Oklahoma Passage Telecourse #110; Culture & The Arts - Unit 2, Lesson 5

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We thank you for the warmth and shelter over our heads and for the strength and courage you provide every day. Please keep young patience warm. She needs your help. And Lord, we even thank you for the winter, for it is the season that you have made. But please Lord, please help to scream along. Amen. Amen. And the Lord must have answered their prayers, for the spring came early that year. The years began to pass and mill together, like the seasons, the land began to take shape and our families roots began to take hold. As the years passed, the homesteaders prospered. As John prospered, his account at the bank began to grow.

Everything they saved went into the bank. My mother Patience was just a young girl then. Wasn't long after that, they came back, isn't that right, Miss Hanna? That's right, and nobody knew he was coming. It was a complete surprise. Oh, Papa John must have been so happy. I wish I could have been there. Everybody knew Jake Henry. By that time he had become a legend. John had made him that, but also he had been traveling with the Wild West Show and he had quite a following. Yeah, my grandmother used to tell me those stories. But there was a side to Jake Henry that nobody knew about. He had been with Bill Dolan's gang of outlaws for a while. Jake Henry used to rob banks.

Well, that's what people say, but no one knew for sure. There was so many stories, it was difficult to tell what was true and what wasn't. But your mother was there. What did she say? Jake was the fourth of July and everyone was excited. A celebration would start in the afternoon and sometimes go deep into the night. I can't remember for sure, but mama must have been so happy to be here. Mama must have been about 14. Papa John and Mama Rose love to dance.

They were getting old, but you would never have known the way they carried on. Jake Henry used to laugh at the way Papa John danced. Jake Henry, who are they? You know? The one on the left is Henry's star. I thought he was in prison. So did I. I'll see what they want. Jake Henry, I didn't expect to see you here.

What brings you to these parts? I thought you were in prison. Well, now, I don't reckon that's a proper greeting for an old friend. Besides, President himself issued me a pardon. I'm a free man. What about him? He's with me. Thought maybe we might be able to talk to you good folks out of some of your food. It's been a long time since we last stayed. These are good people of what any trouble neither do we. You men look tired. Join us.

Plenty of food and drink on the table. Much blized. We won't be alone. I'll leave your guns on the table. Here, Jake, whatever you say. Let's hear some music. Isn't that why we all came? I don't like it. Oh, you're getting all crotcheted in your old age, Jake. You heard the man, been pardoned by the president himself. Yeah. I still don't like it. It was the first time she had ever seen real outlaws. As the night wore on, she couldn't help thinking about what Jake Henry had said about not trusting

them. OK, Henry, hand me that saddlebag. Hurry up, we ain't got all night. I'm going as fast as I can, Henry. Henry, hold that light up a little bit. Come on, hurry up.

It's a big safe. I'm going to take time to do it proper. Yeah. Just make sure you get it open. I'm only going to get one chance. You know, I can just taste that money. I'm going to buy me a woman and a whole mess of whiskey. Hey, don't get ahead of yourself. Just keep an eye on that window. I'm about finished here. You better get it. All right, come away from the window. He's going to let it blow. Come on. Hold it right there, star. You, buy the safe. Get over here. I had a feeling you weren't in town for the dance. Getting a little old for this kind of thing, aren't you, Jake? Not so old I can't take you. Get your hands up and put that shotgun down. It's funny here if you want in on it, Jake.

Just like old times. Those days are open. And so are you. Jake Henry, look out. Let's get out of here. Come on, let's go. Jake Henry. You take care of your papa. Come on. He needs you. If it hadn't been for men like Jake Henry and John

Ben, we wouldn't have what we do now in this country. They found it. And they tamed it. And it's theirs. We're just tenants holding it until they return. Jake Henry was a hero. Wow. And the state of Oklahoma is deemed admitted by Congress into the union. The very word symbolizes unity, a political marriage of diverse peoples working together under one banner.

And as we've seen in preceding lessons of this telecourse, that diversity was very real in 1977. For that reason, it's important to be used different contexts to examine our past. And that brings us to today's lesson, Culture and the Arts. Culture by definition is the expression of a collective personality, whether it's an urban society of maplower descendants or a rural community of first generation Polish immigrants. By examining the various pockets of Oklahoma's cultural landscape, recognizing each note of artistic expression of Oklahoma's people, we can understand much about the state's history. And like our history, tracing the arts in Oklahoma requires a broad canvas for a story that ranges from Native American symbolism to cowboy painting to 20th century black jazz. To begin our look at the arts in Oklahoma,

let's go first to Mary Jo Watson, a Native American art historian. I'm Mary Jo Watson. I teach Native American aesthetics at the University of Oklahoma. I have been studying Indian art for a number of years, and I am always happy to be able to talk about my favorite subject. I grew up in Oklahoma, and I spent the first part of my life in Seminole County and got my degrees at the University of Oklahoma, but really never heard much about Indian art until I began studying. I was amazed to find that throughout the length and breadth of not only the nation, but Oklahoma, we have a world of beautiful American Indian art. If we think about it, most people don't really think about Indian people populating this continent until after 1492. But in our study, and in what I teach about, we look at the prehistoric Indian people.

