Notes From The Field: “Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard” and the Don Wahle Collection

By Jennifer Joy Jameson, Notes From The Field series Editor

The interesting part about any ethnographic study is putting the pieces together, stepping in and out of a culture or history that may or may not be your own in order to share it with others.

San Francisco's adventurous record label Tompkins Square recently assembled the three-disc set Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard: Hard Time, Good Time & End Time Music, 1923-1936, arranged and annotated by Nathan Salsburg, Curator of the Alan Lomax Archive. There’s an interesting story of lost-and-found to this release. Salsburg writes in the liner notes:

One evening late in March 2010, my friend Joe called. He told me that his friend Chris had been on a dumpster job that day, helping clean out the house of a recently deceased hoarder. The hoarder had had some 78-rpm records, and Chris had brought a few home. Joe was there for dinner and he put him on the phone. “What kind of records?” I asked. “Old-timey stuff,” Chris said.

Just hours before everything at the Louisville home of the late Don Wahle was to be sent off to the landfills, Salsburg arrived to find boxes upon boxes of dirtied and molding 78s of both rare and popular country and hillbilly recordings collected by Wahle since the 1950s. Salsburg’s efforts to uncover these musical artifacts, working alongside the clean-up crew, became his own sort of archaeological dig as he found himself gathering and assembling clues of Wahle’s own aesthetics, interests, and desires.

In the liner notes, Salsburg admits his prior lamentations of a bygone era of record collecting, or “The Great Southern Record Canvass” as he calls it—something Mr. Wahle surely thought about, too. A longtime Louisvillian himself, Salsburg told me that the sheer serendipity of coming across Wahle’s fragile collection, in his own city no less, served as a reminder that golden eras are, in fact, fluid in time and space.

After the discovery, Salsburg and friends started the work of gathering Wahle’s history from whatever scribbled correspondences and musical want-lists were found. He and others looked for next-of-kin, but no one stepped forward. Salsburg states, “We don’t know what he did for a living, what he looked like, or virtually any other biographical details apart from his record collecting.” 

Wahle’s want-list, courtesy of Nathan Salsburg

But what’s more interesting is how the story of Don Wahle’s music collection leads to other narratives of life lived; through hard times, through good times, and through those very American ideas of end times.

While utilizing and acknowledging the curatorial model set forth by Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (famously organized into “ballads,” “social music,” and “songs”), Salsburg and his contributors steer clear of the legacy of mystifying the American experience as gathered in song. Rather, the set’s conceptual framework is “inspired by the life-cycles of the predominantly rural Americans that made this music.” Salsburg starts the process of interpreting these multiple histories through his careful and researched annotation. Thoughtful essays in response to the music and to Wahle (but mostly to the music) written by Editor of The Old-Time Herald, Sarah Bryan, music journalist Amanda Petrusich, and Southern writer John Jeremiah Sullivan, continue that work. The essays and annotation strive not to speak for the music, but to wonder about it. For the “Play Hard” disc, Sarah Bryan asks:

What about Mr. Wahle? What was his kind of fun? He was a collector, so we can assume that something about the process of seeking and acquiring gave him pleasure. […] Maybe the jollity of these records was for Don Wahle something like the moonshine skits were for listeners during Prohibition: a way to acknowledge, if not quench, a thirst for something just out of reach.

The songs tell enough of a story on their own—like my favorite two-part tune from the “Work Hard” disc, “Flat Wheel Train Blues,” recorded in Georgia in 1930 by Red Gay and Jack Wellman. Parts 1 and 2 set the scene for everyday life on the locomotive yard. Fiddles move the steam engine forward, producing a sweet rhythm while the singer hums verbal work-song encouragements that allude to the honest memory of a railroad man.
 


We can only know so much about Don Wahle. We don’t know why he decided to collect cowboy and hillbilly records while everyone else was buying up the glamorous sounds of big band and hot jazz; or why he furiously circulated requests for certain records but didn’t seem to ensure their care and sustainability; or why it is that, even as a member of a robust and communicative culture of record collectors, we still have so many questions about Wahle. What we do know is that Wahle was part of a grand tradition of giving new life to old stories. John Jeremiah Sullivan, in his notes for “Pray Hard,” writes:

The old songs are so easily lost. […] If this gathering of them is all that remains of Don Wahle, let nobody say he lived for nothing.

Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard: Hard Time, Good Time & End Time Music, 1923-1936 is available in three-disc sets on CD or LP from Tompkins Square or from your local independent record store. Thirty-five of the 42 sides are from Don Wahle’s collection (19 of which are un-reissued), and the remaining sides are from the collections of Joe Bussard, Frank Mare, and Christopher King. 

Folks can read more about salvaging the Wahle collection on Nathan Salsburg’s Root Hog or Die website. We also recommend perusing the Tompkins Square catalog. This label is bringing archival and contemporary music together in exciting ways; their book/cd set He is My Story: The Sanctified Soul of Arizona Dranes was recently nominated for a Grammy in the Best Historical Album category.

Double Weekly Feed: Wild Girls, Our Town, Native Ground, Westbrook Artists, and more

 International Sonoran Desert Alliance, recipient of a NEA Our Town grant

By Rachel Beth Rudi, Digital Contributor

• Congratulations to our colleague Mary Stewart Atwell, whose debut novel Wild Girls was recently published by Scribner. "Fire-lit from start to finish, Wild Girls is a story of Appalachian magic, conflagration, and supernatural violence," writes Swamplandia! author Karen Russell. Around Art of the Rural, we call it The Appalachian Anti-Twilight. Check out the book trailer below, directed by Charlie Cline:


Wild Girls by Mary Stewart Atwell Book Trailer from Charlie Cline on Vimeo.

• GALA Hispanic Theatre is bringing a reality of rural Southwestern culture to audiences in Washington, D.C. via the Mexican dance company Teatro Linea de Sombra and their newest multimedia program. Celia Wren offers this introduction in The Washington Post: "a theatrical meditation on the harsh realities that face undocumented migrants and their families, “Amarillo” also features projections, throat singing, a surveillance camera, 100 water bottles, a 15-foot-high wall that actors climb and bounce off – and a poem by Harold Pinter." 

This event was made possible, as Wren writes, thanks to "Southern Exposure: Performing Arts of Latin America, a program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, supports U.S. arts presenters that band together to bring Latin American performers to this country."

 

• National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grants fund creative placemaking projects that enliven communities through vibrant and sustainable art. Information is available online, and two webinars are scheduled to aid in the application process. 

November 6: 
http://artsgov.adobeconnect.com/our-town-guidelines-nov6/ 

November 13:  
http://artsgov.adobeconnect.com/our-town-guidelines-nov13/

Rural projects have been prominently featured in this program in the past, so folks should consider applying. We will be featuring much more information on the Our Town program in the weesks to come.

• The folks at Dust-to-Digital are directing a new non-profit, Music Memory, which will feature an expansive digital database that "will serve as a musical Rosetta Stone for future generations by showing the links and cross-influences of the many musical styles captured on phonograph records in the first half of the 20th century."

• "I'm not nothin' new 'cause I'm black. Bill Pickett was black. He was one of the greatest rodeo acts of all time. A black man, DeFord Bailey, was the first country-music superstar ever. I'm just doing what the greats have already done before me."

Wild Bill Young infuses his country singing, and his strutting, with elements of hip-hop and rap, a mixture of the musics and lifestyles of his Missouri childhood, and has found he is able to defy racist stereotypes and expand cultural understanding among the audiences he performs for across the country. Calvin Cox offers a profile in The Riverfront Times.

• On Native Ground "captures a demographic of youth through elders, and reaches past all cultural and ethnic barriers, by highlighting positive role models and current and historical events that are uniquely Native American." 

Here's the premiere episode, first broadcast on First Nations Experience on October 24:


On Native Ground vol 1 from jack kohler on Vimeo.
 

• Don't Forget This Song, the Carter Family comic book, is out now – complete with a CD of eleven rare radio recordings. Says American Songwriter Magazine: "Affectionate and admiring, The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song captures the family’s rise to success through numerous struggles as well as the enduring power of music and love." 

 selection from Don't Forget This Song

• Check out this great write-up on Brian Frink and Rural America Contemporary Art in The Free Press of Mankato, Minnesota. We encourage folks to check out the amazing range of work presented on the gorgeous new RACA site -- and stay tuned, RACA is about to debut its online magazine!

