Oral history interview with D. G. Smalling

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Tuesday, February 5, and I'm interviewing D. G. Smalling for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at the [Oklahoma] judicial building at the State Capitol, where D. G. has an office. D. G., in addition to your many other accomplishments, you're an artist who works in multiple media, perhaps best known for your technique of single-line drawing. You've had an international upbringing, but you're very much connected to your Choctaw roots, which are a major influence on your art. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Smalling: Pleasure.

Little Thunder: Can you talk a bit about where you were born and some of the places you lived as a child?

Smalling: (Laughter) Well, my parents were in seminary in grad school in Texas in Waxahachie, Texas, when I was born. They had the sensibility at three months to bring me back to Oklahoma, so came back to Oklahoma. My family, being 1:00Choctaw--well, my family's split because on my father's side he's Dutch, or Frisian, actually, (that's where my last name comes from) and he's also Comanche. His grandmother was one of Quanah's children, and you know how that is. (Laughter) There are a heck of a lot of us Parkers, man. There are a lot of Parkers, which is kind of cool, too. Being in the Oklahoma Judicial Center, he was not only the last war chief of the Comanches but he was the first tribal judge, so we actually have several of his portraits here. It's really cool to see him here. I digress, there.

We went back to southeast Oklahoma at Haworth. We always had a house around 2:00Idabel, but my parents were pastors. From Waxahachie, we went to Blanchard. From Blanchard, we went back to southeast Oklahoma to Haworth. From Haworth, we went to Lausanne, Switzerland. My parents became missionaries, and they worked sort of like NGO [non-governmental organization] work, or non-governmental humanitarian stuff, but they were very much missionaries. I went to Switzerland, Lausanne for language school. I went to the Commonwealth American School in Lausanne.

Little Thunder: So are we talking middle school?

Smalling: No, it was elementary. Went to Cameroon, Central Africa, to Douala, which was the major economic city, port city of the country of Cameroon. Then from Douala, I went to Yaounde. In Douala, I went to the International American 3:00School. Then when I went to Yaounde, which is the political capitol further in the interior of the country, I went to the American International School there. I went to Johannesburg, South Africa. There I was ending junior high, going into high school, that transition, so I went to South African Government Public School in Johannesburg, Sandown High.

That was at the tail-end of apartheid. That was weird because there wasn't a racial classification for me. My dad arrived, and you don't really see much of the Comanche in him. You see very much the Frisian in him and, "Oh, cool, we got 4:00another Dutch baby." I arrived, and they were like, "What the heck?" (Laughter) Then went to University.

Little Thunder: Did you come, then, back and forth to Oklahoma? Did you have a relationship with your grandparents on either side?

Smalling: Absolutely. We would come back, you know. When I came back, it was always to southeast Oklahoma, always around just north of Broken Bow. My clan town is Panki Bok. Panki Bok is--if you can believe something is east of Broken Bow. (Laughter) About halfway between Broken Bow and De Queen, Arkansas, is Eagletown. About a couple miles south of Eagletown is Panki Bok. That's our major clan town. I also have clan relations with Honobia. My grandfather moved 5:00his family out of Panki Bok in Eagletown to just north of Broken Bow, or what is Hochatown, to a place called Bethel. That's really where most of my family are, all right in that area.

Little Thunder: Do you have other members of your family that were artistically inclined, or extended family?

Smalling: On my dad's side, quite a few. Surprisingly enough, more musicians, more musicians. My cousin John Moore is from that area originally. He started playing--he's bluegrass. He started playing Grand Ole Opry when he was thirteen with his sister. She was a little bit older. On both sides of the family, very musical.

On my mother's side, which I'm more attached to in terms of my tribal side, obviously, but I'm neither more attached to either/other, it was fascinating, the role of the all-night singings at church because my grandfather taught. When he came back from World War II, he only had two employers his whole lifetime: the US Army and Choctaw Nation. (Laughter) So it was kind of funny. There in north Bethel at the church, which is also the community center which had the school, it was all right there. They lived a mile from it, and they still do. My grandmother still does. There was always music.

One of my aunts beaded up until her death, was a very good beader but didn't do 7:00it enough, unfortunately. There was a lot more. It was strange. You could tell there was a divide between family members who were trying to understand what had gone on in displacement and then those who weren't interested.

Little Thunder: When did you see your first piece of Native art?

Smalling: I have no idea. My grandfather, more than likely. He kept things on his desk. That's probably where it was. I had blankets made for me, so actually that would have been the first because those were my birth blankets.

Little Thunder: What was your first experience making art?

Smalling: I don't know. I mean, it was always around. Drawing something, painting something, building something, that was always norm. I don't know. I know I can tell you when I realized I could do something with my art, was different. I was in Switzerland. We would listen to the radio all the time, trying to get something that was in English, so we would listen on the shortwave. We would get stuff from Voice of America, Radio Freedom, and other things. There was one station that played these radio theatre dramas. I was about eight or nine, and they asked to submit for competition, the kids 9:00listening, submit an art piece for competition. I did. It was being broadcast out of Geneva, and we lived in Lausanne, which was like forty miles away. So I did. It was the only time I ever did, and I won, which was kind of cool. I thought, "That's interesting. I can do this."

