Oral history interview with Phyllis Fife

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Tuesday, April 28, 2014, and I'm interviewing Phyllis Fife, both of whose sisters are well known Muscogee Creek artists. Phyllis you're Director of the Center for Tribal Studies at Northeastern State University where you've also taught art and art history, directed the bilingual education program, and each year you coordinate and issue Symposium of the American Indian, but you are also a painter and clothing designer for Fife Collection Limited which was one of the early Oklahoma Native clothing lines to really break through to a national market. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me today.

Fife: Thank you.

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

Fife: I was born in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, in the Creek Nation. We lived just a few miles north of the town of Dustin, Oklahoma, but in the old Thlewarle tribal town community. The Creek church that we have always attended that our 1:00family helped found is the Thlewarle Indian Baptist Church, which is just about a mile from our house. That is the community that I know as my home.

Little Thunder: I know from talking with your sisters that your father worked for Sandlin Oil Company, and your mother was a teacher. Starting with your father, how did he influence or encourage the creative environment in your home?

Fife: Our father was very inventive, and he was very resourceful. He probably taught us the value of saving any kind of materials that we might turn into some type of creativity, something for use later. He also showed his artistic talent 2:00from time to time. He didn't purposely, I guess, deliberately try to show us his artistic side, but we saw it come out. When he did anything, whatever he created, whatever he built, he would always do it with very carefully rendered skills. If he built something from wood, he tried to make it look as finished as possible. Whatever he did, even welding a gate, he didn't like sloppy work, and he didn't like for us to do sloppy work.

Little Thunder: How about your mother?

Fife: Our mother was, she was very creative, and we knew from a very early age about her schooling and her education, starting from living in the rural community just north of where we were raised. We were raised at the home place where our father had been born and raised. Our mother had been born across the river from him just about three or four miles, although they didn't know each other as young people. They both were from large families and also surrounded by lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. This type of environment is one that probably stimulates more creativity. If you have any kind of artistic talents, 4:00then they're going to come out some way because we knew that our mother had gone away to school. Both our parents had gone to boarding schools.

Home and living in that rural community where--we had a creek in front of our house, a creek behind our house, and on a day like today when it was going to rain, we knew it was going to rain. Then we knew that when the rain was over and the rain soaked into the ground that there was going to be clay on the creek banks. Our mother really let us have the freedom and encouraged us to try our hand at building things with clay. We tried our hand whittling out of wood. We 5:00made things out of mud. We tried our hand at sewing and cutting things, making things out of paper. Probably we had the ideal situation there with our mother and some of our aunts, also our uncles, relatives.

Little Thunder: And you also did some early beadwork?

Fife: I did, and I brought a piece to show you. When we were very young, our mother taught us to do beadwork, and I can't remember a time when we didn't have a lot of beads around the house. Of course, many of them were all mixed up to where if you wanted to make a pattern, you had to pick through the beads to find the colors, find enough of the colors. Our father used to also bring us things to make artwork with when he could, and so he brought home beads, too, from 6:00Tulsa where he worked.

When I was in about the fourth grade, I would say maybe nine years old, my mother taught me how to bead on a loom. This is what I made, and I wore it to school really often. I made two necklaces, actually. The other one was a different style that was more in tune with what it was supposed to turn out like, but this was an early experiment. A finished product, for me, that is a success if I ever have a finished product. It was just something that I've kept over the years.

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

Fife: (Laughs) Probably when I was born. I was born in the house that I was raised in. I was born at home, and on the walls we had art. The earliest piece 7:00that made a big impression on me, although we had some really fine pieces of art by one of the Kiowa Five artists, actually, who was a friend of my mother when she went to school at OU, the art that impressed me the most, the earliest that I can recall was a mural that my sister Carole had drawn with colored chalk on our old faded wallpaper. The wallpaper, I think they said it used to be a pale pink, but when I was born it was kind of a rich brown-looking color and a very good paper for drawing with chalk, very porous.

Like I said, our father made us bead looms. He provided artwork and art supplies 8:00for us. He, I'm sure, supplied that colored chalk for her, brilliant colors, too. She had painted a whole mural on the wall. My mother said that she woke up one day and there it was on the wall. (Laughter) It was a scene of a village, like an encampment with people doing various things in the village, and, of course, the fire with the black pot, black kettle on the fire, and stacks of wood, and people carrying water, and kids running around. I don't remember--it was not preserved, unfortunately, and I'm not sure a photo was ever taken of it, either, but that is the earliest fine art (Laughter) by a famous artist that I 9:00can remember.

Little Thunder: That's great. What is your first memory of making art?

