Oral history interview with Shan Gray

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Wednesday, May 22 [2013], and I'm interviewing Shan Gray as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project for the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Shan's home in Edmond, Oklahoma. Shan, you're an artist from a family of artists. Your public sculptures can be seen throughout central Oklahoma, from Edmond to Norman to Guthrie. Your subject matter is as often non-Native as it is Native, but your pride in your Osage identity shows up clearly in your work. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Gray: Certainly.

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

Gray: I was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and I grew up in Bartlesville. Great place, especially the '50s.

Little Thunder: What did your mother and father do for a living?

Gray: My mother was a stay-at-home mom, looked after us. My dad worked for Phillips Petroleum. I think that was about the time I was born, he went to work at Phillips. He was a police lieutenant in Bartlesville after the war and worked his way up. You need to stop me sometimes because I ramble on and one thought leads to another. He was convinced by some execs at Phillips to run for police chief. He knew if he lost, he'd lose his job. He lost. That's how he went to work for Phillips. The execs that wanted him to run against the chief of police got him on at the Research Center, and he worked there for, gosh, twenty-eight, twenty-nine years.

Little Thunder: Wow. Now, you have two brothers and a sister, (is that right) all of whom are artists?

Gray: I'm the mistake of the family. Greg, the oldest, is eleven years older than me, and then Clancy's about eight, and my sister's seven.

Little Thunder: So you're the youngest.

Gray: Yes.

Little Thunder: Were you close to your grandparents on either side?

Gray: My grandparents were deceased on my dad's side. He's full-blood Osage. I always found it interesting: my grandfather was orphaned during the Indian wars in the 1860s, and my dad was the last child of Clarence Gray Sr. His mother died giving birth to him in the '20s. From about 1860 to when I was born in 1956, that's three generations. That means a lot to me, the historical aspect that we're a very young country and a young state. When you're young, time seems so long, and it's really not long at all.

Little Thunder: What is your first memory of seeing Native art?

Gray: Two? Three? Very early.

Little Thunder: What was it?

Gray: It was a horse, a horse and rider.

Little Thunder: A painting?

Gray: I vaguely remember a buffalo. I don't know if it was a [Jerome] Tiger or not.

Little Thunder: In your home or elsewhere?

Gray: You know, I don't know.

Little Thunder: How about your first memory of doing art?

Gray: My first memory, good question. I love crime shows, Law and Order, and 4:00they always ask, "Where were you on May 7, 2005?" Well, I ate lunch two hours ago, and not only can I not tell you where I ate, I can't tell you what I ate. You're asking me questions I--.

Little Thunder: That's okay. (Laughter)

Gray: I guess I was four years old. My mom kept it. Clancy and Gail were given art lessons, and Jack Grace noticed that I was doodling and told my mom I could stay because I was a quiet kid and I liked to draw. I remember doing a dinosaur. I think I was, like, three or something, pretty young.

Little Thunder: This was private art lessons that your siblings were getting, and he noticed that you could draw, too, and let you stay.

Gray: It was a summer thing.

Little Thunder: So did you continue to work under him? Did he continue to give you little assignments or--

Gray: Yes, and he moved. I don't recall why, but I only went for two or three years. I think it was during the summer when sports was going on, and there was a conflict there. It made a huge impression on me.

Little Thunder: Were you and your siblings competitive in terms of art?

Gray: No, there was too much time. They were quite a bit older than I was. I know they were always coming to me to do things for them like school assignments. "Hey, would you draw this?" I'd go, "Sure." (Laughter) I didn't think anything of it, but I must have done a thousand wildcats over a ten-year period. That was College High Wildcats.

Little Thunder: How about your other art experiences in elementary school or middle school?

Gray: Well, a valuable lesson that I learned, it was third grade, and there were two artists in the class: myself and a fellow named Kim. For Thanksgiving, they had Kim do the pilgrim, and I was to do the Indian. We had crayons. I did my Indian in buckskins, and I wanted to catch the silver wet buckskins. Of course, crayons clash real bad, so you have brown and silver. The third grade teacher chastised me for clashing those crayons, and I didn't pick up another pencil or crayon until seventh grade.

Even then, I knew what I was doing. That sounds pretty pretentious of me, but, 7:00you know, she didn't understand what I was trying to do. It taught me to be very careful what I say to young artists because of the effect it had on me. In seventh grade, my brother Clancy, who's always been a big influence in my life goes, "It's an easy A. Take art class." So I did.

I remember in ninth grade, there was a science contest for a poster, and I did this picture of Einstein and [E=mc2]. I remember all week, I was just nervous about that competition. I won, but I never did another competition after that 8:00because, one, who were they to judge me? What are their qualifications as artists? If they are, (now, this is terrible) I thought, "I want it to be worth something."

What got me over the hump, I have some kids that I instruct. I always wanted to be a homicide detective or a movie director. I'd like to direct films, storytelling, if you will, or a sculptor. Those were my three main goals since I was little. I ended up going back to art to sculpting because it just seemed like something I wanted to do, that I felt driven to do, though I tried the others and I probably would've been successful at that.

I attribute that to my mom and dad. They just gave us a lot of confidence that you work hard enough and you know your business, then, given the opportunity, you'll be ready to take advantage of it. I find that to be a truism, that, just prepare, and when opportunity knocks, you'll be ready. Though, I wasn't ready when the art world--

Side note. I forgot the right term you use. I lived in Denver and Chicago and Dallas and LA, just trying to get a feel of the country and other people, and I recall I decided I wanted to go to Kansas City Art Institute. I worked real hard on an art portfolio. Our apartment got broken into. They stole the stereo, the 10:00TV, and my art portfolio.

Little Thunder: Oh my gosh!

Gray: So I never tried to get into the--there was too much work in that.

