Oral history interview with Diana Folsom

Little Thunder: This is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. Today is May 21, 2018, and I'm interviewing Diana Folsom, a painter and Director of Digital Collections at Gilcrease Museum. We're at Diana's house in Tulsa. Diana, you're a Choctaw tribal member who formerly worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This is my first chance to see your art in person, and it's wonderful. I've been so impressed. I look forward to learning more about you and your work. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

Folsom: Thank you so much. It's really an honor to have you here.

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

Folsom: I was born in San Diego, California, and grew up there. Went to high school and college at San Diego State. Then I left for graduate school to New York, to Manhattan, and went to Hunter College where I got a degree in painting.

Little Thunder: We're going to talk some more about that. What did your folks do for a living?

Folsom: My father was a chemical engineer. He had degrees in physics and math, or maybe it was--I'm going to have to stop that. I'm not sure if it was physics. What was it? (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Strong sciences.

Folsom: Chemistry. Chemistry and math.

Little Thunder: Okay, and your mom?

Folsom: My mom was an elementary school teacher. She taught for thirty-five years and loved third grade the most. She was a wonderful teacher.

Little Thunder: Any brothers or sisters?

Folsom: I have a brother. His name is Stan Folsom, and he now lives in Tulsa, also.

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

Folsom: Let's see. Relationship with my father's parents was a good relationship. They--were from Oklahoma. They knew that my grandfather was of 2:00Choctaw heritage, but they did not know much more about their family than that. They were just very quiet, very silent people. My grandmother was most concerned about my religious explorations. That's what she was the most worried about and what she communicated the most to me about. Then on my mother's side--actually all four of my grandparents are from this region, from about two hours mostly east of Tulsa. My grandmother on my mother's side, Alta Porter, was from Mountainburg, Arkansas. Then my grandfather, the man that she married, Steven Otis Porter was from (I'm not sure how you say this) Bokoshe, Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: I'm not sure, either.

Folsom: I'm not sure either. I think that's how you say it.

Little Thunder: What was the creative environment in your family, growing up?

Folsom: I would say that my mother was very creative. She loved design, and she painted when she was in college. There's a painting in the living room you can see. My father wrote poetry, but he was so concerned with never being poor again that he took a very practical route. He served in the Navy in World War II. After that he got his bachelor's degree from Hardin-Simmons University in three years, again, in the difficult subjects of chemistry and math. He was just bound and determined to have a good, successful life. They were supportive of my art, (they didn't discourage me) but they wanted to make sure that I could be a 4:00teacher, as well.

Little Thunder: I think you sort of talked a little about your relationship to Choctaw identity and culture growing up, and maybe the church was part of that.

Folsom: Yes, I would say the strongest driving force in both of my parents' families and in their identity and interest would be with the church, really, Christianity. My mom and dad met in the Southern Baptist Church in San Diego and got married there. Those are really lifelong friends, all those people that they met during those days. I would say that they just always had a very deep, spiritual connection to the universe and to God. It was interesting for me to 5:00later learn that my great-great-grandfather David Folsom was a force in bringing Christianity to the Choctaws. That explained a lot of that strong heritage and strong passion for religion in my family.

Little Thunder: Right. What is your first memory of seeing Native art, however you might define it?

Folsom: I'm not sure that I remember seeing very much Native art as I was growing up, but a very, very strong--this actually touches me. A strong memory for me is seeing the catalog for the show Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand, and seeing 6:00for the first time the ancient iconography, signs, and symbols related to my heritage, and seeing the work of Jeri Redcorn. I really tried to find out everything I could learn about her. This was way before anyone contacted me about a job in Oklahoma. I never imagined that this would happen, and it became really important to me to put together a project once I learned that we had this amazing collection at the Gilcrease Museum of these beautiful ceramic vessels made by our ancestors. To put together a project related to those works and to be able to really learn about them and learn about that part of our heritage has been really meaningful to me.

Little Thunder: It's such an impressive project. We'll talk about that in a little more detail, too. What is your first memory of making art?

Folsom: Gosh, I've made art pretty much for all of my life. In elementary school we were lucky in San Diego that they had quite extensive extracurricular programs in art and classes. Back then, we had classes all the time, every day, in art. It was not hard to gain experiences. I've always really enjoyed it. I've loved it. It was at age fourteen that I somehow felt struck by--I don't know what it was. It was a bolt of lightning or something that I wanted to be an artist. It was a very romantic idea, I think. (Laughs)

Little Thunder: That's when you knew.

