Oral history interview with Bunky Echo-Hawk

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson Little Thunder. Today is Tuesday, January 26, 2016. I'm interviewing Bunky Echo-Hawk for the Oklahoma Native Artist Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We're at Pawnee, Oklahoma. Bunky, you're Pawnee and Yakama. Your paintings, often done live, can be whimsical and fun, but they also pack a powerful political punch. You're known for working with youth, doing live painting. You've landed a contract with Nike, among others. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

Echo-Hawk: Thank you.

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

Echo-Hawk: I was born in Toppenish, Washington, on the Yakama Reservation where my mom's people are from. Didn't spend a lot of time there but grew up in Colorado and Oklahoma. Think we lived here in Pawnee until I was in the second 1:00grade and then I grew up in Colorado at the Lyons/Boulder area. My dad was on staff at the Native American Rights Fund there, at their headquarters. I kind of grew up at the halls of their law firm there.

Little Thunder: Fun places.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah.

Little Thunder: The Echo-Hawk family is well known. Can you start us off by telling us just a bit about your father and his influence on you growing up?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, my dad is really well known in the legal community and the academic community. He was one of the first Indian attorneys to graduate through the federal Indian Law program at the University of New Mexico. Was instrumental in the beginning stages of the Native American Rights Fund, kind of at the peak of our civil rights movement in the 1970s. Some of my earliest memories are 2:00being up in Colorado and spending the night in his law firm. It was actually an old, converted frat[ernity] house on the University of Colorado campus, and they changed it. It actually had bathrooms and showers and bathtubs and stuff and it was a fun place to grow up. But also grew up seeing, I guess, his caliber of friends up there as tribal leaders that came through, civil rights leaders that came through and they'd stay at our house. And members of the Native American community in the Denver metro area. I was just enamored with my dad's lifestyle. He seemed like the coolest guy in the world. People would gravitate toward him. 3:00I didn't know what he did professionally as a little kid because when he was at home, he was an artist. He did oil painting. He used to tell stories to me. He'd ask if I wanted an Indian story or a war story, and he'd use the pages of the newspaper when he got done and he'd get a sharpie out. He would tell me these stories. They were always family stories or something relevant to our family and our culture. As he was telling me the story, he was live-illustrating on the pages of the newspapers and he'd make sound effects. Made it come alive for me. When he got done, I'd take the newspaper to my room and try to relive it and stuff. So yeah, I grew up and he always made a point to bring us back to 4:00Oklahoma for our various ceremonial dances and funerals.

It always struck me that my dad, to me, seemed like an artist and just a good Pawnee Citizen first. Once I got older, I found out all the stuff he was doing legally, in the world of law, and it just made me even more proud of him. When you see people out, away from the Native Community and they're successful, oftentimes, they're disconnected to their roots and their heritage. It always made me feel proud that my dad made it a point to keep us connected. Same thing with my mom. Living in Colorado, we'd go back and forth from Washington to Oklahoma. It really shaped me, seeing the work that my dad did artistically 5:00because his focus in his paintings were early reservation times for the Pawnee Nation. He always said it was a time that wasn't talked about enough and wasn't written about enough. It was something he felt compelled to share. I think he was inspired by that time of transition. I learned a lot from him and I'd bug him when he was trying to paint. I remember he took a six-month sabbatical at one point and he just spent the whole time painting. It was in our sunroom. It was a sliding glass window, and he'd keep it shut. When it was shut, we couldn't come in there. But I'd stand at the glass and watch him paint. He'd sit there 6:00for hours. As soon as it was all right, I'd come in and I'd ask him about it and he'd tell me. It made me realize that the image on the canvas might be--I'm trying to think--one of them was a cow, laying on the ground, butchered. There was an Indian woman, sitting on the ground with a butcher knife and there was a little kid. He actually had me pose for the kid in the painting. I got to stand there and I felt really cool, being a model.

But when he told me what the painting was about, that it was in the early reservation era, when we made the transition from hunting buffalo to being dependent on government rations. When they'd distribute the rations for meat, they'd deliver a live cow. It was up to the families to kill the cow and butcher 7:00it themselves. That's what the painting was about. It really just blew me away and made me realize how different things are today, as opposed to what our ancestors went through. Once I got older, he really pushed me toward law school. I was a nerd, a student athlete all the way through high school and actually graduated from high school early. My dad was always trying to encourage me to go to law school. He said, "I'll help you out the best I can, as long as you focus on political science and then go to law school. Other than that, you can go to the army." So the first thing I did was made an appointment with the Army recruiter because I was dead set against going to law school. The funny thing 8:00about that is my dad and I have the same name, the same exact name. I'm actually Bunky, or Walter Echo-Hawk the Third. My apat, my grandpa, passed away before I was born. On paper, they said I couldn't be the Third, so I was almost a Jr. I attended my appointment with the Army recruiter and I sat in there about forty-five seconds and realized that wasn't for me, and I left. The Army recruiter, though, kept calling the house and when I'd answer the phone, he'd say, "Let me speak to Walter Echo-Hawk," and I was like "Okay," because everyone knew me as Bunky.

Little Thunder: That was a good prank.

Echo-Hawk: I was, "Dad, you got a phone call." My dad got mad. He's, "What do you want with me? I'm too old for the Army."

