeing them," beyond that, not really thinking about pottery.

Little Thunder: Right, that's amazing. What was your relationship with your grandparents on your dad's side?

Redcorn: I didn't know them. They had passed away before I was born, so I did not know them. That's, to me, a real loss because I can see my grandson growing up and absolutely loving it, and I hope he realizes how great it is for him to know Charles and myself. Little Thunder: How about on your mom's side? Did you have grandparents on that side?

Redcorn: I did. My grandfather passed away before I was born, I think sometime in the 1930s, and my grandmother lived away from us. She lived in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, so I didn't see her except on very rare occasions. Usually a funeral or sometimes we would visit, but not that often because it was about 200 miles away. That was before interstate, so it was a long trip, and with eight children 3:00in a car that you hoped didn't break down, it was really an undertaking.

Little Thunder: So you're growing up on a farm. What are your first memories of seeing art? Maybe it was early.

Redcorn: You know, it probably was because we would find stones that had been used, (we'd find grinding stones) but on the pottery, you could see appliques, and you would see different marks. Basically I think, except for songs, dances, art was in clothing. Art was in the dances that we went to and in the shawls 4:00that we'd see and the beadwork.

I have an aunt; she's a Cheyenne. I would go to her house, and I watch her bead. The things she turned out, the purses, the moccasins, all the other artifacts, articles that she was making was what I saw. To me, that was art. Since we were such a small school, we didn't really have the opportunity--there wasn't a museum in town. We didn't really, you know, take trips except for sometimes we'd go to the state capitol and we'd go to the historical museum and see the murals by the Kiowa Five and others like Archie Blackowl and [Monroe] Tsatoke. In that, 5:00I thought they were just amazing to me because I knew some of them. They were rather old, you know, and I guess I'm older now and I can think about how old I thought these people were. They were doing these things in the ʼ30s, so most of them were still all alive when I was, I guess, in high school.

Little Thunder: Where did you encounter some of the older artists whose work you--.

Redcorn: Well, my father went to school, St. Patrick's Catholic [Mission] School in Anadarko. He was good friends with--trying to think of his name now, 6:00Vanessa's grandfather. Can't remember. They were very good friends, so he would invite us to a lot of their dances. At that time, I really didn't know that what he was doing was significant. He didn't actually show his paintings or anything like that to us. Every once in a while, he would have a dance at his place, really, I guess, at Fort Cobb. That was always interesting. Then the Tsatokes were from Carnegie. Colony and Carnegie were very close together, maybe fifteen miles apart. I knew a lot of the children of the Kiowa artists but not really thinking about them as artists.

I don't think I really had an exposure to art other than nature and the beadwork and shawls and buckskin dresses or dush-tohs, so that was my artistic world. I wasn't exposed exactly to, I would say, the art of opera or anything like that, but we'd listen on radio and had our favorites. One of the things that I thought was really cool was learning Caddo dances. I didn't learn the songs until much later, but when I was young they were really a lot of fun.

Little Thunder: So you were able to travel down that way and participate in the dances your dad did each summer.

Redcorn: Well, yes, every summer. Our allotment was a Caddo allotment, but it was on the edge of the Cheyenne Arapaho reservation in Colony. On that reservation, there were, I assume, WPA houses and barns. They were pine on the inside, knotty pine on the inside, with wooden roofs, shake roofs. The barns were really big. The thing about it is, is that we fit in because Caddos were farmers. I mean, we fit in with that scene, but the Cheyennes did not. Farming was something, I think, that they put aside when they found the plains and buffalo.

We had cows, and we had pigs. For a time, we lived in a couple of those houses 9:00that were on the reservation. The reason was my father had come home from the war in 1944, and when he was discharged from the Army, World War II, when he came home, our family house had been rented to somebody else. For a year there, we kept our contract with them, and we lived in some of the Indian houses, some of the Cheyenne houses and Arapaho houses, that they had put on the reservation.

It is kind of interesting because our neighbors were Cheyennes or Arapaho. Just north of us was Ike Rhodes, and he was a Cheyenne. He sang around the drum. He 10:00was one of our singers. I say "our" singers, but anyway, one of the singers that Colony produced. Then just beyond that was the Manns, Henrietta Mann, who married a white man. Her name was Henrietta Whiteman, later. I knew her when she was a young girl. We went to school with the Cheyenne and Arapahos, and because we did, a lot of the customs--I know that the Cheyennes had buckskin dresses, whereas the Caddos wore different clothes, and their songs were different.

Every Saturday night in the wintertime, we would gather at the Cheyenne Arapaho community building. It was a really nice building with a potbellied stove. The 11:00men would get there and start the fire early. Then the singers would come and warm the drum. Generally we had two singers, Ike Rhodes and an Arapaho. If I remember his name I will get it. (Laughter) Jasper Reynolds, that's it. He was one of our neighbors, too, on the reservation. They were spaced about maybe an eighth of a mile apart, each one having a barn and a pump.

