Oral History Interview

with

Dana Tiger

Interview Conducted by Julie Pearson-Little Thunder

May 25, 2011

Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project

Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University

© 2011

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Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Julie Pearson-Little Thunder Transcriber: Adam Evans Editors: Miranda Mackey, 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 Dana Tiger is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on May 25, 2011.

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Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project About Dana Tiger… Dana Tiger comes from a celebrated family of artists, but the last thing she wanted to do as a child was sit still and draw. She was only five when her artist father, Jerome Tiger, passed away. Her uncle, Johnny Tiger, also a well-known painter, encouraged her and entered her work in youth art competitions. Later, Dana’s interest in political science inspired her to enroll at Oklahoma State University, but the accidental death of her boyfriend caused her to drop out. Ultimately, she turned to art to guide her through grief and loss. Dana’s paintings focus primarily on contemporary Creek or Cherokee women with strong minds and bodies and leadership skills, passed down by their grandmothers. Her first significant commission was a portrait of Wilma Mankiller, which led to a close friendship between the two women. Dana has exhibited in numerous Native shows from Washington, DC, to Denver, Colorado. Her activism on behalf of women, children, and minorities has made her a popular poster artist for various organizations. Since her diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease, Dana divides her time between art and community outreach, including her Legacy Cultural Foundation in Tahlequah. In 2001, the artist was elected to the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 2011, she received the First People’s Community Spirit Award for helping preserve “the cultural values of Native people through art.” In this interview, in addition to talking about her subject matter, creative techniques, and philosophy, Dana tells stories about the mischief she caused as a young girl in school. She remembers traveling to art shows in her mid-twenties with her uncle, Johnny Tiger, and helping her siblings and her mother, Peggy, with the Tiger Art Gallery. She shares honestly about the difficulties of dealing with Parkinson’s and takes pride in the artistic achievements of her children, Lisan and Christie. She also describes receiving the Community Spirit Award and her vision of a society where women are able to fully realize their potential without censure or oppression.

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Spotlighting Oklahoma Oral History Project

Dana Tiger Oral History Interview Interviewed by Julie Pearson-Little Thunder May 25, 2011 Muskogee, Oklahoma Little Thunder Tiger Little Thunder Tiger Little Thunder Tiger

Today is Wednesday, May 25, and I’m interviewing Dana Tiger for the Oklahoma Native Artists Project, sponsored by the oral history program at Oklahoma State University. Dana, you’re an artist who comes from a family of artists. Your paintings often focus on women and their cultural/ spiritual journey, but equally important, you’re someone whose desire to help others through your art and cultural outreach has been an important part of your career, as it has been for your love of art. Where were you born, and where did you grow up? I was born in Muskogee, 1961, and I grew up in Muskogee. When my Dad saw me, he said, “That looks like Dana,” so that’s what they named me, Dana. (Laughter) He came up with your name on the spur of the moment? Very creative man. (Laughter) He was an artist, of course, Jerome Tiger, and your mom often helped him with the business side of art. What are your earliest memories of being around art? Well, let’s see. I know that Daddy would paint. I remember we had a house on Baltimore Street in town. It was by where the old, old general hospital was, that big old building right across the street, but it wasn’t the hospital when we were living there. It was a small house, two bedrooms, and Daddy would be in there painting in the back bedroom, and I’d crawl all over him. I wouldn’t have no respect. Nothing was sacred to me back then, so I’d splosh paint all around sometimes, and he’d have to fix them. Whatever I’d do, he, of course, could make it just like it was part of the painting. I always said if I could get to where I could paint with kids crawling on me, then I’d made it as an artist. (Laughter)

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A lot of women artists end up doing just that. What are your earliest memories of doing art, yourself? Well, I would draw on things that I wasn’t supposed to. I remember getting in trouble at the school for things like that, and I heard that Daddy did, too. He just drew on everything. I grew up—our whole lives were art. That was the family business from when Daddy was painting and they were going to art shows all over the place. Our house was just always filled with people. It was like a party all the time or something. (Laughter) I always drew when I felt like it, but I didn’t really do it consistently until after Daddy was gone. Our uncle, his older brother, Johnny, (we called him Uncle Tony, then we shortened it just to Uncle after a time) he stepped in and had us do art as children after Daddy was gone. He’d have the whole neighborhood doing artwork. Indian or not Indian, he had everybody in there doing artwork, and we’d win wherever we went, especially if he was the judge. (Laughs) We’d win first, second, third, all his little students. (Laughter) But he cared enough to put paint supplies and art supplies in our hands. We had to do it, or we couldn’t go play. So was it every weekend for a couple of hours? No, just when there was some show that came up. We were very active children. I really didn’t devote myself to art when I was a kid. I was just a very wild child. You can ask anybody. What are some of the other things you liked to do besides art? Be scheming. I would like to do things that were mischievous. One time, I remember Daddy was in the living room at the old house, and I had decided I was going to go to swim. I put my bathing suit in my little outfit, my pants, and I said, “Daddy, I want some money. I’m going to get some ice cream.” I headed off in the opposite direction of the ice cream place, snuck around the main street, down the block, went to the pool, which was at the other end of our block, Spaulding Park, went in there and swam for two or three hours. I thought, “Well, they might be getting a little suspicious by now, so I’ll just slide one more time down the slide, and then I’ll go on home.” I did, and when I was coming across the park, all the cops were around in the neighborhood. I thought, “Hmm, what’s going on?” The next thing I remember, being over Daddy’s lap and him saying, “This is going to hurt me worse than it’s going to hurt you.” I remember thinking, “No, I bet it won’t!” Then I was thinking, “What can I say to divert his attention?” I was still trying to think, but then it kind of fades to black. (Laughter)