Fife: Well, I'm not sure what it was. We always had fabric, scraps of fabric because my mother sewed and she had many--I remember we had boxes, not just a little bit of scraps of fabric, but we had boxes of fabric that were stored for use. She'd let us dig through the boxes of scraps and get fabric out and try to make doll clothes. We tried all kinds of things, the whole group of us. We were into collaborative art a lot, too. There were eight siblings eventually, but I 10:00remember that we would try to make--probably the first thing that I actually tried to make was a little doll quilt, like a nine patch or four patch or something like that, sewing squares together. Other than that, my beadwork when I was nine, that was big accomplishment. When I was about ten, I was at school. My teachers knew that I could draw and do artwork, along with my cousin Anita, and so we were called upon if any artwork needed to be done for anything in our school at the time.

I remember that I reproduced etchings that were in our textbooks of portraits. 11:00They provided us with paint and poster board, and we got to make a replica of the Great Seal of the United States, which we thought was wonderful. In my mind it still was perfect. I'm not sure what it really looked like. Those are just some of the early things. Probably paper dolls. We used to have, like, Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, and we were skillful enough to make paper dolls out of the models in these magazines, in the catalogs, and cut out clothing to make it 12:00fit. That was adaptive art. Other than that, we made things out of clay, like I said, nothing that was permanent.

Little Thunder: How early did you think of yourself as an artist?

Fife: Well, the word artist, I think, is way, probably, above me. I didn't think of myself as an artist at all. There were within my family, even of siblings, there were various skill levels, the level of execution of what we would maybe call art. I always aspired to be better at my skills and using tools and 13:00materials that were at hand. I did, at some point, put on my resume "professional artist" when I was sixteen years old at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I was privileged to be selected to be in some art exhibits, and as I began to sell artwork after I graduated from high school there, eventually I used that title "professional artist."

Little Thunder: How old were you when you went to the Institute?

Fife: When I went there, I had just turned fifteen years old. When I left, I was at the end of my seventeenth year. I went to school there for three years. I 14:00guess I was on the verge of being eighteen when I left.

Little Thunder: What kinds of classes did you take?

Fife: We had majors and minors, and I majored in painting. I minored in exhibition arts which was museum exhibition work.

Little Thunder: Did you do any fabric design while you were there?

Fife: I did because Dr. Lloyd New, who was a fabric designer, recognized that I designed clothing. I mean, we had to make all of our own clothes. I don't recall exactly when I first ever bought clothing because we, at a very early age, started making--we learned how to sew when we were very young. I remember in the 15:00seventh grade designing some of my own things, some of my own clothing. I was pretty skilled at doing that. Mr. New recognized that I had that skill, and he got me involved in some fabric design. I didn't major in that area of design, and I didn't ever get real good at silkscreening fabric. I watched the process, and he tried to teach me batik. I didn't understand what the process was going to be on the end. I was hit and miss at it, no good. What he did, though, with 16:00the fabric, the original designed fabric that was produced there, he gave me access to the fabric to design some clothing, so I did that

Little Thunder: Now, at this point are you looking to Native traditions of clothing in your design?

Fife: It was using--well, actually, no. The answer is no. It was contemporary, everyday wear, something that I would actually wear, not something for a runway show but functional clothing, something that would have kind of an original--I liked the original ideas of design. I was able to use some of the scraps of 17:00fabric and to create some pieces. That was just on the side. I mean, it wasn't in a class. We didn't have a fashion design course program there, but we did have the fabric design.

Little Thunder: Who were some of your classmates in terms of painting?

Fife: My classmates, I shared a studio with Earl Eder, Kevin Red Star, David Montana. Linda Lomahaftewa was there at that time. T. C. Cannon, Parker Boyiddle, Sherman Chaddlesone, Doug Hyde was there, Karita Coffey, many of the 18:00artists that we know now, that are recognized in the world of Indian art.

Little Thunder: Did you have--was it whoever got to the studio first?

Fife: No.

Little Thunder: How did that work?

Fife: Our curriculum was set up to offer us art studio classes half a day and academic classes half a day. We had an academic building where we had classrooms like any other public school, and then we had art studios. I guess my first year we were given the opportunity to experiment to take different classes for short periods of time to see what our interest was. In our junior and senior years, I 19:00recall having my own studio area which was kind of a cubicle in a studio, but a cubicle that was probably, (I'm not sure what size) maybe eight by ten. We had walls, half-walls, in between the sections, so we had a little privacy. We were given enough time. It wasn't like you had fifty minutes to work on your art and now you have another class. We did have various art classes, too, that we changed and went to. As time went by as we advanced, then we had more studio time. I would say that it was when I went to college later and lived on my own 20:00and had 100 percent studio time, that was a good way to enter into that.

Little Thunder: So what medium were you using most frequently? Were you painting in acrylics mostly or oils?

