Transcript:

[Joyce J. Scott] Hi, Sandy! It’s Joyce Scott, how are you?

[Sandy Fife Wilson] I’m doing fine. How are you?

[Scott] Haven’t talked to you in a long while. You know, my exhibition encompasses so many beaded pieces. And who did I learn the peyote diagonal weaving stitch from? I think her name was Sandy.

[Fife Wilson] Sandy Fife Wilson. [Both laugh] Yes, I remember that.

[Scott] Yeah, well, it was the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and I was a student in your class. When did you learn the peyote stitch?

[Fife Wilson] Oh, when I was like 15. And I’m 73 now, so it’s been a while. I’m a member of, an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation here in Oklahoma. We now have a reservation here. We do this, a lot of the beaders do it, just like for lanyards, earrings, bolos, all kinds of decorative things. Even around salt and pepper shakers. It’s used on everything that you can go around.

[Scott] You know, Sandy, my first teacher was my mother and my first bead teacher was she. She taught me bead embroidery. After I got really good at doing that, then I went back to add materials to my work, and I made a really special piece for myself that’s called “Joyce’s Necklace.” It has things that I collected my whole life. So when I learned the peyote stitch from you, it allowed me to make up my own rules with the peyote stitch as the basis. Kind of a departure from what you taught me! Ha ha!

[Fife Wilson] I love it! You just keep on going from there.

[Scott] I really believe that I’m supposed to say thank you and to honor the person who taught me to do the technique. And from it, I changed my direction. So, thanks!

[Fife Wilson] You’re welcome, I’m glad. One thing about it is that it was always real neat, and precise. And you can put in a row of beads and go every other bead, you put a new bead on, or you can skip two beads and put it on, and that makes it more diagonal.

[Scott] “What You Mean Jungle Music” was the one that I made right after I was a student of yours. That’s the one that also it has three dimensional figures in it. In this piece, “What You Mean Jungle Music” it’s got like an orange face at the top. And then it’s got Run from Run-DMC at the bottom. And that one is about hip hop and the music from all of the popular kind of music and dances that African Americans were so inventive with, that were co-opted and blended into a culture without giving us credit. So, you know, the idea that it’s called jungle music. But I looked at all the other white people are jumping up and doing it…Oh, I guess it’s not jungle music anymore.

[Fife Wilson] You have incorporated all these pictures and Chuck Berry and the faces. And I love looking at the faces in your work because, they’re so three dimensional. I was wondering, do you start with a certain part of the face and then go from there?

[Scott] What I’ve generally found myself doing is working with the nose first, because, you know, you then know how big the lips and the eyes should be.

[Fife Wilson] There’s so much to see in your work. And I’m so proud of you, all you’ve done.

[Scott] Thank you very much for talking to me.

[Fife Wilson] Oh, it’s a pleasure.

[Scott] Take care, my love.

[Fife Wilson] You too.