Oral history interview with Skip Rowell

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is February 10, 2013, and I'm at the Tulsa Indian Arts Festival with artist Skip Rowell, who's done this show for many years. Skip, you're of Choctaw descent. You've won a number of top awards at some of the top Southeastern shows. You've been named a Master Artist of the Five Tribes. You work in multiple media, but you're perhaps best known for your miniature scrimshaw work, usually focused on wildlife images. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Rowell: Sure. You're quite welcome.

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

Rowell: I was born in Durant, Oklahoma. I spent most of my childhood in Atoka County around a little town called Stringtown, and then I graduated from high school in Atoka.

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

Rowell: My dad was a barber. When he wasn't a barber, he was fighting somewhere. (Laughter) My grandma was a well-known bootlegger in the county. But my mom, she 1:00kept everything together. She retired from the Public Service Company.

Little Thunder: Is your Choctaw on your mom's side or your dad's side?

Rowell: It's on my dad's.

Little Thunder: Did you have a relationship with your grandparents on either side?

Rowell: Yes, I did. Like I say, my bootlegging grandmother was one side of my dad's family, and they were a little sketchy in places all through history, you know. (Laughter) On my mom's side, my grandfather there was a welder and a lay minister.

Little Thunder: So you got to be around both grandparents a little bit. Was anybody in your family or extended family artistically gifted?

Rowell: No, not that I know of. I think there was talent there, but it was something that, back then in our culture, you just didn't do. I can remember 2:00when I was a child, I'd hide behind the bed and draw pictures on cardboard boxes and stuff. My mom always tried to keep me in color books when I was little, but my dad thought drawing and painting was a sissy idea. At one point in my life, I completely quit for about fifteen years and never even did anything because I just got tired of being made fun of. "You're not manly. You've got to do this. If you're not hunting or trying to kill something, you're not on the main line."

One of the biggest influences I had, though, was my second grade teacher. She was an Indian lady named Viva Lou Thacker. She took me to my first art competition in the second grade to Durant. I'll always remember that. I drew a chicken. (Laughs) She encouraged me and kind of fed what I was needing there, so 3:00that's kind of basically how I got started.

Little Thunder: That can make a huge difference. So the ages when you were really discouraged and you kind of put it aside were around nine or ten?

Rowell: Yes, along in there. Twelve until I went to college. I have a degree in commercial art and advertising from OSU Tech [Institute of Technology]. Then I went from there to Dallas, Texas, and worked for Frontier Theaters Advertising. We were doing billboards for theaters.

Little Thunder: I was going to ask you real quickly, did your grandma speak the language? Did you get to be around the Choctaw language at all?

Rowell: No, I don't even remember them. About all they did was just cuss in English. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's a good language for that, isn't it? Did you have any 4:00other teachers either at the secondary level or high school level that encouraged your artistic talent?

Rowell: No, when I was in high school, we didn't have an art class there at Atoka, but they was always coming after me to draw something--

Little Thunder: Your classmates?

Rowell: --for the yearbook or something, different things like that.

Little Thunder: So when did you sell your first piece of art?

Rowell: Oh, gosh. I don't even really remember. I think it was probably after I came out of the Army.

Little Thunder: Okay, not in high school.

Rowell: No.

Little Thunder: In the Army, did you utilize your artistic skills at all?

Rowell: Yes, after they found out I could do some of that stuff, assigned to paint the company logos on different things, and various occasions I got a 5:00chance to use a little bit of it.

Little Thunder: You enlisted, as opposed to--

Rowell: Yes, into the Army.

Little Thunder: So you got a degree in commercial art. What kind of a base do you think that provided for you that you draw upon today?

Rowell: To be honest with you, really very little. Of course, the type of stuff I do today really didn't have much to do with that. I did work at Frontier Airlines for a while in the silkscreen department and doing that stuff, but as far as the type of stuff I do now, it really didn't carry over much. That was more commercial with silkscreen work and that type stuff.

Little Thunder: At some point, you did leave Texas, and I guess you were working 6:00in Dallas at that point. Was that a big change of environment for you?

Rowell: Oh, yes. That's an easy place to sin down there for a young man. (Laughter) I worked there. It was a good job, but after about three or four months of that, I'd catch myself--if I'd see somebody coming down the street in a horse trailer, I'd trot along and try to see if I knew them. It just wasn't for me, being in an environment like that. I needed some woods and some open air. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: When you came back to Oklahoma, at some point you went to work for a saddle maker and learned leather tooling?

Rowell: Yes, I rodeoed for probably thirty-five years. That had an art 7:00background, too, because of tooling and leather with the scroll work and different things. I made a lot of saddles, repaired a lot of them. Made a lot of leather goods of different kinds, you know.

Little Thunder: So were you partially earning a living from rodeo and partly from saddlemaking?