• Located in Madison County, Iowa, The Westbrook Artists' Site operates as "a project for exploration of the post-industrial rural condition." We are excited about their mission statement: 

The Westbrook Artists’ Site (WAS) explores the continuity between rural and urban contexts. If the rural is typically viewed as what was left behind in the process of urbanization, WAS insists, to the contrary, that rural life and landscape need to be seen as vital parts of a system that is urban and rural. WAS cultivates art and design as purposeful interventions within such an interconnected system. The WAS project mission challenges participants to find and explore the connective tissue binding rural and urban worlds and to create modes of address that speak from a rural landscape to both rural and urban audiences. 

• "Big Tex – his mouth moved as he uttered ‘Howdy, folks!’ – was celebrating its, or his, 60th birthday. But on Friday, Big Tex caught fire and was all but destroyed in the flames and thick smoke. His fiberglass head, hat and boots were consumed, as were most of his fabric clothes, leaving only his outstretched arms, belt buckle and metal skeleton intact." Folks can read Manny Fernandez's piece New York Times story here.

Left, LM Otero, Associated Press; right, John McKibben, Associated Press

The Redeemer: John Baird's Everyday Art

all photographs by Jennifer Joy Jameson

By Jennifer Joy Jameson, Notes From The Field editor

I have a few friends who were recently married—the kind of friends who first told me about the art environments of Grandma Tressa Prisbrey, of Kenny Hill, and the kind I found myself convening with after visiting Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens for the first time. In celebration of their union, I hoped to find a gift for them that was not just handmade, or unique, but something that has a particular redemptive quality to it. These are friends who recognize the beauty and immense potential in everyday objects, places, sounds, and stories that have otherwise been thrown away or seen as worthless. So, in keeping with this orientation to the world, I was glad to use their wedding gift as an excuse to get in touch with Middle Tennessee sculpture artist and gospel singer John Baird.

I came to know about the multi-form creative works of John Baird last summer in Nashville. I was assisting folklorist Evan Hatch, who was coordinating the Tennessee Folklife program at the 73^rd National Folk Festival – an annual, traveling festival produced by the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Evan, who has documented John’s art and music for years, invited him to exhibit and sell his metal sculptures at the festival. Over the course of the 3-day festival, I found myself regularly breaking from duty by chatting with John and his wife Ruby, a talented fiber artist. I even convinced John to sing a few of his original gospel tunes for me—songs that he performs from time to time at churches near their home.

The Bairds reside in Kittrell, Tennessee, in the countryside of Rutherford County—just down the old 70 Highway from Murfreesboro, the college town of Middle Tennessee State University. John grew up in rural Rutherford County, first learning to weld as a young man in the Future Farmers of America. He did not regularly create works of visual art until the 1980s, around his retirement from a long career working as a farmer, a salesman, and a truck driver. For years now, he’s collected scrap metals of all kinds and crafted them into animals (or animal-type-creatures), people, or whatever potential John sees in the mismatched shapes of his mounting collection of thrown-away metal parts. His sculptures range in size and subject from miniature motorcycles or water pumps, to oversized spiders measuring about 4 feet, to a free-standing take on the Eiffel Tower (titled the “Awful Tower”), to a cowboy made of old horseshoes. After last year’s festival was over, I got up the nerve to ask John how much it would be to purchase the bird made out of antique sewing machine parts. I bought it, and proudly perched the bird on my mantle, where it reminds of the ability to form new and lovely out of old and odd.

On the afternoon that Evan and I rode out to the Baird home in Kittrell, John and Ruby kindly poured us tea and toured us around some of the finished works. In examining John’s sculptures, I moved back and forth from a sort of drop-jaw awe in response to the skilled craftsmanship of the pieces, to keeling over at the clever and lighthearted spirit of the artwork. John was pleased to find me laughing.

When I asked John if he draws influence from the landscape or his community, he wasn’t too sure what to say. However, it strikes me as a rather intuitive application of both landscape and community in making such use of his surroundings—these being the scraps that he finds at yard sales or junkyards, and the metal bits friends and neighbors regularly give him with the intention of use in his art.

The front and back yards of the Baird home are covered in painted roses as tall as Ruby, and lined by a wall made from rocks John has hunted with a neighbor of his. In the backyard, John and Ruby have, together, built a rock garden out of flowers and wagon wheels, featuring rocks shaped like animals that I could have sworn John carved himself. Instead, he looks for rocks in their natural form, which happen to be in the shape of rabbits or deer—a skill John uses in coming up with ideas for his metal sculptures. He told me, “If I come across a scrap of metal, I see if it’s like something…maybe a head for [an animal], or a grill for a car [sculpture]. I just start from one piece and go from there.” To me, this speaks to his ability to see great possibility for human communication through the careful bricolage of the discarded and the ordinary. This is the redemptive understanding, the aesthetic worldview that I knew the Bairds shared with my soon-to-be-wed friends.