I have to think that for me, what saved me, to think that I really could do something with the art, was leaving. I think that that was critical because when I left the United States--it's absolutely not a slam against my teachers, my elementary teachers at Haworth. I have only the fondest of memories. Haworth 10:00still to this day holds a very important place in my life because it is quintessentially the safest place I've ever lived. But when I left Haworth and I left the United States and went to Switzerland and went to a Commonwealth school, (it is an elite school; it would be false to call it anything else) we had art every day. We had poetry every day. I was in third or fourth grade and immediately learning how to memorize Robert Frost, and painting and sculpting. It was incredible. I think that year was the most pivotal year of my life.

Little Thunder: So you're getting this wonderful background in the arts overseas already at that junior high/middle school level?

Smalling: Oh, it was incredible. I can't really emphasize how radical it was. When I mean radical, not in a subjective or some sort of idiomatic way but in a true sense, radical experience because I left southeast Oklahoma the week before Christmas. My godmother, my paternal aunt and her family, lived in Bad Homburg in Germany. They were working for IBM. Got on a plane for the first time. It was 12:00a 747 KLM, and they bumped us up first class. So not only am I experiencing this for the first time, (I'm this punk-ass kid) I spent the entire time in the cockpit with the pilots. (Laughter) I've always been a very curious person. I love adventure, so for me, I was having a ball.

We got to Germany, and I remember going to midnight mass for the first time. It was Christmas Eve, which, that was a first. Everybody, the community congregated in this medieval fortresses central court with candlelight, proceeded along this 13:00route to the cathedral and went in. First time in a castle, first time in a cathedral, sitting down, and for the first time ever, hearing an orchestra in this cathedral, the full Messiah with choir. Blew my mind. Blew my mind because my experiences of the castle, of the cathedral, of the music were not tourist. They were participant-observer. They were seeing each in the proper context and mind-boggling.

I realized, "Holy crap, what the heck is this? Where have I been?" Hooked me, just hooked me. From then on, I wanted to see the stained glass windows. I wanted to see the sculptures. I wanted to see the tapestries. I wanted to hear the music. I wanted to learn how to read the music. I wanted to get it. For me, the art, it wasn't a matter of trying to get me in front of art. I wanted to see the art. I wanted to see the aesthetic. I wanted to see things, whether it was in Switzerland or Europe or--

Then when we got to Cameroon, the richness of the African art that was there, the sculpture, which to me is the finest in the world, I don't think anyone can sculpt like the Central Africans can sculpt. They can sculpt anything, I mean, 15:00just anything. Their sense of abstraction, it reminds me in many ways of, like, Allan Houser's work, just an innate sense of space. Allan, talk about audacious. I digress, there.

Little Thunder: You're having all these wonderful art experiences, both in and outside of school. When did you sell your first piece of art?

Smalling: Sell it? It was when I was in DC, Washington, DC. I was working for 16:00SAIC at the time, (it's a defense group) and I needed something to do on the side.

Little Thunder: Were you in your early twenties or--

Smalling: I was in my mid-twenties. My mind was exhausted. I did some paintings for a psychiatrist, a series of paintings. Seven of them, I think it was. Big ones. She just wanted some flowers. I did flowers, real simple, basic stuff. For me, that was fun. I was able to create without any obligation. Aesthetically, they were good pieces, but they weren't anything to think about. They were just 17:00fun to do because the sort of stuff I was dealing with at SAIC on my desk was really macabre, nasty stuff.

Little Thunder: Can you tell us what the acronym stands for?

Smalling: [Science Applications] International Corporation. Does that help you understand what they do?

Little Thunder: No. (Laughter)

Smalling: Precisely! Precisely!

Little Thunder: So you get an undergraduate degree in political science, and then you got your master's in international studies.

Smalling: I did not finish my master's. I decided to do art instead.

Little Thunder: Okay. At the undergraduate level, did you take any more art?

Smalling: No, never did. My focus in those years, my focus throughout my undergrad and grad, was on crisis management. It was on the study on the crisis and on the management side of issues dealing with terrorism. I did that with--I 18:00actually went to OU because of a person, and I wanted to study under that particular person who was very much in the United States the founder of that field, thirty, forty years earlier. I mentored under him and became his assistant. Then he sent me around and allowed me access to different places in the world to train and then also to work. That's what I did. My world was not art at all. I never even conceived of myself as doing art as a full-time. It really never even factored in.

Little Thunder: So you lived in DC for a while, and I think you also lived in Czechoslovakia.

Smalling: Never Czech. I lived in Hungary, and then I worked throughout--I've 19:00done work in every country of the Balkans.

Little Thunder: Does that have an impact on your work today?

Smalling: Absolutely.

Little Thunder: In what way?

