Oral history interview with Troy Jackson

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is November 5, 2013, and I'm interviewing Troy Jackson as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at OSU. We are at Bacone [College] where Troy is an adjunct art instructor, working with Director Tony Tiger to revitalize the program. Troy, you're an enrolled Cherokee artist. Since you started showing professionally in 2008, you've won as many as two awards at a time at over twenty-seven shows, some in pottery but many in full-figure ceramic sculpture which is very powerful in its impact. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Jackson: Well, thank you.

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

Jackson: I was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and basically that's where I grew up. We done a little bit of traveling through the United States, but mainly in 1:00Tahlequah. I was at a small district called Keys, which is about ten miles south of Tahlequah.

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

Jackson: My dad was a auto body man. He repaired automobiles, wrecks, and my mother was a homemaker.

Little Thunder: What about your grandparents on either side? What role did they play?

Jackson: I had some very, very good grandparents. My grandparents--my granddad was a grader operator and was retired most of the time, so I got to spend a lot of time with him when I was young, fishing and hunting. We done a lot of things after he retired, so I grew up just in a really good time.

Little Thunder: Now, was this on your dad's side or your mom's side?

Jackson: It's on my dad's side. My mother's side, which my mother's Cherokee, 2:00her family I was around a little bit, but not as much as I was my dad's family

Little Thunder: Were you around the language very much then? What was your exposure to Cherokee culture growing up?

Jackson: Very, very little Cherokee culture. It wasn't until I came here, actually, in '75 to Bacone, working on my associate's degree that I became interested in Native American work. I'd seen some of the Dick West paintings hanging in the hallways, and the [Stephen] Mopopes, and I just fell in love with them, you know. It was like, "Wow!" Really good.

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

Jackson: My dad liked to draw and actually painted a few paintings, but not 3:00other than that, no.

Little Thunder: So your first memory of seeing Native art, would that be here at Bacone or prior to this?

Jackson: Oh, no, it would be prior. A lot of my interest actually came from museums, but it was just for the sake of just liking the work. I admired all of it: Western, Native American, contemporary. It's basically anything I'd see in museums I just, "I want to do that." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What's your first memory of making art?

Jackson: My first memory of making art. You remember the little number kits that you would get, paint-by-number sets, yeah. That's my first. (Laughs) Of course, 4:00I would draw. I would get magazines, and there would be clippings from art schools that you could draw these little images, and you would send it in. I would, and I'd have to tell them that I was seven or eight years old. I'd get a reply. They would reply back and say, "Well, call us when your eighteen." I'd keep trying, but nothing ever happened with it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What experiences with art did you have in elementary school?

Jackson: Almost none. I remember there were no art classes, as far as on a schedule. There was one man (his name was Layle Hamlet) that would come to our school once a month, and we would have an hour session. That was about it. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Now, was your school in your district, or was it in Tahlequah?

Jackson: It was at Keys.

Little Thunder: Out west, at Keys.

Jackson: That's south of Tahlequah. So that was basically up to, that was up to the seventh grade. That was all of the art that we got.

Little Thunder: How about after that, middle school and high school? Did you have any exposure to art?

Jackson: Yes. Now, we had classes. I thought that was one of the greatest things because now we had a class in that high school, Tahlequah high school, that I'd go to every day. That was a good time for me. It was.

Little Thunder: Starting in ninth grade?

Jackson: I started beginning, I began to learn a little bit about art, too. It wasn't just how well I could draw, which basically that's all I did was draw. I started learning about some of the principles and elements and things.

Little Thunder: Were you thinking of yourself as an artist?

Jackson: I thought of myself as a artist ever since I remember, as far back as, gosh, maybe seven or eight years old. I always knew that's what I wanted to do. I was fortunate. I tell everyone I was so fortunate as a young man because I knew what I wanted to do. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: So you came to Bacone, and you came with the idea of majoring in art, I'm guessing.

Jackson: Yes. Where I grew up, art was really not favored as a young man going into that field. You would tell someone that you were going to school to be an artist, and they'd say, "Oh, that's nice. Good luck with that," something along 7:00these lines. I had that in my mind, and here at Bacone they were offering a commercial art course, so that's what I took. I said, "Surely I can make a living at--I may not be able to make a living painting paint-by-number sets, so maybe I can make a living at commercial arts."

Little Thunder: And with your father and grandfather working in the trades, were they supportive of that move?

Jackson: They were. My dad was very supportive, but the most supportive in my family was my mother. Oh, she'd make you get up and go. My dad would say, "You need to go to school. You need to go to college," but my mother would say, "Now you get up, and you are going." She was the reason, she was the main reason why I went to college. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: So what kind of a foundation did you get at Bacone?

