[click as lighter starts]
- My grandfather was a blacksmith.
[swoosh as flame changes]
My dad was a pipefitter.
So there was always a torch in the garage.
We're heating it up to about 1,200 degrees.
Any time I have a stressful day or have a bad day,
I go weld something together.
It always makes me feel better.
I've always done this, ever since I was a little kid.
My grandfather taught me how to do this.
And my father, um, um, and it's--
I'm going home.
I'm relaxed.
I'm with my family.
Even though they're both dead and gone,
I still feel like they're here and helping me.
Or I'm helping them.
[poof as flame ignites]
My mom's family moved from Green Bay
where the reservation is to Milwaukee.
And a lot of Natives did because of the jobs.
My mother's an Oneida.
And my father's actually German Jew.
My mom had us registered at birth.
She was well-known on the reservation.
And she wanted to make sure that we all knew that we were Native.
* *
Where you come from, I always wrote "Red.
At the time, it wasn't too cool to be Native.
It was kind of a rough time as a child.
Picked on and teased a lot and that sort of thing,
about being Native American.
But it just made us tougher.
Our symbolism and this is the symbol of my tribe.
It's a Iroquois flower pattern.
It has fiddlehead fern hair, and it's a shawl dancer.
She's out dancing her heart out
and showing everybody that she's an Oneida.
I'm from the Turtle Clan; the poets, the prophets,
and the artists of our community.
This is my turtle teacher.
It's a self-portrait.
I'm a former educator.
He's got the talking stick and a book.
This is the old way and the new way.
The turtle has all its students.
It has all the babies around him wanting to hear the story.
Every piece that I make tells a story.
And that's how most Native American art is done.
It's not just a beautiful piece.
It tells a story.
The oldest piece I have is...
probably the long boat.
This is a symbol of our tribe.
We are the people of the long boat.
We were originally from New York.
[swoosh of flame]
I'll start working on a pattern or a design and
sometimes it'll sit on my bench for months.
And all of a sudden, I'll be inspired,
"Oh yeah, I should do this or this
and that'll really make it beautiful.
I'm thinking of making a wolf out of this one.
And it'll have legs
so that it actually sits on the edge of the table.
Just leave them sit on the table
until you're inspired on what would really be
the nicest piece I could make.
And then we're going to put the top of the shell on.
You go around and attach it to each leg.
Probably was in my 40s [laughs]
before I started.
I'm 60 now.
Most of the stuff I just kept in my yard.
On the weekends,
I'd get people pulling in my driveway,
walking through my yard.
I'd go out there wondering what
people were doing in my yard going,
"How much is this one?" thinking I'm a gallery or something.
That helped influence me to go into the field
'cause people were stopping
and liked it and wanted to purchase it.
Either do this or become a greeter at Walmart.
[laughs]
So we had to make it work.
The story is very important.
Once I do come up with a design,
for instance, if I do a bear clan pattern,
that represents our nurses, our doctors, our firefighters
and policemen and our veterans.
And all of our protectors are bear clan.
I'll tag a little story onto it
that actually tells about this piece and what it means to us.
I would say less than 10% go to other natives.
It's usually to non-natives
that want to learn more about natives.
And they like the way I teach it.
I think it's so neat
that so many people are interested
in the original culture of America.
I like beautiful things and I like making beautiful things.
But I'm just as intrigued
when someone comes up and falls in love with it.
I've had it many times where they come in
and see my life-sized bison
and say, "Oh my God" and tears start rolling.
I mean you really feel that heartfelt message.
Its name is "Ancient Dignity.
But it's all hand-pounded.
Heated up and pounded with a hammer to form the body.
Then I put on 5,000 feet of hair which came out to
about 30,000 individual hairs on the body itself.
I tried to make the eyes aware,
so that wherever you walked around it,
the eyes were following you.
The nose, being big and soft and cushiony,
the children just love to come and touch the nose.
That's why I do it is I like making beautiful things
and I like making things that touch other people.