- Master mentors and dedicated apprentices come together through the Wyoming Arts Council's Folk Art Mentoring Program.

In the second of two parts, we'll meet the mentors, the apprentices, their art, and learn about their commitment.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is "Wyoming Chronicle."

(bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

ThinkWY.org.

And by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- We're here again with Josh Chrysler for a second segment of "Wyoming Chronicle."

Josh is with Wyoming Arts Council, and we're talking about the Arts Council's Folk Art Mentoring Program.

Josh, good to be with you again this week.

- Yeah, thanks.

Glad to be here.

- Some of these that we'll see are mother and child relationships, or grandparent-grandchild, but not all of them are.

It's a good mix of these fine arts, crafts, folk materials.

- The videos that we created are highlighting recipients of our Folk Art Mentoring Grant.

And this is a grant that we give out every year to applicants who are wanting to share their knowledge of folk and traditional arts with somebody else from their community.

- The next segment we're watching is another mentor and apprentice.

They do not happen to be related.

And their names are Ernie and Amy, and their specialty is the precision creation of bits, spurs and other equipment used in horsemanship.

Let's watch that.

(bluesy acoustic music) - Oh, well, spurs are what horsemen will use on their feet for an aid to cue their horse.

You want to train your horse to work off subtle cues with your legs, and your thigh, and your your heels.

But in order for a cue to be subtle, you need to limit the amount of movement.

So if your foot is six inches away from the horse, you're gonna have a hard time making a subtle move with that length of distance.

So if you have a little extension there to where all you have to do is turn your toe to the side to make a subtle contact, then you tend not to overdo it.

- My name's Amy Erickson.

I am from Evanston, Wyoming.

And I am here in Lovell, Wyoming in Ernie Marsh's shop.

We've been working on a pair of spurs together, and we're gonna start working on some high-relief engraving, kind of helping me clean that up and look a little more professional.

I was born and raised on a ranch, you know, just outside of Evanston, actually in Coalville, Utah, and I grew up riding horses.

I've had a deep love for horses and that's where all of this stems from.

You know, it's pretty awesome to build this cool gear, and then use it myself and test it out on a daily basis.

See what I like, things I want to change, you know, that's what makes it so cool for me.

- Amy had actually come to see me on her own once, and so that's kind of why we got this.

She wanted to learn how to make spurs.

- Ernie is honestly my favorite bit and spur maker.

I mean, his work is just amazing.

You can tell the effort and the passion he puts into his work.

I worked with Ernie many years ago to first learn to engrave, and I knew that I always wanted to come back and work with him building bits and spurs.

But engraving takes quite a while to get really good at it, and I knew that would be the biggest challenge and take me the longest to learn.

So I practiced a lot, and kept on going.

And then when I was ready, through the Wyoming Arts Council, I was able to come back to Ernie, and me and Ernie built a really nice pair of spurs together.

And since then we've worked together again, working on some mouthpieces for bits.

- Well, we focused on making a pair of spurs from scratch, and it entails a lot more than most people would think.

I mean, it's a couple of weeks just to get anything reasonable, you know?

Well, we'll start out with just raw metal, and we'll lay out patterns, we'll make patterns out of aluminum or something.

And then we'll cut out the shapes, you know, on a bandsaw, and we'll use hand chisels to cut our inlays, and we'll inlay silver into the spurs, and then we'll shape them and polish them.

And there's a whole lot of different styles, so it's hard to just settle on one, you know?

(bluesy acoustic music continues) - She's been great, you know?

She was a part-time crafts person for quite a while, but now I think she's considering, her skills have improved to the point where I think she's gonna go full-time, as a full-time artist and crafts person.

You know, I used to get a lot of my inspiration from a lot of the old-time makers that I knew and whose work I was familiar with.

But as time goes on, I find myself being one of the old timers, and the old timers as I knew them are pretty much gone.

(bluesy acoustic music continues) - There are very few women in this.

(laughs) It's really rare.

And so it's really cool to be out there and kind of try to carry on the traditions of this art and, you know, kind of get it out there for women too.

I think they just didn't realize this was available to them.

And even if you're, you know, man or woman, this was a harder thing to get into years ago.