And going back to even 10,000 BC, we can find artifacts. And some remnants of the art that people have produced. We find tiny bits of carved bone or carved stone. We find fragments of weavings, of ceramics. And we can see that the people were expressing themselves and their artistic sensibilities through all of these natural media that they found throughout the United States in particular in Oklahoma. Each area, as a matter of fact, has a different type of art that they produced, but it didn't happen overnight. So in studying Indian art, and by the way, they didn't have no Indian tribe has ever had a word for art. They simply produced beautiful things that were part and parcel to their life, their values, their culture was expressed not only through the art, but through the dance as well.

And we think that perhaps these two are very closely related in certain areas that the visual arts are probably an expression of certain dance and certain of the ceremonials that the dance represented, and that could be a permanent object to represent that particular belief system. But in Oklahoma, we have an exciting history, and I'm always delighted to talk about it because most Oklahoma's, including myself, didn't really have no idea about it. And I was, I have to tell you, I was a grown woman before I ever heard of the Spyro people. But some of the earliest art that we have happened from anywhere from 900 to about 1300 AD, give or take a few years, either way. In Eastern Oklahoma, at a place not called Spyro. And it was part of the great, huge Mississippi and mound culture that, and we were the Western most edge of that culture. These were signified by great architectural,

earthen mounds that were used, sort of a flat top mound for a ceremonial house on top. Or if they were sort of round shape on top, they were burial mounds. So century after century or year after year, folks of high status would be buried in these mounds. We have the remnants and the pieces left from that culture. And it is through these artifacts and the art that we can tell what their value system was, how they dressed, what these people look like. So we have pottery, we have ceramics, we have weaving, we have jewels, we have all sorts of pearl jewelry. We have an enormous amount of sculpted pipes, stone pipes, things that we can tell what some of the important things were to these ancient folks who were here in Oklahoma.

We have a lot of them scattered throughout the state, by the way. But unfortunately, a lot of our great treasures through circumstances that really was tied them out to looting. And now I have ended up in New York and centers outside our state. But we do have quite a few, both in Norman at the University of Museum at the Oklahoma Historical Society. But we have enough to give us evidence and certainly extensive studies have been done on that. To tell us what the people were like. And it is exciting to look at these and to think about the ancient crafts people and the artisans who worked on these pieces. In Oklahoma, we had certainly lots of Indian tribes that wandered in and out. We had the cattos early on, the wichita's. We had some of the plains folks, such as the Comanches, the Kayaos, and the Osages, others who came in and out. But as far as the concentration of people

and to get a body of Indian art, it wasn't until the United States government passed in 1830, the Indian removal law. It was an act that gave the government in conjunction with the military the power to remove tribes into Indian territory. And so that process from 1830 on was ongoing to remove all these different tribes from every part of the United States into Oklahoma. I've always been kind of amazed that we have New York Indians in Oklahoma and that we got people from the west coast here. And certainly important to the people on the eastern side of the state, the five civilized tribes. These combined with the government's reservation system for the western side of the state, for the plains Indians, then gave us this large Indian population from which we derive the cultural artifacts

which we look at today and continue to look at because it's an ongoing process, the art of the people. We have people who are proficient at basket working, who are proficient at painting, at sculpting, jewelry making. We have on the west side of the state, certainly the great beaters. The German silver, the particular type of Oklahoma Indian silver work that is so prevalent on the plains. And we have people who have developed from the scan and hide paintings to the ledger paintings, to the kind of work we can see here on the walls of the state historical society. This is known as the fluorescence of Oklahoma Indian painting, the renaissance of the Oklahoma Indian painting is found with these artists, the Kyle artists that we see here at the museum.

For the press of time, we have people who continue in those traditions and it is a reflection of their cultural beliefs, whether it is a beautifully carved flute, whether it is a beautiful drum. We have women who still work the hides who make beautiful clothing in a traditional manner. And yet we still have artists, or we do have artists who are highly motivated to use techniques and media that come from Europe or from the mainstream American art. So it's interesting to note that we have the ingenious ability of Indian people, whether it's Oklahoma or nationwide, to incorporate in their art the surrealistic styles, whether it's abstract, although abstract certainly goes back to prehistoric times because the folks did abstract their ideals and certain forms into a small unit which might be a geometric unit.

