Little Worlds - Corey

I wrote about Corey Gradin in my blog on November 27, 2013. I titled the blog entry, “Hero - Corey Gradin.” I’ve copied it below.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I have much to be thankful for – health, friends, family, our home and community, my life itself. Fortunate and blessed are words I like to use. But today I find my thoughts repeatedly returning to one of my present-day heroes – Corey Gradin.

On a recent trip to Durham, I had the distinct honor of photographing Corey on her seventeenth birthday – November 12. It was a gray and rainy afternoon when we set up for the portrait in her backyard. We were both shivering and bundled against the weather and the resulting pictures present a slightly-blurred vision of this remarkable young woman.

Corey is the daughter of dear friends, Harlan Gradin and Elise Goldwasser, and has been a model of strength and wisdom for me since I first met her as a baby. You see, Corey was born with cystic fibrosis and her life has been an endless stream of hospital stays, missed school and activities, and delayed dreams. Her health issues have recently progressed to include diabetes and hearing loss. This past summer she and her parents spent long months at Washington University Hospital in St. Louis where Corey had a successful double lung transplant, which has given her some relief from the respiratory problems she’s endured forever. What has impressed me most has been Corey’s total lack of self-pity. That, and her ability to take full ownership of her illness, handling most of her own daily treatments, and accepting the cards that life has dealt her.

So, today, I am thankful for Corey – her friendship, her life, her warmth, her intelligence and sense of humor. I think back to a visit with her a couple of years ago – a particularly good period of time for her. She walked into the room – a vivacious fifteen-year old, hair in curled ringlets, a short skirt and tight blouse advertising her strong sense of self. “Geez, you look hot,” I proclaimed in my best dirty old man imitation. Corey looked me in the eye, obviously pleased by my observation, and with customary grace and glowing pride said, “Well, thank you.”

Now, almost ten years later, Corey passed away last Friday. She remains my hero.

Little Worlds--aka "Bobby" Hicks

Some recent pictures. 2 of Marshall’s own, the incomparable Robert, aka “Bobby”, Hicks, at his home, PawPaw, Madison County, NC, 10/22.

Reckonings and Reconstructions

I’m very pleased and excited to be a part of the exhibition opening at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Georgia, this weekend. The exhibit is titled Reckonings and Reconstructions and is work from the Do Good Fund, a Columbus, Georgia-based non-profit that collects southern documentary photographs from the region and loans them to libraries, schools, galleries and museums. The collection now encompasses over 800 photographs. The University of Georgia Press has produced a book with the same title.

As part of the exhibition, some photographers were asked to comment on a photograph of theirs that is in the show. Below is what I wrote to accompany my image, Farm Estate Auction, Bishopville, SC 1987.

Farm Estate Auction, Bishopville, SC 1987

In 1987 when I made this photograph, I was working as staff photographer and director  of communication for the Rural Advancement Fund (RAF), a non-profit, farm advocacy organization working in the two Carolinas. One of my duties was to document the farm crisis in rural America that had forced thousands of family farmers into bankruptcy and off of their farms. My involvement with photography had grown out my social action work in the 1960s and I viewed photography as a tool for social change. My work with RAF provided an opportunity to act on that belief.

I had traveled to Bishopville SC, to spend time with a farmer who was struggling to stay in business. My visits with farm families usually took the form of me hanging out for a period of days. I was interested in the day-to-day life on these farms and in their communities, sensing that in the ordinary we found the universal. In the course of my stay in rural South Carolina, we went to a farm estate auction where the farmer hoped to pick up equipment for an affordable price.

I wandered around the grounds making photographs of faces in the crowd and items on the sale tables, nothing very exciting. But when the auctioneer held up the painting of the farms’ original farmhouse, instinct took over and I sat down in front of him and exposed a half dozen negatives.

For me this image tells an obvious story—an object being sold at auction—factual evidence that offers something recognizable and believable. But knowing this was an item being sold as part of the dissolution of the farm gave it a different meaning. Not only was the painting of the farmhouse being sold, along with the farm itself, but the image of the farm, its way of life, its history, and its day-to-day were being sold, too. It is this hidden meaning, one less specific and more universal, that speaks to a culture being dissolved, which gives this photograph its power and resiliency. 