Little Thunder: How old were you?

Gray: Twenty-two, twenty-three, so that kind of pushed me into other directions. It was after a really bad automobile accident. I, to this day, don't know where Gary saw my work. I had broke my back. I had a fractured skull. I could no longer do the regular manual jobs in the oil field. At the time, I was working out in the oil field. He said, "Do you want a job? I have a small ad agency. Would you like to go to work for us as an illustrator?" I said, "Well, yes, but 11:00how do you know what my work is?" He goes, "Oh, I've seen it. You're really good." I said, "Okay." That's how I got back into art. If that hadn't happened--.

Actually, I'd been working for a film production company. This would've been 1980. They were going to do a film that required a lot of young Indian kids riding horses. They asked, "Do you ride?" I said, "Yes," and they said, "Can you instruct children on how to ride?" I said, "Well, certainly." To myself, I was saying, "Man, I need to get back there and start riding." (Laughter) It's not something like swimming.

My dad was killed in an automobile accident. I was supposed to go back that Saturday, back to LA. That's one thing I really liked that I learned by living in other parts of the country. When I moved out to Los Angeles, I had work the 12:00second day I was there. I got off the plane, met a friend who'd been out there a couple years. If you had a good work ethic and had the ability to communicate, work was plentiful. To this day, I'm amazed how quickly--.

I was there three days, and someone asked me to interview with CBS for the mailroom. I got hired that day. That afternoon, I got hired on a production company as a gaffer, which is lighting personnel. I just love that business because it's a very people-oriented business, though, at the time, I was not mature enough to--I just figured there'd always be work there, and I ran with a pretty wild crowd.

When I came back that following summer to learn how to teach kids how to ride, 13:00my dad had been killed in that accident. I was supposed to leave that Saturday; he was killed on Friday. It kind of discombobulated all my timing. Something inside said, "Don't go back," and I never went back. Part of me wishes I would've gone back, but I'm certainly happy with the life I have now, so I guess things happen for the best.

Little Thunder: So this was post-college. Is that right? This was after college?

Gray: Yes. I'd gone to OSU. They had some great people in the art world, but art's such a subjective business, anyway. I always lean to your more classical type of work: realism, super realism. The reason you don't see a lot of it is, 14:00one, it's very difficult to do, two, it's difficult to do well. Most people don't want to pay for that. Art in Oklahoma, it's not the mecca for art. When I first started sculpting, my work in Georgia, Atlanta, Florida, they recognized me there. Here has an attitude of, "Well, if you're successful, why are you an artist in Oklahoma?"

It was the people that actually brought me back to Oklahoma. Every-body was just laid back, friendly. I'll never forget, in LA (I forgot the name of the highway) it took forty-five minutes to go three miles. I had a motorcycle. (Laughs) I remember when I first got there, Linda--I came in, I looked in the mirror, and I had a great tan. I took my goggles off, and she goes, "What were you doing 15:00today?" I said, "I was out riding." She goes, "This was a stage-three smog alert! You're not supposed to be out there." It wasn't a tan. It was smog that had discolored me. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You did tell me a little funny story about Marty Avrett and your, I guess, first encounter with art classes at OSU. I wonder if you'd mind repeating that real quickly.

Gray: Not at all. I had picked OSU. There again, people were very important to me. OSU was just a friendly place. My sister had gone to school there, so I was familiar with the campus. I was familiar with the night life back then, and I thought, "Well, I'll take night classes, and that'll keep me out of trouble." I see this art class, figure drawing, so I go there. This very nice-looking, naked 16:00girl walks up to me. I'm, inside, going, "Wow, this is college. This is great!" I'm there probably, oh, two or three weeks, and the instructor comes up and says, "Shan, how old are you?" I tell him I'm seventeen. I think I may have just turned eighteen. He goes, "This is a graduate course. You're not supposed to be in here. This won't count, but since your illustrations are better than anyone here at the moment, you can stay if you wish."

Little Thunder: But you did go on to OCU after OSU?

Gray: I went to CSU, I think is what it was called.

Little Thunder: CSU in Colorado?

Gray: Central State [University].

Little Thunder: Okay, Central State.

Gray: I don't know what they call it now here. UCO [University of Central Oklahoma]?

Little Thunder: I think that's it now, but it was Central State.

Gray: My brother Clancy was going there, and he goes, "You ought to try it." He 17:00knew a lot of the instructors. I did. I enjoyed it.

Little Thunder: Declared an art major?

Gray: Yes. However, I've always marched to a different drummer. I love history. I know this doesn't go on very well, but I never felt like a piece of paper was going to do it for me. I've had many discussions with friends that owned companies that go, "Well, I wouldn't hire someone that didn't have a college degree." Well, I can think of more millionaires without college degrees than with college degrees.

Little Thunder: Did you finish at Central State?

Gray: No, I did not. I never graduated. There were times when I'd go to the 18:00class and not show up for the final, knowing full well there would come a time when I had to pay for those classes.

Little Thunder: Then you did eventually, I guess, after some oilfield work--

Gray: Oh, that's what I was going to tell. That's what I was going to say. Realistic work, classical work was literally pounded out of every--at the time. There were some good illustrators there, but by and far I noticed that you were abstract or modern. That's what they'd push you toward. Then it dawned on me, the really good ones could draw well and could draw classical figures.

I had an argument, not an argument really, a heated discussion. He said, "The ability to draw was no longer necessary in art." I said, "If you had two 19:00students, and one drew exceptionally well, conveyed a still life exactly as it was, like a photograph, and then you had another fellow that struggled and could barely interpret what he was seeing to a piece of paper, and you took those two different artists and turned them loose on an abstract piece of work, the one that draws like a photograph said, 'This is exactly what I wanted to convey,' I'll believe him. The one who couldn't draw and sits there and goes, 'This is what I envisioned,' no, I don't buy it. You couldn't even draw what was in front of you." To me, that's pretty logical. I did notice there were a lot of instructors that had a difficult time because art's a really tough market.

