Visually impaired vet was ambitious artist
Jimmy Two Dogs Coplin was blind and didn’t know anybody in Chicago when he moved here a few years ago.
Yet the Army veteran created stunning works of art with Native American themes using ceramics, silver, feathers and arrows.
“He came here, got himself in the VA system, got himself an apartment and was trying to promote himself and was really hoping to get to the overseas [arts] markets,” said a friend, Tina Aragon, a secretary in the emergency room at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital who serves on a Native American veterans’ committee.
Mr. Coplin, 57, who lost his sight to diabetes, was found dead Thursday at his Cicero home, said Joe Podlasek, CEO of Trickster Gallery in Schaumburg, which features work by Native American artists like Mr. Coplin, who was of Kiowa heritage. “We had scheduled a family to take him for Thanksgiving dinner, and the caretaker went there early to help” and discovered Mr. Coplin, who also suffered from heart disease, Podlasek said.
After living in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, he moved to Chicago, partly because he thought he could make a bigger splash in the world of Native American art, said his friend, Joe Yazzie, a Navajo artist. “He thought it would be a better place to sell his art,” Yazzie said. “When you’re out West, there’s too many artists, too many Native artists.”
Getting around the Chicago area by public transportation was a struggle, friends said. “For him to get somewhere, he had to catch two or three buses,” Podlasek said. “With transfers and waiting, it was just terrible.”
Still, life could be good, thanks to his first guide dog, Andy, a German shepherd who served as his eyes and companion.
“He was a 2-year-old dog that was just smart as a whip,” Podlasek said. “If Jimmy said, ‘Go to the elevator,’ the dog would take him.”
“Andy was everything to him,” said his sister, Vicki Whitaker. “There’s a picture [of the pair] that was taken, and when you look at that picture you can see the love that they had for each other. . . . We would always talk about Andy and how much he loved his ball. He would always tell me how smart this dog was.”
“They were as one,” Podlasek said.
Mr. Coplin’s survivors will decide whether Andy will continue serving the blind, according to Deborah Zajac of the Hines Decedent Affairs office and Michelle Barlak of the Seeing Eye organization in Morristown, New Jersey, where the dog was trained and donated to the veteran. If Andy returns to Seeing Eye, he might be paired with another sightless veteran or civilian, Barlak said.
Mr. Coplin grew up as Jimmy Rokita. The family moved around because his stepdad was in the Air Force, his sister said. He became a successful transmission mechanic.
He found out several years ago that his biological father was Native American, Vicki Whitaker said. To honor him, he took the name Jimmy Two Dogs Coplin.
He worked for a time at Hines, and he also presented lectures to staffers about Native American cultural traditions, said Tina Garrity, a dental assistant at the hospital. For example, employees learned from Mr. Coplin that some indigenous groups may consider direct eye contact rude, she said.
“He was a very proud man,” Podlasek said.
“He didn’t like handouts, and he didn’t want to be obligated to anybody,” Aragon said. To maintain independence, he focused on his art. He crafted ceramic war feathers and painted them with “talking” pens. He was just starting to use arrows decorated with patterns reminiscent of Kiowa warriors, said Podlasek, who is of Polish and Ojibwe descent.
Mr. Coplin also is survived by his mother, Edith Rokita; a daughter, Melissa Rokita; a son, Bubba James Rokita; and two grandchildren. A service is planned at Trickster Gallery, 190 S. Roselle Rd., Schaumburg, Podlasek said.