¡Colores!; 513; He Who Stands in the Sun: The Paintings of T.C. Cannon; T.C. Cannon 30

You go home, you got all of this tape in you, it's three hours of tape and you boil it down a little bit of this, a little bit of that, let's take an enormous amount of editing. It does. You already did all on paper first, you just transpired the tapes and just said, I'd like this and this flows into this and what's going to happen, I mean we'll listen to you, we'll talk about him and then we'll hear from Kirby Fathers and we'll hear a little bit of his writings, he's in pictures. Well you're going to be interviewing Kirby. Oh great, when? Well I haven't held it down yet but he's in Oklahoma right there and there's Dad. Well if you see Kirby, tell him I said hello. Well I mentioned him, he was the one that came in and did this talk to our students after he got back from Vietnam. Seems to me he won the bronze star too but I'm not sure what to do.

Could you talk about what you saw on his work, when he got to be a little more well-known and he got out of the institute and he saw his mature work developing, what kind of things are you seeing, what kind of things are you thinking about? Well I saw what I would call two avenues of his work, one was in the paintings, the other were in pen and ink sketches and the pen and ink sketches I think were far more graphic in their presentation of what he was feeling at the time. I remember one image where he is embracing a skeleton and this image was from his drawings when he was in Vietnam.

It was a rather disturbing thought but then there are other images where he's done some birds and he put a little script down at the bottom or the birds free and free of the chains of the sky way. I think he was thinking about freedom at that time, the different levels or qualities that freedom implies to many people or to even different species. What is freedom? What did you think his work started maturing and evolving, he's got notoriety? notoriety I don't think is what he was all that interested in, he was kind of a private person, not some that would dwell on celebrity status but I know the time that his work really

hit me was when he had this show or this was a post humus show of his at the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. This is where a work that he had done over the period of his artistic life had all come together in one spot and there's a tendency when you see one piece at a time. As you might, as a staff member here at the Institute of American Indian Arts or in later years or through magazine articles, you don't get the full impact of this. But at the Cowboy Hall of Fame where they exhibited his work a few years ago, the enormity

of his work, I mean it blew my mind as they would say in the current vernacular. It was something amazing. What was it amazing? Well, there was a variety, there was a sense of color combinations that I liked. There were images that were thought provoking, they might even see some irony or humor in some of his work that just kind of would grab hold of you at the moment you see it. Having known him, of course it helped a little bit, but I wish I could, that show could be developed again.

I know it showed that that new Indian Museum and Indianapolis as well, at least two places that show travel to. Was it the Cowboy Hall of Fame or was it the Native American? It's the Cowboy Hall of Fame. TC Cannon was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the American Indian and in Darko, Oklahoma. And I believe was the first artist to be inducted there. Normally, an individual is inducted into that Hall of Fame after they've been dead for 15 years. TC was inducted five years early. I think not only because of the exceptional career and the type of human being he was, but also his mother was suffering from serious illness and I think they wanted to make sure that she was alive at the time of this induction.

That's not a question I wanted to back up a little bit and a lot of thoughts on too much. Were you proud of TC because you want to be at Nahum? I would have to say that I was proud of TC because of his Vietnam experiences because he followed through on the commitments to himself what he had to do because he felt that he could also fight for his country. So yes, I would have to say that despite the kind of bitter experience it was for him, and I was proud that he went and that he survived as he did. You think he became a better person for the better artist also?

I think he probably had better understandings of human nature as a result of his experiences there in Vietnam. I don't know whether those experiences in Vietnam could have made him a happier person which I would have liked to have felt that life in general would make a person feel happier. I think the thing that helped keep him sane in Vietnam was the fact that he had his guitar over there. He had some buddies over there that he was close to. He was getting mail from friends and so forth and he would always dream about coming back to New Mexico to his place in the sun and of course his name, his Indian name translates to one who stands in the sun I believe is how that goes and I can't pronounce the word

but he was fond of his mountains, there's a mountain back in Oklahoma that he was fond of, the mountains of New Mexico he was fond of and you have to do your car as a mountain. Were you kind of proud of him maybe that's the used up word already but when you saw his mature work and he saw him he'd come establishes an artist and what did you think? I have a hard time in my mind that he did so much in his work to try and place this painting his 1960 or 67 or 72 or whatever but I think as the progression from when he was here I think his work was more refined.