I just thought all reservations were like that. I found out later, not everyone had those houses. I think it was interesting. There was a boarding school there out on the reservation. It was called Seger Indian School. They basically called 12:00the town Seger Colony and later changed to Colony. That's where I went to school, but that's where my father went to boarding school. There were a few Caddos that went there but mostly Arapaho and some Cheyennes. I think many of the Cheyennes went to Concho. Later on, the Cheyenne Arapaho tribes let the town use that as their school.

I assume they rented the buildings. It was two stories, and then it had a very spacious attic. I just thought all schools were like that. It was really cool. I thought it was. Most of the kids there that I went to school with--I started 13:00first grade there. We moved there when I was four years old. We moved from Mesilla Park, which was close to Fort Bliss. That's where my father was stationed, so we moved to Mesilla Park to be near him, and then we moved to Colony. That was when I was about four years old, so I started school there, and I finished school there. Basically, I guess, that's my hometown.

We were about thirteen miles away from where most of the Caddos were, which is in Binger, so we went to dances in Binger, Caddo dances, which were different, very, very different. Then we'd go to Carnegie to go to their dances, and then 14:00we'd have dances at Colony, Colony Powwow. We'd go to Weatherford or Clinton for other dances, so I knew a lot of different tribes. I knew their customs, how they did things different, you know.

I didn't know too many Comanches, but my father did because he had gone to Haskell Indian School way back in the '20s. He knew some of the Comanches, and we would see them at the Anadarko fair every year. I'm saying that because my view of the world was of a lot of tribes with different customs. Of course, what I loved best were the Caddo dances. They were not done generally during the 15:00evening. It was just like all-night dancing, all night dancing and singing. Whereas, like if you go to Carnegie, the dance would be over at ten, eleven, and people would go home, but the Caddo people, they just danced all night.

Little Thunder: Those are wonderful influences. What is your first memory of making art?

Redcorn: My first memory of making art was at school. I would never have art, but one of our teachers was an artist and an art teacher, so for maybe about 16:00three years, there was art at Colony. I think I was a freshman, and they just combined all the grades. We weren't a big school. I'm sure there were fifty or sixty in the whole high school, (Laughter) so it was pretty small.

I had this opportunity to learn to draw and to learn lettering, make posters. I tried pretty hard, but I could just could see, I felt like I didn't have the talent. What's interesting about this is the Cheyenne Arapaho Indians who went to school there, they loved that class, probably as much as they disliked all the other parts of it and all of the other discipline parts of it. They loved 17:00that class, and they loved the art teacher. That was like the first time I saw those young boys really relate to a teacher or someone who was not Indian.

I think the first white person I ever really knew was my first grade teacher. It was interesting. As much as I can talk now, I wasn't that way. I know there was just something that I just didn't relate to them, although I liked her. I liked my first grade teacher, but at the same time I would see some other kids who 18:00were just comfortable at talking to them. It was just like, "This is different." (Laughter) That really was the first time I ever connected with art. I was good in math. I was good in math and English, so I majored in math in college, and I minored in English. Those two things, I think, fit very well into art, but I didn't take an art course. I wish I would have now. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I'm glad you said that because I do have a question about the fit. That's wonderful and unusual, number one, to be majoring in math, to have a mathematical and to be good at it and be encouraged. I was wondering how you got 19:00to Wayland University. Is that where you went to college?

Redcorn: I went to college at Wayland. I was just talking about this the other night at our language class, Caddo language. I was valedictorian of our class. There was not any teacher or the superintendent or principal who said, "Jeri, I believe you should go to college. I'll look for a scholarship for you." It was just assumed that it was not for Indians. Otherwise, why would they not have encouraged someone who was, I think, as bright as myself, you know? (Laughter)

The way I got to go was, there was a preacher. His name was Steven Gover, and he's Pawnee. He was in Weatherford, and every once in a while he would come to 20:00our church. He invited me to go with him to Falls Creek, and I spent a week down there. That was a lot of fun. Before I graduated, he came to me and said, "I think you could get a basketball scholarship."

At that time, I had never heard of Wayland College, (Wayland Baptist College is what it was then) but he did know. He said, "I'm going to take you down. They're having basketball tryouts. It's at Plainview, Texas." So he drove me down there, and I stayed in the dorm, and I tried out. I received an academic scholarship, and then later I received a basketball, I guess, work-study program. I was the 21:00secretary to the coach, and he didn't really have anything for me to do. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: (Laughter) So he didn't really play you that much.

Redcorn: No, no he didn't, so I would study, and I would do things. At that time, there were only two colleges in the United States that had women's basketball teams. One was Wayland Baptist University, and the other one was Iowa State. Nashville Business College had one, but theirs was more like a club team in that when you graduated, if you were working for them, you could play. I know it probably sounds--OU didn't have a women's team. Moore didn't have one. 22:00Anadarko didn't. Pawhuska didn't. Tulsa--all of the big schools, but the little ones had basketball.