Fife: I remember acrylics being introduced when I was in high school. I was introduced to acrylics for the first time. Some of the pop art was becoming popular, and colors were exploding into very vibrant colors. I worked in all different media, but I had started out with water-based paints and oil. Then I 21:00remember trying acrylics, and it just wasn't the same as oil paint. I did a little bit of both, and eventually I got more into acrylic because of probably all the reasons anyone does. It dries fast, and the colors are vibrant. I was working in--probably the style of art that I eventually transitioned or evolved into was more of an abstract expressionist type of what was called action painting at the time in the art scene in California.

Little Thunder: And you did go on to University of California at Santa Barbara--

Fife: Yes.

Little Thunder: --to study with Howard Warshaw. What made you decide on that program?

Fife: I had never considered University of California, and I had never heard of 22:00Santa Barbara. Scott Momaday came to visit our school. He was an English professor there at University of California at Santa Barbara, so he recruited me to come to school there. He recruited all students, but I was one who applied and got a scholarship. At the time, the school was pretty, it had a reputation of being like a school without diversity, a school without racial diversity, a school that had 90 percent students, did not have financial aid. They also had a pretty good-sized international program, as well. The minority races of the 23:00United States were absent, and so a scholarship program was developed. I went to school there on that scholarship so my parents didn't have to pay money. They sent me money, and they probably paid for me to get there and back home. When I went from rural Okfuskee County to Santa Fe, it was like going to the moon, being in a totally different universe. Then going from boarding school in Santa Fe to Santa Barbara to the beach party scene, (Laughs) it was a totally different universe again, going from a 100 percent Indian school to Santa 24:00Barbara on a scholarship for minority students, and there were just twelve of us.

Little Thunder: Total or from the Institute?

Fife: Twelve. No, I was the only one from the Institute. There were twelve on our program, on our scholarship program. The others were African American from all across the United States. The next year, the second year I was there I asked my roommate from Santa Fe, who was from Washington, whose name was Phyllis Noise, to join me at Santa Barbara, so she came down and came to school there. Then there were two Indian people there. (Laughter) I did meet a boy who was part Apache who was already there. He wasn't on the scholarship program. We had 25:00the privilege of being mentored, I guess, at least kind of looked after a little bit by Scott Momaday while we were there. She actually worked for him as a student worker and did some clerical work on typing his manuscript for [The] Way to Rainy Mountain.

I was working in the campus art gallery for my student job. I had the experience of minoring in exhibition arts at Santa Fe, so the job that I got in the university art gallery was really important because we set up some really exclusive art shows from some of the best collections in the United States. 26:00Stemming from the work I did at the gallery there, then my supervisor hired me in the summertime, well, the whole crew of us, to help set up exhibits at the Santa Barbara County art museum, which was a really well known museum. I got a real good experience there. The art program, the fine arts program, was good. Howard Warshaw, who was my main advisor in art, was a muralist, so this gave me a greater, different perspective on doing paintings and drawings. He had a very good style, I guess, of three-dimensional drawing that was very helpful in what 27:00I learned about form.

Little Thunder: So how did your style change, do you think, after you left Santa Barbara, or had it changed?

Fife: After I left Santa Barbara--I did a lot of life drawing in college there. We hadn't done much of that at all at the high school. I did a lot of life drawing, and then really learning a little bit more about watercolor and about mural art. Then when I came back to Oklahoma, I think I had a freer style than I 28:00had had when I started out. When I was in high school just experimenting with a lot of things, I used a lot of mixed media. When I came back to Oklahoma, I think that mixed media technique kind of entered in again, but I had a little more sophisticated style, I think, more mature style in art, inspired by my surroundings and availability of resources just like when I started out at the farm. (Laughs)

I often found myself with not enough money to buy art materials, canvas, or 29:00stretchers, so mixed media entered in again. Some of the best pieces, some of my favorite pieces are pieced together with wood mixed with canvas to meet the dimension of a stretcher bar that I had. (Laughs) I don't know. I guess over time, anyone's style goes through various evolutions, and mine did, as well. I really think that probably from the beginning of my life, my creativity is most 30:00dynamic when I am limited in what I have to work with and make that work.

Little Thunder: So what led you back to Oklahoma? Did you think of it as a permanent move? What were you thinking?

Fife: I came back when--about the time I left for Santa Barbara, my brother left for Vietnam. Just being away from home, after having been away from home already for three years at Santa Fe and one year at Santa Barbara, that second year was particularly difficult for me. I also had a health issue come up with an injury 31:00from playing softball in the summertime that bothered me a lot. Just everything, it seemed like there were a lot of personal stresses that second year that I went to Santa Barbara. Always, as I was having fun walking down the beach or doing something in sunny California with the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen in my life, I thought of home. At the time, I thought my parents were getting old very rapidly, I mean like, "Oh my gosh, my parents are so old, and I won't have much time with them by the time I ever graduate from this university." (Laughter)