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You were only, what, five? Four or five. Four or five when you did that. That’s a lot of planning, and most kids would not be that brave. I’d think of a dream, and I’d go for it. That’s how I’ve always been. So when you did occasionally get in trouble, drawing in school… Occasionally? I was always in trouble! …it was because you were supposed to be doing your homework, and you were doing some drawing? Actually, I’d graffiti the walls and stuff. (Laughter) It wouldn’t just be like on my paper or anything. I probably should’ve gotten in trouble. When my grandma had to come to the school and say, “If you will spank her one more time,” she laid the law down to them. They used to paddle back then. I was always getting paddlings. Grandma, she’s a rebel. She would go down there and speak up, and Mom. They were always at the school. So it was your mom’s mom? No, it was my dad’s mom. I remember her going down there. I remember Mom going down there. I remember her telling them, “You’ll be sorry someday. This girl is going to be famous,” because they would always be so onto me. They didn’t know how to deal with you. They said, “This girl is going to be pregnant before she’s thirteen!” (Laughs) Well, it just made you stronger, I guess. I know it. It’s crazy. Were there any art classes at all that were offered in elementary or secondary school? No, I remember no art classes. I remember I could always draw, though. I always could do whatever I wanted to, but there was no art classes that I can remember.

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Was your feedback when you were younger mainly from your uncle, then? Yes. Would he give you very specific feedback? He would critique what we were doing and tell us stories about being Indian, being Creek. We’d do what he would tell us, try to copy his style and Daddy’s style. Daddy’s art was everywhere around us because Mom had created the Jerome Tiger Art Company. His art was everywhere. We grew up with that all around us, so that was what we would do. How about high school? Was there any art instruction at the high school level? No, I never had any art instruction. We just would always enter the shows, and we’d always do real well, me, Lisa, and Chris. Each one of us had our own style, way of doing things. How would you describe yours when you were that age? Actually, I say we had our own style. Looking back, it was all kind of the same style, actually, back then because we were all kind of copying what we saw as Uncle and Daddy’s and people’s art that we had seen in our little child way. Eventually, we all came up with our own style. We just went with what we were told and what Uncle would talk about to us. That inspired some of your subject matter? Yes, ribbon dancers and stomp dancing and little girls with chickens in the yard. We’d see that at the camp house. Lisa’s art was especially nice and cute, and Chris’. I just love their work. I love to see it when people bring it to me. Sometimes they give it back to me, and it’s just cute. It just makes you happy to look at it. When you went to Bacone, what was your major? I was initially interested in politics and such, so I went to OSU. Political science was going to be my direction. Art was just something that I could do but never really did it, hardly, once I grew up. You didn’t do any at Oklahoma State University? No, no. I don’t think I picked up one pencil, one paintbrush the whole

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time I was there. I arm wrestled a bit. (Laughter) Yes, my story’s just a pretty wild story from where I was as a child to when I decided consciously in one day—I remember the day that I decided to be an artist, to try to be an artist. When was that? It was in this house, and I was downstairs in what is now Mom’s history room that used to be my bedroom. It had no windows in it, and I was in there, in the dark. I was in there for a few days. I had had some things happen in my life that hurt me and were not good for me. I was in there, and I was thinking, “I’ve got to change my life. I just can’t stand the way I’m feeling. I just can’t live like this anymore.” Then it came to me that I had art flowing in my blood, so I made a promise to myself that I would try for a year to paint. Well, I wouldn’t try, but I would paint every day for a year, whether it would be five minutes or an hour or five hours. Every day I would sit down and do art, see where that led me. I never stopped from that time. That was in 1985. Thank you for sharing that. So after Oklahoma State University, you sort of lost interest in school at that point, or you switched to Bacone? I was at OSU and loved it. I had a dear person in my life that was killed in an accident. That was the one I was going to marry if I married anybody because I always grew up saying, “I’m never getting married,” (Laughs) and meant it. I didn’t want to ever be married or have kids. That was the plan, and I’d brag about it all the time. He had asked me to marry him several times. We were high school sweethearts and such. He got killed. He got decapitated in a boating—a boat went through the windshield of his car. I had to come home after that, so I just came back. That was ’84. Then I took some classes at Bacone after that because I was trying to just sort things out. It was just very—upheaval. You had already sold some pieces, probably. Even in the children’s shows, you had sold your art. Oh, heck yes! We were little business women with Uncle as our manager because Uncle knew everybody in the entire world. You can’t go to Timbuktu where Uncle hasn’t got somebody in his address book. “Uncle, I’ve run out of gas in Timbuktu.” “Oh, call so and so.” (Laughter) Yes, we sold art for a dollar, two dollars, three dollars, five dollars, ten dollars. When we were little, we’d get to go get stuff, hot dogs or whatever. Money came easy as a kid to us. We weren’t hurting for anything. We had everything. We’d whip out art, and Uncle would take it and sell it to all his people, and it was a grand way of life.

