Oral history interview with Victoria Mitchell Vazquez

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Tuesday, May 20, and I'm interviewing Victoria Mitchell Vazquez as part of the Oklahoma Native Artist Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at the Cherokee Nation Health Center at Vinita, and I'm catching Victoria on a rare day when she's not busy as a tribal councilor for District 11 for Cherokee Nation. Victoria, you're the daughter of celebrated potter Anna Mitchell, the only one of her daughters to become an award-winning potter in your own right. You've taken your mother's legacy in new directions, garnering awards at Santa Fe Indian Market, Eiteljorg [Museum of American Indians and Western Art], Red Earth, Cherokee Homecoming, among others, and teaching the art of pottery to many other people. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Vazquez: Thank you.

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

Vazquez: I was born at Claremore, Oklahoma, and grew up in Vinita.

Little Thunder: Remind us what your dad did for a living.

Vazquez: Early on, Dad was a rancher for a little while, worked on a ranch in Welch [Oklahoma] for his uncle, so he was a cowboy. He always wanted to be a 1:00farmer, but he never did get to be a farmer. Later on he went to work at the Vinita post office, and he retired from there as a rural route postal carrier.

Little Thunder: Do you have any memories of your mother's early pottery experiments?

Vazquez: Well, actually, Mom didn't start until I was already gone.

Little Thunder: Okay.

Vazquez: I went to NEO [Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College], and then I got married young and moved away. She started probably a couple of years after I'd left home, so I wasn't exposed early on.

Little Thunder: Did you know your grandparents on either side of the family growing up?

Vazquez: Yes, I have more memories of my dad's parents, Clay and Mattie (Martha) Mitchell, and they also were longtime Vinitans. They lived in town, and a lot of times when I would be going to school, (I went part of my school at Riverside, a little grade school in Vinita) we could go home and have lunch with them in 2:00between, and then go back to school. They lived, like, two blocks from the school. I knew them better, but they both still worked when I was a kid. My mom's parents were divorced. I did not see her mother. Her Indian name was Oolootsa Owens, but her married, final name was Iva Jumper. She died, probably, when I was a teenager. She never lived in the area. She always lived near Saint Louis and couldn't afford to travel, so I didn't have a relationship with my mom's parents. We would see her dad on occasion. He married again and raised a family at Jay [Oklahoma], and so summers we'd always go down and visit him and his second family.

Little Thunder: That was my next question, your exposure to Cherokee culture and language growing up.

Vazquez: Okay, when Mom and Dad got married and decided they were going to raise a family in Vinita, my mom specifically told my dad (she told us this over the 3:00years as we were older) that she did not want us to grow up the way she did. Of course, she spent most of her life in boarding school, and her language was stripped away from her. She didn't have good memories of childhood. She wanted the best for her kids, and her idea of best was to raise us in town, in Vinita, going to public schools, going to Presbyterian Church, and not being raised in a traditional manner because she really wasn't raised in a traditional manner. She didn't encourage speaking the language because, of course, my dad did not. My dad was part Cherokee, but he didn't speak the language. Really, as children, up until I was in high school there was not much discussion about our culture. We knew we were Cherokee, and we went and visited places like Cherokee, North Carolina, and we had artist friends, but we didn't practice any traditional things in our home.

Little Thunder: What are your earliest memories of seeing Native art?

Vazquez: It's a great memory. In fact, this is on my website, a picture of my dad making these little Indian drums, little drums that were made out of--it seems like they used to have coffee cans that were about half the size. Daddy would cover them in bark, and then he and Mom got leather and covered the tops. Then they would paint Indian designs, what they called Indian designs. Because we didn't have a lot of research material in our home, books, didn't have TV or any of that, I believe that Mom and Dad ordered magazines and books about Native Art, and so they used very simplified, like arrows and (I hate to say this) tipis. Tipis are not in our culture. Things the tourist trade would recognize as Indian because they made them for a little trading post that used to be out on Highway 66, east of Vinita. It was before the turnpike went in, so there was a 5:00lot of tourist travel when I was a child. I was about five or six when they were doing that. They'd make little moccasins, and Mom would bead on those. These things were made for sale in this trading post. They weren't typically Cherokee. They were just "Indian."

Little Thunder: What about your earliest memories of making art?

Vazquez: First grade. I went to a little country school, and I was blessed to get to go to a country school, a one-room schoolhouse for first through third grade. Then it closed. My older sister went there, and the classroom was probably thirteen total kids, one teacher. Whenever I was in first grade, there was only three of us. When she moved on to teach the higher grades, she would let us go in the back of the room and play with modeling clay. I had no idea that I was going to grow up and play with clay as an adult. (Laughter) My first 6:00memory of making anything, me and my girlfriend would sit back there at this little table with modeling clay, and I loved the idea of creating homes, little houses. I would make little four-sided structures. They had a floor and the walls, and then I'd make furniture to place in there, sort of like a little clay dollhouse. Never made a pot or anything, just little dollhouses and little people.

Little Thunder: But you loved the three dimensional...

Vazquez: Yeah, I did. I didn't do much painting or drawing, but--.

Little Thunder: That's my next question, what kind of art instruction you had in elementary school or middle school.

Vazquez: Okay. Growing up, in grade school we didn't really have anything extra for art, but in high school, I got to go one year to art classes in high school. I can remember enjoying painting. We didn't do ceramics, but we did painting and drawing. I can remember a painting. I can see it in my mind's eye because I didn't get to keep it. My teacher asked me if she could have it because she 7:00thought it was really good. It had a deer and landscape. Over the years, I so wished I had kept that because I never did really do painting after that. It was my only foray into drawing anything. I did not have any formal art instruction.

Little Thunder: What happened after high school?

Vazquez: Well, I went to NEO for a little while at Miami, and I married young. My husband was going to--he went to OU (University of Oklahoma), and he was not doing well. He was flunking out. Those were the days of the draft for Vietnam, so he joined the National Guard, and we made the crazy decision to get married. I got pregnant on our honeymoon. As I recall, in the 1960s, late ʼ60s, I was the only pregnant girl on NEO campus, but I was married. Back then that was a big deal. You didn't see what we see today. I didn't finish college. I became--

Little Thunder: What had been your major?

Vazquez: At that time it was going to be business. I really did not have an affinity for college. If I had known that I was really going to love art, I would have gone to art school, but I didn't have any of those opportunities. I had this new baby, and I turned nineteen when she was born. We moved to Bartlesville, and he got a job with Phillips Petroleum. I went to work when she was six weeks old, my first real job with Southwestern Bell Telephone, which ended up being a career. I didn't get to do art or be a housewife or any of that. I just went from a little bit of college, being married, having a baby, and then all of a sudden, I have a career and a child and a husband. It was fun, though. Glad I was young.

Little Thunder: When did you first get interested in pottery?

Vazquez: Mostly I was interested as an observer because my mom was doing pottery 9:00then by the early ʼ70s. For a wedding gift for my second husband and I, she gave me my first piece of pottery. It was beautiful, and I still have it. It was a real simple piece, and I was thrilled. I started collecting on a small scale things that I found attractive. I didn't go to art shows back then. I didn't even think of it. I traveled a lot with Southwestern Bell then. I ended up being in marketing, and so I traveled more. I didn't do things that I do nowadays like go to festivals and art shows and museums. I maybe had gone to Woolaroc and maybe had gone to Gilcrease [Museum] but didn't have that big draw, mainly because my husband was not interested. He was a golfer. I had a little girl, so I didn't have a lot of free time to explore.

