Oral history interview with Scott Roberts

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Thursday, May 28, and I'm interviewing Scott Roberts for the Oklahoma Native Artist Project, sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. Scott, you're a Creek tribal citizen. I understand you have some Choctaw heritage, too. You began doing traditional Woodland and Mississippian style pottery in 2005, but prior to that, you had been interested in anthropology and archaeology. You've won a number of awards for your hand built, pit-fired pottery and had several museums purchase your pots. You also make and sell other cultural items at times. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. Where were you born and where did you grow up?

S. Roberts: I was born in Wetumka, Oklahoma and grew up there. Wetumka means flowing water in Creek. That's where I did my high school and that's where I dig 1:00my clay is at Wetumka.

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

S. Roberts: He was in the oil field business. He was an oil field pumper, is what he did. I did some, too.

Little Thunder: How about your mom?

S. Roberts: Mom, she was just a homemaker.

Little Thunder: Did you have siblings?

S. Roberts: Got two boys. Our first little girl had spina bifida. She died at age three, but we have the two boys.

Little Thunder: I'm sorry. How about brothers or sisters going up?

S. Roberts: Had three sisters. One of those has passed, my oldest sister.

Little Thunder: What was your relationship with your grandparents on either side?

S. Roberts: My grandfather--I knew my grandmother. She was blind from cataracts. Then, my grandfather, he was a farmer. He passed before I was born, so I never knew him. On the other side, my grandmother, that's where I get my Native heritage.

Little Thunder: Is it the paternal or maternal side?

S. Roberts: On my--

Little Thunder: Your dad's side or your mom's side?

S. Roberts: It was on my dad's side. My dad's mother. Then, my granddad, I don't 3:00even like to talk about him. He was just no good. He mistreated my grandmother real bad.

Little Thunder: Your grandmother did share some stories with you and you were close to her?

S. Roberts: Oh yes, yes. She knew a lot of the Native ways in the way of making the lye and all of these things. She was a very Christian woman.

Little Thunder: Was she a speaker as well, Creek speaker?

S. Roberts: Yes, she could, but she wouldn't because she was taught not to speak the language in her boarding school. She was really mistreated in the boarding school. She just didn't like to even talk about it.

Little Thunder: That was down there in the same area, Wetumka area?

S. Roberts: Yes, it was a mission school. We knew it as Mission Bottom School. It was in the Wewoka Creek bottom, is where it was at, and at one time, was a large complex. It had gardens. They raised their own food. Had a butcher shop, had blacksmith shops. They had the hospital. Like I say, it was a large complex.

Little Thunder: Now, I don't know if I read correctly, sometimes it's not all accurate. Do you have some Choctaw heritage on your Creek side as well or not?

S. Roberts: Yes, it would have been on my Creek side.

Little Thunder: What kinds of exposure did you have to Native art growing up?

S. Roberts: Not much. I was always interested in it. I used to make little clay figures for my sisters and stuff. I didn't have anyone to teach me that they needed to be fired. I know my grandmother knew that, but she wouldn't share that with me at all. They'd put water in a little glass or tea pot and it'd fall apart. Then they'd get mad at me.

Little Thunder: What? Your sisters?

S. Roberts: My sisters. (Laughter) Later on, when I started my art, I used the same clay to make my art.

Little Thunder: From your family land?

S. Roberts: Never let something like that beat me.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) That's great. So from the very beginning, you were drawn to three-dimensional--

S. Roberts: I was drawn to the clay from the very beginning when I was just a child. I was working and messing with clay all the time.

Little Thunder: Did you get any compliments or support from your family from being interested in that?

S. Roberts: No, no. Not at all. I've always been interested in art. I had a boss when I was working in the oil business that wanted me to stay in the oil 7:00business. My dad, he had got really bad injured two or three times in the oil business and he didn't want me doing that, so I went to Okmulgee and trained to be a draftsman.

Little Thunder: Okmulgee Tech?

S. Roberts: Okmulgee Tech, then. Yes. I went through drafting and I was working at Midland Co-Op in Cushing where Jean's parents lived. It was a refinery and I was a pipe draftsman. That's when our daughter was born that had spina bifida. We moved to Oklahoma City. To get a job and get started in a hurry, I took up auto body technician. As soon as I got out of school, I was good enough in it 8:00that they hired me as a teacher for a while to teach bodywork.

Little Thunder: Here in Oklahoma City?

S. Roberts: That was the main reason I got into that, for the art part of it, more than just building cars. It became a good enough profession that that's what I spent my career as.

Little Thunder: What about--just going back to your art experiences in elementary school, are there any highlight memories or--

S. Roberts: Yeah, in the third grade, and I still have it, they had me do a complete thing of the birth of Christ. I believe I did it in chalk. I remember 9:00that was my first real experience. I did the wise men and Bethlehem. It went completely across--

Little Thunder: Like a mural?

S. Roberts: Uh-huh.

Little Thunder: On paper?

S. Roberts: That was the first art experience, but I've always enjoyed drawing and painting like that.

Little Thunder: You had access to more materials. Did you get any kind of base in middle school or high school in art?

S. Roberts: No, I had shop, woodshop. We took turns on checking out tools to the 10:00other kids. When it became my time, I couldn't work on my project, so I got in there and got me a wood file. I carved out a jet airplane and got in real bad trouble for doing that. I didn't do any more of that. I did that in one class with a wood rasp. Big chunk of wood.

Little Thunder: Got it finished and--

S. Roberts: Of course, it got taken away and done away with which I wish I had it now.

Little Thunder: Because that might have been a possible medium too? (Laughter) So working in the automotive business, did you have the opportunity to do painting and designs on the cars, or was it all repair work?

S. Roberts: I first started out teaching painting on the cars. Then, when I went, actually, to another shop I spent twenty-seven years at Bowen Oldsmobile. When I started, you learned how to shrink metal and all this, and fix the parts instead of replace them. That was the part that I really enjoyed and learned how to actually work metal, like metallurgy. You had to learn how to shrink metal and you made a fender look like the other side.

