Oral history interview with Wendy Ponca

Little Thunder: Okay, my name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is November 23, 2015. I'm interviewing Wendy Ponca for the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. Wendy, you're Osage, you are a fabric and fashion designer, taught at the Institute of American Indian art for many years. You're perhaps best known for your traditional Osage clothing, but you're also one of the early contemporary fashion designers who made the field what it is today. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Ponca: Thank you.

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

Ponca: I was born in Odessa, Texas, but I grew up a lot here in Oklahoma and there, back and forth. Then, when I was a junior in high school, I went to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts. That was when they had a high school program there. That's in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But my grade school years, 1:00junior high and stuff like that, my parents and I, we moved to a little town in Fort Davis, Texas and we lived at the McDonald Observatory.

Little Thunder: Wow.

Ponca: That was a really good experience. There were astronomers from all over the world [that] come there and observe and use the telescopes. I think there's seven domes there with telescopes in them.

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

Ponca: My parents are both artists. When we lived at the observatory, they ran the longhouse which is a facility where the astronomers stayed. It's just like a big apartment or dormitory, where the astronomers would stay. They usually would stay for two weeks at a time, observing the stars, or whatever they were observing.

Little Thunder: Brothers or sisters?

Ponca: I have one sister. Her name is Felicia, Felicia Ponca. She lives in Santa Fe. She's a wedding planner.

Little Thunder: Older or younger?

Ponca: She's sixteen years younger than me.

Little Thunder: How about your relationship with your grandparents on either 2:00side of the family?

Ponca: My mother's side of the family is Anglo, and they have passed away. They were really sweet people. Their names were Curly and Ernie Furr. They were here in Fairfax. My parents met here in Fairfax. My father's family were Indian and from here. They were Carl and May Ponca, Carl Sr. because my dad is Carl Jr. My grandfather was Osage, and my grandmother was Cherokee. At the time, they didn't get on the rolls or anything because at that time--it wasn't cool to be Indian at that time. [I'm on the Osage rolls.]

Little Thunder: Right. Did you grow up around the language or the dances, the traditional Osage dances?

Ponca: Uh-huh. I started dancing when I was two. There was always people speaking Osage around me all my life. So I know a lot of Osage, but it's just 3:00like I said, I probably know as much Spanish as I do Osage, too.

Little Thunder: How about artistic influences? I know that your father was an artist.

Ponca: Yes, and my mother. I grew up around art all my life. I love it. I used to, when I was a little kid, make ceramic little houses and animals out of clay. I think the first time that I started doing art like what I do now, we lived in Sausalito, California and we went to a free concert for Country Joe and the Fish. There was girls there making love beads. I remember standing--I was even with the table, I was watching them and I told mom, I said, "I want to do that, I want to make that." So my mom went and bought me some beads. I used to string beads up, I think I was about six years old, and make love beads. It just went from there, doing all kinds of stuff. I remember I used to make Christmas presents for people. I'd get a piece of material and then put beads and stuff 4:00[on it] and make a little scene and give it away to my relatives for Christmas.

Little Thunder: You always were drawn to three-dimensional media?

Ponca: Yeah, especially beads and pretty, shiny things.

Little Thunder: Did you have any other extended family who were artists?

Ponca: Oh yeah, I had an aunt on my dad's side. Her name was Blanche Bear. She was a quintessential folk artist. She made all kinds of art and everything. She was really inspirational to me. I used to stay with her a lot in the summers. She taught me how to crochet and knit, and do stuff like that. Then, she would send me to this lady here in town, Davey Watts, and I learned how to finger weave. I learned a lot of these things that we do here, being around her.

Little Thunder: Right. What's your first memory of seeing Native art?

Ponca: Probably the dances. Going out to Grayhorse and dancing. Everything's so 5:00beautiful and bright and pretty.

Little Thunder: How about your first memory of making art? Your very first memory?

Ponca: I think my first memory of making art is playing with water colors. I would really liked that. For my parents to actually let me mess around with paints was a big deal because it's so messy, but I really liked that.

Little Thunder: You explained that some of your schooling, early schooling, was in Texas. Do you remember any elementary school experiences with art that stand out?

Ponca: Yes, you know what I remember? I think we probably all did this in elementary school. Do you remember this time of year, we would make turkeys out of beans and corn and stuff and glue it on the paper? Do you remember that? I loved that. I loved gluing things on there to make it a picture. (Laughter) Is that crazy or what?

Little Thunder: How about secondary school or high school? Any outstanding teachers?

Ponca: I took classical piano for ten years, so I think that really helps. Music helps a lot with everything in life. But I was a cheerleader, so we were always making signs and things, painting big signs, and doing big signs for people to run through. I usually did that. That was fun, just with tempera paint and butcher paper.

Little Thunder: You mentioned that music was helpful. In what way was it helpful with art?

Ponca: First of all, you become very disciplined because you have to discipline your time to practice. Also, rhythms. Everything I do is so repetitive. There's a lot of rhythms. I have a natural rhythm with my placing of designs and stuff and that's, of course, from music. Also just being in the right side of your 7:00brain. I guess that was really developed well through music. I just love music. It's fun.

Little Thunder: You went to the Institute during high school?

Ponca: Uh-huh.

Little Thunder: Boarding there?

Ponca: Yeah, it was boarding school there on Cerillos Road in Santa Fe. It's through the American Indian Arts. At the time, it was junior and senior year of high school and junior college. I went there and graduated from high school there. But I didn't do college. I went away to Kansas City Art Institute after I graduated from high school there.

Little Thunder: At the Institute, what did you focus on?

Ponca: In high school?

Little Thunder: Yes.

Ponca: It was really cool because we got to do all art forms. I did ceramics, jewelry making, painting. Spent a lot of time doing this fiber arts, but there they called it traditional techniques. My teacher, her name was Sandy Wilson. 8:00She's a Creek Indian. She's a really great artist. Her and her sisters do Seminole patchwork. They're really famous for that. She taught me how to weave on a loom and do Seminole patchwork. Taught me a lot about traditional pattern making, for clothing, Indian clothing. I just worked in there all the time. She would let me use the key and work there at night. I was working in that studio all the time and making shawls and ribbon shirts, cool things like that, things that you do in high school.

Little Thunder: You right away ended up gravitating toward the fabric?