I really truly enjoyed playing basketball and then getting the opportunity to actually go to college. So, really, that's how I did it because my parents really didn't know how--I think they went to the education director in Anadarko agency and said, "Do you have any scholarships for my daughter who is the valedictorian?" And he would say, "No, we didn't." I found out later that they did, but they would push them to--anyway, although I didn't know about it, that 23:00was my first knowledge of like, favoritism. (Laughs) They don't do that now.

I didn't get a BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] scholarship until I was married. Then later they changed the programs, and so more people had knowledge of these programs. Then my oldest sister was valedictorian. They didn't have any money for her. She did go to Haskell and got a really good education there. My next sister, the second oldest, was valedictorian, and they had no money for her. My third sister, the same thing, and for me, they had no money. I was fortunate, I guess, that Steven Gover took an interest in me. Otherwise, I probably would not 24:00have gone on to get a degree, but I would have gone to secretary school.

Little Thunder: And we needed you in Indian education. (Laughter) What did you do when you got out of school? Did you meet your husband at that point?

Redcorn: I did. I went to the University of Oklahoma. I got a scholarship for math, but when I got there I really didn't have the interest. I really wanted to write, or I was interested in English, and so I switched over to English. I did meet Charles. I think we met at OU, and he was not going to OU at that time. He was taking, I guess, a semester off. He had already gone, I think, the year before or two years before. I met his sister. We were roommates, so she 25:00introduced me to him. We started going out, and then we got married.

Little Thunder: Still not really taking any art classes or anything.

Redcorn: Still not taking any art classes at all. But you know what? Charles' brother Jim Redcorn was a good artist. That's when I started noticing art or thinking about it. He would talk about colors, or he would talk subject matter. I'd watch him sketch and see how he developed things. He had a passion for art.

My daughter, she was a graphic artist, and she would say, "You can work at being 26:00better." That's what she would say. "You need to take care, and you need to do it just like you would do a garden and study and all these things." But I do think there's talent in there and passion that comes naturally. I would watch my grandson draw, and he was drawing at three and four and five. He drew a lot of, like, Spider-Man or comics, then he would develop his style through it. He was just young. One day I said, "How do you draw this?" And he said, "I'm careful." (Laughter) He said, "I'm careful."

Then if he made a mistake or if he thought, he would look at what he was doing, 27:00and he would erase it. I thought, "That's what I didn't have," was the patience to be careful and then to enjoy the patience without getting upset with what you're doing. I know I've seen some movies where you would see artists throw something across the room. I doubt it, you know, because why would they throw paint? It costs a lot. Or why tear up a canvas, because that costs a lot. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When did you decide to go on to graduate school?

Redcorn: I was teaching math at Riverside Indian School in Anadarko. There was a program to go to Penn State, basically sponsored by the Bureau of Indian 28:00Affairs, and so both Charles and I applied to go. I was working at the time, so it was fairly easy because I was able to just continue receiving my pay, and we went to Penn State. That was really a great experience because it was about administrative education, but in college, there was not Indian studies at that time. What I learned about Indian history was like, "Yes, there were the Indians," you know, that chapter on Indians. "They were in the way of progress, so basically they were put on reservations, and they really wanted it because we 29:00were actually doing them a favor because now they can go to school and they can become farmers," and etcetera, etcetera.

You never really got history, the real history, so when we went to Penn State, we were education in the form of what was happening on reservations, what was happening across the nation in education. What are some things that we could change? What are the actual legal aspects of education? I think that was one of our courses, the legal aspects of education.

When I graduated from Wayland, I was contacted by a group that had set up an 30:00American Indian workshop in Boulder, Colorado. I was there for six weeks with other, I think there were thirty Indians, and we stayed in, I guess it was a fraternity house that was rented. The girls stayed on the second floor and the men on the third. We had the living area in the bottom and the dining area in the basement. It was a pretty neat setup.

But learning, being taught history and anthropology, and learning about the legal things that were happening across the nation, we had some people from the National Congress of the American Indian come and give speeches. I think that was part of opening everybody's eyes to the fact that there is the history, and 31:00there were treaties, and there were good things about Indian education that would be good for everybody and not just Indian students.

Little Thunder: It all comes into play throughout your life, doesn't it? (Laughter) You went on and taught geometry, I guess, in the Oklahoma public schools for a while.

Redcorn: I did, yes.

Little Thunder: I'm wondering, I know we haven't gotten to your pottery yet, but does anything from your math background work into your work with clay?

Redcorn: It does. It's very helpful to know about angles or know proportions and 32:00things like that. That is very helpful. I think getting over the fear of art, the fear of drawing, that was major. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When did you get involved with the Caddo Culture Club? Are you and your husband living in Oklahoma City at this point?