Little Thunder: Oh, so you're already doing a little bit of duplicating there in a sense?

S. Roberts: Yes.

Little Thunder: Were you doing drawing on the weekends, or when did you get into your pottery again?

S. Roberts: No, not at all. I was just hard at work making a living. Then when I got hurt, they made me retire. That's when I took up my art with pottery.

Little Thunder: When did that happen?

S. Roberts: Oh, I'm not sure. Seventy--

J. Roberts: Two thousand five.

S. Roberts: Seventy-five.

J. Roberts: Two thousand five.

S. Roberts: Two thousand five.

Little Thunder: This is Jean, Scott's wife, helping us remember.

S. Roberts: Yes, I can't--

Little Thunder: Two thousand five. Prior to that, however, you'd been involved with some archaeological associations?

S. Roberts: Yes, I had studied anthropology and archaeology since, oh, the early 13:00'70s, and I've always been interested in it.

Little Thunder: How did you happen to decide to join a group?

S. Roberts: I don't know. It was something that was always interesting to me. They would go on the digs and things like this. I really enjoyed that.

Little Thunder: Did you have an important moment where you encountered a piece of a pot?

S. Roberts: Yes, I still have a lot of shards that I've--

Little Thunder: You were mentioning that you have saved a lot of shards from pottery--

S. Roberts: Yes.

Little Thunder: What was it like running across your first pot in a dig?

S. Roberts: I have some right here. I've got lots of shards that we surface found. At the time we were in the Anthropology Association in the early '70s, we 14:00found new sites, and we registered the sites. They're registered at the survey down at OU [University of Oklahoma].

Little Thunder: Where were you working, what areas of Oklahoma?

S. Roberts: Oh, Lake Wister, Tenkiller, Buffalo River in Arkansas, and around my hometown around Wetumka. That was the main places. I didn't do anything out west hardly at all. Some down on the Washita River. Now they got so persnickety about even surface collecting, I just gave it up.

Little Thunder: Sometimes Native people have had trouble getting anthropologists 15:00to recognize that they have some cultural knowledge to bring to the process. What was your experience being in an association like that in the '70s? Were there certain attitudes and did those attitudes change?

S. Roberts: No, not really. That mainly came later. A lot of the artifacts that we found and all really had nothing to do with the people of today.

Little Thunder: People currently in Oklahoma?

S. Roberts: Older, most of it was older stuff. Like the Spiro Mounds, they're not even sure now that it was Caddo. The archaeologist, the state archeologist, 16:00says now that he can prove that all the artifacts in Spiro came from Cahokia.

Little Thunder: When did you start thinking, "I need to make pottery"? Was it just because you were no longer working?

S. Roberts: Just as a hobby. Just started. I was actually more interested in sculpture. I had some occasions to make some pieces and showed them.

Little Thunder: At art shows?

S. Roberts: In art shows, yeah.

Little Thunder: What material--

S. Roberts: Started winning right off the bat. Winning awards. Then it pretty well took over my life.

Little Thunder: What material were you working in at that point?

S. Roberts: Hand-dug clay.

Little Thunder: --for sculpture?

S. Roberts: Mostly hand-dug clay.

Little Thunder: Okay.

S. Roberts: That's why I've tried commercial clays. I've found one right now that I believe that I could use for sculptures. It turns out to be a white clay, which my blue, I call it my blue clay, if you get the pure stuff, it is white. I just use it for color. It's a small vein down east of Thlopthlocco Church. That's in Okfuskee County.

Little Thunder: Were you doing figurative sculpture then and what was the scale?

S. Roberts: Oh, yeah. I took a course with Glen Thomas down at the art center. 18:00That was the main thing.

Little Thunder: Were they Native figures that you were doing at first?

S. Roberts: The first was an animal figure. There was bust of a Native--. Then, some of my little rug rats knocked it off and broke it before it ever got fired. (Laughter) That's been my experience.

Little Thunder: You were also doing pit firing with your sculptures?

S. Roberts: Yes.

Little Thunder: Okay. Never have used an electric kiln?

S. Roberts: I didn't have a kiln then. I have a kiln now and it just has one coil working on it. When I do repairs on pottery for people, I use that. It'll come to a temperature that I can--I use that so I can control the temperature 19:00better to repair with.

Little Thunder: Right. What was your goal in producing pots, pottery? Was it always to reproduce ancient forms? Is that how it started?

S. Roberts: Yeah, mainly. I just do the ancient forms and bring them more to a fine art form is what I do. I have trouble with the traditional look because of my body experience, auto body experience. All I knew then was slick and I can't work myself away from that.

Little Thunder: You like the high gloss?

S. Roberts: I will have some pieces at Red Earth that I've tried more to get them to look more--but I highly burnish my pieces. It takes a long time to do 20:00the burnish work that I do.

Little Thunder: Did you take any pottery workshops before you started?

S. Roberts: No. Self-taught. My research on fiber tempering, I did all of it on my own. Then, I took, or it was a weekend workshop at Okmulgee? At the Council House with Crystal Hannah and Victoria Vasquez, that's when I first did more of the Native style pottery. From there, I was self-taught.

Little Thunder: Ballpark what year that you took the workshop?

S. Roberts: Oh, that would have been about twelve years ago. That would be.

Little Thunder: Okay, 2003.

S. Roberts: I haven't been in it really long like a lot of them.

Little Thunder: Yeah, you've gotten a lot of attention and quickly made a name for yourself. Where did you research your early designs?

S. Roberts: Oh, mainly from books and stuff that I've studied, which to potters Sun Circles and Human Hands is the Bible to most of the potters. I was a member of the Central Archaeology Association and still am right now. I don't go along with a lot of what they are doing, but a lot of my designs come from there that you don't see in museums, or books, or anything else.

Little Thunder: What are they doing that's--S. Roberts: They're digging graves.

Little Thunder: Oh--

S. Roberts: Yes, I'm very upset with that.

Little Thunder: Yes.

