Next on Gallery America.

We travel back in time to past episodes of Gallery as we expand our online archives by revisiting Oklahoma artists who are using some rather unexpected materials.

Hey, Jonathan.

Hey.

You'll never guess what I found.

Maybe you found a way to digitize the past 20 years of Gallery America and his predecessor, Art Gallery, so that our viewers can access our stories on Oklahoma artists any time they want on our website and YouTube channel.

Actually, yeah, exactly that.

Come check it out!

Hey, Kristi.

Would you just look at this place?

I love it.

Okay, here it is.

I think this is exactly what we're looking for.

The OETA time machine!?

I thought there was some kind of myth.

It's real, and it's the perfect way to archive our old episodes.

Let's see if we can get it going.

Great.

That's.

It's Jared from marketing.

Come on!

What?

OMG.

He's always hounding us to do something.

"Marketing stuff" Hurry!

he's almost here.

All right, guys.

Quick question.

Guys.

I think I just had a question.

Oh, it's working.

Where are we headed?

All right.

It says here we're headed to Hollis, Oklahoma, to see cowboy poet Kent Rollins.

Oh.

I like to come these old gloves.

They bring back a lot of inspiration.

I'd just like to see this old country about 1880 when you really know what it was like.

Yeah.

We take care of about 2300 acres down through here.

We're going about 80 momma cows on it.

I come down here to solve the problems of the world.

My name is Kent Rollins, live in Hollis, Oklahoma.

Cowboy, cowboy poet and cook.

Actually started writing poetry probably about 1984.

And I was horseback down here on the river.

And things just sort of went to come in through my mind of things that I'd see about the countryside.

And I got home one evening and just got to writing it down.

Smoke billows upward and disappears like a great ghost in the night.

So smoke gives way to flames.

Embers start burning bright.

Well, I think most of all, the things that influences my work is being a poet or a storyteller.

Sourdough Biscuits in an old cast iron oven.

So start to rise... Sure from the ranching industry part of it.

You see cattle and cowboys.

They've always been my life.

Sort of like a union between a man and wife.

But a lot of it too, comes from the old timers that I was around when I was small to get to be around these fellows and and relive some of the stories that they told me.

You really have to admire those people.

When you come down here, this old river, you see it and you can look around the initial country had to change no whole lot since the 1880s and the time when all the cattle guys were coming through.

It gives me more of a peace of mind to know that what I'm still doing to make my living and that to be a cowboy when I can come down here and fit into something that's already here, it just makes it that much easier to be inspired by something that you see if you can capture something down in land where it looks when you get through telling it.

It reminds people of a picture where you've sort of got your message across I think.

I wanted it to be to where anyone could understand it.

You didn't have to be a cowboy, per se, to know what I'm talking about from the common ordinary person to the old cowboy that's worked on a ranch for 70 years.

I want something to somebody to be able to get something out of it no matter what lifestyle they lead.

He tells it like it is.

He like these people that, you know, read it out of a book, dream up something.

You know.

I've coped with this problem for quite some time and I was ready to find a solution to this agony of mine.

I called the doc and an appointment.

I might not have been a little embarrassed, but I sure wasn't afraid.

Explained the doc this little problem of mine.

And he said, Slip into this little gown.

Everything's going to be just fine.

This little gown, it didn't seem to fit in.

The part left sticking out was the part where I sit.

I lay there on the table, my backside in there.

I said, Hang on a minute, doc.

Is that necessary?

Does that part need to be bare?

Oh, he said, this problem we've got, it's really nothing to avoid.

It's really quite simple.

It's a thing we call a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid?

Well Doc, what might be the cure?

He said Nothing major, but we're going to have to cut it off, that's for sure.

Cut it off.

I cried with fright!

Hang on a minute, Doctor.

Like a second opinion might be right for a second opinion.

Well, I really don't think there's a need.

Well, that's when I get in my hats and boots.

And from his office, I left with a sudden burst of speed.

Felt his eyes lucky to get out there with my life because no doc going to get near my backside, especially with a man searching for this little problem.

I ain't got rid of it yet.

One thing's for certain I won't go back to that crazy vet.

I'm a collagist, but I think because everything I do is really collage, it made it still.

I'm still a sculptor, but it's it's based on collage.

I went from doing flat stuff to to objects protruding from a surface to just the object itself, just a piece of sculpture, which is what fine objects are.

The fine object is, is the mask.

This is my friend Melvin Wilson.

I like to smile, and that's what drove me to create a piece of art work of it.

This is my big brother, Robert Victor.

He's the symbol of our family.

This is my dad.

And I like to the sculpture look of her face.

She had those African features that were really beautiful and I liked her.

And that's why she's in my work.

And why I do.

I do.

They just pop up into my work.

I really don't have no designs.

I people that seem to have been important to me in some fashion or another, whether they were strange or not, giving to me, I've touched me in some fashion.

They become part of my work.

There's no such thing as a junkyard.

This is a it's a pleasure place.

I've never seen a junkyard in my life.

I saw a place that had a lot of important pieces of items they could go in a piece of nice artwork.