Little Thunder: Before we go too much further, let's backtrack a little. How about your mom's influence on you and possible artistic influence as well?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, my mom. She was also a huge influence on me. The art that she creates is traditional art, everything from beadwork to cradle boards and stuff like that. I learned a lot from watching her work. I learned, if anything, to appreciate the amount of knowledge and patience it takes to do those projects. It was a good balancing, that traditional creation of art in our home, mixed with my dad's oil painting and his professional role. I felt like it was a strong balance. It's something I wanted to maintain throughout my life is that strong sense of tradition but also a strong sense of professionalism and a 10:00strong sense of the contemporary art forms. Just seeing the work that my mom would do, blew me away. She made a belt buckle for Alex English, who played with the Denver Nuggets. He was at a fundraising event for the Native American Rights Fund. He was one of my mom's favorite players. She was able to present him with that belt buckle. It had the Denver Nuggets Logo on it and it had his initials and his number on it. It blew me away because it was the first time that I had ever seen our traditional art forms with a contemporary image on it.

It opened that door for me. To me, that was an important way of preserving our traditional art form, but being able to tell our story today. Because, a hundred 11:00and fifty years from now, if that belt buckle ends up in a museum, it'll truly tell the story of our lives today. It was really cool seeing that. The best part about it was, that I was so envious the whole time when she was making a belt buckle because I was a Nuggets fan. I was a little guy and I was into basketball. After she had presented it to him, she surprised me and she made one for me as well. It had my initials on it. That made me happy. It was cool. There was always that balance of not just the art forms, I guess, but also the different tribal cultures. There's a lot of similarities between my mom's tribe and my dad's tribe and there are a lot of differences. It was cool, learning both sides of where I come from and seeing that duality play out in my daily 12:00life. I think it was pretty cool. I felt really fortunate in that they found each other. I think they complement each other really well on a lot of different levels. It was good.

Little Thunder: How about your first memories of doing art?

Echo-Hawk: I think my first memories are--my dad was gone on a trip and I found his sharpies and took the newspaper and I started drawing, trying to do what he did for me, for myself. I started drawing--I was really into the Dukes of Hazzard back then--so I was drawing an episode where the Dukes of Hazzard came in their orange car, the General Lee. They came to Pawnee, Oklahoma and were getting chased by the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] cops, (Laughter) eluding 13:00them and stuff. I used to try to write. I don't remember that as much, but my dad's brother, Roger Echo-Hawk, my Uncle Roger, kept some of that and published it in some publication. I was, I think five or six, and he'd published it with some of my drawings, my story. When I look at it now, it's embarrassing because it looks like a bunch of tallies.

Little Thunder: And like a cartoon?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. So that's, I think, my first experience with that. I was wanting to do that.

Little Thunder: What about primary school or elementary school? What were your art experiences?

Echo-Hawk: I had an art class when I was in public school and it was just real 14:00basic. It didn't get into anything meaty.

Little Thunder: Was it in Boulder?

Echo-Hawk: It was in Lyons; it was Lyons High School. I was actually playing basketball and ended up walking off the team on my junior year, because I wanted to focus more on my academics. I started feeling pressures of college at that point. There was an interest in getting an athletic scholarship at a few different colleges, and I didn't want to hang my future on hopes of a basketball scholarship. I ended up walking off the team and everything kind of unraveled there. It's a small school. I ended up transferring to alternative private school in Boulder. That was an amazing experience. It was a school that was 15:00based on the arts. When I went there, it really unlocked a lot of doors. The art classes got really amplified. I took a couple of semesters of illustration, which really taught me a lot. The professor, my teacher there, the art teacher, was an amazing guy. I was trying to draw--I was really into punk rock and skateboarding and all that--but he would always try to tell me, "Bring this back to your culture, because that's who you are." He wasn't Native at all, but he understood. I really owe a lot to him for that.

He was always saying, "You can do your skulls and all your punk stuff, but make it Indian because that's who you are. You're Indian and you're doing that." The 16:00very first painting I did is on a leather jacket, and I actually have it, too. It's a punk rock jacket. It's all painted up, but I did a portrait on the back of it of one of our Pawnee Scouts named Whitehorse. He was encouraging. He actually gave me a longhorn steer skull, as an art project, to paint traditionally. When I was graduating, he gave me an eagle feather. He said, "I'm not supposed to have this. I'm a white guy. It came to me a long time ago and I wanted to pass it on to you." It meant a lot to me because I grew up since I could walk, dancing in our arena and at our ceremonies. I took it to heart and I still have that feather. It's a prominent fixture in my life. Yes, pretty much 17:00that was the schooling I had as far as art was concerned. I had some really amazing English Comp[osition] classes in that school as well that really inspired me to write poetry and write plays. It was just an amazing end to my high school education.

Little Thunder: You hadn't really been too super focused on art. It was just part of self-expression and then that experience in school really set it up?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, it was a dark period in my life. A lot of it was teenage angst, and I don't know, it was a couple of other issues. I was in a dark place, and then, a major transition going from the basketball or the athletic world in high 18:00school, and having to transfer schools and losing a lot of friends. But when that world opened to me, that world of expression, I feel like it really saved my life. It put me on the direction that I'm still on today. It was good.

Little Thunder: You explained that at one point you were going to sign up for the Army, but you quickly decided that wasn't for you. How did you end up at the Institute of American Indian Art? Or what happened after that when you were not wanting to go to law school, but not wanting to go to the Army?

Echo-Hawk: I was lucky enough that my dad and mom knew that college was coming up. I think, even as early as my sophomore year, we'd go on road trips and we'd check out different places. We checked out Haskell Indian College, Haskell Nations Indian University up in Lawrence, Kansas and then Fort Lewis College in 19:00Durango. When I was filling out my applications, I decided against Haskell. I mean I got accepted, but I didn't want to go there. Didn't really care for Durango as much. The Institute just seemed like the best choice for me because it would help me with the passion that I had at the time, which was writing and painting. I graduated from high school early, so I had eight months to kill before I went to college. I had a construction job. I can't remember how it worked out, but I ended up taking a job at the American Indian Science and Engineering Society in Boulder and worked as an illustrator. I thought it was 20:00going to be a real easy job, drawing pictures for a living. They handed me a stack of files. They wanted me to illustrate these educational brochures and pamphlets on fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect.