I was interested in the pottery, and I would watch. On occasion, I'd go and watch what Mom was doing, and I was the only grown daughter that would go to her 10:00shows. I had another sister, older sister, that lived here in Vinita, and she had three little girls and didn't want to travel or go to any of those. I frequently would go see Mom and Dad. They used to do Rendezvous at Gilcrease Museum. Mom would set up there, so I'd go to her shows. Tahlequah, when they did the Heritage Center or the Holiday, sometimes she would have a booth there, and so I'd always go. Then when my daughter got to be about seven or eight, she got interested. Sometimes she would sit and play with the clay at Mom's booths, and Mom would give her some clay. I was probably in my late twenties, my first exposure to thinking, "Hey, this is pretty neat."

Little Thunder: That was kind of a great foundation in a way to moving into making your own pottery.

Vazquez: Right.

Little Thunder: When did you actually give that a try?

Vazquez: I didn't get the opportunity until, I believe it was 1990. I was living 11:00in Houston, and I was single again. My daughter was off in college, and I was very dissatisfied with my life. I was selling insurance and was not really happy, living in the city and in a townhome. I kept getting this pull to learn it. I called Mom and Dad (in fact, it was 1990) and asked if I could come and apprentice with Mom and live with them for a while. I felt like that's the best way to experience digging the clay, processing the clay, having the things at the ready that you wouldn't have in a city. I went and lived with them for a year here in Vinita on their ten acres that they had. Daddy was grinding clay for Mom, and he would dig clay for her and help her. He traveled with her a lot. I got to experience everything from learning to dig, how to process, how to hand build, how to decorate. Then I got to go, just as a driver, I went with them to 12:00Santa Fe Indian Market. That's when I got the bug. I thought, "Oh my gosh, I have got to do this. If I could ever, ever be good enough at pottery to go to Santa Fe," that was my dream. I did this for a couple of years, and I really wasn't working. I wasn't making money. I was cleaning houses and doing pottery. I realized, "Well, I can't make a living as a potter," but I really enjoyed it.

Little Thunder: Were you starting to sell then at that point?

Vazquez: No, I wasn't even selling. I was just making it and learning it. I remember I started designing some T-shirts, and I would sell T-shirts for money. The biggest benefit of that was getting to spend a year or so with my parents as an adult. I had never done that. No distractions, and all their kids were gone. The joy of getting to sit in Mom's shop with her, and while we were working she would talk, and she would tell stories about her childhood, about boarding school, about art, anything. I'd just listen. I wish I had recorded, but I had 13:00no idea that I should have recorded. Then in the evenings when we were through working, Dad and I would sit out on the patio. The back of their house faced a wooded area. They had ten acres, and he loved birds. He had a cat; he always had the cat in his lap. My favorite image of my father to this day (he's been gone since 1997) is that visual of him sitting in that lounge chair with that cat on his lap, and us out there with the birds and the beautiful leaves and the sun and the wind and listening to him talk.

He talked about very different things than what Mom talked about, so I heard both sides of the art story, from the person that got to do it and the person that got to help with all the driving and all the helping that Daddy did. They loved it, and I got a real feel for a legacy that I realized later that they were giving me because they studied. The other big thing was they had an extensive Native American library, and they had been collecting and buying books 14:00all their lives, I mean, all their married life. That's all we knew as children. We didn't have TV, so we read. We all grew up with an appreciation for books. Mom and Dad were avid readers, and they loved everything about anything having to do with Native.

They had all these different tribal books and art books and history books, and I inherited those after Mom passed. I inherited most of those books. That's where I started really researching and learning what Mom had done and looking at research. There was a couple of books that she was already in, that she had been in. I can't remember the very first one. I met a gentleman from Davis, California, Jack Berry, who's still living, and he wrote a book about potters. He heard about Mom, and he came to Oklahoma from California to interview her and take a picture of her pottery, and there was a little story of her. I was so proud to see her in a book. All those things led to me getting to where I am 15:00today. It was a neat experience.

Little Thunder: When did you sell your first pot?

Vazquez: It would have been about 1997. After I had spent those first couple of years with Mom and Dad, I ended up going back to Houston and working some more because I thought, "I can't make a living doing this." It was while I was in Houston the second time that I decided, "I am going to go back to Oklahoma." In 1997--the catalyst for that was my father's passing in May of '97. I came home for the funeral, and because--I had just gotten laid off of a job, so I had some money. I had some free time. I told Mom, "I'd like to stay a couple of weeks and help you." It was during those two weeks that she was grieving, and the family, everyone left, and it was just me and her. I said, "How would you feel about me moving back here full-time and staying with you and really focusing on the 16:00pottery and helping you?" She said, "Well, I think it'd be great." So later that year, I came back, and I started seriously making pottery.

I think I sold my first piece to a friend. It was a tiny pot, and I sold it for maybe twenty-five dollars. The amazing thing was that that year, the first year after I moved back here, I met my current husband, Bruce Vazquez. I was working part-time at an insurance company here in Vinita, and my whole intent--everything worked the way I had prayed for it to work that I could stay with Mom, help her, work on pottery, and not have to work full-time but make enough money to live. That's what I was doing. I was working part-time at this insurance company, and I met Bruce. I really think that God placed him in my life because it just worked out perfectly. The very next year, we married, and I got accepted--my fiftieth birthday was the most awesome year, my fiftieth year. We got married, and about a month later I get an acceptance letter for Santa Fe 17:00Indian Market. I had six weeks to produce. When you first apply, you don't get selected right away, so I didn't know if I was going to get in. Then when they told me I was in, I had six weeks, so I became a little factory.

Little Thunder: And you hadn't really done any shows.

Vazquez: And I hadn't done any shows. That was my first show: Santa Fe!

Little Thunder: What was that experience like? (Laughter)

Vazquez: It was awesome. I remember I had about twenty pieces, and I was going for quantity. First I started out trying to do the nicest things that I could. [Shows pot] This was one of the pieces that I didn't want to sell because it was so hard to make. It was one of my hardest, first, early pieces that Mom said, "You would pick the hardest thing to try and make." I'm glad that I kept that, but I had things about like this: native clay, little pieces, nothing great big. I sold everything that year, and it was my first time to go to Indian Market. I just loved it.

I got to go probably three or four more years with Mom, and then she stopped 18:00doing shows. Then my life got busy on the ranch, and I started teaching. My husband wasn't crazy about--he didn't want to go to the shows. He's a rancher, and he's not interested in Indian art shows. He couldn't travel because we have a full-time--we still have a working ranch. I was going by myself and looking for people to go with, and it became a hardship to go do art shows. From that foundation, I started winning awards. I won my first ribbon at Santa Fe Indian Market in miniature category, and that spurred me on.

Little Thunder: Was it that same year?