Little Thunder: So was working for the advertising agency one of the first art 20:00jobs that you got?

Gray: Oh, we grew. I ended up leaving as the--I was the art director. There was just he and his wife and myself. We won three or four big campaigns. When I left because I got married in '85, my wife said, "Do you want to sculpt?" I said "Yes." She goes, "Go for it." She had a job at the time that covered us. It's funny, but when I left I think there were six artists. The company had gone from three to fourteen people, so we did real well.

Little Thunder: You did. And had you been doing sculpture on the side while you were working for the company?

Gray: Not really. I dabbled but nothing finished, nothing I thought was worthy of casting. That was another thing. Being a commercial artist, learning that 21:00trade, prepared me for being self-employed and being a sculptor because I would never finish anything. It was never good enough. It was incomplete. Well, in advertisement, they'll give you an assignment at noon, and you have to turn it in at four whether you like it or not. It forced me to complete things and meet deadlines, and that was invaluable later on.

Little Thunder: So you felt like you had the tools. You were ready to try that.

Gray: Yes.

Little Thunder: Did you start off in galleries, or did you enter competitions? How did you go about--

Gray: As I told in that earlier story, I refused to enter any competitions. If you're going to enter the public domain in art, you've got to enter, but I 22:00rationalized it. "Well, they're paying good money, so I will swallow my pride and let so and so judge me. So be it." I'm trying to remember how I landed my first commission. It worked out well.

I do remember. I had gone to work in a marble shop to learn how to work with stone, not realizing they're two whole different avenues like airplanes and cars: both transportation, but neither one match. The fellow who owned the marble shop goes--I was ordering this two-foot-by-two-foot white Carrara stone, and he asked me what I was doing. It was really expensive. I want to say it was 23:00like five or six grand. It weighed an unbelievable amount. He goes, "What are you going to do with this? A big door stop?" I told him. He said, "Why don't you come watch how the shop works and how we fabricate things, and this will give you an idea of how things are done." So I kind of did a back door into stonework.

Little Thunder: Was that in Oklahoma?

Gray: Yes, it was. Young Brothers. Fabulous place. Harvey passed away quite a few years ago, but his parents are the ones that helped me in the very beginning. He probably didn't realize how much help he was. But I digress.

It was at that point, I was still doing the commercial work when Mike Wigley, 24:00who owned a gallery up on North May, said, "Hey, Shan, there's a lady who's a really fine sculptress who needs some help, some manual help. Her name is Shirley Thomson-Smith. Would you give her a hand?" I said, "Sure." I went and helped Shirley, and she kind of gave me the inside dope on how things operate and work, the economics of it.

Little Thunder: She works mostly in stone?

Gray: Bronze. Her work looks a lot like stone because of the patina she chooses, and a lot of people think it's stone, but really that's a patina. She has a couple pieces in stone, I believe, but by and far they're mainly bronzes. There are some ceramics. Shirley is a wonderful person, wonderful.

Little Thunder: So that was like an apprenticeship.

Gray: It was. It was. I have one thing to my credit. I'm pretty 25:00mechanically-oriented. I'm one of those Renaissance guys when it comes to--I want to know why something works the way it does. I've never been afraid of saws or lasers or anything like that. I'll never forget. She called, and she was practically in tears. She had been commissioned to do this clay piece. She refused to use an armature, and her pieces were solid clay. Well, that's okay. You can get away with that when pieces are small. I kid you not, this piece was about three and a half feet high. It weighed about four hundred pounds. It was so heavy, it crushed the pallet it was on. It was so heavy, it embedded itself into her shag carpet, so where the nails would grab, you couldn't pull it. You couldn't move it. It was breaking in two.

I always laugh because that was--I learned very early there's a reason why you 26:00use armatures, and it also gives you the ability to go outside your central plane. If you have a cantilever design, you have to have the ability to hold that up in the air. About that time, I'd done a piece. I thought, "Well, I'll do this." I felt moved to do this angel, and it was done in kind of a Renaissance fashion.

John Free, who owns the foundry in Pawhuska, Sr.--John Jr. and I are the same age, and we became very good friends. He kind of took me under his wing, gave me the ins and outs on how things were done and explained why some artists fail. Of all the mediums, sculpting is the most expensive because of the material, and you can get in trouble real quick. If you order all your bronzes at once, you can save probably off the top, 25 percent of your overall cost. I took a gamble 27:00on the angel, and it sold out within a year.

Little Thunder: How many in the edition?

Gray: There were only eleven in the edition, but it was a real expensive piece. It was about a $7,500 piece, and that's twenty-five years ago. There again, I also learned from Mike--he liked me. Wigley said, "Bring your piece, and I'm going to put you next to this Jackson." It was a Land Run. Excuse me. It was a cattle drive not a Land Run. It was nearly $350,000 for this small bronze.

Little Thunder: And this is in a gallery?

Gray: In a gallery. It was a higher-end gallery. It was probably the high-end gallery at the time. Mike has since moved to Santa Fe. He just has a wonderful sense of presentation. He took this angel. Remember I told you it was $7,500? 28:00Well, he put $25,000 on it, stuck it next to that Jackson, and said, "Watch." I did. This couple came in, and the man and woman went back and forth about it. They both liked the angel. He liked it a lot, or he liked the price. She liked the Jackson, but we think she liked it because of the price so she could say, "Yes, that's $350,000." You could tell he really liked my piece when it came to writing that check because they bought the big one. They didn't buy my piece.