Those types of things entered my mind, but it was somewhat, I wouldn't say 32:00difficult, but it was different living in a world where I wasn't surrounded by people of my ethnicity. I didn't find any substitutes for that anywhere. It made it more vivid in my mind the importance of that community and the knowledge that my parents might have, just about me being a Muscogee Creek Indian person, that I wanted to know. It wasn't that I didn't know because I think probably before I went to Santa Fe, I was well grounded in that. When I weighed the difference 33:00between getting that education at the university in Santa Barbara versus getting the education that I could at that community that I came from, then the community became a little more desirable, important to me. My father, once he told me that he wanted me to come home, and I was saying, "Well, I'll finish out. Let me finish out the whole year here." He said, "You need to come home." I guess he told my mother, and my mother enforced it. (Laughter)

We were on a quarter system at Santa Barbara. We weren't on semester system, so I didn't quite finish that second year at Santa Barbara. I came home and stayed home for a few months. Then I got another opportunity, and that was to get back into museum studies at Santa Fe. I went back to Santa Fe, and I did that at the Museum of New Mexico. Then what really brought me back home was, actually, that I got married and married someone that I had met in Santa Fe years before. Now I'd been gone for a while and came back and then got married. He was from Oklahoma, too, and he had already kind of decided that he was ready to move back 35:00to eastern Oklahoma. That was fine with me.

Little Thunder: Were you thinking when you moved back to Oklahoma, "I'm going to try to be a full time painter," or had you already decided you wanted to finish an art degree?

Fife: I knew that I needed to finish my degree, and that was my plan. When I came back I probably--I can't remember when I actually started back. I went part time for a while.

Little Thunder: At OU.

Fife: No.

Little Thunder: Oh.

Fife: I took a few summer courses at NSU [Northeastern State University]. My 36:00sister was working on a teaching certification. She went to summer school each summer, so I took a few courses when she did. Then eventually, after taking few courses at NSU and a few courses at East Central at Ada, then I decided that I'm halfway finished and I need to go full time. That's when I started to OU. It was several years later. I really didn't go full time right away. When I did start to OU, I stayed there, and I took classes winter, summer, spring, year round until I was finished.

Little Thunder: Now, were you also exhibiting during this time?

Fife: Yes. I did exhibit work. This was something that was different, too, that I had tried exhibiting, or I did exhibit at some shows in Oklahoma during that time. I didn't find the market the same as it was outside the state. It was a very different expectation of our Native artists here at that time.

Little Thunder: Can you explain just a little more?

Fife: I would say that at the venues in Oklahoma that offered art exhibits, what was at the time recognized as contemporary abstract art was clashing a little 38:00bit with what was considered traditional Native art in style. Some of the museums and galleries had restrictions that they might only prefer the two-dimensional style, what was called traditional painting, so my work was very different. One of the things, though, that I did because my sister was very into that type of work and was very good at it, was recognized, (she had won a lot of awards in that style and did beautiful work) so I really did, at one point, I 39:00had the desire to see what my work would look like in that style. We had some shows that we were both in. I sold some work and won a few awards and have some work in some collections.

Little Thunder: Like at Philbrook or Five [Civilized] Tribes or--

Fife: I did Philbrook and the Five Tribes Museum several times, Pawnee Bill Museum, and it seems like there were some others. Just Oklahoma City, there were several places in Oklahoma City that we showed our work. I did that for a little 40:00while, and really you want to see what comes of it. What your work, my work, I wanted to see what my work looked like in that style, and I got some pleasure out of doing that type of work. It was probably very limited to depictions of things that I knew from my childhood or from my community. One thing in particular, a couple of things I can remember in particular were paintings that I did in that style, one at our cemetery. We had an elderly man who was so much 41:00of a common presence at our churches and at funerals. He was always there, so I did a painting of him at our cemetery. It was just from my memory of him.

Then another time when--my mother and a couple of her cousins, distant cousins, were very good friends, and they had been in beadwork classes together. My mother used to teach beadwork classes. These two women from Weleetka were elderly women, and they loved going to beadwork classes. One of them was killed in a car accident. They were together, I think. They had gone to buy some beads at a store in Checotah and were in a car accident. One of them was killed in the 42:00car wreck. At that moment, her face was so ingrained in my mind, and I did a painting of her doing beadwork. Those were the things that I had seen my sister do, also, things that were part of our everyday life, nothing pretentious or nothing beyond what we knew as far as our traditions. Anyway, those two paintings really had some deep meaning for me, a kind of personal, personal meaning.

Little Thunder: How did you end up going towards the idea of getting a master's 43:00degree in education?

Fife: Well, that's a pretty good story, I guess. (Laughter) I got the degree in fine arts at OU, and it wasn't something that I--just the honest fact of that degree was that I had had a very good education at Santa Fe at the art Institute in art and also at Santa Barbara. I didn't find it to be equal. I didn't find it at the same level, but I got that degree. That was the important thing, to get the degree.