Vazquez: No, it was 2000, in 2000. Then I started becoming serious about Cherokee Homecoming Art Show, Red Earth Festival, things around here that wouldn't be so far for me to go. I found in my art show experience, that even though I'm a good--I was in marketing for years, and I was in sales. I love to 19:00talk to people. I really don't enjoy the art show aspect of standing behind a booth, talking to people, trying to sell my work. I would rather educate people about our culture and the Southeastern Mound Builders and teach people how to make pottery than I would to go to shows and compete. I don't like the competition aspect of art. I've got enough awards that I was grateful, but I don't enjoy that. I don't enjoy competing with my fellow friends and my fellow artists. Some people love it, and I'm just one of those people that I don't care about it. My joy came from, for instance--can we talk about this piece now or these pieces now, or do you want to do that later?

Little Thunder: You can feel free to talk about it now and then we'll--

Vazquez: Come back to it.

Little Thunder: --we'll look at it. We'll come back to it, as well.

Vazquez: Okay. My greatest joy came when I was approached by the Cherokee Phoenix reporter, the Cherokee newspaper reporter, and I happened to be in 20:00Tahlequah entering this piece in a art show. He said, "While I'm here and I've got my camera, could I do a story on you?" I was just thrilled. I was holding this piece in my lap, the tripod head jar, and it was something that was very difficult. I learned how to do it myself, figured it out myself, made it by myself, fired it, blackened it, all that. This picture in the--the story came out in 2001 fall issue, and as a result of that, I applied to the Smithsonian for a fellowship. Long story, (we can get into this later) it led to me making a tripod head jar for the Smithsonian a few years later.

You never know where these things are going to take you, but each one of those little, what I call, blessings in your life, when someone asks you, "Can I do a story," you don't know who's going to read it. You don't know who's going to be affected. That's when I first started becoming, getting a little notoriety, not just as a person that makes pottery, or Anna Mitchell's daughter, but a person 21:00that has something to share and a legacy that she's carrying forward. That was my proudest moment to think, "Hey, I can do this. I can represent what Mom started." That's my greatest joy from those experiences.

Little Thunder: Well, talk about your Smithsonian experience a little bit, that fellowship.

Vazquez: Okay, I'm trying to remember who encouraged me. I think it was Martha Berry who had done a, the bead artist who'd just done a fellowship, and also Margaret Roach Wheeler, who's a friend of mine that's a Chickasaw clothing designer. They had both just done that, and they said, "You really should apply for this fellowship." At the time, it was called Native American Artist Visiting Artist Program. It's through the NMAI [National Museum of the American Indian] and the Smithsonian. I mean, the Smithsonian is NMAI. So I applied. I believe 22:00they had a juried process at the time. This was in 2005; 2004 is actually when I did the paperwork. It's very extensive paperwork and quite a presentation of why you want to do it, what you want to study, what you're going to do with it if you get the fellowship.

I think they selected at that time maybe two artists per year. They had a spring program, and they had a fall program. They called me in 2005 and said, "We've selected you for this fall which starts in August." I was just elated. What it was, was you received a five-thousand-dollar stipend to come to Washington, DC. They paid for all your travel. They paid for you to have a staff person to travel with you, and you get to visit museums from Washington, DC, to Boston to Philadelphia, ending in New York City, for three weeks. I was in that area for three weeks. You start at the NMAI Suitland, Maryland, location which houses all 23:00the artifacts that you're going to study. My research was going to be specifically about Southeastern Mound Builder pottery and artifacts and the era from, say, 1200 to 1700. Whatever museum had those kinds of things, that's what I got to look at. I spent a week at the cultural--I can't remember now what they call it. It's a holding site that's a big building out there where they have all these artifacts.

It's the most amazing thing. They have floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The ceilings are very tall, and they're computerized. No one can unlock them unless they have the computerized key to open it. I had a staff person that knew exactly where I wanted to look, and he took me first to the Arkansas mound site pottery. You've got rows and rows and rows that go way up high. You get to get on this little automatic ladder, rolling thing, and it's got a table on it. You pull these 24:00drawers out; you can take the pottery out and set it on this table. You can photograph it, write about it, touch it. It's just amazing. These are things that were found in the burial mounds. I did that for a week. As a payback for your fellowship, at each museum that you visit, you've got to give a program, present a program about your art and what you do. It's called a brown bag lunch, and it's for all the employees of that facility, come and listen to you.

I was giving a talk with some slides, and talking about Mom and digging the clay and all that, and I had a portfolio with me that I'd made specifically to take. On the front of the portfolio was a picture of three pieces that I had just finished and I had not sold. As a result of that brown bag experience, one of the people that was helping me said, "Do we own any of your pottery for our collections?" I said, "No you don't." He said, "Well, we need to." So, long 25:00story short, he got the curator to purchase those three pieces. That was, I mean, the highlight. I can remember calling my mom and calling my best friend and screaming, "I have got an order! I've sold pottery to the Smithsonian!" That was just the first week.

Then we went to Harvard, Peabody Museum at Harvard, got a day there, at Philadelphia, another museum, and then New York City in a week. At each of these places, you meet different staff people, and it's just awesome. You go on a train, things I'd never done before, go by train from Boston to New York City, and you stay in a hotel. Everything's paid for, so it was very comfortable, very easy, very fun. The other rewarding part of that was that the young man that got the award at the same time as me was an artist from Ecuador. He was from the Shuar tribe, and he did not speak English. He only spoke Spanish and his native 26:00language. His art form was musical instruments, and also he came from a tribe that used to shrink heads. He wanted to see shrunken heads, and they had them in the museums.

We traveled together for those three weeks, and after the first few days I realized that he was not going out and doing any--you're on your own every night. Because he didn't speak English, he wouldn't go out to restaurants. He was eating out of the candy machine at the hotel because they didn't have a restaurant. I went and bought a little book about Spanish/English and wrote a note and left it with the guy at the hotel and said, "Give this to this gentleman." I connected with him and started going to meals with him, and we would communicate by writing notes. He'd look at the book and look up English. I'd look up Spanish, and we'd write.

By the end of the three weeks--he was only twenty-two, and he was adorable. He had this long black hair, and he had a headband with these parrot feathers. He 27:00wore a tattoo. It was a mineral tattoo; it wasn't a real tattoo. Everywhere we went, he has on a black T-shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, and then this garb. We're walking down the streets of New York City, and people are just, they probably weren't really looking at us, but some people did. It was a strange sight. He was like my son at the end of those three weeks. It was the most--. I've never seen him again. We had the most fun.

Not only did I sell the work at the Smithsonian, but I met a lot of people. Once you go through this program, you were allowed from then on, you can study at any museum that will let you. You have the right and the ability as an artist to go in and look at their archives. I could go to Gilcrease. I could go anyplace, really, that if they allow it, you have an open invitation to study archives. That whole experience led to so many different things. The only other thing I had to do in payback was to come back and give a program in my community about 28:00that experience, and I did do that at our Vinnie Ream Cultural Center here in Vinita. It was, it was great. I had a big crowd. I was amazed. Here are people that I grew up with in the church that used to call me little Vicki, and now they're coming to watch me as Victoria the potter, talk about going to Harvard and studying. It's just amazing. It was just amazing, the life change that came about from that.

Little Thunder: How did it impact your pottery?

