Oral History Interview with Sharron Ahtone Harjo

Oral History Interview

with

Sharron Ahtone Harjo

Interview Conducted by Julie Pearson-Little Thunder September 6, 2014

Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project

Interview History

Interviewer: Julie Pearson-Little Thunder Transcriber: Madison Warlick Editors: Julie Pearson-Little Thunder, Micki White

The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Project Detail

The purpose of the Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project is to document the development of the state by recording its cultural and intellectual history.

This project was approved by the Oklahoma State University Institutional Review Board on April 15, 2009.

Legal Status

Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Sharron Ahtone Harjo is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on September 6, 2014.

Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project

About Sharron Ahtone Harjo…

Sharron Ahtone Harjo draws artistic inspiration from a variety of sources: her personal experiences, Kiowa oral traditions, and a family ledger book. She attended school in several states and further expanded her travel experiences as Miss Indian America in 1965. Exposed to art throughout her life, her epiphany came at Bacone Junior College where she studied flat-style painting under Dick West. She was one of the early female Oklahoma painters to delve into ledger art, for which she favors pen and ink, pencil, and prismacolor. Sharron’s passion for making art is matched by a strong passion for teaching. After earning her master’s degree in education, she taught for many years in the Edmond public schools. Among her numerous accomplishments are a solo show at Southern Plains Indian Museum, Grand Award at the Anadarko Indian Exposition, and First Place in Cultural Items at the Red Earth Indian Arts Festival. She has contributed articles and artwork for a variety of publications, including Gifts of Love and Pride: Kiowa and Comanche Cradles, and her work is featured in Women and Ledger Art: Four Contemporary Native American Artists. Ahtone Harjo served as an adjunct professor at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University and has lectured on ledger art in various venues.

In this interview, besides discussing her creative process, subject matter, and techniques, Sharron describes her close relationship with Dick West and his gift to her of a set of brushes. She explains why she signs her paintings “Ahtone Harjo” and the importance of her family history, including descent on her mother’s side from famed Kiowa captive, Millie Durgan. She talks about learning basketmaking from Mavis Doering and, in turn, teaching it in public schools at Doering’s request. She also describes teaching at Concho Indian Boarding School in the latter part of her career, and the pride she takes in finding her former students employed in successful careers around the country.

Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project

Sharron Ahtone Harjo

Oral History Interview

Interviewed by Julie Pearson-Little Thunder September 6, 2014 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Little Thunder My name is Julie Pearson Little-Thunder. Today is September 6, 2014, and I’m interviewing Sharron Ahtone Harjo as part of the Oklahoma Native Artists Project sponsored by the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. We’re in Oklahoma City where Sharron is packed for a move to Santa Fe, temporary move. Sharron, you’re a Kiowa tribal member with numerous accomplishments, including being the twelfth Miss Indian America, earning a degree in higher education, and working as an educator in the public schools for many years. You started painting professionally in the ’70s when Native art was male-dominated, and you were an early experimenter with ledger art. I think you helped open the door for other Native women painters. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

Harjo Thank you.

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

Harjo I was born in Carnegie, Oklahoma, back in 1945, January 6, to be exact. My father worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and so we would move, moving around quite a bit. I started school in Washington DC. I started school in Fort Duchesne, Utah. Then I started school in Anadarko, so all these moves…. I was very young when I went to Washington DC. They didn’t have room for me in the public schools in the classes I was supposed to be in, so I started school when I was four.

Little Thunder Wow.

Harjo They ended up in Billings, Montana, when my dad was transferred there when I was in the sixth grade, and that’s where I graduated from high school.

Little Thunder What did your folks do for a living?

Harjo My father worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When he first started in his career, he was a soil conservationist. You’ll be happy to hear this: he was an OSU graduate. They were Aggies back then, I think. He was an agronomist. When he started his career he was in soil conservation. Then he went to training. I guess the big, bad word in those days was “relocation.” He was a relocation specialist working with Indian people across the country. When we moved to Billings, he became a tribal operations officer and worked with all the reservations in Montana and then the two in Wyoming. He was their tribal operations officer. When he finished from there, they came back to Oklahoma. Then he retired out of Muskogee, but before that, he also worked with the Creek Nation and the Cherokees. I think it was the Five Tribes that he was working with in the Muskogee area office. My mom was a homemaker all her time with us, but she was an excellent craftsperson, a seamstress, and had to do a lot of things. A wonderful cook. Too bad it didn’t catch on to me. It did my brothers and sisters, but not me. (Laughs)

Little Thunder How about your brothers and sisters?

Harjo I have two sisters, and I have two brothers. Two of them have passed away. My older sister lived in Billings, Montana. She was the line officer in education for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a number of years. She was in education, as well. I have a younger sister, Deborah, who lives in Mountain View, Oklahoma. She was the editor for the tribal paper for a number of years, and she’s no longer doing that. She does her artwork. She’s a beadwork specialist, as well as a pretty good painter and drawing person. Then I had a younger brother, the oldest of the two brothers. He passed away. He was a computer specialist, technician. Then I have a brother, Hardy, who worked for Southwestern Bell for a number of years. Now he’s also living in Mountain View, and he does artwork, as well.

Little Thunder What was your first exposure to Native art?

Harjo I don’t know. I guess you can tell by looking around here. (Laughs) It was just stuff hung on the wall and on the shelf, just grew up with it. I didn’t know it was Indian art. I didn’t know it was an art at that point, but it was always there. We always had it in the house. I remember drawing when I was little. We’d always have tablets, and Dad and Mom would say, “Okay, here’s some paper. Draw.” Color crayons are my favorite.

Little Thunder That’s what I was going to ask, what your first memory of making art, yourself, was.

Harjo I’ve tried to learn things, sometimes teach myself some things that I maybe wanted to know, and then I had a lot of good teachers, as well. It’s always been there.

Little Thunder You mentioned all your different moves around the country. What kinds of exposure did you have to art that stand out for you in elementary school? I know you were in several places.

Harjo Yeah, I was in Anadarko, and, like I said, I didn’t know there was anything different. (Laughs) I was always exposed to that. The murals on the wall in the post office, I was always intrigued by those. When I was with my family in Washington DC, of course, we went to the Smithsonian. Remember all that. Mom and Dad always made sure we got to the museums, had that experience of looking at artwork, being part of something that was going on, a festival, an event. That’s what I remember growing up with my brothers and sisters. It was always there.

Little Thunder How about middle school or high school? Any outstanding art experiences that you remember?

Harjo I won my first contest when I was in seventh grade. We had to do an illustration for the Nutcracker Suite, and my drawing won. That was exciting because I had never entered a contest, and the first one, I won.

Little Thunder Very exciting. What school were you at?

Harjo I went to Lewis and Clark Junior High. Can you believe that? Our friend, Jackie Sevier, (I don’t know if you remember her)…

Little Thunder Yes, yes.

Harjo …she went to the same school, but she was years behind me because she was quite young still. Anyway, we went to the same school. That’s just really kind of fun to know that there’s some people whose paths cross and we’re still crossing.

Little Thunder Right.