Jackson: I think I drew an interest in art. Not only was I doing art, but I 8:00gained a different type of interest. Something that I realized, "Hey, there's more to it. There's a lot more to it than what I think." I wanted to learn more. I wanted to find out more about art instead of just, maybe, the aesthetics, and the technical side of it. I wanted to know why artists, their work was sitting in these museums and what they had to do in order to do that. Yeah, it created a different type of interest.

Little Thunder: Did you have any fellow students or teachers who stood out at that time?

Jackson: Here at Bacone? I remember some of the students that encouraged me, but 9:00mainly I was mostly encouraged by artists that were already professionals, that were already doing things in and around Muskogee and around Tahlequah like Enoch Haney. I was interested in his work, Chief Terry Saul, Dick West, all these guys. I was basically interested in their work. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: You also mentioned that it was sort of where you started having some inter-tribal exposure, and some cultural learning was happening.

Jackson: Some issues with the social issues of mixed heritage, the Native American (Cherokee is what I am) and European or white, which my dad's side of 10:00the family was.

Little Thunder: Then you went on to NSU [Northeastern State University], and you had your associate's degree in commercial art, I guess. Did you pursue the same major there?

Jackson: No, I changed more or less into fine art. Again, maybe I was getting out of that stigmatism about artists. You know, hey, there's fine art. There's not just commercial, and labor, and this sort, so I started painting more at that time, also, and checking out the ceramics department. Of course, we did not have a ceramics department here at Bacone. When I got to Northeastern, I took a ceramics course, and I fell in love with it. I mean, I was down there all the time.

Little Thunder: Who was teaching at that time?

Jackson: Jerry Choate was teaching ceramics at that time, and a great, great teacher.

Little Thunder: What kinds of subject matter were you exploring in ceramics?

Jackson: We were just doing mainly pottery and learning the wheel, learning how to throw pots, and some decorating, but mostly just learning how to get started with it.

Little Thunder: And not really doing any Southeastern, just doing some contemporary?

Jackson: Very contemporary. No, probably at this time with the ceramics, I probably was not even thinking about Native American symbolism or anything of that nature.

Little Thunder: Had you sold any pieces?

Jackson: At Northeastern, I sold a few pieces. Not anything to make a living at, 12:00but I did sell a few pieces.

Little Thunder: From some student shows or--

Jackson: We'd have some student shows, and I would sell one or two pieces here and there. Actually, I would like--you think about when you sell things, how you would like to go back and just see what happened to all that, even see them again. So sometimes I think about that because at this time, I'm thinking they were, like, really--they were good. (Laughter) I don't know about now.

Little Thunder: Well, this is the call for whoever reads the interview. You got a job teaching art pretty shortly after you got out of NSU, I guess, at Markoma Christian School? Is that correct?

Jackson: Well, no, it was several years.

Little Thunder: It was several years later.

Jackson: It was several years.

Little Thunder: What did you do first when you got out of NSU?

Jackson: My dad was an auto body man, and he taught me the trade, and so that's 13:00what--when I got out of NSU, I was, like, major lost. That's what I did. I did not keep focused. It's what happened. I did not keep focused. Got married, had a baby, so now I had to go to work. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So you didn't continue doing--you were pretty much--

Jackson: Well, you know, I kind of looked at it as, repairing and fixing and sculpting and all of that, I was still doing some art. I remember making things out of what we call the Bondo. That is the plaster that fixes dents. I remember making things out of that.

Little Thunder: Little sculptures?

Jackson: Yes, sculptures, and it's strange because now today I'm using that 14:00material in some of my new things that I'm working on.

Little Thunder: We'll have to talk about that. (Laughs) So you worked in that field, auto body work, and eventually just continued working with your dad, or did you--

Jackson: He and I opened a business, and I think we ran it together for ten years, ten or twelve years. Then he retired, and I bought his part out, and I ran it for another, basically, about another ten years. I think all the way up to 2001, I ran my own business.

Little Thunder: When did you teach at Markoma Christian School and then Sequoyah?

Jackson: During this time, I think it was from 1999 to 2000, somewhere around there, about two years I taught there. I can't remember exactly how many classes. I only taught one class a day, but there were several different age groups that came in, and I taught everyone together.

Little Thunder: How did that come about?

Jackson: There was a friend of mine. I had not been doing any artwork. Oh, my goodness, it's been several years. A friend of mine was going to a church that I attended, and he just asked me. Let me see. The art teacher they had had gotten very sick, and they needed someone to fill in. I said, "Well, yeah, I'll do 16:00that." So that's how I basically got started.

Little Thunder: And this is at Markoma?

Jackson: Yes, Markoma.

Little Thunder: And then how about Sequoyah? How did that come about?

Jackson: Sequoyah came right after that. They had what they call a gifted and talented program after school. I heard about it, and I went and applied for it, and I got it. I taught there for, I think, one year. That's when I started my master's program at the University of Arkansas. My schedules didn't, they didn't mesh, so I had to let the job go. I hated to because it was such good money. It really was. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Was there something about the teaching that helped you decide to 17:00go on to graduate school?

