|
An Interview with Bert Seabourn |
How
did your watercolor workshop in Lawton turn out?
We had about twenty students.
One of the participants in the workshop was the grandson of [Monroe]
Tsatoke and he shares the same name as his grandfather. The contemporary
Tsatoke he teaches art class down at one the middle schools
in Lawton. But the workshop went well. Thursday was a demonstration,
Friday and Saturday workshop. We did four paintings those two
days.
How do you
have the discipline to be so prolific?
I've always enjoyed working
and if I didn't like art, it'd be difficult to do. But since I
like art, it's hard for me not to paint every day.
But do you
ever get in moods where you just don't feel like it?
Never. In fact, I can
be ailing and go up to my studio and start painting, I'll start
feeling better. I'll forget my aches and pains. I'm falling a
little behind this year for the first time in 27 years, but up
until this year I've averaged over 300 paintings a year. We're
into the 29th day of February, so far I've done 30 paintings this
year, which is about half what I normally do.
Do you think
the Navy helped you later in life?
Sure, absolutely. I've
regretted my four years in the Navy. It was during the Korean
war but luckily I didn't have to be in any battles. It did give
me a lot of discipline and it gave me a chance for the GI Bill,
otherwise I could have never gone through college. I didn't get
any art training, but I did work as an artist, so that gave me
a lot of experience. I did two comic strips for the Navy,
I did cartoons, I did illustration, worked with newspapers, magazines,
layout design. Just like an art agency, except this was an in-house
publication.
Your art still
shows a lot of humor. Do you ever catch flak for that? Like the
Chickasaw/Chicken paintings?
No. They laugh with me.
My mother always thought we were Chickasaw from her side of the
family but we have no proof of that. My grandmother, she was abandoned
as a child, so we know nothing about her lineage that way. No
way to really check it out-even where she's from, where she was
born, nothing else.
When were
you involved with the Oklahoma County Cherokee Community Organization?
Back in the '70s. We
had meetings down at Wiley Post Park usually. We had a covered
dish thing-everyone would bring a dish and we'd meet and spread
a pick a good line for dinner and visit. At that time, gee we
must have had at the monthly meetings maybe a hundred show up.
David Campbell and his wife-they were real active in it.
Who are some
artists coming out now that you really like?
I like Richard Schmidt's
work, Charley Reed's work. There are so many artists that I actually
like... Robert Wood, Ramon Kelly, there's a lot of artists out
there that I admire. None of these are Oklahoma artists.
Do you think
Oklahoma has a viable art scene?
Getting back to Indian
art, whatever Indian is, I'd say Oklahoma is probably the leader
of any state in the Union. That goes for beadwork, quillwork,
to pottery, to painting. I think it's a combination of all the
different cultures thrown together. All tribes have picked the
best from each tribe. Normally like in beadwork, instead of saying
is that Crow or Arapaho, they say, "That's Oklahoma-style
beadwork." Or "That's an Oklahoma-style painting."
A problem
I always have is what's tradition Cherokee art look like. There's
the art from Etowah Mounds, but people don't really know if that's
related to Cherokees.
Usually, when you think
of Cherokee work, you think of carving with a knife from back
East or pottery. They do very little painting back in North Carolina.
I went back there to do a workshop for Cherokee kids and the teacher
was very insulted. How dare me from Oklahoma come and try to teach
her kids how to paint when we don't paint. "We're craftpeople.
We weave baskets. We make clay pipes. We don't paint. Take your
art and get back to Oklahoma." But here, every tribe has
some outstanding artists. There's a number that stand out nationwide.
A lot of people
feel that they have to leave Oklahoma to get a market and actually
make a living from their art.
Oklahoma's more fertile
than any other state around. I think that's a cop-out people use
to get away. All you have to do is put your art on a plane, a
train, or a bus-you can get it any place you want to. Oklahoma's
centrally located. If you're in California, you can only go one
way.
Japan!
Here you can go east,
west, whatever. So I think we're ideally located for any artist.
I enjoy going to Santa Fe and Scottsdale and looking. I can get
a high looking at art and seeing what's going on, but then I like
to come back to Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma and the people here.
I love the land and everything about it. I can be very happy here
and ship my work to Santa Fe, ship my work to New York. It's too
easy to catch a plane or drive or something, but yet have a nice
place to live...
So, what do
you have planned for the future. Are you doing any more workshops
anytime soon?
Yeah, I'd like to start
doing more workshops than what I do now. I did a workshop in Portland
last year and they're talking about me coming up there and doing
another one this year. Before I get too old, I'd like to do a
workshop a month. I can sill paint, I can teach-I've always enjoyed
teaching. More of the same, I guess I'll work until I die. I don't
ever plan on retiring. Art's not really work; it's just something
I enjoy doing, so I'll always paint. I enjoy meeting people, seeing
the country. What little thing I've got, I enjoy sharing it. It
makes me happy, hopefully, it makes someone else happy. I will
be doing something next month, out at the Kirkpatrick Center.
It's going to be the Special Olympics thing, benefiting Indian
school children. I'll be doing a 36"x48" acrylic on
canvas, which will be auctioned off that night as a fund raiser
for Special Olympics.
Bert Seabourn is represented by the 50 Penn Gallery, Tribes Gallery, and Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery. Click here for Bert's homepage and here to e-mail him.