Smalling: When I came back from the Balkans, and when I had decided to do art, I took a vow to my mother that I would never paint anything dark, cynical, macabre. I know that too easy. I don't believe shock art's even possible anymore. I don't see why people even want to play with it. I think I may do it once. I think it may be more like an installation. If I did it, my shock art would consist of, like, an empty room, big room, just when people are pretty much liquored up as they do at these things. There would be no art on the walls. It would be bare. Then I'd walk out with some butt-naked little baby, hopefully 20:00crying. Not going to make it cry, but if it chooses to cry, it just helps the moment. Get people's attention and look at them and say, "Look what you can never be. You can never be innocent, so don't make others catch up with you so quickly."

Little Thunder: In your twenties, already doing these flowers just for fun, are you already working kind of minimalistically?

Smalling: In high school and everything else leading up to, I was the exact opposite. I did strict realism. Strict, rigid, nothing abstract, whatsoever. Nothing. It was surprising for me. What happened was I went through some 21:00experiences in the Balkans that just necessitated me trying to communicate with women, particularly women who--we're talking clients, or worked with groups that were clients because some of my clients worked with rape camp victim associations, POWs, and what not.

Someone like me showed up, probably didn't look and smell the most savory of individuals at the time, and probably wasn't, and tried to get through to them that I wasn't like other men.

Of course, anyone who has been severely traumatized, especially when they have been drilled into this Pavlov situation--stimuli/ response world, they're 22:00chattel. That's how they think when they come out. Then I started drawing flowers because I would randomly start drawing, and I would hand it to them. Unfortunately, I had to draw a lot, so I had to draw faster and faster and faster and faster, newspaper, whatever, on whatever because it was showing--.

It caught me because when I started trying for other subject matter, I realized how much I had to concentrate. I had internalized proportion. I had internalized perspective. It's drilled in me. I was able to work, then, on very much applying 23:00that movement that anyone in art school does, trying to draw within the line. I inverted the reason for it. Whereas most people do it to loosen up their hand to help them capture an image, mine was the opposite. Mine was to exact my hand. The image was already there. It was to exact it. I was after that minimal movement so it wouldn't look like scribble, that it was just an economy of movement.

Little Thunder: So are you talking about the single-line work at this point?

Smalling: Yes, and I began to recognize the more I thought about it, the shit around me disappeared. I was able to kind of leave for those brief moments what 24:00was going on and who was going on around me. It became very precious to me. I began to recognize I did not want that external to filter in. I needed to have a very strict definition of compartmentalized action.

Little Thunder: So when did you begin doing art more full-time?

Smalling: When I came back. This is about 2002, 2003. Actually it would be, I think, 2003. A woman who was very much like my grandmother--as a matter of fact, 25:00every day since I was nineteen I just referred to her as my grandmother: Kay Orr. She was the most important person in my life in terms of art. She was an artist there at Paseo. Her studio was right next to Mike Larsen's when he was there.

Little Thunder: In Oklahoma City?

Smalling: Yes. You had Tom Lee, the photographer, was there. You had Claude Anderson. All really interesting. Then you had Studio Six with the four ladies who were just very--Sue Moss Sullivan and [Winnie Hawkins]. When I was nineteen there in university, I would come and hang out and just work in the studio with her. When I came back, she had just passed away. She had asked me not to come 26:00back to the funeral, and so I came back to help her son to close up the shop and transition. I did a full retrospective audit of her work. People, collectors, and whatnot, they came in with their work, and I organized that. I wanted her grandkids, and I wanted to have it--I wanted others to have a full sense of the body of work before it kind of dispersed irrevocably, so I spent a lot time there in the studio. I started painting again, and I wanted to do it more, and so I started.

When I started grad school, I recognized there was such a conflict there. I went into grad school way too soon after coming back. I should have waited a few years. My mind was in a very dark place. I had a hell of a lot of healing to do. 27:00When I quit grad school, I didn't do anything else but paint. I just painted. I didn't give myself an option. I just painted, and painted a lot. I figured that I didn't want to be like a lot of my father's friends or relatives who came back from conflicts and whatnot and waited until they're middle aged after they've screwed up a few wives and a few sets of kids. I didn't want to do that. You know? I figured, "Let's get it through now."

Little Thunder: So the healing for you was the painting.

Smalling: Absolutely, and I'm convinced the rigor of keeping that diet and keeping the strictness of how the art was used, and what I ingested 28:00mentally--there was nothing dark. There was nothing cynical. There was nothing macabre. There was none of that in my life. I wouldn't allow it. I have buddies of mine still from those days that are here that knew me there and know me now. I just figured the discipline that kept me alive would help me heal.

Little Thunder: Did you get involved with galleries when you were going through that phase, or were you not at that point yet?

Smalling: I did. I think it was 2006.

Little Thunder: What were some of them?

Smalling: I wanted to get in a gallery that had nothing to do with Indian Country at all, so the first gallery I ever got into was in Little Havana in Miami. It was a gallery called the Cremata Gallery. It's no longer there. They were a great couple.

Little Thunder: How did you find it? (Laughter)

Smalling: Yes, exactly. I went down to see my middle sister and my now brother-in-law. She lived in Fort Lauderdale; he lived in Pompano. I'd never been to Miami. I'd never been there, and I've always loved cigars. I had my first cigar when I was quite young. I'm not going to say it in case my parents ever read this. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Cross that out.