Little Worlds - The Hunt

“Old Faithful” in our woods, PawPaw, 2022

When Toby asked us about hunting on our property we were hesitant at first. It was many years ago now and we didn’t know Toby, his wife Teresa, and their two boys, Levi and Jordan, all that well. Teresa took care of Kate a few days a week for two or three years, which is how we initially met them. We voiced our concerns and eventually agreed to let Toby hunt. He, in turn, would help us with various projects around our place. Quite simply, it was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. Not only have we enjoyed what has grown into a close friendship, but we’ve benefitted from the family’s knowledge and stewardship of our land.

The first season Toby hunted the deep woods on the southern edge of our land, he erected a tree stand. He named it Old Faithful because he always got a deer from that spot. Now, I am not a hunter, except with my camera, and the thought of sitting still and quiet for hours on end in the cold and damp of late fall didn’t much excite me. But it did Toby. He would stay in the woods from daylight til dark some days, often bringing home a deer, more often not. He once told me that just being in the woods was his favorite thing in life.

This past Sunday I took a walk in those deep woods. It was a stunning day, the angular light of Fall and crisp air made for a perfect walk. A young doe crossed the path above me. The dogs chased their noses across the mountain. As I passed Old Faithful and made this photograph I thought of Toby, conscious of my own hunt for pictures.

PLACE: Reflections by Copus and Amberg

Stone Glyph by Iktome, aka, Irvin Via, on the right-of-way for I-26, Sprinkle Creek, 1998.

Josh and I were fortunate to have a wonderful right-up by Johnny Casey in the Asheville Citizen-Times and the Marshall News Record and Sentinel about our upcoming exhibit at Mars Hill University, titled PLACE: REFLECTIONS BY COPUS AND AMBERG.

In the story Johnny refers to us as Icons, which seems far too important to me. I much prefer Dellie’s introduction of me to a friend as,”This here’s Rob, he make’s ‘em pictures.” However, I do think that Josh and I, because of our personalities, interest and love of the community, and willingness to put our work out in the world, are among the most visible representatives of the significant changes happening in Madison County. As I say in the article, we are, in fact, agents of change.

I think a lot about the changes that have come to the county in my forty-nine years here and the role I and other newcomers play in that evolution. What I’ve come to understand is that many people have come to Madison County over the last few centuries — Native Americans, European settlers, refugees from the Civil War, refugees from the cities, and now, hundreds of young people and retirees seeking slow, quiet, and a close connection to the land. Everyone, whether they’ve stayed and built a life, or simply passed through on their way to someplace else, has left their footprint on this PLACE. Who am I to judge if one footprint is more significant than another?

I’m reminded of a quote by one of my favorite authors, Octavia Butler, in her novel, The Parable of the Talents.

“All that you touch
You change.
All that you change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.”

We are, in essence, all agents of change.

Josh Copus

PLACE: REFLECTIONS BY COPUS AND AMBERG
Weizenblatt Gallery, Mars Hill University
September 21 to October 14, M-F 10-4
Opening Reception: September 28. 6-8 pm

PLACE: REFLECTIONS BY COPUS AND AMBERG

Josh and I, both, have done numerous artist’s statements over the years. They change like the seasons. Here is mine for this exhibit.

Princess Kate and the Griffin Boys, PawPaw, 1994.

As I look at my photographs in this exhibition, I reflect on my forty-nine years in Madison County and how this place has mentored and ultimately defined me. Initially, I think about the land itself—the soil, the trees, the springs and creeks—and how this land has fed my belly, provided work, built my studio, and given me heat and water and solace. I think, too, about the hundreds of people I’ve met, many I count as close friends, who I never would have met if I’d lived somewhere else. I think about my work, my art, my photography, and increasingly, my writing, and how Madison County has fed that art. It’s allowed me to indulge my interests in culture, history, literature, and photography. It’s provided a pallet, a blank page, as well as, ever diverse and challenging subject matter. It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.

I’ve been fortunate to have mentors in my life and career—teachers, photographers, close friends, neighbors, farmers, family members, my wife. They’ve all helped shape my life, be what it is. In turn, I’ve been able to offer some measure of guidance to many young people, to be the kind of adult I sought out when I was struggling to find my way. 

