Jereldine RedCorn of Norman may be the only person in the world who makes Caddo pottery on a regular basis.

"I know of one other person but that's the only one that I know and I'm not sure that she's doing that right now," RedCorn said during a recent interview.

"I had kind of heard about her but I don't know anybody else. I think I'm the only one."

The daughter of a Caddo father and a Potawatomi mother, RedCorn has been making Caddo pottery using traditional methods since 1994. To say that the process is not a quick one might be an understatement.

"When I start to design, I study what the old Caddos do and then my designs come from them. I use their designs," she said.

"So a lot of what I do is replication. I have to study and that is part of the process ... And a lot of times I'll be making two or three."

Another factor in the time it takes RedCorn to create a pot is that she doesn't use a potter's wheel but instead hand coils her pots with the assistance of wooden pottery tools.

"It isn't like throwing a pot where you can make one and make another and make another. I can't do that," she said.

The length of time it takes RedCorn to make a vessel, from start to finish, is "about two weeks to a month, maybe two or three weeks. Of course in that time the pot has to dry and you have to have a really fine day to fire. And by the time you get the design put on and you do some other things, it's a long process. I'm just estimating that."

RedCorn, the director of the first Red Earth Native American Cultural Festival in 1987, will be honored as the 2009 "Red Earth Honored One" at the 23rd annual Red Earth festival Friday through June 7 in downtown Oklahoma City.

"I'm so pleased," RedCorn said of being selected.

"I'm very happy ... In my opinion, what I like to do is teach and what I like to do is promote our market because that was one of the things that I really did, and I think I did well, at Red Earth.

"I taught here in Norman. I taught at Whittier (Middle School) for I think maybe three years and then I also taught in Oklahoma City. So that's my profession and I'm happy I could devote to this full-time. But I really do feel honored that I was selected among, you know, I'm sure that they had many, many people and I'm sure (the award is) partly for what I have done throughout my career in encouraging art and putting together shows and hopefully doing a little bit more of that if I have some time. But yes, I really feel great. I feel honored to be named."

RedCorn said the festival's growth over the past few decades is "a tribute to the founders who had a dream. Having it has encouraged many people because they're getting rewards here, whereas before, there were art shows at different places (and) they were small. And with Red Earth, the prize money has allowed the culture to grow, not just fine art but the powwow culture, that they have crafts and they have big work and they have really magnificent outfits, that they come forward."

A direct reflection of the festival's growth, she said, is the number of potters at Red Earth in recent years.

"In the first year of Red Earth, there was one potter from Oklahoma. And last year and the year before there were just countless, I can't remember how many. Cherokees had several people come, Chickasaws, and it is all because that Red Earth encouraged that, that competition. They would get better every year.

"So that's just one of the things that I am really proud of, that it has grown. It has made a big difference with artists, not only in Oklahoma but made the difference to artists across the United States, saying, 'We appreciate what you have done so we're raising the money.' And that speaks well for the state of Oklahoma and the legislators to help with money to put into Red Earth."

While there were many people who gave RedCorn advice, assistance and encouragement while she started out on her path as an artist, there are a few to whom she gives particular thanks.

"I of course would like to thank my husband," she said of her husband Charles, who crafts the wooden pottery tools she uses, assists her by finding the right fuel wood and otherwise helps in firing her pieces.

"I also would like to thank Justice Yvonne Kauger of the Supreme Court for her encouragement of the whole festival and also of me as an individual. And there is one person I always like to mention -- it's Dr. Don Wyckoff, who is curator at the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. He was very instrumental in helping me, letting me go through Caddo collections that are there. OU has an immense collection and he helped me in researching and I appreciate from the very beginning when I was struggling, to come in and say, 'This is really something. I'm really glad someone is stepping up to do this.'"

RedCorn has received many honors outside Oklahoma as well, including a planned display in the near future of some of her work in the Oval Office at the White House.

"It is wonderful. I don't know if it is there right now," she said, "but I feel so proud of myself but I'm also proud that the Caddos will have their names spread and the Caddo art form of pottery, that it can be recognized at such a high level.

"I'm just as proud being Caddo as having it on display. So those are my feelings. It really is kind of indescribable."

Education about Caddo culture and art is important, RedCorn said, especially when it comes to the ways in which the culture and artwork of the tribe, which lived in lands near the southern end of the Mississippi River before being removed, differ from those of other pottery-making tribes.