Readings: A New Definition Of Landscape

Grain Elevator from Measure of Happiness; Frank Gohlke

We offer this Readings selection from John Brinckerhoff Jackson's seminal text Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. The New York Times called Jackson "America’s greatest living writer on the forces that have shaped the land this nation occupies." His work has influenced generations of artists, designers, and writers.

••••••••••

As far back as we can trace the word, land meant a defined space, one with boundaries, though not necessarily one with fences or walls. The word has so many derivative meanings that it rivals in ambiguity the word landscape. Three centuries ago it was still being used in everyday speech to signify an expanse of village holdings, as in grassland or woodland, and then finally to signify England itself--the largest space any Englishman of those days could imagine; in short, a remarkably versatile word, but always implying a space defined by people, and one that could be described in legal terms.

This brings us to that second syllable: scape. It is esentially the same as shape, except that it once meant a composition of similar objects, as when we speak of a fellowship or a membership. The meaning is clearer in a related word: sheaf--a bundle or collection of similar stalks or plants. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, seems to have contained several compound words using the second syllable--scape or its equivalent--to indicate collective aspects of the environment. It is as much as if the words had been coined when people began to see the complexities of the man-made world. Thus housescape meant what we would now call a household, and a word of the same sort which we still use--township--once meant a collection of "tuns" or farmsteads.

From this piece of information we can learn...that the word scape could also indicate something like an organization or a system. And why not? If housescape meant the organization of the personnel of a house, if township eventually came to mean an administrative unit, then landscape could well have meant something like an organization, a system of rural farm spaces. At all events it is clear that a thousand years ago the word had nothing to do with scenery of the depiction of scenery.

Landscape; Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1897

We pull up the word landscape by its Indo-European roots in an attempt to gain some insight into its basic meaning, and at first glance the results seem disappointing. Aside from the fact that as originally used the word dealt only with a small fraction of the rural environment, it seems to contain not a hint of the esthetic and emotional associations which the word still has for us. Little is to be gained by searching for some etymological link between our own rich landscape and the small cluster of plowed fields of more than a thousand years ago.

Nevertheless the formula landscape as a composition of man-made spaces on the land is more significant than it first appears, for if it does not provide us with a definition it throws a revealing light on the origin of the concept. For it says that a landscape is not a natural feature of the environment but a synthetic space, a man-made system of spaces superimposed on the face of the land, functioning and evolving not according to natural laws but to serve a community--for the collective character of the landscape is one thing that all generations and all points of view have agreed upon. A landscape is thus a space deliberately created to speed up or slow down the process of nature. As Mircea Eliade expresses it, it represents man taking upon himself the role of time. 

Open Space; M12 art collective

In the contemporary world it is by recognizing this similarity of purpose [between civil engineering and landscape architecture] that we will eventually formulate a new definition of landscape: a composition of man-made or man-modified spaces to serve as infrastructure or background for our collective existence; and if background seems inappropriately modest we should remember that in our modern use of the word it means that which underscores not only our identity and presence, but also our history.

The Carter Family Fold and Johnny Cash's Last Performance

Photograph by William W. Robinson of Friends of the Carter Family Fold 

[Editor's Note: As I am facing numerous writing deadlines over the second half of February, this seems like a good time to give a retrospective glance to the first two years of Art of the Rural. Over these weeks I will feature a few new articles, but also many favorites from the archives. Thanks again to everyone who has read and contributed; what began as a labor of love has become a project far larger, and far more rewarding, than I ever could have anticipated - and I deeply appreciate the readership and participation of such a diverse audience. In March we will offer new articles and series, and share some new projects related to our mission. ]

••••••••••

"He insisted on walking into the Fold that night," Hiltons resident Pat Jones told me a week after Johnny's performance. "They wanted to bring him in using a wheelchair, but he said no, he wanted to walk up to that stage himself."