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Once you made that decision, “I’m going to paint every day for at least five minutes, if not longer,” you didn’t really have to work any other jobs? You sort of were able to earn your living painting? That was the amazing thing because I have really never, to speak of, really worked at anything other than art. I was going to school for that time, and then I realized that I had to go home and see what I was going to do with my life for real. So I went back home, and I started doing my artwork. Then I had the opportunity to go with UNITY, United National Indian Tribal Youth, to Washington, DC, and have a show. Retha Gambaro, she was involved in helping us get there a long time ago. I saw Ray Tracey. He had been in the movies. All of us were up there, and I sold some art! I couldn’t believe it. Even though I sold as a child, this was amazing to me that I would draw, and people would come and buy it. It was like a new day for me because my life—people will tell you, my sister, especially, will tell you, that I’ll get real crazy, wild, excited about things that are happening, even though they might have happened twenty thousand times before. It’s like a whole new day, experience, brand new thing for me, so I was thrilled. I came back, and I was just overjoyed that I could sell. Gosh, I sold so many. What did you price them at? Fifty, seventy-five, something like that. I had several. I sold them. That was wonderful. That’s wonderful. Did you have a chance to work with Nettie Wheeler, who had sold your dad’s work, of course, when you started out, or had she already retired? I remember her as a child. I was always watching her, thinking, wondering about her because she always looked elderly to me. I think she always was elderly. Daddy would go there, and Uncle after that would go there. We’d be riding along, hanging out in the driveway. We’d go in there and poke around in her shop. There just was millions of billions of things in there, very interesting for a small child. I never really talked to her or anything. I would just observe. When you began painting here at home, was your mom—I know she was supportive, but sometimes it can be kind of a scary thing, being back at your folks’ home after you’ve gone to college. How did that work out? Was the business sense kicking in, and she was thinking maybe you could try this show, or was that mainly coming from your uncle and from you? Well, actually, I guess I would tap into Uncle’s, where he would go at

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first. Mom was busy running the business down in town, at Tiger Art Gallery. We had started that. Oh, you had started that. That’s right. So she was busy coming up with new ideas, new ideas that no one had done before in the Indian art world, which she has done more than once. It’s really been beneficial, profitable for the family. I was just having to garner the enthusiasm and dig up and find the places to go. Uncle did have connections, but then he really didn’t travel very much from that point on. He traveled before, all over, and sold all over. But, really, I just embarked out on my own and made sure that I found out shows, and I would go to the Colorado Indian Market. That was a big deal, and I went for years. What was that like the first time you went? It was with Uncle that I went those first few shows. Maybe it was the first couple of years or something, I went with Uncle. They were a time, let me tell you, a time to remember! Gosh, all those artists. Most of them were still doing artwork all over the country. We’d meet there, and we’d just have the best time. I was young, and I was unattached, and I just had a blast. I didn’t drink or anything, either. I had given up alcohol the same time as I made the promise that I was going to paint. That was another thing. I was going to give up alcohol no matter what. I had to do other things to make sure that happened, but I was just a free spirit, sober, happy artist woman up there, just living it up with all the artists, having a great time, selling my work and starting out. Then, over the years, I’ve built relationships with people, and they kept coming back and buying more and more. That sustained me. Being here at the house with Mom and Lisa, Lisa was here, we were all here. We were just always together. I was thinking, “I can’t take it anymore. These other two women are way too bossy.” We’re all headstrong, us Tiger women, so I had to go venture out and find my own spot. I did that through my sales of my art that I had done. I had enough money to get my own place. I look back at that now, and I know that really helped save me because my brother Chris, he was just an incredible person. He was a creative, gifted, lovely, gorgeous human being that so many people loved, and we lost him. He was murdered in 1990. I think that’s the only way—going over there to live in that house by myself prepared me for dealing with that. I had my mind on my art and taking care of myself and all that. I had gained some empowerment for myself because there’s nothing worse that has ever happened to me than losing my brother. I look at that

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time, and it happened, I guess, in the best way it could have happened, for me to not be here, because it was just torture. It was torture to lose Chris. It’s strange, really, how things in a life, all the tragedy that can happen. Then you look, and you see how you can make sense of it, in a way. I told you I never wanted children, and Chris had wanted a big family. I truly had my first child really in honor of Chris because my mom had said—Lisa had developed HIV, had been exposed to that and had HIV. We thought she couldn’t have kids, and Chris was gone, so Mom told me “You’ve got to have a child.” I said, “Are you crazy?” (Laughs) It took me a whole other year of thought and study before I agreed that I would try to do that, that I would do that. At that time, I had met Donnie a year before. How did you meet Donnie? Oh, Lord. (Laughter) Really, I prayed for that man to come along! I was here at this house visiting. Mom and Lisa were here. I came home—I lived over there and traveled all around the country doing art shows, and thought I’d come over here and visit all the time. I came here one night, and Lisa said, “You’re lonesome.” I said, “I am not!” She said, “I can tell. You’re lonesome.” I said, “Are you insane?” I went back home that night and thought, “Well, maybe I am a little lonesome.” So I made a list, and I prayed for somebody good-looking, somebody who had read a book or two, somebody who had their own thing going on so they wouldn’t smother me. I don’t know if I had said “rock mason” exactly, but I love rock work. And here, lo and behold, the next day at the neighbor’s house when I went to eat supper over there, as I did every day because I don’t cook, there he was in the living room. Rock mason, loved my work, good-looking, smart, smart aleck. I didn’t pray for that, but I got that, too. (Laughter) There he was. We traded art work for rock work, and he was awesome at rock work. The house was in Tahlequah, or was it in Tulsa? It was in Tahlequah, out in the woods where I had moved to live my life single and alone. That was the plan, but there I met Donnie at the neighbor’s house. It was so funny. When the kids were eventually born later, I would always crack a joke and say, “I found Donnie drunk in a ditch, and I dug him out, pulled him back.” (Laughter) I don’t know why. I was just making a joke to somebody, because people ask that. One time, some really nice collectors were at my house, and they said, “Well, how’d you meet Donnie?” Lisan, my little fellow who was just three or four years old said, “She found him drunk in a ditch.” (Laughter)