Jackson: I think so. I think it started to ignite a little passion. Next thing I know, I was calling my old instructor Jerry Choate and saying, "Hey, you know of anybody that has an old wheel that they would like to get rid of?" He goes, "No, but if I hear of anybody, I'll call you." It wasn't a week; he called me. He says, "You need to get up here and buy this. If you're going to do it, you better do it." So I did. I went up there, and this guy had a small wheel. I bought it, and I'm throwing on it today. That was in 2000, the year 2000. I'm still throwing on it.

Little Thunder: Why did you pick the program at University of Arkansas?

Jackson: A friend of mine had went to the university, and he spoke very highly 18:00of it, and was, gosh, he was a working artist. I knew it must be a good school because he's got a job. He's got a job doing this, so I think that was one of the reasons.

Little Thunder: Was it at the University of Arkansas that you kind of transitioned out of pottery into more 3D, (well, pottery's 3D) but into other forms, or were you still sort of focused on ceramic pottery?

Jackson: One thing about pottery, there's this old idea of form, of usefulness, and I never could get out of that form. Even the pottery that I was doing, the 19:00functional pottery, were almost sculptural. People would say, "I wouldn't buy that to eat out of it." I would say, "Well, why not? It's okay." "No, we could put it...." I had trouble with that because everything I did, I wanted to cut holes in it or extend it, or I wanted to do something that was not so quiet, and with functional stuff, that works better with quiet. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Who were some of the other ceramic artists that you admired at the time, maybe Native and non-Native?

Jackson: I had not been associated with any Native artists at this time. I was mainly--I liked the Asian pottery, anything that had to do with that. If you ever see any of my pottery, some of the Native pottery that I do, it'll have a Asian quality to it. People just didn't like that. They just don't like that.

Little Thunder: Can you expand a little bit more on what about the Asian tradition you liked and what you incorporated?

Jackson: I think it was the unity that the Asian potters had. They weren't just--they all respected each other's pottery. The pottery, for instance, in 21:00China is very, very well respected. I think I wanted that, too. I wanted a culture that was surrounded by ceramics, that was surrounded by tradition. That's when I actually became involved, started becoming involved with Native American art, is because I realized that I had that culture. I had something that was dated back centuries, and I could be a part of that. I could link with ancestors that were doing the same thing that I was, hundreds if not thousands of years ago. I think that's where the road turned.

Little Thunder: Now, did you dip into Southeastern motifs and designs at that time a little bit?

Jackson: While I was at the University of Arkansas, I was just starting to. I 22:00started to study just a little bit about Native American pottery, about the pit firing and things of this nature, but as far as my motifs and things, I'm still very much like that of the Asian pottery.

Little Thunder: So what was your first competitive art show after grad school?

Jackson: Oh, after grad school. I think at the Trail of Tears in Tahlequah, I think was my first. That would have been my first competition.

Little Thunder: What did you submit?

Jackson: I submitted two pieces of pottery. Let me see. I'm thinking--yes, I 23:00did, two pieces of pottery. I'm trying to think and remember the year, but I'm not able to.

Little Thunder: Did you already know that you were going to focus on Native art shows from that point on?

Jackson: Yes, at that point on, yes, I knew. Again, I go back to that I always wondered how these paintings or these pottery pieces were in museums, and why they were on people's shelves and these things, so I started wondering what I had to do. I started putting together pieces of what I needed to do in order to be a part of that and to be respected in that area as somebody that was not just trying to necessarily win prizes but someone that would--. I want to be known as 24:00somebody that actually cares about what I'm doing, and I have a purpose in doing these things, doing these pieces.

Little Thunder: So even though there's other Native potters, and they're sort of working with these Southeastern forms and motifs, and they're on a parallel track with you, you're focused on discovering for yourself...

Jackson: Yes.

Little Thunder: --what that connection is.

Jackson: Sure, discovering it for myself and being an individual. I'm not a traditionalist in a way. I mean, I would never be like that because I think that I would have had to have grown up in the culture to be a traditional. Someone would have had to show me how to do it, and how to do it well. I'm very contemporary--.

Little Thunder: When did you begin to really shift your format into just more and more sculptural focus?

Jackson: Probably about four years ago. My pottery, again, it didn't seem to say anything as far as my Native culture. It was cold. It wasn't warm. It had very little to do with my Cherokee culture, and, again, I just never could get that traditional, I guess you could say, that traditional feel of things. I attempted small sculpture, and from that point on I knew that that was what I was supposed 26:00to be.

Little Thunder: Now, had you won some awards prior to that shift?

Jackson: I had won a Judge's Choice, I believe, on one of the pottery pieces, the contemporary pottery pieces, but, no, only when I put a sculpture on a vessel, I immediately won First Place. As soon as I put the sculpture on, "That's where I need to go," and so I did.