Redcorn: Yes, we were. It was probably 1990, maybe '91, I think. I'm trying--yes, that's what it was, about 1990, I think. There was a man here in Norman and there was another man in Oklahoma City that said, "They're doing 33:00these classes down in Binger, and they're practicing the dances." His name was Phil Newcomit, here. His wife was Caddo, but he was so interested in--he was probably more Caddo than most Caddos because he knew the dances and the language and the customs. When he went down there, I would ride down there with him, and it was really interesting. They had a Caddo dance once, and it was over about ten o'clock. They said, "Why is the dance over?" It was because the only singer who knew the songs was ill and he had to leave. They said, "You know, this has got to change." (Laughs) That was Wimpy Edmonds and then his brother Randlett 34:00who knew the songs. There were, I think, a few more people, Fred Parton.

People had moved away, like Randlett lived at Lawrence, Kansas, because he had a job with Haskell Indian School, before it was Haskell University, so he didn't get back that much. He actually went to a lot of powwows in Lawrence or over at Mayetta where the Potawatomi reservation was or with the Kickapoos. Living up there, he didn't have a chance to sing with other Caddos.

That's when I became involved. In 1991, I believe, the Texas Archaeological 35:00Society was holding their, I guess they call it their archaeological dig or archaeological project, and they were holding it on the Red River on the Texas side. There were no places for them to stay, so they crossed the Red River and stayed at the Holiday Inn, I think, in Idabel.

They invited us to Idabel, the Culture Club, to dance and sing. We went down there, and while we were there, we went to the [Museum of the Red River]. There had been a fabulous collection of Caddo pottery by several people, but most of 36:00all by the owners of the Red River Museum. They let us go in the back and look at them, and it was just astonishing. I was thinking, "I can't believe I'm seeing this, and I can't believe that I did not know about this." It was kind of like a connection to my history to realize that Caddos were there in Idabel (they were on the other side) and that along where Idabel is, along the Red River, both sides, there were little towns, Caddo towns all up and down the bend there.

Their amazing, prolific, and talented abilities in clay, just amazing, it 37:00sparked something in me. I think first you can say, "Why wasn't I taught about this?" But none of us had. There was a man in his eighties, I think late eighties, and he was just thinking, "You know, I didn't know this." Even though I had kind of an inkling of history like from the workshop, and I had read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and all of these things, it was kind of actually pan-Indians. You know?

Yet, when we went to Idabel, we started out with the Turkey Dance, and we sang the Drum Dance, then we did the Fish Dance. These were things that Randlett 38:00Edmonds and Wimpy Edmonds and the other singers--I would say there were less than ten singers at that point that gathered. When you go to powwows, they weren't singing Caddo songs any more than they were Creek Stomp Dances or all the other neat songs. So we were dancing, and I think the next day this one man, (his name was Dr. Jim Corbin from Stephen F. Austin [State] University) he gave a ceramics lesson. He had clay, and each of us got a little bit of clay, and he showed us how to mold it.

Little Thunder: Was the ceramics lesson for anybody attending the conference, 39:00right? It wasn't targeted for Caddo people?

Redcorn: It was targeted for Caddo people.

Little Thunder: Oh!

Redcorn: The other archaeologists weren't there, except the ones who were interested. Well, I guess all of them, all of the archaeologists were interested in Caddo life, pottery, customs, artifacts, but Jim Corbin had been studying old ceramics traditions. He had some of his pots there, and after we started working on this, he showed us a firing, and it was just right on the ground. It was a little bit rainy, and some of them popped and broke. He said, "You know, usually this doesn't happen," but it had to be the wet weather. It had to be other conditions. So what I did, I took that knowledge, which wasn't much--

Little Thunder: And it was your first experience working really with clay, wasn't it?

Redcorn: It was the first experience, except when we were making clay dolls on our creek on our farm, but that was my first experience. That's not what I did because what I was doing at that time in '91, '92, I was trying to get a Caddo newspaper started, an independent one, focusing on information. I kind of thought we could sell ads, and other people would take up writing, but you know what? Things don't happen that way. (Laughter) I did have a couple of people who helped me mail, do the mailing, and that was really important because we had to find the addresses. I'm surprised they even let us have them then.

But then, there was nothing going on. I think there was bingo at the Wichita 41:00Caddo Delaware Reservation, WCD Reservation, in Anadarko. That's where the Riverside Indian School was, so when we started the paper, we sold them an ad. We did this, and I think we sold two or three ads, and it paid for it. (Laughter) But that's what I was doing. I wasn't doing clay until late 1994. I had gone through some things, and I was trying to get my life back, and was I going to go back to teaching? I thought, "While I'm doing this, I can at least encourage other women to work with clay," so I started making pots.

Little Thunder: In association, kind of, with the Culture Club?

Redcorn: Well, just me. My idea was that I would get all these people to join in. (Laughter) I started it, and I thought, "Well, I'm learning a little bit more, and I'm learning a little bit more." I didn't realize there were resources out there. I didn't realize the University of Oklahoma had a major collection and that they had books that you could actually look--

Little Thunder: Of Caddo pottery?