Folsom: Yes, yes.

Little Thunder: Was it at a particular--do you remember the moment? It happened sometime when you were fourteen. Was it triggered by anything?

Folsom: I'm not sure. I have a memory. It doesn't quite jive with the year, but I have a memory of being in a class with a teacher. Mr. Matola, I think was his name. He was so inspiring that that's when I made that quiet decision, but I kept it to myself. I was very quiet about it.

Little Thunder: When did you sell your first piece of art?

Folsom: That's a good question. The one that I remember was after I finished college at San Diego State. I was working my way through graduate school at Hunter College in New York. I was back home and had a show. The woman who ran 9:00the gallery sold a painting, and it paid for my tuition. That was memorable.

Little Thunder: That's fantastic! So you make this quiet decision that you do want to be an artist, and you're taking art throughout school pretty much, but you decide to go to San Diego State. Had you told your parents you were going to declare yourself an art major?

Folsom: Yes. They were okay with it as long as it was related to teaching so that I could do something practical.

Little Thunder: You had that backup. What kind of a base did you get at SDSU?

Folsom: I think it was a very good, solid, and practical base. They taught traditional painting and drawing, but they also were progressive enough that 10:00they were teaching abstraction, as well, and about color. We often thought at that time that the big differences between San Diego State (SDSU) and UCSD was that University of California, San Diego was much more theoretical and conceptual, and San Diego State was more practical in a way, I guess you would say. I did have the degree in art for secondary education, so I took some of everything because I wanted to explore everything, painting, drawing, sculpture. Didn't do very much printmaking, but some woodcuts. Did a little bit of ceramics. Gradually, by my junior and senior year I was focusing on painting, and that felt right to me. I minored in music and dance, so all the practical 11:00things, right? (Laughter) I wondered if perhaps I would get engaged in more theatrical productions. I loved attending many of them, but I was also impatient with them, and I was shy. I liked the non-verbal arts. I liked doing dance and music, but it never--. I found that my ideas were not of that dimension. They were just more on that two-dimensional surface.

Little Thunder: Were you drawn to abstraction already at that point?

Folsom: Yes, I think I've always thought kind of abstractly.

Little Thunder: At Hunter College, I read that you got your master's degree on a woman artist who used crushed rayon, lentils, paste, etcetera, in her paintings to give them this real tactile dimensionality.

Folsom: Joan Snyder.

Little Thunder: Joan Snyder. What impact did that research have on your work?

Folsom: I got to meet her in person at that time, as well, which was wonderful. I've been thinking about that a lot recently. Her work was very tactile, thick paint, really gloppy, messy, gutsy, feeling kind of work. Back during that time in the mid- to late ʼ70s, that was considered not quite as good as the more conceptual, minimal, cleaner, perhaps you might say, cleaner work. Something about the passion of it, I guess, and the emotion of it that I related to, 13:00perhaps it felt in a way maybe female to me or feminine to me. I'm not sure. It was an issue during those times.

Little Thunder: She was going against the current with that.

Folsom: Yes, that was well said, yes.

Little Thunder: How often were you coming back to Oklahoma? Periodically? Did you have that kind of--in the summers you came back?

Folsom: I had only been here twice.

Little Thunder: Okay.

Folsom: We really didn't come back much at all, although my father continued to stay in touch with cousins and such. One part of the family and some cousins moved to San Diego, also. So much of the family moved to San Diego for jobs. They then moved back to Dibble, actually, which is not too far from Blanchard, 14:00which is near Norman, you probably know. They're the family members that I feel closest to here in Oklahoma because we've had a consistent relationship since they--. I think they might have lived with us a little bit in San Diego, and then we kept up with them when they moved back.

Little Thunder: What were your plans after graduating from Hunter? What were you planning on doing?

Folsom: That's a good question. (Laughs) I wanted to continue my painting, no matter what. I must say that I did have a professor at San Diego State who said to his female artists, some days he said, "Why are you wasting your time? You're just going to get married and have babies and not paint anymore." That perhaps galvanized me a bit. I didn't know if I would have babies or get married or not, 15:00but I definitely wanted to keep painting, no matter what. That I've done, but I wasn't sure how I would make a living along the way. I worked in a gallery here and there. I had a summer internship in between semesters of graduate school. It was out of the Naval Air Station North Island. It was for a computer-based training company. I worked as an illustrator for them. Then when I moved back to San Diego after graduate school, started working for them again. That was a company whose work I really believed in. They're wonderful people, educational psychologists and instructural designers working with technology, and that's how I got into technology. I've been in technology pretty much ever since.