Little Thunder: One trademark of your ceramic sculptures, that you're not doing busts, you're doing whole-body sculpture, and while it has some stylization, it's quite representational, too. What led you in that direction?

Jackson: I've always been drawn to realism. I think that if I'm--I don't know. 27:00Could you ask me the question again?

Little Thunder: What led you into, sort of, that representational--there's an element of stylization, but there's a lot of realism.

Jackson: Okay. Yes, I think realism is very difficult to do. I think it is one of the most difficult aspects of art, and I like that. I like the difficulty. I like the, I guess--let me see how I want to say this. I like the involvement of doing it, something that is difficult to me, because once I reach that, it seems like I accomplished something and I can go a little further into those elements.

Little Thunder: You've talked about your art reflecting a kind of working through of both your backgrounds, Cherokee ancestry and European ancestry. I wondered if you could just expand upon that a little bit more.

Jackson: The main thing about my Cherokee heritage is that there's some roots. There's roots there. We can trace them back. I can trace them back. My granddad was a full-blood Cherokee, so I knew that his mom and dad were full-bloods, and I knew that they came over on the Trail of Tears. I may not have to know them personally. Not his mom and dad, I'm sorry, his grandparents. I may not know them personally, but I know something about where they came from and the way 29:00they lived.

My dad's side, the European side, I have no idea, and that's really strange. That's actually why I done this piece right here. The title of it is I'm Part White, But I Can't Prove It. I can prove that I'm Native American, but I can't prove that I'm white. I always thought that that was kind of strange. That's why I became interested in my Cherokee heritage because I knew there was roots. I wasn't going anywhere with my dad's side of the family. I couldn't. They don't even know where they came from. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: One of the challenges when you're starting out in art is the business side of it, and I'm wondering how you handled that.

Jackson: I'm learning to handle that. I've done business for years. I don't mean to say that I hate it, but I don't particularly like it. Some of the business is fine, (it's just like anything else) but there are areas of business in art that's really trying for me, for instance, marketing. It's very trying. We have the social media. Very trying to me. I did not grow up with computers, and I'm having to learn all of this. I'm very--I don't put anything about myself on a webpage or anything like that. There's parts of it I would just like to have someone do it for me, and I would stay in my studio and build my sculptures. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Does your wife play a role in the business?

Jackson: She's an encourager. My wife's an encourager. She helps me. She will help when we to Indian markets or anything like that. She's always ready to go. She likes to go. No, it's basically, I'm on my own. She has her thing that she does, and so I have mine.

Little Thunder: How did you know how to price your work initially?

Jackson: I don't. Never did figure it out. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Still working on that?

Jackson: Still working on that. (Laughter) There are so many different things that are told to you. Any artist, I'm sure that they could relate with this. "You don't sell your work for nothing, but you don't sell it too high." You're going, "Whoa. Okay." (Laughs) I have to eat. I hear people tell me all the time, "Well, you sold that too cheap!" I'm going, "What? I wish you would have sold it 32:00for me!" (Laughter) No, so there's things like that. It's still a work in progress. You can cut any of this out, too, right, if you want to? (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You won Best of Classification at Santa Fe Indian Market in 2011. Was that your first year to do the Market?

Jackson: No. Let me see, 2010 was my first year I went out with the Art Center in Tahlequah.

Little Thunder: The Cherokee Art Center?

Jackson: The Cherokee Art Center. I went as a group, as a participant. There were three or four of us went out.

Little Thunder: You had a booth--

Jackson: We had a booth.

Little Thunder: --at the art center.

Jackson: We had two pieces that we could enter into the competition. I entered one, and I forget who entered another one, but I won a First Place. Yes, that 33:00was pretty big to go to Santa Fe for the first time and do that.

Little Thunder: Absolutely. What were your expectations about Indian Market?

Jackson: To win. To win something in the competition. (Laughs) I mean, you're just taking one piece, basically, with you, and that's about all there is to do is to enter into that competition because there is some prestigious benefits to winning a show like that.

Little Thunder: Oh, definitely. So did you have collectors in front of your booth early the next morning?

Jackson: No, no. There was no one there. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Did you sell your piece?

Jackson: I did not. There was no one there. They would come and look at it and say, "That's nice," but no, there was no collectors there. I don't know why it 34:00happened because people said, "Well, you should have done really well if you win First Place," but no, I didn't. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Well, I think all these other awards have probably made up for that. You won Best of Show at Cherokee Holiday Show, I think, that same year. What did that mean to you?

Jackson: No, now, the year that--this was this year. Now, I did go to Santa Fe again this year. I was talking about the year--it would have been 2011.

Little Thunder: Okay, yes. Let's talk about 2013 then, or 2012?

Jackson: I'm sorry, that was last year. This year I went to Santa Fe, in 2013, and I won a Best of Classification in pottery, which was a major, major win for me because there are eleven out of the whole show. There are eleven people out 35:00of, I don't know, probably a thousand entries.

