Oral history interview with Nathan Hart

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is September 24, 2014. I'm interviewing Nathan Hart for the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program, Native Artists Project at the OSU Library. We're at Nathan's home in Oklahoma City. Nathan, you come from a prominent Cheyenne family. Your BS degree is in industrial arts, and economics and business. You've worked in the consulting field; you have a design company. You are perhaps best known, though, as an artist in wood, whose decorative wooden bowls have won numerous prizes and commissions and are handled by several fine art galleries. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

Hart: Yes, thank you.

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

Hart: I was born in Marion, Kansas, but I grew up in Oklahoma, in Clinton, Oklahoma. What's unique about that story is that my father, he's a minister. He's retired now, but he went to seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. My mother grew up 1:00in Kansas, Marion, Kansas. He was working for the summer, before he went on to seminary, for my grandfather. My mom was pregnant, and the doctor told her not to travel with my dad. He went on up and did the first semester, and I was born in Marion, Kansas. My mom stayed back with her parents. Later that semester, Dad came back and got us both. We spent a couple years in Indiana and then moved to Oklahoma, and I've lived in Oklahoma ever since I was two, my second birthday.

Little Thunder: You mentioned your father was a minister. Can you talk a little bit more about him and your mother, also?

Hart: Yes, so my father is a minister of the Koinonia Mennonite Church, Indian Mennonite church in Clinton, Oklahoma. There were four Indian Mennonite churches in western Oklahoma. My mother's from central Kansas, and she is of the Mennonite background. Her family would've came from, immigrated to the United 2:00States from what's probably current day Russia, Prussia at the time. The country no longer exists. Her family came here. It was actually the Mennonite missionaries that settled on the Cheyenne Arapaho reservation in western Oklahoma and established their churches. My dad and his two brothers were the first of our community and the tribe to go on to college, and they were encouraged to go to college by the missionaries. They went to Bethel College, which is where I went to school, as well. That is the Mennonite school, college.

Little Thunder: How about siblings?

Hart: I have two sisters, one older and one younger, Connie Hart Yellowman and Christina Hart Wolf.

Little Thunder: What was your exposure to your grandparents on either side of your family?

Hart: On my mother's side, I really only saw them a couple times a year when we traveled up to Kansas to visit. I don't remember either of my grandmothers. Both passed away when I was a very young age. I don't remember, really, either of those two. My grandfather, which is on my dad's side, my dad's father, I remember him the most. He was also very active in the church out in western Oklahoma in the Hammon community. My dad was actually born in Hammon, Oklahoma, so I remember my grandfather on my dad's side.

Little Thunder: What was your exposure to the language growing up, and Cheyenne culture in general?

Hart: The exposure to the language, although we did not speak it every day in the house, learned a lot at church because all the church events. The elders still spoke Cheyenne, so I knew a few words and a few phrases. We also sang 4:00hymns. A lot of the songs we sang were in Cheyenne in church. My, I guess, exposure that I had was really through all the church activity and people speaking the language in church.

Little Thunder: Your sister's accomplished beadworker and quillworker. Were there other members of your family who were artistic?

Hart: My oldest sister, Connie, is very accomplished. My youngest sister, Chris, she did do some beadwork, as well. Our family still has some items that she beaded, but her talents were in the performing arts. She was a dancer. She went to University of Oklahoma to their modern dance school. She was a ballerina and a dancer in her younger years. That really moved her, encouraged her to move into her current field, which she's in physical therapy.

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

Hart: Again, I think that's just through our church activities, and part of it is how do you define, what do you define as Native art. Certainly a lot of people think of sculpture and drawings as being art, but a lot of the beadwork, we grew up with it. A lot of the designs that people had for their families and then those that just created new designs definitely are works of art when you look at them, and the color combinations that they have. That's what I remember the earliest. I also learned, was taught how to bead. That's what our elders did in our church. They taught all the younger people how to bead. That was my first exposure with the arts is through beadwork.

Little Thunder: Right. What is your first memory of making art?

Hart: The making of the art.... When I went through school, I did not take any 6:00art classes, so it's probably just creating things down by the creek. Sculpting mud, stacking rocks, doing things with making three-dimensional objects with twigs was really, I think, the first, I guess. Actually if you look back on it now, (I didn't know it at the time) but look back on it, that was my first artistic pieces that I made were just playing down at the creek with whatever I found in the area.

Little Thunder: So you were drawn to 3D.

Hart: Definitely, drawn to--

Little Thunder: Were you doing--

Hart: --three dimensional.

Little Thunder: --figurative stuff?

Hart: Probably mostly abstract, but certainly tried to do figurative items, as well. I remember at young age, traveling and going up to Mount Rushmore. Came home, and I was digging in the creek bed on the banks trying to make human 7:00heads. (Laughter) It didn't work, but it was fun.

Little Thunder: No art classes, basically, throughout elementary school. Did you have any exposure to art in middle school or high school?

Hart: No, I didn't. I didn't take any art classes. I was really drawn towards mathematics. I took every math class that was available to me as an elective in high school. I guess how that connects, maybe, with what I do now, when I moved into college I entered the industrial arts program. My goal was to be a teacher. I excelled in sports, as well, so my goal was to coach somewhere and be a teacher. I liked math, but I also really liked more of the art application towards architecture with that. Took architectural drawing classes, engineering 8:00drawing classes, and came out of there with a major in industrial arts. Also, I double majored because I also got a major in economics and business administration, as well. I think it was really through that work in industrial arts is where I really focused more on drawings, although they were practical drawings. I took every woodworking class that they had available--

Little Thunder: I was wondering.