But as I’ve aged I realize life has come full circle. Increasingly, I find myself surrounded by young people, thirty and forty year olds—my children, Ben and Kate, my long-time assistant, Jamie Paul, yoga instructors, young artists, chefs, musicians, and image makers—and turning to them for guidance, inspiration, and energy. 

Josh Copusl. Lower Brush Creek, 2022.

I met ceramic artist Josh Copus not long after he moved to Madison County and we bonded pretty quickly over a mutual love and curiosity about place and people and history. I was struck by his prolific energy and commitment to this county he was now calling home. I love his creativity. 

I have been around a number of potters over the years and have long been intrigued and tempted by the clay. When Leslie’s mom passed away, we spoke with Josh about making an urn for her ashes. That initial conversation evolved to Josh offering me space and time and guidance in his studio in exchange for photographs for his Jail Project. With Josh’s encouragement I dug clay from our land, cleaned it, and spent many hours shaping, coiling, smoothing, glazing, and firing, eventually producing an urn I think Faye will like resting in.

This urn, this shaped form from our land, is as much a gift to me as it is to Faye. With it, I’ve discovered something new about myself, reminding me to take risks and be open to new mentors, to be persistent, and to understand that life is for living. 

Rob Amberg, 2022.

• PLACE: REFLECTIONS BY COPUS AND AMBERG

• WEIZENBLATT GALLERY, MARS HILL UNIVERSITY

• SEPTEMBER 21-OCTOBER 14, M-F, 10-4

• OPENING RECEPTION: SEPTEMBER 28, 6-8 PM

Little Worlds--Tobacco

I often refer to this sequence of images as my best hour and a half in photography. Here’s why.

Hoy Shelton Family Hanging Tobacco, Hopewell, Madison County, NC 1983.

—from Sodom Laurel Album

I had spent the better part of this particular Saturday in Hot Springs ostensibly photographing a festival that proved to be a bust, yielding no images of interest. It was deflating and I left feeling depressed over the wasted time. I smoked a joint on my drive back to Big Pine hoping to ease my frustration when I spotted a group of people unloading tobacco into a barn set above the roadway. I didn’t know the people, but I stopped, thinking I might salvage something of the day. They were the Hoy Shelton family and a couple of their neighbors.

I introduced myself, told them where I lived, and my interest in photographing them as they hung their tobacco crop. We knew people in common, which eased their initial discomfort, and they agreed to let me make pictures. But as I pulled out my cameras, everyone stopped working and began posing. I thought, geez, this is going to be worse than the day in Hot Springs. Because I had worked a lot of tobacco during my time in the county I thought I might as well help so I put my cameras down and began hauling the heavy, tobacco-laden sticks of burley into the barn.

Everyone relaxed with my willingness to work. We talked, told stories of people we knew, took a break and shared cigarettes and water. We laughed and joked and teased and sweated as one. The change was immediate and when the next truckload arrived, I picked up my cameras again and everyone ignored me.

Now, I say this was my best hour and a half in photography partially because of how the time came about. The shared labor opened a door and taught me a valuable lesson about trust and acceptance and what it means to be a part of other’s lives, even if just for a brief moment.

I’ve long thought photographs should be believable and speak clearly about the subject of the image. In these pictures we see an essential part of Madison County’s history—how burley tobacco served to keep thousands of small subsistence farmers on their land. We see something of the hard work itself, the dirt and dust, and what people do to make a crop. The pictures also reflect the importance of family, and community, and the land itself. The images offer factual evidence.

But I’ve also thought photographs should be a reflection of the photographer himself—his concerns, his interests, his instincts. The pictures have eerily religious overtones for me. It begins with the darkness, the soft late-evening light that speaks of quiet and invites you to look closely. The shrouds, crosses, and the gift of the dust angel takes me to the religious teachings of my youth. And the family—holy, saintly, together, everyone helping, cleansed by hard work, practicing the art of tobacco, Madison County’s economic religion.

Little Worlds -- Tobacco

Latino Farmworker cutting tobacco, Upper Brush Creek, Madison County, NC 1993.

The growing season is winding down and the tobacco leaves are big and heavy with resin. It’s time to cut. Long days in the hot sun, cutting stalk after stalk, spudding them on sticks, and leaving them in the field to dry for a few days before moving them into the barn for curing.