Little Thunder: And it was a pot?

Jackson: It was pottery, very contemporary. I never thought--it was the most contemporary piece that I'd ever done. I just really didn't think that, you know, that it was maybe what they liked, and they just absolutely loved it for the pottery division.

Little Thunder: What do you think made it stand out so much?

Jackson: I was told that there has never been--it is so different that they had not seen anything like that.

Little Thunder: It was wheel-thrown?

Jackson: It was wheel-thrown and hand-built, both, which that's one of the things that I like to do is addition. We call it addition, subtraction, and manipulation with clay. I like to do all three. If I can find something else that I can do, I'll do that, too. I'll find another term to use.

Little Thunder: Well, how about your win, then, at the Cherokee Holiday Show?

Jackson: The Cherokee Holiday Show, I tried for seven years to place in that show. It seemed like I would always place, a First Place in pottery, but to win that was pretty cool because I think this was like seven or eight years that I tried to win the show, and I finally done it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: And it has some good prize money attached to it. How did that impact your art production?

Jackson: Monetary gain is always good at a win, but I don't think--there's not 37:00enough money to do a lot of things with. It gives you an encouragement to continue, and it does allow you to buy more material. It does allow you to pay your bills. All those things are always in your head. You still have to make a living.

Little Thunder: What's been more important to you so far, in terms of your career: booth shows or galleries?

Jackson: Booth shows at this point. I'm only showing at one gallery, at the Spider Gallery in Tahlequah right now. To be honest, most of it, though, has been for the competitions and to get noticed. I think that's worked really well for me. I've recently been contacted by the [National Cowboy and Western 38:00Heritage] Museum in Oklahoma City to be a part of their show this month, the fifteenth of this month. I thought that was a major--and that was because of some of the competitions that I won. I won a competition two years ago. The Museum of Art and Design actually put together a show and contacted me, and I got to be a part of that, which is a traveling show that goes around the United States for three and a half years. Because of that win, that's why they called me. I guess they think if you win a prize, you'll be good enough for the shows.

Little Thunder: Have you done a little bit of traveling out of state as well or 39:00has it just been your work so far that--

Jackson: No, I travel with my work as much as I can. We did go to New York and Santa Fe. We go to anything. Sulphur, Oklahoma, I think is the last one we went to, Chickasaw. I try to go for the openings if it's not too far.

Little Thunder: Was that the first time you've been to New York? What was that experience like?

Jackson: No, it was the second. I've been to New York before, but this time it was a little different. I was a little more comfortable with it this time. Of course it had been roughly eight, probably seven or eight years since I'd been there before, but I was a little more comfortable this time. It's a shock when you first go to New York. It's a shock. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: So when were you hired here at Bacone?

Jackson: Let me see. That would be 2011. I became acquainted with Tony, the 40:00director here, Tony Tiger, and we got to talking about maybe starting a 3D program here at Bacone. I came aboard as an adjunct instructor, so I've been here, I think it's my third year here.

Little Thunder: In what ways has teaching impacted your own artwork?

Jackson: Oh, teaching the fundamentals of art, it just opened all that back up, all of that, the things that you put out of your mind. It just brought it all back to witness. It's kind of, like, revitalized. It's like, "Oh, yeah, I remember that. Let me put this in there," or something like that. But yes, it's true. If you want to learn anything, go you teach it, and you will learn it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: How do you balance your artwork and your teaching?

Jackson: I think I do a pretty good job of it, as far as the balancing. Well, I have to look at it as I'm still learning. As teaching, I teach myself the same as I teach the students. I think the balancing is pretty easy. I don't have much trouble with it because I get to put to practice what I preach, and it keeps me on guard, so to speak, because if I tell my students, "This works," I'm going to make sure I'm doing it myself.

Little Thunder: What other museum shows have been important to you? You mentioned the New York show, which was the Changing Hands show, I guess.

Jackson: You mean as far as my work or--

Little Thunder: Yes, as far as your work.

Jackson: Probably what is coming up now with the Cowboy and Western Museum. I think it's ironic in a way because I never contacted them. I remember I was talking to my wife about Native American work, and I said--but I have two cultures. I have one culture that came maybe more from the Industrial Revolution with the sense--. I thought it was strange, because I was telling myself, "I'm really thinking about doing some Western-type motifs and get into some Western scenes of figures." Low and behold, they called me. I was like, "Maybe this is like that first sculpture that I did. Maybe that's a direction I need to go." So 43:00I'll see.

Little Thunder: Have you done a Western subject for the show?

Jackson: I think--what do I mean to say? Let me see. The pieces that I have were Native American, but I think that they will hold true with some of the Western motifs. I think so.

Little Thunder: That's what you're putting in the show?

Jackson: Yes.

Little Thunder: Yeah, because we were in the West. Natives are in the West, too.