Hart: --because I had a love for wood, and that goes back to growing up at the creek. The property that we were on out in the country had a creek going right through the middle of the property. A lot of what I did was just playing with the trees and in the trees and dead branches, so that was my exposure to wood.

Little Thunder: Chopping wood?

Hart: Yeah, chopping wood. (Laughter) Had a love for it.

Little Thunder: And you explained the connection in how you ended up at Bethel.

Hart: I ended up at Bethel, I guess, ultimately because it was a school that my parents had gone to and my older sister was there. I was recruited out of high school, athletically, to go play with different schools on our football teams. I chose to go to Bethel because it was a smaller school and I was a good kicker, and I was being recruited to go kick at different universities, either to walk on or as a scholarship. I wanted to do more than kick. I knew I couldn't do that at a big university, but I knew that at a smaller college I could just continue playing football for four more years as a receiver. That's primarily, I think, what drove me to Bethel. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: You have a little bit of everything. What did you do after college?

Hart: Immediately after college, I stayed in the area and coached for two more years. At that time, it was a part-time job. The other time, I took some additional business classes, and then I also worked part time for a construction company, specialized in building passive solar homes. I got to stay in the area. I coached, and that was fun to still be involved in athletics.

Little Thunder: Right. Then from there you got into consulting or--

Hart: From there--and the primary reason I stayed for two years is because Melanie, we weren't married at the time, but we were seeing each other. She was two years behind me in school. That's why I wanted to be there at Bethel for two more years. After she graduated, we moved to Oklahoma. She started law school. I took some coursework at the University of Oklahoma and got a summer internship 11:00with the Oklahoma Indian Business Development Center. Towards the end of that when I was going to go back into graduate school at University of Oklahoma, one of their staff people left. They offered me the position, and I accepted it. That was my first exposure with working with tribes throughout the state, and individuals, starting new businesses. From then, I've always worked in one capacity or another--I've always worked with the Indian tribes, not just here in Oklahoma but throughout the country.

Little Thunder: So when did you first start getting into woodturning? And you might describe, define it for us, thanks.

Hart: Coming out of college, or at a young age because I had spent a lot of time 12:00attracted to design. I said I was in drawing classes, architectural drawing, engineering drawing. You have some exposure to design elements by taking those types of classes. I was really drawn to wood. What I wanted to do, my goal was to be a furniture maker and make custom furniture, design it and make it. At the young age and not having a great income, I couldn't afford all the equipment that you would need to do what I really wanted to do. I saw people turning on a wood lathe and making wood bowls and thought, "I can do that," so the first piece of equipment that I bought was a wood lathe. Just had the goal of buying, adding to that and having a complete cabinet-making, furniture-making shop. I stuck with the woodturning.

Little Thunder: Now, you're seeing these wooden bowls in school, right--

Hart: Right.

Little Thunder: --at Bethel. Is that right?

Hart: Yes.

Little Thunder: And what was it that just totally absorbed you about the bowls?

Hart: What I remember as a young age, as well, we traveled, and a lot of it was through my dad's work. We traveled out to the Southwest. He knew people out there, (and his ministry took him that direction, as well) a lot of pottery makers from those regions. Native people are givers, so when someone comes to visit, there's always a gift, usually a gift that they give. I remember at a young age, people giving me pieces of pottery when we traveled. I'd keep those, and I'd admire them. Later on in life when I started woodturning, I kept thinking back to the pottery shapes of the Southwest, whether it's a seed pot or some other functional pot. I felt that this is such a great form to highlight what the characters are in wood, so if you look at the type of turning that I 14:00do, it does resemble pottery. It does resemble the shapes that you see out in the Southwest. That is why. Because at a young age, my exposure to the people and receiving gifts of their creation is what influenced what you see of the shapes of my pieces today.

Little Thunder: What was the first art show that you entered?

Hart: The very first show that I did was Art in the Park in Clinton, Oklahoma, because that's where my parents are. I think I was happy when I sold my first piece for twenty dollars. Then I did some other local shows. When I sold my first piece for a hundred dollars, I was all kinds of happy, too. Now I can sell some for more than a hundred dollars, and I'm happy with that, too.

Little Thunder: Did you do some of the first Red Earth shows?

Hart: I did. Early on, I did some of the early Red Earth shows. It was a local show. That was really my exposure, I think, to the bigger marketplaces outside of your small, weekend, local community shows because that drew artists, not just from across Oklahoma, but there were artists that came in from out of state, as well. It was part of a bigger festival, nice big cultural festival, so people came in from out of state. That was my first exposure to selling art to people outside of Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: What was an important prize that you won in a competition early on?

Hart: To me, one of the most important ones was a Judge's Choice Award that I got because--.

Little Thunder: At Red Earth or--

Hart: It wasn't at Red Earth. It was actually at the Heard Museum. The way that is structured is that all the judges, they judge their certain categories, but 16:00at the end they can cross over to another category and give a special award to another artist. One of those judges did that. That's really an honor. I had placed before and even placed First before in the sculpture division, (that's where they put me) but to receive a Judge's Award was really an honor for me, as well.