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Of all the things for him to say! I know! I had said that… He was just repeating. “Oh, my gosh! Lisan that was just a joke!” That is so funny. Yes. I know. Life is hilarious. The reason I thought I would go ahead and have kids is because they are hilarious. That’s the reason I thought, “Well, okay, I’ll give this a shot.” Oh, and also I said, “I’ll do it if everybody will help me.” They lied and said they would. That’s what Mom said. “You all help me.” Yes, I get a lot of help. (Laughter) Artists a lot of times will experiment with several different styles before they settle on something, and they’ll borrow from what they admire, of course. I think style-wise, once you started, although your work shows some impact from your father’s work, you put your stamp on it pretty early in your career. I’m wondering how you knew when you had developed a style that was going to work for you. Well, I know that I started drawing as a grown-up person in ’85, ’84. I was led to do the art the way I do it now. I had to do it that way. It wasn’t a conscious decision for me to paint women in all the different ways I do. It was a need. I had to lay out a direction for myself. My life was so in disarray and painful that it was something that came out to show me the way, and it did. I was just there to pick up the paintbrush and do it. I look back, and I think, “How the heck did I do all those paintings?” I have done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of paintings. Daddy did hundreds and thousands of artworks, and he was only alive for twenty-six years. I look back, and I’m thankful because when I first was picking up those paintbrushes in that time that I made that promise to myself, I was so scared. I guess I had talent somewhere inside, but it really didn’t show up too well. I couldn’t paint faces. You have to sit there and do it to get it done, and I was always on the go from one thing to the next, just living life that way. To be an artist, you have to calm down as best you can. Artists are wild people a lot of times, or the ones I’ve known are. Knowing myself, I do know that I’m a wild person. Looking back, I think, “Wow, that’s amazing to do all that and get it done and have all those different things to say,” because that’s how I said them. To voice what you believe about the world and know about women, being a woman, and seeing that the world says women are a certain way, I

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thought, “They are not! What’s up with that? I’m not that way!” Then you start internalizing what other people put on you. They say all these negative things about you, and you start feeling bad about yourself. So I had that within myself. I painted what I knew to be the real deal, without even knowing that’s what I was doing, really. Looking back, I see powerful women. That’s what they were and are. I saw my mother, powerful, all her life. I saw Indian women. I saw women doing all kinds of amazing things, so I really didn’t even think about it at the time. I just painted it. I wasn’t thinking, “Aha! Well, paint this because it’s true.” I just did it because it came to me to do that way. Your tribal affiliations are Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee. Is that right? Yes. Is the Cherokee on your mom’s side? Yes, she’s a Cherokee Nation Tribal member. Has the Creek heritage been more dominant in your paintings, or do you think they’ve all been expressed? I would say the Creek was more dominant because I was close to my grandparents and I grew up knowing my dad through his artwork. He always was Creek through and through, even though he could paint anything, and he had such great vision. He could make anything be meaningful, truly. I always knew the Creek part. Now, since I have been an artist as an adult, I have painted Cherokee because we live over here in Cherokee Nation, and I really love and respect and admire and appreciate all that the Cherokee Nation does. My kids go to that school run by the Cherokee Nation. I’m even learning the Cherokee language because my kids would enter those challenge bowls, and I love the language, so I do everything I can to learn that and the Creek language, of course. My grandma, she’s a fluent, first-language speaker of Creek, and my uncle is a fluent speaker of Creek! That big old man, he can speak it, and that’s just awesome. I’m not sure I remember this exactly, and I’ll get a chance, hopefully, to ask your uncle, Johnny Tiger, about this, but because they were sort of raised church way, I thought I remember him saying, “We had to sneak off to go to stomp dances,” but you didn’t have to do that by the time you were here. No. I got my first set of shells just not too long ago, last year. I haven’t used them yet, but I truly am looking forward to the time, the day, which