Little Thunder: I was going to say, you're coming in to do the illustration, but you're being introduced to this technology early in its development, pretty 16:00early. How neat.

Folsom: Yes, yes. You never know how things will [workout]. I do have to tell you this one story. I would go to New York after moving back to San Diego. I'd still go to New York at least once a year to see shows and friends. I went to New York and was on a bus between JFK and the city, and the bus broke down. Another bus came along to get all of us strays onto the second bus and go into the city, and there was one seat left on the bus. I happened to be sitting next to the CIO, the Chief Information Officer, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He was a witty, entertaining, fascinating guy. We had this really interesting conversation on the way in and exchanged cards. I put him on my art mailing list and we stayed in touch over a course of some years.

He would call me from time to time for advice as they were starting to do more technology projects at LACMA. He called me one day, also looking for someone to take a position as an educator in his department to train people in using the systems because they had some very unusual computer systems. I thought, "I don't know those systems, but I think I might be interested in that." We had a big project at Courseware. Courseware was the name of the company where I worked, and love those people to this day. We were working on a project for Apple computers at the time and some instructional manuals. We worked all night to get that job done and then drove the next day to Los Angeles for the job interview and got the job. That got me started in the museum business in the world of technology.

Little Thunder: That's a great story. You were meant to sit next to each other, and he knew you were a painter, as well. When and how did you meet your husband?

Folsom: That's another good story. This is actually my third husband. My first two husbands are wonderful men, also. I've been very lucky that they have all been very, very supportive of my artwork. The fellow I'm married to now, William Matthews, we were introduced by our hair dresser. I was really not looking for a new relationship, and I was pretty resistant. She tried to introduce us for a year or two, but I didn't know it was for anything other than just an artist meeting an artist.

Little Thunder: In Los Angeles?

Folsom: In Los Angeles, yes. He called at one point to suggest we meet up for 19:00lunch. I was really busy, and it was around Christmastime, so I didn't have time to call him back. I didn't call him back. I figured it can wait. He called me after the first of the year, but he called on my home phone. I lived in a loft downtown, and it was a great environment. He sounded so nice on the phone. I thought, "This is surprising. She gave him my home number. I guess I better call him back." We had lunch, and when I met him I thought, "Oh, he's cute. He's about the right age. He does this wonderful artwork based on the poems of Pablo Neruda. I love poetry, and I love Neruda." Anyway, it took some time, but we eventually got together.

Little Thunder: That's a really neat story, too. Thanks for sharing that. -- I 20:00was going to ask when and how you made your first sort of important gallery connections.

Folsom: Gosh, I've had different kinds of gallery relationships over the years, the first ones in San Diego were really lovely people. I've forgotten her name, the name of the first gallery. Then I was involved with the Rebecca Cabo Gallery in La Jolla, California, which was really nice, as well. I don't know if I remember other gallery names in San Diego. In Los Angeles we worked with Double Vision Gallery which was a lovely gallery near LACMA. In Bergamot Station, Lois Lambert Gallery, my husband worked with her first on her more functional art 21:00side. She also has the Gallery of Functional Art. She's a wonderful, charismatic, eccentric dealer who's still doing really well in Los Angeles. Then I got quite involved with the Korean art community. Korea Town (we call it K-Town) is right next to LACMA. In fact, now it's somewhat surrounding it, as well. I had some art in a show in [an] office building across the street from LACMA and met a Korean artist there. She was really nice, and she invited me to be in a show at Gallery Western on Western Avenue. They were just enthusiastic and kind, and the dealer [was] very nice. She still has her gallery there on Western Avenue. I got invited to do a couple of shows in Korea, in Seoul, so 22:00it's kind of been an evolution, serendipitous evolution, I guess you might say.

Little Thunder: Yeah, and that's such a neat--because you haven't seen [Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand exhibit] yet. You haven't been exploring that yet when you meet the Korean artists. I'm just thinking what a great opportunity that is to sort of absorb and be somewhat influenced maybe by a different kind of aesthetic, and you're bringing your aesthetic to it, also.

Folsom: One of the interesting things about many of the Korean artists that I've met is that they are often incorporating traditional ways with contemporary ways, with new ways, both in terms of the media that they use, handmade paints, 23:00handmade paper or rice paper, and also their iconography and shapes and symbols and traditions. That's interesting to see that similarity. I feel I see some similarities with the work of Native Artists that I've been getting to know in Oklahoma.