Little Thunder: That was one of my questions because at Native art shows there weren't a lot of people doing woodturning. Did you have trouble with categorization, do you think? Maybe there were some awards you missed out on?

Hart: When you enter, of course, you enter early on in what you think you should go into. You always have to sign that release that says they can put you in another category if it fits, so I ended up in sculpture. Really, I started off 17:00in being diverse art forms. In all these bigger shows, they really started pushing my work toward the sculpture categories, and so that's where I reside now is in sculpture, depending on the show. Some shows have bronze, and all of them have stone as a category. Some have stone, metals, and everything else, so wood, glass, and the mixed media are all together.

Little Thunder: Do you do a lot of non-Native Art shows, too? How is your work split up?

Hart: Not anymore. I just do all Native art shows. I do two large shows a year. One in the spring, which is the Heard Museum, (that's always the first full weekend in March) and Santa Fe Indian Market in August is right there about the third weekend in August. Those are really spread out good. Gives me plenty of 18:00time to make my inventory for the next show. It does take a long time to get these pieces ready. Then I'm represented by galleries. It so happens that one gallery is in Santa Fe, and the other one's in Phoenix. They sell different times of the year. Phoenix sells great in the winter months, and Santa Fe sells great in the summer months. That kind of gives year-round sales in the galleries. Add the two shows in; that keeps me pretty busy.

Little Thunder: Typically how much inventory do you try to take? How many bowls would you try to take to Santa Fe?

Hart: I always shoot for in the twenties, but it ranges between sixteen--. I think one year I had thirty-some pieces that I took out. It also depends on the sizes. Obviously, if I'm just going to go with small pieces, I can make more, but if I want to do bigger pieces, it takes a long time. I think one year we 19:00went out with I think just, maybe, ten or twelve pieces to Santa Fe. That was a challenging year because we had just moved into the house where we're sitting now in July, and we also had two girls on the way. It was a busy year, but that was the lowest inventory that I ever went to a show with.

Little Thunder: You have this great business background and even do consulting in that area. A lot of artists have trouble balancing the business and their work. Have you had any trouble with that?

Hart: I really haven't, and I feel fortunate that I do have, I think, good business sense and understand business. A lot of it goes back to mathematics and accounting classes that I had that really gives me the--. My business work that 20:00I've done has really been in the finance area. It's all about numbers. It's all about making sure you reach certain targets, and ratios, and formulas. I enjoy that, but I do love the creative side, as well. I get to do both. I'm also a business owner. I run a business that does embroidery and silk screening on shirts, and I have a steady client base. I get to create the artwork, do some of the graphic design on it, but then I always have to do the rest of it, the production, the orders, and make sure the bids are right, got all the right numbers put together, as well. That's fun.

Little Thunder: What role does your wife play in your business? I know she has her own occupation, too, but--.

Hart: She does. She has a full-time job, but she definitely checks the inventory 21:00periodically and gives me great encouragement to get back out to the shop. She'll sort of follow me out, close the door, and say, "You can't come back in unless you have a piece with you." (Laughter) That's all joking, but she really does. It's always interesting because I have a process. These pieces are all about a process. You can't just pick them up and go start to finish on them. I work them about 90 percent and then have to let them dry. They'll warp, they'll move, and then I finish them off.

I have anywhere from ten to twenty pieces always in the works. We're sitting there a month before a big art show, and I have nothing done. She's starting to get nervous, but then all of a sudden, two weeks before the art show, there's twenty pieces. Pick them up, finish them off in an hour, and you got one. It's all about a process, though. She's learned not to be so nervous anymore. She 22:00still makes sure that I have the pieces that certain collectors come by to get. She makes sure that I have those and new woods for them to look at.

Little Thunder: We'll talk about that process in a little bit. What's an honor, maybe, that you're particularly proud of, distinguishing between honors and awards a little bit? You've had some nice commissions, I think, from different organizations.

Hart: Yes, different organizations have given me honors. It was back in the early ʼ90s at one of our tribal events, the Cheyenne Arapaho tribes, (I think it's the Oklahoma Indian Nations) they honored me as their Indian of the Year. At that time, I was doing a lot of work on the state level, and I think they 23:00recognized some accomplishments. I think they probably just recognized the difficulty of the job that I had and thought, "He survived it, so we're going to honor him for that." Being honored by your own people, your own community, is to me something that's very heartwarming.

Little Thunder: Right. You've talked about working for the eye with your wooden bowls, not for functionality. I wonder if you can just expand upon that a little bit.

Hart: What my exposure as a youth to just running around the creek and being out in the country, no brothers to play with, so I made up my own games and my own things to do at the creek. I developed an eye for nature and an eye for the natural, the natural beauty. I think that's what wood has. I understand wood and all the different types of wood that there are, and I know the characters of 24:00them. The pieces that I make, I really try to have a very simple form to them and simple shape, and something that highlights that natural character of the uniqueness of the wood. They are. They're for the eye. I make functional pieces, though. People want wooden bowls, so I make those, as well.

Little Thunder: Put some of that eye appeal in there.

Hart: Yes.

Little Thunder: In your travels, you've mentioned Southwestern pottery as an influence, but have there been other influences, do you think, upon your bowls?