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I think might be near, that I put those shells on and dance. There’s just—it’s our way. It’s our way from the beginning. There’s healing and power in that way, and so I know it’s an important part of my life even though I’m not out there. I have a grounds that I belong to, where my grandpa was to be Micco, but he went the Christian way. Just before he died, he would have gone out to the grounds. I didn’t know that. Yes, so that’s just beautiful, meaningful to me. I think about that. I paint that. I respect it, and am helped by it. I have Parkinson’s. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1999, so it’s hard for me to even walk, and it’s getting harder to paint. I think I’m going to be able to dance. I think I am, and I think it will help me. I bet that’s so. What was one of the first awards you got that was especially meaningful to you? Shoot. Well, I’ve gotten a lot of awards in my life. Not including your children’s art awards, I guess. (Laughter) Oh, yes, that’s the best is when my kids win. My kids winning awards is the best thing. Being honored by your tribe in your Indian community. I’ve won a lot of different art awards in my life, and they’re all really nice to win. There’s a lot of great artists out there, and if you win, that’s cool, but the real deal was when my Indian community recognized me. I just recently won the Community Spirit Award from First People’s Fund in Rapid City. Congratulations. They came down and honored me, and everybody I ever loved was—well, not everybody, but we were at Bacone. We had it in a big room there. That was the best day of my life, it seemed like. My family was there. My kids were there. My daughter got up and sang. My husband was actually there. I saw him. (Laughter) He and my son, they’re hermits, and they never go anywhere, but they were there. It’s a wonder Donnie showed up at the wedding. Everybody came, and we just had a beautiful day. Getting awards, for me, is kind of—this Parkinson’s deal, it affects everything about me, this lack of dopamine. I’ve just realized recently from studying that that’s been one of my problems in the past. I’ve always gotten up in the middle of the night and not been able to sleep. Reading and all, I find out that this lack of dopamine, it’ll do all kinds of bad things to you because it’s your feel-

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good chemical and it’s your movement chemical. I don’t know how much I have, but very little. When you are diagnosed with Parkinson’s, you’ve already lost the majority of it. That explains to me my feelings, my very scary feelings, even back when I was quitting drinking and starting to paint. Possibly, my dopamine was even going at that point. I’m sure it was. It’s comforting, in a way, to know that that’s why certain things were in the past, but I’ve always been real strong-willed, determined, so I just go for things. I get something in my mind, and my mind won’t remember a lot of things due to, possibly, this dopamine deficiency, but I can wrap myself around what I’m doing and really zero in. That’s the best way I can do. I get a whole lot of the things done, and I’m real thankful, real thankful for that. I’m forty-nine years old, have done a whole lot but have so much more to do. The Creek Nation made me Artist of the Year, the year before that, so those two were… And you were designated the youngest Master Artist by the Five Tribes Museum. Yes, that was back in the day! (Laughter) Gosh, I’m forty-nine now, and I still think of myself as young because I’m so crazy. My daughter has to say, “Mom, would you please calm down?” I guess a lot of parents can embarrass their kids, but I’m just pretty nutty, and I have a good time. You’ve got to have a good attitude with this disease I have, this illness. You’ve got to try to think positive. I’m really fond of an organization called White Bison. It’s had a lot of meaning for me in my life. I painted a painting to honor them, and I continue to think about them in my art and life. They were the ones who told me, “You think about, you bring about” what’s in your mind. Your mind is so powerful, you can bring things to you in a good way or not a good way. That is so true. That is so true. It’s happened so many times. Look, I prayed for a husband. Well, I didn’t pray for a husband. I prayed for Donnie! (Laughter) I prayed for somebody to come along, and then after being with him for about six months, I thought, “I’ll just ask him to marry me because this guy has got it all!” So I did. You asked him? I sure did. I said, “Donnie, will you marry me?” He said, “I guess so, if you don’t invite too many people to the wedding.” (Laughter) So I lied and I said, “Okay.” Mom invited, like, half the world, and they all came. Here we are, twenty-something years later. Awesome. Awesome. I was thinking that since your diagnosis you’ve been busier than ever with both artwork and the community work, which I want to get to in a minute. In terms of what your responsibilities are, if you have

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any, at the Tiger Art Gallery now, do you help with that at all? Lord, have mercy. I am the Tiger Art Gallery! You know, after Chris’ death, it was the worst thing that happened to any of us, so we lost it. It just kind of went in dormancy for a time. What years would these be? He was killed in ’90. I had Christie in ’92 and then Lisan in ’95. It was just recently, in the past several years, that I thought it would be up to me or nobody to open that Tiger Gallery up. I thought about it, and I had to really think about it. I had to do it. My family were there every day together like we used to be with Chris and everybody. I just have a good life. It is. What better thing to do than to think about where you came from and have that to talk about to people and share with people, and to create, create every day and share that with people? To help the kids say, “Now, the Creek language is important. The Cherokee language is important.” I’ll be like Uncle. I’ll say, “You’re going to do it, or you’re not going to get to do this, this, and this!” I mean, I crack the whip. Thank God Donnie is there to back me up because they don’t like to listen to me hardly at all. (Laughter) Both Christie and Lisan have won awards for their work, and I’ve seen Lisan’s sculpture in particular. Are they producing for the gallery from time to time? Yes, they do. Yes, they do. They do art every day. When I was a kid, I was kind of made to do it. Uncle would say, “You’re going to do this.” That’s kind of like what I do to them, but they’re just natural artists. They’re like Daddy. Daddy was just drawing from the time he was able to hold a pencil. Both of them are like that. Christie was a little wild baby girl, herself. I prayed for—I wanted a strong, independent, beautiful little happy baby, and I got just that. She’s a little wild booger. The only thing that would settle her down was when I handed her art supplies or the Nightmare Before Christmas. (Laughter) Either that movie or art supplies was the only thing that would make Christie behave. And then Lisan, I handed him Play-Doh before he could talk, and he was making sculptures. He handed me one, one time. I about wrecked the car because he handed it to me over the back seat. It was a rose with petals going around, with the petal delicately turned out. He couldn’t even talk. He was just a baby. That boy’s got an imagination on him. He’s even done a rhinoceros on a toilet. What the heck? (Laughter) He’s so hilarious. Does Donnie help with the gallery a bit, too?