Redcorn: Of Caddo pottery, or, you know, the Red River Museum. I was really just kind of like doing it, just trying to learn about it. I didn't know what clay. In fact, I was just using any clay. In fact, I think there was someone at--oh, 43:00I'm trying to think where I got this clay. They said "Oh, it's just all the clay thrown together." (Laughter) That's what I was using. "We don't use this clay. It's kind of extra." They just mixed it up, and it was for teaching or something like that.

What I did was, I invited Dr. Don Wyckoff--that was before the new Seminole Museum was built. His office was on North Base [Avenue], kind of where the YMCA is now. They were collections--it was horrible where they had the collections, but he invited me over, and we looked at them. I took pictures. Then you didn't 44:00have instant pictures, either. You took a picture, you sent it off, and someone developed it. (Laughter) The computers weren't there where you could go online and see things. I didn't have books or anything like that.

Lois Albert was his assistant. They were very helpful in sharing that. I invited them over for lunch and said, "Look what I've done." Don said, "You need to go to Caddo Conference and show this. It's going to be next month, and it is in Austin." Caddo Conference was not for Caddos, I mean, okay, not that we weren't 45:00welcome. It was not for Caddos. It was for archaeologists who study Caddos. I think it's going to be, like, it's coming up soon. It's been over fifty years since that started.

When I went down there, I set up my table, which was just a table, ten by four, something like that. All of the universities that now owned Caddo homeland, which is, I call it the four-state area, it was Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, down in Idabel, down into Texas, down in Louisiana in the swamps, and 46:00over to Arkansas. When I began setting up, they were holding it in Austin this year, and it rotates from state to state, like Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana. Each state will host the Caddo Conference. This year, Oklahoma's hosting it. It's going to be at Gilcrease [Museum] next month. (Laughs) When I set up, the archaeologists would come by, and they were just fascinated with what I was doing, and as crude as it was at that point, and they were buying.

I had a table next to Hester Davis. She was the state archaeologist, Dr. Hester Davis of Arkansas. At that time, Dr. Wyckoff was the state archaeologist for Oklahoma. I got to know all these state archaeologists well, and they're my 47:00friends now. When the Caddo would go by, Caddo people--we were there dancing. They invited us down, and I took my things so I could dance. They just kind of bypassed it because it wasn't important at that point. Later on, I think it's become very important. I think at that time, there were no NAGPRA, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. I don't believe there was that.

That really, really gave me heart. When I came back here, there were two ladies who asked me to show them how to make pottery because they had gone down there, so I did. We were right here in my kitchen on this counter and my table, and I'm 48:00showing them how to make pottery the way Jim Corbin had been doing it. At that time, I didn't realize there were other things like temper, like shell temper and bone and this. I didn't know all of the intricacies. We were using clay that Jim Corbin had used. In fact, I think he gave me some of the clay.

Other people would call me up, and they said, "Well, why can't we come?" I wasn't charging anything. (Laughter) I said, "Well, you can," so the next week, there were more. There were probably about fifteen women here, right in this little area. The men were in the living room watching. They were all so hungry for something Caddo, (Laughter) so we moved it. One of the women's sons had a 49:00warehouse that he wasn't using, and it had tables, and so we moved there. That was really a lot of fun. I think someone even taped it.

Little Thunder: So you were still learning, yourself...

Redcorn: I was learning.

Little Thunder: --but the ripple effect was spreading, and they were learning, too, in the beginning.

Redcorn: They were learning. I kind of think it's like a mission, like I was telling you, if you have the passion. People have the passion, but there's the will, too. There is that, "All the mistakes," and "What am I doing?" The other thing is that I was thinking about, in that time period, of going back to teaching, which I did. I was just so interested in this, and I thought, "Well, I 50:00can do it on the weekends," but I found out I couldn't. There's an energy that you need, and then there's also the time when you are making--you're being peaceful, or you're gathering yourself to get ready to do something. I think you need that time, that down time. It's kind of precious when you think about it.

Little Thunder: Did you and Charles both discuss, "I think I'm not going to go back to teaching. I'm going to do this. Let's see if we can do this."?

Redcorn: Yes, we did, but I ended up going back to teaching. I had formerly taught here in Norman Public Schools, Whittier [Middle School]. I think I taught 51:00there a couple of years, and then I actually got involved with the tribal council and helping out. I thought, "I can't do that." Charles was working at the Indian Affairs Commission in Oklahoma City. It was good that I would be able to stop and do something.

Then, in that period of time in the ʼ80s I think I taught at Whittier, and then I was a director at Red Earth for two years, and then I started this, doing more with the Culture Club. I certainly was not in any way or fashion the leader. I was just like, they'd tell me what to do, and I hoped I could do it. (Laughter) But I was trying to learn the songs and listening to some of them and just doing 52:00my very best.

When I went back to school, back to teaching, it was as a math teacher in Oklahoma City at Capitol Hill, which is an inner-city school. With the things that go along, I think it was probably 98 percent free lunches. The gang problem, there was probably 50 percent Mexican. I'm saying they were from Mexico. They were not Chicanos. They were not Hispanics. They were Mexicans, and then there was probably 30 percent black, and the rest of them Indian or white.