Hart: Well, there's been other influences from other artists on my work. At a young age there in Clinton, Oklahoma, there was a art show on the creek where I 25:00grew up. There was a basketmaker, basket weaver that came there, Mavis Doering, Cherokee basket maker. She sat under a tree, shade tree, and was weaving her baskets. We watched her. It was a several-day festival. She had me sit down by her, a lot of kids sit down by her, and she taught us how to weave, so I got to know her. As I grew up, when she saw me doing my wood, she said, "You need to incorporate the weaving that I taught you into your woodworking."

"Okay, I'll do that," but I had to think of how to do it. I started just buying some commercial reed and weaving it into my pieces and then just sort of let that rest for a while. I've picked it back up recently, and I've really gone contemporary with it. The weaving that she taught me to do, I incorporate that into some pieces I do now. The material that I use is stainless steel. I have wood and woven stainless steel in some pieces that I do now. I've only made four 26:00of them, but they seem to be very popular. That's one of them.

Little Thunder: That's great. We'll look at one. What is the smallest and largest piece you've ever made?

Hart: The smallest piece is certainly no more than an inch and a half by an inch and a half in size.

Little Thunder: True miniature.

Hart: I could probably go smaller than that. I do enter miniature competitions. They have a maximum size that it can't be any larger than three inches in any dimension. I do make small pieces. Kind of an issue I have with the small pieces is before an art show, one of my daughters usually picks one of those and says, "I'm keeping this for my collection." I lose a good miniature every year before an art show, but she's got a good collection, I think. (Laughter) The largest 27:00piece, there's one that's over twenty inches tall. I made some that are right close to twenty inches diameter. I made a piece that I, actually, was able to weigh it before I put it on the lathe, and it weighed close to two hundred pounds. All finished, off the lathe, it's under ninety pounds. This is removal of a lot of material and a lot of moisture.

Little Thunder: In a way, are the size limitations, do they have more to do with weight?

Hart: It had to do with equipment.

Little Thunder: Equipment.

Hart: My equipment has limitations on it, but still something over twenty inches in either dimension is quite large and heavy. You get in any bigger than that and it is almost too heavy for a person to handle to get up there on the equipment.

Little Thunder: What's the most challenging bowl you've made to date, or piece?

Hart: There's a type of wood that I really like, but it comes from the root system of a tree. It's got a lot of coloration to it. It has a lot of natural openings to it because you can imagine the root starting to spread out. It's not solid wood, but also because it comes from the root, it has a lot of silica. There's sand, and there's actually rocks that are wedged in between there. It's really difficult on the tools, given that aspect of it. The wood itself, it's buckeye. It comes from California. Buckeye burl is from the root of the tree, as I said. It's a softer wood. In the work that I do, softer woods are a little bit more difficult to work with than the harder woods. It's difficult because it's soft, and then it's a challenge because it has a lot of sand and grit and things that are tough on your tools in there. Takes a long time, but the pieces come out wonderful. They're worth it at the end.

Little Thunder: What's the best compliment you've ever received for your work?

Hart: Oh, I don't know. I'll give that one some thought. I've certainly had some interesting comments on my work, too.

Little Thunder: Or maybe the most interesting comment? (Laughs)

Hart: I have a kind of funny little story. The second day of an art show, particularly an art show that's busy, you're just kind of worn out and you're sitting there. I remember a lady--I had a lot of redwood pieces on my table. A lady came by. She was looking at them, and she was really talking about them and touching them. She said, "These are beautiful pieces." "Thank you very much." As she was walking off, she said, "And I know redwood. I used to live in a redwood tree." She was walking off. I was so tired, I didn't know whether to call her back to hear the rest of that story or just let her go. I just kind of stood 30:00there, frozen, thinking, "Wow, now that's a story," but I missed out on it. I let her go. I was too tired to chase after her to hear the rest of that story.

You get into a lot of unique conversations with people. I think something that was fun for me one year, (it happened in Santa Fe) there was a couple from the East, from New York. They weren't even out there for the show at all. Didn't even know it was going on. They were coming out there to visit because they wanted to get married there. They were coming out ahead of time to see Santa Fe for their first time and plan their wedding. It just so happened that the art show was going on, Santa Fe Indian Market. They had been all over, looking at things for two days, but they loved my wood. They decided that's the gift that they're going to give each other for their wedding, and they bought a piece. I was happy to be a participant in that big event for them.

Little Thunder: That's a neat story. How much of your output is commissions?

Hart: My commission work is very low. Some of that is just because what I prefer to do is to make a piece of the wood that I have available, rather than to go out and search for wood that might be very specific to what they're looking for. One of the, I think, unique commission pieces that I have was commissioned by one of the former governors here in the state of Oklahoma. He wanted a matching set for their lake house, their lake cabin. I said, "Okay, I'll make you one." I did that, and when I was done, I thought, "Never again am I going to try to make two identical pieces." It sounds easy. It's not easy. He has the only matching 32:00set that I've ever done, two matching pieces. I hope he keeps them on opposite ends of the mantle because they really don't match 100 percent to be sitting next to each other.

Little Thunder: I was happy to see that you have kept a few bowls around, and you've explained how your daughters are able to keep your work, but I wondered how you are able to decide. Sometimes artists don't keep things. How do you decide what you're going to keep for yourself?