S. Roberts: They have found that they can go over in northeastern Arkansas, and pay farmers to lease their land. They just mine it.

Little Thunder: Oh my goodness.

S. Roberts: They pay them more than what they make on a crop. You go over there in airplane or aircraft, and it's pot holes just everywhere.

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: I really hate that. That's very sacred and the pieces that I do are mainly pieces that came from graves, utilitarian. You don't hardly ever see them hardly in shows, your sofkey pots and things like this, cooking pots. A lot of 23:00cooking pots have a cone shape. They didn't sit flat. They would actually set them down in the ground or propped up with the rocks. Then they'd move the coals up next to it, to get it boiling because it was a low-fired pottery. You would start it cooking, just like you would to fire a pot. The fiber tempering, what started me experimenting with that, it was in a Central Archaeology [Association] magazine. It was very clear that the side of the pot had blown out in the firing. They had made a paste and patched the paste with it and refired it. That was the first experience that I saw of one actually repaired.

Little Thunder: Using fiber for temper. What kind of fiber?

S. Roberts: I use cattail fluff. I never tried any other.

Little Thunder: Okay. Do you know if that was what was present in that repair of that early pot?

S. Roberts: I feel like it had to be. What cattail fluff will do, it binds like this to the clay. It'll actually go in the pores, if you scratch that a little bit. Then you use that paste and it won't shrink like straight clay or shell-tempered, either one. It doesn't shrink. That can even be burnished and 25:00even after it's burnished, then it can be fired and it just burns that away. Most of the time, you can't even tell it was--.That was part of my body experience, too. When I started doing bodywork, we made most of our tools, so I had to figure things out like that.

Little Thunder: Turned out to be the perfect background. Do you use that fiber temper in all of your pots now?

S. Roberts: No, not all of them. A real slick show pot, if I do use it, I put on a heavy slip that'll suck that slip right into that fiber. Then I can burnish that. You can even burnish the fiber temper and still come out with a nice slick pot. To me, it's something that, definitely, I think most of them used in their 26:00clays, even the shell-tempered. I still feel like that.

The oldest pottery found on this continent was on the Savannah River in Georgia on Stallings Island. You could clearly see that they were using palmetto and Spanish moss. It was a very thick pottery. The thing about the fiber tempering, they make what they call a new fiber-tempered clay that you can order, but it's paper. All it is, is toilet paper.

Little Thunder: How interesting.

S. Roberts: But it's a wood base, where mine's a vegetable base and I feel like 27:00it works better.

Little Thunder: They've only recently been making that, right? The commercial clay with paper?

S. Roberts: They call it new.

Little Thunder: Yeah.

S. Roberts: I told the lady over at the pottery store here in town, she was telling me about it. I said, "Well, they're about five thousand years too late." (Laughter) They already had that technology.

Little Thunder: Good for you.

S. Roberts: It was. Was about five thousand years.

Little Thunder: Five thousand years old. What is an early award that you won?

S. Roberts: I feel like I done some of my best work when I first started. I won some Best of Shows in Cherokee, North Carolina, Five Civilized Tribes.

Little Thunder: Now, was this with your sculpture or was this with pottery?

S. Roberts: That was with pottery. It was a black drink set that had the shell cups made into clay. Their first shell cups they made out of shell, they deteriorate. The clay cups that they interpreted into shell, they survive. They find more shell clay cups then they do the actual shell cups. That was the first major award. I won Best of Show in North Carolina.

Little Thunder: Was that your first time going out there as well?

S. Roberts: Yes that was the first time.

Little Thunder: What was that like?

S. Roberts: Oh, it was good. I really enjoyed it. I won, I think, four first 29:00place[s]. That is the first time I went. One of them was a monolithic axe that I carved out of stone.

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: I did some beadwork, too that won first place. I enjoy doing bead work, but you can't--pottery is the same way. You can't get what you need out of pottery, the work you put into it. When you start processing clay, if you kept your time doing that, there is no way they'd pay what you get into it. Some of the potters put that kind of price on them, but I don't feel like they get that. 30:00I feel embarrassed to even put that kind of price on them.

Little Thunder: How did you go about pricing your work because that is tricky?

S. Roberts: It's still tricky for me. That pot behind you there. I've got so much time in that. It looks very simple, but that's one of the hardest pieces I've ever done.

Little Thunder: What made it so hard?

S. Roberts: The carving. Then I've done--a Dr. [J.W. "Bill"] Wiggins has it--it's the spider that was up on top of it.

Little Thunder: Yes, I saw that online. It was beautiful.

S. Roberts: He had four of my pieces being showed at the Crystal Bridge[s] Gallery in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's been probably six months or so. I think 31:00the show's over now. That's my biggest awards is just people liking my work.

Little Thunder: One piece that I really liked that I saw online is the turtle that comes apart, so the shell--

S. Roberts: Oh, yes.

Little Thunder: --which reminded me of traditional stories about the turtle before he got his shell.

S. Roberts: That represents, in fact that's what I call it. It's their means of getting to Oklahoma, the Little People. (Laughter) They had a real slow journey.

Little Thunder: That's great.

S. Roberts: It never did enter really good in shows.

Little Thunder: Is it a piece you ended up keeping or--

S. Roberts: No, Eli Grayson in Tulsa, he ended up buying that. I'm really glad 32:00it went to him, too. He really appreciates things like that.

Little Thunder: Yes. How many shows do you typically do a year?

S. Roberts: Oh, I don't know. I used to do Heard Museum [Phoenix, Arizona]. I won't go there, anymore. Santa Fe Market, I probably won't ever go back there.

Little Thunder: Is that because of the inventory you have to have?

S. Roberts: It's just such a hard trip, and yeah, the inventory. You have to supply your own tables. They provide no security. You have to set up every morning before people come in, or if you leave it at night, it's unsecured, so 33:00you have to pack everything up. Santa Fe, especially, it's just not artist-friendly.