Ponca: I think it was easier for me. I loved jewelry making and everything like that. But it was harder for me to get access to the facilities, whereas that studio I could get in and just work all the time. I just wanted to work all the time.

Little Thunder: Who were some of your classmates whose names that we might recognize?

Ponca: Darren Vigil graduated with me. He's a famous painter. I'm trying to 9:00think right now. I know a lot of people that I graduated from high school with, but some of them have passed away or some of them aren't continuing on with their art. There in the college program, Gina was going to school there at the college program and Rollie Grandbois and Presley LaFountain. Laverne Goldtooth, she graduated with me. She's a real famous jeweler. There was a--(I'm trying to think now) real famous writer. His name was Hansley Hadley and a guy named Manuel Dukepoo. He's a Hopi kachina maker. Let me think of other people. There 10:00is just so many...

Little Thunder: Good roster, there. You explained that you got a little bit of background in finger weaving before you arrived there, then you get this background in Seminole patchwork, and some more work with fabric. Then you go to the Institute of--I mean, the Kansas City Art Institute. Was there a period in between or did you go straight from IAIA to the Art Institute?

Ponca: Straight there.

Little Thunder: What were you wanting to achieve there?

Ponca: Basically just use the facilities, get my degree, learn what I could from them. They have a really strong foundation program which is your freshman year. That was really grueling, but it was good. It was really good. I learned a lot about photography, and just basic drawing. Working in the woodshop was scary. We had to do that, but I'm glad I did that--the sculpture department. Anyway, I 11:00really enjoyed working in the fabrics, fiber arts. That's where my major was. That's where I learned to do silk screen printing on fabrics, which I just absolutely love. I got to weave on the loom there, too, as well. Silk screen print, the warp, before you weave it, which I've done a lot of. I really enjoy that, manipulating the warp before you weave the fabric. I really like that. And then, just being around other artists. It's such a good atmosphere because you learn more from the students. You learn from your instructors, but I think you learn more from your peers as well, being around different artists.

Little Thunder: Did they have you make a portfolio?

Ponca: Back then, it wasn't--they really didn't. That didn't start, I don't think, until later years. I graduated from there in '82, so that wasn't really 12:00pushed at the time. I'm glad they do that now for students because it's so important. I mean, they encouraged us to take photos of everything. Slides, back then, was the medium that we used to show our work. So I did that. I took a lot of slides of my work and stuff like that. Had a little bit of a resume, but they really didn't encourage that as much as they do now.

Little Thunder: What happened after you graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute?

Ponca: I got a job immediately at the Santa Fe Opera in the costume department. I went out and worked there. I learned a lot from them, too. It was literally like a sweatshop, but I really enjoyed working there. You get to hear while you're sewing, you get to hear the orchestra practice. That was wonderful.

Little Thunder: Were you doing any designing or mostly construction?

Ponca: Slave-labor sewing, cutting, and draping, and sewing. It was totally a 13:00sweatshop. I loved it. I learned a lot. But I realized, see, I had originally wanted to go into making costumes for movies and stuff. After that experience, I realized I'm not making my way up the ladder. I was on salary, and after I had put in fourteen-hour -days for all those months, I was making like ninety cents an hour. So I was, "I think I will just go on to do my own art." Live and learn. It was a good experience.

Little Thunder: Like you said, then for your fashion design later, you have all this construction experience?

Ponca: Exactly. Exactly. That's why I was on the job training.

Little Thunder: You were already in Santa Fe. What did you do when you left the Santa Fe Opera?

Ponca: Sandy and her husband, Al Wilson, had moved back to Oklahoma, so there 14:00was an opening in her class to teach traditional techniques. I applied for it and I started teaching beadwork at IAIA. At that time, they had moved the campus over, they were renting space at College of Sante Fe campus. I taught there, then, just started building up the department to where we had from beadwork to sewing. Then I got looms. We started weaving. I started teaching silk screen printing on fabric. I developed the whole department to where everybody could do what they wanted to, if they were producing clothing and/or fiber arts. We also do felting or stuff like that. I ran that department for seventeen years. Then I was elected alumni president, so then I worked with the alumni association and wrote grants and wrote a program there at IAIA.

It was an art therapy department, or class, where the students--we taught art 15:00therapy to the students. We ran programs, like summer school programs, with the Indian youth of Santa Fe, Denver, and Albuquerque with their Indian centers. We would do art therapy with the Native kids that would come in there. That was good. I wrote a grant, we got a Kellogg grant for that because I got my master's, meanwhile, in art therapy from the Southwestern College while I was still working at IAIA and teaching, I got a full ride from American Indian College Fund to get my master's degree in art therapy. I said, "I can't pass this up," so I did it.

Little Thunder: Now, Southwestern College where?

Ponca: In Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: Okay, got you.

Ponca: I got my master's degree in art therapy and that was great. I love it. But I didn't go on to be a therapist. I worked with children and stuff like that. I worked with children, but I didn't want to--I think Native Americans react to art therapy much better than talk therapy. They're less open with 16:00speech, but of course, in people's art, you can't hide your psyche. So it was easier and better to work with. I like to work with kids, doing art and helping them that way.

Little Thunder: There must have been some challenges when you're adding classes. Basically, you're trying to create this program that is more expansive in the areas of fashion and fiber. What are some of the challenges?

Ponca: Of course, funding is always a challenge, but not so much because I started doing fashion shows. We started getting a lot of really good press. My students and I would do fashion shows around town, and in Denver, and Albuquerque. We took some field trips out to California, and did some fashion shows out there. I took them to Paramount and Warner Brothers Pictures Studios and the Disney departments where they worked on their costumes and stuff. So we were getting a lot of good feedback and press. My students were really 17:00excelling. It wasn't hard to persuade them to, "We need more of these classes." The students would sign up for them. If you have x amount of students signing up for classes, then they have to give those classes for the students. It evolved itself.

Little Thunder: What was one of maybe the highlight early shows? Because you hadn't done fashion shows before, I take it?

Ponca: Just all over town at different venues in town. We would have them at museums like Museum of Indian Arts and Cultures, and the IAIA museum, at the La Fonda or wherever. All over. We did some up in Denver, for the Denver Art Museum there. We went to Omaha, Nebraska. Actually the Indians up there, hauled us up there, paid for us to go up there and we did one for them. Out in LA. It just 18:00kind of went out, it was its own thing. It kind of grew on its own. Lloyd New supported it because he was a designer as well. He was the president of the school at the time, or the founder of the school. He and I talked a lot about art and philosophy. He said, and I totally agree with him, he felt that decorating the body might have been the first form of art, as far as primitive man is concerned. Painting your body, or decorating your hair, putting shells or whatever, could have been the very first form of art. I agree with him. Some people may say cave painting, but I'm in the camp with Lloyd that that's the very first form of art.