Vazquez: It made me want to study even more. It made me want to look at--not only did I want to create what Mother always called traditional Southeast pottery, but I really was drawn to the effigies that I saw. I saw some amazing effigy pieces. They would be anything from a head jar to a little animal figure or a fish. I was drawn to that. I've not ever had sculpting classes or anything, 29:00but I would try to figure it out myself. Like how would I make this little head of a bear, or how would I make this little bird? I had a lot of joy in figuring out how to create creatures. I had a period there after I did the research where I really got into the fishbowls that look like fish, and birds. I love bird things. I started doing a lot of birds and turtles. It gave me a greater appreciation for what the potters back in the 1700s, 1600s did. They started with cooking and utilitarian things, but yet there were people there that obviously loved the art aspect because you would see some of the most amusing effigies.

My most memorable one that was just hysterical, I picked up--it looked like just a jar. This was in the Philadelphia museum; can't remember the name of the museum. Picked it up, and on the bottom of the pot was this little flat man as 30:00if he'd gotten rolled over or like the pot had been stamped on him, you know. It's this figure laying on the bottom of the pot, and I was laughing. I thought people forever have had a sense of humor. There have been artists forever. There have been people that--. No idea is original. You'll see things on pottery that was made who knows when, like in the year 1300, 1400, that I could recreate today and make it look similar. It was almost a religious experience to make my first head jar. One of the places I studied was the anthropology museum there at the NMAI. It's right next to the place where all the artifacts are. Very few people are allowed in there because there are still some funerary pottery that maybe have the bones and things in them.

I saw lots of things in there that made me--I saw some head jars that were buried with people. You don't really know the significance of the head jar, but they assume that it was to honor the person that it was buried with. That's probably my biggest influence in making head jars. That's my favorite thing to make, was from those, looking at those. When I made my first head jar, I was going to Santa Fe Indian Market. This was probably 2003, and truly it was my first one to try to figure out how to do a face. I looked at pictures from magazines, art museum books, and things. I wanted it to look primitive, but I didn't want it to be ugly. I wanted it to be attractive. I did a pretty good job, and I was going to enter it, actually, as a competition piece because it was wood-fired and everything. In an unfortunate accident, someone else dropped my box that that was in, and it broke. I didn't get to enter it. I didn't get to 32:00sell it.

I was just sick because when I was making it, literally as I was making the face, (it sounds weird) as the face took form, it was almost like there was a spirit in that face. I have never been that kind of person who talked about those sorts of things related to my art, but it really was a neat experience. Out of negative things, I've always found there's some good. I ended up later, much later, I go and open the box, and there's this broken head jar. I thought, "I'm going to put it back together." I glued it back together. I probably should have taken it to a restoration specialist and had them--and I probably still could. This broken man's glued back together, and the head jar is still in my studio at the ranch. It's too fragile to carry around, but I want to copy it and make it again because it was tough to make and it doesn't look like any head jar 33:00I'd ever seen. I reaped a lot of positive influences, and my art did take a different direction.

Little Thunder: It's interesting because I remember your mom saying she didn't like the head jars because your dad didn't like them, I think. Maybe that's why she didn't--

Vazquez: Right, right. I don't know why Dad didn't. I don't know if he thought they were ugly. In the pictures you saw they were ugly. They're not real attractive. I think that he wanted Mom to make beautiful pottery, and she did make beautiful pottery. Daddy was more concerned with the commercial aspect of, like, how much she was going to get for it, and each year he wanted her to win more ribbons and to make more--. Not necessarily that he was money hungry, he wanted to elevate her and to see how much higher she could go and how much more exposure she'd get. Mom really would like to have played a little bit more and experimented, and Dad would discourage her. She just always said, "Daddy didn't like head jars, and so I never made them." I said, "I like to make them, so I'm 34:00going to keep making them." She liked them. She was impressed when she saw my finished product.

Little Thunder: I know that you've had friendships with other potters, and I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly if you also took some workshops from Jane Osti. Can you talk a little bit about work with other potters that you might've met?

Vazquez: Yes, actually, my most memorable and most extensive was actually with a potter that's not Cherokee, and his name's Richard Zane Smith. He's a Wyandotte potter, and I met him at Taos when Blue Rain Gallery was still in Taos, New Mexico. It was during Indian Market time. Probably about 2006 or 2007, I met him. I was impressed with pictures of his work I'd seen. He does this amazing corrugated pottery with these tiny coils. He's famous now, really well known, and his work is just amazing. I met him and went up and told him I was a potter 35:00from Oklahoma and how much I liked his work. Well, that led to, later, when he could get away from his adoring public, he said, "I am Wyandotte, and I would love to come and visit Wyandotte, Oklahoma. Could I stop by your ranch and see how you do your--" just stop by. I said, "Sure." It ended up he did come to Oklahoma, and he stayed with us for a week. He brought his daughter, and they went to the powwow at Wyandotte. It led to this longtime friendship and this relationship that we decided we would do a workshop together.

He invited me to, the first thing he invited me to do was help him with the Philbrook workshop he was giving on this corrugated hand building. He spent a whole day trying to teach me how to do that, and I just didn't like it at all. It's very hard, and it's nothing like what I do. I helped him teach that class, and that was fun. The next year, he said, "Why don't we put on a workshop in the Wyandotte area?" Then he and his wife decided they were going to move to 36:00Wyandotte. They lived at Glorieta [New Mexico]. They moved to, bought some acreage near Wyandotte, and he and I put on a week-long or two-week-long workshop open to any Native American. They didn't have to be Cherokee or Wyandotte, but they had to be Native American. We did it for free; we didn't charge them. He would work during the day, and I'd cook at home. Then I'd come in the afternoon.

We did this every day for two weeks. We had elders that came. We had young people that came, moms. We ended up with about, probably, eight potters or eight people that really, really liked it and completed works. Then he showed me how, and I helped him dig a pit on--and this was at the Bearskin Fitness Center. It's still there. Bearskin Fitness replaced--it's on the grounds of where Seneca Indian School was. It's a very sacred place, and my mom went to boarding school there for a time. On the final day, we had taken everybody's pottery home and 37:00dried it, and made sure it was completely dry, and we had a firing.

We built this pit, and it took about four hours for us to make this thing. A bulldozer had come and dug out, maybe not a bulldozers but little digger, probably like a four-foot-deep rectangular hole, and we lined it with fire bricks and cement blocks. He'd done this before, and I had never done anything like this. It was really fun, and I learned a lot. We fired the pottery, and he left it in there overnight and then the next day. That night we had a potluck. Everybody brought food, and we sat around the fire and told stories and things. Then the next day, everyone's pot came, they came out well. Nobody broke anything. It was amazing.

That was the most fun, a real good learning experience for me to be exposed to a 38:00different art form by a different artist from a different tribe. We became friends and did some other things together, and then because we both got so busy, and I got really busy with my art and teaching it, we talk on Facebook now. We say, "We need to get together." I see him at Santa Fe. When he's doing the Blue Rain Gallery demo, I'll go in there. We live forty-five miles apart, and we never see each other anymore. I learned a lot from him. One of the things that I learned from him (I asked him if I could use his idea, and he said it was fine) he used to make (he probably still does) these big bowls. They're made with all these tiny coils. You'll have this big bowl, and he would have black sand. Then he'd have four or five smaller of his pieces in there.