Little Thunder: There's that tactile dimension that you like there, too.

Folsom: I do like that.

Little Thunder: What was that experience like of being over there?

Folsom: Oh, gosh, it's just been wonderful. The artists and the people were so warm and generous and helpful. I visited artist studios and dragon-kiln firings of beautiful ceramic vessels of ceramic artists. I just felt very comfortable 24:00there, in a way, although I don't speak the language. That is a challenging element. There is a great deal of sensitivity. Art is an important part of their lives and a part of their, I think, more, as with our own Native American traditions, a part of everything they touch. What they think about, what they do has beauty and sensitivity and a feeling of the spirit.

Little Thunder: It looks like, also--I was seeing from your resume that you ended up with a number of--. These are your earlier paintings from the ʼ80s and ʼ90s, and they're being purchased by corporations.

Folsom: Yes. Some of the dealers that I worked with in San Diego and one in New 25:00York were successful in having corporate placement and such. My favorite story is there was a competition by a gallery in San Diego. I'll have to see if I can remember her name, the name of the gallery. They had two sizes: a small size and large-size paintings that they wanted to make into prints for a hotel. I think it was Hotel Intercontinental. I was awarded the project and made small size which was made into beautiful prints, and the huge painting. I thought that was great. Then I got a call from an elementary school friend, six months, a year 26:00later, who happened to be staying in the Hotel Intercontinental. She said, "Diana, I went to the bathroom, and I saw your name on the wall! There was a beautiful print that was made by you." (Laughter) I was in every bathroom in the Hotel Intercontinental in San Diego at one point. (Laughter) I guess that was an honor, I think.

Little Thunder: You did the series Woman as River. Is that when you first started working soil into your pigments and resins? What were your thoughts about that process? How did that come about?

Folsom: Yes, you're very observant! That is when it first started happening. I 27:00had been using a material called Saltillo. I haven't seen it in Oklahoma yet, but it's more prevalent in maybe Southern California and the Southwest and such. I guess tiles are made out of that material. It's used almost as a cement-like material, but I think it's more clay-like. I'd been using Saltillo, which I liked a lot, kind of like a plaster or cement the way it operated. As I was really trying to assess what I thought was important about my work, I felt that what was most me was the sort of fluid, lyrical passages of the paintings that I had done over the decades. I began thinking about the concept of rivers and that 28:00[a woman is] like a river, and I feel like my life path is like the journey that one would take on a river.

I started experimenting a little bit more. I think it was when I was particularly at the Vermont Studio Center, I found some beautiful clay from the river there that another artist had gathered already. It was in a container in the sculpture studio, so I thought I'd try it out. It really caused me to want to do more with clay, in particular, and make paint out of it. I just mix it with one of the mediums. Usually, it's Golden's GAC 100. I mix the clay with that, if I can get the right mixture. I'm not a very scientific person about mixing the proportions, but I work pretty hard to make sure that there's enough of the GAC 100 so that it doesn't fall off but it's permanent on the painting. I 29:00looked for many different female shapes in paintings and in magazines, and made those the river forms.

Then I also used some beautiful books of satellite views of the Earth that were given to me by Eve Andrée Laramée who's an important sculptor and installation artist today. I will mention that I discovered her, she was my student at San Diego State. She was a physical science major and a fantastic student in my [2-D] design class, and I talked her into becoming an artist. We're lifelong friends. I continue to learn from her, I think, way more than she ever learned from me. During one of our visits, she gave me a stack of these big, beautiful 30:00books of the satellite views of the Earth, so I study those. I still study those, and I continue to learn from them and try to emulate the processes and the way the colors separate or merge or flow, but using my own shapes.

Little Thunder: That's really interesting. We didn't talk about your residency at the Vermont Studio, but I think that was in 2006. Did you have a project in mind when you accepted the residency or when you applied for it?

Folsom: You're not required to have a particular project. I just wanted to really be able to focus on painting for that whole month, which was really a gift, both to just have the time to paint and be in the beautiful environment and around so many talented and generous artists and writers. A lot of writers 31:00go there, as well.

Little Thunder: Oh, that's right, so it's the multi-disciplinary aspect of it that....

Folsom: Yes, which was really great. That helped me move forward more with using clay and then earth from places that were important to me as I experimented there.

Little Thunder: I wanted to talk a little bit about your 2010 show, Materials of the Universe, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind reading your amazingly precocious poem that you wrote in the fifth grade first, because I think it sets up the series so nicely. Maybe it's in the program, too, but I printed out your poem.