It's so natural and easy for Native Americans to produce art that you wear. It's a real strong part of our culture. It's a part of our--in all tribes--we all are 19:00painting our bodies, or taking things from nature, and decorating ourselves most elaborately. I think it just comes hand-and- hand with growing up Native American. Even if you grow up in the city, I see a lot of students there, or people that have been around that weren't in touch with their tribes at all, but they still had a strong sense of identity and sense of symbolism and design that they would utilize on their bodies, or what they carry around, just on their person. It might be a genetic memory because if they're not--people believe in that. I believe in that because if they're not raised on the reservation, and all of a sudden, they pick up a needle and some beads, and automatically, 20:00they're just doing some fabulous beadwork. You're like, "Where did that come from?" Or whatever they do. Whether it's tattoo designs or whatever, they seem to excel in it.

Little Thunder: That was one of the early elements, I think, you introduced with your fashion was you were painting tattoos on your models. Can you talk about that a little? It sounds like maybe--

Ponca: It was just body painting. I really had gone so far with making the construction of clothing that I was like, "What's the other step?" Well, no materials, or just paint. How can you paint the body to where it's copasetic to where you could actually go outside and walk around? A lot of artist have done that. Body painting (it's not a new form of art) but it was something that I used just for my own self to express a different mode of showing the human body 21:00in a beautiful way. I really like to--I don't like, I, personally, don't do shock art. Sometimes I do art that's whimsical and crazy. One time, my students and I had a black plastic trash bag fashion show where we made all these clothes out of black plastic trash bags. It was great. They loved it. They made all these traditional clothes out of black plastic trash bags and beaded them. Well, they painted them. We had it downtown on the Plaza, actually, in Santa Fe.

Little Thunder: Oh how fun.

Ponca: We tried to experiment with different materials. Just like all Native people, you utilize what you have, whether it's bark or stones or leather or whatever is around you. You take and you utilize it and put it on your body, use it in a utilitarian way. We experimented a lot with that. Experimenting with 22:00trying different things, seeing if it could be functional, wearable.

Little Thunder: I know one year--we didn't get a chance to talk about your, I don't know if it was a capstone project at IAIA, but you were working with Osage friendship blankets. I wonder if that was part of it. I wonder if you could talk first of all, because blankets--

Ponca: Are you talking about the Pendleton blanket design, the one for American Indian College Fund?

Little Thunder: No.

Ponca: With the hands on it?

Little Thunder: I thought earlier at IAIA--

Ponca: Well, they--

Little Thunder: I thought I read that you produced a show--

Ponca: Well, they bought a couple of blanket off of me for the museum that had hands on them and a shawl that had hands on them. Then one that had beaded horses. They're just traditional Osage wearing blankets with ribbon work and then those symbols on them.

Little Thunder: Can you talk a little bit about the importance because all the tribes value blankets, but the connection between the Osage and the blankets too?

Ponca: One of the things that I think our tribe is really famous for is our wearing blankets. We only wear these special blankets that we make. We decorate them with ribbons and beads and stuff on trade cloth, traded from, I've heard 1600, 1700, but I don't know if it was that early, from traders, that blue cloth with the bands on it, woven bands. It's 100 percent wool. Anyway, we use that cloth to make these beautiful wearing blankets that we only wear on Sunday of our dances. Our dances go on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sunday is giveaway day. We only play individual people's songs. Then when you dance to those persons' songs, you honor them by giving away. That is the only time we wear those blankets.

That's the difference between us and a lot of other tribes. Everyone wears 24:00shawls and such to dance in, but we only wear these blankets on this special day. We decorate them very elaborately. It's time- consuming work. It's very hard ribbon work and beadwork. One blanket I made for my daughter, it took me three years to bead it for her. I have it in that trunk over there. I'll show it to you. I think that, as a tribe, we're famous for those. Museums have always asked me to make those, so I have them in different museums around the country and collectors. At the time, twenty years back, there weren't too many people doing those. Now, a lot of Osages have started doing it, which is good. Getting back into ribbon work and beadwork and finger weaving. But at the time, there weren't many of us doing it. That's the reason why I got a lot of jobs doing it, because I was one of the few people that was doing it and I'm, by far, not the 25:00best. Trust me. There's a lot of other people who do a lot better job at it than I do. But I just happen to be available. It's like "Okay, yeah. I'll make you a blanket."

Little Thunder: Why did you leave IAIA?

Ponca: To come home. To come back home. My kids were growing up. I was just tired of paying--the rent's so high out there. My grandmother was ill, and my dad was here, taking care of her. So I come home and help them out and it was a good thing because they both needed help. They were old and feeble and I just wanted to come home and take care of them because I was my Dad's only child, before my sister came. We have the same mom and dad, but we're the only two. My sister was out in Santa Fe working and she had a really good job out there. I told her, "You don't need to come home. I'll do it. I'll come home and take care of him." So I did. I'm glad I did. I like living here. We have a lot of land. We have an old farmhouse, nice house. It was my grandfather's original allottee 26:00house. My children and I live in there and my husband and I. We have land all over Osage County. I personally like living in the country. I prefer it to the city.

Little Thunder: You were ready to come home. You did work briefly for the American Indian theatre Company, I guess, and N[ational] I[ndian] M[onument] I[nstitute]. Was that after you moved back?

Ponca: Yeah.

Little Thunder: Immediately? Okay.

Ponca: I wasn't really going to work, and then my dad said, "You should probably take this job." Moneta Trepp called me up and ask me if I wanted to write grants for her. I was like, "Okay." For four years, I drove back and forth to Tulsa, which is kind of a long commute. It's a 160 miles a day to write grants for them to help them build that Indian cultural center. They still haven't gotten it off the ground. We did a lot of work. We got the architectural designs. We got a 27:00space over there by the river and everything like that. But I only worked for four years and then my Dad got really sick, so I had to come back and take care of him here. They still put on Tulsa Art Festival, Indian Art Festival. They do a lot of programs for kids and stuff. That's mainly what I was doing was writing grants for after school programs and to help the art festival and then help raise money for the cultural center. That took a lot of money. We got a $500,000 E[conomic] D[development] A[dministration] grant for the architectural plans. Altogether, the whole time I was working there, I only raised 1.2 million in four years. I wasn't that good of a fundraiser. They needed $18 million for their project to get off the ground.