Or abstract say a human being into just a pictographic figure. It's important to note to that for many, many years Indian art has not been considered as good as, or as prominent as, or certainly not like that of Western Europe or mainstream American art. And it's only been within, I'd say, the last three decades that we've seen a change in people looking at Indian work with a different kind of appreciation because it comes from a value system that is non-Western and it comes from a value system that was part of their life not considered art and that they simply express their lives and themselves the most beautiful way they could, whether it was the planes people or the Cherokees, the Osage, any of these tribes into a form that was something of beauty and they were very proud

of it by the way too. We have museum after museum that is now very proud of their Indian art collections. And certainly I think you'll just see all over the state a blossoming of Indian art shows, shows that feature items that are made by American Indians and Oklahoma Indians. And we have huge festivals such as Red Earth, we have organizations such as the Jacobson Foundation in Norman which is a cultural center for Indians from all across the state and other entities, the Philbrooke, the Gilchries, this, the historical society, the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman that have vast collections and give everybody in Oklahoma the opportunity to see the beauty and the talent and the sophistication of American Indians. Native American culture has been well illustrated

through painting and the applied arts, but that's only one aspect of their expressive talents. Native Americans have captured the Indian way through their writing such as the poetry of Alexander Posey, their songs such as the rights of the Osage Alanshka and their dance such as the fancy dancers of the Kayawa and the Comanche. It's a heritage rich in texture, full of meaning. Although not as ancient as Indian art, Western art has had a similarly rich heritage in Oklahoma. To trace the evolution of that distinctive art form is Byron Price, director of the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Western art, as we know it, Cowboy art is its known to some, began perhaps in the early 19th century with the artist who accompanied the topographical explorers who crisscrossed the Great Plains, searching for the headwaters of rivers and seeking out the land and reporting back

to the federal government. It was these, or the products of these artists that really provided Americans in the Eastern United States with their first view of what the West was all about. And some of those artists naturally came into what was then the Indian territory and recorded scenes of tribal life amongst the Indians of the region and documented topographical landmarks. Aside from these artists who may have accompanied the expeditions exploring the Great Plains and the Indian nation, there was little artistic activity until after the Civil War. With the coincidence of the great trailherds migrating northward, beginning in the, actually before the Civil War, but certainly increasing after the Civil War,

you had a great deal of activity crisscrossing Oklahoma. Trailherds headed north to Kansas Railheads. And this activity naturally created interest amongst the news media. And they sent artists into the area, among them Frederick Remington, to record the scenes that were happening. And certainly Remington made a major trip into Oklahoma in the late 1880s. And he was able not only to see scenes of cattle-drowing, the latter part of the cattle-drowing era, but he also encountered the new settler movement, which was pressing down from Kansas and agitating to enter Oklahoma. He produced an illustration that appeared on the Front Covered Harper's Magazine, depicting the ninth colored U.S. cavalry, removing the boomers from the Indian nation.

And he, on his way to Arizona, to document the Apache, a wind-up of the Apache campaigns, had stopped off at the Cowah, Comanche and Arapoh, and other Cheyenne agencies, and were he a documented additional scenes of Indian life, bringing some of the first glimpses of actual inhabited life readers in the East. Certainly Frederick Remington, if he did not create the genre, he certainly perfected it and utilized it to his great advantage. He began, of course, by documenting real scenes, either described to him or those which he was personally involved with in his many trips to the West. But he translated this work, this, what was a very realistic style of painting, into an artistic blending of fact and mythology,

where the figures were believable because they were real and they were recognizable, but their activities were of the imagination and very mythical. There were many who followed Frederick Remington, and people like NC YA and a number of others followed Remington's stead. Many of the fine easel painters of the early 20th century had been illustrators of the West. People like William H. Dunton, who became one of the founders of the Tows Society of Artists, and Ernest Blumenschein, also a member of the Tows crew, had been an illustrator prior to becoming a full-time easel painter. And so there is this inexorable link between illustration on the one hand and fine art on the other. And it's been difficult in some ways

for Western artists to transcend that label of illustrator. Yet what they did was to take the West and truly portray it in an artistic way and inspire the imaginations of readers and lookers for the better part of 150 years. Today's modern Western artist owe a great debt to the early illustrators. Many of them, that is the contemporary artist, began painting in the tradition of Remington and Russell. Some have never left that tradition. Some continue to produce works based on history and their understanding and research of history. Others have taken the West into a more contemporary vein and are documenting the life of contemporary cowboys, or documenting the contemporary landscape. But they still are doing so in the traditions of their forebears, artistic forebears. This is very exciting,

and the reinterpretation of the West through art has kept it fresh and compelling for new audiences all the time. Besides the painters and sculptors who created images of the West, there have certainly been performers who have had a great deal to do artistically with the interpretation of the West. And I mean by that the early motion picture stars and early television personalities, some of whom came from Oklahoma who produced works in Oklahoma. It was a very famous, silent film about a bank robbery that starred Al Jennings and Bill Tillman, the Marshal, and I think even had a cameo by Kwanaparker. In an effort to document the way an old bank was robbed in the Old West. Some were not so attentive to documentary detail