Hart: I wanted to keep some as my skills progressed over the years. I wanted to be able to have a variety of pieces from the beginning stages through now, so I'll try to keep about one piece a year to see what it looks like. Some of the pieces that I have here and have up on the shelf, I didn't intend to keep. As an example, I had one piece sitting out on a table. I cut it so thin, it's 33:00translucent. You can do that to this particular type of wood, but it makes it feather light. Just the slightest breeze came up and blew that off the table. When I heard it hit, I heard it crack, as well. I can't repair it, but I've kept that piece. It's on the bookshelf. There are several of them up there. They have the cracks to the back end so you can't see them. I really have tried to keep some pieces over the years just to see how my work has changed and how the styles have changed slightly, and even the forms have changed.

Little Thunder: That's a good idea. What would you say the evolution of the form has been?

Hart: I think I've refined it, in looking at it. I make the pieces that I feel 34:00look good. It doesn't mean that everybody agrees with me. I know some people don't. Some people will have a conversation with me. They'll say, "It would look better if you did this or did that to it." I said, "Yeah, but that takes it out of the style that I do," and I do what I like best. It's a way that I feel shows it off the best, so I stick with the style. I know some other artists that do woodworking. There are some that are very identifiable to their work because they are very consistent. I do admire that. I think there was time when I thought, "I wish they'd do something different," but as I got older, I thought, "I really admire someone who really sticks with a certain style and is very good at it."

Little Thunder: I hadn't thought about it, but there is something about wood that people might feel more free to, like, make suggestions of you should do this or that. They don't do that so much with a painter.

Hart: Right. Probably not, yes, but they do with woodturners. Then, of course, I get a lot of retired guys come by that say they have a wood lathe in their garage and they want to talk shop, so I'll sit there and talk shop for a while with them, too.

Little Thunder: Let's talk a little bit more about your process and techniques. Maybe for starters, what are a couple of your favorite woods to work with and why?

Hart: My favorite woods, it's not so much about the species of the wood but the character of the wood. I like working with burls because the burl is the part of the tree where it's a lot of swirling patterns to it. It's actually caused by a lot of, I guess, buds that are trying to grow from the inside of the tree out. On the outside of the tree, it just looks like this big knot on the side of the tree, but you pull the bark off and it has a lot of swirling pattern to it, 36:00interlocking pattern. That's the favorite type of wood. It comes in redwood; it comes in maple. You can find it in walnuts and elms, so a lot of trees will have the burl. That's a pattern that I like to turn.

Little Thunder: Are there woods that you are attracted to but you don't use because maybe they aren't so abundant?

Hart: I have turned some of the more exotic woods that are out on the marketplace and that you buy, but I tend not to do too much of those anymore. I experimented with them early on because I am conscious about the environment. If I don't know the source, that if it's come from a good source or not, if it's something that people have gone and clear cut, or if it's a renewable timber 37:00stand that they come from or not, if I don't know that, then I'm not going to purchase the wood. I do have a lot of unique woods that come from California, and they're redwoods, but I know that the sources of them are that this is trees that have been removed by construction projects. They had to come down because they're a hazard to the population in some way. I don't mind taking those woods and giving them new life and continued life.

Little Thunder: Right. So there are different ways that you source your wood. Some you buy, others you look for, yourself.

Hart: I do buy some blocks of wood in the retail marketplace. Generally what I like to do is be in contact with the sawmills throughout the United States. They'll know what I am looking for. I like to have tree sections shipped to me, 38:00and I cut them up, myself.

Little Thunder: A section would be how big?

Hart: Well, I just got a shipment in. A log was sent to me. A part of a log was sent to me from California. It was redwood. I counted the growth rings and consistently got close to 250 rings in there, so it's quite an old tree. It measured over thirty-six inches in diameter, and they sent me a twenty-inch section of it. It shipped in at over five hundred pounds, so it was a heavy block of wood. That's what I prefer to do is get the big pieces in. The other source is that I have a good ear for chainsaws, so as I'm driving the neighborhood, I hear a chainsaw going, I'm curious enough to drive by and see what's going on. I'll ask, and I'll pick up pieces of wood that way, as well. During an ice storm that we had, in a neighborhood there were a lot of trees 39:00that came down and falling across people's driveways. I took my chainsaw around and said, "I'll make a deal with you. I'll clear your driveway if I can have some of your wood." I picked up some wood that way, as well.

Little Thunder: That's neat. Can you take us through the process of preparing the wood for woodturning?

Hart: I start with, when I get a piece of wood in from whatever source it is, if it comes off of a tree, I take care to seal it up because the worst thing for wood is to dry too fast because it cracks. I seal the log up.

Little Thunder: With a sealer?

Hart: Yes. I have piles in the back that are waiting for their turn, and piles in the garage that are waiting to be turned. I start with a solid block of wood. It goes on the lathe as one solid piece, and I shape the outside of the piece first. Then when that's done, I go in and hollow out the inside. This is 40:00hackberry. This actually came from my backyard. Hackberry from my backyard. When I got this log, I sealed the ends of it up, and it trapped all the moisture on the inside. You see all these black patterns that are here. That is a very early stage of decay. That's caused by all the moisture that was trapped in the wood.

I know through experience now about how long it takes for hackberry to produce this. I have a lot of hackberry sitting out back. Pecan does the same thing. That's one way that I've encouraged the patterns to show up in this wood. It started as a solid block that's on a lathe this way. It's, of course, rotating, and I shape the outside first to get that outside profile. Then for the opening, 41:00I have different tools that are straight bars and some that are hooked. That's what allows me to go in through the opening and hollow out the inside.