Little Thunder: Right.

Fife: Then I just did artwork for about ten years, and as I was graduating from OU, I got into the fashion designing business by accident. It was, again, "I 44:00think I will design a few pieces for myself just to see what my work looks like." I designed a few pieces, which led to more, which led to people seeing them and people wanting to put me in this or that show or getting me a custom order from someone. I found a good market in doing that. For the ten years between graduation at OU and starting on a master's degree at NSU, I lived in Adair County. Ten years later I had three little girls. I had a studio there 45:00with my sisters, the Fife Collection Studio, and that was where some of the original designs originated. It was right beside my house.

As time went by and we were into that business, I had to go back and forth to Henryetta a lot or to Tulsa, and we traveled out of state. Our business kept us pretty busy, and we all had our young children at that time, my sisters and I. My husband was a school administrator. He was at his job a lot. It was pretty 46:00demanding. I spent days on end talking to my children, (Laughs) young, young children. One day in my studio I decided--and they were totally involved from birth, their little swings in the studio. I decided one day that I wanted to, I really had the desire to have some intellectual conversations with someone in kind of an academic world. I announced that I was taking some of the grocery money and going over to NSU, which was thirty miles away, to enroll in a class or two and see if I wanted to find a master's degree program there.

Actually, at the time there weren't a lot of choices as far as master's degrees 47:00offerings at NSU. The one that I can fit into that I wouldn't have to backtrack too much was in education. It was curriculum and instruction. I had done a little bit of teaching at NSU by then. I had taught in the Continuing Ed program, some traditional techniques classes to teach about fabric, fabric arts, and combining Native designs on fabric. I had also done some teaching, adjunct teaching, in the art department, just a class at a time. I had also used their studio. They had set up a new etching studio with a new etching press, and I had 48:00done a series of prints in that studio. I was a little familiar over there. I enrolled in a graduate program, and I went through it pretty quickly because I was a full-time mother and professional artist and designer. (Laughter) I got the master's degree, and I also went beyond the master's degree into school administration because at the time, if you wanted to be a school administrator, you had to earn the master's degree, take sixteen hours above the master's degree, and take a competency test for certification.

I didn't know that I wanted to do that, but I took the courses. I never went 49:00beyond getting the coursework. I have the credentials, but I didn't ever act upon that. I didn't really want to work in public school at all. As I was graduating, as I was earning my degree and ready to go back to the studio, now I've had a couple of years doing what I wanted to do. (Laughter) Was offered a position directing a graduate teacher training program in bilingual education. I accepted that offer at NSU, and I did that for nine years. It was an administrative-type position as a director of a program. That led to me working for, oh, five or six years in the College of Ed, working with teachers, 50:00undergraduate teachers. Meanwhile, I got the doctorate degree. Both are in curriculum and instruction. I really found value in my design background in the educational discipline or field of curriculum, designing curriculum and designing educational programs and designing instruction.

Little Thunder: In what way?

Fife: The same way that I would do a painting or design anything. You have your design elements. You have color, line, balance, depth, all of those things that you have probably different terminology for them, but the same design elements 51:00go into designing a good solid program for whatever purpose it is in education. I would say even the color and vibrancy have to be there, and especially today. There are a lot of nuances that have to fall into place.

Little Thunder: That's really interesting. Well, just to pick up on your design firm just a little bit, what was unique do you think about--or what is unique about Fife Fashions Limited?

Fife: The Fife Fashions? At the time, the uniqueness was probably our research 52:00that we did and discovery of Southeastern motifs that we really did not see in any form of contemporary art at the time.

Little Thunder: Were you seeing a little bit in pottery yet, or not really?

Fife: No.

Little Thunder: Or jewelry? Okay.

Fife: Anna Mitchell probably was getting started about the time we were. Some of the people who use that--I didn't see it in the pottery that I had seen. I was in the Southwest. I also was in the midst of a lot of people who did contemporary abstract style designs in pottery, but I had not seen any Southeastern or Mississippian Period designs in pottery at that time, or 53:00jewelry. Knokovtee Scott came along kind of--he was developing probably about the same time, too. Bill Glass. As far as what we used in the Fife Collection, we knew that we used Seminole patchwork. We didn't try to create a new design of Seminole patchwork. We tried to use the authentic original patterns that were created by Seminoles. We knew then and we know now, these are some traditional patterns, original patterns of Seminole that are defined in a specific way by the Seminole people and Miccosukees.

We know, also, that our tribe in Oklahoma has adopted Seminole patchwork and traditional wear. That was, I guess, one of the attractions that it had. It was something that was adopted and has become a part of our culture, as well, but still giving credit to the original designers and the original, I would say, engineers. If you've ever tried to make Seminole patchwork, I would give credit to the Seminoles for the engineering of Seminole patchwork. (Laughter) That's something that we adapted. It's a beautiful, beautiful set of patterns that have 55:00meaning for their clans but some for ours, as well. We used the Seminole patchwork designs, and we used the Mississippian motifs, which we can't really claim unless they're from the area where our people originated in the Ocmulgee Mounds-Macon area. We can't really claim anything as exclusively Creek.