Little Thunder: Hard on potters, anyway, jewelers--

S. Roberts: It's really hard on potters and sculptors.

Little Thunder: Other people have it easier.

S. Roberts: People like this, jewelers and people that make pipes and things, it's not so bad.

Little Thunder: Right. What's been one of the most interesting or exciting shows you've gone to?

S. Roberts: Oh, probably Heard Museum and Santa Fe Market--

Little Thunder: The first time.

S. Roberts: --and North Carolina. Catoosa [Oklahoma] is always really good. The Cherokee [Art Market] show, I enjoy doing that.

Little Thunder: Have you won an award at that show?

S. Roberts: Yes, I've won quite a few first place awards there.

Little Thunder: That's terrific.

S. Roberts: Probably the best piece that I feel like I've done is, there's one in the White House.

Little Thunder: Oh, great.

S. Roberts: Then--

Little Thunder: Along with Jerry Redcorn's pot, you have a pot that's in the Oval Office.

S. Roberts: Museum of the Red River [Idabel, Oklahoma], they have two of my pieces. Dr. Wiggins has some of my pieces. I have one in the Supreme Court here in Oklahoma City. Just places like this mainly. Most of my pieces, usually, I have some of my regular people that collect my art. There was a lady at Maryland 35:00that just kept a running tab with me for a long time. I just let her pay them out and I'd never met her before.

Little Thunder: That's great.

S. Roberts: Finally met her when I was at Washington at the Smithsonian.

Little Thunder: Oh, so you went up for one of the Creek Cultural Festivals?

S. Roberts: Yes.

Little Thunder: Do you remember what year that was?

S. Roberts: No, I'm not sure. It was about three years ago, I think.

Little Thunder: Okay. What was that experience like?

S. Roberts: Oh, it was really good. I was kind of disappointed in the actual museum there at the Capitol grounds.

Little Thunder: Why is that?

S. Roberts: The way they had it displayed and all.

Little Thunder: Not a lot of things on view.

S. Roberts: No, and the way they had them on view, I don't know, I just didn't appreciate it very well. I've done Moundville, [Georgia]. That was one of my real memorable experiences is artists there, giving demos and lectures. I was doing one on finish work.

Little Thunder: On how to finish a pot?

S. Roberts: How to finish a pot. We had one lady there that was, Tammy Beane, she's been doing restoration work for museums for a long time. She was doing some firing. I was demoing. Jane Osti, she was demoing. Then we gave, like I 37:00say, lectures on some of our techniques and how we finished pieces. I really enjoyed that. Everything was just very relaxed--

Little Thunder: Really a great group.

S. Roberts: Just really a campout as much as anything.

Little Thunder: Great group of artists.

S. Roberts: Yes, some of the best was there. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Have you gotten any requests to do reproduction work for museums?

S. Roberts: Not from museums. Yes, the Chickasaw Cultur[al] Center. They commissioned me to do one stone piece, and then I have three pots in there. If you ask to see them, they'll say it's all Chickasaw work. I was commissioned to 38:00do three pots in the Mississippian style.

Little Thunder: Replicate.

S. Roberts: That's--

Little Thunder: How much of your work is commission work?

S. Roberts: Oh, I get quite a few commissions off the Internet. I just sent one. A woman in California wanted a wedding vase (my own special design with the open heart in the center). She wanted that for her daughter and had already bought one off of me before. Her son saw one of my fire pots and he wanted one of those. I built that, sent it here, lately. Then, the lady in Maryland, I've done 39:00quite a few for her. Just people like that, that want a special piece. She even had a Peruvian piece. It got broken and she wanted another one built like it.

Little Thunder: Okay.

S. Roberts: So I built that for her.

Little Thunder: It's a little bit different from a painter who might have somebody suggest a subject, because you're actually duplicating maybe a form that you've done before. Do you try each time to do something different?

S. Roberts: They're always different because they're hand built, but I had one occasion at Heard Museum when I first went out there. A lady came by, and looked 40:00at my work. Didn't stay very long. Came back right at the end of the show and wanted a certain water bottle that I had there. A lady just bought it and I was packing it up for her. That about half made her mad. I told her I can reproduce another one, but it won't be just like that. I can get it close, so she went ahead and ordered it. I think she was from North Carolina or somewhere like that. Anyway, when I was doing it, I really did my best to satisfy her. It came out better than the one she was wanting. (Laughter) I like to do pieces like that and really satisfy them.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: I've had occasions of--some of the people I know, he bought one off of a lady and his wife decided to wash it off after a year or so, and it melted in her hands. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: My goodness.

S. Roberts: That's when I started guaranteeing my pieces. I've learned how to even repair pieces that people have had broken. I just tell them if I can't fix it, then I'll just make you a new one. That's how I stand behind my work.

Little Thunder: That's a pretty good deal.

S. Roberts: There's a lady in Washington, at the Smithsonian, she bought one off 42:00of me, and her cleaning lady knocked it off and broke it. She called me and asked me about it. I said, "Send it to me and if I can't fix it, I'll make another one." She sent it and I was able to repair it. She wanted the same pot. You couldn't tell it's ever been broken.

Little Thunder: That's good. How often do you end up having to repair a pot?

S. Roberts: Not very often.

Little Thunder: Thank goodness.

S. Roberts: I've had to repair a couple of my communication whistles, where they wear them around their neck, and they've broken a leg off or something. It's hard for me to guarantee those (they're so fragile), but I still do it. I still guarantee them. Those are the only ones. Most of them were just accidents that 43:00people have--Dr. Wiggins had two of Victoria Vasquez's pieces. He had somebody break in his house. They weren't even looking at getting his art. They were after TVs and stuff and knocked off two of hers. They were in bad shape, but I was able to repair those and put them back even nearly to the same color.

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: He's another one that can vouch for me. Then, Victoria herself blew the side out of one. When I got done with it, you could not find where it had ever been broken.