Smalling: No, they know I love my cigars. I'm not going to tell them how early. First cigar, I knew I liked cigars. I wanted to go to Calle Ocho. I wanted to go to Little Havana, and I wanted to have a cigar. I wanted to sit down with a Cuban coffee, and I wanted to bitch at Castro. That's what I wanted to do. I 30:00wanted to do it for those reasons. I mean, how funny is that? That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to go down there and sit down with the old geezers and say, "I hate him, too." (Laughter) Just to say, "I hate him, too. All right, we're in common here."

So I went down and did that. I was walking by these galleries, and my youngest sister, she went into this gallery, and she goes, "This is good. You ought to put your stuff here." I'm just looking around. She goes, "My brother, he paints. You should see his stuff." I said, "What?" They said, "Really? We'd like to see your stuff." I said, "Whatever." "Seriously, we'd like to see your stuff." I said, "I have nothing here. I just came down to see my sister." "Well, how long are you here?" "I'm here, like, two weeks." "Make something. Show us." "Okay." Went by an art supply store, bought some paper, bought some ink, and did some 31:00stuff for them. They were like, "We'll take it."

Little Thunder: So they were ink drawings.

Smalling: Yes, these were all ink. They said, "We'll take it. You got more?" I said, "I'll send some." "All right, we'll take it."

Little Thunder: And you're doing one-line. What was the subject matter?

Smalling: I think those were all horse and rider, but they weren't necessarily Native. At that time at university, though I could not with my time and constraints get involved with polo, I come from a lot of horse people. I love polo. I think it's the most glorious sport after rugby. After rugby. If I could get to a match, I was at a match. Fortunately, Oklahoma has wonderful polo teams. Both OU, OSU have phenomenal teams. That was always a pleasure, so I did 32:00stuff that was based on polo. I did some flowers.

It was a fun little composite of things. It was a lot of fun to do. It gave me a lot of confidence because I needed the validation that it wasn't because I knew anyone. I needed to know that the validation came from the work being alone on its own, and that it wasn't because it was Native and that I was in a Native gallery.

I've really shied away from that not because I don't see a need for it, or it's certainly not at all to speak ill of them. It's just, for me, I want my artwork 33:00to just be because I'm an artist. That I'm Native, that may inform my subject matter, but it doesn't define what I do. It's very important, but--.

Little Thunder: What's an early show or exhibition you had that you feel gave you some important visibility?

Smalling: The most important show for me, beginning, was my first show, and it was because I did it at Jacobson House out of respect for the Kiowa Six. I have the utmost respect for those six artists, for Oscar Jacobson and [Jeanne] d'Ucel, his wife. Was it Sister Margaret or Margaret--who was the woman from St. 34:00Patrick's who brought them to--Little Thunder: That was Susie Peters.

Smalling: To show in that space was important for me to do because I wanted to be able to show in that space as a sign of respect but also a validation of the work.

Little Thunder: Was this 2007?

Smalling: In '06 or '07.

Little Thunder: You've done a lot of commission portraits--

Smalling: It's weird, isn't it?

Little Thunder: --and fabulous assignments like Tony Blair and Sandra Day O'Connor and Mrs. [Anna] Houser.

Smalling: Two for her [O'Connor]. I'm about to do my third in June.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Are these portraits more realistic, or are they suggestive?

Smalling: No. They're just like this.

Little Thunder: What's hard? What's the challenge of doing a portrait of a 35:00really well-known person as opposed to somebody who's not so well known?

Smalling: There isn't a difference. There's absolutely no difference.

Little Thunder: Do you work from a photograph to start with?

Smalling: I don't want to. I prefer not to.

Little Thunder: How about Sandra Day O'Connor's? How did you approach her portraits?

Smalling: When I was asked--the first one was rather on the spot. Justice [Yvonne] Kauger asked me to. At the time, Chief Judge Robert Henry, (he was Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit at the time) they asked me to come to the Governor's Pavilion to do a portrait of her.

Little Thunder: Wow. (Laughs) Pressure.

Smalling: No, not really. I mean, I had worked through my pressure. I'm pretty easy around pressure as an artist now. The most pressure as an artist I've ever 36:00felt was when I deliberately started out on a project to get me over that feeling. I did a three-year series on drag queens in which I would go out to the clubs, to the residences, to be at the club both out in the audience and then I would go in the back with them. I did that because--.

Little Thunder: And you're working on site, drawing.

Smalling: Absolutely. Absolutely. The worst lighting in the world. Worst lighting in the world. Worst audiences in the world. They're drunk. People around you were drunk, high, whatever. They're moving, dancing. That was very fortunate that the club owners, number one, and the queens themselves, number 37:00two, wanted this. They were cool with it. They would set me up a little spot and let me work.

They all knew Kay. It was like a grandmother. They all knew her. All the club owners knew her, so I had a rapport with them going in, and they understood that I wasn't there to be cynical. They understood that I was approaching them like I would approach a ballerina, like I was going to approach a Native dancer. I am there to just commit myself to that moment on the paper. Out of respect, I gave each and every single person that helped me a piece. That was just a sign of respect.