It really was.

There just weren't opportunities.

And they're starting to show up, and one day I'll pass it along as well.

I feel a responsibility to do that.

- In watching this, I'm a Wyoming native, and my mother grew up on a cattle ranch, and I've ridden horses, not so much anymore, but I learned something immediately that I hadn't known before, which was that, it was conveyed by Ernie, who said that a spur is, he views it as an extension of the leg.

And not a weapon or a punishment, but just a way where you can turn your leg in and let the horse get a little signal that this is what you want to do.

And so this is one of the things that we learn watching these films.

You didn't learn to make spurs, did you?

- No.

- But you still learned.

- Right.

Yep.

You pick up on those little things.

The spurs are used for subtle contact.

It's just to give that little indication to your horse what you're trained to do.

- I was intrigued as well by the artistry of the engraving.

And it seems it's conception, it's drawing first.

- The utility comes first.

The spur and the bit, they have to do their job for the horse rider first and foremost.

But then after that is where that embellishment comes in.

- And listening to Amy, again, here's someone who had experience and she'd done some of this herself, but she wanted to go the extra mile.

So she must feel lucky.

She's fortunate to have this association with him.

- Yeah, I think so too.

And you can tell the level of her commitment to it just by the fact that Ernie is based in Lovell, and Amy is all the way down in Evanston.

So that's, gosh, I don't know, a six-hour drive.

And so for her to make that commitment, spending time driving up to Ernie's shop, studying under him, it shows the level of commitment she has.

- Did she mention as well that she hopes that she might be able to do this now more permanently, maybe, perhaps as a job?

- Right.

Yeah.

I think that's the direction she's moving towards is being able to do this work full-time.

- I loved in this segment as well, the blending, if people noticed, of the very, very old school and also the higher tech.

They have some equipment there that they are looking in.

What is that exactly that we're seeing?

It's not really explained in the film.

Is it like a microscope or something?

- Yep, that's exactly right.

They're engraving microscopes, and they're built specifically for this type of work.

Yeah, it just allows you to have your workspace down below and get a real detailed look at what you're doing, which is, you know, how you can get that really intricate engraving.

- She mentioned as well there are very few women in this.

Was that something that entered at all into her application, as you recall, or into the decision making about it?

Was it important to show a woman doing this work?

- I'm not sure that it entered into the decision making for the grant.

I think their application spoke for itself, her enthusiasm spoke for itself, and her artistry as well.

I do think it's pretty cool to see her getting as skilled and detailed in this work as she is.

- They are complimentary of each other, aren't they?

"Boy, he's such a great teacher."

And the mentors you hear saying, "This is someone I'm glad to be working with."

And that, I presume, was what the Arts Council was looking for as well.

- Yeah.

We wanna see great teachers and great learners.

- The next segment is about traditional dressmaking.

It's an art and fine craft form.

She'll talk about the elements of that.

Let's watch traditional dressmaking.

(airy music) - They're a traditional Plains-style dress.

We used to wear buckskin dresses prior to contact.

And then as we started having more contact with traders and, you know, different people coming west, they brought everything with them.

They brought fabrics, and things like jingles and bells, you know, they brought all of those things to trade.

And it was also, you know, it was to smooth their way into someone's territory, but also to trade for something maybe that they didn't have.

The fabric, trade cloth, or stroud, came from France, came from England, came from different areas.

And so it was wool, and finely-woven, light, and we didn't have to do anything to it.

All we had to do was cut it and sew it.

We didn't have to tan a hide, we didn't have to, well, kill an animal, you know, skin it, and we didn't have to process that hide.

And if you don't have to do all that, if you've ever done that, it's a terrible thing.

It's hard.

It's really hard.

'Cause we've done it before.

You know, this was easier.

It just made more sense to use what you had.

And then I think it also became a a point of pride and maybe even a sign of wealth.

But then when you move to reservations, you know, you lost that ability to hunt and to get the things you needed for buckskin dresses, and so these became more and more in use.

And they were everyday wear.

(airy music continues) My mom, you know, I've always watched her.

I always watched her make dresses and just all kinds of different things.

My mom is... She has a lot of dimensions to her, so she's done a lot of things in her lifetime.