Little Thunder: That metal--

S. Roberts: I can do those things. I'm the only one that I know that guarantees their pottery.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: I don't know of anyone. I did a show in Natchitoches, Louisiana. 44:00There was Choctaw girl there that sold a piece to a lady. She put it in a Walmart sack and she turned around to walk away and the bottom fell out and hit the floor. "It's yours." That's the way--I can't do that. I would've let her pick out another pot or I'd have made her another one. I just can't do that. That's the way that I was raised.

Little Thunder: When did you do your first effigy piece?

S. Roberts: Oh, it was one of my first--I've done two big effigies of a kneeling 45:00female. I gave one to the court in Okmulgee, that Supreme Court Building down there. The judge down there, he supported me a lot, so I just gave that to him. I made a salt pan for him, too. I gave that to him. Then, the other piece, a lady from Missouri came down especially to buy it. She saw it on a website. When she came in to get it, her mother was a girl that I went to high school with, graduated from high school with. We didn't even know that.

Little Thunder: That's funny.

S. Roberts: I have one that it's a little man sitting with his hands crossed on his knees. I have it packed away. I'll probably have it at Red Earth. I've done two of those.

Little Thunder: How about head pots? Were they something you got into later?

S. Roberts: I did. I've done quite a few head pots. One of them was on display at the Crystal Bridge[s] Gallery, a Dr. Wiggins piece. It was one of my better pieces. I would call it very contemporary. It was solid red, which I call old 47:00town red. It was really a nice piece.

Little Thunder: What's your favorite format in terms of pottery or ceramics?

S. Roberts: Favorite form?

Little Thunder: Yeah, favorite thing to make.

S. Roberts: Probably bottles.

Little Thunder: Bottles.

S. Roberts: Bottles, probably, or jars like I got in there.

Little Thunder: Why?

S. Roberts: The bottles just have such a better form and shape to them. Then, I like to do the highly carved--

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: --which takes lots of time and you never get you price for what you put into one, but that's why I enjoy doing.

Little Thunder: I understand that Creek Nation has asked you to do a couple of pottery workshops in June?

S. Roberts: Yes.

Little Thunder: Are these the first workshops you've taught?

S. Roberts: No, I've done two or three for the Chickasaws.

Little Thunder: Okay.

S. Roberts: I don't know. There've been quite a few I've done. I enjoy doing those. They just don't give you enough time, though. I like to teach from the ground up. Finding the clay, processing the clay, and let them really see what's involved in making a piece before you come to the final form. This is the part I like to do, is really showing people that you don't just go buy some clay and make a piece like what I do. I know a lot of them use commercial clay, and I 49:00don't care. Clay is clay to me. They do put some things in clay you buy that I don't even like to breathe the stuff. They put barium and things like this in it that I don't like to use.

Little Thunder: Goodness.

S. Roberts: A lot of the potters, they use, I call it swamp clay where it's been settled out and dried out. It'll curl up. This is runoff from fields with the herbicides, the insecticides and stuff that's in the clay that I don't like to handle. I like a real good deep clay that's not going to have that much stuff in it, which I'm sure that they do have some, as much as we have anymore, but I like a deep clay. Then you know you've got a good clay with not a lot of foreign 50:00matter in it, too. The settled out clay is good clay, I'm not knocking it. I just don't like to use it because of those things. Breathing it and everything. You've got a lot of dust involved. Just rubbing an unfired pot, you've got dust stirring up. I just don't like to breathe it.

Little Thunder: You're in the process of moving your home and studio, I guess, from Oklahoma City to Cushing?

S. Roberts: Yes, it looks like I'm going to have to do that. I just can't fire here in the city anymore. I was firing in the backyard one day and I warned my neighbors. I went back out there, and I couldn't even see my neighbor's backyard 51:00for the smoke. I still do some back there, but it's so hard to do in the open and all, so I'm going to move to one of the steel sheds down there. It'll have an open front on it. I'll have a sliding door over it where I can secure it well, but I'm going to start trying to do all my firing down there. The weather we have at the time you want to do it--the weather's always so bad that you just can't do that. It's just hard to do.

Little Thunder: Potters, you are even more subject to the weather than--

S. Roberts: Yeah.

Little Thunder: --a lot of other artists.

S. Roberts: Even though, some of them still fire in a kiln or double fire, I 52:00don't care. That doesn't bother me.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: It's harder to do. You have lots of failures--

Little Thunder: And you--

S. Roberts: --when you're doing pit firing.

Little Thunder: Right. You did find some clay, I guess, down in Cushing?

S. Roberts: Oh yes.

Little Thunder: (Laughter) You want to tell us--

S. Roberts: I've found a new bed of clay on our farm in Cushing. I've made one little pinch pot just to see how it worked. Always, I don't just roll it out (a piece) and fire it in a kiln, to see if it's going to work or even put it in a pit. I figure if I'm going to be messing with it, I might as well be making something with it, but I love the color of it and everything after it's fired. I think it's going to be a really good clay to work with.

Little Thunder: That's funny.

S. Roberts: I just like to dig my clay from where I came from, which I will still be using some of that. But I am going to concentrate on the farm more for my clay and I really think it's going to be really good. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: That's exciting. You've told us a little bit about your technical process, but let's talk about your design work. Have you created your own materials for incising and crosshatching and--

S. Roberts: Yes. My design, like that piece right there, it's a traditional design, but in a different manner of putting it on the pot. I try to have 54:00something different on my table all the time. To do reproduction work on a wheel or something--I'm not knocking a wheel--that's an art all of its own. Those people that do that, that just amazes me. I even took a course at the art center to do that. I didn't have any failures, but boy, it's not for me. It's nastier. You waste more of your clay and I can't be wasting my clay. (Laughs) When I do that processing my own clay, I don't like to waste any of it. I save the dust off of it. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What about firing materials? Do you experiment with different firing materials?

S. Roberts: Yes, I was getting a real good color that looked just nearly like bronze, it was a chocolate brown. I was using box elder leaves from my backyard. I've had to take it out now. I still believe I can do it with like elm leaves or something and not fire it as hot.