Little Thunder: So you took the project on for, did you say, three months?

Smalling: Three years, I did it.

Little Thunder: Three years. You were mentioning the clubs and the atmosphere. 38:00When I first saw your video, because that one-line drawing technique is very much a kind of action art, it makes for a great performance. I'm wondering if you're aware of the performative element when you do it, or are you just so focused--

Smalling: I can be if I need to be. That was part of why I did it. I wanted to be able to become so comfortable with the form and with the method that literally anywhere at any time with anyone I could do it. That was important. I wanted to be free of any sort of--I wanted to know how to commit to exactly right then and there.

Then I wanted to also--there was a very practical part of it for me, was dealing with the male form. Up to that point, I'd never drawn a man. I mean, there was 39:00no point, you know? As Kay always said--she was my grandmother, so as my grandmother always said, "Paint what you know." Well, I didn't care a thing about men, so I never drew any men. I went about learning how to draw a man through using drag queens, from transitioning from the female body over to the male.

Little Thunder: So you're talking about some of the backstage stuff, watching the transformation.

Smalling: Yes, absolutely, and it gave me stuff that I never would've thought of. When you have a subject, somebody that you're working with, and they're prepping up, and suddenly it looks like it's right out of Hamlet. The person is a blank canvas, and it's that wig, and they're holding the mannequin head. It's, 40:00like, right out of Shakespeare, and realizing this person is projecting an alter ego here.

It was really interesting, too, to be in the room or in the space. I developed a rapport with these people at a point that for many of them was extremely vulnerable, that someone like me could quite comfortable, or I should say, they could be quite comfortable with someone like me in their room. I did it for many reasons. It seemed like a very economic way of getting a lot done with one movement or one process, and it worked.

It really worked because I had just completed it, and then I was asked by Jonna Kirschner in the Oklahoma Department of Commerce to go with them. There were 41:00several Native artists who went with the Centennial Celebrations there at the Epcot Center. I went, and nine out of ten of the pieces they took were these drag queens. I didn't have anything else. That's what I was working on.

Little Thunder: How was the reception?

Smalling: I sold out in three days, and I was there longer than anyone. Harvey Pratt was sick, so they asked me to stay on. I did, which meant that I had to start making some stuff then.

Little Thunder: Working in your booth.

Smalling: Yes, and I didn't bring anything. What happened was Pat Riley was 42:00coming out, so he brought some stuff for me, some of my artwork, brought with him. Mel Cornshucker, he took some of my equipment back with him. It was weird. I sold like that (Snaps). It was awesome. Disney, they had asked me, "Would you consider coming back and doing artwork here more often?" So I started hanging out with some of the artists who did that, and I thought, "Oh, heck no. Oh, Lord."

Little Thunder: Because this is part of Epcot, they like to have artists on site.

Smalling: Yes, it's a wonderful gig if your personality can do it. For me, I can't. My level of threshold with people is not--I have to keep things compartmentalized. If I know that I'm going to an event or if I'm going 43:00somewhere public to do something public, then I factor in, "Okay, I'm going to be there for two hours." After that, I need two, three hours just to hang out.

Little Thunder: You need to be alone after being in public.

Smalling: It used to be worse. I actually had it down as a ratio. For every one hour public, it was three hours private by myself. I've gotten a lot better at it. That way, for me at least, when I go public I can commit to the public, commit to that wholeheartedly, knowing that there's a parameter on it.

Little Thunder: Remind us quickly about the Epcot show. It was to recognize--

Smalling: The centenary of Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: --so they sent a contingent of Native and non-Native artists to 44:00Epcot. Let's talk a bit about your commissions for Choctaw Nation. What have they been?

Smalling: They have been very broad in their scope. They've consisted of some pieces that are really--one series I did was with the Choctaw code talkers from World War I. I did a series on that. I lectured on that while I was there at NMAI [National Museum of the American Indian].

It was fascinating to me to do something like that because that's a family issue for us. My great-grandfather was one of the first five code talkers in the 45:00United States. Then I've done a series on Choctaw leaders, looking back from Tuscaloosa up through some of the Revolutionary War period leaders like Tappenahomma and up through your more 1812 circa with your Pushmataha, Mushulatubbee, and those, you know, even looking at some of the newer leaders.

I've done work on classic women's dresses. One of the things that I'm really curious about that we kind of play around with (we're not sure where and how to use it) is I want to eventually do a children's book series using a boy and a 46:00girl, brother and sister.

Unfortunately, not including my younger sister because she wasn't around (Laughter), but base it really on myself and my middle sister and what it was like when we left and we come back to our families. That little series we've been toying around with, bouncing back and forth. We have it, and it'll be done. It's just how we want to do it. They've been really good because of the art, yes, but I've also worked in capacities as a delegate for them, an envoy, politically because of my family.

Little Thunder: Yes, why don't you talk a little bit more about the NMAI, the code talkers celebration there. What was a highlight moment for you?

Smalling: You know, it's kind of interesting when you have the French government represented there because that's critical. World War I are code talkers, same in World War II. World War I, every single code talker took it to his grave. It was top secret, and they took it to their grave. The only reason we understand what they did now is because of the French government, not the federal government.