I have a memory of this — working with friends and neighbors, where, at the end of the day, your hands were black and sticky with tar and your back aching from lifting the plants. For me, despite the grueling work, it was an almost joyful time. The sense of community, the sharing of stories, the understanding I was learning valuable lessons about this place. Perhaps most importantly, I was learning I was capable of doing, and becoming good at, this hard, dirty work that my body had no experience doing.

I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. It provided a lifetime bond with my immediate neighbors and the community as a whole. My willingness to work, to get dirty, to try something new, to be available when asked, built trust, which has proved to be the single most important element of my photography and writing. So, while tobacco continues to be one of the leading causes of death in our country, I realize it brought life to hundreds of rural communities in the mountain south. And provided this photographer the opportunity to become part of a place I now call home.

Cut Burley Tobacco, Upper Brush Creek, Madison County, NC 1993.

Little Worlds -- Spirituality at the Courthouse, Part 2

I generally make it a point to not respond to comments on my blog or social media posts. I’ve decided to make an exception this time around because of the comment from Sherry Shannon on facebook about my blog post of July 18. The comment was repeated almost word for word on my blog site by a person identifying herself as Sherry Morgan. Whatever?

Ms. Shannon (Morgan) begins by thanking me for my photographs and work and I acknowledged her kind words. Next, she informs me that this was not an Anti-Abortion or Pro-Life Rally, but rather, a Pro-Life Sermon. I would refer Ms. Shannon to Reverend Coates’s advertisement on facebook, which describes the event as a “Pro-Life Rally.”

She then goes on to speak of the cultural significance of the Christian tradition here in Madison County and how there used to be preaching every weekend, if not every day, at the courthouse. She then insinuates that I do not understand the depth of this belief within the people of Madison County. But, as I say in my opening sentence of the blog post, “I have lived in Madison County for nearly fifty years, and have long understood the importance of Christianity in the county.” And while I did not mention it in my post, I also understand how religion came to play such an important role. When settlers first arrived in these mountains, freedom from the religion imposed on them by the Church of England was a prime motivator.

What I think Ms. Shannon, and her fellow believers, don’t understand is the changing demographic of Madison County. Close to fifty percent of our present population is made up of people not born in the county. And i would venture to say that a majority of these new county residents, as well as, a goodly number of born-in-county residents, would identify themselves as secular humanists, or agnostic, non-believers, or people who do not attend church. These county residents choose not to believe, or express their spirituality, in the same way as the traditional old-time Baptists.

I have spoken with many people who are offended by having a “Pro-Life Rally” on the courthouse steps - citing the separation of church and state. I wasn’t surprised by this although I, too, found it offensive to those of us who do not believe as the Pro-Lifers do. The Courthouse, after all, is supposed to represent all county residents, not just those who adhere to Madison County’s traditional christian faith.

I personally am offended by the insinuation that I, or other non-believers, “are never going to find true happiness until we find the peace that only God can bring.” I believe peace and happiness are a life-long quest, one that involves good works, kindness, transparency, community, and a belief in letting people make their own decisions. I certainly do not believe that peace and happiness come from submission to a man-made deity whose history and tradition is based on war and pestilence. The bible is full of references to this fact.

I guess what I would like, Sherry, is the same level of respect for all county residents, regardless of their beliefs, lifestyle, or the amount of time they’ve lived in the county. When someone commented on my blog that “they (the Christians) don’t get to take back Madison County,” I, like you, believe “they never lost it.” Our challenge, as people concerned about the welfare of the county we all love, is to recognize the present diversity of belief and learn to co-exist without vindictiveness and accusations, and with the utmost respect for all.

At the Madison County Courthouse, Marshall, 7/22.

Little Worlds - Tobacco

Burley tobacco is a labor intensive crop. After the plants are set out by, and hoed three times over a period of weeks, it is left to grow for a period of weeks. But when it reaches head high, and the most profitable main leaves are taking on size and weight, it also produces a sucker leaf, usually between the stalk and each main leaf. It also produces a seed pod at the very top of the plant. Both the suckers and the seed pods have a purpose in nature, but they also serve to deplete the energy going to the main leaves, thus lessening the value of the crop.