Rowell: Yes. I made some decent wages at it, and I always had an eye for a good horse. I bought and sold some good horses over the years and shipped a lot of them to California and different places. It got to where when a lot of people I knew in different states needed the right kind of horse, they'd call me. I kept everything kind of rolling thataway, too.

Little Thunder: Were you also drawing on the side a little bit while you were rodeoing?

Rowell: No, basically not. A lot of times if we was going on a long trip, I'd take me a piece of wood and sit in the back of the camper and carve out something, and everybody'd gripe because there were woodchips everywhere. 8:00(Laughter) I truly believe this. When I go to an art class to talk to kids or young people, I'm a full believer that God gave every human that was ever born a talent of some kind, but it's in its infant form. It's up to you to develop it. If that's in you, you're going to be--. I've sat in the woods and carved things. It's there, and it's going to come out. It takes you to take it from the infant stage to polish it and perfect it and get it to the point that you can--.

One of the worst mistakes that I try to talk to young people about that have a lot of talent, it's real easy--I saw this happen, and I know Merlin has, too. You see a young person with a lot of talent. They have some success, they sell a 9:00piece or two, and pretty soon they start making it to sell. Anytime you do that, you're going to lose it. You do each piece like you plan on keeping it yourself, that you'd be proud to hang it in your own house. Then if you sell it, you keep your quality in it. You keep reaching for just a little bit more all the time. I do sell a lot of my stuff. In fact, I'm a full-time artist. That's the way I make a living, but I don't make it to sell.

Little Thunder: That's a nice distinction. So you were already, it sounds like, in your early twenties, gravitating toward that three-dimensional work.

Rowell: Yes.

Little Thunder: Did your leather tooling provide any kind of base for your eventual discovery of scrimshaw? How did you discover scrimshaw?

Rowell: That was something that always fascinated me. Of course, my culture, I love knives and different things. I would see some scrimshaw on knife handles or 10:00pistol handles or something, and I never could figure how they did it. I finally found a book. I don't even remember who wrote it, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you because it was the worst thing I ever got a hold of. (Laughs) I took that thing--it took me a year to work all that stuff out of me to get it.

I looked at a couple of early pieces that I found in a drawer here about a year ago, and it looks like you cut them out with a hatchet. That was what I had got from that book. I just kept working down until I developed my own tools, which basically is absolutely nothing but a sewing needle stuck in the end of a dowel rod. That's what I do all my work with.

Little Thunder: And you figured that out for yourself?

Rowell: Yes.

Little Thunder: Not from the scrimshaw book. Did the leather tooling help at all, do you think?

Rowell: Oh, yes, I still incorporate some of it. In fact, I sold a piece 11:00yesterday that was on a scrimshaw piece of fossil walrus ivory, a little necklace pendant. I used the same old leather pattern that I used to use in the leather shop. Only difference was, instead of putting acorns or something, I put little flowers and leaves and scrolled a couple hummingbirds around it. So yes, you still use some of that.

Little Thunder: That's neat. So when did you first start entering shows, Native art shows?

Rowell: The first one I entered was--a friend of mine there in McAlester named Christine Verner who has studied art from every famous artist in the world, I guess, at one time or another heard that I was doing some scrimshaw stuff and came and bought a couple of knives off of me and encouraged me to enter an art 12:00show in Holdenville, a little small deal. I did a couple of pastels, and I won a First Place with one and something with the other one. That's kind of where I got started.

I was scared to death. I didn't want to take it because I thought then--and this is something else I share with young people. Just because you enter a piece and you don't win with it, that doesn't mean your stuff's not any good. It's either one or two men's opinion. I have judged some art shows, and I really have to discipline myself for not gravitating towards the things I like personally rather than maybe this over here with a little better quality. That has absolutely nothing to do with your talent, whether you win First or Second or don't at all because the next place, it all balances itself out. That's where I got started. That was the first one.

Little Thunder: At Holdenville. So even though she had bought your scrimshaw and 13:00was interested in it, you entered pastels for that one. Were they wildlife images?

Rowell: No, the one I entered over there was a Plains Indian holding a spear and shield. The reason I didn't take any scrimshaw is because she told me, "I'm not sure them people even know what that is." I have had the strangest thing happen to me. I'm not going to tell you what art show it was, (don't want to offend anybody) but it was a well-known art show. Still going on right now.

I had a piece of scrimshaw over there, and I went to pick my stuff up. I didn't win nothing, which, that's okay. That curator told me, "This is the beatingest thing I ever saw. I don't know whether I ought to tell you this or not." He said, "We had two judges. One of them wanted to give you First Place. One of them said that that wasn't real, that it was done with lasers." He said, "They 14:00got in a argument, and what they decided to do was not judge you at all. To be honest with you, they didn't know what it was." So I have run into that.

Little Thunder: So probably in the early days then, you were sort of in the process of educating people about what scrimshaw was.

Rowell: Yes, in this area. Now, it's well known on the coast and different places, you know, but it's something was new for this area.