Whenever I have friends that are looking to take a trip somewhere, one of the first places I recommend is The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia. A few years back, I had the chance to attend one of their Saturday evening concerts and hear Janette Carter sing "I'm Thinking Tonight of my Blue Eyes." It's one of the songs that her father and mother, A.P. and Sara, along with aunt Maybelle, immortalized in an early Carter Family recording. Though Janette was frail, she was helped to the stage so that she could take the autoharp and begin the night's music with that selection from her family's legacy.

As she sang, I looked around. Underneath the generous tin roof, families and young couples sat and listened, children ran across the dance floor in front of the stage. It was an atmosphere and an inter-generational audience that harkened back to a time when traditional music--folk music--was actually sung and enjoyed by "folks", not cloistered behind the turn styles of cafes and concert venues. Ms. Carter and her brother Joe created the Fold in 1979 to honor her family and to give a piece of her family's heritage back to the community. When I walked in, I felt at home: large paintings of the Carters adorned the stage, homemade chili and pie beckoned from a window in the back, and a sign reminded me this was hallowed ground: no smoking, no drinking, no cursing.

A few months after Ms. Carter's song, she passed away. Here's Joe Wilson, President of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, remembering Ms. Carter and her legacy at the Fold:

Janette was not the Carter with the husky, penetrating female voice, perhaps the finest country female lead of all time. That voice belonged to her mother, Sara. She was not the lead guitarist who invented country guitar lead with its "church lick" and unrelenting emphasis of melody. That guitarist was her Aunt Maybelle. She wrote songs, but was not the greatest composer and arranger in country music history. That person was her father, A. P. Carter. She never married anyone famous, and individual fame never came to her. The Carter Family was a depression-era band that broke up after a mere 14 years, and Janette and her father returned to the Virginia mountains with considerable fame, but no cash. She worked as a cook at the elementary school, and raised her family. But she promised her father to keep his legacy, and that promise was kept in a hall she financed and her brother Joe built in the style of a burley tobacco barn. There she presented the local artists she adored and the famous who came to borrow bits of Carter magic. She kept the prices low and the quality high. She had time for the most humble, and enough love to fill this valley beside Clinch Mountain. 

The Carter Family Fold site has a lot to offer. First and foremost, you can check out their show schedule and also, if distance is an issue, purchase a ticket to the streaming video archive of dozens of recent shows. The grounds also serve as a preservation site for A.P. Carter's cabin as well as a family museum. Also worth visiting: The Friends of the Carter Family Fold has a wonderful selection of photographs and streaming music of the later generations of Carters to follow A.P., Sara and Maybelle.

One of the Fold's other rules: no electric instruments. This rule was waived for only one person: Johnny Cash, the husband of her cousin June and a frequent visitor to the Fold. On July 5, 2003, two months before his death, Mr. Cash made an unpublicized return to the stage in Hiltons for what would be his final public performance.

Here's Kimberly Burge, in Sojourners Magazine telling the story:

The Ovation began with those closest to the entrance that had been blocked off for his arrival. As the wave rippled across the audience, people took to their feet when Johnny emerged from his car, before he even stepped foot inside the Carter Fold and well before he sang a note.

Dressed head to toe, naturally, in black, he did indeed walk through the doors, slowly and propped up by two assistants. John Carter Cash, his only son, supported him from behind. The crowd parted, and he stopped and rested a few moments before attempting the three stairs that led to the small wooden stage. His body was frail, but his face still evoked the authority of an Old Testament prophet. he smiled bashfully at the thunderous reception.

Bursts of applause greeted each point of this 10-minute journey and reached a crescendo at the familiar opening notes of his first song, "Folsom Prison Blues." Although the backs of his hands appeared darkly bruised, Johnny played an acoustic guitar, as did his son. The wild greeting continued with his next number, "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Cries of "We love you, Johnny!" broke through the cheers.

Then he spoke to the crowd. "I don't really know what to say about how I feel tonight, being up here without her."

He placed only the slightest emphasis on that last word. The place fell silent for the first time that evening. Johnny sighed, his chest rising and falling slowly as he looked down at the guitar he quietly strummed. "June and I were together 40 years, and the pain is so severe, there's no describing it. You lose your mate, the one you've been with all those years, and I guarantee you it's the big one. It hurts so bad...it really hurts.

He thrummed the guitar again, two or three times. The ceiling fans clattered overhead.