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Yes. Oh, yes. We’re down there. That’s all we do. That’s our business. With the Parkinson’s, at times, times are rough. They can get rough, being an artist, solely because that’s all we’ve done. Donnie came into the partnership with me, the marriage, the friendship, everything, and just went my way, the art way. He’s creative, too. He can make furniture, and he mats and frames all the pictures. We love being artists and doing art, and we have so much more to do. If it gets to be where I can’t paint someday, I am having so much fun watching my kids be great. I’m having so much fun bringing culture and other people’s abilities to young people, connecting that up. For instance, we’re getting ready to have our tenth annual campout, a Legacy Art Cultural campout, this next weekend, Memorial Day weekend. I’m just happier than ever, happier than ever. Can you talk a bit about the Legacy Cultural Foundation and how that got started? It was like a dream to me to be able to carry on and to—I knew that saved my life when I was able to do art and protect myself and finance my whatever and do that from within. When I could paint and sustain my life, I knew that that’s what saved me. And where did that come from? From my dad. My dad’s blood, my dad’s love of being Indian, being able to paint what really being an Indian person was, from the heart. In that room, when I was down there in that room by myself, I believe he spoke to me. He came in there and said, “Do what you know. Go back to where you came from.” It was like, “I can do that. I think I can do that.” What you have to do, you have to do it. This Legacy organization, I’ve created in honor of Chris and Daddy who are gone, but they left behind that legacy for us to see the beauty that was in their mind, that they saw of the world, how they saw being Indian and what it meant through their eyes. If it’s not in front of you or around you, then you’re not going to know about it or utilize it, so I bring in elders that know the language. I bring in people who’ve studied, treasures of the tribe, who know things, know how to make the old way, certain things. I bring them in and round up youth to see that. That’s our legacy. We’re making our legacies. So important. We came from such beauty, such strength, such wisdom. You’ve got to remember that because that’s who we are. We’re not just all that ourselves. We are what we came from, so that’s why I created that. I’m just so thrilled and happy! We’ve got a building over there at Park Hill that is just beautiful, on twenty acres, and it’s bought and paid for. It’s all bought and paid for? That’s fantastic. I remember when you were

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working towards that. I’m living in poverty, but, by God, I built my dream! (Laughter) Will the campout be there? Yes. Okay. That’s so cool. I have to bring up this black hat that’s kind of your signature. I don’t know if you remember. You’re just a very striking woman, and the first time I saw you, you were at a show, and you were wearing this black hat. I just thought it was so cool because I knew you were Creek and Seminole, and I could just kind of flash on men, how they wear those black stomp-dance hats, only you were this young woman. I wondered if that hat had any special significance to you, or if it’s just a hat that you liked and thought it would look cool for shows. I don’t know. People have called me a manly woman before because I’ve always been so strong. When I was a child, the doctor said he had never seen a child in his life that was as strong, physically, as I was. He had birthed hundreds and hundreds of babies, Dr. Stratton. He was like a hundred years old when I was born. I was the strongest child, and I was probably one of the strongest women, physically. I could beat the whole football team in arm wrestling. I loved doing it. I just think there are no limits! I mean, if a woman is able to, let her do what she wants to do. Don’t be trying to direct a woman to tell her that she can’t do this or she can’t do that because we know what we can do and what we want to do. That’s my theme song, there. I didn’t even think about the black hat. I just thought, “Well, this is a good thing. I’ll wear this hat because it looks cool, and it’s awesome.” (Laughter) We’ve talked about the fact that Indian women are a major theme of your work, and you show their strength and resilience, not by putting them in domestic situations necessarily, but in all kinds of other ways. I also think there’s a lot of sensuality to your work, maybe coming from a combination of the way the women look but also the colors and the backgrounds you choose. Has anybody else ever commented on that? Yes, they’ve said that they love my work because of the way I can show strong women and the softness, both. I guess they’re meaning, maybe, the sensuality and all. The way I saw it is that women were judged to be this. People would try to put them in this little boxed package of, “This is what women are.” I just painted women the way—it would just flow out. For instance, this one painting called Women Drum, I know it’s like they say taboo, that women don’t drum, but these women were drumming. They did drum, and their names were the Mankillers. Wilma