I'm drawn to gourd effigies and plant life. I said, "Would it be all right with you if I made a big bowl, not like yours but just a big bowl, and make squash effigies?" He said, "I don't care." I started doing that, and I have sold about 39:00five of those. They're very fun to make. Instead of sand, I would put beans. I'll either put white beans or red beans. I sold one at the [Washington, DC] Department of the Interior Indian Craft Shop last year. It was just that one little idea, and I had never seen anybody do that. Artists love to share. Artists love--you can learn from anyone. I think every artist does that. They can learn from other artists. Doesn't matter what your level of skill is.

Little Thunder: That was kind of your entree, it sounds like, into teaching, too.

Vazquez: Right, yeah, I really enjoyed that. Actually, my first class was in about 2001. Aaron LeMaster worked at the Cherokee Heritage Center and asked me if I would teach a class. I didn't really feel qualified to teach a class, but I did. It was made up of tourists that came through for the day, and they'd signed up ahead of time. I had maybe nine or ten non-Indian tourist people, and we made 40:00a pot. It was just really difficult because I'd never taught, so I didn't know what I needed. I didn't know how to do it with that many people, but it was successful. Then we'd let the pots--I think they fired them there later. I learned a lot from that. Every time I would do a class after that, I would figure out what was the easiest way to teach, what kind of tools do I need. It led me to--I've done this for almost fifteen years now. Probably twelve, thirteen years, I have taught. It led me to going back to "simple is better." Instead of taking all my tools and all these things, I take two or three pieces of what we're--like, if I'm going to teach them how to do bowls, I take bowls. If we're going to teach effigies, I take my little effigy collection.

I have a pottery board that I've made for the classes. I use the same natural tools that Mom and I used, like the river stones, and the gourd neck that you 41:00smooth the inside, and handmade paddles that you smooth the outside of the pot. People love that. One of the things that I stress in my classes is that you don't have to have money to make pottery. You can go dig your own clay. God gave us everything in nature that you can use. The river stones, you can make your own paddle. You can use sticks and shells to decorate. You just need water and your hands. I've simplified it to where people are really seeing the impact of what our ancestors did. They worked with whatever they had, and that's what we do. I try to avoid working with commercially-made tools and commercial things. I like handmade. Love wood. I love working with wood, and my husband makes my paddles for me. I even found some little pods, seed pods, that have a perfect cross indention. Made a clay stamp out of that. People love that. It's from nature. It's just there, so that's the fun part. Yeah, the classes, I did learn 42:00a lot from that experience, and I'm still learning.

Little Thunder: You did some work with Cherokee National Living Treasures committee. Can you describe that a little bit for us?

Vazquez: Yes. In fact, it's an ongoing process. I was nominated and received the award in 2012 as Cherokee National Treasure, and there are currently about forty-five living. There have been about eighty-three or so designated when the program started in the ʼ80s. I didn't get involved until after Mom had--I think I went with her to one banquet before she got sick. Then when I became a Treasure, then I'm, of course, allowed to work with the group. There is an association. The Cherokee Nation has a department, the Education Department, 43:00that oversees the National Treasures. Their budget covers putting on an annual dinner around Christmas, and we receive gifts. It's really nice, really nice thing. What I'm working on now with some other treasures is trying to get more exposure for the elder National Treasures that don't get out. Maybe they don't drive, and maybe they can't even make their art form anymore, but they could teach and talk about it.

As a councilor, I have taken that a step further. One of my goals in my four-year term is to create a program within the Nation that's partially funded by grants and funded from the Nation to pay the mentors and the people that they teach. We want to teach young Cherokees that are committed to learning the art because they'll be the next Master Artists. I would like to have a free co-op for the Masters and the Cherokee National Treasures in which to sell their art 44:00and have it in one place in the Nation, somewhere in Tahlequah where all these different art forms are shown and have regularly scheduled workshops where they can come and talk, or they can teach, or they can show how they make kanuchi, or how they make the food, or how they carve a bow.

It's getting a good reception. We are at the point where we have applied for a grant through National Parks and waiting to see if it's awarded. From that first grant we will take--other National Treasures will go and interview the elders and the ones that haven't been out in the forefront, interview them and say, "What kind of things would you like to see this program do?" We're going to model it after the Qualla Arts and Crafts [Mutual] at the [Cherokee] Eastern Band that North Carolina has had. I think they've had their program over thirty years. It's highly successful, and its time that Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has something like that. It's been great. To receive the award was wonderful, but 45:00what you can do with it as a result of receiving the award, it does elevate you and your work, and your stature as an artist and as a Cherokee. Then being on the Council is another bonus because I can reach more people as a councilor than I could as one artist.

Little Thunder: That sounds wonderful. Is that, you think, maybe one of the most important art initiatives that you've worked on so far?

Vazquez: Yes, definitely is. I've done small things. I've worked some with the local Vinita Vinnie Ream Cultural Center. Vinnie Ream was not Native, but Vinnie Ream was an artist back in the 1800s and sculpted Abraham Lincoln. That statue is in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. She became more well-known because Elias Boudinot lived in the area and had a thing for her. It was kind of a 46:00little romance that never did happen, and people talk about that in our little museum here in Vinita, Eastern Trails Museum. I'm getting ready to serve on that board. They have just installed a really nice display of Mom's pottery, and I've given them some of her tools and some of her clay. They have things about Vinnie Ream. I digress, but the Vinnie Ream Cultural Center is a building that was purchased by a philanthropist here in Vinita and donated to the city or to the community. It's funded just through donations.

It's an old house that was a lovely two-story home that people lived in a long, long time ago, and it was just sitting empty. They've fixed it up, and they now have weddings and teas and all kinds of things. We did, Mom and I did a pottery class in that building when it was first available. Well, now it's too nice to have the messy arts. There's a little building behind it that was probably the 47:00servants' quarters for this house, and we've made it into Annie's workshop, named after another local artist that passed on. I've taught pottery classes there, so I have been involved here in my original hometown and stay involved in that. I get lots of calls for all kinds of things, but I teach pottery classes and help with cultural events and try to get more notice for the Cherokee artists.

Little Thunder: And how about the Cherokee Women in Art Association? You were one of the founders, I guess, of that, co-founders. Are you still involved with them?

Vazquez: Well, actually it came about and went away so quickly. It was sort of an experiment, and it wasn't really my idea. It was Sharon Irla. Sharon Irla is a painter, and then Verna Bates who's a gourd artist, were talking at Cherokee Art Market about us doing--. I think it was Sharon's idea originally. She said, 48:00"Wouldn't it be great if we could get some women, Cherokee women, to do exhibits at various places to get interest in the Cherokee artists, women specifically?" We found five of us. One was Debbe Edwards, a sculptor, and me and Verna and Sharon and then Katherine Ratcliff, who's a basket weaver, and it all led up to having--.

Our first exhibit was at Woolaroc, and it was last summer. I believe it opened in May, and it stayed up until mid-July. We would take turns on the weekends, going and hanging out in the gallery with the tourists, and as a result of that, we all did sell some work from that, which was nice. We got some national exposure, but it was too difficult to keep it going because every artist is busy with their own things. Especially women, we all have families and husbands that like to eat, and travels, and it just kind of fell apart. We decided that it was 49:00not something that we could continue with. It was too much work for the little that we gained from it. It was fun, though.

Little Thunder: Let's talk about your techniques and process, maybe, a little bit more. I'm wondering if you can describe how your early formats and approaches might have changed, your early formats in clay, approaches might have changed, as compared to what you're doing today.