"But every day the last week or so, it seems to be getting a little bit better, knowing that I was coming up to celebrate her birthday and the excitement of all that. Coming to her old homeplace here on the banks of Clinch Mountain, where we spent so much time and had so much love for each other. I just wish I could share it with you, how we felt about each other." he stared unseeingly down at the stage for a moment, then looked again toward his audience.

Luckily, video exists of this historic evening:

[The Carter Family Fold and Johnny Cash's Last Performance was originally published on April 8, 2010.]

Weekend Song: Napolian Strickland

Napolian Strickland on fife, R.L. Boyce on snare drum, Othar Turner dancing; Blues Unlimited

Yesterday the Alan Lomax Archive Channel offered an update with a distinctive video of Napolian Strickland singing and providing his own accompaniment on the diddley-bow:

As the notes inform us, "Jesus Stop By Here" is "a variant of "Jesus Won't You Come By Here" or "Daniel In the Lion's Den,'" and the footage was filmed by Alan Lomax, John Bishop and Worth Long in 1978. Mr. Strickland, like Fred McDowell and a host of other Mississippi blues luminaries, hailed from the town of Como. 

Folks can head over to the Association for Cultural Equity to learn more about Mr. Lomax's work in this region, and the excellent Folkstreams site offers The Land Where the Blues Began, the film from which this outtake emerges.

In addition to this, The Cascade Blues Association offers an introduction to Mr. Strickland's work, a portion of which is included below:

Of all the traditional styles of Blues music being played today, perhaps the fife and drum bands of Northern Mississippi just may have the deepest roots. The percussive sounds are almost a direct link back to the Western Coast of Africa, where slave traders took their heaviest toll; a land where stringed gourds, woodwind instruments and drums played a major role within the communities, and the memories continued with the poor souls being brought to a new land. The fife and drum bands thrived in the Hill Country of Mississippi for many years, with standout performers such as Sid Hemphill and his granddaughter, Jesse Mae, Ed Young and Othar Turner. But, as the practitioners of this music have been passing on, the tradition appears to be dying.

Another key member of the fife and drum family departed this world on July 21, 2001, as Napolian Strickland died following a stroke. Strickland was arguably the premier fife player of the genre, having appeared at numerous festivals, on several recorded compilations and on film in the documentary, "The Land Where The Blues Began".

Frybread: In Film, Art, Architecture, And Beyond

Photograph by Visible Narrative, from RPM's Frybread Stand flickr gallery

Revolutions Per Minute: Indigenous Music Culture is a relatively new site that's offering a wealth of news on contemporary music and arts. One of the recurring features on RPM is #frybreadfriday; a multimedia series that explores the centrality of this delicacy across Native American culture. From playwrights to rappers, interpretive dance to comic book art, RPM has opened up a vibrant discussion on this relationship between food culture and the arts. The photograph above is included within RPM's Frybread Stand gallery, a collection that demonstrates how this food is also influencing vernacular art and architecture.

One project that's appeared across a few #frybreadfridays has been Holt Hamilton's More Than Frybread, a hilarious mockumentary currently set to be released in early 2012. Here's an introduction to the film:

The First Annual State of Arizona Frybread Championship, sponsored by the World Wide Frybread Association, will be holding the first ever state frybread competition. All twenty-two federally recognized Arizona tribes will be sending their best frybread maker to represent their nation and to compete for the coveted frybread title. The winner will receive $10,000 cash, the official WWFA frybread trophy and a spot to compete for the National Title, which could possibly then lead to a shot at the World Wide Frybread Championships later in the year.

Five contestants; Buddy Begaye (Navajo), Sharmayne Cruz (Tohono O’odham), Betti Muchvo (Hopi), Sunshine Smith (Yavapai-Apache), and Sammy Powsky (Hualapai) allow a small documentary team to follow them as they travel the frybread road to the state finals. You won’t want to miss this exciting, never before seen, frybread event of the year!

The folks behind this film have made the World Wide Frybread Association a reality -- follow the link for videos, maps and further information.

Again, there's much more to explore on RPM - it has become one of our favorite sites, and we highly recommend a visit. 

Jim Denomie: Reworking American Myths

Selection from untitled (Untruthful Series), 2011; Bockley Gallery

The Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis is currently featuring Works on Paper, an exhibit of new prints and paintings by Jim Denomie, a Minnesota-based artist and member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe.