Little Thunder: What kinds of materials did you start out using when you first started experimenting with scrimshaw?

Rowell: I have done it on just about anything you can scratch. I first started out, because I couldn't afford the real stuff and didn't know where to get it, fossiled ivory. I really made it a point not to ever use modern elephant ivory just for the simple reason I love the old stuff better. It has better color to 15:00it and stuff. I don't want to offend anybody, or I don't want to get any kind of ivory that came from black market stuff, so I just always refuse to use that. When I started out, I bought some imitation ivory. It's called micarta. It's actually made from ivory dust and epoxy. You buy it in sheets and cut it out. You can do decent stuff but nothing like the real thing.

Little Thunder: Was your subject matter primarily wildlife in the early scrimshaw works?

Rowell: Yes, did a lot of wildlife, and I've always did some type of Indian stuff, maybe buffalos or I'd incorporate a tipi in something. Basically a lot of it was just wildlife. Seemed like the market--I got started doing a wildlife 16:00piece, somebody'd see that and said, "Well, do me a deer," or, "Can you do this on that?" So there for a while I was pretty much just doing--looked like this was the way to go, so I did a lot.

I still do some wildlife, but now I do a lot of, basically, Five Tribes stuff anymore. I like to go back in the early stuff when the traders were coming over and trading blankets and different things, and the tribes were torn between the French and English colonies and all that. I'm trying to work in that area.

I love the different types of--one piece I did, I really liked. I believe it may be archived in the Five Tribes Museum. I think Ms. Griffin bought it, but it was an Indian standing. Had a English trade musket, a French blanket, I think it was 17:00a French knife, and a Spanish--all these different things they were getting as trade goods, standing there. The look I captured on that was like, "I don't know which side to join. What do we do? Where do we go from here? We don't know. We're caught in the middle of all this turmoil, and we'll never be the same."

I've got a piece that I'm working on now that I'm planning on putting in the Masters show: a Spanish man standing there with all the old Spanish garb on, the armor and all that, standing, talking to a Cherokee, basically before they ever got anything, in the original dress, and a couple more whispering over, "We'll never be the same because here's a guy fixing to give us some blankets and the 18:00knives and all this stuff, so what we've known all our lives is fixing to change." So that area, I'm really interested in trying to show right now.

Little Thunder: That one piece sounds really wonderful, too. What was one of your most exciting early awards?

Rowell: I guess it would be winning the Best of Show at the competitive show there at the Five Tribes Museum. That was the first time that I actually felt like maybe I do belong in this.

Little Thunder: Maybe this is what I need to do. It was for a piece of scrimshaw work?

Rowell: Yes.

Little Thunder: You also won Second Place in sculpture at Colorado Indian Market in 1985. Was that a bigger show than--

Rowell: Yes, it was a real big show. I never saw so many people in my life. It 19:00snowed that night that we got there, about two feet. I told my wife, I said, "There won't be ten people here." We go to the building. I walk in there, and before the show opened, I walked to the door and looked, and there's people lined up as far as you can see, four abreast, in the snow, waiting to get in there.

The piece that I was going to enter, I had came across--a man found an old large whale's tooth at a flea market, and he brought it to me. I particularly was going to do this piece for that show out there. I started out at the top after I polished this tooth. It's beautiful ivory, holds a tremendous amount of detail way better than elephant ivory, the mastodon. I started out with a eagle at the 20:00top, flying, and then the Rocky Mountains. It came down and circled this tooth. It had some big-horned sheep, and then it came on down into elk. Then right down at the bottom, it worked its way down to a beaver pond. I had it on a base, had it on a base that turned, where it slowly rotated.

Well, I had told a doctor in Muskogee I was working on it, and he said, "I want to see it before you take it." So we stopped by on our way to Denver, and he was up in the operating room. He came down in his operating gear. I don't know what his patient was doing. Still had his mask on and all that. I had it sitting on the hood, and it turned around. He said, "What do you want for that?" I said, "I don't want to sell it right now because this is a piece I'm taking out there to enter in that." He said, "Well, what's First Place out there?" I said, "It's a thousand dollars." He said, "What are you going to want for this piece?" Of 21:00course, back then, I priced that cheaper than what the tooth's worth now. I said, "I'll take five hundred for the piece." He said, "Okay, so if I give you fifteen hundred dollars, I can have this now, and you can play like you won." I said, "Okay!" (Laughter)

We make the deal, and I get out there, and I'm not going to enter anything. My wife said, "Yes, you are." I picked up a little ol' piece that wasn't three inches tall and was on a base, and she actually took it and put it in Sculpture. I said, "You've got to be nuts." They had bronzes out there and everything, and I ended up winning the category. (Laughter) I was embarrassed. People look at you funny, but what do you do? (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You found a category. (Laughter) That's a great story. You did a lot of traveling to Texas early on. What was different from the Texas market? What's different between the two markets, Texas and Oklahoma?