In old times, before the advent of chemicals that would kill the suckers and seeds, as well as, the soil itself, farmers painstakingly walked their entire fields removing the suckers and pods by hand. It wasn’t such hard work, but rather long and tedious. While chemicals were available to Dellie in the mid-1970s, she chose to do the suckering the old-fashioned way. It was cleaner and decidedly less expensive, plus, she had the time and loved the work.

When I first met Dellie Norton, she was still growing burley. She was seventy-six years old at the time and could recall growing her first crop of tobacco when she was sixteen. She talked of having some money of her own for the first time in her life and she used it to buy herself some nice dresses and other clothing. At the time, ca. 1915, in a place as small and isolated as Sodom, it was revolutionary for a young woman to make her own money and be able to spend it any way she liked.

A couple of weeks ago I called the Farm Extension office hoping to locate some tobacco growers in the county. I am working on another project and have a need for tobacco leaves. The extension agent couldn’t think of any county farmers that were still growing the crop.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m certain we’re better off without it. Yet, it’s also easy for me to be nostalgic about those times. The connection people had with their land. The time spent with neighbors and friends helping them cut, hang, and hand their leaves. The vital economic benefit tobacco brought to the county and the sense that all corners of the community were united in its importance.

I think often of Dellie and wonder how she would navigate our present world. My sense is she would find a way, she would adapt. She wouldn’t be growing tobacco, and she certainly wouldn’t be the only woman making and spending their own money. But she would be doing something revolutionary, it’s who she was.

Little Worlds - Spirituality at the Courthouse in Marshall

I’ve lived in Madison County for nearly fifty years and have long understood the importance of Christianity in the community. One only has to drive around the county and observe the number of churches in every hamlet and hollar to know the significance of church in people’s lives. After land and family, nothing plays a role equal to church and god.

For years after moving here, I would be asked to come to church with local people I met. I never went. When asked, I would respond that I was raised a devout Catholic, a long-time altar boy who pondered becoming a priest. A trip to Rome when I was twenty, and a growing involvement with social issues, moved me away from all organized religion. People seemed to accept that reasoning.

But, while I didn’t attend church, I did often help neighbors with their tobacco and tomatoes. I shared many meals with folks and the stories and laughter that came with the food and fellowship. I drove elderly members of the community to the doctor, to the grocery store and visited them in the hospital. I attended weddings and grieved over lost loved ones.

I think most of us have a need for spirituality in our lives. Spirituality gives us meaning, and hope, and, quite simply, it makes us feel good about who we are.

Spirituality takes many forms and means different things to different people. But I’m also struck by the similarities, at least, in gesture. In my yoga practice, we do a movement called sun salutations, where we open our hands wide, and spread our arms, lifting them and our whole bodies to embrace the light. It reminds me of christians, both black and white, lifting their hands to the heavens, surrendering to god. For some of us, spirituality resides in good works, improving our communities, involvement with our neighbors, making a positive difference in the lives of others. And for some of us, spirituality lives in what is seen as the word of god and what they perceive that word of god is telling them, and the rest of us, to do. And for many of us in our community, spirituality lives in our work, our art, our music, our stories, and seeing the joy and knowledge they bring to people’s lives.

Yesterday’s rally for life at the courthouse didn’t lack for spirituality. There was singing, and preaching, quotes from the bible, much lifting up their arms to the lord, and much talk of the evils in our world, primarily abortion. For me, it was an old-world type of spirituality: paternalistic, narrow, our god is the only god, and scary. It mostly reminded me of theocratic societies in the middle east, or a scene from The Handmaids Tale.

But I don’t doubt people’s sincerity, or their right to believe what they want to believe. But, just as folks at the rally would never adhere to my way of thinking, or doing; I do not believe they have the right to impose their beliefs on me.

Little Worlds - Marshall Portraits by way of Ocean City, Maryland

It’s difficult for me to think about Jamie Paul without smiling and feeling totally appreciative.

Many of you know Jamie as my former assistant who worked with me for five years or more, and as the person who brought my photography practice into the 21st century. When we met I was struggling to figure out the digital darkroom and over time he taught me how to print. Not only how to print, but how to make prints that rival or surpass the quality of my analog prints. He taught me how to better organize my work. He built my website and showed me how to manipulate it. He encouraged me to create a blog site and offered advice about what to put on it. Together, we hung exhibits of my work.