It taught me a lesson about where you put your work is very important. At that point, you learn real quick if you're a newcomer in the gallery market, you're at the whim and fancy of the gallery owner. If he wants 50 percent, 60 percent, okay, you have to weigh it. You'll probably get more for your piece because he's 29:00not going to put some low-range price on it. He's going to put a high-range price on it, but you'll still make less overall.

As Mike has taught me, they're taking the best gamble because once you become established and people seek out your work, they're behind the eight ball at that point. You can go to another gallery if you want, or worse still, (I won't mention names) back-door the gallery, which means for you uninitiated out there, it's where you tell a client who has come to your house, "Go over to this gallery and look at that work, and I can get that work for you."

I promised myself I would never do that. Apparently a lot of artists do because they don't understand that this guy's lighting bill may be five grand a month. The air conditioning, lighting chews a lot of electricity up. I think that was the saddest thing is the conflict that arose from galleries and the artists. The 30:00artist likes to think that the world moves behind them.

I taught this one little girl. I knew she had a lot of talent. She was a great painter. She went to Savannah [College of Art and Design]. When she got back, she called and told me this man had approached her. Normally, she got about $8,500 for her murals. He was offering her nearly eighteen grand for her mural, and he would cover all the supplies. He was just buying it outright.

She did it. She was ecstatic. She gets the front of the Chicago Tribune for the mural for the new Chicago Library of which they paid, I want to say, $38,000 for the mural. It upset her that he had made more than she made, and I had to 31:00explain to her, "One, you're unknown. This was a huge break for you. I can't tell you how many painters out there would give their eye teeth to say, 'My piece is hanging at the Chicago Library.'" To me that's just kind of a no-brainer, but you know artists. They all march to a different drummer.

Little Thunder: And it's probably not easy for sculptors to wholesale to galleries. You haven't done that much.

Gray: No. For some reason, I got hooked up to doing commission work, which was great for me. I didn't have to worry about going to different galleries. I'd gone the gallery route and realized there were too many personalities that I didn't care to work with. They were fair enough. They were all right, but it 32:00just wasn't something--. John Free Sr. said, "Shan, avoid working with committees. Always answer to one person." That was the best advice I got because everybody has an idea.

I'll never forget. We were already in metal for the Shannon Miller [sculpture] when one of the committee people came up to me with a drawing they had done of what they thought it should look like. I wanted to be diplomatic, and I said, "The reason I didn't use that design," because I'd thought of it, "was if you make it big, are you going to be able to see her face?" "Well, no. Oh, okay." What amazed me was we were already in metal. The main money had already been transferred, but they were ready to change in midstream the horse we were on.

Little Thunder: What do you think was your first breakthrough commission?

Gray: Probably Shannon Miller because it was the most visible.

Little Thunder: Can you explain who commissioned that?

Gray: That was interesting. Blair Buswell was being proposed by part of the committee. He's from Utah. I don't want to go there. It gets real political, though I had a really good team here in Edmond. They had rules that we all had to follow. There were probably seven or eight people that had applied to do the commission. I know Blair; he's a great guy. I was the only one to do a maquette, and that was what they asked for. He shows up and goes, "Well, if you want me to do her jumping over a globe, I'll do that," pointing at my design! He's going, "If you want me to do that, I'll do that!" (Laughter) It's pretty funny, if you think about it.

Little Thunder: We'll look at it at the end of the tape, but you've got a very iconic gymnastic pose there.

Gray: It was so much fun. It's one particular pose that she does in competition. It was off the balance beam. She was here. I'll never forget. She was in the kitchen. We didn't live here at the time. It was the other kitchen. She literally kicks the back of her head. She goes, "Well, Shan, as I come down and land on that foot, my back foot comes and touches my ponytail." Artistically, it doesn't look good. It closes up, and it doesn't look right. It looks awkward. I'd already done all this work, and, of course, the armature allows me--so I go ahead and mutilate the work and bend it so she can see what it looks like the way she wanted. She goes, "Oh, you're right. That doesn't look right." I said, "That's why I--" "Oh, okay."

Little Thunder: So she got to come out and see it, the maquette.

Gray: Yes.

Little Thunder: Did you work from photographs or actual poses?

Gray: I took lots of photographs of her. She posed. I guess she came three or four times for a couple of hours each time. She's such a little bitty thing. It was just an honor.

For some reason, I gravitated toward sport-medium people. I guess it's because I played sports. It kind of enabled me to understand certain things that some artists wouldn't understand. I have really been blessed to be around some really unique individuals that are really fun.

Warren Spahn's my favorite by far just because he and I both smoked, and he'd always go, "Shan, go find us a place to smoke." Greg Spahn told me this story, that toward the end of his life, they (this is that Mayo Clinic) called Greg and 36:00said, "We've lost your father." Probably the wrong term to use to the guy. They meant they physically lost him, that he had had disappeared. He was down in the loading dock, smoking cigarettes with the workers. (Laughter) Had his IV with him, and he was--.

Little Thunder: He was a baseball player?

Gray: He was the world's greatest left-handed pitcher, Major League Baseball.

Little Thunder: I was interested in the question--you also did Muscogee Creek baseball player Allie Reynolds. I was thinking, here you have to do a bust of someone who is so very athletic. You're not doing a full figure. What's the challenge in that, doing a bust of an athlete?

Gray: That's probably one of my best pieces, the Allie Reynolds. The little nuances--if the sculpture looks like it's about to speak or breathe, you've done 37:00your job. That's really hard to do, to get that final look out of metal because that's all it is, is metal, one monochrome tone. I don't know if you've looked at Allie Reynolds.

Little Thunder: Just photographs.

Gray: Since this is what it is, and I'll be talking to other art students, you know if a piece is good or bad. I can promise you, most of my work is mediocre at best, in my opinion. That's just because, one, you've got to weigh things timeframe-wise. If you've only got four weeks to do three characters and they're life-size, you're going to lose--.