Talk about a calling, I think that that was, because I taught there for seven or eight years. In that time, I really didn't do pottery, and I think I resigned in 53:002004. I mean, I retired. Then I was able to spend more time here. I really value that experience. I value the people who worked there. I taught algebra, geometry.

The University of Texas has an enormous [Caddo] collection. The University of Oklahoma has an enormous collection. In Louisiana, in their state museum they have a Caddo display. The University of Arkansas, they also have. Not just University of Arkansas, but Henderson [State University]. All the other colleges 54:00do, too. Stephen F. Austin University, they have it. I can visit them, and I have visited all of those states. Natchitoches, Louisiana, they have a wonderful museum, and I have some of my pieces there. I think the Corps of Engineers built a visitors center, and they asked me to make some, so I did.

Then I have some actually in the museum. When the Art Institute of Chicago put together a show called Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, one of the things was they really wanted the Caddos' permission, and they went around to different tribes, 55:00the Creeks and the Choctaws, Chickasaws, but the Caddo collection in there was just amazing. I was the artist-in-residence that actually went up there (I was one of the ones) and showed my pottery and had discussion groups. That was an amazing experience. The book that went with them, there was a lot of Caddo pottery.

When they did that show--there are people in the United States who have collections of Caddo pottery but won't come forward with them because it's probably against the law how they obtain them, but people are still purchasing them, dealing on the black market. It's one of the things that I didn't know. I 56:00didn't know our pottery was treasured by so many people.

Little Thunder: How much of your work does involve replication pieces, and how much is just you working?

Redcorn: I rarely do replications anymore. I will use a design. It's probably hard to do that, anyway, but I take a lot of liberties with the designs. I've looked at some of their pieces, and, wow, I can't believe the intricacies. I'll sketch it out, and then I'll try to sketch it out again. I really try to sketch faithfully what I see, so if I change it, I know what's changed and I know what 57:00I have left there.

Little Thunder: There was a reference in one thing I read to Caddo clay. Do you dig your own clay?

Redcorn: I don't dig my own clay. Just about all that I do right now is a commercial clay. I fire it outdoors. It's wood fired. It's kind of my own method. I think that I'm going to leave that, digging the clay and mixing with the shell, which I've done. I have a few pieces where I dug the clay, and I have a lot of clay. I have some from the Red River, some from Marshall, Texas, some from Natchitoches, and a lot from Alto, Texas, or Nacogdoches. You know, it's 58:00almost to see if you need to use the same clay because if you don't, then you are doing a lot of experimentation.

I did do that. I've got some shell that I've burned and then I've ground up and mixed with clay. The other thing I've done is mix it with sand, and I've experimented with bone and also grog. One reason I pretty much use a commercial clay is because I can burnish it where I know how it's going to be, how it's going to come out, so that's kind of the road I'm taking.

I know there's probably other people who are going to do all that 59:00experimentation. I know a lot of archaeologists have. I know that there are some other people who are replicating Caddo pottery and selling it, which is actually against the law if you do that. I know that some people do, Southeastern artists, and they copy it because Caddos had an amazing diversity of clays and designs. I don't think any other Southeastern groups had quite that tradition.

Little Thunder: A lot of your pots are in brown tones, and I'm used to seeing, in Southeastern, reds or blacks. Is that a Caddo characteristic, or is that part 60:00of your special firing?

Redcorn: You know what? It's part of the Caddo tradition, but it's part of the way it's fired. Usually, I will put like a red slip on my pottery and then burnish it. I enjoy doing that. That's just how it fires. Some of it is really black, and some of it is really kind of a brownish tone, which I like.

Little Thunder: I think it's beautiful, too.

Redcorn: But the Caddos did have red. They had buff, black, all sorts of brown. 61:00It was kind of hard to get brown because the clay, sometimes it just wouldn't fire exactly the way you wanted it to, and that's okay. There is always some something, a spot--

Little Thunder: A surprise.

Redcorn: --a surprise, yes.

Little Thunder: Have you gotten the lightness that you so admire? Have you gotten that feeling of lightness to your pots?

Redcorn: I have on most of them. That's what I do now. That's what I prefer doing, is trying to make them thin without endangering the firing or whatever. I do try to make them the same thickness all over except for the bottom. That way, 62:00they fire better.

Little Thunder: And they're decorative. You haven't done any that you intended to be really functional.

Redcorn: Right. They are decorative.

Little Thunder: I've noticed that Chase Earles is a Caddo potter that's been displaying a very contemporary-style pot. Did he attend any of your workshops?

Redcorn: No, he didn't. He sent me an email. He said, "I'm a Caddo. I used to live in Santa Fe, and I was making Pueblo pottery." He was going to start being a potter. He studied art, so he was familiar with clay, and he had gone through 63:00the process. He called me up, and he said, "I don't want to be out there copying them. I'm sure the Caddos have a pottery tradition." I said, "Yes."

