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Jun 03, 2023

Tulsa native gives new life to Totem Pole Park

The 90-foot totem pole at Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park is billed as the world's tallest concrete totem pole. The totem pole has been restored in this photo, but The Cement Tree has not yet been

The 90-foot totem pole at Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park is billed as the world's tallest concrete totem pole. The totem pole has been restored in this photo, but The Cement Tree has not yet been repainted.

Artist Erin Turner is seen repainting an area of the Ed Galloway Totem Pole in 2015.

The "Cement Tree" is seen after its repainting.

Detail of the Ed Galloway Totem Pole.

An aerial view of Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park is seen.

Artist Erin Turner is an artist who has since 2015 worked to repaint and restore Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park near Foyil.

The "Cement Tree" at Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park before repainting. It was the last structure Galloway completed before his death in 1962.

Detail of the "Cement Tree" sculpture is seen.

Former Tulsan Erin Turner used silicate paints to refurbish the surface of the totem pole, matching as closely as possible to the original color scheme.

Ed Galloway said he created the totem pole as a tribute to Native Americans, although no Oklahoma tribes have a tradition of totem building.

A detail of the top of the 90-foot totem pole after repainting.

Tulsa World Scene Writer

As a young artist growing up in Tulsa, Erin Turner became fascinated with “Outsiders.”

Not the S.E. Hinton novel, nor the feature film adapted from it. “Outsiders” refers to a group of artists, mostly self-taught, who created their own worlds, often using found objects and unconventional methods to fulfill their unique, eccentric visions.

And for years, she had no idea that a celebrated example of this very American way of making art was practically in her backyard — and that returning this environment to its original state would become a years-long project.

Totem Pole Park near Foyil is getting new life, thanks to a Tulsa native artist. James Watts, Jimmie Tramel and intern Lydia Fletcher discuss this and other Oklahoma roadside attractions.

Turner, a site-specific installation artist who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, has since 2015 worked to repaint and restore the concrete structures that are part of Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park near Foyil in Rogers County.

Travelers along historic Route 66 have made the short side trip to the park since the late 1940s, when Galloway completed the 90-foot totem pole that is the centerpiece of the park. The site, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, is now owned and operated by the Rogers County Historical Society.

But for Turner, the discovery of such a place so close to home came as something of a shock.

“I took an after-school painting course when I was in high school, and the teacher was a big proponent of outsider, or vernacular, art environments,” Turner said. “We even made a trip to Lucas, Kansas, which is a very popular destination because of a place called ‘The Garden of Eden,’ which is more than 100 years old.

“So I was very much aware of these sort of places from a pretty early age,” she said. “That’s why I pretty shocked to learn I had been living not that far from one for all these years.”

Galloway, a native of Springfield, Missouri, taught manual arts at the Sand Springs Children’s Home until his retirement in 1937, when he purchased land in Rogers County. There, until his death in 1962, Galloway built what is billed as the world’s largest concrete totem pole as the centerpiece of more than a dozen structures that occupy this area.

Turner learned about the park from Tulsa artist Kreg Kallenberger and made her first visit there shortly afterward. When the person in charge of the park’s gift shop mentioned they were looking for someone who would be willing to paint the structures, which despite past renovations had fallen into disrepair, Turner volunteered.

Since then, Turner and fellow artists have repainted the 90-foot-tall totem pole, as well as two of the other large structures on the property.

“Ed Galloway had used latex house paint that he got mostly from neighbors, and when the first renovations were done, they also used latex,” Turner said. “While I respect that, the problem is that kind of paint can fade over time, and it really isn’t made to be used on something with a concrete substructure.”

Turner and her colleagues instead made use of silicate paints, which are designed to bond with the surface to which they are applied and are noted for their durability and colorfastness. The color scheme mimics that of Galloway’s original colors, as is required by the National Register of Historic Places.

The most recently completed repainting was of the structure known as the “Cement Tree,” which Turner said was in the most extreme state of disrepair. Their work is far from done, she said.

“It was the last piece Ed Galloway completed before he died,” she said. “I think one reason why it got into such a state is that there are no holes that would allow any moisture that got into the structure to evaporate.”

While restoring the structures of the park to their original, colorful glory is paramount, Turner’s fascination with Galloway’s work goes far beyond figuring out what sort of paints should be used.

That is why, during the month of August, she is presenting a series of workshops and lectures, which Turner developed with collaborators Apollonia Piña and Jeremy Charles, titled “The Totem as Monument and Archive,” that will explore a number of ideas and issues prompted by Galloway’s work.

“It really goes beyond just the genre of artist-built environments,” Turner said. “As someone who grew up in this area and didn’t know about the park for years, I thought it would be good to shed a little light on this site and explore what the Totem Pole Park and similar sites signify and represent.”

The first session on workshops for “The Totem as Monument and Archive” took place Aug. 1-4. The next event will be a panel discussion-lecture featuring academics, artists, Indigenous rights activists and others, that examines the Totem Pole Park in a historic context. This will take place 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 6, at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, 1720 W. Will Rogers Blvd. in Claremore.

A second set of workshops will be held Aug. 16-20 at Totem Pole Park and will be followed by a second panel discussion-lecture 6 p.m. Aug. 20 at The Center for Public Secrets, 573 S. Peoria Ave., that will address ideas of Indigenous representation and cultural appropriation.

“Ed Galloway said that one of his reasons for building the totem pole was as a tribute to Native Americans, even though none of the tribes that live in Oklahoma are totem builders,” Turner said. “However, there is a totem pole park in Sitka, Alaska, that was set up in the early 1900s, and that could have been an inspiration for the Galloway totem pole.

“So that leads to questions about historical context and cultural appropriation,” she said. “At the same time, Ed Galloway insisted that admission to his park be free, which also leads to questions about community, and how environments like this one can help foster a community. There’s really so much to explore about this place.”

As for her own ideas as to Galloway’s motivations for creating the park and its structures, Turner believes it to be a very simple impulse.

“I think people like Ed Galloway and others who have created similar environments do so because they have an innate desire to create,” she said. “They built these incredible places simply because they needed to.”

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"The Totem as Monument and Archive," workshop and lecture series is centered on the Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park.

Workshops: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 16-20, at Ed Galloway Totem Pole Park, 21300 Oklahoma 28A, Chelsea (about 3 miles east of Route 66)

Lectures: 3 p.m. Aug. 6, at Will Rogers Memorial Museum Auditorium, 1720 W. Will Rogers Blvd., Claremore. Panelists are Pablo Barrera (Associate Curator at OK Contemporary), Russell Cobb (University of Alberta, author of “The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religions and Lies in America’s Weirdest State”), Annalise Flynn (SPACES Archive of the Kohler Foundation, Wisconsin), Emily L. Moore (Colorado State University, author of “Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks”), and Apollonia Piña (Indigenous activist and organizer for the Matriarch organization).

• 6 p.m. Aug. 20, at The Center for Public Secrets, 573 S. Peoria Ave. Panelists are Barrera, Tulsa Artist Fellows Ashanti Chaplin and Yatika Starr Fields, and Graham Lee Brewer (investigative reporter at NBC News covering Indigenous communities, President of the Native American Journalist Association).

Admission: Lectures are free. Workshops are $60 per day, which includes lunch. To register and more information: eturnerinstal.com/totem-as-monument-and-archive

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