Nixon, Naranjo & Underwood on Native American art and Sculpture

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Mr. President.

Mr. President, this is Michael Naranjo and his sister, Ms. Gunning.

How are you, Mr. Conrad?

How are you?

Very glad to see you and meet you here in the Oval Office of the White House.

Mr. Conrad's mother, how do you do, ma'am?

Mr. Conrad, how do you do?

I'm happy to have you here.

Are you studying how you do that, Mike?

I would imagine somehow you retain certain things that you feel very close to.

Being a dancer is very close to being my people, therefore he stayed well within me.

The feeling was strong and with this feeling somehow I was able to create him.

You did this, you molded it in clay first?

I molded it in wax.

In wax, I see.

Then it was taken to a foundry and casted.

Have you done it before as a youngster or did you just take it up?

No, I did a few things prior to... You've been interested in it.

You have an artistic bent on it.

Well, I believe all art.

All art is family.

I see.

I know that the reason I ask is because I couldn't do any.

It's one of my worst subjects.

I've been doing this for a long time.

Yes, let's have a seat.

I just believe the property is too heavy to lift.

Let's have you come over here.

Objective here.

You might understand what I'm saying.

You wouldn't if you put your hand on it.

That would give us an idea of how you made it.

You know, the Director of Revenue and Securities here, Doc Thompson, he just had another job.

Yeah, I know.

I didn't see him.

I didn't come see him.

He just brought me.

He took me to Cary.

I bet.

He took me to Cary.

Oh, I used to go to Cary.

What did you say I heard about, Doc?

Yeah.

I'm very proud of that.

Good luck.

Ha, ha.

That's right.

Have a good note of the night.

I'll see you later.

This is done entirely from memory.

Entirely from memory.

Why don't you go ahead and tell the writing press to come back in.

I don't want to hear about this.

This is Mr. Frank Barnier of the Associated Press.

And Mr. Thomas of the United Press.

Can you tell us a word by word as to how you did this?

It's something just like you told us, so it doesn't hurt.

Go ahead.

Something you feel very strong.

The dancer, the dancer who presents me, gave me a very strong...

He described it.

How he did it.

Very high.

Something you feel, go ahead.

Feeling this inside you for your people, the whole meaning of the dance, it comes out within you.

You sit there and you work and you get such a very strong feeling for it.

You don't stop for anything.

It's just overwhelming.

And I don't know how it comes out, but it's there.

It's something that your hand does.

Did you mold this in wax in the first instance?

And over what period of time did you work on it?

I probably thought about it for four months before I started working, and then probably two weeks of constant work on it, anywhere to 15 hours a day, all hours of the day, constant.

Have you seen the dance?

It's a beautiful work.

It really is a marvelous, beautiful work.

I know nothing about art, but you can feel that as he describes it, can't you?

What did you tell him?

Well, I heard it's 600,000 dollars.

He has done so much for this country on his service.

He's made such a great sacrifice.

And for him to create this work of art, and my view, not being an expert, but a beautiful work of art, coming as it does from his heart, about his people, and of course our first people,

And he also demonstrates again that someone who may have had a misfortune, a handicap, doesn't give up.

It doesn't matter that that may lead him to create something he might never have created before.

Otherwise, he's demonstrated again the earnest

the strength of the character of an individual has, and that he has, to rather than just sit and complain about it, the bad fate with which he sucks at it,

to work and create something of beauty.

So it's a fine example for all of us to be all sweet and close to what he did.

So we thank you, and I hope y'all say very much.

And I just wish you very, very good years ahead.

You're continuing this work, are you not?

Yes, sir.

Mr. Berman, he had a whole display of importance in the library of the Central Office.

Interestingly, he's moving some of his activities into biblical figures and Greek mythology, as well as the Indian background.

Let me show you something that might be a bit discerning from a historical standpoint.

Here's a, uh, here's a figure that came from Paris, uh, it's the second century AD.

And, uh, if you, if you feel a, if you feel a profile, you'll note it has a very interesting characteristic.

It is a Greek place.

And what happened, what happened is, is that I understand that the person, and this is also true, I had over in my office a Greek Buddha, they call him a Greek Buddha, the king of Afghanistan, from the same area, in the 3rd century A.D. And he explained to me that the reason the Buddha is in that part of the world, the A.D.

where greed was a, it's a, it's why the greed culture was swept out of that part of the world.

It stopped there.

And so, go ahead and figure out then you get a greed case in Pakistan.

You see, you see that there's the, and also the, you know, given that, given the chief office.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Now we'd like to give you a few mementos here.

Yeah.

We have a couple of them.

Here's a money clip with the presidential seal on it.

I mean, you can put money on it if you want.

And here's the presidential couplets.

Do you want to feel what it is?

That's the seal of the United States.

Now, that same seal is in the ceiling of this room and on the floor of the rug.

To get out of it, what you have on the floor here, you can feel the stars right here.

Feel the stars.

And move it, move it this way.

See, it goes clear around.

Now come over here, you can feel the eagle.

See?

And on the other side, the palm.

That's all woven into the rug.

Now, get over here to the palm.

There it is.

Now, all of that is in this couplet.

So, these couplets are your money clip.

And we have one of these little thirds for you, Clarence, and then we have a bow for you.

And we also have a couplet for you, Sandy.

We wish you the best.

We're very, we can be very proud of your heritage.

I mean, of your people.

My coach in school was a lost woman.

They called him Gene, the marvelous man.

Played at the University of Southern California.

One of their great stars back in 1923.

30 to 34.

Strong man.

Still is.

We will say goodbye and hope you enjoy your stay here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We want you to return to it.

That was what you got.

For all that you did in this country, I invite you to try something you should have.

Thank you.

Now we hope that you as well.

Bye.

Goodbye.

Thank you.

You're going to be the guide, aren't you?

Pretty good.

The guide is... Oh.

Were you out there, though?

No, sir.

Great.

This is a very moving thing.

Thanks for... No, Don.

Oh, that's one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen.

He got in his hands.

He's got a godlike face, hasn't he?

He has.

In many braids, on a horse, you can feel the backbone.

So he trained her.

One thing you might do is to tell Helen Thomas or somebody that I was your marketplace, that I was so impressed with the beauty of this space and the sensitivity of these hands.

Yeah.

Okay.

Very proud to have you with us.

Nixon, Naranjo & Underwood on Native American art and Sculpture

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on September 24, 1971

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