I had to study all these gruesome cases, and then I had to illustrate it and try and convince people, or teach people what it was about, and hopefully, steer them clear of that. It kind of helped me. I think that planted a seed that I could use my art as a way to try to empower our people or help our people. Because before that, I was doing historic paintings or kind of romanticized art like beads and feathers and buffalo skulls, stuff like that. That kind of helped, I think, unlock that door. When I got to Santa Fe, I had an idea of the 21:00direction that I wanted that to go. I was an English major, creative writing major there and did painting on my--I couldn't major, double major because they blocked the classes at the same exact time, which was a bummer to me. But I had my own studio space there and the professors there still gave me guidance and critiques. Some of them, I didn't like the critiques that I got, but yeah, it was an amazing experience.

Little Thunder: Who were some of the outstanding professors and maybe even students that were sort of influential?

Echo-Hawk: Man, there were quite a few. As far as poetry, Jon Davis was a real standout professor. Arthur Sze. Then, the theatre aspect which I was primarily 22:00focused on, William Yellow Robe was a strong professor and ally and friend. Bruce King was another one I learned a lot from, as far as, he was teaching acting. Got to learn a lot from him. There's a lot of people, fellow students that really stand out from that time period. Some of them are still continuing on in their craft and some went different directions. That's really cool to see them--

Little Thunder: Is that when you experimented with playwriting too?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah.

Little Thunder: That's how I first heard your name, actually.

Echo-Hawk: Oh, right.

Little Thunder: Was in theater--

Echo-Hawk: The Institute was amazing because they'd focus on student development. The classes were really small, a handful of students, maybe a dozen at the most. They would not only teach you how to write and how to edit your own work, but they also looked for opportunities outside of the school. Like in my poetry classes, we'd learn writing and editing, and then the performance of it. They also taught us how to submit our work for publications and that process as part of the classwork because we'd actually have to submit our work for publication. But they also hooked up poetry readings for us, so we went to the Santa Fe Indian School and read for the high school kids and then on the radio 24:00stations, different places like that. In the playwriting classes, we developed our plays and the higher-tiered classes, we submitted them to different theatres. A handful of us got selected to go out to New York City and work out there and develop our plays. We had some cold staged greetings of our scripts to develop them. We were trying to get them picked up for production out there. It was an amazing experience. We got to go out there and do long distance learning.

Little Thunder: Was this with the American Indian [Community] House in New York or--

Echo-Hawk: There was a production company called Chuka Lokale and they did stuff at the [American Indian] Community house there. But where we were set up was at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre where they do the Shakespeare Festival out of. Irene Bedard was, actually, played the lead in my play.

Little Thunder: Oh, wow.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was cool because when I flew out there, somebody had left a People magazine on the plane. It was like "Fifty Most Beautiful People." I looking through it and Irene Bedard was in there. I was, "Oh my goodness. That's really cool. There's a Native woman in here." When we got established and set up, and then met the cast of who was going to be helping 26:00us develop our work, she was there. I was just blown away. I was starstruck, so I had her sign it for me. (Laughter) It was really great experience out there. I had some competitive submissions. I'm trying to remember, like the New York Ensemble Studio Theatre. I got beat out by Steve Martin.

Little Thunder: He's not a bad person to get--

Echo-Hawk: His play got selected over mine. After that experience, shopped my play around. It got picked up, I think, actually, in Durango. There was a production of the play that I developed out there. It was a play called The Essence. It was about a half Pawnee, half white teenage girl that didn't know 27:00her father, her Pawnee father, and ended up getting mixed up with these New Agers. She was trying to find bits and pieces of her roots, or what she thought was her heritage. It was kind of a drama/comedy, I guess. We actually did a staged reading in Santa Fe, and you know, in Santa Fe there's a New Age community there. At the opening night, it was kind of mixed feelings from the audience. It was a fun experience, for sure.

Little Thunder: What was a landmark, I guess, event that pointed you more in the direction of your painting?

Echo-Hawk: I think right toward the end of my second year at IAIA, I had 28:00uncovered (and I don't know if this is too personal or not) but I had uncovered memories from when I was a little kid and I was sexually abused by an older cousin of mine. I had flooded those memories, buried them. They came out right before I was set to graduate. I struggled with that. I barely graduated. I was on the President's List, Honors List the whole time till last semester. I think that those feelings, all those memories and the feelings that came up with that, I associated them with writing, those emotions, and trying to write. I took a 29:00break from writing and went on to the University of Colorado and was trying to take care of prerequisite stuff that I didn't do at the Institute. Then I turned twenty-one and I ended up not doing anything for like a couple of years, which is embarrassing to admit. But I was at the bars a lot, had a manual labor job and something about still having these unresolved feelings, I started painting, kind of abstract expressionist, I guess. I was really influenced by Mirac Creepingbear's work and how he brought the spirituality of his people into his work. It was seamless and it made sense to me. At the same time, I was really 30:00into Wassily Kandinsky, his color theory and his work. I started experimenting with telling my story. I was also, at that time, not ready to talk about my experiences as a kid. I did it through hidden messages in my art. I did a whole series of them. A lot of my friends really loved it. I'd give those paintings away to my friends. It felt like a way to heal at some level.

