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Michael Cornelius doesn’t consider himself an artist.

An abundant collection of gold and silver medallions earned in First American art markets seems to contradict this sentiment.

A Chickasaw preservationist, Cornelius earned these awards for cultural objects he has created most of his life such as Native flutes, bows, arrows, blow guns, arrow quivers, drums, jewelry, basketry, and various Chickasaw-style weapons and shields.

“The items that other people see as art, it’s just what I do,” Cornelius explained.

In his youth, he developed a keen understanding of his Chickasaw heritage and how cultural items are intertwined with cultural identity, with the help of family members.

His Chickasaw uncle, Byron Maytubby, taught him to craft longbows at the age of 12, and to hunt birds, squirrels and small game.

“We went and cut an ash tree with the ax, and he showed me how to make one. That’s when I started making bows, and I’ve been making them ever since,” said the 69-year-old artist.

Cornelius is constantly in the process of making a longbow or searching the woods for materials for his next project.

His mission for creating traditional Chickasaw art is simple: he wishes to maintain the knowledge of the craft and pass it on to others, just as his uncle did for him.

About 35 years ago, Cornelius began making traditional flutes and developed a connection with Native flutes so strong it has become a part of his identity.

Cornelius has taught dozens of classes on crafting and playing the instrument and performed Native flute concerts across the globe.

“Everybody that sees me says, ‘Oh, you’re the flute guy,’” he said.

In fact, he has crafted so many hand-carved flutes in the past decade he has lost count. Using a wide variety of wood or bamboo cane, Cornelius carves each exclusively by hand, including the two interior chambers.

“There are two different kinds (of flutes), the kind that’s made from bamboo cane, it doesn’t take as long. But the flip side, a hand-carved, I hand carve them inside and out, takes me about 34 hours to make one.”

The results are magnificent, and each flute is one-of-a kind. Cornelius’ flutes have taken the shape of gar fish, complete with detailed scales, a metallic sheen and teeth which resemble tiny needles. Others resemble majestic swans and cranes or are more traditional. His works of art are on

Michael Cornelius display in facilities throughout the Chickasaw Nation.

“When something becomes a passion, I guess it can become a piece of art. I really never figured my flutes were art. I just made them and enjoy them,” Cornelius said.

Once he learned how to craft the flute, he became skilled at playing it and began composing his own music, something very few artists do.

“To play a flute is one thing. To make one is something else, but to find a person that can make and play (one) is a rarity,” he said.

Cornelius has always had an interest in music and earned a music scholarship at Murray State College, Tishomingo, Oklahoma, in the 1970s. About the same time, he started listening to Native flute music. R. Carlos Naki (Navajo, Ute) is one of the first to revive the art and influenced Cornelius.

“It was sort of a Renaissance in the 1960s, but there were only a few flute makers and players around.”

After Cornelius retired from a four-decade career in education, he served the Chickasaw Nation for many years and worked in cultural resources at the Chickasaw Cultural Center. There, he continued his mission to pass on the craft to others.

“When I started at the cultural center, I didn’t know of any Chickasaw flute players. Now there are about seven who took an interest in it,” he said.

A consummate educator, Cornelius explained the historic connection between the flute and the Chickasaw people, who made river cane flutes and ball stick whistles, a form of a river cane flute.

“They would use that to distract opponents during stickball games,” he said.

First American tribes have always used flutes, Cornelius said, pointing to the Anasazi flute, which was discovered in Arizona in 1931 and dated between 620 and 670 AD. The Beltrami flutes, named for an Italian explorer who collected them in the 1820s while exploring the Mississippi River and sent them to Italy, are known as the oldest existing Indigenous flutes.

Although Cornelius retired from the Chickasaw Nation in 2016, his drive to share the culture, as well as preserve the Chickasaw language, has continued.

“I haven’t stopped on my flute journey,” he said.

He launched a First American flutist service and continues to perform at events such as receptions, weddings and concerts.

Take a Bow

– Pass it on

Creating art is engrained in Cornelius. In addition to crafting Native flutes, he continues to create longbows, which are also made exclusively by hand, and can take anywhere from a month to a year to complete.

He selects the wood, typically hickory, bois d’arc, ash or mulberry, and lets the stave cure for two to five years before shaping the bow.