Jackson: Yes.

Little Thunder: You've been pretty involved in various artist associations, the Cherokee Artists Association, which became the Southeastern [Indian] Artists Association, and the Tahlequah Arts Guild. Sometimes artists don't want to do that organizational thing. Why do you feel it's important?

Jackson: Oh, it's important to surround yourself with what your interest is. If your profession is art, surround--I'd love to surround myself with people to 44:00feed off of each other, to encourage, to be encouraged, and see what's going on with other artists. It's the same with any field. The more you have together, the stronger you are, so that's one of the reasons that I started getting involved with Cherokee Artists Association. They could teach me something. They could show me about Native American art. Especially the ones that had been doing it for years, I made sure that we were elbow to elbow. I think it worked out really well.

Little Thunder: Let's talk a little bit about your process and techniques a little more specifically. So I imagine you use commercial clay.

Jackson: Yes.

Little Thunder: You mentioned that you like to do a combination of wheel throwing and hand-built. I thought I read that you had to make or invent some 45:00new equipment to do some of your more ambitious sculpture. Can you talk about that a little?

Jackson: Well, sometimes I have to raise my kiln. I have to add onto the kiln, and I have to make preparations for the firing and get it to fire to a certain amount. Anything you do to a kiln, it changes the temperature that you need to get to. I'm pretty good at making something out of nothing and making something else work, a particular tool or anything like that. I was always brought up that I never needed a lot of tools. I just needed to be able to use what I had, and so that's the way I do my art now. You could come to my studio; you won't find a 46:00whole lot of tools. I just don't need them. This is impressive, but--. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Well, what about bond? You mentioned that you work with bond.

Jackson: Bondo.

Little Thunder: Bondo.

Jackson: That's the old term for it, for the material used to repair dents that's in metal. It works very much like any plaster. What I started doing was using that for backgrounds, some of the pieces that I'm doing. Then the clay is attached to that. I can get a lot of airbrushing with different paints, brighter color even, that can correspond with the clay and contrast because there's two 47:00very different materials.

Little Thunder: When you say airbrushing, are you talking about the patina?

Jackson: No, the airbrushing is what I do on the Bondo or the--

Little Thunder: Oh the Bondo, okay.

Jackson: It's like you would paint a car.

Little Thunder: Gotcha.

Jackson: You've seen some of the customized jobs that people do on automobiles. Well, I can do that, also. I can apply that to my artwork, too. Text, just numerous things that I can do with it.

Little Thunder: And there are some size restrictions or challenges, as people who work with ceramics know. Have you run into those with your sculptures?

Jackson: Yes. Usually, if you stay within a four-foot range, you're pretty safe. My pieces will be, I'll start out at four feet if that's the limitation. I'll 48:00start out at four feet because I know it's going to shrink. The clay is going to shrink once it's fired, and so it's going to be under four feet. If I could, it would be life-size. That's what I'm shooting for. That is my goal now, is for life-sized figures.

Little Thunder: Out of clay?

Jackson: I'm not certain. Clay doesn't want to. It's not very friendly once it gets very tall. It's just not very friendly, or not to me. It wants to twist and break and crack and all this good stuff. With some of the stuff that I want to do, I'm going to have to change materials.

Little Thunder: One of the things that you're known for is very elaborate, kind of, both bas-relief and incising, lots of pattern and lots of design. Can you 49:00talk a little bit about how you got involved in that?

Jackson: I think just going back to the principles of design. I know that when I draw--I think it's because when I done auto body work, everything had to be so smooth. I mean, it had to be perfect. When the customer came to get the piece, it had to be perfect. It had to match. I remember thinking a lot of times how, "Man, this would look really nice if I could just--," so that's what I do now. I don't have to do that. My images can, they can have texture; they can do whatever they want to. On some of these pieces, I've got gears and cogs and 50:00stuff that I put on, so, yeah, I don't have to do the norm as what I used to.

Little Thunder: Now, I know you haven't been at these ceramic sculptures that long, but how have they changed in terms of subject matter and format?

Jackson: The older I get, the more concerned, the more family-oriented I become, and I think that everything I do, all of my figures, are because of perhaps maybe not just a family member, or maybe a story about a family member or 51:00something like that. I don't know. I just don't know. I would have to say that's maybe just because of my family because that's what I know. I don't know how to say that. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Now, has the coloring of your ceramic pieces, which I know depends on the firing process, too, has that changed quite a bit?

Jackson: Oh, well, it's changed from my pottery. I do not like glaze. I never could get comfortable with glazes. The oxides that I use, I'm very comfortable with. I don't like sheen. I mean, a little bit of sheen is fine, but I just don't like that, especially not for sculptures. I think they have a more earthly sense to them. I think they have a, yeah, more earthly quality of what clay was 52:00meant for it to be. Even the clay itself almost has a figurative color, with some of the buffs for instance, so there's not a whole lot that you have to even do with the clay.