Rowell: Well, to be honest with you, (I'm an Okie through and through) the 22:00money's better in Texas. Even this year, I did a show there in--I can't think of the name of the town. It's actually in Dallas (it's just they call it something else) at a show there in July, and you know as well as I do, when the economy gets bad, art's the first thing that takes the hit. That show was an outside show, which I very rarely ever do one of them. I don't like them, but I did this, anyway. I just sold nearly everything I had. The economy was better there, and that's what made the difference.

Little Thunder: Sometimes the business aspect of art is hard to master, and I'm wondering what some of your early lessons in that area were.

Rowell: I have never been much of a businessman. My banker just laughs at me. He says--and I don't know if this is true or not. I'm not a scientist. He said, 23:00"Artists' brains are different than other people. You work off a creative deal." He said, "You let me handle your finances, and you just do your artwork." (Laughter)

One thing is (and still I get griped at) I don't price my stuff high enough. To me, I don't know why anybody would want to give that kind of money for something that I had fun doing. Now, if I was out there digging a post hole, it's different, but this, it doesn't come hard. There was times that you have to fight your way through different areas to get to a point, but now I don't really have to wrestle with a piece. I can pretty much look at it for a while. I don't just grab a piece and go to work on it. I'll keep it laying around for a few days and let it tell me what it wants to be and then put it on there. That was 24:00probably my biggest mistake was not pricing my stuff for actually what it was worth or what it would bring.

Little Thunder: What role does Cleora play in the business?

Rowell: Oh, she keeps my clothes done up, washes my socks. (Laughter) She's been good to go with me as my helpmate, not just in life but in my art business. She helps me cover stuff and makes sure the curtains are straight and the table's clean and all that, you know. It would be hard to do what I do without her.

Little Thunder: So you got busier on the show scene in the 1980s. Is that right?

Rowell: Yes, basically.

Little Thunder: What was one of your early galleries that you think was 25:00important to your career?

Rowell: Well, the first stuff I put in the gallery was in Mrs. Verner's gallery [Verner Gallery and Fine Art] there in McAlester, and some of the local clientele bought some pieces. My career has never just taken a great leap from being here to there. It was a process. I think most everybody is that way. People that buy serious art, they want to know whether you're for real or not. Are you just going to be here and do this for a while and then going to be gone? Once you establish yourself and they know that you're going to continue, you're going to be there, you're going to continue to enter shows, that your bio is going to grow--.

People buy art because they like it. I tell people--I've had people come and look at my stuff, and my opinion, (I don't know if this is correct or not) when 26:00you first see something, if it appeals to you right then, nine times--you'll be happy with it. If you have to talk yourself into buying something just because you want to spend some money to tell somebody what you gave for something, it's not going to be long, it's in the back room back there somewhere. That has a lot to do with it.

I don't want to sell somebody something just because they want to spend some money. I want them to like this. I want them to enjoy it. I was at this same show back when we had it at the fairgrounds. I had a painting that I did, maybe a eighteen by twenty-four, smaller type painting of an Indian with a red blanket on. This young couple kept coming by there four or five times, and they would look at it. I could hear them. They'd step over there and talk.

I think the painting was like $750 or something. They were arguing, "We can't afford that. We want that, but can we not do it?" I'm just getting pieces of 27:00this. The show was about over, and they came back by and looked at it again. I said, "Y'all really like that piece, don't you?" Said, "Oh, yes, we love it. We just cannot work that into our budget right now." They were probably in their early twenties.

I said, "I'm going to tell you what I'll do. If you'll pay me for what I got in that frame, I'm going to give you this picture just for the simple reason is because y'all love it and I know you'll enjoy it. I want you to have it." They liked to fell over. I still get Christmas cards from them. I've had people that's bought stuff that I knew they just wanted to spend some money. I have to sell this stuff, but I got more enjoyment out of giving them that piece than I did selling maybe some other pieces.

Little Thunder: That's a great story. How do you think the Native art scene 28:00changed from the '80s to the '90s? Maybe you haven't been on the gallery scene enough to notice those changes, maybe booth shows, too. From the '80s and '90s, how did it change?

Rowell: It's like anything that goes back, again, to how the economy's flowing. It has its ups, and then it'll have its lows, and it'll get back up again. I still have maintained a pretty steady movement of my work through these periods. A lot of times, I have developed a line of customers that pretty much I can do something and know, "Hey, he'll like this."

Most of my stuff I sell over the telephone. I don't travel like I did because we 29:00adopted a little girl about eighteen years ago, and she was just, like, two weeks old. I didn't just want to leave this little orphan with somebody to take care of them while we traveled, so I started cutting back on shows and just doing local stuff. There's more important things in life than making money, so I cut back there.

Now that she's--I have to brag on her a little bit. She scored a 33 on her ACT and that wasn't good enough. She took it again yesterday and wants to get it up to a 34. She plays softball. She's class president. She just does everything. I think it's like anything in life. You have to--what's the word?