I wish that somebody would help them out and do it because they have a beautiful space right there on the river, right there on Seventy-First Street, on the river. It's on the east side, and they have, I think it's five acres or fifteen 28:00acres that was given to them by the city. It would be a beautiful spot for an Indian cultural center, but I don't know if it will go or not. I wish it would, though. All the Indians that are here in Oklahoma, you would think they would have an Indian Cultural Center, a place where they could have their own museum. Then tourists, it could be a big tourist draw like Santa Fe, New Mexico. I remember I saw some statistics in the '90s that the Indian Market alone brings to the state of New Mexico over $250 million each year, from just the tourist trade. I tried to explain that to the people in Tulsa. You guys could make a lot of money off of Indian tourism. All you need is a space. I think the one in Oklahoma City got off the ground and they built one there, but the one in Tulsa still hasn't come to fruition.

Little Thunder: Now, when you were taking care of your dad and your grandmother, were you doing some of your silk screen printing? Did you have time to do your art part-time?

Ponca: I mainly did things that I could do at home like beadwork, beading on blankets, and making lot of things that I could hold on my lap and take with me to the hospital, handwork. I was mainly just a twenty-four-hour nurse, but I did get to do a lot of traditional clothing for my family for them to dance in. That's what I did. I didn't do any really commercial things at all. My dad--the last year he was alive--I was asked to do the costumes for the Osage Ballet, which I did do those with my partner, Terry Wann. We did those costumes for the Osage ballet, and they turned out really great. That ballet is fabulous. I don't 30:00know if you've seen it.

Little Thunder: I haven't seen it, but why don't you tell us a bit about how they ended up contacting you, how that project came about?

Ponca: Randy Smith, the lady who was producer of it, she's Osage and she's from Pawhuska [Oklahoma]. She just called me up and she wanted to know if I would make these costumes for this. Told me about the ballet, and I was just blown away. I was like, "This is beautiful." And played the music for me that this other man had already done the score for and who's also Osage. I was, "Yes, I would be honored to be in on this. I think this is beautiful and let's do it." So we got it together. I mean, it was a lot of work. It was like working for the opera, but tenfold, because it was just Terry and I, and we had to make like a 150 costumes because it was like eight acts, I think, and a cast of forty to 31:00fifty people altogether. We had our work cut out for us. We did it here in this studio, believe it or not. We got it done.

Little Thunder: Is it still touring?

Ponca: Yes. In fact, a couple months back, they were up in Philadelphia and they performed for the Pope when the pope was visiting America. They're still going on. They've been to Washington DC, the National Museum of American Indian. I think they have been asked to go to France next because the Osage have this kinship with the French. We have a sister city over there at Montauban. They still do it in Tulsa every year. It's a yearly thing. And in Bartlesville and Tulsa. I know it will be continually going on from now and forever, just like the Nutcracker Suite is done every year. It's that good. It will continue to go on.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. What are your principal shows now? I 32:00understand basically you have just gotten back into this full-time for the last how many years?

Ponca: For the last three years. The last three years I have gotten back into it.

Little Thunder: Were you still doing Indian Market during this period or different--

Ponca: I hadn't done any markets since nineteen--the late '80s. I just--

Little Thunder: As a student you mean?

Ponca: No, I didn't do it as a student. I did it when I had moved back here and I was teaching at IAIA in the '80s. I did it for five or six years in the '80s. I can't remember how many years I did it. It wasn't a really good venue for me. In Santa Fe, every year it's outdoors. In the summer, they have this rain right in the middle of the day. And we had these open booths, and it would rain on all my material and buckskins and I'd be trying to rush into the Portal to keep everything dry. I just show at galleries and museums and don't do Indian Market. 33:00After I stopped doing Indian Market, then I was a judge for a few years for the clothing. I stopped doing it because I really didn't need it.

It was a lot of extra work that I didn't need. I did the IFAM [Indigenous Fine Art Movement] Show this last year--this year, excuse me. What am I saying? In August, I did IFAM which is during Indian Market because my daughters wanted to do it. We all got a booth together, Sarah, Alex, and I and we had a blast. It was fun. Of course, it did rain one day. I was like, "See?" to the girls. "This is the reason that I don't do this." I still enjoyed it. It was fun and I got to see all my old friends again, everybody at the school. It's like a family reunion. I got to trade a lot of art with people that I wanted some of their art. That's one of my favorite things is to trade with other artists. I love doing that. So that was good.

Little Thunder: How fun. One of your daughter[s] is a painter, and the other one is?

Ponca: The other one's a painter, sculptor, a jeweler, a photographer--excellent 34:00photographer. That's my oldest daughter, Sarah. She's currently going to school at the Institute of American Indian Arts. My daughter, Alex, has her degree from Kansas City Art Institute. She's primarily an oil painter and an excellent sketch artist. She also is a great writer. Her writing is unbelievable. She's off the charts. Her intellect-- when she had her SAT test out of high school, she was in the ninety-eighth percentile. Harvard and Yale and all these people were wanting her to go to school. I was, "Go Alex, go. Be a politician please." But no, she was, "No, I want to be an artist." I should be happy, but "With your intellect, please go on." Anyway, she's doing really, really well. She's an excellent writer. She took piano lessons as well. She's an excellent pianist. (She's really, really good.) She writes her own songs. She plays classical piano. Her father, their father, Sarah and Alex's father (he's passed away now) 35:00but he was an artist as well. Played guitar and mandolin and was a really good artist. He worked with a lot of agencies and did a lot of--I don't know if you're familiar with Santa Fe Pale Ale--he did the design for their bottling company and Gruet champagne. He did the soda pop from Santa Fe, Blue Sky Soda. He did all of that. He was just a really good artist, as well, and musician. Unfortunately, he passed away, though, in '96. But they got a lot of their talent, of course, from their father. Peter Stock was his name.

Little Thunder: Who are some of the galleries that handle your work then?