Harjo That, and then high school, I had an excellent art teacher. All through my high school years I had the same art teacher. He was a commercial artist before he became a regular school teacher, art teacher. He was an expert in oil painting and so forth, so I had that kind of experience with

him. Did a lot of artwork for some of the organizations I belonged to in high school, so had that experience, as well.

Little Thunder When did you sell your first painting?

Harjo Oh, gosh, not until I was old! (Laughs) I didn’t sell anything until—you know, I went to Bacone [College] after high school. I didn’t sell anything until about 1970 when I started. I really hadn’t sold anything up to that point. I don’t know. I just never even thought about selling it, I guess. It’s 1970, and I can even tell you who I sold it to. It was to the dean of the law school at OU. He was my first collector. This is the time when they used to have mall shows. Shepherd Mall when it was a big shopping mall, they had those shows, and then the different places in Tulsa and here in Oklahoma City. That’s where I started.

Little Thunder How did you decide to go to Bacone? Was your idea you were going to get into the art program?

Harjo That pretty much was it, but one thing, too, my father and mother had a connection to Bacone early on in their family, too, as well as some other people from western Oklahoma and even Montana, the people that we knew. I wanted to go there, first of all, because there were Indian students there. It wasn’t totally Indian, but there were Indian students, a high population in enrollment. Then the other thing was Dr. Richard West was the teacher there, and I wanted to take classes from him. All of my siblings and myself were all graduates of Bacone. My dad was on the board for Bacone and also for Murrow [Indian] Children’s Home. He was on that board down there, so it was quite an involvement. I got a very good education. People always say, “Oh, it was just a junior college back then,” but it had a legacy of wonderful art connections. It’s helped me over the years in my career.

Little Thunder What kind of a base do you think you got artistically from Bacone?

Harjo As far as academically, they expected a lot of us, (Laughs) not just in the arts but in all our classes, in Botany, and in the chemistry classes, and the math classes, and so forth. Being the kind of student I was, I thought it was difficult, but I made it. It was all right. I know some of the other kids who were there that had some difficult times, too, but as far as art classes, they were just excellent. I had a good background, like I said, from high school, coming in there with oil painting. To this day I don’t like to oil paint, (Laughs) not because I don’t like to paint. It’s because of the mess that it makes. I don’t like to fool with all that kind of stuff, so I was very thankful when the acrylics came in. Wash it out and put it away. (Laughter)

As far as my teacher, Dr. Richard West, I couldn’t ever thank him enough for taking the time to teach me what he knew. Sometimes you would get down on yourself, or you didn’t think you were doing good enough. He’d always come back and encourage you to do what you needed to do. He was just a good person, and he knew my folks. One of the things that he gave me one time was a picture. He said, “I’ve got something to give you. I want to take you over here and show you this.” He brought out this picture of these Indian men who are the deacons at the Rainy Mountain Church. He said, “I found this. This is your grandfather right here.” I said, “Yes, it is!” He said, “Well, I want you to have this picture,” and it was a photograph from early on. I took that to my dad, and my dad then put it in the Rainy Mountain Church. It’s there now.

Little Thunder Oh, wow.

Harjo That was a nice gift. Then when I got ready to leave—I guess I need to tell you this story about when I got ready to leave. Graduated in 1965 from Bacone. It was a junior college, so I have an associate’s from Bacone. I got ready to leave, and we were closing up shop and so forth to get things to go. Dr. West called me aside, and he said—and there was really not anyone else around, a couple of other people. He said, “I need to give you a gift, a parting gift. I want to give you a set of brushes. Some of them are used, but most of them are brand new. You have a career waiting for you. You need to paint. You’ve got it. You’ll make it. You’ll be all right.” I said, “Well, I appreciate what you’ve….” I still have those brushes, and I still use them today. I didn’t set them aside on a…. I still have the brushes, and I still use them.

Little Thunder That’s wonderful.

Harjo He said that when the kids come in, he knows that there are students who are very dedicated to learning as much as they can about what they need from the art. He watches you grow. He watched us grow, and he would encourage you to do this. There’s a lot of people have come out of Bacone, but I think there were a lot of people who excelled and met his expectations, so sometimes say, “It’s not just me, but there’s other people.”

Little Thunder I was wondering if there were a few of your classmates at Bacone we would know from that time, whose names would be familiar.

Harjo I don’t know if you know Sandra Peters, Sandra Turner Peters. She’s a Creek, Muscogee Creek. She was a year ahead of me. There was a Nevaquaya young man. He was a cousin to Doc Tate, and he’s no longer here. Trying to think of who else…. Some of my friends who

were excellent artists, they were in the Vietnam War, so they never came back. It’s just so sad. The legacy before that, there’s Ruthe Blalock Jones and Fred Beaver and Al Momaday. There’s a lot of people, names that you can reel off. Then my adopted sister, Virginia Stroud, who went just a semester at Bacone. There was also Joan Hill.

Little Thunder You got a bachelor of arts, I guess, in arts education at NSU [Northeastern State University]. What drew you to that degree, and how much time elapsed between the two?

Harjo Amos [husband]. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Did you meet him at Bacone?

Harjo I met him at Bacone, right, and he went to Northeastern. After I finished at Bacone, I went to Colorado Women’s College, which I find a very interesting little story you told me about you attending the same school. I went to Colorado Women’s College.

Little Thunder How did you land there?

Harjo I landed there—they gave me a full scholarship, but the opening door to go out from there was I was Miss Indian America that year so my contract only allowed me to for a semester. I just went one semester at Colorado Women’s College. Then when I finished my year with Miss Indian America, then I went to Northeastern. I decided to go there and finish my degree. When I went to Colorado Women’s College I was majoring in art, so that’s how I got into the art scene, with that.

Little Thunder Did you learn anything there artistically?

Harjo It’s not nice for me to say this, but I had this one art teacher. She was an older teacher, and she’d knew everything about Southwest art, which I did learn a lot. I could name all the pueblos back then. I can’t name them now. (Laughs) She was really interested in Southwest art, and so that’s why I wanted to learn what I could from her, but I guess it didn’t stick. That’s about it. Then I went to Northeastern, took my classes of drawing rocks and sticks and stones in the creek bed there that runs across Tahlequah campus. Finished there.

Little Thunder And also knew at that point, I guess, that you wanted sort of a teaching degree?

Harjo I did. I went ahead and took the classes to get a degree to teach art, but I also got heavy into the history, world history, and so forth. I had some excellent teachers. I had to take Oklahoma History, which a lot of the

kids didn’t have to, but I had to take it. I was an out of state student. I had one teacher, he was just excellent, the stories that he would tell, and talk about how Indian people made Oklahoma. He was really good. That’s how I became more interested in the history, world history and United States history. I also was able to get—I could teach the history classes, too, which I have done. I taught social studies for a number of years.

Little Thunder Mary Jo Watson has a nice chapter on you in her book about women painters. I was struck by a comment that you made, that because you were university trained and because you were going to teach, you got a lot of support, not just from your family but also from the tribe in terms of encouragement. I wondered if you would have had the same support if you hadn’t become a teacher, if you had just said, “I’m going to be a professional painter. That’s it.” There wasn’t that sense that you were going to pass on these skills because there weren’t a lot of Kiowa women out there painting when you graduated.