Little Thunder: Prioritize.

Rowell: Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. (Laughter) You have to put things in perspective, you know. As I continued to do my art there, a lot of times I would 30:00depend on calling the customers. "I have this piece. I'll send the photograph of it if you'd like." That's the way I go. I have done business with Eagle Tree Gallery down by Nashville [Tiptonville], Jere Ellis. He's been a good outlet, too. I know there's times if we go to a show and the crowd's not very good and the show's been a little weak, I know times that he's come over and bought things just on that account. Developing relationships like that with gallery owners and people that--you put it all in a pot and stir it up, and it keeps you going.

Little Thunder: In 1990, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act was passed. I wondered if you remember the impact that had on the Native art scene.

Rowell: Oh, definitely. I think its conception was a good thing. I've been to 31:00shows where people were selling China-made beads and Japanese stuff like that and pawning them off on people as Indian craft. I think that definitely needed to have been stopped. I think that part was a good thing. I think it kind of got out of hand. I know my family, we've researched it, and I have enough documentation that I could get a card right now, but I refuse to do it. There's been shows that I've been kicked out of on that account. People say, "Well, why don't you do it?" It goes back. Like I say, we go back and traced it back to an Indian named Notoshtubbe who was an interpreter on the Trail of Tears.

I have copies of letters that my great-grandmother wrote so white men could come into her allotment and work on her farm, but they were not on the [Dawes] Roll 32:00because they did not want their children sent off to some Indian school somewhere. That was a choice they made. I just thought I would honor that. If they don't let me in a show, I'll just go to another one. It kind of got out of hand thataway. I know up there at Lost City [OK], there's some Cherokee people that can't even speak English that are not card holders. They have to bring somebody with them when they get ready to sell their stuff, and that's wrong.

It has its pros and cons, and it has definitely affected some shows, and some of them it hasn't. I just learned to go with--that's the thing about being in this as long as I have. I can get into a show anywhere pretty much when I want to. I don't have to mail in photographs. I can just send them a bio and go. It's 33:00opened up for me, but it's took time. I actually think the Act was a good thing. It's like anything, though. If you're not careful, it gets out of control.

Little Thunder: How did it feel to earn that title, Master Artist of the Five Tribes? What did that mean to you?

Rowell: Oh, it was great. I had friends like Bill Rabbit. When I first got started, Bill and I got to be good friends, and several others. Something that I thought, "Well, I don't know if I'll ever make that or not." I have never been real high on myself as far as thinking that I am it. A lot of times when I'd win something, I would actually feel self-conscious because I won.

Anyway, it was a great thing. It was a real boost to my business because it gives you certain authenticity. I have sold several pieces just because I have that plate on my table that I am a Master Artist of the Five Civilized Tribes. It gives you some credibility because most people know you don't get that unless you earn it. It took several years of continuing with the shows and different things and winning. It was a tremendous boost, and I'm proud of it.

Little Thunder: What's the most memorable comment or piece of feedback you got from a collector?

Rowell: I guess the funniest thing is I had a guy give me a moose antler one time. I threw that thing around on my porch at the shop and kicked it out of the way two or three times. "What am I going to do with this?" One day, I got the idea to carve it, so I set it up, and I carved an eagle in it, put it on a base and everything. In fact, I always have some there. It's one of my better selling items.

Little Thunder: You mean moose antlers?

Rowell: Yes. We were at a show--I want to say it was in Arlington, Texas. This man came up with some friends he was visiting. He was from Norway. He didn't speak any English, but he fell in love with this eagle carving, and he bought it. We got a phone call from the friends that lived in Dallas and told me, "He 36:00would not let them ship that. He carried that back to Norway in his lap on the airplane. He wouldn't allow anybody to touch it."

Then about a week later, I get this letter from Norway, wrote in Norwegian, and I still don't to this day know what it says. (Laughter) I don't know what happened, but I thought that's pretty neat that this guy liked that enough that he wouldn't even allow them to mail it, that he's going to carry it in his lap. Here I've still got this Norwegian letter. I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm hanging onto it.

Little Thunder: Until you find a translator. (Laughter)

Rowell: Yes.

Little Thunder: We're going to shift into your philosophies and practices a little bit, a little bit more technical discussion, but not super technical. 37:00Scrimshaw work is very miniature, and it's working in a different scale. What helped you the most, get a hold of that scale?

Rowell: Some of my stuff, actually, some of the things I do now are considered large for scrimshaw because I do some pieces that are maybe two and a half, three inches by four or five inches, and I put them in shadowboxes. Basically, considering it against painting, yes, it is tedious, small work. I don't really know how to explain that question.

A lot of times, I may have to draw something two or three times because I get it too--here's the thing about the difference of scrimshaw than, say, painting. Basically, painting, you've got a canvas, or you've got a piece of paper, 38:00whatever. They're all the same. That's what I love about doing this scrimshaw work. It's always challenging. It always keeps you on your toes. You don't get complacent with it. Basically what I use now mostly is woolly mammoth fossilized ivory. They're coming out with a lot of it now since the ice is melting up there and they're getting some good pieces out of Siberia.