Little Thunder: Neat, and--

S. Roberts: That's the hardest--

Little Thunder: --were the leaves green or were they--

S. Roberts: Huh?

Little Thunder: Were the leaves green or were they dried?

S. Roberts: Dried. Always dried. Yeah. I've never used--

Little Thunder: I guess they won't fire--

S. Roberts: I've never used green.

Little Thunder: Okay.

S. Roberts: If you use green, or like--I like to use pine bark to get my good 56:00blacks, but I don't like for it to touch my piece, so I take either a piece that I special make to put over the piece and then fire it underneath the piece. It's already in reduction, see. This is another thing. I don't know if anyone else does that or not, but I just put my combustible around the pot, put the other one on top. Then I start just a slow fire and build it up where I can build a real hot fire. Then the piece that you built, if it cracks--I've wired them together and everything until I wear them out. Mata Ortiz, I think they do a firing kind of like that.

Even down some of the sites in the Southeast, they've actually found beehive kilns on some of the sites that I'm sure they've probably learned from the Europeans or something that they actually found. I've been told by some of my elders, they would make, they called it a key hole kiln. You would dig back in a creek bank and then hollow it out, out in the middle. Then they would cover that with a big rock and earth. They'd have a ventilation out the back and they'd build a fire in the opening of the kiln. I know my Creek ancestors did that. I 58:00found that out from some of the actual elders that remember how they did it.

Little Thunder: That might be fun to try on the farm.

S. Roberts: I've never tried it, but I do have a good place I could try it. I know you would have to build a really hot fire to get it to do that and really fire them good. That's another thing. I really get my pots hot. I mean, I build a real fire on them. That's like down at the festival I did down at Moundville. Tammy was out, Tammy Beane was out firing the pots while I was demonstrating. They was out there, heaping them up and everything and she'd come and asked me 59:00if I had a piece that I wanted to fire. I said, "Well, yeah, I've got a piece here." I had it in one of these metal cookie cans. It was a plate. They're usually really bad about cracking. I just told her, I said, "I usually fire them." I told her, I said, "Go ahead and fire everybody else's and have mine firing, too, but when you get through with the firing," I said, "build a real fire on top of mine. I mean get it hot." Little bit, here she came. She said, "Oh Scott, I've heard some pinging and stuff." She said, "I know I've broken that pot." I said, "That's fine. I told you to do that." I looked over there and 60:00she had a bonfire on it. (Laughter) Anyway, when it cooled down a little bit, I just drug it out with a stick and pulled the lid off of it and had the most beautiful black plate you ever saw.

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: It just blew their minds. But I had some newspapers there. I just wadded them up and stuck them in there with it. I had it packed in that. I just let them use the packing. It was--it was a beautiful black plate.

Little Thunder: That's great.

S. Roberts: They couldn't believe it.

Little Thunder: (Laughs) Do you draw out your designs before you work on the pots or do you just go to work?

S. Roberts: No, I do everything after it's dry. No one else I know does that. I 61:00do my designs; I carve them, everything dry. Then I burnish them dry.

Little Thunder: Do you have a pencil outline on the clay or not?

S. Roberts: Some I do, yeah. I'll figure out--I've made some just circles out of poster board and mark your four points. The Creeks did everything in the four cardinal directions. Then I sit that down and mark those spots to give me a rough idea of where to start from. I'll just start from there. When you've got the lines close, I just guess at everything. I start--I'll make it about a quarter of an inch from the other--and start doing the circles.

Little Thunder: How do you title your pieces?

S. Roberts: Title them?

Little Thunder: Do you title pieces?

S. Roberts: That's as hard to me as pricing. Yes, they're hard to title. The one head pot, I think Dr. Wiggins got it. It was Fallen Warrior. Then, I'll do things that represent the different clans and I'll call it that.

Little Thunder: We'll look for your signature when we look at your pieces, but was that, how did you come up with your--

S. Roberts: Your hand and eye--

Little Thunder: Okay. Is that what you use on these?

S. Roberts: Yes. That's a very universal design.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: That's found all over the world. Like in Israel, it's the evil eye. My rendition of it, it's the hand of our Father, watching over humanity.

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

S. Roberts: [Un]til you actually create--

Little Thunder: To start something? Do you keep a notebook? Do you--

S. Roberts: No. Mainly, I will start a piece, maybe I see in a book and then I just let the pot build itself. It will just built itself once you start. That's usually when I come up with my better pieces.

Little Thunder: Will you have the book close to you or is this a mental image?

S. Roberts: Mostly a mental image, so it won't be exactly like that is the way I usually do it.

Little Thunder: How about your creative routine? Do you work in the morning or 64:00at night or--

S. Roberts: Oh, whenever I can. I get some of my best ideas when I'm trying to go to sleep at night. I have very bad sleep apnea.

Little Thunder: Do you sometimes end up working then?

S. Roberts: I get up and I'll draw out a design that I come up with. That's how I came up with the spider design. I had to get up, draw this out. Instead of having it drawn on the pot, I actually did a spider on the pot. It's a very hard process when you make those legs, to fire that and them not shrink and not crack.

Little Thunder: The proportions--

S. Roberts: I've only successfully done two.

Little Thunder: Are they both spider pots?

S. Roberts: Huh?

Little Thunder: Were they both spiders that you did?

S. Roberts: Yes, both of them.

Little Thunder: Yeah, that is online--

S. Roberts: Then I did the one of the turtle and the little man sitting on it with the lid.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: Yeah.

Little Thunder: Looking back you your career so far as a professional artist, what was one fork in the road moment when you could have gone one way and you chose to go another?

S. Roberts: Oh, when I was actually wanting to do sculptures. That's why I like to do an effigy and I call my pots, sculpted pots. They're not thrown on a wheel, they're handmade. I do a completely different style of coiling than anyone else. I call it tuck and roll--

Little Thunder: Okay.