Harjo I think the encouragement I got from the tribal people was something that—I know it came easily from them because if you did something, they were always willing to say, “You’re doing a good job. Your mom and dad would be proud of you. Your grandpa would be proud of you.” It was a family obligation that you want to continue that. As far as university training and so forth, I think that kind of helped, but I don’t think it would have deterred me because they would make you feel good anyway that you were going to be doing that. It was a difficult time to get into the art as a painter. That’s why I do still paint under Ahtone Harjo because it was a time when you just really couldn’t walk into a gallery and say, “I would like 30 percent,” or you would like 40 percent, or 80 percent, or 50 percent. Whatever they wanted to give you, they were going to give you, whether who you were. You even got less sometimes when you were a woman. Sometimes they wouldn’t handle your work because you were a woman.

Little Thunder Was the discrimination coming more from gallery owners than your fellow artists?

Harjo Right, because the fellow artists were very inclusive, which I am so thankful because they were just there to…. Did I finish that statement….

Little Thunder Yes, we were talking about actually the discrimination came mainly from gallery owners. So the Philbrook Indian Annual was going on. It was in full swing when you were painting. Can you talk about one of your experiences with it?

Harjo Yes, one in particular. It was a juried show, so sometimes you got in, sometimes you didn’t. I think the last time when I entered, I entered a piece. It was one of our stories about the tornadoes among the Kiowa people, and it got rejected. (Laughs) I don’t know why it did…. Rennard Strickland was part of the jury, I guess, or was the jury at that time, and he bought the piece out of the reject room, so he has it in his collection. There was another piece that I have, that I made. It was a panel, but it had clay faces on it. They were pointing with their lips, you know, “Over there, mmm-mmm.” (Laughter) Anyway, I did that piece, and that was one of my pieces that…. It did get in that show, I remember. It was on one of the calendars, Indian calendars that they have.

Little Thunder So even though he had juried the show (I want to get this clear) and you hadn’t made it into the competitive aspect, he’d bought it in the reject room?

Harjo Right, right.

Little Thunder That’s interesting. (Laughter)

Harjo I don’t know where the painting is now. He could very well still have it or maybe sold it on the market or whatever. Who knows.

Little Thunder Right, right. You had a one-woman show really pretty quickly at Southern Plains Indian Museum in ’75. How did that show impact your career?

Harjo I always thought, you know, if you were in that museum in particular then you made it somehow. I always thought, “Oh, gosh, it was good to be invited to be a part of that.” The person who bought my first painting at one of these mall shows back in the early ’70s was pretty much instrumental in getting me started from there because he was there when it opened. He was standing at the door when they opened that morning. I don’t know what he was looking, but he came in and looked and, of course, purchased some things. I always thought, “If you make it at Southern Plains Museum, then you got it.” (Laughs)

Little Thunder Right, and it is…

Harjo Yeah, it’s a good place.

Little Thunder …it’s a watermark. Indian Fair, American Indian Exposition, in Anadarko was thriving, too. Can you talk about that a little bit and why it was important?

Harjo As far back as I can remember, I always went to the Indian Fair. I guess that’s what they call it. That’s what I call it, the Indian Exposition. I always wanted to enter in the show when I started to paint.

Little Thunder So even as a young girl…

Harjo As a young—they didn’t have children’s art or anything, so you had to be an adult to be in it. I remember all the nice paintings and so forth that came through there. When I became eligible to do it, it was like in the ’70s, though, too, someplace around ’71, ’72 that I entered into the show. I was able to get a nice prize out of that, and I liked that it was kind of a goal in my life and it was met, so that was good.

Little Thunder So you won First Place in painting?

Harjo I won Best of Show.

Little Thunder Best of Show, that’s wonderful! What’s another award that you’re particularly proud of that you’ve won for painting over the years?

Harjo I wouldn’t say painting. (Laughs)

Little Thunder Or in any medium.

Harjo Well, okay, any medium. You remember Mavis Doering, our dear friend.

Little Thunder Yes.

Harjo She asked me if I would like to learn how to make baskets because her son Scott knew how to make baskets and she didn’t have a daughter. She said, “I want you to learn so that you can teach this in your schools in Edmond.” I said, “Okay, I would like that.” Anyway, I made a basket for a show that was at Aspen, Colorado, which was sponsored by the Smithsonian. I won basket category. (Laughs)

Little Thunder Yes, I remember being amazed to read that and saw that you had painted—is that right?

Harjo Yes, I painted on the side of the basket.

Little Thunder You painted the sides of your basket, so you were able to combine both interests.

Harjo Well, they’re over here because I’m still trying to put them away…

Little Thunder We may look at one later.

Harjo …the baskets that I have.

Little Thunder Great. Who are some other artists you admired at that time in the ’70s who were painting?

Harjo I think that probably the most important person to me back in those days was someone who encouraged me to be a part of the art scene, and that was Doc Tate Nevaquaya. …

Little Thunder Okay, so you were talking about that fact that Doc Tate was an artist you admired.

Harjo Right, and it was because he always made sure—you know, if there was a show coming up, or if he was going to be in a show and he knew there was a space, he would say, “I gave them your name, and they should be calling you. Would you like to do that?” I was, “Yes, that would be good.” He was always including my name somewhere along the way. He helped me, and he encouraged me to do it because he knew that there weren’t a lot of women and I guess because he’s Comanche and I’m Kiowa.

Little Thunder Right.

Harjo We’re neighbors, (Laughter) so he was really good to help that way. Some of the artists from the Bacone School of Art, Fred Beaver, Terry Saul, Solomon McCombs, Ruthe Jones, they were also people I admired an awful lot. And Joan Hill, I really like her. She was always encouraging.

Little Thunder You were in the Daughters of the Earth show, and I didn’t realize that you also moderated the documentary that OETA made.

Harjo I didn’t remember that! (Laughs) That’s good to know.

Little Thunder I read that.

Harjo Well, good. I probably did and just didn’t…. It was an interesting show.

Little Thunder Can you discuss it little?

Harjo Yeah, it was a good show, and Virginia Stroud, we can give her credit for coming up with the whole show and getting it where it was. She lived in Colorado at the time, so she had a lot of friends who were in the galleries and so forth, and the museums. She got our show together. It

was Oklahoma women artists, and we went to several of the shows. I don’t even remember how many. You probably don’t know this. There were nine or ten….

Little Thunder Yeah, and they showed several places around the country, I think.

Harjo Yeah, it was in Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska, different places. We got to go to some of the places. We had to pay our own way on some of them. Some of the others, they sponsored us. It was good. It was a good show because it did focus on the Oklahoma Indian women, not just Kiowas or Cherokees. It was quite a mixture of people.

Little Thunder The business aspect of art is sometimes the hardest to get, for an artist to get a hold of, and I’m wondering how you knew how to price your work in the beginning.

Harjo Even to this day I like to do my artwork so it’s affordable. I don’t know if people tend to think that success is how much money you pay for something or how much you can get for it. I just want it to be affordable and enjoyable, and sometimes it’s free, depending on where it’s going and who it’s going to or anything like that. I just want it to be affordable. Of course, I’m not opposed to anyone commissioning a piece or saying, “I like that. I would like to use that. Can I pay you to make a print of it so we put it in a book?” Whatever. I think that art is affordable.