All my pieces are very uniform in the thickness all the way through. That's just one of the characters of the pieces that I like to produce is that they're very light, they're thin, but they're uniform. I'm going to say that 80 percent of the time that I spend on a piece is all the interior work that you don't see. It's hollowing it out, and it's giving it that final refined thickness all the way through. I can rough-shape a piece in just a matter of an hour, but hollowing it out is going to take ten hours or more until it's finished. That's kind of the rough, the quick version of the process. Other pieces that I have my 42:00designs on, I'll just leave extra material and carve away to get that design.

Little Thunder: What's one of the best mistakes you ever made while you were woodturning?

Hart: I think my in-laws might appreciate one of the mistakes that I made. I was making a competition piece for one of the big shows, and it was one of the bigger pieces that I've made. I don't know if necessarily I was in a hurry, but I certainly wasn't paying as great attention to the detail as I should have. I pushed my tool too hard to the bottom, and it cut through, cut a hole in the bottom of the piece, which meant this is no longer a piece that can be entered in the competition. I filled the bottom of the hole up, finished it off, gave it 43:00as a gift to my in-laws. They have it in their house with the instructions not to let anybody pick it up and look at the bottom of it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's a great story. Since you seal your pieces, then, you're not like other wood sculptors might be. You're not having to let it cure for a certain amount of time, right?

Hart: Well, I do. I try to. There's a process, and so timewise I may pick up a fresh piece. If I turn and start a fresh piece today or this week, I would take it down and turn it about 90 percent. It'd still be about an inch thick all the way through. That piece is going to be sitting for a while and drying because I want the moisture content to come down and I want to help slow that and control it so it doesn't dry it too fast and crack. It's probably going to be in my shop for maybe a couple more months, drying. Then I can pick it up and finish it off.

Little Thunder: Right, and you've got the inside as well the outside to contend with. Okay. Do you feel like you're finding the shape that the wood already contains, or do you feel like there's something else going on?

Hart: If you look at my work, you can probably identify several different styles. It's either a taller vase, or something that's even smaller, more like a seed pot shape. The shape, again, is really defined by the wood and the character that I want to try to bring out in the wood. Some pieces, I know ahead of time, and it works. Other pieces, they can start out twelve inches diameter, and it's not working, not working. It's three inches in diameter by the time we're down to and get it finished.

Little Thunder: Then you've got the pattern.

Hart: Then you've got the piece. (Laughs) Most of the time, my pieces are just only slightly smaller in diameter than what I started with, but sometimes that doesn't work. You just can't get it.

Little Thunder: You mentioned in an article, I think, potters like to use your leftover wood chips.

Hart: Yes, I do a lot of things with my wood shavings. I just have them in the back in a compost pile. I'll take that out to my mom sometimes. There was a potter I was talking to at an art show, and he said, "I'd like to try some of your wood shavings when I fire my pots." I said, "Sure." I bag it up and call him every once in a while and say, "Got a couple bags. Come get them," and he does. He uses them. I don't throw anything away. I always try to either compost it or do something else with it.

Little Thunder: Clay was such an original inspiration. I wonder if you thought about any clay/wood pieces or collaborations.

Hart: Talked about that with other artists. Talked about collaborating with them, but we've just never executed that. It's an idea that we kick back and forth at art shows, I guess when we're bored and have nothing else to do. It hasn't happened yet, but it might.

Little Thunder: How do you finish your pieces, then?

Hart: Because I really like the natural character of the wood, I just use a natural oil. I don't change any coloration at all. I don't change the color of the wood. It's just an oil. ... It's a tung oil that I use, and it's a commercial product. I don't mix my own. What I use is actually made to be part of a two-step process, but I don't do the second step. I don't apply a heavy 47:00topcoat to my pieces. I just like the penetrating oils so that it really looks like the natural look of the wood. I oil them, both inside and out. They're sealed so that as they move to a different environment, any intake or release of moisture, it's going to be very slow and it's not going to harm the wood.

Little Thunder: Do you title your pieces?

Hart: I used to try. I don't anymore. I ran out of names. My creativity only goes so far, and coming up with names is not one of them.

Little Thunder: Do you have to title competition pieces?

Hart: Occasionally you do, and I just title it by the name of the wood. (Laughs) Redwood Number Twenty-Four. Redwood Twelve. I'm not very creative on naming. I used to try to be and really supported by a lot of the people in the neighborhood so they know I'm an artist. We used to have open houses before art shows. A lot of our friends have left the neighborhood now. They would come 48:00over, and I'd have a little game where I'd give them wine and say, "Help me pick out what my competition piece is going to be. Oh, yeah, it needs a name. You can help me come up with a name." That would just be the riot of the party. I don't think I ever used one of their names, though. We sure had fun in that process.

Little Thunder: That was a great idea. In terms of your signature, I read that you use the Morning Star symbol as your artist remarque?

Hart: What I do is I incorporate the Morning Star symbol into my some of my pieces that I do, and then I guess as a logo for Nathan Hart Studio I've incorporated that. I don't actually always sign my pieces with that. I just sign my pieces with my name.

Little Thunder: You want to go ahead and talk about the significance of the Morning Star symbol?