A friend taught me the rule of three is you can have things cheap, you can have them fast, or you can have great quality, but you can't have all three. You can 38:00have two of them, but you can't have three of them. That really is true. If you want quality, you're going to give up either time or the financial end of it. That has proved to be the case, over and over again.

But back to Allie Reynolds, he and Dr. [Nazih] Zuhdi. I did the bust of Zuhdi, and that really looks like Dr. Zuhdi, and Dr. Zuhdi said so. He and I became friends, and he really liked my work. I really felt like I caught him. Oh, I was about to say, his wife said so, too, and that's who you have to please: the spouse. The spouse knows the figure better than anyone. They look at that person more than anyone. If you get the spouse on board, you're home safe. More often than not, it's a female that you're pleasing. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You were one of the Oklahoma Centennial artists. Perhaps those 39:00sculptures were done in connection with that. I don't know.

Gray: Which ones?

Little Thunder: Was the Spalding?

Gray: No, the Atlanta Braves commissioned me to do that. It originally was done for Atlanta.

Little Thunder: You were one of the Oklahoma Centennial artists. I wonder if you can tell us what that involved.

Gray: Well, I don't know why they liked my work so much, but I was very excited because they picked me on quite a few projects. I was told that I had more projects out than anyone.

Little Thunder: Was it six? That's what I read. I don't know if that's correct or not.

Gray: That's probably right. I think they grandfathered in one of the pieces that had been done before the official--and said it was. But no, as I mentioned 40:00earlier, it's great being able to work with the individuals that have been honored because they all have great work ethics. Even the Miss Americas' work ethic was probably greater than Warren's work ethic. It's a lot of work being Miss America. That job I'll look back on with a certain amount of pride, a certain amount of angst. I signed on knowing I only had three months to do three figures. These are Miss Americas!

Little Thunder: The ones from Oklahoma.

Gray: And, duh, Shan. Do you think Miss America knows what she looks like or not? They're going to be extremely particular. However, the design I submitted, because of the time, was three robed--like the women at the well. It's kind of a 41:00classical, where they're in robes because I was told it was the face they were really concerned with. Well, after the first week, in no uncertain terms, I was going to do it in their winning gowns. One had maybe two thousand little pearls on the dress. I think it was Susan [Powell]. I thought the piece turned out very, very well for the time given to execute it.

Little Thunder: Did that go in the City of Edmond?

Gray: Oklahoma City University. There again, not only do you meet these people, you also meet the institutions. To think more New York Rockettes came out of Oklahoma City University than any other place in the country is pretty amazing. Of course, Oklahoma has had, what, six now, Miss Americas.

Little Thunder: Can you name the three, real quickly?

Gray: Jane Jayroe, Susan Powell, oh my gosh. Shantel Smith. I can't believe I'm drawing a blank.

Little Thunder: We can add that in. (Laughter)

Gray: Thank you.

Little Thunder: What was another public--part of the point of the Centennial artists was these public works kinds of projects, right?

Gray: James Garner. James Garner was really--.

Little Thunder: Oh, I bet that was fun.

Gray: He's just as you think he is. He's just as easygoing and amiable as can be. Funny side story to that, his wife did not go to all the events that were planned. When I first saw her, I thought, "Wow, a trophy wife." Turns out, she's actually eight years older than he is. My sister goes, "Get the name of her 43:00plastic surgeon," because she looked like she was forty years old, a young, young forty. (Laughter) She looked great. Beautiful woman. Surely, that's a compliment, isn't it? I was thinking he was seventy-eight. That put her at eighty-six.

They had events planned from seven thirty in the morning all the way until ten at night. That would tax anybody, so I could see why she didn't come to every event. He was great. He kept close ties with three or four individuals in Norman to this day. Just a down-to-earth fellow, really a super guy. It's been really advantageous to my daughter who's got to meet all these people and see they put 44:00on one shoe at a time. There again, work ethic always comes through, what people are willing to do to achieve their goals.

Then there's Billy Vessels. The original--there again, I'm not making excuses. What happened was, I was the first artist picked to do one of the Heisman winners. We did it to a certain scale: one and a quarter size. It got outside the control of whoever was in charge with the overall design of the game plan, so the second one they put up was colossal size. It was fifteen feet tall. You had Mutt and Jeff there, and wherever they got it cast, the casting, well, it 45:00suffered because of the size.

There again, that rule of three. You want it fast? Money? Quality? They ended up having to redo Billy Vessels to get it bigger. Well, their budget had already been spent on the other four. It was just a real nightmare. I wish I wouldn't have gone there. The first one turned out great. The second one was out of my hands, and we had to get it up in just a record short amount of time. I was real disappointed in the final quality of that piece. There again--.

Little Thunder: I can see as an artist how frustrating that would be because you feel like, as you say, it's out of your control.

Gray: You don't get to do the weld. You don't get to do--you can if you have the time. The piece I'm probably happiest with in Norman with James Garner is the [Cleveland County] Veterans Memorial. That turned out really well. That was a 46:00short design notice. They asked me, and I had, like, two days to come up with a design. It just hit on all cylinders. Each side of the five-sided obelisk--you know, obelisks are supposed to be four sided, but there are five services: Coast Guard, Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. They all wanted to be represented. Of course, there's an eagle that's either descending with a flag in its claws, its talons, or it's taking off with the flag in the talons. Everybody seems to enjoy that piece. They're happy with it.

Little Thunder: I look forward to seeing that. Your most publicized project has undoubtedly been The American, and that's still in the works. I wonder if you can talk about it because it's a very monumental piece. What inspired you to 47:00want to do it?