Little Thunder What role has your husband played when you’ve gone to shows?

Harjo Well, you can see how it is around here. (Laughs) It’s just that he does his share of what he thinks is important. He really likes the OU football team, and he’s a runner. Our lives are, I guess, parallel rather than intermixed so much. He’s such a good person as far as taking care of things around the house. Cuts the grass, trims the hedges, runs the vacuum, does the laundry, folds it, puts it away. There’s nothing for me here. (Laughs)

Little Thunder That’s a help, too, yes (Laughter).

Harjo Then he’s a really good father to our child.

Little Thunder Oklahoma’s gallery scene developed quite a bit during the ’70s, and I was wondering what galleries you might have showed with during that time.

Harjo Okay, gosh, can I even remember the names? Of course, Doris Littrell, the Oklahoma—what’s it called?

Little Thunder Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery.

Harjo That’s right. Imogene Mugg was probably—she and Doris….

Little Thunder Imogene’s shows, okay.

Harjo Doris and Imogene worked together at the fairgrounds at the big round building there. What’s it called?

Little Thunder Oklahoma Art Center.

Harjo Right, okay, when they had that gallery. Then there was kind of an annual show that we did, so I did that one and then got with Doris. Linda Greever in Tulsa with the Art Market. I don’t remember the name of the gallery in Norman, the one…

Little Thunder Might’ve been Reba Olson’s.

Harjo Reba Olsen’s, yes, yes. What’s the name of that one?

Little Thunder That was an early one, too.

Harjo I don’t remember the name of it. Then of course OIO [Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity] occasionally would have a show, and so I was doing calendars with them and so forth back in the day.

Little Thunder How important has the Red Earth Arts Festival been for you?

Harjo That goes way, way back before they even started the actual festival itself. I remember there was talk of who was going to do, what kind of ideas we wanted to come together. I remember the very first formal meeting they had at the Omniplex. I think Mary Jo Watson or maybe Hickory Starr was the director at that time. We had this large room. It was like a brainstorming session, so everybody had their little input, who wanted this and that. Some of us stood up. I, of course, with my big mouth got up and said, “I think that this is something Oklahoma needs, and whatever we can do to help you, let us help you make it go.” Then, also, other aspects like the dance and the runs that they have and just every kind of educational thing that could go with the symposiums and so forth.

To me, it’s been really a good time for me. I enjoy it because I’m hometown. I want to do it. Doesn’t cost me to go anywhere. I just stay here, and of course I have a houseful at that time. Then with our child being a dancer, she enjoyed it, too. She also grew up doing the Red

Earth Show. When it started she was, like, maybe eight or nine years old. She did all the little shows all the way across, too. Now she does the Red Earth show with me. I’ve been involved with every one except one. I just happened to be out of town with one, but I’ve done every show since then. Probably until they drag me out of there, I guess I’ll do it. (Laughs) I’m a firm supporter of the arts here in Oklahoma City. I really want Red Earth to keep going, and it will with the people wanting to do it. It’s been a good show for me.

Little Thunder How did the Indian art landscape change from the ’70s to the ’80s, do you think?

Harjo I think there’s still that discussion of what’s traditional, what’s contemporary. I think that’s something that people are still wrestling in their minds. To me, traditional is very contemporary, but it’s ever- changing. You can make the subject matter change with you, or you can still be traditional with what maybe has happened historically in your tribe or with your own people. I think that Indian connection with someone like myself who’s older and who’s a full-blood, (I’m four- fourths Kiowa, and there’s not too many of us anymore) that’s what I see. Your work can still be traditional, but it still can have a contemporary feel to it as far as the use, the technical skill, and so forth of what you’re trying to show in your work. That debate’s going to go on forever, I think. My favorite one is, “Oh, I don’t want to be called an Indian artist.” Well, I don’t know any other thing. (Laughs) It’s hard for me to say that I’m an artist. It really is.

Little Thunder That sort of brought up for me, remembering your ledger art, and I think the fact that you were actually into it fairly early. I mean, it’s very popular right now. It’s had a comeback, but I was wondering when you first started doing ledger art if you encountered any resistance and/or what you tried to do differently when you took it up?

Harjo There was some resistance, but I think it’s from people who don’t know the importance of it historically and what it meant to some of our grandparents. My grandparent Sam Ahtone who kept a ledger book, he was a deacon in the Rainy Mountain Church and lived through some of those times when there was some transitional things that were going on. That’s how I became involved because I had an interest in my grandfather’s ledger book, and I always thought these are really kind of neat drawings and what they mean. They showed the winter count, the summer count, and so forth. Just to see what was going on was kind of interesting to me.

When I first started doing this, my dad—I did this one picture, and he said, “My goodness, that looks like something I know.” I said, “Well,

yes. It comes from a ledger book.” (Laughter) It was actually telling the story of my grandmother. Then I have a piece I want to show you in a few minutes here. There was some resistance, and it has to do with people who are not familiar with the ledger art. There is a lot of it now. Like I said, it can and has turned contemporary with cars involved and dogs and throw pillows or whatever in the picture, but it’s kind of fun. It’s not as easy as it looks. People say, “Well that’s so naïve. Anybody can do that.” I think if you have the cultural and the historical connection to it, I think it’s going to come about. You just can’t—I guess you can, but it’s just something that I….

Little Thunder There’s a different feeling if you have that connection.

Harjo Right. Even within the tribes, I see some people who are not really quite as much degree Indian as someone else, what the difference is, what they do as to someone more involved tribally than others.

Little Thunder Were more than one or two of your ledger art pieces kind of inspired by your grandfather’s book?

Harjo Yes, I have just maybe looked at something and taken maybe a portion of it and put it on paper. I do most of my ledgers—I do drawings, actually, and occasionally I’ll do a painting. The ones that are in painting are more contemporary I think than the paper ones and the pencil and ink and the paint….

Little Thunder Right. Did you have the opportunity to travel overseas at all?

Harjo I have had the opportunity, but I have never gone. (Laughs) I am one person who—because I had the experience of being Miss Indian America, I traveled a lot by plane. I never have particularly liked to fly. My daughter says, “Well, you’re just keeping yourself contained.” I said, “I don’t enjoy it.” Nowadays it’s like a task to get on an airplane, so I don’t go out of the country. I probably would if someone would take my whole family, but in this day in age I don’t think I’d be going. (Laughter) It’s kind of dangerous, thinking about it and thinking about what’s going on in the world. No matter where you’re going, if it’s Paris or if it’s in Istanbul or whatever, to me it’s dangerous. Scaredy cat, I guess. (Laughs)

Little Thunder You did Indian Market for a while and then stopped in ’91. Is that right? Wait, when did you stop?