As a matter of fact, we are a confederation, so we are a diverse group within ourselves. I would say that what we used in the Fife Collection was something that we have some attachment to, something that has meaning to us. We really 56:00didn't try to exploit any traditional designs of other tribes, except for the tribes that were in our family. With eight siblings in the family, we have a large family, all boarding-school people who have intermarried with different tribes. One of the things that we did in our research was to become familiar with the design motifs and styles for our children, the children in our family, for them to know, be able to know the difference, that something isn't generically Indian unless it's something like, I would say, what would be 57:00generic to all Indians, something like maybe a blanket or a shawl but still with a tribal motif on it.

Little Thunder: I understand you had the tags on the outside of your fashions. Who came up with that idea?

Fife: We did that on some of our things just because we liked our tags. We made a lot of sketches because we belong to the Wotko clan, Wotkalgee. That's the raccoon clan. We looked at reproductions of designs from the Mound Period to see what we could learn about raccoons being depicted in designs, and there were 58:00several. We each made sketches and looked at them, and then Sandy is the one who refined our logo. We had some woven labels made, and, of course, to order them we had to order a thousand or something. (Laughter) I have three labels left, three. We don't have thousands of labels left, hundreds. We used them all.

Little Thunder: Hold on to those.

Fife: They were--we liked the labels. The labels weren't on the outside of all of our clothing, but sometimes we would put them in a side seam where they were folded. One side would say the Fife Collection, and the other was our raccoon logo. One of the things that I guess I started was to sign my designs in 59:00stitching on a skirt or a shirt, wherever it might be. That was to distinguish mine from Carole's or Sandy's, Sharon's or Robin's or our mother. Not everyone did that. Some of our things have signatures, and some don't, but most of mine do.

Little Thunder: In terms of responsibilities, did any of you sisters--like, you would have an idea for a design, or did you do most of the designing, or how did that work out?

Fife: (Laughs) Okay, here's how that worked out. Here's how that worked out. As I told you before, my last semester of college at OU, I had started designing a few pieces. People were wanting to show my work, and "Why don't you design this 60:00and that?" My sisters, they really got excited about it. They were saying, "Okay, and next why don't you--. You should make this." They had wonderful ideas. Then I said, "Why don't you do it? We could all do everything equally." So, it was, "If you have that idea, you design it. You know how you want it to look. It's your idea." That's how the Fife Collection came about. It's like ideas grow. You start out with something and then get ideas for more and more things. That's really how the Fife Collection grew. It was, "No, you design it."

I never liked sewing. I don't like sewing. My mother loved sewing. I especially do not like to do anything by hand, but I will. I would make a prototype because once I had it in my mind what I thought it might look like and I start to put it together, I can't wait to see what it looks like finished. When we did have our business, once we opened our business and became incorporated, then at that point sometimes I could come up with the idea and make a prototype. Then someone else could replicate it, and I didn't have to. We never did go into the mass 62:00production business, although I guess we were probably, influences were headed that way. We were a band of artists, I guess, band of designers. We were a band of designers. (Laughter) We really hadn't had business experience, so we made a business plan starting out, made a business plan. We had a portfolio. Once we did that, it was like when you write your first résumé and say, "Oh, okay, this looks pretty good. I can build on this."

We made a business plan, and when we decided to incorporate as the Fife Collection, we did everything in an appropriate business fashion. We stayed 63:00pretty well organized. We were like any other small business, especially one that doesn't have one to model after. We pretty much invented this business as we went along and expanded it and put revenue back into the business. We had the business as a business for eight or nine years, probably close to ten. We just operated it like a business, but we also operated it as artists knowing that we could change our mind tomorrow and not want to do that. Every day of our 64:00business, if we wanted to, we could lock that door and walk away and not owe anybody anything. That's probably not smart, business-wise, but that was how we did it.

Little Thunder: You needed that space. Well, let's talk a little bit more about your processes and techniques as an artist. You've mentioned your media, but some of the paintings that I've seen of yours have sort of a social or political commentary. Can you explain why that's important to you?

Fife: I can. I think that probably in my adolescence was a time of a lot of move 65:00toward justice for minority people. There was a lot of political undercurrent going on. We know today that artists have had a lot of influence over time in telling this story or depicting some of the inner workings of what's going on, maybe just drawing on the emotions of the viewer. During the '60s and '70s, I guess right before I went to Santa Fe for school, I learned about, became aware of Martin Luther King. We didn't have a television, but we had some of the major 66:00magazines that were informative, and the Tulsa World newspaper. There were a lot of civil rights activities going on that were alarming, enlightening. I really did like, admired the nonviolent movement of Martin Luther King. That was somebody that had an early influence on my philosophical thinking, I guess.