It has tremendous color to it. You may start up here working on the top of it, and it'd be firmer. The further you go, it starts softening up. You have to just live with it and baby it along and pull out what's in there. It all has different shapes, different colorations. I just love it. In fact, I still do occasionally get some Eskimo artifacts, Inuit artifacts. They didn't have the 39:00stone that we do here in this country, so a lot of their stuff was made out of fossil walrus tusks and ivory, spearheads and harpoon heads and sled runners and stuff.

In fact, I sold a man a collection of almost 300 pieces to one man that I had bought back from a collector of mine who passed away. There's some tremendous fishing weights and different artifacts in there that's just really hard to get now. Working on those in the studio, and you're in there by yourself, and your mind goes to drift. "I'm working on something here that a man seven or eight thousand years ago used to feed his family, used to survive. He whittled this fishing weight out of--hacked it out of a piece of walrus tusk and put it on his 40:00sled and lived in a harsh environment." It's kind of a eerie feeling sometimes to realize this mastodon elephant roamed this country 75,000 years ago. Here I've got a piece of it in my studio. I love doing that stuff. It's a lot more than just painting on a canvas.

Little Thunder: The fossilized mastodon, do you order that online, or do you buy from dealers?

Rowell: I just bought two pieces here this morning from a friend of mine who got it from a friend of hers in Arkansas that got it from somewhere else. I do buy a lot of it. Used to, you could go--I haven't, but it would've been legal for me to go up to Alaska and go to the villages and buy this stuff. When they were 41:00putting the Alaska pipeline in, I had a lot of friends that went to work up there.

The Eskimos have a pretty severe alcohol problem, and one reason is that they are so isolated with nothing to do, especially the young people in these out villages. Well, these people that were up there, they would trade liquor and stuff for huge pieces of mastodon ivory worth thousands of dollars. It was getting out of there, so the government came in, which it was really a great thing. Now it's legal to sell it. They can sell it to an authorized dealer.

See, they get a fair price for it because that's the way they supplement their income. They pick up a lot of this stuff around the same old camps and villages 42:00that they traveled thousands of years ago. For goose season, they go to goose camp. Well, they camp there in May, then they find artifacts, and it keeps turning up. Instead of people just going up there and beating them out of it, they get a fair price and supplement them, helps them. I buy most of mine through a dealer like that.

Little Thunder: When you're working on wildlife images, do you take photographs, or do you work from scrap, other photographs?

Rowell: A lot of times I do, and a lot of times I use photographs that are in, maybe, books or something. I don't do much research on the native animals because I've spent my life in the woods. I pretty much know, but still you need to look at a picture sometimes just to make sure the feet are right or whatever.

If somebody wants me to do an African lion, I've got to go find somebody that took a photograph of an African lion. I have a file of books, different National Geographics or different things. I don't, per se, copy the pictures, but I use that as a reference to make sure that everything's correct. I think that's important, too, especially doing our Native American stuff.

One of my pet peeves was (I guess I can't use the names that I'd like to) a famous Western artist who traveled from back East in a train, went through and made sketches. Went back East and painted, did sculptures. I looked at them, and I've been a cowboy all my life. One of them, a famous sculpture of a cowboy, the saddle doesn't have a blanket under it. No cowboy would ride his horse without a blanket under it. One of them, the bit's turned backwards. Another man who is a 44:00famous Western artist who lived the cowboy life did a lot of his work around the campfire. All of his stuff is correct.

You owe it to--if you're doing Native American stuff, you need to know that tribe. You need to know what their dress was, what their customs was, what the tattoos looked like. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of our early Native tribes, Woodland tribes, were tattooed. If you're going to do a piece and sell it to somebody, then it needs to be as correct as you possibly can make everything on it.

Little Thunder: When you've sketched, done a little preliminary sketching for a scrimshaw or whatever, do you do it on tracing paper?

Rowell: No, now I just generally do it on my piece. Once you get it polished out, I just draw it directly on there. Sometimes I will. If I'm laying out a 45:00couple different things, I may scratch out some little primitive layout-type things to see if this buffalo head's going to fit behind this Indian, or if I want to put a turtle in or a dragonfly or whatever. That's the thing about doing a scrimshaw. If you're doing work on paper or canvas and you're making your sketches, you can erase it. When you're doing it on this ivory, once you scratch it, you've got one choice: either make that work or sand it off and start all over again.

Little Thunder: Do you work on any other materials that you carve regularly besides bone or fossilized antler?

Rowell: Yes, I've done some bronzes. I've done about four bronzes.

Little Thunder: What was that experience like?

Rowell: It was pretty cool. It's expensive, but I really enjoyed the process. 46:00The friends of mine who run the foundry, The Bronze Horse--

Little Thunder: Where is that?