Folsom: Don't remember. It's just curious to me that I feel that this not only sets up that show but it makes all of my work make sense to me.

Little Thunder: Yes, I agree.

Folsom: Even some exhibitions that I've had in the past where they were eight feet tall, triangular paintings, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom--. I've just been thinking about this over the last years. It was still the same thing, reaching to the sky and connecting earth and sky. So here's the poem. I think I called it a boring title. "Comparisons," was that it?

Little Thunder: I didn't print the title, but I wish I had. But yes, I think you're right. I think it was "Comparisons."

Folsom: "Both flower and star are similar:A flower is a star on earth; A star is a flower in the sky. Both at first are lonely:One star in a valley of blackness;One flower in a sea of green;Then others come up.Both are created by someone above:The star with its golden rays,The flower with its golden petals."

Little Thunder: Thank you. Just to pursue that line of discussion for a moment, the idea of these correspondences and the idea of connections between these three levels of existence and, I think, also, your scientific background, I feel like it shows up in your work in this really poetic way.

Folsom: I am very interested in science, although I'm not a science geek. I am interested in the big ideas, I guess. I do love the ideas behind how the earth was formed and stars and what the dirt is that's on the earth, (as I think 34:00probably everyone knows now) that the dirt on the earth was stardust. Some of my paintings try to embody that idea a little more closely, some of the diptychs, like one in the living room I'll have to show you. I think what we are understanding more and more about, through science, is magical and poetic just on its own. It's hard to do much more than almost illustrate the idea. That's difficult for me sometimes I think. I like to use these ideas or iconography or an ancient star map, and then flood it with paint and try to imbue it with the 35:00lyrical feeling that I have about it, I guess.

Little Thunder: I'm also always struck, the Native storytelling traditions about marriages between people and stars and all of those things that, in fact, are so true on this very, very, very basic level, and now being born out by some of these discoveries.

Folsom: I just love that. I just love that. Yes, I really feel that strong connection to the stars and the sky. I believe those stories. I love those.

Little Thunder: Rich material. You were a visiting artist, I guess, at [Rollins College] in Florida for a little bit. What did that bring to your work? Completely different part of the country.

Folsom: Yes, yes, in Florida. It was a few days, and that came about because the 36:00professor who brought me there was an artist I met at the Vermont Studio Center. Rachel--there were two Rachels I met at the Vermont Studio Center, wonderful women, Rachel Sussman and Rachel [Simmons] brought me in and [I] mainly gave a talk about my work . Brought all these little square paintings there. I think it was much of the show that I had in Korea. Then I also gave some talks and helped with a couple of classes. Gave a couple classes, as well. I loved the feeling of the air and being around the water. I loved that. Landscape is really important 37:00to me. That is always something that is like another player in the scene or in the work that we're doing. I think that it was the enjoyment I had working with the students that I came away with as being really important and of value to me. I really like working with different generations and learning from them, and they learn from us. It's curious because that connection must have been in the universe, because it was not too long after that I got the call about coming to Tulsa and being part of the University of Tulsa and Gilcrease Museum, so I started working with students intensely.

Little Thunder: Right. That's a great opportunity, I think, to talk about the 38:00project, the digital project, the digitizing of perhaps the ancient pottery. Maybe just tell us a little bit about--.

Folsom: Yes, that particular passion project of mine. When I came then to the Gilcrease Museum and learned that they have one of the most important collections of ancient ceramic vessels, many of which have been used and studied for forty and fifty years by the archaeologists as the most beautiful, what they would call "type." When they call something a type, it's kind of emblematic or an example of a vessel that you can use for comparisons and for naming a certain style, I guess you would call it. I was happy to spend as much time as possible 39:00looking at those vessels. It was time for me to write a grant for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS, and the stars aligned for that one.

Dr. Duane King, who was our director at the time, the wonderful man who's a Cherokee expert and scholar, he knew a great deal about that collection. He was very interested in it, also. Dr. Bob Pickering, another curator and kind of like a deputy director at that time of the Gilcrease Museum, and Eric Singleton, they had the anthropological knowledge in order to write this grant. Then I brought in the technology side and this passion for learning more and wanting to bring in Native artists into the process. I determined that it would be important for 40:00many reasons, for tribes, for me, personally. We also developed some software to make it easy for people to study, to review our cataloging, and to add tags and search terms from a distance, from home or from anywhere.