“Being in nature and harvesting is a beautiful thing, too. Taking a piece of raw wood and turning it into something that is pleasing to the eyes is remarkable. To take it from one point to another, it just takes a lot of patience. You have to read the wood. Work with the wood. Troubleshoot the grain. No two are alike. Each one is unique,” he said.

Education

Cornelius said his Chickasaw heritage comes from his mother, Eulita “Lita” Maytubby Cornelius. His maternal grandfather, Silas Maytubby, was an original enrollee.

He grew up in a military family. His father, Thurice Cornelius, served in three branches of the military – Navy, Army and Air Force – and served in three conflicts, including World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Born in the Philippine Islands, Cornelius grew up in far-flung locations such as Turkey, Arizona and New Mexico before his family returned to the Mill Creek, Oklahoma, area.

After completing high school at Mill Creek, Cornelius attended Murray State College and East Central University, Ada, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He received a master’s degree in behavioral science from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant. He later attended Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota, and earned a teacher and principal licensure from the University of Juneau, Anchorage, Alaska.

During his career in education, Cornelius served as a teacher, counselor, psychologist, academic adviser, and other roles in Oklahoma, Minnesota and Alaska, at postsecondary, tribal, public and state institutions.

He is a firm believer that education lifts up the individual and is key to modern survival.

“The modern warrior is the one who has education. Historically, we used the bow for survival, and today we use our education for survival,” he said.

Cornelius is participating in the Artesian Arts Festival for the first time in seven years.

He marvels at the progress of the Chickasaw Nation in the last four decades. He served the tribe beginning in 1976 as an intern for the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) program, the sole federal program at the time.

“Where we started to where we are today, Governor Anoatubby has done a wonderful job,” he said.

“The Chickasaw Nation is doing a lot of remarkable things, and to be a part of that creates a lot of pride. A person needs to be proud to say, ‘I am Chickasaw, and I belong to a strong tribe,’ it speaks for itself in a lot of ways.”

Cornelius lives near Sulphur with his wife, Patti. Together, the couple has 21 grandchildren, who are learning the art of creating traditional art, such as the longbow.

About the Artesian

Arts Festival

Open to the public at no charge, the Artesian Arts Festival takes place 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. at the Artesian Plaza, adjacent to the Artesian Hotel and Spa, 1001 W. First St., Sulphur, Oklahoma on April 22..

For more information, contact Chickasaw Nation Arts & Humanities at (580) 272-5520, visit ArtesianArtsFestival.com or email ArtistInfo@Chickasaw. net.

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Gajin Fujita is a uniquely Los Angeles artist. Born to Japanese parents, Fujita (b. 1972) came up creatively during the 1980’s and ’90s in two of city’s influential graffiti crews, K2S and KGB. In the decades since, Fujita has defined a distinctive visual language that blends imagery from traditional Japanese culture—think samurai warriors and mythical beasts—with imagery from the city’s own unique culture.  

In his current solo exhibition “True Colors” at L.A. Louver, Fujita has created a dynamic world that melds Japanese ukiyo-e figures from the Edo period, including deities and beasts, with scenes pulled from the complexity of our own times. The works are also an homage to his native city. In Home Field LA (2020), the artist’s only self-portrait in the show, the artist is shown looking down on the skyline of downtown L.A. from the house where he grew up, the scene overlaid with patterns of Eastern textiles.  

Courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver.

He creates these multimedia works that blend spray paint, gold leaf, and drawing in his unique workspace—a deck and compact studio in the back of the Echo Park home he shares with his wife, photographer Angela Fujita. In this small space, Fujita stockpiles spray paint, stencils, and a surprising amount of art by the street artists he grew up with.  

Recently, he brought us in to his creative space and gave us a glimpse into his creative practice.  

Tell us about your studio. Where is it, how did you find it, what kind of space is it?
My studio is in Echo Park, Los Angeles. It’s a tiny, detached building that came with a wooden deck when I got my home in 2012. I do all my spraying out on the deck, and the studio itself is more of a storage space for all my materials. It’s cold during the winters and hot during the summers. 

Photo by Angela Fujita, courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver.