and took off in directions of fiction. Of course, one of the legendary figures in early Fort Western films was Tom Mix, who had spent a good deal of time in Oklahoma. He attended Bar at the Bluebell Saloon and Guthrie for a time. He had joined the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West show at the height of its touring, nationwide in the tradition of Buffalo Bell. And these figures took what was a commonplace character, a $25 a month cowboy, and elevated to them him to the status of royalty. And created an enduring methodological character. And perhaps one of America's most original, such character. Although sometimes more a reflection of popular perceptions rather than historic reality,

the reactions to actors and performers nevertheless have told us much about our cultural past. By reading the collective pulse of Oklahoma's and their entertainment taste, we can better understand the way they thought, the things they deemed important, the things they considered humorous. One Oklahoma who captured the hearts of all Americans with his wit and keen observations was Will Rogers. Robert Henry, former attorney general, tips his hat to Oklahoma's favorite son. It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human. Everyone is ignorant, but just on different subjects. All I know is what I read in the newspapers and what I pick up from traveling around a bit. These are some of the aphorisms of our greatest Oklahoma and Will Rogers. Alas, some people think of Rogers as merely a comedian, but he was much more than that. At the time of his death,

he was the leading box office attraction in America, the leading columnist, the leading newspaper man, the leading radio commentator, and the leading after dinner speaker. Rogers wrote books and commented, writing two million words about every subject capturing the very essence of America. He brought Oklahoma great fine and brought to Oklahoma a great pride that has never been equaled. Ogden Nash, writing of this great man, said, with rope and gum and gran and lariat, he entertained the proletariat. And with his Oklahoma wit, he brightened up the world a bit. Will Rogers was indeed an exceptional talent, but he was also the product of Oklahoma, heart Indian, heart pioneer, heart cowboy. The Oklahoma experience has affected many artists, providing the fabric for countless creations.

In the 20th century, one of the most distinctive art forms to emerge from the interplay of rural to urban migration, race relations, and the roaring 20s, is black jazz. Dr. Newty Williams follows this creative outburst in the black clubs of Oklahoma City, Muscogee, and Tulsa. I suppose, and as we move to, and beyond the 20s, one of the things that fascinate most people is that blanks associated with the arts. Being a non-native, I was fascinated when I found that Charlie Christensen was from Oklahoma. I listened to records. I'm a jazz enthusiast, you might say. And I just thought that that was just fascinating. And then I found, I have a classic record by Jimmy Russian, who was saying,

we're basically for many of years, Mr. Fire by Fire. He too was from Oklahoma City. And no matter, in fact, there was a long list of people if not from Oklahoma City, certainly it made a major contribution. Leonardo Mitchell, I believe that's correct pronunciation of a name, Earl Grant, Earl Bostic, Luster Young. These people are like, who's who in music? So there is evidently a grand tradition of music in the arts in Oklahoma. I remember in the late 60s, well, it had to be maybe early 70s. I had the wonderful and delicious experience of hearing Count Basie was in Tulsa. And there were several night clubs there. I was told that what they call the circuit, that is, is that bands like Count Basie and others were made a grand swing,

I think, playing in New Orleans. And then they would move to Oklahoma City to the Skurvin. And they would then move around to the grand ballrooms and major hotels. Well, evidently Tulsa was one of those, quote unquote, I guess the kids would say, that they hot places. And so he, I remember listening to his performance. And after what I had in the mission, he knew everybody, you know, well, I'm exaggerating, but there was just people who was like, go home week. And of course, I got a chance to meet and greet this great man before his demise here recently. But it was just amazing that we do not associate, I think, some of these people on their geniuses. As proven time and again, Oklahoma has been fertile soil for creative expression. We have had famous artists, Will Rogers, Woody Guthrie,

Ivan Shoto, Charlie Christian. We've had widespread support for the arts, Philbrook, Gil Kreese, the Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. And we have had the diversity that drives the creative impulse to understand the spirit of Oklahoma. You have to understand our cultural and artistic past. Until next time, I'm your host, Dean Lewis, with Oklahoma Passage. I'm your host, Dean Lewis. I'm your host, Dean Lewis. I'm your host, Dean Lewis.

I'm your host, Dean Lewis. I'm your host, Dean Lewis. Major funding of Oklahoma Passage was made possible by the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. Phillips Petroleum Foundation, Grace B. Kerr Fund, the McCaslin Foundation,

and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding provided by the MacMayan Foundation and the OETA Foundation. These organizations invite you to join them in celebrating Oklahoma's past and future.