When I first went to school at Santa Fe, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. That 67:00was some major national event that happened, and I wasn't home. (Laughs) I was away from home. I remember being in the dining room at my school, and the postgraduate students were a lot older than I was. I had just turned fifteen. I remember that they were so serious and so emotional about it. Our dining room at our school was family style dining, and they mixed the postgraduates with the undergraduates. That also was something that struck me as being, "Here I am, out in the larger world outside my community, and this is happening."

Over time, probably when I was at OU, the American Indian Movement was occupying Wounded Knee, and some of the early incidents of the AIM movement had already taken place. I remember just how these things affect--I always felt protected at home in my home community, but as I heard about people who were becoming involved in the AIM movement, or about meetings being held nearby, then these outer world national things were affecting my home community that I thought was always safe and protected from anything. It always seemed calm there, so there 69:00was maybe a little agitation going on. I felt protective of our elder people there that might not fully understand. Like I said, we didn't have a television. Some of the people that I knew, I didn't know how fully they were perceiving what was happening. Things were happening pretty quickly.

Some of the things--I did an etching, a large etching. I really got the image off of a photograph that was on the front page of probably the Norman Transcript. I think I might've been at OU at the time, and Dee Brown's book Bury 70:00My Heart at Wounded Knee was kind of new at that time. I made the title of my etching because it was an Indian man holding two rifles, (he was down on his knees or something, holding two rifles) had the inverted American flag, and there was violence happening there. I titled that O Bury Me Not at Wounded Knee. Just something that I hated for our people to have to go through, I mean 71:00anywhere, any of our people. One of the recent commemorations that my sister had the opportunity to go to was the Battle of Horseshoe Bend commemoration. She sent back the photograph of the luminaries that were placed, one representing each Creek that was killed in that battle in an open field at night. Something like that is very touching, also that happened to our people, closer to me than 72:00that other movement. Those are the things, that is the way political statements get into my artwork.

Little Thunder: Does sketching play a big role in your paintings?

Fife: Not necessarily. I did a series of large canvases, really large. I stapled them to the wall, painted on them, and then I made a stretcher for them. (Laughter) One of them in particular that I remember that was published in--I can't remember the name of the publication now, but it was a publication of the 73:00Southern Poverty Law Center, I believe. I don't remember how it was selected to be in there. It's been a while back. The painting was called Canvas Ghosts. It was images that--this is how some of my paintings evolve: from a blank canvas. Then as I began to apply--maybe sometimes not applying anything to the canvas, but it's like images come forth. I begin working on that and working on those images, and then they evolve. It's not like I sketch out a painting and then I 74:00paint it, ever.

Little Thunder: Or even that you go in necessarily with an idea.

Fife: Right. It's, like, not instincts, but there's a word that I can't think of right now, not anything really deliberate--

Little Thunder: Intuitive.

Fife: --but something, yes, intuitive, that happens. Then I just build on that until there's a stopping place. That's how many of my paintings evolve. I remember that painting that I called Canvas Ghosts because that especially was one that I liked that painting, and that's how it evolved, as well.

Little Thunder: Do you find titles come easily, or are they challenging sometimes?

Fife: I guess my titles come pretty easily because probably by the time I get into doing the painting, the title comes, as well. There might've been a couple of times when I really was unsure, but I don't think I've ever had anything untitled. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What art project would you most like to tackle if you had the time?

Fife: I would still like to do some more etchings. I see so many commercially 76:00produced, commercial reproductions of artists' work, and I still really like the hand-drawn, original pieces. I would like to do a series of etchings, and I would like to try some techniques that I haven't ever done before. One of the things that I really like--I don't like all artwork that is associated with computer-generated images or photographs stuck to canvas, but I love the work of Bobby Martin. Bobby is Creek. He has done some pieces using photo images either 77:00that are reproduced in painting or now reproduced in print methods that I think really project a lot of depth and really sincere depictions of our Creek culture.

That's one of the things--he has invited me to come out to his studio. He said, "I'll provide the supplies. Just come out and do something." That's something that I kind of look forward to, and that would be new, something new for me. A couple of years ago, we did the first exhibit, museum exhibit of the Fife 78:00Collection, I mean, like, all of the Fife family and some of our cousins. (Laughs) It was the first time, and as we began developing that exhibit, it became more and more, there were more ideas generated. It was like creating the piece of art as we were putting it in place in the exhibit in the museum. It could've been broken down into several different exhibits, but that was the first comprehensive collection from our whole family including our parents.