And one of the things that I've always watched her do is make dresses, but I've never really sat down with her and said, "How do you do this?"

Or, "Why do you do this, and why does this look this way?"

All I remember is, you know, growing up and having really well-made dresses.

- I was flattered.

(laughs) I was a little flattered because she works and she's busy.

She does a lot of work at the school and after hours and stuff.

And she decided that she wanted to learn, sit and actually learn from me.

And we're so busy nowadays that a lot of the things we should be learning, we don't learn.

We don't take that time.

And so spending time with her, and comparing notes.

There's a lot of things that you could read in a book.

You can read the how-to books.

But if you create something that fits on a person, it's individualized.

And not everybody has the same shape or form, and so you always have to make these little adjustments so that it fits them right, they're comfortable with it, and when they move, the dress moves with them.

Especially if they're dancing, the dress should have some movement to it.

- And her experiences and everything that she's done in her life are very important to me because all of that goes into the dresses that she makes.

- Every year, we have graduates at Wyoming Indian High School that wear traditional garb when they graduate.

And so over the years, I've made a lot of dresses for graduates.

And this particular dress that we made, I had made a dress for this young woman, this girl's mother, when she graduated from high school, I'd made a a dress for her.

And so they asked Jenny if she could make this young girl a dress.

And it really worked out well because this grant, you know, allowed us the opportunity to work together and share this experience and create something, you know, that will be passed on in this family.

- You know, as a mother and a grandmother, you're always thinking to yourself, you know, you want your child or your grandchild to have those things that you value.

And if you don't know how to make them, and if you don't know the process from beginning to end, when that person is no longer here, what do you do?

How can you make those?

And her knowledge is so invaluable.

- That was Gloria and Jenn.

Josh of the Wyoming Arts Council, again, we're talking about the Council's Mentoring Folk Art Program, where we're trying to recognize these unique relationships where an older, experienced person who has great skill at a particular art and craft form is passing it on to a younger person who wants to learn, who's worthy of the training, and who we think will continue to pass it on, correct?

- Right.

Yep.

- What did you take away from this film with these two women?

- Well, I think one of the really cool parts about this one is you can really see sort of the community importance of this specific style of dress that Gloria makes and has been teaching to Jenn.

You know, graduates from the high school want to wear the dress while they're graduating.

They wanna wear these dresses at other community events, important life events.

- They view it as, "This is the best garment I own," don't they?

- Right.

Yeah.

It's a traditional dress and it's important to wear.

- Jenn said she'd always watched her mother, but then the time came to take it to the next step.

- Maybe you pick up little tidbits here and there, but what the Folk Art Mentoring Grant offers is a chance to really spend some time, some serious time trying to learn that skill from somebody else.

- A thing I think parents have, and probably grandparents too, you want the best for your kids.

And to her, providing the best for her daughter was passing on this knowledge.

Not making sure she had a new car or the best shoes.

- Sure, yeah.

I think a lot of times these art forms are very near and dear to the practitioner's heart.

They're something that they're very closely tied to culture, very closely tied to your family, very closely tied to your identity at large.

And so I think a lot of times making sure that those types of things and that reverence for the culture and the art form gets passed on to somebody else.

- The one we're gonna see next on pueblo pottery is the sixth, the final one in the series.

Let's watch pueblo pottery.

(ethereal music) - A lot of traditional crafts that our family does is mostly how we sustain ourselves, along with having jobs taking care of our kids, and taking care of our families and stuff like that.

That everything's art, and our whole culture is about it.

Anywhere from feather work, to bead work, to ledger art, to making clay.

It's our tradition, it's our culture, it's who we identify as.

(ethereal music continues) - I would always work with the clay with my grandmother, and she taught me going to dig for the clay, the paint.

And it probably takes at least 60% of your time before you're actually ready to start creating a piece.

Because you dig it, you have to air dry it, and then it's soaked in water for quite a while.

It's refined through a mesh screen to get out all the impurities of the rocks and the roots, and then finally, after we get to that process, it's processed through another finer screen so that we can be able to get the most finest of the clay.