"One of the reasons that I started this is because we Caddos had really lost the art, really didn't know that we did this type of fine pottery making," she said.

"I've done a lot of lectures in Texas and the University of Texas was so pleased by what I did, they put me on their Web site. And I think the University of Oklahoma will. The (Sam Noble Oklahoma) Museum of Natural History, they have plans for that. But every time I would go to a place in Oklahoma they would always wonder. They're not familiar with my art and they're not familiar with the type of pottery that I do.

"So it's kind of like an education experience for them, that I get to tell about our tribe and our tribe's pottery, which is found right here in Oklahoma, down on the Red River, near Idabel, that's where the Caddos lived, and in Shreveport and in all those places.

"When you say you're a Caddo potter, I mean, when you say you're a Native American potter, they immediately think of Southwest designs. But these are from here and the Caddos had a wonderful pottery tradition. It's just that in the process of removal it had been lost. And I think that's the way with a lot of the tribes that were here like the Cherokees and the Choctaws, Chickasaws. There is wonderful art in the Mississippian culture but it had just died out and it's starting to come back. There are some individuals who carve shells and they're starting to really appreciate the art that was there in the Mississippian Southeast cultures."

The Caddo people's holding on to all the cultural elements they could in the face of forcible removal from their traditional lands was a seed of sorts that helped RedCorn immensely in reclaiming and developing her art.

She credits much of her inspiration and success to "the Caddo Nation's culture of keeping the songs and dances alive, because our songs and dances are very unique and not like other tribes'."

"We have the bear dance and the duck dance and the alligator dance and the bell dance. We have so many dances and they were kept for us and we've continued our traditions. Coming from being removed from the Red River, Shreveport and down in Louisiana and Texas, those are the things that happened there. Those traditions started perhaps 500 years ago and we're still continuing them. That is one thing that has kept me going, is letting people know more about our culture in many, many ways. And by doing that I think it helps the young Caddo people coming up and just young people in general, young artists."

Teaching the methods she has revived to those future generations of young artists is a crucial part of preserving the methods and the art form RedCorn has brought back.

"I have taught workshops at different times and I have taught some young Caddos in this area, in Norman or in Binger and there was one woman that was my apprentice. She still is but she hasn't been able to really do anything recently," she said.

"Now I'm planning a workshop in the fall and I'm hoping to take on someone else, maybe on a weekly basis or do some classes. I've done lectures. Basically it's really a matter of not having the time. If I had time I would be doing this. So it's kind of like you either do the work or you try to teach. So I'm hoping that in the next year I may be able to do something like that. I have had a workshop/seminar of about 30 Caddos in the Oklahoma City and Norman area but so far none of them have started (as professional artists)."

Finding time to create Caddo pots using time-consuming traditional methods and tools may be a factor in the slow growth of new Caddo potters.

"It's hard," RedCorn said.

"It's laborious work because I hand coil and I fire with wood and I burnish with a stone. I try to do it the old way, the traditional method. It's a long process that I attempted to learn and did and did master. Students are very interested but it requires a commitment and that commitment has to do with time also. But I am trying and hoping that others will take this up."

RedCorn said most Native American children and adults have a creative side and can benefit greatly from tapping into it, "even if you don't know you have it."

RedCorn admits she didn't realize she had an artistic side at first and "wasn't trained in art, but it was a creative experience for me and my children could say, 'You can do this, you can do this.' My daughter is trained in art and she was the one saying, 'You know ...'"

But RedCorn will be the first to acknowledge becoming an artist is not the sort of thing that just happens without effort and time.

"(Y)ou need to practice. You need to have patience. But the big thing that happens to you is, I would encourage them to study your past and study a lot of different art forms and that it will be a challenge but it will also be a, really I want to say, blessing, but it will be a real addition to your life, and I think all of us need that feeling of stroking our spirit inside, for lack of a better word.

"Helping them to understand that it really is a sign of growth and it's a sign of, I think a lot of artists are very helpful to the society. In those ways I think it will help them grow as a person, because it really has helped me and I was pretty old when I started this."

For more information on the 2009 Red Earth festival, visit www.redearth.org.

Adam Scott 366-3533 pop@normantranscript.com