We never would have known, but in 1989 envoys of the French military arrived in Oklahoma and started going family to family trying to locate these men. Most of 48:00them had died. Matter of fact, all of them had died at that point. They were bestowing a knighthood to them. It was the Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Combattant de la Cinquieme Republique, Knighthood of the Order of Merit, Combatant of the Fifth Republic.

What was very instructive to me was, while the federal government has dilly-dallied on getting our medals for years, years, (we're into decades now) it's finally done. It's finally done. Decades. The French government gave them knighthood in 1989. To have them there was important because it was important 49:00that the French, and we, in our relationship with the French which precedes the Americans' creation, is important as a point of validation to say that our relationships are sound. Our relationships are healthy. Our relationships are strong. That's much more important than art.

Little Thunder: Do you do very many booth shows at all?

Smalling: No.

Little Thunder: And you haven't done Indian Market yet?

Smalling: No.

Little Thunder: But you do have a gallery in Santa Fe?

Smalling: I did. I was talking with the owner, and I think she's going to move on. I don't know if I will continue in Santa Fe. I'm actually considering more up north in Canada. I'm really curious about what is going on in Vancouver and 50:00then, also, over near Quebec with some of the art that's Native. I use my art more and more to pay for my travels to certain places. More and more, I'm like, "Where do I want to go? Do a show here." (Laughter) So maybe not being sad about Santa Fe is because I want to go somewhere new.

I like Santa Fe, and I appreciate what it's become, but as you know, Santa Fe is made up mostly of artists not from Santa Fe, artists from the Northwest, a heck 51:00of a lot of artists from Oklahoma. I'm just kind of tired of people that I know of or people that are clients of mine who are willing to drive to Santa Fe or even come to France when I was there, knowing where I live, knowing where my studio is.

Little Thunder: Oh, my gosh, you have to tell that story. You had an exhibition in France, and you actually had clients come out to France to buy?

Smalling: Yes.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) Tell us how the exhibition came about.

Smalling: Russ Tallchief and I had been talking about doing something in France for years, and, God bless him, he put it together with an annual show on paper , so there was a group of Native artists who went. I mean, it was that simple. It 52:00was very odd.

Little Thunder: Where was the showing?

Smalling: At the Grand Palais, and they went again this past year. It was beautiful, a beautiful place. For me, it was nice to go--it was funny because I've been to Paris. My parents lived in Lyon, France, for years. I speak French fluently. It was very good to be there with some of my friends...

Little Thunder: Good to hang out with. (Laughs)

Smalling: --and I could be translator. I think one of the most special times for me was there was one night we left early from the Grand Palais, and they'd just set up a Christmas market along the Champs-Elysees. Literally, when you came out 53:00of the Palais, there you are on this Christmas market. It went from the Arc de Triomphe down to the Tuileries, and just gorgeous. Do you know Kennetha and Brent Greenwood?

Little Thunder: I know of them.

Smalling: Their boy, I think he was about twelve at the time, twelve or thirteen, somewhere in there. They were all going to meet up at a restaurant, a whole bunch of people. I was going to go for a walk, and he asked to come with me. I said, "Sure." He and I just kind of took off and ran into Kyle Dillingham. (Laughs) Kyle and Andrea. Kyle is one of my best friends.

Little Thunder: From Oklahoma.

Smalling: Yes, the violinist. Ran into him on the street. I mean, it just got ridiculous. (Laughs) It was really cool, though, to be with that boy. You could kind of see through his eyes again what it was like when I was a boy, when I saw these things for the first time, when I tasted something for the first time. He was a good sport about it. I said, "You understand, you don't know jack nor shit here, so don't say no to something. Just try it once. If you don't like it, you don't like it. No big deal." And he goes, "Cool."

So we go through. I'd say, "Try this. Try this." "Don't like that." "That's 55:00cool, but you tried it," explaining certain things as we went along. That was really interesting for me. It's surprising. Surprisingly, that was the neatest memory that I had of the whole time, was being able to kind of go full circle in a way.

Plus, while I was there, I was able to find--you know, there was a gravesite that one of the Ioway people who went with George Catlin to France, she passed away there. It was a woman. I found where she was buried. She's been long since removed because in Europe, because of space being a premium, you don't own a plot of land or a cemetery. You lease it. Neither George Catlin nor her husband 56:00or others from the United States understood that.

She's long since been disposed of, but I was able to get all that documentation in thirty minutes, which was awesome, which is like an all-time first with the bureaucracy in France. I had to put on my charm. Man, I sweet-talked those ladies. It was ridiculous. It was shameless. (Laughter) I wanted it. It was shameless. It was pretty dang shameless. Even then, it wasn't legal. The Nurse Ratched bureaucrat was just like, "No, we cannot do this without--"

As I was leaving, this little sweet grandmother had folded the photocopies of what I needed up, and while I was talking with her, as I turned around, she did this. (Gestures) She looked at me kind of like this and slipped it into my book. 57:00As I was leaving, I turned away from Nurse Ratched, I looked at her, I winked, and I said, "Thank you." (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Okay, let's talk about your techniques a little bit and materials. Do you work with special pencils? What kind of paper and pencils do you use?