That's what we did. It was a three-year project, and it turned out well. I think I was naïve about a lot of elements in that project. I knew that this software would also support any NAGPRA [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act] efforts. I think it will be very invaluable for that, also. I was so anxious to study the vessels that I was probably not as aware as I should have been at the time of the importance to the tribes that have these vessels as their heritage. I certainly did not want to hurt anyone by doing this project, 41:00but I think it's turned out that it's going to be beneficial and helpful for all. Again, it can be used. All of these images and the software we made will help these tribes be able to review the ceramic vessels for repatriation, as well.

Little Thunder: You brought in some artists including Jeri Redcorn whose work had so moved you.

Folsom: Yes, just being able to know her has been a great gift, such a gift, her presence and her insights. She gave beautiful tags, descriptive terms, search terms for those objects. Of course, she knew many of them well, but shortly into the project, she said, "Diana, I don't want to tag these objects. I want to do something bigger and more important. I want to rename these objects with Caddo names for the objects that are associated with my tribe," she said. She used her 42:00money to help move that effort forward. She made a beautiful Caddo festival about a year ago at the Sam Noble Museum. The whole tribe gathered and learned from Dr. George Sabo, from the University of Arkansas, how these names came to be and why they needed so many names and terms, but how open the archaeologists and everyone is to welcoming new names. The tribal chairperson and the tribal council and the tribal members who were there agreed that this is worthwhile to move forward. Hopefully she's able to get it started. It's a big project, really big project, but she's got some good support. Anything I can do to help her move forward, I would love to do, as well.

Little Thunder: I think that's just wonderful that they're undertaking that. 43:00Just to clarify, you work for TU at Gilcrease. You're not teaching painting at TU, or anything, right now.

Folsom: Correct. When I teach at TU, it's more about the digital side of things.

Little Thunder: In 2017, which was just last year, I guess, the Southeastern Indian Artists Association (SEIAA) had that show at the Tulsa Performing Arts Gallery, which is a nice little gallery. Native Hearts: Respond and Reflect was the title of it. I wondered if you could talk about how you got involved in that show and the work you did for it, which just looked beautiful--.

Folsom: Thank you. I have been really happy to get to know these artists through the SEIAA group. I heard a talk by Tony Tiger, maybe the second year I had been 44:00in Tulsa. I'd been asking around, "Are there other artists that do abstract work? Am I the only one? Where are the other ones?" Tony Tiger's name kept coming up, so I was excited to go to his talk at the Gilcrease Museum. He mentioned that he is a member of this artist organization and how much he enjoyed the artists and the comradery and the work. I had his card, but by the time I was able to track him down, he was no longer at Bacone College. It took me a while to find him, but I finally found him and started going to the meetings. It's been a real source of support and learning for me, really, because I feel like I'm just beginning to find my voice in Oklahoma, related to my culture and history. It's just a wonderful exploration. They're generous, 45:00smart, kind people, good artists.

Little Thunder: They are. They're a great group. What new projects are you working on now?

Folsom: I think I'm ready to start painting large again. I haven't done large paintings in quite a long time, partly because of space and moving around. I find that when people look at photographs of these small paintings, they expect them to be large already--

Little Thunder: That's true. I hadn't thought about that. (Laughter)

Folsom: --which often surprises me, or they wish that they were large. I think that it's difficult. It has been difficult for me to paint small, but now I've been doing it for a while. It may be difficult to go large again, but I think I'm ready.

Little Thunder: That'll be a fun undertaking.

Folsom: I'll say one other thing. The other happy discovery at the Gilcrease Museum for me has been in the archives because there are papers related to my family in the archives, as well. David Folsom (I think I mentioned earlier) was my two-times great-grandfather. There are a number of letters between him and Peter Pitchlynn. Peter Pitchlynn has a Folsom in his heritage, as well, so he's a cousin. Then there are also letters of my great-grandfather who was a Choctaw judge in Caddo, which is where my father was born and raised. It's really, really interesting to begin to see those and explore them, and maybe do something with them or with phrases from them. I love the work that many Native artists do with these older documents. Shan Goshorn's work is beautiful, and others who might paint over the works. I'm not sure what form that would take, 47:00but I have a few printed out that I'm playing with.

Little Thunder: That sounds neat. I look forward to that. I wanted to ask you just a little bit more about your approach and practices. Are you painting on Masonite sometimes?