Vazquez: Okay. I learned from Mom. She would tell me, "This is how you're supposed to do it," because that's what she learned or she taught herself. After I learned and after I became successful at making pots on my own, I worked by myself out in my own shop. I took the ideas that she gave me and the knowledge that she gave me, and I still, you know--. Digging the clay, that process never changes. Processing the clay, getting it workable, that'll never change. The 50:00difference that I see in when I first began, I was aiming for the same kind of pottery that Mom made and things that she was well-known for.

Then, because I'm an artist, and because I was her daughter, and because I wanted to do different things, I started branching out and trying to do different things, using those techniques. I was amazed at how--I do remember this, the one lesson I learned from Mom that always applies and still applies. Jane and I tell our students, Jane Osti and I, whenever you're making whatever it is, you first look at it as a vessel or a pot. You make the pot, and then you change it in some manner to look the way you want it to look. When I discovered how much I could manipulate the clay and make things different from this little simple bowl, I wanted to do things different.

The first five years probably, I just stayed with what I knew. I'd experiment a little bit on, maybe, shape, but then I asked Mom. She was well-known for her 51:00melon forms. She would actually take a real leaf and press it, and make a clay leaf, and put a vine, and do these beautiful pumpkins and melons. I asked her if I could do that, if she cared if I made that, because it was something that she kind of made up. She showed me how. Then I took the melon form. That's my other favorite thing beside the head jar. My melon forms are what I love to make because I love gourds and melons, and we grew gardens all of our lives. I can still see--I buy a gourd just for decorative purposes, and then I try to make it into clay, make something that looks like a gourd. I learned the processes, the technique. You can apply them in any way, but what I kept that I like--.

I could've ventured out into glazes and things that other artists do which I think are beautiful and lovely, but I would prefer to stick with the earthenware clay and the simplest way of making things. The one thing that I did not carry 52:00forward that I wish I could is Mom's firing methods of the outdoor firing pit that Dad built her, the metal tub, and putting the pots in there four or five hours, and the wood. For one thing, where I live, my husband's just not thrilled about me having fires. We live on more flat, open--we have lots of grasses because we raise cattle. It's very windy in Oklahoma, and it's dry, so he's worried about fires. He said, "I'd rather you didn't dig a pit and make an open fire out here," so I have electric kiln firing at my home.

I know how to do the traditional firing, and sometimes in other places I will do that. I know how, and I can teach it. One of the things that Jane and I love to do now and both of us are teaching is we can take an earthenware clay--and it's a commercial clay, but it feels very similar to my native clay. When you're 53:00teaching people, you don't want to waste that clay because it's so hard to process. We'll make the same types of pots that we make, fire them in an electric kiln, and then do a flash-firing, second firing, and pine needles like this, the darkening. What determines how black or how dark it's going to get is how long you leave it in the fuel. I was doing mine in a tub with a lid and making it solid black, but you can put it in an open fire with the pine needles. It gives it a browning effect and smoking, and it's just beautiful. Even though you're not doing the traditional firing, you're doing a form of it. My firing methods went way out of the bounds of what Mom did, and you're limited by what your home and your studio and your time and all that.

Little Thunder: When did you get your studio?

Vazquez: That year that I got accepted at Santa Fe. My husband has a little--he's lived on this ranch forty years or more. He built the house, and he had a little outbuilding that had been a chicken house. He'd bricked it and raised it up. It's a little building. His two boys when they were growing up were motorcycle nuts. They would work on their motorcycles in this little building. Well, they were gone, so it was just sitting there empty with junk in it. He helped me clean it out, and I painted the walls. It's a little concrete floor. I've had that same little studio since 1999 and still use it. It's simple. It's all I need.

Little Thunder: How important is texture for your work?

Vazquez: For me, my art is more about texture than it is about glazing or shining, mainly because I love the sculptural things and the faces. You're not going to have a highly burnished face, so the texture to me, I love the way the 55:00clay feels in its natural state. I don't want to change it too much to appear shiny or to appear newer or whatever. The part about texture that I'm leaning toward, (I don't have pieces that reflect that today except for the top of the head jar) the stamping technique. I'm starting to get really interested in stamping because that's what Jane has been doing. There were a couple of artists from the Eastern Band that came and gave a program here a few years ago. I didn't get to attend, but Mother did.

They have a whole--the Cherokees and the Eastern Band have a whole different technique of stamping than we thought we had. We thought we were doing stamping, but it's not the way they do it or did it. They make big paddles with really intricate designs. Instead of stamping in a uniform manner like I've been doing, they continuously stamp the whole thing following a pattern, using this design, 56:00and it just makes a beautiful stamped of the entire piece. You don't do a lot of burnishing on that. You want more of that texture to show. That's something that I'm leaning more toward, that I'm making more stamps, making my own pottery stamps, and teaching stamp pottery, and it's really fun.

Little Thunder: I bet. I did notice the fish pieces on your website, I think, that I really liked. There were blue tones in one of them, I think, but can you talk about--

Vazquez: It was probably the smoking that looked blue.

Little Thunder: You sort of mentioned your love of effigies and the importance of animal imagery in your work. I've also seen you incorporate, like, shell earrings on a head pot, things like that. How much do you incorporate other kinds of materials?

Vazquez: Not really very often. I like copper. I'll use the copper wiring to make earrings. I have done shell earrings before, but I actually like to make 57:00the clay earrings now. Any ornament that I put on it, I like to make it from--

Little Thunder: Out of clay.

Vazquez: --yeah, out of clay. It's fun, and I've done some jewelry. I've been doing some pottery pieces, like a big bead that's maybe stamped. I have a friend that owns a bead store and a jewelry store where she puts together necklaces. We create necklaces together where she'll have the chain, and then she'll do the little wiring, the hooking onto my pieces. We'll mix my clay beads with other beads. I've sold necklaces for, like, three or four years. It'll maybe have a little tiny bit of pottery in it. People love it because part of it's handmade but yet it's nice enough that you can wear it. It's not fancy jewelry; it's costume, fun.

Little Thunder: But do you have a name for your sort of collaborative venture?

Vazquez: Not really, we just play. Now, I have done collaborations with other 58:00potters. I did a collaborative couple of pieces with Richard Zane Smith, and I'm now the proud owner of the piece that we made together. The bottom is the piece that I made, just the plain pot, and then he did his tiny coiling at the top. It ends up looking like a Hopi maiden with all those necklaces. I thought it was gorgeous, and he let me have it. I'm doing a collaboration with Jane. We're going to do a large piece together because I don't know about large pieces, and she's teaching me how to make the great big pots. Well, just in the last few weeks in doing that work, I've decided I can't do it. I have too many issues with tension in my shoulders. I'm getting arthritis, and my arms will ache. It's too big; it's too much. She's gotten away from the great big pieces that she used to make.