Rowell: In Pawhuska. They were real flexible to work with. That process was pretty neat. I've done scrimshaw on jade. You can basically do this on anything you can sand smooth and scratch. It's got quite a history. A lot of explorers, the mountain men and stuff who opened up the West, a lot of them didn't have pencil and paper, but nearly all of them carried white powder horns, and they would take a knife point and make maps. I saw some of these in museums. They made maps to where the passes were through the mountains and different things.

I was doing some research one time for a Bible class that I was going to teach. 47:00I was looking through a Bible book that I had, and something caught my eye. I looked, and there was this elephant tusk scrimshawed that came out of a tomb in Egypt. What was depicted on it was the scrimshaw of the exodus of the children of Israel. This goes back--it actually goes back to a caveman taking a stone and scratching into a bone and then rubbing some ashes in it, so it's got a rich history to it.

Little Thunder: Do you always have stories for your work? How important is story?

Rowell: Oh, people like to hear stories. I try to be as factual as I can, up to a point. (Laughter) Like that Western poet that says, "I'm going to tell you facts as long as I can, but I'm not going to quit talking." No, people like to 48:00know why you did this, what's the story behind it.

It's like a lot of people that see Indian art. I did some paintings here. Last year, I read the history of old Fort Sill about the Indian wars. Growing up, I knew I always had some Indian heritage, and I wanted to be Mighty Elk or Tall Bull or something like that. Come to find out, I go back to an Indian named Notoshtubbe, which means Slow-Walking Turtle. (Laughter) You know, when you go from there--.

Anyway, I did these horses, two different large paintings of one cavalry horse and an Indian horse running loose after the battle. The cavalry horse stepped on his bridle and broke a rein. The Indian horse I paint with the symbols, and a lot of people don't have a clue. They think that's just pretty decorations that 49:00they put. I said, "No, this handprint means that he killed a enemy in battle. These horse tracks means he's had successful horse-stealing raids. These eye marks are clan marks." They're fascinated to know that those actually meant things, so people want to hear what's the basic behind what you're doing.

Little Thunder: Do you title all of your things?

Rowell: Oh, yes, I always try to.

Little Thunder: Even the little scrimshaw--

Rowell: Well, the small jewelry pieces I don't, but I had a piece of bark, mammoth ivory, that I'd cut off. It had some bad cracks in it. I thought, "I can never use that," so I sawed it off, and I had it laying around. Started to throw it away, and I got to thinking, "I could seal them cracks up." It's a neat-looking piece, had beautiful color to it. The way it come out, the top had naturally been broken off, and it looked just like a Rocky Mountain there. I've 50:00got it up there. It's maybe three inches by four and a half or something like that.

I did this old mountain man on it, and I put a little grin on his face, not mean and gruff like a lot of them are, a little sneaky kind of grin on this old man. Well, I thought, "I got to title this," on the way to town. I was trying to hurry up and get it up here so I could have it for this weekend. I'm thinking on the way to town, "What am I going to call this?" I made up this little poem on the way to town. Let me see if I can remember it.

I trapped a beaver and kissed a bear.I've fought the Blackfeet and still got my hair.

I'll live up here until Kingdom come,

for I am a mountain man, by gum.

I had that all put on this little piece. (Laughter) You got to have some humor in what you do. This little guy looks just like he would tell you a lie in a New 51:00York minute. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I hope I get to see that at the end. We're getting to the close, here. How did you come up with your signature? Was there an art to that?

Rowell: Well, early, I tried different things, fancy stuff, and now I just write my name. Always, if it's on a bigger painting or a little small piece, I try to keep my signature pretty minimal. I don't like great big, "Look at me. Look at my name. Don't worry about what you're buying here." I'm pretty self-conscious. You just put your name on there. If they look, they do realize it's done by somebody. Mine's pretty simple. I started out, and I have a feather with some of my early stuff and this and that. I thought, "Crap, I'll just write my name on it and go on." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What's your creative process from the time you get an idea?

Rowell: Sometimes it's pretty slow. (Laughs) I know that this happens to other artists or, maybe, mechanics or whatever your gift is. Art has always come fairly easy to me, but when it comes to being a mechanic or carpentering, all I've ever done with a hammer or a wrench was mash my fingers. I can't fix nothing. My wife will not let me touch anything around the house. She hires it done.

I wake up with ideas for a piece that I never thought of the night before I went to sleep, but when I wake up, "I'm going to go do that." I've got up in the night and made quick notes. These come to you. I think the Lord helps you with 53:00that stuff. I'm sure a lot of people that are working on an engine and run into a problem, it comes to them the same way. That's a gift that's been given you. It's hard for me to explain other than it just happens.

Little Thunder: Do you have a creative routine? Do you work a certain number of hours?

