Oregon Art Beat; #107; Tape 1; Jim Jackson

How's the angle? It's good. I'll be moving around here a little bit. Do you find anything in particular I'll let you know? No, it's not.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving

around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll

be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be

moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll

be moving around here. I'll be moving around

here. I'll be moving around here. I'll

be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. A.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'm moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. I'll be moving around here. I'm moving

around here. I'll be moving around here. I'm moving around here.

I'll be moving around here. All right. I'll

be moving around here. I'll be right back. Can you work while you talk? Tell me a little bit about which media you choose to work in. I like to work with clay, with ceramic, and also oil base. That's what I do my bronze work out of. Do you prefer the bronze or the ceramic? I try to do both. The bronze is a little bit more.

It's a little bit more. You can do a lot more with it, with taking away and taking your time with the oil base clay. You don't get to spend eight to nine days working on a piece. You only have a limited amount of time to work on it before it dries. With the oil base you can work on it constantly and it never dries. What's the inspiration for your work, your ideas? A lot of the work that I do is basic on the face. I'd traveled and did a lot of things in different reservations throughout the United States. While I was playing basketball or doing other things on the reservation, I really admired a lot of

faces. Through a lot of the artwork that I did, a lot of the faces are similar to what I've seen in some place. I'd recognize it from a place that I've known before. When I start working and I do a face, I don't look at photos or nothing. I just start working with it. The basic idea comes out of the face. From there I work from the face down on building what it's going to look like after that. Is there a message of feeling that you hope to convey with your work? The feeling that I try to portray in my work is through my pieces that you see that at the base part of this is a rock. Through the rock I try to bring out what they call the spirit and rock. A lot of Indian tribes and throughout the United

States living and non -living things have some kind of spirit. So rock, wood, water, all that kind of things have a life into it. And the whole idea behind my work and what I try to bring out is the whole idea of the life coming out of the stone. And in a lot of lures and fables that people and animals were turning the stone to protect certain areas. And people talk to the rocks and this is my way of bringing the life out of the stone. Tell me a little bit about your background where you grew up. I'm climate modok from southern Oregon. I grew up in climate falls. Through that area there's a lot of places that have a lot of stones, mountains, kind of rock formations. And there

was something that I was really like that I climbed all over them. I never really understood the stories behind them at that time. But as I got older I started hearing the stories of why this rock is there and why this is here and why that is there. And it really caught my interest as I was growing up. When I started I really wasn't into that basis. I was just doing faces and it was basically a hobby when I started out. And even before that when I was a kid we used to make our own little out of oil based clay. We used to make our own little army men make toys. We made cars. We made a lot of different things that basically to me was just, it wasn't artwork. It was more of a hobby that we did and we were able to have things that other people didn't have. So that's basically how it started.

And how did you make that transition? When did you start thinking this hobby could become my life's work? As I got into high school I started doing some work with pottery. And I really started seeing people selling their mugs and selling little sculptures. And I thought about it at that point. Then I had some relatives that went down to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. From that point after high school I decided to try my work and go down to Santa Fe and see if I could get into doing it at a different scale. I went there and I seen a lot of different works in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was just, it's a big art community. And there's a lot of Native Americans doing a lot of work there that are just

tremendous. And from a standpoint of where I was from in Oregon we didn't have that kind of a thing to look at. From being in clemenfalls the arts aren't that great and it's not promoted at all. And going back to Santa Fe I was able to see what kind of expressions a lot of people used from stone to bronze to wood and making large sculptures and also making a living doing it. And that kind of prompted me into going into trying to do something a little bit different. And I was able to take some of my work back home and try to start a career here in southern Oregon. How do you think?