Harjo It was ’92. I stopped because I was still teaching school. When I started doing Indian Market, we didn’t start school until after Labor Day, which was excellent. I didn’t have to miss any school. I just stopped

doing it because we started going to school earlier. I think the earliest time that I remember going back to school was like the eighth of August. There’s just no way in the world I could miss the first week. I couldn’t even miss the first day because your contract—if you miss the first day, then your fringe benefits don’t kick in. It was just a mess. Then it became more difficult for me to do because my daughter was quite young. In ’92 she would’ve been fourteen or so, and it was hard to leave her home. She was having to go to school. I just stopped. I wasn’t making any more money there than I was just staying home. (Laughs) I mean, it was an experience, and it’s good on paper. I just couldn’t do it because I was still bringing income in from my teaching position. I didn’t want to give that up just yet because I had so many years into it and I didn’t want to stop.

Little Thunder We should talk about your teaching a little bit. You taught in the Edmond middle schools. Is that right?

Harjo Yes, I was in Indian education before I went back into the classroom, but prior to that I taught in Illinois at Jack Benny Junior High. I don’t know; you’re probably too young to know who Jack Benny is. (Laughs) He was a comedian, and he was from Waukegan, Illinois. That was my first teaching position. I taught art in middle school. I had sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.

Little Thunder That must’ve been a kind of different culture, experience.

Harjo Well, in a sense, though, because I was trained to teach K through twelve, so it wasn’t too bad, teaching. I just didn’t like the Chicago area. I didn’t like living there. It was too cold. It was dingy. The school was excellent, the pay was excellent, but I just didn’t like living in the Chicago area. Culturally, it was kind of fun because there were things to do there in Chicago, museums and so forth, but as far as teaching middle school, that was my choice of age group. I did that all my career.

Little Thunder And taught one year at Concho [Oklahoma]….

Harjo I taught several years at Concho.

Little Thunder Can you talk about…

Harjo That one? That was kind of fun. When we moved back from Illinois, we had to move back from Illinois in, I think it was 1970 when we moved back here because Amos had to have a cornea transplant. They were pretty new at that time. He was losing his sight, and so he had two cornea transplants. Actually, he had three. The first one was, I think, in 1971. I needed to find a job, and he needed to find a job until his cornea

became available. He found a job at Concho, and that’s just about the time right when, I think, Vietnam was just now ending or kind of in the middle of it or something. There was a position open for him, so he took that position. Along in April I got this phone call from the superintendent of the schools, and they said, “We need you to come because we understand you teach sixth graders. We have a bunch of wild kids here, and they’re driving their teacher crazy.” (Laughs) I said, “Well, tell me how many?” He said, “There’s twenty-five of them, and they’re sixth graders.”

I said, “Okay, I’ll come and see what I can do. It’s just a month, isn’t it, and that’s all?” I went, and, yes, they were wild. They were the kind jumping across the desks, putting things in the teacher’s desk and in her chair, putting gum in her hair. I’m not exaggerating. They were just wild. She was elderly. They were taking advantage of her. I went, and we got along fine. I didn’t get a contract. I didn’t get to stay there over the summer or anything. I was just temporary. They said, “Can you come back in the fall?” I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know.” So I went back, and I did end up staying there, like, four years before I stopped teaching. It was quite interesting. Would you believe the kids that I had in the sixth grade that were so wild, they’re in their middle forties now. They’re counselors, teachers, policemen. I have a artist. I have a welder.

Little Thunder That’s terrific.

Harjo In fact, something real interesting, I went to a grocery store in Montana about three weeks ago, right before Crow Fair. I get in this line, and I thought, “That girl looks familiar. That woman looks familiar.” I looked, and she had a little tag, and it says “Martha.” That’s her! It was one of my sixth-grade….

Little Thunder One of your students.

Harjo She said, “Would you like your senior discount?” (Laughter) She started smiling. I said, “Martha, is that you?” She said, “Yes.” She started crying. “I can’t believe you’re coming through my line at the IGA.” I said, “What are you doing here?” She’s from Anadarko, but she went to Concho. She was one of my cheerleaders and one of my sixth- grade students. She lives in Crow Agency, Montana. My kids, they’re everywhere. (Laughs) I get so excited.

Little Thunder That’s a great story. How did you balance teaching and painting at the same time?

Harjo Well, we didn’t have Tahnee at the time; she wasn’t here yet. Like I said, Amos did his thing, and I did my thing. I’m a very early person. I

like to get up in the morning and putter around and do this while everybody’s asleep. It’s kind of quiet. I would get up, like, four in the morning, and I would paint until the sun came up or until it was time to go to work and just go on and do. I would never accept any show unless I knew I was going to be able to do it. That’s why I never have really done a lot of the shows like some people. They go here, and they go there.

Little Thunder Wanted to be sure you had inventory.

Harjo Yes, yes, and I don’t always have a big inventory. I do, like, maybe, six paintings a year, if I do six painting a year anymore. I just didn’t take the time to do it. I didn’t want to stress myself out any more than I needed to.

Little Thunder As you’ve mentioned, you are a basket maker, and you’re also an accomplished sewer and beadworker. I was wondering how these might have influenced your painting at all or vice versa, how your painting might have factored into…

Harjo I think if anyone’s familiar with my artwork they know that there’s a connection to the women’s lifestyle, daily lifestyle. As far as the beadwork goes, I don’t do that anymore. I did when Tahnee was little because I wanted her to have Kiowa clothes, so I did that. All my female members of the family, they’re all excellent beadworkers. It came from my dad’s side, my mom’s side, just excellent. I taught myself some of the stuff, and then, of course, my dad taught me some things too, how to beadwork. I use that pretty much in the detail of my work. As far as the clothing and so forth, that’s what I use. The basket, I did that because Mavis asked me to do, and I did teach that to kids in my class. That was just one of the curriculum things that I wrote into the school curriculum for what I was teaching.

Little Thunder You mentioned why that was particularly effective, I think.

Harjo It is. It’s something that everyone can accomplish, no matter if they’re a little guy or a big guy, and they all have a sense of accomplishment, making the basket and then knowing the historical part of it. Mavis wanting the basketry to continue, that was my favor to her, to make sure that it was taught the way that she wanted it to be taught, and I used her methods. I used what she had taught me.

Little Thunder The Indian Arts and Crafts Act was passed in 1991, requiring that artists show proof of enrollment with their tribe or be certified in some way that they can represent the tribe in their artwork. What is your view of the act and its impact?

Harjo I’ll probably step on toes here, but I’m going to say it anyway. Back in the ’70s when there was money to be had here and there, grants and so forth, and there were trips, and there were show sponsorships, there was money that people could.... Just by saying yes to someone, they would be part of it. That kind of set in the sour point with me sometimes because who was always first in line? It wasn’t the tribally enrolled people. Consequently, they began to be left out of this, so when this act came into being, I thought, “Well, that’s a good thing.” Again it wasn’t just because you were an Indian. It was because it was a marketing thing. That was important because when you buy something from Japan or you buy something from Mexico or something, it says on there. Why not with this American art? If it’s Indian made, should it not continue to be sold as Indian made?