Anyway, I collaborate. I've collaborated with an artist that does weaving. You probably know her: Marty Gradolf. She's at Eiteljorg a lot. Maybe you don't know 59:00her, but anyway, she's Winnebago. We won an award at Eiteljorg with a collaboration that we did. She did a weaving and wanted my little mask faces to hang within the weaving, and it turned out wonderfully. I think we got third place. Then I did collaborations with Terry O'Brien who is a Mohawk bead artist. She lives on the East Coast, and I met her through the Smithsonian programs. We came up with this idea. We're both very creative, and she loves beadwork. That's all she does is beadwork, and all I do is pottery, so I said, "Let's do something together." I created a dress out of clay, and she told me--we came up with a design first. "Okay, we're going to do this kind of dress." I wanted to do the early Cherokee cape with the skirt. I said, "You could do the beadwork on the fringe, make the fringe look like beadwork," so we did.

She told me how many holes to punch where, so I punched the holes, fired it, and made it look like white buckskin. I shipped it to her, she did the beadwork, and then we made a stand for it. I entered it at Cherokee Art Market, but I don't 60:00think anybody knew what it was. They didn't know what--it just got no notice, and it was gorgeous. Bill Wiggins, our friend that collects art, bought it. He said, "If you ever make any more, I want them." We ended up making four different dresses, and then we stopped because we just got too busy with other things. It's so much fun to have input from--I'd never thought of pottery and beads together until I got to know her. We had seen maybe one other instance of where a potter had put beads on clay. My little jewelry thing, I'd love to take that further, but right now I'm too busy with council work to play.

Little Thunder: How about your signature? How'd you come up with that?

Vazquez: I have my Indian name. All of my siblings and myself were named by my mom's aunt, and we were given Indian names. We don't know that there was a particular meaning, but my Cherokee name is Dayani, and it's D-A-Y-A-N-I. The 61:00syllabary for it looks like a JWH, but the syllabary isn't actually the letters. I started because my dad took a class on how to write and speak Cherokee. Mom didn't know how to write Cherokee, so I asked Dad, "Let's figure out how to write my name." He showed me. I always sign my clay with my English name and my Cherokee name and then the year.

Little Thunder: With both?

Vazquez: Yes, both of them. I put "Victoria." I was doing "Victoria Mitchell Vazquez," but it's too much. I usually put Victoria, and then the signature of the Dayani, and then the date.

Little Thunder: Oh, and the date, too.

Vazquez: Just the year, yeah.

Little Thunder: Do you title your pots ever?

Vazquez: Sometimes. For instance this head jar, I named it Treasured Memories because I made it after Mom passed away, and it was specifically for the jury 62:00program for the Cherokee National Treasure Award. You have to create a piece of art just for that. I used her stamps to make the little crown on his head. It's got tattooing on it which our ancestors did. I was looking at pictures of different Indian men, and so anyway--. I write a little story. If I have a signature piece that a collector has ordered or wants to buy, I write the story for them about the piece. I will tell about how I made it, a little bit about my process, where I got the idea, and a little bit about our Mound Builder ancestry. I'm sure I had a little story about Treasure memories, but it was that, specifically that my mother was already a National Treasure and I used some of her clay and my clay. I still have some clay that Daddy dug for Mom, and 63:00I use some of it on occasion because there's just maybe half of a barrel left, or less. It's precious because the place where they dug it is not available anymore. Daddy would've dug that before 1997, so I love using that.

Little Thunder: How important a role do commissions play in your--

Vazquez: More so now than before. When I wasn't a councilor and when I wasn't as busy, I had more time to play and make pottery that I wanted to make. I really didn't like--there are some times when I don't care for a commission. If a person is too specific about how they want you to make it or what they want it to be like, I just say, "You better find somebody else." But if a person says, "I love your work. I would like you to make me something. I don't care what it is, or if it's an effigy. I like melons or whatever," and that's all they say, then I'm thrilled. Currently I have three ideas or three commissions from different people for specific things. One is a wedding gift, and it doesn't have 64:00to be a wedding jar, thank you, because I don't want to do the wedding vases, and they're not typical Cherokee. I look for--I'll ask about why they want it, who it's for, and tell me something about that person that's significant. In this one instance, the lady's buying it for a wedding gift for her best friend. The friend and her husband live on her original family's farm, and they call it Blackberry Hill.

We came, me and the buyer, came up with the idea of the shape of a bowl, and on the shoulder I'm going to do a stylized engraving of a blackberry vine and maybe put some Indian designs on it, too. I love to do those creative things where they say, "I want you to be creative with it. Here's an idea of what I'd like to have, but you do your thing." I love that because you know that that piece is already sold. I don't do that many shows anymore, so actually commissions are 65:00more important now. If I were not a councilor, I would probably be making a lot of pottery, making it for specific people. Also, the collections, people that started collecting years ago have dropped off because either from age, or they've got too many things already, they don't have room, so your collector base changes drastically, as you know, over years. I don't count on it, and I've never had to count on my art income to live on, thank goodness, because I would be really skinny. I would never eat. I think because I don't have to do it for a living, it allows me to be more creative and enjoy it.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process, starting with how you get your ideas?

Vazquez: Generally, I have a lot of ideas already. I have a little sketchbook, and if I come up with something in my sleep and I wake up, you're thinking about something, I have to run and sketch it before I forget it. That's one, is, like, 66:00things that come to you because you're always seeing things. I see faces in grain of wood, and I see faces in clouds. Everywhere I look, I see things like animals or faces. "Oh, that would be a neat pot," so I'll maybe sketch it. The other creative inspiration comes from the fact that I still want to talk about and show our Mound Builders ancestral things, and talk about how important that era was, and we don't know what happened to those people. People are just thrilled to hear about it, and I love talking about it. I like to make pottery that reflects that so I can say, "One of my ancestors could have made this." Show an artifact and say, "Now here's my rendition of it," or the head jar thing. I can see faces in a painting, and I wish I could paint. I'll think, "I 67:00could maybe make that into a nice head jar, a face." I am sort of wanting to sculpt, but I don't have a lot of time for that, either. I have done one sculpture that's a true sculpture that I'm going to have bronzed.

Ideas come to me from other artists, going to art shows, going to museums. When I was at the Smithsonian during my research, there happened to be an Allan Houser, a big Allan Houser exhibit going on at the NMAI. I took a lot of pictures of his things. I came home and was really inspired. Could never copy what he does, but the idea of the flowing figure. It would be a simple figure with just the mom's face and a baby form. I came home and created something like that in my clay in a very small scale. I love his technique, and his simplicity of his large sculptures are, to me, breathtaking. Anytime there's an Allan 68:00Houser exhibit, I go see it. The Oklahoma History Museum, I've done some classes for them, and I love that place. I get a lot of inspiration from that.

Little Thunder: What has been one of the decisive forks in your career, when you sort of could've gone one way but you chose to go another?

Vazquez: Hmm, in as far as--

Little Thunder: Art.

Vazquez: --art? Clay? I'd say the biggest one lately has been the death of my mom. Right before she got really sick and had to go to the hospital, she was interviewed by a gentleman who was originally from Vinita. He's now in New York City, and he creates production sets for dramas and things. He wants to come back to Vinita. -- We were talking about the biggest fork in the road in my career lately, and it has been my mom's passing. I met this young man that was doing a video story of her. What he's actually wanting to end up with is a film about Indian Territory and Vinita when it was first formed, and give a history of how impactful the Indians were in Vinita, as well as end up showing Mom and 69:00her story about recreating or reviving the art.