Little Thunder: I saw it; I loved it. (Laughs)

Fife: It had the handmade wooden loom, bead loom. Our father made us all one, all the girls, so we had one of those, and he made my mother's wedding ring. It 79:00really had the whole family. I would like to do something similar to that again and maybe make it--I don't know. I won't even say. I wouldn't even say what I would want the outcome to be because it would probably, (Laughter) it would evolve.

Little Thunder: Be a multi-year project.

Fife: Yeah, yeah.

Little Thunder: Well, looking back over your career so far, what was a fork in the road for you, where you could've gone in one direction but you chose to go in a different direction?

Fife: Fork in the road was when I went into education, got a job that paid a regular salary that I could depend on getting on a regular schedule and had 80:00health insurance and benefits and vacation, paid vacation. Fork in the road from professional artist uncertainty depends on your stamina and drive to keep going, and erratic paychecks. It's something that I don't regret, but something that I see is another fork approaching, you know, opportunity for fork in the road again, get back into artwork. That is my dream.

We often, my sisters and brothers and I, often have talked about when, (we all have had families and responsibilities and jobs) that at some point we hope will 81:00change into an opportunity to do some things together again. With my brothers, I have hopes of having them take me places. One of the things that we have talked about doing is taking a little tour of all of our land, our allotment land, various parcels of allotment land, to take a tour. They go; they ride horses. Some of our land is inaccessible. I want to be able to see all of that. Some of our family have been down to our old homelands in Alabama, and I want to do 82:00that, as well.

My sisters and I have, there are some things that we would like--we have ideas that need that stopping place to, "Oh, let's see what those ideas look like in reality again." We've talked about doing some projects together, and now some of our offspring are into art. One of the things I would love most is to do some projects with my daughters. All three of them are very good artists and all different. I'd like to do things with them and with my nieces and nephews, as 83:00well. Those are just a few of my dreams for my future.

Little Thunder: Lots of things to look forward to, that we'll look forward to, too. Is there anything else we need to talk about or you'd like to add before we look at your artwork?

Fife: I probably would think of something after we stopped talking that's important to me.

Little Thunder: Well, you were inducted (I'll just mention this) into the Mvskoke [Muscogee] Hall of Fame in 2013.

Fife: That was a shock. It was a surprise, and it was very much of an honor for me because something--I feel very insignificant when I think about our tribe. To 84:00me, it's a pretty large community, and insignificance is good. Insignificance is very good. I like being one of the people. This is something that had not been something I aspired to, but when it was brought forth and became a reality for me, then it was a very great honor, a very great honor.

Little Thunder: Well, we're going to take a pause and look at some paintings and artwork.

Fife: All right.

Little Thunder: Phyllis, would you like to talk about this painting just a 85:00little bit?

Fife: I did this painting in 1982.

Little Thunder: Wow.

Fife: I've had it for a while. It's one of those paintings that I just started out with some paint on canvas, and then it developed into having some images. I titled it Rain in the Clouds Below Me. That kind of was inspired by when you drive from Santa Fe down to Albuquerque, you can be above the clouds and see it raining down below. I don't know what about the painting led me to that, but that's its title. I guess mountains and clouds in the background, but images in the sky, also.

Little Thunder: Love that. And this is an example of one of your more mixed media pieces, I guess.

Fife: Yes. This one is one that I did just probably a couple of years ago. Kind 86:00of again, it's inspired by Bobby Martin's work with photography, but I used a natural paper to develop the image of my grandmother, Louisa Fife. This is one of my favorite pictures of her because this is the way she looked in her everyday style of dress, and this is the image that I have in mind when we think about traditional Creek women dressing. Growing up I used to see, and we used to do this, too, actually when I was little, carry our coins tied in the corner of a handkerchief, so that is what I related to my grandmother's time. I guess she 87:00actually died when I was two years old. I think I remember her, but I might remember her from people talking about her and seeing some of her items of clothing, some of her possessions in my early life. That's something that I constructed with the handkerchief and her photo image.

Little Thunder: Wonderful. How about this piece?

Fife: I was asked to do an illustration for the story about the origin of clans of the Muscogee people. I guess it was a really early morning start on this painting for the illustration, just using some knowledge about Muscogean motifs 88:00and then images of animals that are part of our clan system. This illustration is in the permanent exhibit about Muscogee Creeks in the Broken Arrow Historical Society.

Little Thunder: The blues and browns are just really effective on there, too. This is a different medium here we're looking at.

Fife: This is a drawing, I guess, with graphite and a little bit of watercolor in the background. Probably something stuck on, I think there's some paper image attached to the surface, as well. That was something that is not unusual in my work. It's called Dream Painters. When I did this, it was kind of like thinking 89:00back on the studio that I shared with some other painters at Santa Fe. We were very young and just starting out. I had a--I don't know. I'm not going to name names, (Laughs) but some of the people I shared studio with.

Little Thunder: All right. Well, thank you very much for your time today, Phyllis.

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