And then after we get that, then we air dry that, mix it with the volcanic ash, and then that's when we're ready to finally create our piece.

Just like the earth, I guess, when you want to make it work, and you want it to work your way, you have to continuously keep moisturizing it and giving it water so that it can shape the way you want it to.

And then sometimes it starts taking its own shape too, when you keep molding it and using whatever kind of hand work that you need to, to build it up.

- All the elements that go into making the clay, getting the clay, getting it from the ground, the process to it.

You have to put your whole energy into it.

And just like with anything in the entirety of the world, everything has energy in it, you know what I mean?

Like, if I'm having a bad day, I wouldn't ever put my hands on clay or anything like that, 'cause I know the energy is gonna transfer with that clay.

And if I'm even making the fire to fire the clay, I have to be in a good mood, I have to be cleansed.

It's a spiritual process, and the same time, physical, mental, and emotional.

All those things come together like that.

And one thing that I would take from it too is the emotion part of it.

So what was taught to me was, like, emotions are energy in motion.

You know what I mean?

So if you're having a bad day, and you go and you kick a can and it goes in front of a car and hits that car, and you're like, "Oh," you know?

And then that person's like, "Hey, why'd you do that?"

Then the energy transfers, everything transfers, 'cause energy can't be created or destroyed and it's always transferred.

So when I leave this earth, or when I leave this physical form, I want my spirituality and my emotions to be in a good way so it can come back in a good way.

- The traditional part is that we always give thanks and we pray with our prayer meal, our corn meal, and give thanks for allowing the mother earth to take the clay and the paint so that we can continue to survive on it.

But that's where I've learned all about my clay and how I grew up with it.

- Oh, as a teacher, she's the best.

The best teacher I had around.

The only teacher that I had around, you know what I mean?

'Cause whether it was at school, 'cause I was going with her to school every day, you know?

Like, I was always there and she would help me with my schoolwork and stuff like that.

But just as a teacher in life, she's the best.

- He's doing it right.

He's usually always got a feel for it.

And then the thing with Jayce is, you don't have to tell him about the next step.

He's always thinking ahead.

So, okay, this is what's gonna happen now, and then we're just gonna build it up.

- [Jayce] You want like this?

- [Rose] Yeah, just exactly.

Just perfect.

Then we can start building it up around.

- She waits for me to mess up, so that I can fix it.

So she can teach me how to fix it.

'Cause she's not always gonna be there, you know?

(ethereal music continues) She means the world to me.

- [Interviewer] Really?

- Yes.

Like, if there's any way that I can, you know, take anything that she's ever taught me, it's just the love that she has and the support that she gives our whole entire family.

It's just, she's the backbone.

She keeps everyone in line, and she keeps everyone straight and on the right path and going in the right direction.

And that's the beautiful thing about it, and I wish I could give that to my kids and to my family.

(ethereal music concludes) - Jayce, who happens to be the only male apprentice in the series, I've noticed, he is particularly eloquent and articulate in what learning the clay making and clay skills mean to him, isn't he?

- These art forms are really, really important to people.

They're really near and dear.

And so you'll often get really eloquent language coming out from folks, you know, that speaks to the importance of the tradition to themselves as an individual, to their family and to their broader culture.

- He talks about as well how, at least to him, you want to be in the right frame of mind.

- Yeah.

And I thought that was super interesting as well.

- Almost as if the clay will know if he's in a bad mood.

I mean, that's what I took.

And who's to say?

I'm certainly not gonna say he's wrong about that.

They get beautiful results.

- Right?

I believe him.

- Everything is art, he said.

And by implication, what that meant to me was everything is art including the dirt on the ground.

If you have a purpose for it, a technique for it, an intention for it, what, a respect for it, a reverence for it.

- Again, this is not just art to them, it ties into a broader cultural belief system.

To me it's absolutely an artistic process with beautiful results that come out of it.

And I find that it's often more about process and context rather than product and content.

- It's something that way, way, way back in the very beginning of whatever advanced us from the previous form of life that we had through our big brains, I guess, one of the first things we wanted to do was make art.

- Yeah, I think it's a fundamental aspect of the human experience, is making art.

- [Steve] Gotta have it.

- Yep.

(bright music)