Ponca: Right now? The Peabody museum. I am in the permanent collection at the Philbrook Museum and the Institute of American Arts Museum, which now it's called Museum of Contemporary Indian Art. Smithsonian, LA County Museum, and I 36:00think Denver Art Museum, I'm trying to think--

Little Thunder: You never did apply for--

Ponca: Oh, and Osage Tribal Museum. I can't forget them. Sorry.

Little Thunder: I think you did a show there. We'll talk about that, too. You never applied for a research grant at the N[ational] M[useum of the] A[merian] I[ndian]?

Ponca: Actually, I was an artist in residence there in the '90s.

Little Thunder: Oh. Tell us about that.

Ponca: I studied all the, everything they had Osage. It was at that George Gustav Heye collection up there in New York City. I told them I want to see everything you have that is Osage. Of course, they showed it to me. But I mainly was focusing on Osage tattoos, and the implements that are used for that. There's really not that much written about it. We don't do traditional tattoos, anymore, as a tribe because it's part of our old religion, and we've given that 37:00up. We collectively decided at the turn of the century not to have our traditional religion anymore, so we don't have that anymore. But I did a lot research on it, the symbolism and everything, to try and keep that, at least, the symbols alive for future generations, historically. So it will be remembered. That's what I studied when I was there. Then I went back for--they asked me back to be one of the people that picks the next group of people that get to be artists-in-residence. I got to go back and do that, which was fun. That was in the museum in Washington DC. I got to see all the cool new museum, which is fabulous, of course. And beautiful, amazing.

Little Thunder: Talk to us a little bit about the Peabody Show in Boston. This was very recent. You just came back.

Ponca: In fact, it just opened this weekend. I went up there November 2 through 38:00the fifth and put up my pieces. I have four pieces in there on the mannequins. It's Mylar designs that I've done before in the past and still constantly do because I love them. They're full length dresses, strapless dresses that are made out of Mylar. I decorate them with fur, fox fur, and then paint the body with traditional Osage tattoo designs, the arms, from here and do really nice elaborate head pieces that involve using silver, sterling silver, eagle feathers, crystal, of course, crystals, fresh water pearls, moon stones, silver beads. I incorporate those into different head pieces because there is so much going on from here down, it's so bright and elaborate, if you didn't have a lot going on up here, it would be out of balance.

So I make these big elaborate pieces. One of the newer things I have done, I got 39:00ahold of some space shuttle glass, which is really interesting. It literally makes its own light. It picks up light from anywhere because they need that, they need that light for reflection on the space shuttle. When it picks up the light, it's always different. Each time you turn it, it's like a rainbow effect. I used some space shuttle glass beads--and big pieces of it--to make a headpiece that I made for the Peabody museum. I made another few other headpieces and those worked out really well. Those are amazing because every time you photograph them, every time you walk, they change colors. That's just the properties of the glass.

Little Thunder: How do you find it? Were you just researching online?

Ponca: I just ran into this lady who I buy a lot of beads from. She was buying it and then melting it down and making smaller beads. I was like, "Can I just buy your stuff? Your big pieces? She was like, "Sure, if that is what you want." And I was, "Yeah because I have an idea for this and I need bigger pieces of it, 40:00slabs of it." I bought everything she had and I bought the beads she made as well and put it all together. It's amazing stuff. I encourage all the beaders out there to check it out. Space shuttle glass, it's the new thing I would say, the hip new thing (Laughs) in art supplies, as far as I'm concerned.

Little Thunder: What's been one of the most important honors and awards that you have gotten for clothing or contemporary fashion?

Ponca: First Place in Creative Design in any category in any Indian Market.

Little Thunder: You won that several years in a row, didn't you?

Ponca: Yeah, it was in the '80s, though. I stopped doing that. I can't even remember.

Little Thunder: How did it feel when you won that award?

Ponca: Good, I guess. I wish I had gotten Best of Show. But I think being asked 41:00to do a Pendleton blanket design for American Indian College fund to raise money for them was one of the biggest honors I've ever had in my life. I really enjoyed doing that. I love doing charity work.

I just actually finished a blanket design for a foundation for the Osage Nation called the Osage Nation Foundation. It'll be out, I think, in March. It's another Pendleton blanket design, limited edition. I like it just as well as the one that I did for the American Indian College Fund. I'm very honored to be able to do that. Born up, being Native American and growing up around Pendletons, we give them away and use them for everything as clothing, on your bed, drape them over your windows, give them away, put them on your horse. It's such an honor to give and receive Pendletons. That was one of the goals in my life when I was younger was to do a Pendleton blanket design. Now I'm lucky enough to have done 42:00two, so that's a big honor.

Little Thunder: That is really wonderful. What's been the hardest thing that you have ever made?

Ponca: Hmm--what do you mean hard? Time-consuming? What do you mean? I don't understand what you mean.

Little Thunder: You can choose. Maybe in terms of materials that you were working with or time? Something that was just the most challenging thing you ever tried--

Ponca: Finger weaving is very challenging, but I did some pieces once on a loom, a floor loom where I threaded--. The warp, I used sewing thread, cotton sewing thread, so it was a 120 threads per inch. I threaded up on the warp itself, size twelve cut glass beads. I painted the warp, so as I was weaving it, I'd push the 43:00beads up into the design that was painted on with the weft as it was going. That was one of the nicest pieces that I've done. I only did a couple of those. I don't have a floor loom now. I am hoping to buy myself another one and I think that was one of the most revolutionary pieces that I'm really proud of. I haven't seen anybody else do that ever, ever in fiber arts. Because that is hard to do. You have to set there, and put those little tiny beads like this on that warp, after you have wound the warp. It was about eight inches wide. A 120 threads per inch. Just threading it up on the loom itself is a task. Weaving it was actually not so hard. It was fun. But setting up the loom was the hard part. That won First Place at Indian Market. I don't think they even knew what they were looking at. These people bought it off of me. I probably should have never sold it, but you got to pay the bills.

Little Thunder: What's your favorite thing to work on?