Now people to this day, they still get around the door for whatever purposes they might have. To me, it’s just kind of a selfish thing if they are not…. Julie, you being around Indian people as long as you have been, you know the difference. You really probably do. You see it. I don’t like to really address that, but I think it’s still an important task that we probably need to follow through on some things. My daughter, who’s in museum studies, going to be graduating in May. She finishes up in December. She is doing her thesis, her senior thesis, on something related to this but from the standpoint of a dancer and an artisan who makes clothes for other people, in particular, people who do the featherwork because you’re not even supposed to have that position unless it’s yours, I guess, as the law reads.

There’s a split there somewhere along the way that the Indian Arts and Crafts board—they are knowledgeable of that, and they know it, but they don’t want to address it. The wildlife people, they have an issue, too. I’d like to see them come together so it can work for everybody because there were some people who worked with feathers and so forth who want to do the right thing. That’s why this is an important task still being addressed at this day because our Indian people, to keep some of their cultural ways, they need these things whether it’s in their church or whether it’s in their traditional upbringing. Those things still need to be addressed. I think it’s an important act for us to understand more. It’s not just to say, “Oh, I don’t want you in the art show because you’re not Indian.” It’s not that. It’s an inherent right, actually, to do and discuss certain things.

Little Thunder You served on Oklahoma Indian Arts Council. I think this might’ve been in the ’70s or ’80s. I hadn’t heard of it, and I wondered if it still exists. Was it an artists’ association?

Harjo It was an artists’ association, and it was developed because of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. You had to be a resident of Oklahoma, you had to be a tribal enrollee, and it was an ongoing thing, pretty much like a group who would do shows together. Even to this day, like I think the Cherokees have one called the [Southeastern Indian Artists Association] or something like that. They still function, and so they have some….

Little Thunder But this one was Oklahoma City based?

Harjo It was Oklahoma City based because—we had people from all over. It’s been disbanded because the people have passed who were involved in it.

Little Thunder I’d like to talk a little bit about your creative process and techniques in a little more detail. I read one time that gouache was your favorite medium. I wondered if that had remained true over the course of your career.

Harjo As far as the painting, I like to do the gouache. I like to do canvases, too, but because of limited space with the little ones here, it’s just real difficult to do the acrylic. I have become accustomed to using prismacolors and inks and some watercolor with my ledger drawings because it gives a nice color with prismacolor and you can mix just like you can with paints. I’ve grown accustomed to that, and I like that a lot, too. Maybe, I don’t know, they’re kind of equal now.

Little Thunder What is your favorite subject to paint or put in ledger work?

Harjo I like to do the stories from our tribe, our legends and our myths and so forth, just to display it as a story, maybe a record-keeping thing, going back to the original type of artwork. That’s what I like to do.

Little Thunder Do you cut your own mats at all?

Harjo No, (Laughs) I’m so bad. I know how to cut them, but I don’t do it. I don’t cut them. I have someone else cut them for me, or if I see a nice price on something that are standard size, I will get those. I do like beveled mats, though.

Little Thunder You had a nice little story you shared about a gift that you gave to Dick West.

Harjo When he gave me my brushes and I knew that he was going to retire, (he never really formally retired, but he just didn’t go around very much because he became ill and was getting elderly) he came to Oklahoma. I wanted to give him something for being my teacher, so I gave him a

paintbrush, but I gave him a beaded paintbrush. He was thankful, I guess, because [I] couldn’t stop saying thank you enough. I was the one saying thank you because of what he did for me. Because he had given me…I thought, “Well, you deserve one, too.” He only got one. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Only got one, not a whole set.

Harjo Yeah.

Little Thunder How do you think your painting style has changed over the years?

Harjo I think when I first started painting, like going from high school into college, I had to learn how to get away from the modeling part of it where you’re shading and so forth. Was taught pretty good the mixing of colors, so I think I’ve always had a good color sense. I know I don’t have as good a color sense as my daughter, but it’s there. When I went to Bacone, I wanted to learn the traditional style, the flat painting, and that’s where it took what I would change for me to go from the shading and using paints to the flat gouache and the poster board and the acrylic. I still do the acrylic; I still do flat. I don’t like to use it to shade. For one thing it takes a lot of time. (Laughs) I like to just use a flat color on that. I think I’ve pretty much—I think you can tell my work from anyone else’s. It has its own way of telling you…

Little Thunder Its own voice.

Harjo …who it is, yeah.

Little Thunder How has your use of color changed, do you think, over the years?

Harjo You know, (Laughs) it’s a funny thing because Tahnee and I had this discussion not too long ago. When I first started painting, I used a lot a red and blue, kind of traditional colors with us. Then when the ’70s came into being, when all the big turquoise jewelry and the pinks and light blues, salmon color were pretty popular, then I went through that phase. Then I went back to the more bright colors like yellows and oranges and so forth, just real intense color in the ’80s. Now back to the drawings and with the ink, I’m just using black and pencil and prismacolors but with the mixture of yellows and blues and reds.

Little Thunder Interesting.

Harjo It kind of went there to there, to there, to there.

Little Thunder So you’re still doing sketching first, or sketching is a very important part of…

Harjo On some things I do. Sometimes I start out, I just go for it, and let it happen. I know with my canvases, I pretty much have an idea of what I want to do, but I will sketch it on the canvas and go from there. As far as the gouache painting, I do a drawing, what I think I want it to be, detail as I go, and then I transfer that to my tracing paper. Then I transfer the tracing paper, using graphite paper, which is a hard thing to find these days. Back in the day, it used to be carbon paper, you know, like on a typewriter. (Laughter) That, and then I go to the paint from there. Then I put the detail in with the paint. It’s quite the process for me.

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

Harjo Nowadays, usually I think I want to do something that I have seen that’s kind of unusual or maybe in particular to a tribe. I think it might be kind of fun. I’ve had actually three paintings. I did one, and the other two I haven’t done yet. The one that I finished—and the reason I’m saying this is there’s a man in Kansas City who bought this painting at an auction. He said, “I bought this picture of these cowboys, and they’re holding some kind of money up in the air.” I said, “Oh, my Gallup picture, Going to the Navajo Fair picture. “Yeah! What are they doing?” I said, “When you go to the Navajo fair,” which, by the way, is this weekend, “you see all these people dressed up,” like new cowboy clothes or their new velvet skirts. They’re standing on the side of the road because they don’t have a car, and they’ll be holding five-dollar bills up to catch a ride to the Navajo fair. You’ll see thirty, forty people down this highway from Gallup to the Window Rock [Arizona]. I said I always wanted to do a painting of itm, so I did that one.

The other one is my 1970s picture about being at an art show. David Bradley kind of got in on this one already. (Laughter) I still have it out in the garage, that I did the sketch of. It’s being in a Oklahoma Indian Art Show where all these…. This is an Oklahoma Indian Art Show where all the women, Indian women, are by their paintings, trying to sell their artwork. Of course, the Indian men, Oklahoma Indian men, Indian artists, got all these blondes hanging around them, standing with the pipes in their hands. The guy’s, smoking or having the pipe, not smoking, but having a pipe in his hand. Anyway, it’s a whole scene. I think David Bradley did something like that with the Lone Ranger and all kinds of famous people in it. I have that somewhere, and it’s going to get done one day.

Little Thunder Oh, that sounds cute. That’d be great.