Little Thunder: That may have been one of your first series, I guess. You do a lot of your work in series.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, it definitely was. The very last painting I did in that series, I worked on it for eight months. It was called, We Got the Vibe. It was this piece, it was really vibrant colors--I think I was hiding my emotions with the 31:00bright, warm colors--it was this painting that had like a hundred faces in it, kind of mixed, and salmon. It was trying to connect with my spiritual health, I guess. At that same time, too, I was really getting into singing a lot more. Traveled with my dad quite a bit, and starting to transition away from powwow singing which is really commercialized to learning our traditional ceremonial songs. I think that last painting helped me transition out of that dark space I was in and to heal. At the same time, in that eight month period on that last piece, I'd done a painting that was like twelve feet wide and that was maybe a 32:00foot high. It was called Under the Bed. It was about my experiences as a child, and it had my face in there, twice, had the left side of my face and the right side of my face and everything that happened in between. I felt like that was my way of closing the door on that and moving on.

But I realize, still, that was (what is it, fifteen years later?) I'm still exploring what that means to me. That means something different to me now than it did back then. I guess it's still a healing from those things. But yeah, that painting, that series was huge in helping me to move away from there. Or at least start on that journey of healing and finding my identity again, I guess. I 33:00took a break from painting and from writing and stuff for a couple of years. Then I actually had a back injury--it was like 2000. And herniated two disks in my lower back. It was a horrible experience. It was physical therapy three times a week and learning to walk and deal with the pain. It's a permanent condition. But in those first eight, nine months, I couldn't leave the house or anything. So once I could finally sit up, I started painting again. But I started doing it from a different perspective. Instead of it being a primarily emotional outlet, 34:00I started doing research. The first series that came out of that was my Gas Mask as Medicine series. I was studying environmental injustice in Indian country, environmental racism. Did a lot of research and sketches and came up with twenty-five paintings that I wanted to do and then laid it out and did them. I started exhibiting it as a body of work because I thought one painting here or there, wouldn't tell the story. I was really drawn to working in a body of work.

Little Thunder: Right. It really amplifies the power of it. Where did you, what was one of the most important venues that you showed that series in?

Echo-Hawk: That series was my first legitimate--I had stuff in a coffee house., 35:00They had actually made me take down my work because it was too controversial because of some people that got into a fight about it, sparked from a conversation about it.

Little Thunder: That's a compliment--

Echo-Hawk: I thought so. They thought it was too much of a liability. The first show I had was a solo exhibition at the Ellen Katherine Gallery in Boulder. She was, I think, pretty young, not too far out of college, and somehow I had a prime gallery spot like in downtown Boulder. It really inspired me to have these paintings altogether. It was a beautiful spot and it was pretty well received. 36:00Sold a few paintings. It really inspired me to continue on. I didn't want that to be the highlight of my career. Made me automatically think of what to do next. Also, at that same time, I started the website and started showing my work online. Then donated a couple pieces to non-profits. Slowly, my work started getting out there and getting known. Those paintings started getting picked up in publications as illustrations. I think one of them that I'm really proud of still today, is the Native American Rights Fund used that series to illustrate 37:00their annual report which went out to all their funders and supporters and all that. The story that sticks with me out of that is, I think it was my dad, had went up to Montana to visit a tribal judge up there and went to their home. On his coffee table, he had taken apart that Annual Report, and made a collage and then put glass over it. He said it was a visual reminder these are the issues.

This is why we're fighting the good fight. He said that anybody he invites up, they sit across from that table and they're forced to see those images. It really bolstered my ambition and made me realize art could be used in a powerful way to make a statement. It built like that. Started getting some book covers 38:00and stuff and doors started opening. I remember I made a couple of trips before that time and, I think, right after that time, brought my portfolio down to Santa Fe and visited like thirty galleries in Santa Fe. Got turned down by every single one of them. They said, there were two sentiments: one was my artwork was not Indian enough. The other sentiment is that it was too Indian. There was no in between. I guess the in-between would be like Kokopellis and coyotes or pastels. So I decided early on that Santa Fe wasn't for me. That traditional Indian art market wasn't for me. I jaded a bit. I wanted to circumvent that and do my own thing and blaze my own trail. I had a chip on my shoulder, you know, 39:00and I made it work for me.

Little Thunder: Real quick for fun, do you mind tell me what the image was in the coffee house that earned so much controversy?

Echo-Hawk: To this day, I'm not sure which one it was. It might have been a combination of the imagery, but what I was told was that it was a conflict between a younger liberal college student--they said he was a young hippy college student--and a rural Vietnam vet.

Little Thunder: Oh.

Echo-Hawk: They were in the coffee shop and they were talking about the paintings, I guess. I don't know if it was one in particular or what, but they butted heads on it. Because some of the paintings were about the militarization 40:00of Indian Country, the painting I'd guess that it would have been--there's a large painting I did called Natural Resource Management. It featured a big grasshopper oil pump and Indians wearing suits and war bonnets but with gas masks and holding briefcases. On one of the skyscrapers in the background, George Bush's face was on there. I'm thinking it was that one because it was kind of a stab at the conservative party.

Little Thunder: Right. At one point, you got pretty involved with some different youth organizations. How did your art and that kind of work come together?

Echo-Hawk: I think after my first solo exhibit, I was really trying to get, I 41:00was trying to figure out how much my paintings would be worth, what to charge. An agent that I had at the time suggested donating work and then seeing what the paintings go for in auction, see what people will pay for it and basing it on that. I selected Native organizations in the area and even some non-Native organizations. I think from that introduction to philanthropy, I started realizing the work that they're doing. Also, my work I did with the AISES [American Indian Science and Engineering Society]. Then seeing first hand from traveling as a singer to different communities for powwows, seeing the issues that our youth were facing. All that really started getting to me a bit more. I 42:00was asked to serve on the Board of Directors at the Denver Indian Center. I think that was 2004. I served on their board for my term. Really got introduced to the world of non-profit work and the challenges they face and the need for those programs. I got to see first-hand the impact those programs would have and the challenges that they face and the consequences if the funding wasn't met, if those programs weren't there, what that would mean. It really opened my eyes, so at that point I shifted gears. I was still doing manual--I was working as a 43:00screen printer and serving on this board, and I realized that I wanted to change and actually work in non-profit.