Ponca: There's so many things I like to do. I like to silk screen print, but I like to make paintings that are--I call them assemblages, but they're like that piece behind you. They're multilayers. I build up layers of objects, multiples of objects, and paint on a big canvas. Some of them have been really big like five by nine. I used to put six inch Styrofoam inside of a frame and paint it, then put like glass and nails, and paint, and porcupine quills, and feathers, and beads, and ribbons, and all kinds of things. They would be in multiples, and 45:00multiple repeating patterns on top of each other. I really enjoyed doing those. I haven't done any of those in a long time, but I did those for a while and had a couple of shows with those. I think I really enjoy doing that. That's like almost immediate gratification. Like silk screen printing, it helps me not go crazy because sometimes beadwork and ribbon work are so time- consuming, I just get stressed out, have to do something for immediate, so I won't go crazy. My eyes have gotten bad over time. Every time I go to get cheaters, the prescription gets stronger, and stronger, and stronger. I guess it's easier on my eyes to do things like that instead of just that tiny little beadwork. Even 46:00though I enjoy beadwork and it's beautiful (I love the end result), it's hard on my eyes.

Little Thunder: When did you open your store here then? Was it the same time three years?

Ponca: Yeah, it had been a bar. This building here had been a bar since 1940s, and my dad bought it in '96. It was used as a storage space until 2006. Then we opened it up as a bar again, but we couldn't make any money here and Fairfax is such a small town. We closed it down and I cleared it out and I've been using it as a studio. It's such a nice, big, long space. The floors are concrete, so if we get the floors dirty, it doesn't matter if you drop paint or whatever. Lot of extra room to spread out and work in. I love it. It's really functional. We've got a porch in the back. It's right by the bank and the post office. The 47:00location is everything.

Little Thunder: It's a great space.

Ponca: Thank you.

Little Thunder: What project do you have coming up that you are really excited about?

Ponca: This show at the Peabody is going to go to Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.

Little Thunder: Will you go to that?

Ponca: Yeah, and set it up there. Then, it'll come to the Philbrook. Yay! Everybody, my family and friends can go see it at the Philbrook.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful.

Ponca: And it'll go from there to Washington DC. One of my goals in life that I haven't come to fruition, is I would like to have some pieces, or piece in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I would also like to, with my Mylar designs that I have done and my models, I would like to hold a performance piece at the White House, whenever the government decides to let the public know that 48:00they have been in contact with extraterrestrials. I would like to be like a welcoming committee with my girls, my models in Mylar pieces as a performance to say, "We know that you have been here. Thank you for being here and we're welcoming you." Hope it doesn't turn out bad like the Aztec children did, Montezuma's kids when Cortez came and all those little kids greeted him with flowers and things.

Little Thunder: Let's talk about your process and techniques a little bit more. In terms of your painting, your silk screen painting, has your palette changed a lot? You have been doing this since the beginning, too, right?

Ponca: Oh no. It's changed.

Little Thunder: Okay. In what ways?

Ponca: It's changed a lot. The palette, as far as colors go, just mixing colors, I think I gravitated to blending colors more instead of just straight colors. But then again, sometimes I still do that. When I am printing, I will put three or four colors on there, not mixed, but then I'll mix them as I pull the squeegee across the screen. I enjoy doing that. That's a way that I have changed. I use a lot of metallics, and I think I might have done that in the past, too. Maybe more so now and in the future. I've always used the water-based inks, I don't like to use the oil-based inks and I've always used natural materials. Cotton, linen, and silk, are the main materials that I use to print 50:00on. I've always done that, so that hasn't changed. And I do a lot of hand-painting and hand-dying of the material, too.

That process, that's a different process, I think, that I've started. I put the material out on the back porch, either silk or linen and whatever I'm working at. Then I hose it down. Then I sprinkle powdered dyes on there, colored dyes, and let them bleed into the material. After they're dried, I hose it all off, I rinse it off clean. That's what I have been doing lately. I got that idea from my friend, Margaret Roach Wheeler. She was doing that. She showed me some of that that she had done. I was so impressed that I was like "I want to do that" instead of doing the dip-dye technique where you get a vat of dye and then dye and do variations of tie-dye. I'm really into that, right now. It's working out 51:00really well. I really like that effect.

Little Thunder: It's a lot more subtle in a way--

Ponca: And organic. I really like it. It's real elegant, I feel. I think it's nice to wear that as opposed to the other dip-dye type of things. It's kind of flowing. It's more forgiving on the body. Your eye moves more when you make clothing out of it.

Little Thunder: In terms of supplies, do you shop mostly online or do you go to Tulsa or Stillwater?

Ponca: A little bit of both. For silk screen printing and the dyes and stuff, it's all online because they're not available there. I do a lot of a--wherever I am at, like Kansas City, wherever I am at, if I find a nice fabric shop or bead store, whatever, I will go to it and I'll buy, buy whatever is available. Osage 52:00Nation used to have a gift shop that I used to buy a bunch of ribbon from there to do ribbon work. Now, I mainly buy stuff online like that. I order all my broadcloth online and buckskins on line, too. I order a lot of skins and stuff from Montana. I went up there and bought some. Canada has really good furs that I get. I order them out of Canada. They're cheaper and better quality for the furs.

Little Thunder: Do you keep a sketchbook of designs when you--

Ponca: Oh yeah. Little ones, big ones, I take photographs of things to remember them if I don't have something to draw it on.

Little Thunder: Do you also keep notes on processes?

Ponca: Yes, yes. Just scribble little notes or whatever. I don't know, a lot of my art is pretty organic. It's like the way I cook. Sometimes I don't measure things out exactly. Some folks, they measure things out. I just get a pot and start putting it all together. That's kind of the way I do my art, too. It's not a precise science. A lot of artists are very precise and I really respect that. I got a lot of flack in college for that, for not having my finished work look exactly like the drawing that I handed in. When I would have the critique come along, then the piece was completely different from the original drawing. One of my teachers really appreciated that. The other one didn't. I ended up getting a C out of my major on my senior year because that's the way I work. But it didn't bother me. I was okay. As long as I graduated. Just get out of here and start doing it for real.

Little Thunder: Is a certain percentage of your work commission work?

Ponca: Yes, yes.

Little Thunder: How big a part is that?

Ponca: Probably about half of my work, yeah. People ask me to do stuff all the time. I just finished making some clothes for this woman who got married. I'm getting ready to do a vest right now. Years in advance, people will order stuff because they know my schedule is pretty busy.

Little Thunder: A lot of it's going to people here?

Ponca: Yeah, and or sometimes I get commission work for museums, for their permanent collection. Or just individuals, collectors, people who just want dance clothes. Sometimes people who just want a piece of my art.

Little Thunder: Is that piece behind us, is that yours?

Ponca: That is Alex's, my youngest daughter.

Little Thunder: Oh okay.