Harjo Yeah, and then I was trying to think what was the other one I was going to tell you about. I can’t remember. Isn’t that terrible? (Laughter) Anyway, it’s usually from experiences that I’ve had that I wanted to do.

Little Thunder And you don’t necessarily keep a notebook or anything like that?

Harjo No, I do have—I’m like any other Indian artist, probably, in this state. I have sketchbooks, but there might be one page in each one. (Laughter) Whenever and whoever gets my papers, they’re going to find these stacks, a bunch of books about this tall, maybe one drawing in it. I have saved my transfer papers. I have them in a box. I told Tahnee, I said, “Those might be of some interest to someone someday.”

Little Thunder Oh, yeah.

Harjo Yeah, but that’s what I….

Little Thunder When you were painting, what was your creative routine? You kind of mentioned you were a morning person, but do you have a little…

Harjo A routine?

Little Thunder Yes.

Harjo I know people always find this kind of hard to believe of me, but I do pray for guidance. (Laughs) That’s part of the routine no matter where I start. It’s going to make sure it comes the way it needs to come. I leave my stuff when I’m painting. I do dump my water because Tahnee was such an inquisitive child, she would turn things over sometimes or come in and try to use the paints. She never damaged anything that I had, but she still talks about to this day that she would stand at the door. She’d knock, and the door might be ajar or something. She’d, “Are you through yet? Are you coming out? Can I get up?” (Laughter) I would think this is probably a process that all the children of the Indian artists have.

Little Thunder The women artists.

Harjo Yeah, “Mama, mama, mama,” you know. She would do that to me, but I would just leave things. When she did come in there sometimes, she got into a jam, in more ways than one. (Laughter) That was part of the routine. I would just leave it in there. As we began to grow as a family in here, I had to kind of put things away. I would always try to have, if I had any kind of paperwork, I would have it close by. If I needed a book, I’d try to have it close by. Some artists, they really work well with

music. I didn’t. (Laughs) I wanted quiet. I just want it to be quiet, my overhead light that I use and so forth. Nowadays, magnifying glasses and big olʽ thick lenses. (Laughter) I’m always amazed at your husband [Merlin Little Thunder], how wonderful his work is.

Little Thunder You mentioned you do have something you’re looking forward to. It’s not necessarily an art project, but something coming up here that you….

Harjo Right. On occasion, I have worked as a adjunct professor. I’m in Santa Fe. Tahnee, she’s, “I don’t think these people know who you are.” I said, “Well, so much the better.” (Laughs) I said, “I’m not anybody special.” She says, “You’re my mama, and I know what you do.” I said, “Well, yeah.” Linda Lomahaftewa teaches classes out at IAIA [Institute of American Indian Arts] and she said, “Sharron, would you come and teach my class? I barely touch on ledger art, and I think it’s real important.” I said, “Yes, I will do that.” She says, “Is it going to cost me?” I said, “Hmm, maybe lunch or something.” (Laughter) I’m kind of looking forward to having one of her classes to talk a little bit about ledger art because I know they are probably familiar with it, but they don’t really know, maybe, someone that does it.

Little Thunder Yeah.

Harjo I have been so thankful. About two years ago a book came out called Four Contemporary Native [American] Artists, and I was included in that. Richard Pearce from Wheaton College wrote the book, and that’s something that we worked on a long time. We started in 2008 and worked over the years. Two years ago it came out. I think last year we had a book signing scheduled for Santa Fe at one of the museums. That’s been out, so that’s been a good experience for me to be in the book, included with Linda Haukaas and two other artists.

Little Thunder That’s really exciting. We’re going to look at your work here in a minute, but looking back so far, what’s been one of the pivotal moments of your art career?

Harjo I don’t know. There’s been so many things that have just made me really happy and proud to be…but I think being recognized by my own tribe as an artist. Even today when I go to Carnegie or…“Oh, you’re the artist,” if I tell them who I am. “Oh, you’re the artist.” “Yes.” I’m getting pretty close to seventy years old, and being in the situation sometimes, knowing that there was a period of time when, let’s say, Lois Smokey was recognized as a producing artist, then there was a span of nothing. No one was painting anything. I come along in 1970.

Was that forty-some years ago? Now there are—I would like to see other Indian women painters.

Little Thunder Still not a lot of Plains women who are painting.

Harjo No, no, not at all. There’s one young lady that’s coming up. I think she’s going to be fine. She’s a good—technically skilled. She’s got a good background. It’s Barry Belindo and Arlene Poolaw’s daughter, Antonia. It’s just knowing that you are a part of that history that’s real important to me. When I’m out of here, hopefully someone will remember me for whatever reason.

Little Thunder They will. What was one of the high points?

Harjo I think one of the high points that is involved was knowing that my grandparents, both sides of my family, had instrumental part in rearing their children, and it became my parents and the expectations that we had as family members of what to do and how to get where we were going and if we met those goals, then that was…. One of the high points in my life was being Miss Indian America. Going back to my art, most of these competitions have some kind of talent presentation that you have to do. We didn’t really have to do it publically, but if we chose to, we could somehow work it in there. I took my artwork. That was why— I thought that was real important in my life because it helped me become part of something that I enjoyed: doing my artwork, yet I was still representing the Native people at that time. That was in 1960. Let’s see…

Little Thunder Sixty-eight, I believe. Sixty-five!

Harjo Sixty-five, right, 1965. At that particular pageant, there were five judges, and two of them were artists. One was an artist from Montana, a lady who wrote some books about Western art and Native art, a rancher. There was a businessman, and then Father Peter Powell.

Little Thunder Oh!

Harjo Are you familiar with Peter Powell?

Little Thunder Yes.

Harjo He’s still alive today, thank goodness. Anyway, all those people were so instrumental in my achieving that one goal that I had set in my life. Just last year I went back to Wyoming. We had a reunion of the Miss Indian Americas. There were thirteen of us. There were some of them had passed on, but it was a very enjoyable time, getting to see some of

the people who were part of our lives back then. These women have gone out to become lawyers and doctors and so forth. It’s a good sisterhood, but it’s still involved with the arts. While I was there, I had created this one ledger drawing of some women dancing. I gave that to the committee who comes from the library that’s named after the rancher that was my judge, so it’s all connected together.

Anyway, they created a book of [the] Miss Indian America reunion, and so my picture is on the cover of it. That’s been kind of fun to have one of my paintings on the cover of a book. Then the cradleboard book that we did back in, I think it was 2008, 2009, the lady that wrote the book was the daughter-in-law of one of the judges. She’s really instrumental in the Native American arts, Barbara Hale from Haffenreffer Museum [of Anthropology] at Brown University. She’s retired now. She’s been a lifelong friend, and she has helped me extremely with as much as she could do for me with my career, going back East and being part adjunct professor at Brown. I’s all connected, but that’s the highlight. My Miss Indian America year was a result of my folks and my tribal people saying, “You probably need to do this for yourself.”

Little Thunder What has been a low point in your career?

Harjo Oh, gosh, I think saying that the loss of some of the people that are important to me…trying not to cry. Knowing that you’re an elder now and that you’ve lived a good life. I’ve had a good life so far. I have these two beautiful grandchildren that are my life today, but they’re not my low point. (Laughter) It’s just the loss of all these people who…. They are what sustain me these days, and my daughter, our daughter.