Mr. Denomie's work is striking and unforgettable - these paintings, and the many others archived on his site, present a dynamic use of color and a compositional depth that reward repeated viewings.  These conscious decisions with process and presentation invest these pieces with an emotional weight that runs parallel, and sometimes counter-current, to a playful, clear-eyed commentary on American history and culture. We discover in this work a new vision of our country's place and its history: part indigenous iconography, part surrealism, part American vernacular.

Greener Pastures; Bockley Gallery

Here's a selection from the Bockley's Gallery's press release:

The Lone Ranger and Tonto appear in one series, while a couple canoes alongside a grinning duck in another series. The exhibit includes a number of prints, both etchings and monoprints, as well as paintings created in acrylic on paper that introduce new Denomie characters in colorful portraits. These works on paper, mostly created since May of 2011, suggest just some of Denomie’s recent creative outpour. During a two-week residency in Oregon, Denomie created a body of over 72 new monotypes and monoprints.  He has since reworked dozens of those prints in oil stick, which results in dramatic texture and wonderful clarity of color.   For Denomie the process has been a distinct change and he delights in the radical shift from original print to reworked image that allows what he calls “the unexpected” and that now influences his painting as well. Of his print-making process, Denomie has said: “… laying portraits over the tops of these random patterns would feed into the final project, where you’d get this unexpected juxtaposition of colors that wouldn’t have come if I’d have started with a blank palette.” 

The exhibition presents dozens of images unframed in order to reveal the intimate nature of works on paper and to bring into focus how the artist’s materials influence his creative outcome.  The result of this presentation of unframed works creates a feel as informal and as deeply informative as a studio visit.  The installation allows us a close-up view as Denomie encounters “the unexpected” within his own new work. 

 C.E.O; Bockley Gallery

The pieces on view at the Bockley Gallery offer a sharp summation of Mr. Denomie's work over the last few years, when an attention to process and the "reworked image" led the artist to commit to painting a new piece each day for an entire year. In "Jim Denomie: Finding the New Country in the Old," mnartists.org's Lightsey Darst interviews the artist on this process and also offers an insightful reading of what's at stake in the series -- and in Mr. Denomie's aesthetic. Here's a selection: 

After painting a face, he might work on other projects, paint another face, or simply go to bed, but every day he makes himself paint at least one of these small canvases. He does not try to create a perfect work of art; instead he lets himself play with the paint. He uses the colors already on the palette or adds new ones based on his mood. Daily surges of emotion affect the work, sometimes directly—one day’s face is grinning, another sour, one yelling (after the Red Lake shooting)—but more often indirectly: the faces evolve their own personalities, their own neutral but suggestive expressions, so that looking at many of the faces at once is like staring into a crowd of strangers. Denomie’s not dogmatic about what goes into a face; some of the more abstract faces lack eyes and might not be recognizable as faces but for their company. When the face is done, Denomie signs the back and names it, if it happens to have reminded him of anyone.

Why is Denomie doing this daily painting project? Speaking on his cell phone from his full-time construction job, Denomie tells me he began the project because he found painting too often pushed to the side. Between work, family, and the rest of a normal life, he wasn’t getting time to go to his studio every day; when he did paint, sometimes after a week away, he felt “like a foreigner” in his own work. He was getting out of the habit and wanted back in. Inspired by other artists, Denomie bought supplies, told friends about his idea so he wouldn’t back down, and began.

To hear Mr. Denomie in his own words, folks can give a listen to this radio interview conducted by mnartists.org's Marya Morstad, and view this talk by Mr. Denomie on his "Non-Negotiable" and what it means to be an artist and a Native American:

Non-Negotiable from SMM Media Design on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Also highly recommended: this large gallery of work, alongside an interview, with Mr. Denomie from the Contemporary North American Indigenous Artists site.

The Vernacular: This Is Our Whole Family

Selection from an unsigned, undated photograph-postcard

To Miss Maude Richmond, Broadhead, Wisconsin

Mar 9 1910

Dear Friend: - Well we have not got there yet. Frank is going with a corn shredder so we can't very well get away now, but Eddie's time is up Dec 1st and then we will try and come. - this is our whole family taken a year ago last summer. Are having fine weather for corn husking. As ever Martha

Selection from an unsigned, undated photograph-postcard

All images copyright Matthew Fluharty / Art of the Rural

The Vernacular: It Is A Boy

Chico's Produce Stand, outside DeSoto, Missouri

Saturday Portfolio: The Quilt Index

selection from a crazy quilt, unknown artist; Rutgers Special Collections

To continue with this week's discussion of Folk Art, Heritage, or Something Else? we'd like to point folks toward the excellent Quilt Index, a resource that "aims to be a central resource that incorporates a wide variety of sources and information on quilts, quiltmakers and quiltmaking." 