Ponca: My youngest daughter, Alex. That's a print she did when she was going to school at the Kansas City Art Institute. I love it. That's why I put it up there.

Little Thunder: Yeah, that's really nice. I was just thinking your fabric really lends itself to that, too. You actually could do triptych paintings.

Ponca: That is a good idea.

Little Thunder: Have you done any of that?

Ponca: No, I guess I could, put them on--I usually just leave them loose, but I guess I could put them on a frame. I made a contemporary blanket for the Osage Casino Offices out of --it was one of the felts from one of their black jack tables. I used it, and I beaded it and put ribbon work and stuff on it. They bought it to hang up in their offices. We had it mounted on a frame and then framed. It was huge. It weighed like three hundred pounds because it was a blanket that has been stretched on, framed like a blanket. Even though it was made as a blanket, a contemporary design. I've made a few of those. I made a couple of those black jack table felt blankets before. One was in this show 56:00called Art without Reservation. It was at the--what was it? American Crafts Museum in New York City. Traveled around.

Little Thunder: Right, I remember.

Ponca: Remember that? That was in that show. I did those a few years back. Then I did a few pieces where I made blankets with F-14 fighter jets on them. Appliqued and beaded on there. Those are really cool. Then, I made a traditional man's wearing blanket one time with tomahawks and I think it was machine guns, guns appliqued and beaded on there with a buffalo head and hatchets and guns. Sometimes I use contemporary elements in a traditional way, form, because we're 57:00evolving, just like everybody else. Just because we're Native American doesn't mean that we don't evolve. I love that new thing that is going on with the powwow scene with the DayGlo colors. I love that. That's like a trend, fashion trend right now that is going on. I don't know if any collectors are collecting that, but if they were smart, they would because it'll change. It'll be hip for a few more years then something else comes along. That's the way we are as people.

Little Thunder: I forgot to ask you about the Osage Museum show. You did a little fashion show at the tribal museum. What was that like?

Ponca: It was great. I loved it. They were really moved. There was people in the room, crying, they thought it was so beautiful. I was amazed. It made me want to cry. It was that Cahokia Mounds shoot that I did. Then they asked me to do that show there at the museum with the Mylar and the buckskin designs that I did with the people that were like in traditional clothing, pre-European contact clothing 58:00that I made. It was all buckskin and otter hides and shells, natural paints. I really loved working on those pieces. It was a challenge, but also it was a relief not to have to use glass beads or anything like that. I really enjoyed the natural elements those clothes were made out of. I think the kids really enjoyed wearing them, too, because they're so comfortable. Then, of course for that show, I had a roach made, silver. You know how, Indian roaches, men's roaches are usually a porcupine quill and eagle feathers. I adapted and made a contemporary one out of silver with big rock crystals going back in it. It set on the head like that. It was like a roach. The museum bought that from me for 59:00their permanent collection because they have a collection of roaches. So now they have that contemporary one in the Osage Museum.

Little Thunder: That's very cool.

Ponca: Thank you.

Little Thunder: Take us through your process from the time you get an idea for a project.

Ponca: Umm--well, usually I think about it. It usually comes to me like at night or in a dream when I'm laying in bed, thinking about things. Sometimes I'll sketch it down right quick, write it down. Or I'll get up the next day and come in the studio, or go straight to--if I need to buy materials, go and buy them, and then just start working on it immediately.

Little Thunder: No preparatory sketches, necessarily.

Ponca: Sometimes, but usually not. I may need to sketch out the ribbon work or whatever the--I'll draw right onto the wool if I am going to bead it. Sometimes I'll just do a couple of thumbnail sketches or do a big sketch if I'm going to do a new silk screen print. Draw it out and just copy it onto the silk screen 60:00from what I have drawn on a piece of sketch paper. For my Pendleton blankets designs, though, I work in a different medium. I use colored paper, solid colored paper, and I cut it out, cut the whole thing out and do it like one quarter size of the blanket, exactly to scale, but use colored paper and cut the whole design out. It's easier for me to do that than painting it. I enjoy doing that.

Little Thunder: Interesting. Yeah.

Ponca: I've done a lot which haven't been made into blankets, but I have a lot of those that I've done out of cut paper and I just framed them and put them on the wall.

Little Thunder: How about signing your pieces?

Ponca: Paintings, I usually just sign Wendy, but--

Little Thunder: Just Wendy?

Ponca: Yeah, Wendy, sometimes Wendy Ponca. Then I'll put a heart and a star and date it, of course, a two-dimensional piece like that. But I usually have some 61:00tags that say Ponca Design, a little logo thing. I have some labels that you put in clothing that I sometimes remember to put in my fabrics. I do that sometimes, but a lot of times I forget--

Little Thunder: Right.

Ponca: I try to remember to do that. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Looking back on your career so far, what's been one of the high points?

Ponca: Hmm--oh gosh, there's so many. Well, I was in a show with these weavers in Santa Fe that went to Mozambique, Africa. I thought that was kind of cool.

Little Thunder: What a neat experience. Did you go?

Ponca: I didn't go, but my piece went and got sold over there. Somebody over there is wearing it. It was a buckskin and hand woven shirt, really cool thing that I made with otter hide. I thought that was interesting. When I was twenty-one years old, I went and studied weaving in Greece on the island of 62:00Euboea for the summer and studied architecture in Athens. I really enjoyed that. I loved that. That was like, I didn't want to move back. I wanted to stay there and live there. It's beautiful there. I think I went on a trip in 1978 with my dad and the American Association of Museums and we went to Columbia, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. We went to all these beautiful architectural sites, like Machu Picchu, and Lake Titicaca, and Tiwanaku, flew across the Nazca Plains in a two-engine plane.

Got to see all this beautiful art, Incan art and architecture. That was a learning, great learning experience for me. My parents and I, when I was younger, too, when we lived around Texas, we traveled a lot in Mexico. I love watching people there make their art. They make art out of anything. They can make something out of nothing and I was always impressed with that. Lots of it, 63:00multiples. That, I think, has really influenced me a lot, making multiples of things. There's lots of them. I appreciate that. I like that. I mean, there's something about that. It's that rhythm. Lots of things. What other highlights? Having my kids, all four of my kids. I had them in Santa Fe at the Indian Hospital there on Cerillos Road. They're all healthy and happy and beautiful children. Let's see, what else? I can't--

Little Thunder: How about maybe a low point, then?