S. Roberts: --where I roll up the coil down inside the pot, and as I do that, I roll it under. I hold my coil here and I take my thumb and the clay on the side becomes the rim. As you do that, you're constantly wedging the clay, see. You have no seams to deal with when you get through. Where you stack your coils, you always have a tendency of it cracking in one of those seams. This way, you constantly--you're wedging that. I found out later from the lady that does my website, she saw a thing where they were doing a version of what I do. It was, 67:00they say, the oldest style of coiling known to man. It's called Asian Wedge Coiling.

Little Thunder: You had just come up with this on your own, through experimentation.

S. Roberts: Yes, yes. Where you come at the end of the coil, you don't have to score that and slip it. I just tuck another one there and keep right on coiling. When I really want to get with one, I can throw it up nearly as fast as you can on a wheel. It's just things that I came up with. You can take and do a pot like that. I show them demos. I'll take a wire cutter and cut it in two and use two different styles of clay, two different colors of clay. You can see where the 68:00inside coil actually works to the outside when you are doing that. You won't find any bubbles in my coiling because I'm constantly wedging the clay.

Little Thunder: Right. That's really neat.

S. Roberts: Then, my finishing I do it dry because I leave no burnish marks in the clay. If you do it when it's leather hard, you always have some of those burnish marks in it, where I take it and I put an oil on it after it's dry. Then I'll just dampen that spot. You're just damping the surface. You're just burnishing the surface of the pot by doing that.

Little Thunder: Wow, what's been one of the high points of your career? You might have mentioned it, but--

S. Roberts: Oh, mainly being able to sell a piece to a person that I know will really appreciate what I've done. I had a young boy, he was about eighteen years old. He came to my booth and I could tell he was serious. He wanted to know why they were so high. I started explaining to him the process. I went through the complete process, how I process the clay all the way up to finishing the piece. 70:00When I got through, he looked at me and he said, "You're too cheap." He was really serious. He wanted to know the technique.

Little Thunder: He understood.

S. Roberts: That's my high points. Then when I had a group that was at Red Earth one year. It was a blind group from Tulsa that came in. Most of the other people was just scared to death, they was going to touch their pieces. When they come to mine, I handed them to them. They could tell you everything about that pot when they got through with it. They just stayed and stayed. I had to explain the whole--my high point is teaching people about the art and the history of the 71:00tribe. I spent 90 percent of my time, teaching people. That's my high points is when I can explain to them the history of our tribe. That's really the main thing. That's my high point.

Little Thunder: How about a low point?

S. Roberts: The failures. When you work two weeks or so on a piece, and you crack it in the firing. That was one of the main reasons I started on figuring how to repair. Now, I won't repair a piece and put it out for sale as a new piece. I'll tell them about it and if they want it then, that's fine. I've had 72:00four pieces at the Jewish Museum in Tulsa that they had a long time. I got over there and they had already packed my stuff. I un-wrapped them this morning. They had chipped the rim on one of them. That's just something you have to deal with. It's not bad enough that-- I'll just fix that little spot and it's good as new. I probably won't even add any clay to it.

Little Thunder: It'll take time. Is there anything we've forgotten to cover or you'd like to add before we look at your pots?

S. Roberts: No, it's just I hate to do all the research that I've done and then 73:00show someone (they just pick your brain and pick your brain) show them the technique and they'll get up in a demo and claim they've been doing that for ten thousand years. It's always ten thousand years. There's some of it, if I can't find a Creek artist that's interested, I'll take it to my grave from now on. I don't like that, when they won't give you the benefit of the doubt and me the research. The experimenting and everything I did to get to that point, especially my repair work. I don't tell them everything.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: That was one, but they're doing that every day. They'll get up in 74:00their demo and say they've been doing that forever. They might have, but they still don't have all of my secrets to it.

Little Thunder: Right, right.

S. Roberts: That's one of those things I think they can try it and it's not going to work.

Little Thunder: It'd be nice to have a young Creek person who you could pass that on to.

S. Roberts: It's hard to find any in the Creek tribe that's really interested. I don't know why. It's mostly elderly people.

Little Thunder: That come to the workshops? They're older people that come?

S. Roberts: That come to the workshops, yeah.

Little Thunder: We've got to change that. We'll pause for a minute and take a look at your work.

S. Roberts: Okay.

Little Thunder: Okay. You want to tell us about this pot?

S. Roberts: These were mainly found in Northeastern Arkansas. They were of a 75:00Quapaw design. They're the ones that done most of these. There has been others found, other places, different designs, but this is from a piece that I have seen, only I did it in a contemporary look.

Little Thunder: You're talking about the way the face is painted?

S. Roberts: Yes, the way the face is changed. Most of them will have the teeth showing here. They call it the death grin. I took that out of this one. This would have represented tattooing on the face and you found a lot of that with the Native tribes. They tattooed. They all nearly have this suspension hole 76:00here. A lot of them, they'll put up, oh, a piece of horse hair or something out of it. I think it was mainly for suspension. A lot of them say that they built one of these to represent their micco or chief, which I don't believe that. I believe it was to represent a trophy that they took in battle. They honored the people that they took in battle for that purpose. They're usually always found with a grave. They'll always nearly have the holes in the ears. They would have probably put some kind of decorative thing in that. This would actually be a 77:00shell piece that would go in the ear. A lot of them would have the shell stem coming out the back on both sides and then it would tie in the back. They'd put a hole through that shell and that's how they held it in.

Little Thunder: Oh, okay.

S. Roberts: Then most of them had the red hair. I don't know the significance. I've done a lot of research on the black paint, and I can't even find from archaeologists how they got the red, blacks, and whites. They say, "Oh, it was from a resist. I've tried all kinds of resists and I can't make it work. But I have found out that you can use--boil black locust sap and use that sap and 78:00about any kind of a of syrup, and that'd be a post firing where you just put it up like you're warming it to fire it. You scorch it in like you scorch a pan. This is the only way that I have been able to do it--

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: --in a post firing. If anyone knows, I'd like to know it. Colors is something I have always been interested in too.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: Key Marco, Florida, they have the wooden deer. I've done one to represent it, but I've used commercial colors on it. Since then, I have found how they made their blue. It's from a tree. It's a mulberry, not mulberry like 79:00ours, mulberry mixed with ground shell and the ground shell turns it blue.