He came up here, and I went through my process here. He had seen Pueblo pottery fired, and I think he'd read some things. I shared with him books and people. I said, "You know, in a couple of months we are going to go--it's Caddo Conference." I introduced him to the archaeologists. I said, "You need to come to this and learn about a lot of the things they're studying and the whole scope 64:00of where the Caddos were." He took off. He is really doing--and this is what I think I probably tried, which I didn't really have assistance in.

I think that now there's people who have more of an idea of how much you would use, shell to clay, those proportions. I know there was one archaeologist in Arkansas that said he used 50 percent, and I would use like 20 percent of shell that I thought that was just plenty good enough. I don't know, but I think that's probably a research area. This is hard to do, but I've come to the 65:00realization that I'm going to--there's many things that I want to do, but I'm going to do my art the way I do it because it was hard to say that I was an artist, having not studied art and being a community organizer. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I don't know what your thoughts are, but there have been several Native artist women who really found their art or their career later in life. I know the practical reasons for that, because your kids are grown and you're not taking care of grandkids all the time, but do you think there's a value system that also supports that, a Native value system?

Redcorn: I think there is a value system, particularly in the Caddo tribe. Their line is maternal. It goes through your mother. They were important in passing on values to the children, and there's always been that. In any of the communities that I have observed, whether the line goes through their fathers or whether through their mothers, there is a sense of order. There is a sense of, "This is who you are." I think that is comforting to know that this is in place. You don't have to wonder. You don't have to be chaotic.

The Caddo festival that I was mentioning is going to be the first weekend in 67:00March, and it's going to be at the Oklahoma History Center. That's a topic that we are talking about. Dee BigFoot, who is a Caddo elder, and myself, and a few more people are going to talk about the order and the harmony and the traditions that were passed down. There was a certain way of doing things, and there may be variations, but this is what you did.

When you have a meal, there are certain things that you do before you partake of a meal. The values and traditions and the order help an individual find that 68:00harmony of mind, body, and spirit, which is the title of our festival. (Laughs) One of the things that we're doing, (it's a festival) we're talking about food, and the meal that we serve is going to be buffalo and squash and pumpkin and beans. Those were our traditions, and corn and nuts and berries.

We are connecting back to our roots and honoring the traditions, particularly the farming traditions that the Caddos had. It was important. We were very prolific about having gardens and farms and in working together. I grew up with 69:00Cheyenne and Arapaho, and their dances were like the War Dance. There were some like the Round Dance, and we also did the Owl Dance.

The Caddo dances are probably more like Pueblo dances where we have a leader, and sometimes there's a caller. All of them are pretty much in order, with the exception of--our Turkey Dance is probably the most ceremonial of our dances. It is a victory dance. It has been called a scalp dance, but the women dance it. The lead woman will hold a staff, and those positions are handed down. They're inherited. The women were very, very important in these dances, in these songs, 70:00in the whole community. They made decisions as much as the men.

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

Redcorn: Having a piece that was selected for the Oval Office. I think that is the highlight of my career.

Little Thunder: Were you at a booth at a show when it was selected?

Redcorn: No, I was not. In 2005, because Caddo pottery has been so overlooked, and yet it was so prolific and important, when it was lost and when I started bringing it back, the Smithsonian and archaeologists there really appreciated what I was doing, especially the staff at the Smithsonian, particularly those 71:00who were studying Southeastern United States tribes. They were having a show. It was going to be in New York City. It was going to be for the opening of the Heye Museum [George Gustav Heye Center, National Museum of the American Indian]. They contacted me to be a part of that show, along with seven other artists. Most of the show was of old pottery. I had a couple of pieces in there, but they purchased them. When they purchased them, that became part of their collection. When the Obamas were selecting the art, they chose one of my pieces.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. How about a low point in your pottery career?

Redcorn: Let me think. I think it was realizing I didn't make enough and I went 72:00back to teaching. Now that I look back, that was really low for me because I thought, "I think I can do this," and it didn't happen. So just continuing--but once I began teaching, I really, truly enjoyed it, but it was very hard, and at my age it was pretty difficult. I'll put it that way. But I really met some wonderful people, had wonderful students, and I did my very, very best to do that.

I have one story. When the Oklahoma State Legislature passed the law, setting higher standards, I was teaching. In our class in the Oklahoma City school 73:00system, they said, "We are going to get the best teachers, and the first thing they're going to do is evaluate Algebra I." I went from teaching Algebra II and Geometry to teaching Algebra I. Those were my classes.

I had one class that was called ESL, English as a Second Language. I didn't speak Spanish, although I'd had some Spanish courses, and they didn't speak English. These are freshmen. They learned. Every day, they would put a problem on the whiteboard. One of the students, he wrote by his name, "so and so," and then he'd put, "Guadalajara." So every time they would put one up, they would put where they were from in Mexico. They were really proud of that fact. I'm 74:00kind of proud of them for recognizing that they are basically going to be of two nations because I guess that's what I was: Caddo Nation, but I'm also United States. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's a great story. Anything else you'd like to add before we look at your pots?