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Mankiller told them they could use their name for the drum group. So I was listening to this tape of the Mankillers drumming, and I painted, and that painting flowed out better and easier and more beautifully than any painting. I remember that day, and I was feeling good. Some days it’s hard to paint. It’s a push. It’s a struggle, but that day was meant to be. That painting was meant to be. That’s one of the best, happiest, most free-flowing paintings. Things in this world, things are meant to be, certain things. Things that aren’t meant to be, there’s those, too. But a woman, with all her beauty, they’re born beautiful. They would live and grow beautifully if it wasn’t for the violence and the domination and directing of lives. Women, for instance, were meant to be able to control their fertility. In the day, back in the Indian ways, women knew what herbs to take. If she had too many children, if she had just the right amount of children, she would take this herb, and the pregnancy would end because she knew she could love and care for this many children that she already had. That is not anything to judge or to hate somebody for. That is a Creator-given, sacred, respectful decision. I’ve always been for women’s rights on everything. Help us with our lives. Don’t dominate and make these decisions that hurt us. Even this new deal—well, it’s not a new deal. Oklahoma imprisons more women than any state in the nation. I’m going to start painting about that. I think that’s something that I want to—I’ve always had my voice through my art, I guess, without even knowing that’s what it was because I can speak that way. I can show what I feel, that women need our help. Women are beautiful and strong, and you need to hear their stories. Art can tell a story in that way, so I would paint women with all their beautiful sensuality. Women are beautiful and loving and lovers and all that. It’s just when you mix up the violence and the negativity and all that other that just messes things up. My art is the testament to what is the basis, the real deal, from the beginning, what we would be if—when, not if, but when—when we get it together, when we’re doing our thing. Women are strong, and women create communities, and women love men. Women love boys. Women love children. Women take care, you know? That’s all in my paintings. Now, your primary medium is acrylic. Is that right? Gouache, really. I’ve used water color. My dad used tempera. I’ve found that gouache just reminds me—it’s a way to be close to Daddy. I like to paint. I like to think about using—well, that’s what I did, started out using what was the closest to what he used.

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Have you worked more on board for that reason? Yes, we always just worked on mat board. How would you describe your choice of colors, your palette? Gosh, Daddy was the best colorist I ever saw. I look at his work, and I’m so amazed. It gives you a feeling of weakness to see what he created and invented. He had never even seen colors done that way. They’re the same colors that Michelangelo had on the Sistine Chapel after they cleaned the dirtiness off of it. Those are beautiful colors. Yes, I love those pastel colors. I just really love color. Then I also love bold, vivid on black. I’ll get a black mat board and just let stuff just come out, flying out at you. Uncle was more bold with colors, so I’ve had that influence from him, too. How important is story to your painting? Are a certain percentage of your paintings more about mood, or do you always kind of have a fully developed story line? No, I just let it develop. I always have it in my mind to—well, one time I visualized in a dream a painting that I wanted to do, and it’s become like the best, most sought after piece of art that I’ve done, Warrior Women. I dreamed that. I saw the four women coming out on horses. You always see the men riding up as the warriors, but I saw the women coming out in struggle, in survival, in the celebration, all those things. It’s just—what would you say? A way of life is what I paint. There’s so many stories. When I hear a story, I am just inspired, and I just want to go paint it. I’ve painted the women getting ready to shake the shells. That’s the story. Everything is part of a story. Then, also, the mood. I want you to look at a painting and say, “This woman could do anything. There’s a woman like that. I’m that woman!” So that’s been what I’ve done. You know, artists supposedly often unconsciously draw themselves, facially. Everybody always comes up, about five hundred times a show, and I say, “Well, you know,” because I’m not painting my face, per se. I’m just painting. I’m not painting me. Sometimes I do. I’ve painted me and my children. I’ve got some really special ones, one that’s called My Boy, and I’m holding my boy. One’s called Holding On, and I’m holding Christie. Have you been able to keep any of your paintings over the years? I have one that’s called Bad Mood but Coming Out of It. (Laughter)

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That didn’t sell immediately? We hid it in the bathroom so nobody would. Actually, I think I gave it to Lisa. She’d kill me if I sold it. Bad Mood but Coming Out of It, I was just cracking up. I was in such a horrible mood that day. I started painting, and I started laughing because of the way I was looking on this picture. That was my next question, about titles, because they seem carefully chosen. So you spend a little bit of time thinking about them, or do they just come to you quickly? They just come, really. They do. Every now and then you struggle. Sometimes I’m painting, and I don’t know what the heck is going on. Oh, but one time, I did one that just looked insane, and I had named it after the election. (Laughs) After which election? This last one. State election? All across the nation. The Senator’s Comment, and somebody bought that. I was wondering who, if anybody, would take this painting. The people that got it were so thrilled. Democrats. (Laughter) So what’s your creative process, in general? I have to do some praying. Back a long time ago when I started, I guess it was like a prayer. It was a prayer that time when I went into that room and thought about my life and how I couldn’t live it the same way. That was a prayer. Now it’s the same way. It might not mean getting down on your knees or anything, but it is speaking to the Creator and my ancestors and asking for help because I need help with everything I do, really. It’s that process, very important, and you do get help when you ask for it. You really do. I know that. It’s happened over and over and over again, so that’s my process. Then I go in there, in my overly disastrous-looking area. I’m such a hog. You like to spread out. I don’t like to, but it just—people will come in and clean that up for me. What is the matter with me? I am a tornado. In fact, I used to dream about tornadoes all the time before we were having them here every day