Oh, you know, my masks are pretty much what I consider a found objects I got to make into something here.

Yeah.

When I go into the junkyard, it's kind of like being in a spiritual place to me.

This over here?

Well, I'm.

I'm kind of.

I see something here.

And just on the the form and the colors really excite me.

Sometimes I can see a color, it can be a shape, it can be all kind of idiosyncrasies that this person that I saw in this person and then I might see it in this this mass of feeling and this fill in in these foreign objects.

And I go from there.

Well, I'm seeing the image of a mass of I'm satisfied with what I see.

I like to it's here as a sweet I like that part of it.

I just set out to collect items that I like, you know, pieces and shapes and colors that I like.

And then.

And then when I start to move them around, images come up.

Mm.

Yeah.

And this is a keeper.

I, I feel that once I, I do a piece I can capture their spirit.

I found the rest of it.

They should complete the project.

This should make a very nice.

During the refresh this Friday I'll be doing one of my fire paintings.

I'll be setting myself on fire and painting while on fire.

It's a very demanding performance piece that I wouldn't suggest that anybody trying at home.

I originally started using fire when I was 18, kind of finger painting.

As I kept on doing it, I had more and more friends come and watch me.

Makes me laugh every once in a while to think that I'm the guy that sets himself on fire.

It's me really putting forth all my passion and creativity and drive all into one thing for one night where I'm not thinking about the painting, I'm not thinking about the people watching me.

I'm concentrating on the resolutions of my life that I find in going through this process.

It's like it's a forest fire.

It's burning down the forest.

You can grow new, turn off the old skin to start now the paint's literally boiling and then baking onto my skin many, many occasions.

I've hurt myself pretty badly.

I've suffered pretty bad burns.

I have to be mentally prepared for whatever happens happens.

I also have to be educated in how to take care of my body and heal as fast as possible.

Actually hate the feeling of being burnt.

And I think it's kind of a testament of just doing something that you have fear over and accomplishing in your fear over it.

It's more of a mental state and trying to get over your own fears in life.

The painting taken out of context of the performance is just a really messy, heavy texture piece.

But when you see the performance and the piece together, you understand the emotion and the connection between the two.

I want them to feel something.

I want them to feel the power of my passion.

I want them to be able to get into the zone as much as I am and remember it for as long as I possibly can.

I just I just want to keep on pushing myself in a different light as much as I possibly can.

We're back.

That was amazing!

Yeah WOW!

seeing those past episodes of artists using alternative materials like fire used car parts, cowboy poetry about hemorrhoids, who would have thought, but where are we now?

This isn't where we're supposed to be.

Yeah, I guess we overshot it.

Let's get out of here.

Hurry!

"Hey Guys, one more quick quest..".

Oh, it's Jarred!

Hurry.

Why does this keep happening!?

Most everything that I use in my art is real.

All of the natural elements are real.

You know, real.

Bone is real insects, real sometimes organs.

Some of my pieces have encompassed plastinated sheeps hearts, you know?

Yeah.

All of those elements are real.

The dark subject matter, basically, is probably a form of therapy.

It allows me to express myself and do it in a sense that is a little darker than than some people's art.

But once I express that, then I can move on with it.

In my work here in the museum, I have had quite a few ideas that have, you know, and I mean, I get an idea when I'm driving to work or whatever, but being surrounded by these elements, it does lend to inspiration, I guess I should say.

In addition to just designing the exhibits, I've been able to use a lot of my artistic ability in putting together elements of the exhibits as well.

The Comparative Exhibit.

Oh yeah.

So the monkey, your name, we're going to go ahead and stick with it up here.

Yeah.

So have his his right side facing out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there, there are times when working here with bones, working here in the museum with skeletons and skulls, it definitely lends to, to my inspiration.

Working here is a learning experience and it is something that you have to get used to.

The smell is definitely a factor when you're dealing with any kind of dead animals decomposing and the cleaning of of those animals.

There are a lot of interesting smells.

And it's it's something that I guess at a young age, I began to tolerate and know it's not pleasant, but it doesn't bother me any more, just simply because the end result is is attractive to me, you know, nice, clean bones to incorporate in art or as a specimen.

That end result outweighs the unpleasantries of the smells and all the interesting things that that I see in the process.

You know, the specimens there, different techniques for cleaning the specimens depending on the state of decomposition.

One of my favorites, a lot of people can't stomach it, but I use a lot of maceration, which is basically rotting a specimen under the water and using anaerobic bacteria that's naturally occurring to decompose the tissue.

As you can imagine, that creates quite a smell and it's it it's a little hard for people to stomach personally.

It doesn't bother me that much.

I've actually grown to to kind of like it a little bit, but yeah, it's it stinks.

I want my stuff not only to to stand out when you look at it, but if you just glance at it, I want it to just grab you and pull you to it.

*indistinct chatter *Yeah, you did it.

Man!

that's the reaction I get in person from people.

But actually, if I send people photographs, I've had, you know, luckily I'll draw your attention.

But as far as it just hasn't pictures haven't been able to push me into mainstream art world yet and I you really have to see it in person because it will captivate you in person.