Redcorn: I don't think so. I think I've pretty well--let me add this. I grew up in Colony, Oklahoma, and I told you I had five sisters and two brothers, so we were a large family. I wanted people to know that we didn't grow up in--we danced the dances, but it was difficult. We didn't make our dresses or our 75:00clothing, but we'd go to all the dances. So it's been really fun for us to explore that part of actually partaking. I think it connected me to a lot of the Caddo children here in the metro, women, women and little girls, or men, because they are basically cut off. We are trying to bring those traditions here.

Little Thunder: Yes, you've had a huge impact. It's clear. Well, great, we'll take a look at your work. What would you like to tell us about these, Jeri?

Redcorn: This particular pot is one that is probably a replica of the one that is in the Oval Office, and it belongs to my sister. The particular design would 76:00be from around Nacogdoches, Texas. This design on this bowl is one that you would find--it's called Natchitoches engraved. It would be like Natchitoches, Louisiana. It's kind of midway between Shreveport and New Orleans. That's where the town is.

Little Thunder: I just wanted to ask one quick question about that beautiful crosshatching, and it's so ornate. I understand Charles has made a couple special tools for you?

Redcorn: I used to use bone to actually do the crosshatching. That was my tools. 77:00I had about three that were sharpened bones, and then I'd wrap leather around them. I also tried to use flint. I was trying to figure, "What were they using?" Probably flint, but then I changed to a more modern tool, and it is steel.

Little Thunder: Then the rubbing of the color in, you get that using--

Redcorn: I use a brush to rub the color in. The neat thing about that is if I burnish them, when I burnish them with the stone, that the crosshatching will take in all of the clay, and the rest of it will just rub off.

Little Thunder: Right. That's really neat.

Redcorn: If it's not burnished, it will not rub off.

Little Thunder: That's got a figure, doesn't it? You can really see the figures.

Redcorn: This is one that I took liberty with. This is a piece that I made for Red Earth two years ago. I think it won in the Traditional division. This was a 78:00figure that was found on a shell from Spiral Mounds, I assume an ornate shell, that I believe is at the University of Oklahoma. There are two figures there. I call them the Hasinai Twins because the Caddos, in their religion, they had a Chenesi who took care of the temple on the mound or the temple in the village. He would go to a box that held the coninisi which were the twins. There were two boys. He would open up the box, and it would talk to him and tell him what to do.

When the Spanish priest came, he said, "There's nobody in that box. Why are you doing this?" So he went to his church, actually, and pushed his way in and opened the box. Went past the Chenesi and opened up the box and said, "There's nothing there," little realizing that he believed in the Holy Ghost that no one had ever seen or heard. (Laughter) At any rate, it was such an interesting moment.

I did do this, and instead of putting it on a shell, I put it on a pot, representing some of the things--I know that this would've been the Coon Dance, the raccoon. We have a Raccoon Dance. Actually, I don't think we do it now, but 80:00we did have.

Little Thunder: Do you want to talk about this piece?

Redcorn: The tripod, the archaeologists would call it friendship engraved, but I named it Taysha because "taysha" is the word for "friend" in Caddo. It is a fairly good representation of a pot that I saw, a picture of it, when I went to the Red River Museum. It's very interesting because I think in the Caddo world, there is a tripod. There's the sky, and there's the middle, the earth, and there's the underground. I do not know if that's what that represents, but I 81:00think a tripod is interesting.

The other thing about the tripod, is that as a math teacher, you know that when you have three, it can sit level. If you have four legs, there's that possibility of it being a little bit unstable, which you see, like when people have a campfire, they will put three sticks up and hang their pot from under there. That's the most stable. That's a very stable form. I was talking about the effigies that I see or that I use. The duck here is an effigy. We have the 82:00Duck Dance. Kon-Koa-Shun is our Duck Dance. In the back one, you can see--this is probably a very good example of Caddo forms. On it, I did put a dancing turkey, and I call this Nuh-Koa-Shun. I actually wrote "Nuh-Koa-Shun" on the back. Nuh-Koa-Shun is our Turkey Dance.

Little Thunder: Does that have your signature, too? I meant to ask you how you sign your pieces.

Redcorn: I sign them by--okay, here's this one here. I write into it "J. C. Redcorn, Caddo." I haven't actually finished this, but I am. What I'm going to do is, around the pot, around this vessel, I'm going to inscribe the names of 83:00our Caddo chiefs. We had a show at the Oklahoma History Center recently, and they wrote all of the names of the Caddos here. That's what I was going to put on that.

Little Thunder: I think that'll look neat.

Redcorn: I will have, when it's finished, "Caddo Leadership and Community."

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

Redcorn: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming. This is a wonderful project.

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