Smalling: I use no pencils.

Little Thunder: Okay.

Smalling: I use inks and paints.

Little Thunder: Are they acrylic or--

Smalling: It's pretty broad. The paper that I use primarily is a Crescent cotton paper. The model number is a C1150. I use that for, I should basically say on rare occasions I don't use it. The ink that I use is primarily like Pentel P500, 58:00P700 pen for the rendering. I prefer the use of these pens. They're much more fluid and consistent throughout. They're fluid over more movements, larger movements.

I like using gels because they can be exposed to sunlight indefinitely and not fade. I firmly believe that as an artist if I know that I can use a product that can provide a better long-term quality, I'm obligated ethically to do that. There's a lot of inks and paints that I just won't use because I don't see the value in them anymore.

Little Thunder: So even though it's a spontaneous process, do you have your concept or idea in mind before you start?

Smalling: Sometimes. I should actually say sometimes they're spontaneous. Most of the time, they're very much methodical.

Little Thunder: You've already planned something out, but you haven't done any preparatory sketching?

Smalling: It depends on how complex it is. If I'm dealing with a piece that is large, I don't have the luxury of being able to step back for perspective. I have to map out placements prior, and those placements dictate how I flow because I'm not going to flow in a way in which my art is going to brush over the inkwork and smudge it. I have to plan things out so that I minimize backtracking so it doesn't start looking like scribble or get messy. Conform to 60:00that economy of line that I'm trying to do.

Little Thunder: It's almost more like a mapping process.

Smalling: It is. That is actually what it feels more like.

Little Thunder: Let's talk about your sculptures just a little bit because we haven't been able to do that yet. Was the glass tipi series, was that your first sculptural project?

Smalling: Yes, that series. I've done designs with jewelry, with Jackson Jewelry up in Stillwater where they've actually created some of my designs. I love working that way. I'm not a sculptor. I'm not a glass person. I'm not a jeweler. I like to do design work, but I'm not going to go build a new facility for each 61:00one of these. My collaborations are very important, finding people that are really as serious about their craft as I am mine. I was very fortunate with Brad Jackson and Peter Jackson at Jackson Jewelry there in Stillwater.

Little Thunder: Are we talking necklaces or--

Smalling: All the artwork there was designed for men: rings, earrings, necklaces, the whole thing. The whole approach, what I was doing there and what I'm very curious about is creating something that represents the person. It'd be like the equivalent of a monogram, but you find a design or something that represents them that is transferred over and over again into their life. I like that. In that sense, it's very simple and very elegant.

With the glasswork, the large glassworks, it's all collaboration with Gus 62:00Tietsort here in Oklahoma City, Tietsort Design, fourth-generation glass family, city glass. He does all the really difficult stuff. His dad and uncles don't even deal with it anymore. They give it to him. Gus is this uber-competitive guy who completely understands where I'm going with what I want. He absolutely understands economy of movement. His main graphics guy, Brian Culver, has been invaluable in taking my designs into AutoCADing them so we get the most precise measurements, get our engineering right.

When you're dealing with glass, particularly with the larger glass pieces, 63:00you're really dealing with people's lives because glass is such a dangerous, dangerous substance. You cannot afford--I'm not even talking about liability because it's not my liability because I've already covered my liability in the sense that the glass I use is ballistic grade. I have way gone beyond an overkill.

You really have to think about those things. I want the larger pieces to be fully used by kids. Like the larger tipis, they are to scale what a children's tipi is. I want the kids to play with this thing, but when you have kids around them or when I'm around and the kids are there, I explain to them, "Your head's going to give. Your arm's going to give. Your knee's going to give. This isn't giving." (Laughter) They ding themselves once, and they never do it again. They 64:00love to play in them, which is the purpose.

Little Thunder: Right. That was a commission for a particular collector?

Smalling: Yes, the big one was Dick and Jeannette Sias, who honestly, they are as important to contemporary Native art as most contemporary Native artists in Oklahoma. They're the ones who first gave the big breaks to Kelly Haney, Ben Harjo. You were on the list. We don't get to do the really cool stuff that we want to do until we get that first break. That person who believes in you is just as important as you.

Little Thunder: So do you have plans for another sculpture?

Smalling: Yes. I'm talking with some people in Russia. That will be for the 65:00original size, and if that gets done, it'll be about fifty foot.

Little Thunder: My goodness.

Smalling: Hopefully, that gets done. (Laughter) I honestly believe that our art, particularly Indian-Country art, we need to leave the United States with it. We do, not only ourselves more justice, I think we do our peoples more justice that way because then we're really understanding more clearly that we are international artists.

Little Thunder: So tell me about your creative process a little bit, from the time you get an idea. Do you write things down in a notebook?

Smalling: No. I love going on-site and watching people and sketching. That's how 66:00I like to work, preferably. I like to observe because it's when I'm observing movement, I'm really able to see what to that person is a critical posture, critical stance, critical to them being able to perform what they're doing in a way that to them is elegant.