I got a job in the American Indian College Fund and started working with them while still serving on the board. I got a leadership role being on the board, so working within the non-profit. Felt like I had a good foundation. My cousin, Crystal Echo-Hawk, and I were talking quite a bit about the needs that our youth have and how they're not being met, so we cofounded Envision in 2006, focused on bringing multimedia art platforms to Native youth. Working in terms of suicide 44:00prevention, and substance abuse prevention, and stuff like that. That just kind of went from there. Envision grew pretty quickly and found a foundation just working with a few specific tribes. But I wanted to continue working with more tribes and more youth. So I shifted management--at one point I was the Executive Director of Envision. That was all a hundred percent unpaid, so it was funny having a title. I guess that was the one perk out of it. That just meant I was doing most of the work. But we shifted it over, and gave the leadership over to a couple of other artists in the collective. I continued doing my own thing on my own path, focused on the art therapy aspect of workshops.

Little Thunder: Began doing live painting, right? That was part of it.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah.

Little Thunder: How did you find that?

Echo-Hawk: It came from conversations with some of my family members. I had heard, growing up, about our winter months, when we'd be in our earth lodges and how they'd pass the time. They'd have hand games and all these social events, but they'd also have times when they'd have an artist there and people would gather and the artist would serve as the entertainment and tell stories or even jokes and stuff. Then, the artist would talk to the assembled audience and determine some significant events that happened the previous year. The artist would talk to each person, and by doing that, would get the complete picture of 46:00that piece of history. Then they'd record it on a stretched hide, like a buffalo hide or deer hide. They'd have a young woman, she would have a stretched buckskin that was white, but it would be stretched tight, and she'd reflect the light of the fire onto the artist's working space. What's cool about that is that my cousin, Crystal, that became her Indian name because they said that's what she does, is she reflects light onto other people and helps them to accomplish their work. I thought it was cool. Anyway, we did a fundraising event for Pawnee Nation College which then was in its infancy and Comanche Nation College down in Oklahoma City. I promised to donate some work for the silent auction and I didn't have it with me. Then I had the idea, "What if I do a live 47:00painting on the spot with the entertainment?" We had some DJs and stuff like that. "Then, we'll auction the painting." It was a complete rush for me, just spur of the moment. I had no idea if I could do it or not. I didn't know how quick I could work. It ended up working pretty well, and people were really receptive to it. I had the DJ wear a gasmask, I'd bought a few gasmasks at a surplus store, and then I put war paint on it, painted it up, so I had the DJ put it on during a break.

He put that on and I put my roach and eagle feathers on him and I said, "All right, when I come out and take the stage, you come out next." Anyway, I went and put my easel up there. I want to say it was like forty-eight inches by forty-eight inches, pretty good sized canvas up on stage. Then, he came out and 48:00he started--the speakers were up and he started scratching and the music dropped. People started coming up. It was cool, looking over my shoulder and seeing everybody. Their minds just were blown, seeing this Indian DJ, up there with the gasmask on and war paint. Just saw the wave of phones coming out and people taking pictures. I fell in love with it instantly. The feeling that you can only get if you're there in the audience to witness the art happen. It was a big rush for me and made me feel like a rock star, even though I'm not musically inclined. It just went from there, and I was looking for opportunities to paint. At first, it was kind of a staged piece with some of these guys, these DJs and MCs. I did it for fun because I had a paying job. But eventually, I started 49:00perfecting it and realizing that I could do more with it. So I looked back to those conversations about our ancestors and wondered if I'd be able to do that the way they did it. I can't remember the first time, it was, I think, at a youth conference up in Spokane, Washington. I'm trying to remember the name of their group, but I think it was called the Native Project. Area tribes sent their youth and there were like 300, 377 kids in the audience.

I was, "If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it now." I had them ask questions and had them raise their hands. Then, I had them go through--the question that 50:00really sticks out in my mind is I asked them, "How many of you have somebody in your family that has diabetes?" and a lot of hands went up. Then asked, "How many of you are fluent in your language?" Only a handful of hands went up. Then I asked, "How many of you have somebody in your family that is an alcoholic?" and every single hand went up in the audience. It was heart-wrenching. At that point I turned around and said, "I'm going to start painting and want you guys to go through and introduce yourself to me and inspire me to paint." The very first kid that took the mic said "I'm twelve years old, and I already have a problem with alcohol." He said, "My parents are both alcoholics and my older siblings are alcoholics and I've already started drinking and I'm only twelve." And he just went on, but it was really brave of him. It set the tone. When he 51:00passed the microphone, all these other kids just opened up. It made me realize that these kids from different tribes and different communities saw some synergy there. They saw they weren't the only ones facing these problems. In that sense, I saw some doors opening, the healing begin. When I was painting it, I was trying not to cry because these kids were being so raw and so honest and open. They talked about sexual abuse and the full gamut. There were no filters at all. You know, Indian kids are typically really shy, especially in a public setting. These kids--it was a safe place.

So I painted this toddler, Indian toddler, kind of floating and holding up a bottle of whiskey, and then on that bottle of whiskey, there was a nipple on it 52:00and that baby was about to drink it. Then toward the end, I said "What words do you want on this painting?" They said, "Put FAS on there, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome." I put FAS. Then I said, "But instead of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, make it stand for futures are stolen." It was really intense and powerful. I think from that experience helped me to refine what I could do with the audience. Now it's more natural for me, I can contain my emotions more when I'm up here. But what's sad or sobering is that a lot of these communities that I visit have those same issues from community to community. Now I try to focus on having the 53:00audience brainstorm tactics to overcome those obstacles. Then try to focus on that, try to make a visual action plan for them. It's been really--

Little Thunder: They'll carry on?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. It's been pretty good experience. It's given me a lot so when I come home and I'm in the studio, and I don't have the audience there, I still have their sentiments and their experiences with me, and I still carry those prayers for them. When I do my studio work and I can spend several months on a canvas, I still have that with me. It's pretty intense at times, but it's rewarding.