Little Thunder: So you're talking about slips that have the oxides in them?

Jackson: No, just pure oxides.

Little Thunder: Just pure oxides.

Jackson: No, I do not use any slips, just pure oxides.

Little Thunder: Another thing that you have been doing lately is sort of combining materials. Like, you will have the clay sculpture, but then you might have a piece of metal on it. We'll be looking at those pieces at the end of the videotape, this one with the two balls. How did you first get that idea to sort of start bringing in some other materials?

Jackson: The clay can be mixed with anything, I mean as far as other materials, 53:00and be incorporated into clay. I think that probably that piece there, that is when I started thinking about the Bondo and putting--. Now, these are clay, but I think at that point, I was starting to think about adding more material to them, different material. For me, it just kind of evolved from there. The copper, you'll notice I put a few copper rings in it to hold the cross, and things of this nature. I don't know. It just seems like it calls for, maybe, some mixed media.

Little Thunder: Before you do a figure, do you sketch it out beforehand?

Jackson: Sometimes. Sometimes, but not because--I have mental images. As soon as 54:00I start the figure, it's already there. Sometimes I may make a few sketches to see if it's going to work. How much of a bend that I can put in that piece without it breaking, or how tall I can I can get it or something, size relationship. Probably for size relationship more than anything, how tall I want the base, for instance, and what I want the figure to stand on it or sit on or something like that. Mainly I know what I want to do.

Little Thunder: How about some of the designs that are incised. Do you sketch those out beforehand or--

Jackson: No. Now, the text that I put on these pieces are Cherokee from the Cherokee syllabary. Now, those I will sketch out and put them on. As far as the 55:00designs, I look through Native American designs. These are actually part of them, but they're all abstract, too, just a different motif. It still kind of generates off of the original, the old traditional symbols and things of this nature.

Little Thunder: What kinds of research do you do for your--

Jackson: Not as much as I should. I still go back, and I learn a lot by talking to people. That's one of, probably, my best attributes of getting my research is from going to a source of someone who really knows. A lot of the reading and things, it's hard for me to understand. I'm not a archaeologist. I'm not a historian. I'm an artist. I try to, but I do my best work by talking to people.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process from the time you sort of get an idea?

Jackson: I just go to--again, it just seems like I know what I'm going to do, and I just need to get it out. One of the things that I feel that I do not create anything, and I've learned that a long time ago, that I just discover. That's helped me more than anything, to realize that I know that if I take this off, this happens. If I do this, then this happens. I start a process of, with 57:00clay, I start a process of elimination, actually.

Little Thunder: It sounds like you don't really need to even jot down ideas. You just sort of carry them in your head until you go to work, or do you sometimes keep track of ideas in a notebook or something?

Jackson: I think keep track of ideas in my head when I see something. Well, some of these images has been from museums that I've visited. This piece right behind me, there is an artist by the name of William Lee who is at the Bartlesville Woolaroc Museum. He had done a painting of an old Indian with a plow, (of course, at his time it was very contemporary) with the buffalo and stuff running 58:00in the clouds, and that left an impression on me. A friend of mine, (here recently I've been meeting with him) he's a farmer, and he had an old plow sitting out there. Immediately, I thought about that painting, so I went and done it. It was just fast. I took all the measurements off of his plow that was available to me, and I just did it. I don't think there was one sketch. I don't think I did any sketches.

Little Thunder: So what's your creative routine? Do you prefer to work in the morning or at night or whenever you have time?

Jackson: I prefer to work (it's hard to say) sometimes morning and sometimes 59:00night. One of the things that a small businessman has to do is he has to learn to be diligent. He has to learn discipline. Sometimes my discipline gets a little slow, so I might be out there in the evening if that happens. If it's right on in the morning--I'm mostly a morning person, I am, but there's just so many things I like to do, too.

Little Thunder: And you have a commercial kiln that--

Jackson: I haven't--

Little Thunder: --you haven't really tampered with too much--

Jackson: No.

Little Thunder: --in terms of kiln--

Jackson: It has a computer control which makes it nice. I don't have to sit with it all the time, and I can set it to whatever temperature I want. I'm pretty well safe with it. You want to make sure it shuts off, you know.

Little Thunder: Right.

Jackson: Always want to make sure it shuts off.

Little Thunder: Do you have your own sort of studio at home? Do you have a workspace at home?

Jackson: I have a workspace at home, yes. I converted my garage into my workspace, and it works out good.

Little Thunder: So looking back on your sort of brief professional career so far, what has been a kind of pivotal point, a fork in the road for you in your art career?

Jackson: You know, I don't think I really see things as being forks. I've actually given some thought to this. I think when I come to a decision, whichever decision I make because I never know what that other decision would be, I don't think that I really look at it as being a fork. I just go, and we'll 61:00see what happens. Sometimes, maybe, I think I might should do that. (Laughter) I enjoy doing art, so any path I take I think has been pretty neat, especially if things are working for me. I look at that a lot. Whatever's working for me, it seems like that's the way I like to go.