Hart: Yes, in the wood, one thing to think about is exactly how some people 49:00would describe it. They said, "Oh, that's nice. You have a square top on a round bowl. That's very unique." Yes, that is what it looks like at times, but it has deeper meaning than that. If you look at those particular pieces from the top down, it's a star design, the four-pointed star, which is a Morning Star design. A lot of the tribes have that, particularly in the Plains area, so our tribe has it, as well. To me, it's really about the renewal. It's the sign of a coming day, something that's new, that's renewed. It's fresh. It's continuance. That's why I incorporate that design into my pieces.

Also, that particular design, when you look at it from a lower level so it's 50:00really from the top down, you can see the Morning Star, but if it's a piece and it's up on the mantle and you're looking at it from the side, it looks like a mountain range. That's significant to me, as well, because our people come from the area that was once near the mountains, near the Rocky Mountains at a particular point in our history. It has dual meaning, depending on how you look at that, from what angle. I'm very happy with someone who just recognizes a square top on a round bowl, too. (Laughter)

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

Hart: The creative process is really about examining the piece of wood and looking for what that unique character in that wood is. Sometimes you can identify it right away, and sometimes you can't. I have pieces that I haven't 51:00started because I just can't figure out what's going to be the top, what's going to be the bottom, how's it going to be orientated, so they're still just sitting out there on the woodshop floor. Maybe one day I'll pick them up and will actually get something out of them. For the most part, it really is knowing what's going to be in the layers down below the bark, and as you cut into the piece, what that's going to look like. That's what I want to bring out: those natural characters, bring that out in a piece.

Little Thunder: What is your creative routine? Do you have one, in terms of working mornings or nights or during days?

Hart: I'm a morning worker. It's not out of the question in the summertime particularly for me to get up at two o'clock in the morning and go out and be out in the shop--producing by three o'clock. I don't mind. Three o'clock to six 52:00o'clock is a great time period for me. I can't stay up late, and there is a certain danger element to what I do. I'm working with power equipment. You certainly don't want to wear loose clothing or get caught up in the circular motion of the lathe that's going on. I'm a morning person, and I will get up early mornings.

If you ask one of my daughters, because one of my daughters has a very creative mind, she thinks it's just boring for me to get up and go out to the woodshop. She has this deal where she believes that I get up and make my coffee, sit on the deck, drink coffee with Bigfoot, and then I go. He comes to visit me. We chat, and then I go out to the shop and turn. It's always, "Did you see Bigfoot today? Did you have coffee with Bigfoot today?" "Oh, yes, I did." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: It's probably cooler out there in the morning.

Hart: Oh, it is. It's tough in the wintertime. My shop is heated, but it's not air conditioned. That's fine because I love to open up all the doors and turn with the natural breeze going through, hearing the sounds of the day. I'm good for about six hours. An eight-hour day on the lathe is really too long. Six good hours is what I can put in throughout a day. It's tough physically to work any longer than that.

Little Thunder: Right. What's a special project that you're excited about right now?

Hart: It just so happens that right now you and I are talking in the month of October, but coming up in the month of November is an anniversary date for 54:00something that happened very tragically to our people, to our tribe. That's Sand Creek. It's a massacre that happened to our people in the state of Colorado. This particular year, the Denver Art Museum and some other organizations and galleries want to hold an event sort of commemorating that. They've asked a number of Cheyenne artists to come in and be a part of a show, a symposium, and a lecture series. I get to be a part of that, and my work is going to be a part of that. I sort of explain in the article that was written, some of the pieces that I do resemble a matriarch figure.

If you look at it, it looks like the piece has a neckline and has a blanket or a shawl wrapped around it. To me, that represents the matriarch figure, an elder, 55:00a woman. I'm going to make those pieces also because it's recognizing older generations. I know in our tribe we had strong women leaders. We're recognized and known for our warriors and our chieftains, but we had strong women in our tribe, too. I'm going to make some of those pieces specific for that event that's coming up that, again, recognizes a very tragic event with our tribe, the Sand Creek Massacre. That's a project that's coming up in about a month, less than a month or so that I'm working on.

Little Thunder: That'll be neat. What do you consider to have been a kind of pivotal point in your art career, a sort of fork-in-the-road moment?

Hart: Well, there was a time when I was just doing this as a hobby, kind of for the love of wood, but made a decision one year to focus more time on it because 56:00two things: one, people were admiring my work, but I also wanted to get wood out in these shows that I go to because I don't see other wood artists that are there. I kind of wanted to be maybe a pioneer in that area and introduce wood to those marketplaces. There was a year early on when we were doing nine shows a year and a lot of travel and producing a lot of inventory. I guess a pivotal moment came when I decided to maybe scale it back and just focus on doing a couple of big shows, certainly have more inventory there. I found that it worked. I didn't have to do a large number of shows to sell my work, just 57:00concentrate on some of the bigger shows and good pieces, good quality work.

Little Thunder: When was that when you decided to really make that shift?

Hart: Probably around 2000. The first piece I turned was in 1989 and did a few small shows early on. In my career, the first time I got accepted to one of the big shows, Santa Fe Indian Market, was a good year for us. It was an interesting year because I was on the waiting list. We actually didn't know we were going until two weeks before.

Little Thunder: Oh my goodness. (Laughter)

Hart: We had some pieces in the works. We went out and set up, and it's been good ever since.

Little Thunder: And that was what year?

Hart: I don't even remember. We were trying to think of that. It was either 2000 or 2001, one of those two years.