I met him on the phone and via email and never met him in person until a year after mom died. He sent me a wonderful, after she passed away, he sent me a picture of her that he had taken the day he did the interview. It ended up being the picture we used at her funeral. I now have it in my home, and she's just sitting there casually with a little pot beside her. Whenever he told me what he wants to do, (he is part Cherokee) I decided to help him how I can, any way I can because he eventually wants to take that program back to the National Museum of the American Indian and have it premiere there. It'll be about Vinita and about mom.

There are a group of people here in Vinita, some people that are--one's a city 70:00councilor, and one's a museum person, and different people that are interested in restoring the old courthouse that has been just sitting abandoned. One of the things we want to do with this gentleman is make it a place where they can put on programs like a play, also have art there. We have this loosely-formed group of people that I'm going to be involved with, and he's been contacting me. He just recently contacted me again, and he said, "I would like to have--." He said, "I'd really like to commission a head jar from you for this program as it comes about, and I would like to come back to Vinita and spend some time, and us have a teaching workshop sort of thing," not necessarily me being the teacher, but find potters that would come in and teach local children about Native art and pottery and have it all woven into this story.

He sees it as being more than just one production or one film. Because he grew up here, he has a big affinity for Vinita. His family's from here and his--. We met through--his sister worked at Clanton's Café and saw my mom one day and went up to her, and she said, "You look a lot like my grandmother who passed away." Ended up, my mom and her grandmother went to boarding school together, and so they started this friendship. J. J. Lind is the young man's name that is currently working on something in New York. Then he's going to come here this summer and work and start on this program.

I see myself veering more away from creating art to sell into becoming an educator and a helper and a person that's an asset to the community based upon the things I've learned, and the things I know about our tribe, and our history, and our art, and my mom. All those things together are important. The older you 72:00get, the more you realize you only get so many years left (hopefully, I have a few) that you can do things physically and mentally, that you have the ability to speak for someone else. I see myself doing more of those kinds of things than being an artist. My career has taken a whole different turn obviously. Politics, I don't know where that came from.

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

Vazquez: Oh goodness, probably--no, I don't want to talk about that. There's really not been a low point as far as my career. There have been situations and incidents where--and it had to do with jealousy of other people, women, jealousy, art, competition. Competition has always been, seems like, the 73:00catalyst for something negative in my case. I don't really like that whole competing thing. The low point would probably be a breakup of a friendship over that sort of thing, trying to do the same thing that somebody else is doing and you're trying to do your thing, but yet they're trying to keep up with you or surpass you or make it into a competition. It ruined a friendship, so that's probably the only negative low point.

Little Thunder: How about one of the high points? You might have mentioned--.

Vazquez: Oh, goodness, I think the high point was the Smithsonian research, to get selected for that, to get to go do it, and then for them to have my work. One of my pots is on display on the fourth floor. How many people get to do that? I get pictures from people all over the place over the years, and it's been up since 2006. I'll get pictures of friends that are visiting. Just the 74:00other day this young man I was talking about sent me a text. He had a picture of my pot, and he said, "NMAI, DC. I'm here. Lovely." I get these, and it's awesome. The other big high point just happened in April. The national museum hosted the Cherokee tribe for about four days. The Eastern Band came. We had Keetoowah Band people there and us, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The chief was there.

Because I'm a councilor I have better access than I would have had before to the chief and to the other councilors, (several councilors were there and our speaker) to get to take them upstairs in the elevator and show them, "Victoria has pottery here." They posed with me. Here I've got a picture of me and our chief, with my little pot, and Jane Osti. Had her in the picture. They don't have any idea. People that are not artists have no idea what it means, what we 75:00do, how much it means to other people, and what a museum is about, and how people get excited that go see those things. Everyone has their own loves and interests, but I just can't imagine our world without art, how important it is to me. I'd like to create that same love in somebody else's eyes. That was the big high point, and that just happened in April.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Well, we're going to take a look at your pots here in a minute. Is there anything else we've forgotten to talk about or that you'd like to add?

Vazquez: Oh, goodness, I don't think so. Probably the only thing I'd like to add is the fact that I'm looking forward to helping the other Cherokee National Treasures and the elders. Every year, we lose one or two of our Cherokee National Treasures and once that person's gone, if they haven't taught someone in their family or some young person how to do what they do, it's gone again. 76:00It's all about the lost arts that have been revived. I think that's going to be my biggest focus, is keeping as many people as possible aware of how important that is not to lose those arts again. You can't make another Anna Mitchell. You can't recreate what she recreated. You can only take what she taught those of us that were fortunate to learn and to pass it on. We're getting older. We're all going to pass away. We've got to keep it going. We've done a great job of reviving interest in our history and our culture, and we need to keep it going. That's one of my most important goals for the next few years.

Little Thunder: All right, we're going to pause for a second. -- Victoria, would you like to talk about this pot a little bit?

Vazquez: Yes, this pot brings back wonderful memories of the first couple of years, the first year I was with Mother. This is made from the same clay that Mom and Dad had dug. I made a red slip. The clay color is a lot lighter than 77:00what this pot appears, and the symbols on it come from our research book called Sun Circles and Human Hands. The round circle with the wind symbol and the four-directional cross are very symbolic with our culture and with our ceremonies. At the very top, the rim has a little, very simple design that Mom used a lot, and if you carry that forward and repeat it many times, it looks like a basket. It's called the Cherokee friendship design.

The pot's heavy. Early work is a lot heavier than what I make now because you don't know how to make thin pottery, so it's a good reminder of how I started, and I like to keep this with me as a reminder of the progress that I've made, where I started with Mom. I can remember her laughing and saying, "Why do you want to make that?" That's one of the hardest designs, doing the circle and making it all fit on there. She said, "You always want to seem to take the 78:00hardest thing first." It just seemed like the thing to do at the time. I recreated that pot a few years later and sold it. It won an award, and it was about ten times better (Laughter) than that one.

Little Thunder: All right. Okay, how about this one?

Vazquez: Okay, I did talk about this earlier a little bit, but this was one of my biggest challenges. I made this about four years after I had started making pottery. I saw a drawing of a tripod head jar or head water bottle in our research material that came from the Mounds. It was a drawing of these three heads with simple faces. I challenged myself to make it and figure out how to do it, and I did. Was thrilled with the outcome. This poor little piece has such a story. I made it, and then I took it--I was able to get the Phoenix story with that in my lap. Then I sold it to a collector in California and shipped it out 79:00there. It arrived broken, and it was broken where the heads attach to the three tripods. It was double boxed. I'd never had a piece broken in shipping, but it was broken. He shipped it back to me, which was the wrong thing to do because in order to get insurance from UPS, you have to have them come and see the piece.

Anyway, long story short, it was actually a blessing because he ordered another one. I recreated one and sent it to him. I got the insurance money for the broken one; I got the pay for the new one; and as a result of me having this piece back in my hands, I had a restoration person help me put it back together. You can't tell that it was ever broken. That's the piece that the curator of the Smithsonian NMAI saw that picture in the newspaper and ordered one. I made one of these for the Smithsonian. Then when I did my research which was about three 80:00years after this pot was made, when I got the fellowship, I saw the actual one that the drawing had been drawn from. The actual tripod head jar was in archives, and it was about a third that size. It was just amazing. I got to take a picture of it. It's quite a story, and I will keep that forever because it's been around the block a couple of times.

Little Thunder: Right. That's a wonderful piece.

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