Gray: I always wanted to do a very large piece, but it--I think good sculpture tells a story. I don't care if it's modern. It evokes some kind of emotion. I always wondered why there was nothing that saluted or honored my Native American heritage. The older I got, I realized there were so many things involved. I was approached a week before they announced they were going to do a competition for the Capitol dome. I thought they had already picked the artist, but I was assured it was going to be a straight race and everybody was--.

I kind of felt that this idea about the young eagle on a young brave, because of 48:00my love of history, I understood we're a young country. These things that we think were a long time ago were not long ago at all. The ideals evoked by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, they just haven't improved on that. If we follow it to the letter, we're going to be okay. When they announced that Senator [Enoch Kelly] Haney had won the competition, one of my benefactors called me and said, "You know, Shan, the Daily Oklahoman ran a competition of the six sculptures and asked the people what they thought."

I think I ended up with 52 percent of the vote. Senator Haney had 21 percent of 49:00the vote, and the remaining 37 percent was divided among the other four artists. For me to garnish 52 percent of the vote was fantastic. He said, "That's the sculpture you need to make big." At the time, it was only sixty feet tall. We were doing it for a small museum up northeast.

Little Thunder: Northeast United States or Oklahoma?

Gray: Oklahoma. We ended up raising it to a little over 113 feet when a fellow here said, "Look, it's thirteen million. I'll give you ten. You raise the three." I raised three million in a week, and I thought, "Wow, this is easy." 50:00(Laughter) He goes, "You know what? We need an elevator in it." An elevator won't fit in a 113-foot--. Eleven stories seems like a height, but it really isn't. It had to go up to 156 feet to the top of his head to fit a small elevator. Well, they're all small.

Little Thunder: This is one of the investors?

Gray: Yes. At the time, they were midway through the Indian Cultural Center down on the river. They were afraid it would--this was going to be a gift to them. It was paid for. It was in great shape. They thought it would confuse their attempts to raise money to finish that project. Blake Wade, head of the Centennial Commission, felt it was a good enough idea and strong enough piece 51:00that he recommended it to Mayor [Bill] LaFortune in Tulsa. Mayor LaFortune jumped on it.

During that timeframe--bear in mind, all this fell in my lap just almost immediately. Like I said, I raised that three million in the first week. I thought, well this isn't any big thing. We were coming in at thirty million just to do a fifteen-story body, human being. Top of his head to the bottom of his feet was 156 feet, and then add--that was 217 feet to the tip of the eagle.

This elevator goes up this leg and goes into a mezzanine, and then there's an observation area right here. There's a double-helix stairwell that goes up into the head, so you can actually look out through the head. Am I going into too 52:00much detail?

Little Thunder: No, no.

Gray: The cost was greatly influenced by--at the time, bronze was, oh gosh, I want to say it was $1.40 because it's copper. They were using so much copper and strategic metal in China eight years ago that any copper-based product went from, I want to say it was $1.17 up to $5.70 within just a fourteen-month period. That really made it hard to calculate the exact cost. During this timeframe, I'm still doing other projects. I'd learned through my love of history, Gutzon Borglum and Mt. Rushmore, he said, "Don't take government money. Don't do it. Go to the private sector." Same with--why am I having a hard time 53:00remembering the Statue of Liberty's sculptor? Garibaldi? No, that's not right. [Frederic Auguste Bartholdi]

Little Thunder: Garibaldi, I think that might be right.

Gray: It'll probably come to me here in a moment. I bring that up because when I had to present to a particular government official, he goes, "You're doing this because you want to be famous." There were, like, thirty people in the room, maybe fifty. I said, "I'll bet a thousand dollars right now there's nobody in this room that can name me who did the Statue of Liberty and Mt. Rushmore," and there wasn't one person. He looked at his fellow government guys and nodded, "Okay, you're right." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's really interesting because the average layperson is not 54:00going to be thinking in terms of, you get this quote, it will cost this much and eight years later the material prices have totally changed. Where are you now with the project?

Gray: This isn't going to be published for a while, right--

Little Thunder: Right.

Gray: --because we made an agreement. We'll be good. This will all be behind us. We made an agreement when we put together our private placement memorandum, which is a contractual agreement with the investors. The SEC requires us to not do any kind of interview with the press. If we mention that we are raising funds or we have all our funds together, anything to do with money is called unintentional solicitation of funds and they pull our contract.

Little Thunder: I think we should just skip all the financial discussion.

Gray: Now I can tell you, though, because it's going to be over with. Once Sand 55:00Springs passed that bond issue--we always had our core group. We needed to know that a third of the investment money came from wherever it was going to sit because it had to have somebody speak up for it in all the political wranglings. Once Sand Springs passed their bond issue and got their money and we had our land, we're done. We're ready to go. I'm hoping to announce this summer, but I'm not in a big hurry because, see, I'm not done yet. I've still got other fish to fry and get out of the way before that's done. There's no reason this can't be the world-class piece it's supposed to be.

Little Thunder: Oh, it's a gorgeous piece.

Gray: Somebody once made the comment, "Why don't you just scan a live human being and have them do it that way?" Well, they don't get it.

Little Thunder: They don't get it.

Gray: If I do it right, it should look like I scanned a live human being and looks like I directly took it from them.

Little Thunder: That just reinforces the fact that when you're an artist, you have to wear this business hat, but I think especially in your work with large scale monumental sculpture projects, etc. How do you handle that? How do you put on that hat?

Gray: Some people say I have the patience of Job because I've had to be very patient during the process. I knew, I believe, it was twenty-eight years they worked on Mt. Rushmore and twenty-seven years for the Statue of Liberty. We're just on year nine. I have it on good authority that four years from now, we'll be done. It'll be up. We'll have cut that time in half.

Little Thunder: That's really exciting.

Gray: I do know now why these monuments are not thrown up all over the country, because there's a lot of work involved.