Little Thunder: Powerful stuff. Have you done any murals at all?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, I have done a few. Done one in Citizen Band Potawatomi at their youth center. Jasha, my wife, actually helped me with those. We did it in three days, I think. It was just kind of a fun piece. It actually relied on my original series of work with that style and created this mural, so it was more fluid. A spiritual mural that featured this big, giant face and this ribbon-like hair and stars woven throughout it. I've done murals in private residences up in Shakopee, up in Minnesota, and then a mural at the Yakama Nation Tribal School. 55:00That was a fun one because it was interactive with the students there, so they were around while I was working on the mural. I've done quite a few. Then I did--and I'll never do it again because it was--well, I don't want to say that because it was fun, but it was really difficult. I had a show at Widen and Kennedy. Their headquarters are in Portland, Oregon. They're advertising moguls. They came up with "Just Do It," the Nike slogan and all that. But they gave me a solo exhibition in their headquarters, and they're asking, "What do you want for the opening reception?" I was kind of being a smartass, and I said, "I want a full scale tipi because it was a big space, you know." I said, "I want a full scale tipi with blank canvas and I want a satellite dish on the top. For the opening reception I'll paint, do live art, all around the tipi, paint the tipi." 56:00Anyway, they made it happen, so I had to do it.

Little Thunder: Wow, that's a major job, painting a tipi.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. It was pretty cool. But it was just the image of seeing that satellite dish up there because I think I'd painted it before, but seeing it there physically, it was so odd. It was a poetic image. They took it a step further and they put a rug inside the tipi and a TV that just had static on, and a toaster oven. It was pretty cool. It was a challenge to do live art. It was like murals, mural-size all the way around that tipi.

Little Thunder: Tell us about your contract with Nike because now you've been working with them for quite a while.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. They actually contacted me in, I want to say 2009, and invited me to come up to their world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, just to do live 57:00art for their Native American Heritage Month. I was invited by the GM of Native Business, Sam McCracken, and then also on behalf of the Native American employee network at Nike. When I went up there, they gave me a tour, and I, at that point. I hadn't heard much about the Nike N-Seven Line, which is a line inspired by Native American culture to benefit native American communities. They gave me the tour and introduced me to the line and I really fell in love with it. I was always into Nikes and Jordans back in high school and I'd actually screen printed a Nike Logo on leather and made a drum stick out of it. So I had a Nike, 58:00the swoosh, and then, instead of "Just Do It," I changed it and it said, "Just Be." At that time, I was actually working a lot in the skateboarding community and designing decks with a company called Native Skates out of Adrienne, Michigan. They had partnered with Vans [shoes] and they were doing Pendleton, Pendleton Vans and they'd asked for some prototypes of my art and custom shoes. So I was actually doing that when Nike called. I was, "What's up with this and these different shoe companies?"

Little Thunder: Wow, corporate.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, anyways they introduced me to the line up there and then they requested that when I do my live painting, to do a portrait of Mark Parker, the 59:00Nike CEO and President. They were appreciative of Mark's engagement with the Nike N7 Line and they just wanted to honor him so I did a portrait of him with a headdress. Then I wrote in graffiti writing, "agent of change." After that performance, they said that their motivating reason for bringing me up there was actually to talk to me about coming on to possibly help design some of the stuff. I guess they had researched at one point, broke into a couple of research teams after they decided they wanted to work with the Native artists. I was fortunate enough that when they reconvened, my name was on the top of the list. 60:00It just kind of fell onto my lap. I had my reservations, at first, because I had heard of Nike and their questionable sweatshop labor practices. When I was there, I realized that they had changed those practices by then, but their commitment to the Native American community was legitimate. I was pleased to see that the staff within that line was a Native staff, Native-managed. It spoke volumes that they wanted to work with a Native artist. They didn't want to hire me as an employee, they just wanted to contract with me. I thought that was awesome that they respected that. Just seeing the impact that the line had already. Their philosophies were adopted into the corporation of Nike, like the 61:00Native philosophy of only using what you need translated into their manufacturing. Before they would cut two feet of material and they only needed fifteen inches of material.

By doing that, only using what they needed, they were able to reduce their annual waste, manufacturing waste, by several hundreds of tons. They said it was enough, what they had cut out from their waste, if you filled dump trucks completely up, they would run bumper to bumper from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington. By changing their manufacturing practices to our Native philosophy, it cut out all that waste. Some of the materials that they were 62:00using for some of the early windbreakers were made from 98 percent recycled water bottles. They were looking at reducing their footprint, honoring our Native philosophies and it really appealed to me. But what appealed to me most is that the proceeds from the line go into the N7 Fund which, in turn, distributes that money back into Indian County to fund youth programs, giving them access to sport and combating type 2 diabetes and youth obesity. It really appealed to me as a way to--spoke to may philanthropic heart. I'll be able to honor our culture. I'll be able to make some art. As an artist, it was a huge opportunity. Then, just knowing that it was bringing our community up in a 63:00number of ways, it really spoke to me. I signed with them, I think, in 2010 and started immediately designing with them. Once the designs are complete and everything, it usually takes ten to twelve months for it to actually hit the shelves. Wrapped up my designs. in 2010. Right before my line launched--my first line launched in 2011--Nike officially bought the N7 Line. It became an official line of Nike. They started putting their resources into the line to help it develop and grow. It was really cool. We actually, I think, did a really amazing job at the first launch parties. They were sold out within the day at different sights.