This is a truly comprehensive site, with essays, photograph galleries, lesson plans and a fully searchable database. The Quilt Index asks that folks not reproduce their images, so I'll refrain from a traditional "portfolio" piece here, and encourage anyone who's interested to visit their site.

Related Articles:

Contexts: Crooked Roads, Quilts, and Meth

Following The Quilt Trail

The Vernacular: Bill Saves His Own Life

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

May 15, 10PM, 1908

Don't be alarmed 'tis all over now. She only stood there on the bridge + took a shot at me in place of rescuing me. But Bill has a strong right arm + hung on. A friend + I were on the river one day + took some pictures. I was suspended over the North Canadian River. Hope you are well + happy. 

M.H.S.

Addressed to Miss Jessie G Brown; Berea, Ohio

The Vernacular: A Freak Of The Wild And Woolly West

Casper, Wyoming

Sept. 6, 1914

Dear Ma:

At last I am here and like it very much. This is a great country. The people are so sociable one feels at home with them at once. This town has about 6,000 people in it, you ought to see the school building. They are simply great. The scenery around here is fine too. We are in sight of the Casper Mtns. Next Saturday all of us teachers are going to take a trip out to them + picnic there all day. The air here is so pure + bracing. The altitude is high as we are over 5,000 ft. I wish I could see all of your folks tho + have a good visit.

Much love,
Lommy

Introducing The Yuma Project

Yuma, Colorado; from the Baseline Group flickr page

Today we're excited to present The Yuma Project, a collaboration between art students at The University of Colorado-Boulder and the community of Yuma, Colorado. This project is led by Richard Saxton, an artist and scholar interested in vernacular, place-based expression. Folks may remember our earlier discussions of his work as well his collaborations with the M12 group and The Rural Studio, where Mr. Saxton was previously an artist-in-residence.

Over the next few weeks we will have the privilege of presenting a number of the art projects Mr. Saxton's students and collaborators created in Yuma. Today I'd like to offer an introduction, beginning with this excerpt from the syllabus itself:

Community and Site-based Art Practice (AKA The Baseline Group, AKA The Yuma Project) is a special topics course that focuses on approaches to community and site-based art practices with a particular interest in the rural landscape and rural communities.  Through a collective class atmosphere, students in this course will discover and discuss approaches to a unique realm of the art-making profession. Focusing on themes that include site, community, and collective practice, students will learn about the history of these art avenues, be introduced to concepts of site proposals, learn about project development, and collaborate on the design and implementation of ambitious community and site-based art projects.

This course will take place primarily off campus and is designed as an experiential course, meaning that students learn through the experience of doing. Students will experience and participate, first hand, on tangible projects in the field.  In this course we will spend a substantial amount of time outside of the traditional studio environment.

In the weeks that follow, Mr. Saxton leads these emerging artists to Yuma for an immersive process of thinking through--as a group--how art-making can address the "aesthetic, social, and historical context" of their sites in Yuma; the answers come through repeated visits to the region and through close contact with the Yuma community. In the end, these travels into the rural places beyond the traditional art-studio world offer an "experimental and interdisciplinary approach to creativity." 

In corresponding with some of the Yuma Project / Baseline Group students, I can attest to the unique kind of work this vision can inspire. Below, I'll offer two teasers of the installations which will follow in The Art of the Rural in the coming weeks. 

Adrianna Santiago, Nourish

I want to incorporate new technologies with old practices, without losing ties between people and the land. During my time in Yuma, I spoke with patrons of the historic grocery store, Shop All, a common place where community members frequent. I asked people to nominate community members who they think may be interested in a work exchange. Lastly, I traded my time for a lesson in a historical Yuma tradition. The documentation of this learning exchange is presented and archived as the Yuma Historical Society Museum.

You Jin Seo, Untitled

As I move to different places, I start collecting objects in order to be aware of the different cultures and to get used to the new environments. I installed the shiny and beautiful objects that I have collected in Yuma so that people walking on the street can see the artwork in their daily life. I long to bring the beautiful moment when I observe the softly glittering lights into the vast and barren landscape near Yuma.