Little Thunder: Does Melanie or your daughter play a particular role in your art business?

Gray: Melanie, my wife, is the one, the gatekeeper, keeps me in line, makes sure that I don't get overextended and makes sure all the i's are dotted and t's crossed. I'm a handshake kind of guy, which in this day and age you really can't afford to do it that way. People mean well, but sometimes their mouths write checks that can't be cashed. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: I'd like to talk a bit about your philosophies and techniques. Before you get to the modeling stage for a sculpture, you do a number of sketches?

Gray: In the beginning, I did. As I got older, I did them in my head. I know that sounds somewhat--but I do. Good sculpture is 360 degrees. You should be 58:00able to be entertained from any angle. Dealing with the human form is real interesting because we almost generally gravitate to the front, but the entire piece is something that requires attention. You're only as good as the small squalding, or the sum of the details.

Lighting is the key to anything in sculpture. You're dealing with a static material. You're dealing with a metal. You're trying to breathe life into that metal and make it like it's ready to move, and if you accomplish that, you've done your job. There are many ways to attain that, but each piece kind of dictates what method you can approach it with. As I said in the earlier thing 59:00about two artists and if you can draw photographically, that helps because it means you understand lighting.

The eyes, which are the window to the soul, are very important. Sometimes it's just a suggestion of a dash of light that reflects that gives you the personality of a piece. I've always enjoyed the challenge of your classical kind of work because it doesn't take a discriminating eye to know if it's good or bad. That either looks like the person, or it doesn't look like the person.

I'll tell you a secret. I did a job for a fellow once that he made me get rid of his two double chins and fix his broken nose and fix his lazy eye and put hair back on his head to where it didn't look like him. He was thrilled with it and 60:00loved it. I didn't sign it, but he was happy, and I was happy. I laugh at that. Because of his recommendation or referrals, I've gotten more work. I've been told I was a little bit too nice because I let people dictate how they want something, but then again I'm just a hired gun when it comes to commission work. If they want it that way, that's their business. I will make it look good, but it's something that, as I said earlier, people know if it looks good or it doesn't.

Little Thunder: You sort of had to, I guess, figure out armature on your own.

Gray: Going back to the Shannon Miller, that's an extreme cantilever design 61:00where you have all this weight hanging from the back position. All I could see was ten drunk fraternity guys jumping up and down on her, making her bounce off, and it crashing down and killing someone. I was given a name of a fellow named Luis Santizo. He's an engineer with Benham [Companies]. This is going back twenty years. I knocked on his door, and I said, "Hey, I'm so and so. Would you give me a hand?" Then he figured out the diameter of steel I needed, along with the type of steel I needed.

That steel that runs up her leg into the base is rated over two hundred thousand pounds, psi. That is like a six-hundred-dollar piece of steel that will hold a phenomenal amount of weight. If somebody did get up there and jump on her, (and 62:00I hope nobody does that) it's guaranteed to withstand the test of time. Turns out, he was eventually promoted to the head engineer at Benham, and Benham is a huge engineering firm. He is the lead engineer. He's retired now, but he came back for The American.

Little Thunder: Oh, great!

Gray: He's wonderful. There's a couple of side stories that are hilarious. It's amazing how there's no coincidences. Things happen for a reason. Stuart Webb, who's still with the company full-time and is a younger fellow, he's kind of like the lead project manager on it. We just have a wonderful team, and that was another thing that helped establish the project. Our attorneys were McAfee and Taft. I don't know much about attorneys until I started this project and realized they're the largest firm in the region. They have, like, four hundred attorneys. They liked the idea well enough to do the preliminary work and get 63:00paid on the back end.

People go, "Well, you haven't done that. What'd you do in nine years?" According to Benham and our financial people, we've spent nearly four million dollars. My wife really does love me because we spent our 401k for the project. We went to the wall on it. I can look back and say, "We bet it all to get it done." There were times where I would've said, "It's not worth it," because I was lied to a bunch. It just really bothered me that people would behave that way. Why do that? There was no point in doing that. I thought, "If it wasn't that I got my friends involved in this project, I would've walked away," but I'd already got them involved--

Little Thunder: You had a team.

Gray: --and people were relying on it. I persevered and followed through. There was never any question we wouldn't finish it. It was always going to happen. It 64:00was just, "Win." It's funny. Being a half-breed, I've seen it all, racism on both sides of the card. I won't mention an individual's name, but a very strong influence in Tulsa said, "We don't want a blanking Indian representing the city." I had to laugh to myself. First of all, who are "we", (Laughs) and fortunately, you don't have the say. You don't have the say whether or not. I was told certain things were said and done to hope that I went away, and that didn't happen. That told me the project was meant to be. Now it's my job to make it perfect. You know, perfection's hard to nail down. I don't know anybody that's done it yet, but you can get close.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process once you get an idea?

Gray: I have the attention span of a gnat. I do understand what it takes to get focused and stay on task until you've got it done, but then I have to move on. This piece was unusual for the fact that it was originally designed to be two hundred feet up but only twenty-five feet tall. This leg, bent, looking straight on at it looks awkward. When you hold it up and look at it from a distance, it looks right, and people don't see that. There's some angles on him that just don't look right, but if you put him on the roof, he looks right, which sounds kind of weird but--. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: And he's going to be on a hill.

Gray: He'll be on a hill, but he's so big. He's twenty-one stories, so we don't 66:00have to worry about making his head bigger. We just need to make him as perfectly--. There again, what's pleasing to me may not be pleasing to someone else. My dad looked like the Indian on the nickel, and that's kind of how I envision him, though that is not the 150 faces that have been sent to me in the mail to use. "This is the perfect Native American." I did this preliminary. Somebody thought it was Chief Gray because my dad and my cousin, Bud's boy, look a lot alike. They go, "You're going to make it look like Chief Gray?" I mean, they were upset about that. (Laughter) "No. I assure you, that's not Chief Gray."