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

Jackson: Gosh, I think everything that's happened to me has been a highlight. I never expected to win this many awards, and I really can't put one above the 62:00other because they are just so--. I'm honored to do that. I think probably if I was going to think of any highlight that maybe it would be that my children, my family, would say, "He's doing something." I think that would probably be my highlight. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: What's been one of the low points so far?

Jackson: I hate to say this, but probably, I don't mean to say money in the sense that that's everything that I think about, but being an artist is tough. It's not an easy road to handle, and some of the lessons that you go through, 63:00just like any other business or any other profession. One of the biggest mistakes that I think I made, and I caution students that I talk to, is to think that everything's just going to work out, that somebody's going to see my work, they're gong to just come down here, and they're going to pick it up, and I'd have it made. I won't even have to work for it. I think that's a big mistake. You have to work for it. Getting over some of issues that you thought were right, and you find out that they were not right.

Little Thunder: Even though you don't enjoy the new media very much, your webpage is very nice. I think it's just very well done.

Jackson: Well, thank you. (Laughs) I don't know sometimes. Like I say, me and computers, I'm learning. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Well, is there anything else you'd like to add or that we forgot to mention before we look at your artwork?

Jackson: No, I think it's pretty well--. I mean, unless you have some more questions, I have nothing more to add.

Little Thunder: Okay. We'll take a look at your work here. How about this piece? Would you like to tell us about this?

Jackson: Yes, this piece here is a perfect example of my work of dealing with social issues of mixed cultures. There's two spheres which represent, are symbolic, of Native American and European culture, the red being Cherokee, and 65:00the white being European. The piece is titled I'm Part White But I Can't Prove It. I actually received this title from a friend of mine who is a full-blood Cherokee. We were having breakfast one morning, and someone asked him how much Indian he was. We don't think about that as being an issue, but for some reason it is. Some people, they want to know. I don't know why he said it, but he said, "Well, I'm part white, but I can't prove it." I thought that was such an interesting statement, so that's what I titled this piece.

Little Thunder: And I love the way the incising here almost works like, it looks like tattooing almost. It's just a really nice look.

Jackson: Well, they done a lot tattooing --

Little Thunder: Yes.

Jackson: --so I wanted to incorporate some symbolism, or actually not any definite symbolism, but just some abstract line work--

Little Thunder: Okay.

Jackson: --to show that our ancestors did do some tattooing and marking of their bodies.

Little Thunder: Right. And how about this piece?

Jackson: This piece, I had been interested in the Industrial Revolution and what effects it's had on Native Americans. I had a friend once tell me, "Where would the Indian have been if the Europeans hadn't have come over?" I don't like to get into a lot of detail about things of that nature, but it left an impression on me. I started thinking about how the Industrial Revolution affected us, not 67:00just Native American, but how it affected my European side of the family. The plow, my goodness, was one of the biggest turning points. When I done this piece, I kept thinking about how we as people progress and how the industry has helped us to progress, so I titled this Waiting On the Tractor because we're always seeking how to make things easier for ourselves.

Little Thunder: I sort of interpreted it as it's sort of broken. Some piece is broken from this.

Jackson: Could be. They may be a thing of the past. There is some symbolism, some narrative to a story. The man is checking his pocket watch, and if you 68:00could see the time, it would be at five o'clock because that's when farmers are already out there. They're past time; they should've been there before. He's trying to wave them down. He's trying to figure out why they're not there. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Okay, that's a pocket watch. Okay. That's neat. And how about this piece?

Jackson: Well, people today, I believe that people today go through the same things that people did centuries ago. Of course there's different things, but basically we go through the same things. I always thought about how in Tahlequah there is a male and female seminary which became a higher learning facility for 69:00Native Americans, and I wondered how they would be chosen to get to go to these schools. I think about today how I felt, for instance, when I got a letter of acceptance into Bacone or the college, (by the way, that is the title of this: Letter of Acceptance) how we all, different organizations, different areas of our life, how we wait for letters of acceptance. The base of this, I think that, well, represents--there are seven clans to the Cherokee people, so there's seven images, figures, at the bottom, which that's what that represents. Then it has the Cherokee syllabary of the acceptance letter is what it says.

Little Thunder: That's a really beautiful piece and such a neat expression.

Jackson: I was always fascinated with Bernini and his sculptures and the way that he would put life into them, and how they would extend out and come into the viewer's space. The early Baroque, they were just so aggressive, and come out. I like to think that mine have just a little bit of glimmer.

Little Thunder: Come a little bit into the viewer's space. (Laughter)

Jackson: They'll think I was a genius. (Laughs)

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

Jackson: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate that.

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