I remember he did a lithograph for the Santa Fe opera. This was some years after he'd been out of the institute it's a woman sitting under an umbrella at the bus stop on a bench waiting for the bus I think is the name of the piece. I shoot myself today for not having bought one of those but there were other images particularly of Pueblo women and some other shots or other paintings that he did that I really liked. But why did you think of him as a person I mean since you knew him so well what was you, did you happy for him or your proud of him what you kind of excited to see him take the attention he get the attention he deserved what were your thoughts about him I don't know if you thought about it.

I guess Canon did get attention and celebrity status and I was proud that he had it but that wasn't something that was between us we were friends he was a painter and I was a counselor I guess. Celebrity status I don't think really had that big made that much difference to him. I think he'd rather be painting or writing. There was talk that he was in the middle of writing a novel which apparently disappeared after his death so I don't know what one could say there. What was your reaction when you heard it, did you die? It was just total disbelief shock I couldn't believe it it's like when we heard that President

Kennedy had died had been assassinated I remember right where it was and then the same thing with TC Canon it was just unbelievable that he had gone and of course one of the things that just hit me after thinking about it for a few minutes was that he said yes he was going to die young and perhaps if if this is what he believed maybe that's why he got so much accomplished in his short stay here on earth I don't know what else I can tell yeah I know that's so that's perfect that's really what he believes and that's what he

had to deal with. Do you think he left a legacy? Oh definitely definitely a TC Canon legacy. If you read his poetry and the things he's written his art images are always going to be there there's so many of them 20th century Dandy is one that I have there's one that shows a man sitting in a wicker chair Indian man in a wicker chair and on the wall behind him is a miniature seize that that TC incorporated within that picture. I think yes he is is one of those artists that will be remembered for his participation

in this new direction of Indian art that was more or less begun at the institute. I think he'll always be remembered and it's nice that his friend Sherman Chattelsen was the one that did the bronze bust of TC at the American Indian Hall of Fame. How would you sum up TC then? There's so many adjectives that you could try or put on this person and still not capture the essence of him. As a student I remember him as having a sense of humor, a sense of mischief, positive kind of mischief, practical jokes.

I remember his curiosity, his humanity, his interest in people on a positive level, he's caring, his commitment not only to I think being a decent human being but to being an artist, he's very proud I think of being an artist, to being somebody who creates things in a positive way, caring for not only people but for his own tribal people, his own country. His dedication to education in the sense of wanting to know about mankind, there's

just so many, so many things that it's just hard to put them all down. He was one of the most worthwhile people I think I've ever met, genuine, a good friend. He cared for all of his friends and there were many. Is that a sign of a good person in the sense of what I define as a positive good caring person, yes? You did you brought something up just recently that I forgot to ask you about and you said he was committed to education, what does that mean?

Well, well I perhaps should have said he was committed to getting a good education, I know he got a good education at the institute because he valued that education, he valued what he got out of it and as I've indicated before he had a hunger for knowledge, a hunger for fareding out what life was all about and in this sense he did a lot of reading and whether he would be in college or not that reading would continue, that curiosity would need to be fed and so forth. And when you compare that, pardon me, to students today, students today have become a video generation and I'm sure that some of them still read but I wonder when, there's only so

many hours in the day and when most of it's spent in front of a television camera or in front of a video machine watching videos, I wonder, do you think he inspired students today or students who came after him? I think those students who were aware of him would have to be inspired by him just because of the nature of the essence he's left behind, both in writing in his art, in his songs, he always wanted to sing a song and the song always had some kind of positive, thoughtful message to it. And you think that's kind of what his life was about? I think Canon's life would have been a model for others.

If you take the... Let's stop here and we'll start again, I think we need to be cool about music, about like him being kind of a model, or it's like being a model and maybe we could start over at that. Roll model? Well, I think he would definitely be a roll model for those who take the time to look at his work, to read his prose, to read his poetry, I don't know how else to address that. Yeah, you were just saying that he was a kind of person that was... I'm feeling redundant. Well, don't worry because we're going to go back and, I mean, we'll only hear at once on television. Okay. So, if you repeat yourself, that's not a problem, but you said he was a kind of person

that was kind of a model human or something like that, but I like that. I wanted to get it right just because that's why I had you do that. Well, I think Canon would definitely be a roll model, first of all, not only because of his art and his prose and poetry, but I remember him as a student, just his being, something about his presence, something about the way he was with other people, attracted the other students to him, they admired him, there was a quality there that was hard to miss if you knew him. I'm sorry if you say anything. There was a quality about him that was hard to miss if you knew him.

He radiated a sort of, I don't know, positive being, I guess it is, and this attracted people to him. And of course, these positive thoughts and…