That was another thing that kind of hurt the project early on, and I'm not 67:00ashamed to say this. I have a story for you. I had three or four chiefs telling me they were behind the project and loved the project and when I'm ready to go, they're ready to help, but once it ended up in Osage County (I'm an Osage artist, and the Osages still may be involved somewhat) they just said they couldn't sell it politically, that they couldn't justify giving money to an Osage project. I said, "But it isn't. That's why it's a non-tribal--."

Little Thunder: Indian image.

Gray: I go back to the story my dad told me once about Osages. He said there were these three buckets, and they have crabs in them, but the one bucket's full of Osage crabs. Have you heard this?

Little Thunder: I've heard a version. (Laughs)

Gray: The fishermen come back in the morning. Two buckets are empty, but the Osage bucket is still full. The one fisherman asks the older one, "Why is it these other crabs get out, and this center bucket stays full?" He said, "Well, those are Osage crabs. When one starts to crawl out, the others pull him back down." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How about your creative routine? Do you work at night or in the morning? What's your routine?

Gray: Oh my gosh. Normally I'd work late at night and into the wee hours because of being a one-man operation. Shirley and I used to talk about this. Answering the phone during the day to conduct business is very difficult, but that's when the business world works, so you're always having to entertain that. The thing I miss most, (and I enjoy having young artists around) you kind of feed off the 69:00energy, and you don't have that when you work solitary. When I worked at the ad agency, there were six other artists there. I had to tell myself, "Go to art exhibitions. Go to galleries. Get charged up." Otherwise, you're just left to your own devices, and it can be very tedious.

Little Thunder: You renew yourself that way. Looking back over your career, what was a fork-in-the-road moment when you could've gone one way but chose to go another? You might have mentioned it already.

Gray: I mentioned the part about wanting to be a homicide detective and a film director. That part about the accident, that was a big fork in the road because I love sports, as I indicated earlier. I don't know if I indicated it or not. We 70:00talked about it. I could no longer do the physical things for a couple of years, and that was tough, but I could use my left hand, so drawing was easy.

Little Thunder: What would you say has been one of the high points of your career?

Gray: I think the individuals I meet and what a small world it is, such a small world. I still have a hard time with politicians. I think it's the faces they wear that kind of make things different.

Little Thunder: What has been one of the low points of your career so far?

Gray: Did I mention the politicians, the different faces they wear? (Laughter) I'm not sure there are any low points other than the part about being told one 71:00thing and that person had no concept at all what they were saying. Or they knew, and they just didn't care. How can I gripe? I get to do things that other people dream about doing. In fact, the other day I was at a motorcycle shop a buddy of mine owns. I thought, "Man, it would be fun just to work on bikes all day." After about fifteen minutes of thinking that, I went, "What am I talking about? I get to sculpt and just sculpt! I can make a motorcycle if I want."

Little Thunder: Is there anything we've forgotten to talk about or that you'd like to add before we take a look at The American and Shannon?

Gray: As I told you earlier, I hate boring people so I don't feel comfortable 72:00going into--. I didn't realize what a big thing this monument meant to so many thousands of people. We still get letters from people that want to know the status and is there anything they can do to help. They want it done. That's another thing that's given me a lot of energy to go ahead and see the race through and, therefore, another reason why it needs to be perfect, because it will be around a long, long time. That didn't answer your question, though, did it?

Little Thunder: It did. That's so neat to hear people are responding that way. Okay, we're looking at The American from another angle, here. We could see it in the background earlier. You were explaining to me the number of pieces that it's 73:00going to have to be cast in.

Gray: There's over 3,600 four-and-a-half-foot-by-four-and-a-half-foot bronze plates. There's a special software that allows us to mill each plate to one-thousandth of an inch accuracy. The scanning process wasn't even available to do this nine years ago when we started. Roger and Allen down in Norman were doing the same software (and there's a word they use for when you write software) that they're doing in London for this 600-foot Buddha they're doing in India. They're having to go to London to have their software done. Roger and Allen were ahead of the curve a year prior to that.

Little Thunder: That's incredible.

Gray: We had some wonderful people involved in the project.

Little Thunder: Okay, we've got Shannon in view. I love that look of concentration on her face.

Gray: Thanks.

Little Thunder: Anything you want to add? You can see the measurements that you've written on there.

Gray: Yes, everything had to be up to scale. Interesting enough, it was the first large-scale monument I did, and it was also the very last of the old techniques, done with plaster, chicken wire, foam block, the old white foam for filler. You'll hear me use other terms about foam, and it's a completely different method where they have these huge DuPont-made foam blocks that the 75:00milling machine will come in and--. You could actually carve them with hand, or the milling machine can come in and scan your smaller maquette and come in and give you a rough-out. It saves you a huge amount in clay.

Little Thunder: Wow. That's really interesting.

Gray: It really is. There again, economics. For my young students, I'll tell them, "I didn't think math was that important, or English." One, you have to be able to communicate your ideas. If you are going to ask someone for $100,000 for a project, you've got to be able to communicate, and usually it's in a written form that you have to do that. That's why you want to learn English. Then you want to go to the math part because you better figure out how much the project's going to cost. There are too many artists' skulls and skeletons out there. There's one big piece here in Oklahoma that they didn't do their math and they 76:00got behind the eight ball on it. That's a classic example of an artist going, "This cost this much, and that cost that much, and I'll just multiply it by ten!" Then realizing, "Well, I left out that part. I should've multiplied it by twenty." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Right. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Shan.

Gray: Well, I hope I don't bore anybody. It's interesting. I like doing it. At the same time, I don't. I really don't. It's kind of weird. It's a love-hate thing, but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

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