What made you choose this particular studio over others?
I chose this particular spot because I was looking for a home close to downtown, with a large outdoor where I could work. 

Do you have studio assistants or other team members working with you? What do they do?
So, I usually work alone, but on occasion I will have someone like my brother assist me in gilding gold leaf. I also have my fraternity of graffiti crew members come out and add flavor into the paintings with their tags. 

How many hours do you typically spend in the studio, what time of day do you feel most productive, and what activities fill the majority of that time?
Typically, I try to put in about 4 to 7 hours in the studio. My prime hours of playing with my paints will be in the afternoon to right before the sun starts to set. I try to fill most of my time in the studio to paint, but there are several different processes that involve making my paintings. There are times I will be working on gilding gold leaf onto the surfaces of the paintings, or at times I would be working on drawings and cutting out stencils in preparation to paint. 

Photo by Angela Fujita, courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver.

What is the first thing you do when you head to your studio?
I usually turn on some music after opening my studio. I’ve been listening to old hip hop radio shows, specifically the Stretch & Bobbito shows from the ‘90s. It was a show that came on after midnight on Thursday nights on WKCR 89.9 NYC. Lots of hip hop band mixtapes from the ‘90s like A Tribe Called Quest to the DITC. I like mixtapes because they’re continuous music for over an hour or more, so it doesn’t cause any interruption during work.

What is a studio task on your agenda this week that you are most looking forward to?
I’m always looking forward to painting or playing with paints and colors! Also preparing the stencils, cutting out the paper stencils with the X-Acto knife. After preparing the stencil I love handling the spray paint and actually making color choices spraying these colors with the use of the stencil. I also love to see the results of what I painted and the revealing phase of when you pull the stencil off the surface. 

What tool or art supply do you enjoy working with the most, and why? Please send us a snap of it.
I like my spray paints, they’re like a basketball to a basketball player.

Photo by Angela Fujita, courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver.

What kind of atmosphere do you prefer when you work? Is there anything you like to listen to/watch/read/look at etc. while in the studio for inspiration or as ambient culture?
Atmospherically, I like to be by myself and will have some sort of hip hop mix bumping while I paint. And when I’m in the studio I like reading and looking through books of Ukiyo-e woodblock print masters. Also, sometimes I just like listening to what’s going on in the environment surrounding me.

How do you know when an artwork you are working on is clicking? How do you know when an artwork you are working on is a dud?
I try to approach my paintings with a composition that’s planned in advance, so when I start painting, I’m working on something that’ll click and transpire into my vision.  

A black-and-white photograph by Angela Fujita, above a painting by the artist’s friend, Alex “Defer” Kizu. Photo by Angela Fujita, courtesy of the artist and L.A. Louver.

What images or objects do you look at while you work? Do you have any other artist’s work in your studio? If so, please share a phone pic and tell the story behind it.
I look at a lot of colors with the spray paints I have in my studio. Also I do have a few of my friends’ artworks on the walls and in the studio. I have a work by Jesse Simon, my old friend from middle school who is also a member of KGB graffiti crew, and another by Kevin Bays, who was my classmate in graduate school. I also have a work by graffiti artist Miner WCA, and a painting by CAB K2S, an old childhood friend from the neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Next to CAB’s painting is an image of the LA Public Library card I collaborated with them on in 2019 using the image of my painting Guardian Angel (2016). There is also a photo on the wall taken and printed by my wife Angela Lee Fujita in 1992. It is a double exposure with one of the exposures being my torso. Lastly, there’s a painting leaning against a wall by an old friend and artist from middle school, Alex “Defer” Kizu. Defer is a member from the K2S graffiti crew. He painted this painting spontaneously and impulsively on a thick piece of watercolor paper. 

What’s the last museum exhibition or gallery show you saw that really affected you and why?
The last shows that had a huge effect on me were the Caravaggio and the Japanese armor shows that I saw at LACMA. With Caravaggio, I was just in awe to be standing in front of these paintings created by one of my heroes more than 400 years ago. With the Japanese armor show, I was fascinated how these armors made for Japanese warriors 500 years ago were made with not only protective designs in mind but had a lot of aesthetics and creative designs implied—as well with great craftsmanship. 

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