Folsom: Sometimes I paint on canvas, and sometimes on wood. Sometimes Masonite, but I don't like that surface quite as much. Masonite's a little bit too hard, slick, for me. Often it's kind of a combination where I'll have a hard surface and then wrap it with canvas because I do like the softness and the way the paint is accepted by canvas. I usually prime my canvases. This painting is an unprimed canvas. (Gestures) I did some experimenting in college or just after 48:00college where I painted on canvas that was partly primed, partly unprimed because the flow and the absorption is so different. I play with that a little bit, too.

Little Thunder: Right. I was glad to hear you use the term "flow" because I know a curator used that term to describe your work. She meant using brushes to push that pigment, I guess, and acrylic and, in your case, sometimes clay or soil around. Do you think that's a good way to describe your approach?

Folsom: I think I am a flow painter. I really love to flood the canvas or the wood with paint. I might move it around by tilting the canvas or the board around, or sometimes maybe use a squeegee, or sometimes I'll use sort of a textured instrument that you use for cutting onions. I'm not sure the name of 49:00it, but it just has tines that gives you parallel lines. The flow can happen in different ways, but yes, I really love that.

Little Thunder: How do you think your palette has changed over the years?

Folsom: I've always really liked strong color. I think working with the star paintings, I've had a tendency to somewhat emulate colors that you see in the sky. Right now I'm really interested in shifting my color palette, so it's even stronger and maybe less natural. We'll see. The last few paintings I've done I 50:00started with a flat either hot pink color, or a flat purple color, or a flat kind of bright orange color. We'll see where that leads.

Little Thunder: Interesting. How important is drawing to you? Do you spend any time drawing?

Folsom: I do little sketches in small notebooks here and there, but I also really like accident. For the Woman as River paintings, for example, I will do the female shape, do the sketch. Then I'll usually blow it up to the size of the canvas, and then usually cut the shape out, and then pour on the clay or 51:00Saltillo. Sometimes I use driveway crack sealer, as well, for the earth formations. After that dries, then I may or may not paint the earth formations a bit, and then flood it with paint, and then paint more over that. Did that answer your question? I forget what the question was.

Little Thunder: Yeah, what you're doing with your sketching, and how big a role in plays.

Folsom: Yes, yes. I like the role of accident, and I like to look at the first layers. Then I stand them up in the studio for a long time and see what it says to me. That's very much an approach of maybe de Kooning or some of the abstract expressionists. I like to see what emerges from the paintings. They usually are very different from what I think they would be when I started out.

Little Thunder: Are you letting them sit because you may, depending on what 52:00you're getting from that, come back to it?

Folsom: Yes. They take really a long time for me to do, partly because I'm working during the day [and] I'm slow. I think I'm really slow at it. I think that I have made mistakes and not done very well when I have tried to rush and finish a painting and put it in a show. It's usually terrible. I have to really be careful of that. It has to sit for a long time and percolate. It needs to be interesting to me on many levels. It needs to be interesting in kind of a bold, contrasting, compositional way, but there also needs to be enough variation in shape and color and design and ideas to keep you interested or hold your interest over a period of time. That takes time to build up those layers and let ideas or colors peek through.

Little Thunder: Will you work on a couple of pieces simultaneously--.

Folsom: I do, yes, at least two.

Little Thunder: What is your creative process from the time that you get an idea? Walk us through that.

Folsom: It's kind of what I was talking about before with these paintings that are done from the Pawnee star map. I find an area of the star map that I like, and I do some painstaking work of making the stars. Do the stars first. I'm still experimenting with using mica. I think because mica was a material that we used, our ancient ancestors used, it's important to me. I think it's beautiful. I like it both when it's in little, teeny, glittery-like form but also the big 54:00pieces of mica and sheets of mica. I cut out the shapes and, if it's a different composition, maybe play with them on the canvas and then start pouring and flooding. Simultaneously, I look at photographs of the universe and of the sky and different events or different parts of the sky. I love looking at images of dying stars and those kind of explosions. I love the concept that those elements go out into the universe and then they're swept up to make new stars and for the birth of stars. I love that concept. I like to try to allude to that through the 55:00flooding and explosive nature of the pouring of the paint.

Little Thunder: You don't have a telescope, yourself?

Folsom: You know, I don't. I don't. It's probably a good thing to do.

Little Thunder: Another layer of work--.

Folsom: The photographs get so much closer--.

Little Thunder: And they have such wonderful equipment.

Folsom: We have so much of our city lights that make it difficult to see very much, but that would be a good thing to do.

Little Thunder: Looking back at your career so far, what do you think was a fork in the road for you where you could have gone one way and you picked this other road?