I call it stristed art because it's straight and twisted at the same moment.

That's basically how I see it.

People's reactions.

It could go either way because I've been called demonic in a and I've been called a prodigy.

Well, those are pretty far apart, you know, and I'm just I'm just trying to Oklahoma boy trying to make good.

What I started out was I took a short job and I broke it right here in the center and folded it back and screwed to this fork buck skull.

And I fabricated the nose out of fish bones, shards of fish, bone shards of cow bones.

These are all fish ribs here.

The actual horns, they're attached to the deer skull.

And I closed this side mostly in, and I left this side mostly open.

So you can actually see the framework of how I did it.

It's cow leg bones down here.

The top of cow skulls.

It contains seven steer skulls, one deer skull, nine cow skulls.

In the back feet are three coyote skulls with different was coming out of the nasal cavities.

Most of my tattoos run about 3 hours and the reason I do that is because after 3 hours, your pain tolerance is really low.

And that seems to be a better way for me to do it than trying to get the whole thing done all at once, you know?

And it's easier for the customer because they don't have to go through that much pain all at once.

But 3 hours go by for me inwhat feels like 45 minutes easily, you know.

And yeah, yeah.

I have to constantly think about that because my my canvas is alive and in pain.

So that's one thing you always got to keep in the back of your mind.

I'm sure it's amazing.

because it's Curtis.

Over and over again.

I'm thinking precision, always making every line as clean and crisp and perfect as I can.

You have to make it look the best you can.

Has to look solid.

It has to heal, right?

It has to have all these things for it to really be a magnificent tattoo.

And sometimes that isn't the best feeling thing for them.

But, you know, I think that's part of it.

It's an endurance race.

You know, it really proves what you get when you see it on TV.

It doesn't look as bad, but they do hurt.

Plus, you know, if the only thing you remember from your tattoo is being in excruciating pain for 5 hours, it may take a long time for you to come back and get another.

He's really great, I really trust him, and he's done.

I think like four or five of my pieces now.

And I love them and I get them skin.

You get a totally different feeling out of putting an awesome piece of art on someone's body than you would out of painting it for them and hanging on the wall.

You know, it's theirs.

You you've modified them.

You know, it's that's really cool.

I mean, "is it all you expected?"

definitely and more.

I, I do love tatooing.

the college marching band pays tribute to one of the most successful and influential rock bands of all time.

The band formed in 1968 as the new Yardbirds, and in October of that year they changed to their now iconic moniker, Led Zeppelin.

We opened with a medley of Zeppelin classic Rock and Roll, Heartbreaker and Live In Love, and they.

In contemporary marching.

Band.

Now, the main thing that influences the formation that you see is the motion.

The motion dictates the formation.

So most of what you see, the movement is the point versus the formation.

That's arrived in.

When we decide the drill that we, the formations we stand and the first thing we do is decide, looking at the music when we're going to move and when we're going to stand still, then we start thinking about what kind of pictures we want to make and and how we're going to transition from one picture to the next.

And we have this computer drill writing software that we use.

It allows us to place each individual band member on the field, you know, and various formations.

And stuff to draw the formations correctly and make sure people aren't going to run into each other.

But you can then see an animator and how it looks, and once you're satisfied with what you have, you can then assign numbers to each of those dots on the page and each person gets a card that has their coordinates of on page one.

I'm on the 45 yard line, four steps in front of the hash mark.

So each everyone has their little it's like a piece of music for, for the drill.

And so from there we pass those out and then the students know where they're supposed to go.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the 2011 Pride of Oklahoma Marching is not easy.

Not only is it that you're marching for like seven or eight solid minutes or whatever during halftime, but practicing for 2 hours a day, you're marching most of that time and it's at fast tempos.

It's not an easy thing.

And then you have to worry about, well, am I in the form?

And I have to march at the exact same tempo as everybody else.

It's it's tough.

It's not an easy thing.

The sousaphone weighs £45, so and it's on your left shoulder the entire time.

So that can wear on you a little bit.

And it's also the most visual instrument on the field.

So the marching fundamentals of what we do, making sure that our bells are completely aligned and also that they look nice, is extremely important.

Back in the annex, that was amazing seeing all those old excerpts of the past 20 years of Gallery!

Plus, We got them all digitized too.

That means people can access them whenever they want.

And Jared from marketing, never caught us!

Well, let just one quick question, though, guys.

Oh, boy.

Where should OETA viewers go to get these newly archived gallery America episodes?

Oh, that was that was all you wanted to know?

Yeah.

Well, you can access past episodes of Gallery America by going to our new expanded archives at OETA Dot TV's Slash Gallery America or to our YouTube channel just search gallery America on YouTube and stream away.

But don't forget about Gallery America Online.

You can visit us on Instagram at @OETAgallery for Daily updates of the Oklahoma art scene.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

Until then, stay arty Oklahoma.

That's our line.

Oh, it's Jarred!

Hurry.

And just like that, we're out of here.

I got bone fever Oh, I just wanted to see one last time.