Rowell: Oh, no. The crappie's biting, fish are biting or the squirrels are cutting hickory nuts, I'm out of there, man. (Laughter) That's one of the things that's beautiful about being self-employed in my stuff. In the same time I'm off out there, if I'm up a river in my boat, I just feel at ease with nature, and I learn a lot from it. I see things. I see the bark on a tree, and I thought, "I'll remember that because I'll use that." Maybe a tree that's rotten and a 54:00limb's broke, or a bird or whatever, it's all staying in the rhythm of life. I think it's a big part of being an artist. I could not be an artist if I had to get up and work eight hours a day at a studio. I may be sitting there watching my cork go under, but I may want to paint that crappie or a picture of it when it comes up. It's all part of it.

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

Rowell: Well, you know, I guess one of the highest points was becoming a Master of the Five Tribes. It's always good when you sell high-dollar stuff, and that's always a high point. I enjoy winning. I'm not always hung up on the ribbons. In fact, I got so tired of dusting that crap about a year ago, I just threw them all in a garbage bag. It's part of the business because most of the time there's pretty good compensation comes with winning. It's like found money. It's part of the business. As long as you're winning awards, you know that you are keeping the quality of your stuff up. You're not getting slack and lazy and slinging it out there. All of these things are part of it. I wouldn't say it's a real high point or whatever. That's really a hard question for me to answer. It's all a high point for me. I love it.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the low points for you in this career so far?

Rowell: I don't know if I've had any. There's times that things get slow. When people get scared of spending any money, things'll get tight. That's the beauty part of being in this business for a while. Even in hard times or when it's slow, you can still sell pieces because you've got collectors that buy them. I've got a jeweler at home right now, and he just started. Saw some of my work about a year ago, and he wants me to bring everything I do by and let him see it. And he wants to buy it. He'll buy that mountain man. He said, "I want to buy that, but you go ahead and take it to show if you don't want to sell it." He said, "I'm going to build me a collection." I said, "I'm going to collect your money, so we're going to both be happy!" (Laughter)

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

Rowell: I sure hope not. (Laughs) I'm not a good interview. I don't know much about this kind of stuff. You may have to edit about half of what I told you. I don't know.

Little Thunder: I don't think so. Okay, we're looking at this mountain man piece that you were telling us the poem of.

Rowell: Yes, that's the one I was telling you about while ago. This is called bark ivory. It's actually the piece that's on the outside that takes all the weathering, and it looks just like a tree bark. If you was to see that before it's polished out, you wouldn't even pick it up. You just, a little bit of sanding. You can see the big cracks in that stuff, which is a characteristic of 55:00ivory. All of it has some hair cracks of some kind in it. You learn how to either incorporate them in what you're doing, or work over or around them. That was a fun piece to do.

Little Thunder: It's got gorgeous colors. It's beautiful. All right, how about the knife? Even the shape of the wood piece behind it is imitating that of the knife handle. Do you want to talk about this piece?

Rowell: This piece is done on a, actually it's a warthog tusk that comes out of Africa. I buy them through dealers. They're just terrible-looking when you get them, and actually as much work as getting them sanded down past the enamel and polished. Once you get into that, it's a beautiful high grade of ivory that holds tremendous detail. With these, I've incorporated the carving on the end of 56:00the eagle head, plus the adding of the scrimshaw on the knife. Actually, I even acid etched the blades with eagles and different things in there. I've really had a lot of success with these. They're pretty collectible, and they've been a good piece for me.

Little Thunder: And you added the turquoise, too.

Rowell: Yes, a lot of times I'll use turquoise or jasper or maybe black buffalo horn. All of that combined, it just makes it work.

Little Thunder: Beautiful.

Rowell: The scrimshaw piece we looked at, I certainly don't think I've arrived. I'm still trying new things, still developing. It took me about a year to learn how to color this stuff. I put some subtle color in it. You can't just use paint, or you can't use dye. It's a process that a lot of people now that try to pick my brain. "How do you do that? I want to do--." I'll be glad to help 57:00anybody, teach. I'm fixing to, maybe this summer, start having some classes and passing some of the things that I've learned on because I know I'm not going to be able to do this from now on, the little tiny stuff. I'm nearly seventy years old, so it's getting hard for me to see. These are things that I'm going to share with other people and try to keep it going on.

Little Thunder: That's great. How about this piece? This is just gorgeous.

Rowell: This is one of the antler carvings that I was talking about earlier. This particular one is carved from moose antler. Basically, moose carve better than anything because they're one of the few antlers that's pretty solid all the way through them. They're not like a deer horn or an elk that have that honeycomb inside of them. They make beautiful carvings.

They're a little bit tricky because this one is actually thicker than some. The 58:00thickest part's about three quarters of an inch. You have to learn how to get some three-dimensional work in such a thin area, so you learn how to carve stuff back and set stuff forward. It makes it look alive instead of just a dead piece.

Little Thunder: Yes, with the fish and everything, it's just gorgeous. Thank you so much for your time today, Skip.

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