Ex-fireman Ben White spent 31 years fighting the effects of f i r e a n d smoke only to work closely with fire and smoke on clay in retirement. The innovative potter recently displayed his work at the 10th annual Artesian Arts Festival in Sulphur, Oklahoma.
White graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with an arts degree in ceramics. After earning his degree, he became a firefighter in Edmond, Oklahoma. “ I experiment so much with smoke that the local firemen know that when they smell something, they have to check up on White and see if it’s just him doing something with clay,” he said.
His grandfather was a police officer in Ardmore, Oklahoma, who retired to become more involved in First American arts, making moccasins and doing beadwork. White, a Chickasaw citizen, f ollowed r ight in his footsteps. Young and impressed by his grandfather’s work, he went right into art during school. He learned many First American crafts that were practiced in his family.
“ I always came back to my love of clay,” he said. “ It’s so malleable and easy to move when you start, then it goes through different stages as it gets dryer and dryer, and finally it’s like stone after its fired. It’s permanent. People can find it years from now and wonder if I made it.”
White said he technically has been making art for 60 years but has gotten serious about it in the last five.
“I just keep experimenting. I think I’ve done everything, then I think of or read something and say, ‘ Well, maybe I can try something else.’ The other day I took some white and very red clay, mixed it in layers, and tried to make a pot out of it with varying degrees of success. It’s interesting because you never know what will happen.”
His first art classes were in jewelry and silverwork. He was encouraged to pursue his skills in pottery by his brother, a bead worker. “ He kept pushing me toward Chickasaw pottery. In fact, when volunteers were being called to demonstrate at the Chickasaw Annual Meeting and Festival, my brother said, ‘ Oh, Ben could do that!’ And I said, ‘ OK, I will give it a shot.’” White is now a wellk nown potter and teacher in the Chickasaw community. He has taught classes all over the world. His work was also on display last year as well, at the Artesian Arts Festival in Sulphur.
“I went down to Tishomingo to do a pottery booth there. The kids like to come and play with the clay. Clay itself is not very expensive like jewelry making materials might be,” he said. “ When I was in Africa, I taught pottery to a small group, showing them how to find clay in a local area. A kid went to find some clay and started teaching his own little pottery class.”
He self-taught Chickasaw pottery from studying the designs recorded in books and artifacts from the Mississippi Valley area. He explained that no one can really know exactly what the original pottery looked like or how it was made, and that part of the cultural potter's job is to piece together the clues and do their best to create what you think the process and product would have looked like.
“ I try to use every modern convenience known to man to try to come up with something half as good as they came up with a stick and a flat board,” he chuckled. “ It was amazing what they did with what they had.”
White started with making peace pipe bowls out of clay that he fired so they could withstand the heat of lit tobacco. He would make them wooden stems, as he had some background in woodworking. Then he would put beadwork and fur on leather pieces to decorate them. His background in all these crafts culminated in helping him create his finished, unique pieces.
“ If you put in the time in different areas that interest you, you would be surprised where one area might help another,” he continued. “ You’re going to mess up on your first couple of pieces. Just about the only way to not have mistakes is to not try to do anything.'
White’s latest experiment is combining traditional basket weaving with pottery by weaving straw through holes in clay to make a creative hybrid of two cultural crafts.
This year’s Artesian Art’s Festival featured First American artists, live music, dance performances, food trucks and more. The market offered a vast selection of art including paintings, pottery, jewelry, sculpture, beadwork, textiles, basketry and metalwork.
For more information, visit ArtesianArtsFestival. com.