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

Hart: I don't know if I've really had a highlight because everything seems to be 58:00just pretty steady and pretty consistent in what I do. I have been asked to do some special pieces and some pieces that are part of some special collections. There's some pieces in private collections, but there are some pieces in public collections, as well. Here in the state of Oklahoma, there were a number of us that were selected to put pieces in the new Judicial Center that's being built. To be a part of that just because the quality of the art that is there, it's good to be one of the artists that are there. Also because of the project, what it signifies is that there was actually a public project that really focused on incorporating a lot of art into the building itself. To pull that off, I think, was a major success. My hat's off to the people who were able to do that.

Little Thunder: Right. What's been one of the low points?

Hart: We've gone to some shows, you know, the economy--. When people scale back, they scale back on their purchases of art. We've had some shows that have just been very tough, didn't sell a thing. Had a lot of expenses and didn't sell. Roughing it through the tough years, the years of a tough economy, was tough as an artist but just kept plugging forward. What I did notice is that the collectors still bought. They just scaled their purchases back quite a bit. There was some people who were very loyal collectors who didn't even come to the shows because "We can't buy. We're not even going to be tempted to buy. Just can't do it." Then didn't go to the show. It wasn't so much about not having a 60:00sale to make but also not seeing good friends. They couldn't show up.

Little Thunder: Well, is there anything else you'd like to add or anything we forgot to talk about before we look at your work?

Hart: My work at some of the big shows that I go to is the only work of its kind, so in some respect I stepped out into a new arena with it. I do encourage people to look at new mediums to work with. I'd like to see more people working in wood out there. I hope that I can influence people to work into wood, specifically. Also, a little bit broader than that is I hope I can have influence on sparking people's creativity. They can look at something and hopefully they'll say, "Oh, I can do that," and then they'll go out and do it.

Little Thunder: All right, well, we're going to pause a minute and look at some of these pieces. -- Nathan, you want to tell us a little bit about this bowl?

Hart: This bowl, it's a eucalyptus, and it has kind of the pattern in it. If it was a maple, people would call it a Tiger Stripe maple. It was a unique piece. Really liked it. It belongs now to the collection of Sydney Hart because, as she usually does, she grabs one piece off the table before I go to the art show and says, "This is going to be mine." That one's hers, and it happens to be one of her favorites.

Little Thunder: How about this bowl?

Hart: This bowl, this wood is actually pecan. The top of it is the Morning Star design that I incorporate into some of the pieces. It's one that a lot of people at first glance will like it because it has the square opening on a round bowl. I think that's a great contrast, but it has deeper meaning than that. The design 62:00is actually that of a Morning Star, which to me represents resiliency, rebirth, the renewal. I incorporate that into these pieces because that's actually what I think these pieces are. There's a continuance about them. This could have been destined for a firewood pile, this piece of wood, but I saved it.

I turned it, and hopefully someone can give it long-lasting love in their household. That's the Morning Star design. From the side, if it's up high, like on the mantle or something, it looks like a mountain range. That also is significant to me as a Cheyenne person because I know that our people at one time lived near the Rocky Mountains, and they moved up and down the plains as part of their life. That's what this is, Morning Star, mountain range, part of 63:00my culture as a Cheyenne person.

Little Thunder: It's beautiful. Okay, how about this hackberry bowl?

Hart: This is a piece of hackberry. This is one of the pieces that I've selected to keep in my home. Comes from my backyard. It's actually a tree that we got cut down when the guys were coming through and cutting all the trees that were interfering with the highline wires, utility wires. They cut it; I saved it. The pattern that you see is called spalting and is actually very early stages of decay. What I did with this log is I sealed the ends up, trapped all the moisture inside, and this is about a year and half later, I started to turn it, and it has all that coloration that's in the piece. That's all natural and unique to this particular piece. Each spalted piece is going to have its own patterns.

Little Thunder: Right, right. How about these two pieces?

Hart: The tall vase is mesquite, and the smaller piece next to it is a eucalyptus piece. The eucalyptus in this particular piece comes from Australia. The carving around it is really meant to resemble a figure of a person that has a blanket draped around them. That's the design that I cut into that piece. The tall piece is mesquite, and it came from a ranch near the Rio Grande in Texas. There was a lady that came by my booth at one art show, and she said, "Have you ever turned mesquite?" I says, "I have. I just don't have very much of it." The next art show, she brought several large stumps for me to have, so this comes from her ranch along the Rio Grande.

Little Thunder: I'm going to reposition the camera real quick because you can 65:00really see the little lip that suggests the back of somebody's head. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Hart: How about this one?

Little Thunder: Oh, yes! We need to add that one. I forgot about that, our mixed media piece here. Tell us about this piece.

Hart: This is one of my mixed media pieces. It's wood and stainless steel. It was inspired by a lady who taught me to weave baskets at a young age. Her name was Mavis Doering, Cherokee basketmaker. She taught me how to weave, and she always said, "I'd like you to incorporate what I taught you into your woodturning." For the longest time I just didn't quite know how to accomplish that. It came to me one day to turn the top and the bottom of the piece out of 66:00wood, and then to weave in between them, so I make these bowskets. I had to come up with a new name, as well, so half bowl, half basket: a bowsket.

Little Thunder: I like that.

Hart: This is stainless steel and wood.

Little Thunder: The weaving with stainless steel, that can't have been easy.

Hart: You go through several gloves in weaving this, weaving the wire.

Little Thunder: All right. Well, thank you very much for what you shared today.

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