Since then, we've been able to partner with Kevin Durant from Oklahoma City Thunder, and also with the Jordan, brand Jordan, in releasing some Nike N7 Jordan shoes and apparel. Every year, every season, we're able to continue to grow and get bigger. As a result of that, we've been able to put over three million dollars back into Indian country in the last couple of years. It's been really amazing to see that. Also, as part of that, we're highlighting our Native professional athletes and giving them extra exposure, which is huge because now we're starting to see these high school students. I identify with that myself. I look back to that critical time where I made that decision. A huge part of me 65:00making that decision to drop out of basketball was because then, I didn't see any possibilities beyond college. I'm Indian, and I'll only go so far, so I'm going to go this other way. Now, we're starting to see that there are possibilities beyond that. There's Native WNBA players out there that are on the all-star team and Native football players that are starting quarterbacks on professional NFL teams. Just starting to grow. That list is getting bigger and bigger. It's cool seeing that. Some of the communities that the N7 fund has partnered with, they're starting to see marked improvements. Reduction of youth obesity, reduction of type 2 diabetes, improvements on school attendance and 66:00grades. Suicide rates dropping. It's not a cure all by any means, but it's cool being able to see that influence, knowing that that line has that kind of potential. It's cool that it's growing, just for that reason alone for me. It's been exciting to see.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. Switching to your process and techniques, you mostly use acrylic. Is that right? Mostly acrylic on canvas for your studio work?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah.

Little Thunder: How important is sketching to you, when you're in the studio, not live painting?

Echo-Hawk: It's really important to me. I'm always kind of a nerd about it. I research as much as I can about it, before I even sketch, and I'll read as much as much as I can about whatever idea I have. Then I'll start compiling 67:00information. Once I feel like I'm able to talk intelligently about whatever I'm going to paint, then I feel like I'm able to start sketching. I'll do traditional sketches in a sketch book. Lately, I've been coupling that with doing digital sketching, digital compositions, playing with the imagery on the computer and manipulating it and doing sketches based off that. Sometimes I'll do smaller proof paintings on paper or I'll use watercolor and inks.

Little Thunder: Preliminaries?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. Once I feel comfortable with it, I'll translate it up onto canvas and go from there. When it's part of a series, the way I look at it--I 68:00think it's my creative writing background--but I look at them as chapters to a book. I'll actually draft my narrative, my artist statement, about the series before I even start the series because I'll always look back on it. Every painting I'm about to do, I compare it to that statement and if it doesn't match up, I'll back burner it. I want the body to be cohesive, and tell as much of the story as possible. I do a lot of writing and a lot of introspection. Then, my sketches, I have fun with it. I'll do, sometimes, collage work, just trying to frame the idea in different ways before I actually do it. Sometimes it results 69:00in me working on music as well on my computer, digital or electronic dance music. Just trying to harness that creativity. It doesn't always go to canvas. Sometimes it's another project or it's a sound or a song or something that'll inspire me and I'll play that when I actually do get on canvas.

Little Thunder: While you're working?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. Yeah--

Little Thunder: I know you travel quite a bit, but when you're at home, what's your creative routine?

Echo-Hawk: A lot of times I tend to veg out quite a bit. I'll ice my back when I return from a trip. It's usually a couple days before I can do anything creatively. I get really drained from those trips. Because it's not just the time where I'm actually painting, but it's the whole experience of visiting a 70:00community and tapping into what they're doing in their communities, meeting people and networking and the actual traveling itself. I'll go through periods where when I'm home, I'm home. But when I get this overwhelming feeling that I need to create, although I tend to work at night, I'll be regular guy and dad in the daytime, and then at night once the kids are tucked in and asleep, I'll get into my paint, sometimes all through the night until the sun comes up. At the same time, Jasha and I always have these amazing conversations where I'm, sometimes she'll be taking notes, but I'm always taking it in. We're really 71:00active in our community and working on trying to get Indigenous Peoples Day recognized in Oklahoma City and participating in our community. So there's always these areas that pop up where I am thinking, "How could I paint that? How could I turn that into something?" Usually, even though I might not be creating, I'm absorbing or sponging it in, and I'll have to find the time to squeeze myself and let it come out.

Little Thunder: Right. Well, looking back on your career so far, what has been a high point for you?

Echo-Hawk: I think, the N7 stuff is real cool. But I think my solo exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago has been my biggest exhibit to date. It was amazing. 72:00I worked with a big staff there and developed a show and it was supposed to be up for, I think, one year, and they ended up extending by a second year. It received a lot of visits. I can't remember the final estimation on how many people saw it, but over a million people saw the exhibit.

Little Thunder: That's fantastic.

Echo-Hawk: It was really cool, that whole opportunity.

Little Thunder: Modern Day Warrior, was that the subtitle?

Echo-Hawk: Right, yeah.

Little Thunder: Twenty thirteen. How many pieces did you do total?

Echo-Hawk: I want to say we had twenty-two pieces all together for the exhibit. The premise of it was they had me come in and select objects from their archives 73:00to exhibit. I basically co-curated the exhibit with the curator of North American Anthropology. I got to go in and select objects from my ancestors on both sides, which was cool on my mom's side and my dad's side. I selected probably sixty objects and we had to pare it down. Then, they wanted me to create original art work, based on my work with those objects from their collection. So I created a handful of paintings specifically for that exhibit. They wanted my drum stick that I mentioned earlier with the Nike on it, some of my Nike N7 stuff. Then, like my painter's pants, actually accessioned a pair of my pants, a pair of my shoes, and a t-shirt into their permanent collection. 74:00It's pretty neat--

Little Thunder: That is neat.

