- Well, my artwork is a part of the tradition of our people.

There's quite a few mask makers through the years that's been well known.

And I hope to be one of those that keep the art alive.

Osiyo.

I'm Billy Welch, from Snowbird Community.

I'm a teacher and a wood carver, and I own the shop Hunting Boy Wood Carving, just off 143 in Graham County.

The name comes from where I live.

We live on Hunting Boy Branch on up the Creek, on the reservation.

And it's where I grew up.

Means a lot to me for the cultural side of it.

Some people may not understand that, but it's kind of like a home.

It's your home.

That's where it's based with me is it's my home.

My ancestors walked here, camped here, hunted here, fished here, all the way back to the beginning of time, from what I understand.

All the traditions were handed down.

For my part of it, my grandmother and her family made baskets.

All summer long, they would work and gather their materials to make the basket, and then they'd weave all winter along by the fire.

And that would be what you would produce for a product for the spring to sell.

They were made from white oak, split, quartered, scraped.

We used the natural dyes.

And that influence probably brought me to where I am today with what I do.

So we're here at my home place on Hunting Boy to collect a little bit of bloodroot.

A little early in the spring, but we'll see what it looks like here.

If it works, we'll have some orangish red tint to put on the mask.

This is what it looks like in the woods.

And here's a young one.

This is what you look for.

You can see, like the toes, print of a hand.

That one's not too bad.

So we're gonna break this off.

You see the red blood coming out of the root?

That's what we're looking for.

This would've been used for the basket making too.

They require a lot more of it.

For me, it don't take as much.

That's why I have the little patch, and it'll come back every year.

Well, I work for Graham County schools through the tribe.

The program is called the Graham County Indian Education.

And we have been making different various crafts and the kids go out and we learn to gather, make and give them the history and background of it.

We found a walnut tree here that the power company had cut.

So we're gonna get some of the bark, see if it'll work for the dying of the mask.

It may be too dry, the block says.

We're gonna try to take some bark off the stump.

Yeah, this is really good.

See the yellowish looking, still has the sap and you can see here, it's pushing it up?

So this is the part we're looking forward to dye with.

That's where we're gonna get the color from.

And some of the life from this tree is going to go live on through the mask.

[wood splitting] Gonna look good on the mask, and we didn't waste nothing from the Earth.

Why I have my store out off the, I guess you could call it the beaten path, and not in town, it being on tribal land, this is as close as I could get to town.

I gather the wood around the area.

It comes from reservations but the piece is made here on the land, on the piece I own.

It's satisfying, to me, for the soul, not the hip pocket.

This is a different version of the medicine mask.

Used the black walnut stain made from the husk, leaves, bark or root of the walnut tree, and you would rub it on the mask to embed the color.

The red was from the Indian Paintbrush, the red flower you see in the woods.

Sometimes you just see the way it is.

It comes to mind and that's the way I rub the stain in.

That would be a version of the medicine mask, the traditional way.

Been carving for about 30 some years, and I have a lot of various accomplishments in my carving, from speaking at Smithsonian and having pieces in the Smithsonian.

I don't even know how many masks I've made.

How to carve them and the look of it is something that I don't think you can train anyone.

The feeling of the wood directs me to carve the different masks that I make.

You throw the block of wood up, you open the log up, and it leads you.

It does me.

It's like following a story through the wood.

It's calling to you.

All I'm doing is cutting in just straight through.

Now you see the first ring.

A lot of that comes from years of experience just looking at it.

You can actually see two eyes looking at you.

So you see that line, we'll start right here.

It's still gonna reveal itself here.

If you look at one of the masks and you see it might be following you around the room, you look at another one and it's real bold, standing strong.

It should draw you.

If it don't, then it's not for you.

And if it does, then you know the meaning of what I've done through the wood.

The power, the strength that you see in the mask, it came from the reservation, and you can say I picked it up in Snowbird, on the reservation.

That's a whole lot of meaning to me.

My art is hanging out there where you can see it and hopefully influence someone to take it on and take it further, and I get to live through that mask.