Folsom: In terms of the painting direction? That's a really good question. 56:00Certainly, I think working at the LA County Museum of Art and living in Los Angeles was a really, really important move that gave me a great education in the arts. Just working there, talking to the curators at the copy machine was enriching, beautiful conversations about art and being able to look at the art at any time. I love art from all periods and cultures, and because it's an encyclopedic museum, I was able to immerse myself in great work, great art from every time period and culture, and really think about things in that way. Getting to know the artist community there was very meaningful and supportive of 57:00my work, as well. I tended to be more reclusive, I think, in San Diego and shy, but I got more involved with other artists in Los Angeles, as well as working at the museum. Really helped my work get better, I think.

Little Thunder: What would you say has been one of the high points of your career so far?

Folsom: Gosh. Working with the Korean artists and the shows in Korea have been high points for me. Being here in Oklahoma feels like it's a high point, actually. I'm learning about my past and about ideas that are really important to me. It almost feels like my work has been about Native ideas all along, but I didn't know it. There was a real feeling of coming home.

Little Thunder: How about a low point?

Folsom: Certainly have been low points. Just trying to slog away and keep making art and making a living, no matter what. I'd say a couple of different shows or things that I've done where I tried to rush the paintings and just put them in, even though they hadn't percolated or had the time needed to develop fully, I think those are difficult times. I've been somewhat independent, not having children. I never really got that part of my life together, but my paintings 59:00have been my children, I think, and my niece and nephew.

Little Thunder: Is there anything that we've forgotten to talk about that you would like to add?

Folsom: Gosh, I don't know. I'll probably think of something tomorrow since I'm so slow. It takes me a long time. My paintings are slow, my ideas are slow to evolve, but I think they have some depth. Maybe that's why.

Little Thunder: We're very glad to have you in Oklahoma now.

Folsom: Thank you, it's great to be here! (Laughs)

Little Thunder: Thank you for your time today.

Folsom: Thank you very much, it's been an honor to be here.

Little Thunder: We're going to pause for a minute, Diana, and take a look at your paintings real quick. -- Would you like to tell us about this painting, Diana?

Folsom: This is a painting that I love the way it turned out. It's from a 60:00section of [a] Pawnee star map. I feel that it represents the understanding that we as Native peoples have had of the universe and our connection to the stars through their depictions and understanding for generations, so many generations. The stars are made with mica flakes. I experimented with pouring paint, using different oils as well as acrylic paint, and just poured and scrubbed and flooded and washed it off and scrubbed and poured, and then it ended up like this.

Little Thunder: Yeah, it's just got a nice movement and flow to it. Where do you sign your paintings? How do you handle your signature?

Folsom: I don't like to sign on the front; I like to sign on the back. I feel the signatures interrupt the flow and composition of a painting. --

Little Thunder: How about this next painting?

Folsom: This painting is also related to the ancient depiction of stars. The symbol in the center is more of a sun symbol. I relate to that as an ancient Choctaw symbol. I am showing an explosion of color and light emitting from that ancient symbol.

Little Thunder: Yeah, that's very visible there. -- Okay, and we've got another painting here.

Folsom: This painting also uses the sun symbol, the ancient shape representing 62:00the sun that I feel closely aligns with Choctaw iconography. This is a painting that I started with a flat color of hot pink in this one. I'm experimenting towards using stronger color, but I do like to have those colors come out in hints. I then layered other shapes. There's another larger sun shape, as well, that larger circular shape that is interwoven with the flooded turquoise color. Then I went in with alcohol and some other materials to add drops that would hint at other star- or planet-like shapes, as well.

Little Thunder: That just turned out wonderfully, I think, too.

Folsom: Thank you. I like it, too. I find it quite fascinating that both of my parents' families moved to San Diego, nearly the same time. My father's family, who at that time, living in West Texas, struggling and needed jobs, so they moved to San Diego in 1942 to work in the airplane factories. They've been back and forth. They moved earlier in 1929 to pick fruit in the Imperial Valley but went back to Texas. When they came in 1942, they were able to get jobs in the airplane factories, and my father joined the Navy. My mother's family moved from West Texas, also, to San Diego in 1943. They met at the Southern Baptist church. I find it so ironic that they were from this region, and my grandparents from 64:00right around Tulsa, and they met in San Diego. That's wonderful.

Little Thunder: And you're back here!

Folsom: And now I'm back, yes. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: More convergences. Thank you so much for your time today.

Folsom: Thank you, it's been a pleasure.

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