Ponca: A low point? Hmm-- low point would be--I don't know. Something really bad. Death in your family, there can't be any lower point than that. A friend of mine committed suicide. That's really low, good friend of mine. That's probably 64:00the lowest point in my life, death in the family. That is the lowest, I would say that. If I've ever been without work or poor, I don't think that is low. To me, that's not low. That's just "work harder and get your act together." I'm not really into buying fast cars or anything like that. I'm just happy with having my studio and being able to work. That's basically all I need. I don't feel like I am in need of anything, lacking anything. There's no low there. I think if anything is low, it would be if my children were hurt, or not well, or something 65:00like that--anybody in my family. That's to me, the low point in life. But they're pretty healthy so far, knock on wood. Everybody's good--

Little Thunder: Is there anything that we forgot to talk about or you'd like to add before we look at a couple of examples of your work?

Ponca: Hmm--right now I am drawing a blank on different shows I've been in. I've been published that I know of about fourteen different books about Native art. I think that's really good because in the future, my grandkids and kids that don't know me and don't know me or don't even know what I do, they can look it up and they can say, "Wow, that was my grandma. She did that." Because it's just been until recently my kids didn't even know that I did this. They had been around it so much they took it for granted. Now, they can look back and say, "She was a 66:00pro at that. She was a professional. She made a living at that. She wasn't just messing around, making our clothes to dance in." They take that for granted, they really do. I think that'll be a good thing. Maybe it will inspire some kids in the future to do art, do traditional art, or whatever kind they want to do. If they look back and see that, they can be, "Okay, I can do that" and get on it.

Little Thunder: Well, great. We're going to take a look at some of your work. All right. Would you like to tell us about your creation here?

Ponca: Yes. This is a piece that I did to show what we might have worn, pre-European Contact. It's all made out of hand-tanned buckskin and otter hide and then, shells and rock, shells and seeds, and bone, and copper which we 67:00actually had, which I saw at the museum there in Cahokia Mounds where they used copper and they made jewelry and they decorated things with copper. I had the copper made, cut out, and then I put it onto the buckskin. Then I made the dress. It's all made out of buckskin. These really nice miniature little shells here, abalone shells. I used a mixture of charcoal and glue to make paint here. This is an otter hide. The dress goes around like this, in the back, got a tag on there. But this is the way otter hide comes on here. Like this. It's a 68:00separate piece. It goes like that.

Little Thunder: Beautiful.

Ponca: I made it where it laces up so it can fit different sizes. You can lace it tighter or loose. It feels really good on when you wear this buckskin. It's so nice and warm. The earliest depictions and drawings and paintings of contact with Osages, Osage women wore a skirt with no top, a buckskin skirt. Then they had robes and everything, and tattoos. I didn't make it just as a skirt for my model, I went ahead and made it a strapless dress. Of course, it's my design, but I was thinking of what we would've worn before we had trade goods, using the 69:00symbolism. There's a lot of this symbolism like this at the Cahokia mounds. These hands, they had these exact hand, bone hand in the cases there they found in the burials. These were worn by men. I forgot to put this on there. This is a traditional thing that all Osages wore. This is a shell, a fresh water shell and it's the color of sunrise. Every morning, Osages would pray to God at dawn. That's what that color represents, that color. Anyway, I really like this piece. I thought it was really elegant and beautiful.

Little Thunder: It is.

Ponca: It was with the buckskin, the two [pieces].

Little Thunder: Okay, tell us about this dress.

Ponca: This is one of my Mylar designs that I've done, fox fur and crystal and freshwater pearls and bones. This is like one of the prototypes for the show I mentioned, the Peabody. This is what I did off doing that photoshoot at Cahokia 70:00Mounds, of my Star People, as they came down from the stars. I dressed them in Mylar, and had a large train, usually, the train going back farther in the wind in the photo shoot. You can make the train as long as you want. It goes back, and it's just Mylar which they use in the space shuttles, and great. Anyway, I've been doing this for years and then body paint on the models because it looked really well, real dramatic and with head pieces. I don't have any head pieces here. In the show at Peabody, there's head pieces that go with it. But these are, there's four of these. I've had these designs and fashion shows all over, like Denver Art Museum.

Little Thunder: It's amazingly durable isn't it?

Ponca: Yeah, it's great. To put it on, I just staple it in the back and use duct 71:00tape. Thank goodness we have that real cool silver duct tape. I make it like a corset in the back, and it brings it all in nice and tight on the models. Of course when they're doing a fashion show, I have slips underneath because it's really hot. I mean people wrap themselves in this to lose weight, so I put a little slip on underneath for them, so they don't have to be so uncomfortable. It works really well.

Little Thunder: Okay.

Ponca: This is a piece--in our tribe we have clans, but we also have divisions. There's the Earth People, and the Sky People. The Earth People are divided into two groups, the Water People, and the Terra Firma, the Earth People. I'm from the division of the Water People of the Earth People. I get a lot of inspiration from water, and the word Wahzhazhe actually means Water people. This is kind of my inspiration with this. I love swimming in the lakes back here in Oklahoma. 72:00It's a piece that's inspired by that.

Little Thunder: I love the movement on that and those little dragonflies.

Ponca: The frogs symbols are actually women.

Little Thunder: Oh--

Ponca: In South America, frogs are fertility symbols, South American Indian art. It's all hand-silk-screen-printed and hand-dyed and it's on silk. [Loud noise] (I'm sorry. I'm getting excited.)

Little Thunder: It's all good. Okay.

Ponca: This piece here, it has some water symbols in it, too, but it also has the hand symbol in there. The hand symbol, actually, the symbol itself is called the aho ee gah in Osage and what aho ee gah means, what it translates to in English is "the snare that catches the breath of life." When you see that hand symbol, it's like a statement that we're spirit, but we're caught in this 73:00physical being. That's what that represents. That's kind of my design of the hand symbol and I like the fish. More water symbols in here.... This is on linen. And then painted. This is a good one.

Little Thunder: How about this piece, Wendy?

Ponca: This is the silk. It's hand dyed and silk screen printed. The symbol that's printed on there is the Mayan symbol for [the soul] that they carved, it's a glyph that they carve in the temples. I thought it was a really, really elegant symbol. It works really well with the silver.

Little Thunder: It's just so a beautiful palette, that color.

Ponca: I really like it. I think it worked really well.

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

Ponca: Thank you. Thank you so much.

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