Chester Cowen teaches Martha Plunkett about beaded neck dresses during a class held at the Durant community center on March 4.
Proud Choctaw Artist shares his story
By Brandon Frye
Choctaw Nation
Chester Cowen was born to a Choctaw mother and Chickasaw father in Chickasha.
His parents stressed learning family history to the young Chester, and he would spend time with his Choctaw grandmother, often staying with her for three months in the summer.
“I was between first and second grade when I was sitting at my grandmother’s dining room table drawing the poinsettias on the Christmas table,” Cowen remembered. “Those are the first times I remember spending prolonged time in an artistic area.”
He added his early days doodling were mostly play, he didn’t get heavily into his own art until a little later in life. His interests in art and culture were apparent throughout, though, and after finding role models and elders to guide him, he found himself interacting more with Native art and identity.
“My first beading experience was in 1957, when a Comanche elder, George McVey, taught me Comanche style beading,” Cowen said. And because he did not have Choctaw beaders close to him, he would attend events and have elder women criticize his work.
Chester was 18 when he learned from McVey, and their relationship even lead Chester into traditional dancing and traveling with a dance troupe.
By the time he entered college at Oklahoma University, he was studying cultures across the globe through their art, and producing his own as a student double majoring in Anthropology and Art.
During his exploration into art and culture, he had waited on camel paths in Ethiopia bargaining to buy the combs riders would wear on their heads. Chester said he could tell a lot about the engravings on these combs, about the person who made and wore them.
He also spent time in Guatemala looking into Mayan materials. He constantly came in contact with earthenware pottery. Pottery was one of his artforms of choice. He enjoyed it so much, and produced so much, that professors in the art department would exclaim they couldn’t afford to have him.
“Pottery is where I first got into art, hands-on, extensively. I would still like to get back into it, but when you are working with ceramic bodies, you have to keep a particular kind of schedule,” Cowen said. “So, that was one reason for moving into something like beadwork. With beadwork, I can fold it up, and then open it up any place and work on it when I have a slot of open time.”
Now, beadwork is what Chester Cowen is known for, and though he makes it a point to be knowledgeable in regards to the beading of many cultures, he specializes in Choctaw beadwork.
“The Choctaws mainly do two types of stitches in their traditional beadwork: net beading is the predominant one for almost all women’s materials, and if we move to men’s material, we see more standing beads, which is an exclusively Choctaw stitch,” Cowen said.
With standing bead stitching, the beads are literally standing on edge, they don’t have another bead supporting it on each side. This stitch can be found on items such as baldrics, or belts worn over the shoulder, among other pieces.
Net beading resembles a fishing net, and is associated with places where the streams are fairly large, where the people practice the harvesting of fish using nets. “With the construction of nets, you are doing basically the same construction as when you make a net-beaded collar,” Cowen explained.
“You’ve got to stop and think about from where the Choctaws were removed. If you don’t think that you are dealing with fishing, then you’ve really got to get down there and get swamped,” he added.
According to Dr. Ian Thompson, Director of Historic Preservation, Choctaws have been a fishing people for thousands of years. Before removal, in the summer time, Choctaw people netted fish, speared them, shot them with fish arrows, poisoned them, trapped them, and “noodled”. Ian also said some Choctaw groups went to the coast each winter to gather clams and catch fish, to smoke and store for the next year.
To honor these Choctaws of the past, Chester Cowen starts all of his beadwork pieces by threading the first bead without the use of a needle. “This is in respect and honor of the work done by our ancestors before Europeans introduced metal needles,” Cowen said.
Choctaw-specific beadwork doesn’t stop there. Design and color also play a large role in making beadwork ours.
“What are the colors used in traditional Choctaw beadwork?” Cowen asked, wanting to give a quick lesson.
“Primarily, until about the 1950’s, it was dominated by red, white, and black. The symbolism was white being death or ancestors, the red and black however were the colors of warriors. And so you have the concept of longevity of the tribe represented by the bones through time, but you have the fact that it existed as a tribe by the defense of that color. Those three colors, simple as they are, express a whole lot. We have existed for a long time, and we will continue to exist. And that is just the color alone, before we get to what the patterns are saying,” he explained.
Chester stressed these concepts are owned by the people, not the individual making a piece of art. “Since I tend to work with the older forms of Choctaw beading, my inspiration comes from the examples that the people have left behind, the unsigned examples. Because that’s one of the things about beadwork, it’s kind of hard to do a signature.”
Hard though it may be, Cowen has found a way to occasionally place a signature on his beadwork pieces. He used the rim of his ball cap, which he often wears, to illustrate this signature.
“I will do a particular row of lane stitch beading, showing two rattlesnakes converging. This comes from one of the legends of origin for the Choctaw people, that we and the Chickasaws were at one time the same people. When the tribe got to the Mississippi river, there was a splitting of the tribes. When my father and mother got married, it was the two tribes coming back together, and I am the offspring of that coming back together. So I use the rattle snake, the guardian of our stomp dance grounds, as the motif for designating that’s who I am,” Cowen explained.
Cowen has found much success with his beadwork, having his artwork on display in museums and for sale at locations in Oklahoma, Texas, and across the U.S. He said he owes some of that success to his tendency to donate his work to organizations, especially the ones aimed at preserving and teaching the culture.
He is a proponent of the Choctaw culture and historical art, and this is one of his biggest drives. “I’m not out looking for awards,” he said, “but I do enjoy teaching, and trying to continue the tradition, and exploring the tradition. I’m 75, I’m going to be around for x-amount of years. This is an old tradition within the tribe. I want it to continue and be an active tradition, and you only do that by passing it on.”
Chester Cowen believes everyone needs to be able to relate to their individual history, and do that by going back to the places and people where their blood takes them. He also believes we should be proud to express that identity.
“So, what are the simple things we can do to allow a Choctaw to identify themselves as Choctaw?” he asked. Then he pointed out simple things like the earrings a woman wears every day, a ball cap a veteran might wear, or the belt buckle he wears most times when he goes out.
“For me, this helps to give the person an identity, and a pride, and a way of showing it. There is no question when you look at these things that you are dealing with a Choctaw. If you pass me in the hallway or on the street, you can tell that I’m Choctaw and proud of it!”