Little Thunder Is there anything we forgot to talk about or that you’d like to add before we take a quick look at your artwork?

Harjo Let’s see. I am so thankful for people like you because you’re there recording this and you’re asking the right questions, and that’s real important. Working with Barbara Hale with this cradleboard book that we did, she’s an anthropologist. She says, “That’s kind of a dirty word these days.” I said, “Well, with Tahnee being a museum person, she’s kind of in that same category.” She’s not an anthropologist; she’s a museum studies person. Barbara always knew the right questions to ask, and so do you. You’re willing to listen to us, to let us verbalize in what we need to say to you and understand. You have an insight into kind of the way we think, and I appreciate that and what you appreciate of us. That’s good. Thank you for doing that for us.

Little Thunder Well, and now we’re going to look at some of your pieces.

Harjo Okay. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Yeah, and Tahnee owes you. I’m sure you were a big influence in the path that she took. It sounds like she’s very artistic now, too.

Harjo She is. She just amazes me. Not only she can paint, she can draw, she can make baskets, and she can dance!

Little Thunder Yeah, yeah.

Harjo Most of all, she’s really verbal about her—she’s very passionate about what she’s doing.

Little Thunder I think that’s just great, and it’s a great degree to be coming out with.

Harjo I wanted to show you the one on the wall that earthquake moved, the one with the stars and the…. That’s one that I’ve chosen to keep.

Little Thunder Oh, wow.

Harjo It’s a gouache, and it’s totally on gouache. It’s probably going to be dusty, so don’t sneeze on yourself. (Laughter)

Little Thunder Okay, Sharron, would you like to talk a little bit about this piece?

Harjo Yes, this was a commission piece by the Oklahoma Zoological Society. They wanted to do the story—they actually did a story of bears, and they wanted to include a story about a bear from the Kiowa Nation. This is my painting that I put together because when I was growing up we used to have this babysitter who would tell us stories. She was Kiowa, and she’d talk Kiowa to us, and she would tell us a story. This is one of our stories about how the Devils Tower became as it is and how the Dipper became the Big Dipper. The children playing, the sisters playing on the rock and the bear’s scratching the rock to get at the girls.

Little Thunder Right, and it’s done in gouache, you mentioned.

Harjo It’s done in gouache; it’s totally in gouache. It’s on a mat board, but the mat board is painted. I normally don’t paint on mat board, but I did on this one. I don’t know why, but I did it on a mat board. This is one that I’ve chosen to keep because I think it was real important. It has an attachment to my growing up, but then also when our babies were very small, we went to the Devils Tower. I think it’s been the last, a year and half ago, maybe, last year. We took them there. The youngest one that we have, her name is Georgie Anne, and they always call her Bear Cub because she lays on the floor and she rolls around like a little bear. She

still surprises them because she does some strange things. When we went there, she goes like this, [Demonstrates] up, and she pulls her arms down like she was praying or something, and then bringing her hands down like she was doing…. When she sees anything with a bear, she’ll do the same thing. She’ll raise her…and honors it in a way.

Little Thunder Wow.

Harjo It’s a strange connection. (Laughs)

Little Thunder It’s a connection.

Harjo Yeah, but I kept this one because it’s such an important story in our ethnology and legends and so forth. I wanted to keep that.

Little Thunder How about this piece?

Harjo Okay, this is done on a muslin piece of material. When I bought it, when I bought the muslin, I wasn’t particularly fond of the lines. I don’t know if you can see the faint lines in the back.

Little Thunder I love the muslin effect.

Harjo I just happened to buy it. I think TG&Y was still in existence back in those days. I bought this muslin piece of material, and it had lines. I thought, “What am I going to do with this,” because I didn’t even know it was on [there] until I unfolded the fabric. “Well, I’ll just do a painting, a drawing on it.” What I did for this was I put my great- grandmother’s story—my great-grandmother was non-Indian. She was captured in Young County, Texas, in 1864 and brought to live with the Kiowas through a family who had no children, so she was raised as an only child. She was brought up into the Mountain View area where she settled. You can see that on the left side there’s some pictures of some people, some ladies, and you see a little black face.

There was a slave that was part of the family. Actually, he was a freed slave at that time, and he worked for my great-grandmother’s family. What’s kind of interesting about their family is she had a trading company in Texas, supply trading company, close to where Newcastle, Texas, is. Their ranch was invaded by the Kiowas, and the little girl was taken captive. She was eighteen months when they brought [her] to the Oklahoma Territory to be raised by a family. She was lost for a long, long time. No one really knew who she was because they kept her dark. Sometimes if somebody’d try to find her, they would darken her skin so she would blend in with the rest of the people, (Laughs) but she had gray eyes and real light hair.

Anyway, she lived until 1934 in Mountain View, Oklahoma, at the old family home which is here. There was a arbor outside, which is something that was pretty common among the Kiowa people. She lived there. My grandma and grandpa lived in that same house until my mom and dad had it torn down [to build a new house on the home site]. There’s a historical marker outside Mountain View that shows that this is the home place where she was raised, where she lived. She married. Her name was Millie Durgan, and she married an Indian man named Goombi. That’s where my maternal part of the family comes from. It has all the story in here. I wanted it floating on there, on this particular…. This is one piece that I’ve chosen to keep for my collection, too, because it does tell our story, and I used the ledger style.

Little Thunder Right.

Harjo The drawing’s with ink, and it’s done with a ballpoint pen and prismacolor. There’s no paint on it.

Little Thunder It’s got a wonderful feeling.

Harjo I don’t even remember what year it was, but I think it was in the ’80s. I have a friend who called it my dishtowel drawing. I said, “Gee, thanks.” (Laughter) At least you can say you knew me.

Little Thunder Right. (Laughter)

Harjo But that’s my family picture. I have one more I want to show you.

Little Thunder All right, you mentioned this was a piece that you entered in Red Earth, and a collaboration?

Harjo A collaboration piece, which kind of goes back to the Indian Arts and Crafts Act because there are some people, artists, who sometimes don’t do their own work. I think Red Earth has made an attempt to figure this out. (Laughs) If you’re going to be in the show and then you collaborate, then you both have to be in the show and be joined in.

Little Thunder And you mentioned it was a battle dress, which not all tribes have a version of.

Harjo The reason she wanted to do one is—I don’t know if you know Denny Medicine Bird. He stayed with us a while before he went to the Army. When he was gone she said, “I need to do something.” I said, “What do you want to do?” Anyway, she says, “I want to make a battle dress, but I don’t want to put any Army things on it. I want it to be more

traditional for his safety return.” I said, “Okay, we’ll do it,” so we did that. He came back, and they had some kind of deal.

Little Thunder Can you explain the significance of the battle dress for the Kiowas?

Harjo Usually the Kiowas, it was to show the war deeds of the warrior. I don’t know. Does this one have a flag on it? This one doesn’t have a flag on it, does it?

Little Thunder I didn’t see one. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sharron.

Harjo Yeah, well, I want to thank you, Julie, for being here. Glad we could share.

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