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in real life. I would dream about tornadoes when I was growing up, all the time. I’ve even painted a couple of paintings of tornadoes. In the Creek way, an Indian Creek woman can go out in her yard with her hair blowing and take an axe and put it right into the ashes in a certain way and split the tornado, turn it another way. Boy, those tornado dreams are just so powerful. For right now, in terms of your creative routine, you’re not committed to trying to paint every day, or do you, still? No, I have too much to do, to try to just survive with my health and all. I eat differently, and I exercise, and I have to tend to my kids. Even though Christie is seventeen and Lisan’s fifteen, I’m still involved in everything they do, and they’re such beautiful artists. Everything to me is about doing everything as a family. I’ve told the kids, “I’m coming to live with y’all. Where am I going to sleep? I want to tell you, y’all are taking care of me when I’m old!” (Laughter) I’ve taken care of them this long, what the heck! I’ll get people that will need a piece of artwork. Oh, I’m so blessed because people will think of me when they want to remember somebody or honor somebody. I painted one called We Will Always Remember in February of someone that I knew a long time ago that would come around. She and her two relatives, older women, they were feminists. They looked like mild-mannered women. They would go to the NOW [National Organization for Women] conferences and rally and protest in Washington, DC. They’d come to my art shows and buy my work, and made me feel, “Wow, these women are cool!” They’d support me. She passed away in February, and her young granddaughter asked me to do a painting, so I did one called We Will Always Remember. Now that painting, the family has desired to make a thousand prints and raise money for Legacy with that print. They’re going to be fifty dollars apiece, and when we raise all the money, we’ll be able to turn the gallery into a youth art center, creative performance area. I’m going to call it Creative Spirit House, which in Creek is Poya Fikca Enhvyedv Cogo. It’s going to be a forever deal, hopefully. Then the other day, I was asked by White Bison founder, Don Coyhis, to paint for his sister who’d been battling cancer. She’s having a birthday on June 1, and I did it. It’s called We Ride With Woman of Courage. So she’s going to get that painting on June 1. She doesn’t know about it yet. It’s on my Facebook. It’s the abstract type. I always said if my Parkinson’s got worse, I would just start painting abstract. Before it even started happening that my body wouldn’t be still, I was going that direction by choice because I love the way abstract art looks.

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And it can convey a lot of emotion. Looking back on your career, I think you kind of described that fork-in-the-road moment which was when you went into that room and said that prayer and had that realization. What’s, maybe, another high point that we haven’t covered? My high point has been when I realized that I was on the right path with my Legacy work. Wilma Mankiller would always step into our lives in the past. I met her at OSU, actually. That long ago? Yes, I met her in the early ’80s at OSU, and I was asked to paint her portrait as a gift for her for coming to speak at OSU. She had that painting in her house until her brother wanted to have it after he donated her a kidney. She said, “I’ll give you anything I have. What do you want?” He said, “I want that painting.” He and I are—I just love Don so much. Wilma would be in our lives. When Lisa tested HIV positive, there was Wilma. When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, there was Wilma, helping me go overseas to get stem cell treatment. Really, Julie, just being able to honor the ancestors, in a way, that’s the highest point, if I can do that. That’s good because every day is a new day to do it. My high point comes when I’m doing the right thing, being recognized by my tribe and my people, as having done something that helped. And you’ve got a great campout to look forward to. Lord, have mercy! That wears me out! (Laughter) I’m like a puddle of mud at the end, but I’m looking so forward to it. Each year it’s better and better. I know it will be wonderful. Is there anything we forgot to talk about, or anything you’d like to add to the discussion? Just be sure—I hope that I can tell people that I’m honored to be able to have painted and created and laid out my vision, because the world needs a lot of attendance and help. If we can just learn to listen and try to see the true nature of things and help out, that’s what we need to do. In all honesty, our little Tiger family is trying to do that through our art, to try to remember the powerless, help them to have help. Come to Tiger Gallery and buy art and help us help. (Laughter) All right, we’re going to have you talk about a couple of your paintings here real quick. We’re looking at one of your paintings. What’s the title on this one?

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I forget. (Laughter) That’s all right. Do you want to talk about your inspiration for it? Well, I just see these two gals as kind of athletic. They look like they could’ve just gotten through painting the house or something. Just women being women. Growing up, I was the kind of person who did things out of the ordinary, from being the arm wrestler or whatever to all kinds of things that maybe you wouldn’t think a woman would do. But women can do, and do do, just about anything. These women are just hanging out after something tiring. They look hot and sweaty, but they’re just hanging out, friends, just there, after accomplishing something or working on something. Just a moment in time. It’s a great example of how you always have these really strong poses. They’re poses that really suggest strength. I know, I always—like my kids say, “Mom, do you have to sit like that?” (Laughter) It’s just natural. I just don’t even think about certain things like that. Okay, we’re looking at another painting here. This one’s called Purpose. This was back when I was first starting out, four years into it. This was the first limited edition print that I released, in an edition of 300. This woman has this look on her face like she’s just thinking, pondering what she’s done, what she needs to do, but she’s got that air of ability. It’s natural, not forced or anything. It’s a great expression of purpose, for someone who hadn’t been doing a lot of faces. Yes, I had to get good at faces. I was talking, like the first year. I wanted to speak through the look on the person’s face. I wanted people to look and be able to see that’s a face that’s thinking something inside. Underneath that face is some good thought and ability and spirit. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Dana. With all you have to do, I really appreciate it. It was fun, Julie. I was glad to do it. Thank you. ------- End of interview -------