Echo-Hawk: --seeing them working. The museum staff had the white gloves on and they're delicately straightening my pants up to photograph it and catalog it and I'm sitting there thinking, "Man, did I wash those before I gave it you?" (Laughter) It was really cool being able to bridge the gap between how our ancestors lived then, how we are today as a people, and what things, what aspects of that life have adapted, what aspects have been forgotten and been put away. It was really a fun exhibit to be a part of. It actually recently came down and moved over to Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, Illinois. It's been up there for a couple of months. I'm not sure what's happening with it after that, but a lot of paintings that were in there from various collections, private 75:00collections--I'm sure those people are chomping at the bit to get their work back.

Little Thunder: Have their work back?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah.

Little Thunder: What's been a low point for you in your career so far?

Echo-Hawk: There's low points. That's a good question. I don't know, it's challenging at times financially to make it because it's not a steady paycheck every two weeks. There's definitely challenges there. It's feast or famine sometimes. I think a low part, for me, is and it goes even back to my creative 76:00writing days, when you send out stuff for publication and you get those rejection letters. At this point in my career, it's like getting rejection letters for grants, or for fellowship awards. I keep thinking, I could be doing so much more if I had those resources to do so. Those are definitely the low points, I think. So far, I've been trying to--the way I view it is spiraling up. There's times from where I started, it'll spiral around and you might be a little bit higher than where you started, but you're still up a little bit further.

There's definitely some times--I'm grateful my low points aren't super low. 77:00Aside from what I mentioned earlier, the things that happened to me as a kid, I think that laid a foundation to who I am today. I think if there was the lowest point is the time after I had remembered that stuff and became consciously aware of what had happened to me where I stopped completely. I think as far as my writing goes, that's been on hold for quite a while. I talk with Jasha quite a bit about wanting to get back into writing. I feel like I still identify myself as a writer, even though I'm not writing. That's been a continual low point for me as far as that aspect of my creative career. It's definitely something that I 78:00want to break out of that, fly on out of there.

Little Thunder: We'll look forward to seeing some more writing, too. We'll pause for a minute and take a look at a couple of your pictures.

Echo-Hawk: Okay. Good.

Little Thunder: Okay. All right, Bunky, would you like to talk about this painting?

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, this is a portrait that I'd made of John Trudell. He was an amazing--

Little Thunder: Oh, my gosh.

Echo-Hawk: --leader, civil rights leader that we recently lost. He was a guy that I met quite a bit as a young person. He came through at the Institute of American Indian Arts, but I'd been working with him in recent years on some activist [work]: Save Hickory Ground, protecting a sacred site [with] my Creek friends. Anyways, his family notified us that he was about to make his journey. 79:00Some of my friends here were driving out to California to see him, but I was up in Minnesota performing and couldn't make the trip with them. When I got home, I painted this. Actually, I asked his family to select some images to do a portrait of him and this is one of the images. It's one of his characters from a movie, Thunderheart. Anyways, I painted it all night and I sent it on to him at dawn and posted it and he got to see it. He got to see the video I made of the time while I did painting. It really blew up that day. There were seventy thousand views of it and a lot of people sharing it and reposting it. Then, of 80:00course, he passed away that night, I guess, or early that next morning. Anyways, it was real special to me, getting to see, just know he got to see it. He got to know that I was thinking of him at that time. That's what this one is. It's kind of paying homage to him.

Little Thunder: That's wonderful. How about this piece?

Echo-Hawk: This one is Maria Tallchief. She was, of course, a famed prima ballerina from Osage people. I painted it because I wanted to help share her story and the inspiration that she continues to impart upon young dancers. The image I based it off of was from a publication in Life magazine. They'd photographed her. It was kind of a candid shot, I guess. But she'd come back to 81:00Oklahoma after traveling around and making a name for herself. Made it back to Osage Country and the mayor and the tribal leadership were there. I believe the Governor of Oklahoma was there and they declared it Maria Tallchief Day and during that welcoming ceremony, they placed a war bonnet on her. I think she's fidgeting with that.

Little Thunder: Right.

Echo-Hawk: And snapped a candid black and white photo that was beautiful. I just wanted to preserve her legacy, I guess. It was paying homage to her as she passed, helping make sure, we remembered her life and her contributions.

Little Thunder: Right. Okay, so we're looking at some shoes.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, these are the Nike N7 Airmax Destinys that came out in 2011. 82:00These are the first shoes from my first line that I collaborated on with Nike N7. What blows me away about it is the colors. [I] selected the colors and in my mind, it was going to be like that, but at the last minute, it was a surprise, they put this tag on here.

Little Thunder: That is a great touch.

Echo-Hawk: It blew me away because it has the image of my painting and the image that was on the t-shirt, embroidered here, and little stars and stuff. But I have my artist signature on it.

Little Thunder: Oh, I just now saw it.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah, it's nuts.

Little Thunder: I'll get a little closer here.

Echo-Hawk: Michael Jordan has his own shoes, and Kobe has his own, KD, and Bunky Echo-Hawk.

Little Thunder: That's right. You made it to the pros after all.

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Do you have a lot of shoes?

Echo-Hawk: I have way too many shoes. I actually had to get rid of some of them. I think half the closet is my shoes.

Little Thunder: Was that part of your contract with Nike?

Echo-Hawk: It was in the beginning. There's half of my contract was paid out in lump sum of cash, and then the other half was put in as a credit line, so I could go to these Nike stores and basically shop and give them that number and head out. It was a shopping spree. It was like that for the first couple years, but then they got switched around. Now, basically, Nike is my client now. I'm a vendor, I guess, but I have to pay full price for everything now.

Little Thunder: Oh. Not so many presents for people now.

Echo-Hawk: My family stopped getting Nike stuff.

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

Echo-Hawk: Yeah. Thank you. It was fun.

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