Little Thunder: Wow.

S. Roberts: This is some of my research that other people don't do. Their fixative, it's the strangler fig in Florida. They've researched it, they've analyzed it. It's a natural latex. It's just like the rubber tree in South America.

Little Thunder: That makes sense.

S. Roberts: That's their fixative they would use on their pieces. Most of those, when they dug them up out of bogs, they just deteriorated immediately. They did some beautiful, beautiful masks and things like this out of wood. Most of our 80:00tribes had a totem at their village to represent their clan. Like it'd be a fish, or guar clan, they would have a carved fish. The eagle was very highly represented in our tribe and they would do a figure of an eagle. This is just some of the stuff that I've learned from my studying the history.

Little Thunder: Right. Okay, how about this piece Scott?

S. Roberts: Okay, it would actually represent in our tribe, the Wind Clan. It's your circling of the wind in the four cardinal directions. If you'll look on nearly all my pots, you've also got the four cardinal directions. The actual 81:00deep-carved area here for that design, I got my idea from the Southwest potters. This would be a very contemporary version of our style. This is my own design, in other words.

Little Thunder: It's just beautiful.

S. Roberts: I will probably call it a paraphernalia pot. Something like that, that they would keep some of their sacred stuff in, or even mix maybe the black drink in it, something like that. I had. That's another one, Eli [Grayson] got one that, it was Echoes of the Past. You could actually get here and you can see 82:00it and you can hear the echo in it.

Little Thunder: Great idea.

S. Roberts: I really like my design, but it was a very hard piece to--

Little Thunder: Yeah.

S. Roberts: -- to carve and get everything symmetrical. I like to take a piece and look down from the top and see how symmetrical I got it.

Little Thunder: Wow. Yes, yes. Amazing.

S. Roberts: You can usually tell. Also, I'll have my four cardinal directions here, right here and in all my designs. That's how our tribe built their sacred fire. They would build it in a cross and they would feed the logs in from the outside.

Little Thunder: I will keep my fingers crossed for you at this one at Red Earth. This is beautiful. What can you tell us about this pot?

S. Roberts: It represents a medicine bottle. This represents your medicine 83:00blossom around here. You also have your sun circle here with your sunburst looking down on top of it, and then you have your serpent design here.

Little Thunder: Right. Beautiful.

S. Roberts: I must have seen this on one of our brochures or something. The boy that does the tourism, he said that was close to what their design is. I don't know if I'd seen it and got it in my head. It's my own carving that I just came up with.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: To represent the medicine blossom and all.

Little Thunder: Your signature is on there? You want to show us--

S. Roberts: Let me see if it's on there where you can see it. It's on there, but 84:00it's very hard to see.

Little Thunder: Okay. We may choose another pot to take a look at it.

S. Roberts: They're usually hard to see. It may be better on this one.

Little Thunder: All right. How about this?

S. Roberts: This would also represent the Wind clan--

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: --in our tribe. This is actually a Caddoan design, but it has the same--I don't know if they have the same meaning--but this is what ours is. It's your four cardinal directions, representing the wind. Even here, you got your four cardinal directions.

Little Thunder: Just a brilliant burnish on that too. Neat. Okay, we can get another.

S. Roberts: What I actually do is late Woodland, early Mississippian culture. I don't call them Creek, Cherokee, Caddo, it's just Mississippian culture is what I do or Mound Builders. The Creeks were definitely very deep into the Mound Building and at one time, was the largest tribe in the Southeast. Your Choctaws, your Chickasaws, your Seminoles, and Creek all speak the dialect of the Muskogean Language. The Cherokees speak the Iroquoian dialect, a variation of it. They have their own, but it's a variation of Iroquoian. This piece also represents the four cardinal directions. I haven't really explained anything 86:00about the red. Red in our tribe means war. White represents peace. We had a peace culture and a war culture. They both worked together, had their festivals together, but they decided on war and peace. In fact, somebody that had committed murder could come to a peace clan, the White clan, and could stay there until they were sure-- Then they were put off on their own to do-- whoever, do what they wanted to with them. You could seek refuge in a white clan. I think they even helped decide.

Little Thunder: Okay, and finally you were going to tell us about this piece.

S. Roberts: This is what they called a fire pot. That's how they transferred their fires from one dwelling to another. They'd always put out the flame at the Busk, which was usually around July. They would put out their fire. They would even burn or do away with their old clothing, everything was to be new. They say, even some of the later versions, some of the Creek people would actually say like their vows to be with each other for another year. They would get their coal of fire and carry it to their new dwelling. A lot of them would do this 88:00every year. A lot of your grounds people, said, "No they don't do that. They just did it for transferring fire." But I was told this, so I don't know for sure. I know some of the later model ones, they use this. (Laughter) Even on hunting trips, you could put some ashes in the bottom of this and put a coal of fire in this. You could cover that, bank it with some more ashes. They had one, they put leather thongs right here on both sides. They carried that, and they would actually have one person tending the fire. Then when they camped at night, they already had a fire. This was the main purpose was transporting fire.

Little Thunder: Right.

S. Roberts: Then you see these things here that always have these knobs on them, 89:00and I have no idea what that's for unless it was just not as hot there.

Little Thunder: Helped pick it up.

S. Roberts: They always had the handles they could handle it with, so I just don't know the purpose.

Little Thunder: I guess to wind up, let's take look at your signature, the ogee on the bottom. Is it pretty visible on that one, too. Okay? Let's see. Yeah, you can see it there. Okay, great. You got your name on there, too and the date. Interesting. All right. Well, thank you so much for talking with us today, Scott.

S. Roberts: Well, it's been a pleasure.

Little Thunder: I wish you good luck at Red Earth.

S. Roberts: I don't feel that I have anything really showable.

Little Thunder: This was the year of the rain. (Laughter)

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