It's like watching someone who is a chef or someone who is serious about cook. The movement is right in here. It's very close. You keep things close because you're minimizing the space in which you can hurt yourself on the elements, whether it's pots, pans, oven, but also you're minimizing how much space you can do and damage you can do to other people in an area. No big movements with a knife.

It's not necessarily very dramatic, but that's not what I'm going for. When I draw a chef or someone--I remember doing a whole series with Chef [Andrew] Black when he first came to Skirvin. Those were fun. It was very much just watching them and watching them and then seeing how they moved. Same with ballet. I treat them all the same. There's no difference.

Little Thunder: But you really like those situations that involve some kind of activity with movement?

Smalling: Not even that. Inactivity. I think one of my best portraits was of Jan Henry, Robert Henry's wife, when she was just at home with her cats, reading her book. That really sticks out in my mind as one of my better pieces because it's 68:00true. That's how she is. When she's not in the dental office working, she wants to be home with those cats, reading, and probably a glass of chardonnay.

That, to me, is important: trying to get something that's real. That's one of the reasons I don't like using pictures and photographs, is because it's artificial by the time I get it. Even when I do family portraits, I want the family members to be dressed in something that is quintessentially them, even if it annoys Mom. Actually, the only way I know it's true is if it is annoying Mom. (Laughter) Do you know what I'm saying?

Little Thunder: Yes. Do you have a creative routine?

Smalling: No. Kay very much, Kay Orr, drilled it into me, '"This is 69:00professional. You want to be treated like anybody else? Treat yourself like anybody else.'" You wouldn't dare hope that you go into a surgeon who says, "I'm just not feeling very motivated. I'm not feeling creative."

Little Thunder: So every day, you do something in terms of artwork.

Smalling: Yes.

Little Thunder: I meant to ask, too, did she use one-line?

Smalling: No, not at all. She was very much an expressionist. Fantastic artist. I saw her artwork for the very first time in Johannesburg at an art gallery there. It was remarkable. Blew my mind, her colors. As she got older, developed macular degeneration, those colors became even more outrageous. She taught me. 70:00As an artist, for me, what I walked away with because our artwork is so different, was two things: in terms of pedagogically, what to be aware of. Then, technique-wise, what I walked away with is I do not process shadow. I process light, which I think is a huge difference. It's a huge difference.

Little Thunder: Is there anything we forgot to talk about before we take a look at your artwork?

Smalling: No, can't think of anything.

Little Thunder: I'm going to have you talk about this piece a little bit. This 71:00piece is untitled, which I guess is sometimes typical.

Smalling: For my work, it's very rare that I will actually title something. Very rare that I'll title something. Now, I generally will begin somewhere around the head like on a figure. This one, very much a Plains Fancy Shawl Dancer. I should say, for those who don't know about Fancy Shawl work or dancing, they're trying to emulate the butterfly. The movements are trying to express that.

This is on cotton paper, and so on here to give some technique, (it's hard to see it) there's a ridge quality in here, a contoured ridge quality you see here, here, here, all throughout it. This happens from laying the ink in first, and then with a flat object, before it dries, depressing the areas in a contoured way so it keeps that ridge form, contrasted here along the edges with gel ink.

This size, I'll use a lot of gel pens. I love using gel pens because they so mimic the texture and refraction of our beadwork. They really do look very approximate with the beadwork, how it shimmers in the sunlight or any light. I 73:00like adding that because now what we're seeing, too, especially up north up in Canada and on the West Coast, what we're starting to see here is now you're getting into the face, the shimmering being brought into the face, like the beadwork that they're wearing, which, I think, that's awesome.

This idea of the movement and the movement that any dancer--this is a dance posture that they assume a lot, and I like doing that. I did a whole series, one whole show, five stances from different styles of dance, the dance moves and the movements and postures that the judges would be looking for, which I think is really good because then, when someone goes to a powwow or goes to a dance, they can see, "Ah, so that's what the judge is looking for."

I love drawing this stuff. This actually comes from my own collection. I keep pieces back. I didn't want to be caught in a situation like when I was at the Jacobson House on the Board. It would tear my heart up whenever we would be presenting some descendant, some young daughter or whatever--I remember the youngest child of one of the Kiowa Six, her very first and only original piece from her father. That's not right.

I decided long ago that not only pieces that I particularly like myself, but I have kept the majority of the most important pieces that have been published or have been shown. I kept them to myself so if my artwork does get to the point that it has a credible value for my tribe, it can either be donated to the tribe 75:00as a living trust from my family or that it's just in trust for my nieces, nephews, and so on because I don't want them to get in a situation like that.

Little Thunder: Did it take you a little while to come up with your signature?

Smalling: No, I've had that signature for years.

Little Thunder: Sometimes it's a little bit of a trick deciding where you want to put it.

Smalling: I don't know. It's never been--it's always just been right there. I think I did it because I didn't want it to interfere with any of the inkwork anywhere else. There it is. It's done. It's simple, and it's out of the way.

Little Thunder: All right, well, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

Smalling: My pleasure.

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