Jamie had a degree in art and literature and he utilized that training to edit my writing, giving me concrete suggestions about language, word choices, and coherency. His extensive background in music helped me understand the flow of words and images.

But for all of his gifts that he passed on to me, it’s his demeanor that stuck with me most. Calm, never ruffled, honest in his criticism, easy to be around. One time in particular sticks in my mind. I was very bent out of shape, railing about slights from people I don’t remember, vowing revenge, caught up in my own lack of confidence. He talked, lectured really, about my need to get beyond my insecurities, not mincing words - at once assuring me of the quality of my work while letting me know that it was my internal demons holding me back. It was hard to hear, especially from someone forty years younger. But he was right.

So, during a recent trip to the Maryland/Delaware coasts, we were able to visit with Jamie, his wife Cara, and Jamie’s dad, Bill. Jamie and Cara had settled in Ocean City, Maryland, where he was raised. Bill had had health problems and they moved there from Massachusetts to help him get his life and business back in order. Seeing them last week, it was clear the move has been successful. He went back to school studying food science and microbiology and is forging a new career in the laboratory.

Seeing Jamie last week, obviously happy in his relationship, enthusiastic in his new career, still the same thoughtful, smart, caring person, made me smile once again and appreciate how fortunate I am to have him in my life.

Thank you, Jamie.

Jamie Paul and Cara Downey, Ocean City, Maryland, 2022.

Little Worlds - Marshall Portraits

My Brother, Mark, with Darcy, PawPaw, 2022

On June 30, 1959, I was eleven and a half years old. I answered the telephone in our kitchen and took a call from Dr. King, my mother’s ob-gyn who told me I now had a little brother. I was ecstatic. After two sisters, I had been hoping, and yes praying (I was a good Catholic boy back then), for a brother.

I talked my mother, and the priest, into letting me be Mark’s Godfather, even though I wasn’t really old enough. Hell, he was a big baby and I was hardly strong enough to hold him during the service.

There are years between my brother and me. It often seems we are of different generation. Our two sisters, and our parents, have all passed so Mark and I are what we have left of immediate family.

The rest of the family worried about my brother when he was growing up. It was the sixties and seventies, lots of temptations, and Mark was interested in all of them. But he found his path. He graduated from the Berklee School of Music in Boston and enjoyed a long career as a much-loved music teacher in Montgomery County Schools in Maryland, where he helped guide a few world-class guitar players.

He married Marisa and they had two daughters, Sammy and Lily.

Mark recently retired from teaching and he and Marisa sold their house in Frederick, Maryland, and bought a place on the Delaware shore on the Delmarva Peninsula. Mark likes to fish. He bought a small boat. I think my one Godfather type action with him was I took him camping and fishing for the first time.

We leave tomorrow for a few days with Mark and Marisa at their new home. We plan to lay on the beach, eat fish and crabs, walk the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD, and generally relax. In a complete reversal of the Godparent roles, Mark will take me fishing on his boat and we’ll hopefully come back with something to eat.

Little Worlds - Bobby Hicks

Yesterday, muggy, hot, too hot to be outside, but I landed inside Bobby Hicks’s house where he was jamming with Sam Parker and Frank Bowman. It was informal, loose, lots of talk, lots of playing. Bobby Hicks is the ten-time Grammy award winning fiddle player who lives about three miles down the road from me. He was one of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys for many years and was the fiddle player on all of Ricky Scaggs’ number one hits. He’s best known as a Bluegrass player, but with Sam and Frank they played a mix of Bluegrass and Swing. That sweet, sweet fiddle and that soft, penetrating voice. I’m a lucky boy.

Summertime

And the living is easy

Fish are jumping

And the cotton is high

Oh, your Daddy’s rich

And your Ma is good-lookin’

So hush, little baby

Don’t you cry

Bobby HIcks.

He suddenly put his bow down and strummed his fiddle. “There she is, Lix Cheney, ” Bobby said. “Now, I’ll tell you. She may be a hard-core Republican, but she’s gonna lock that turkey up.”

One of these mornings

You’re going to rise up singing

Then you’ll spread your wings

And you’ll take to the sky

But ‘til that morning

There’s a’nothing can harm you

With Daddy and Mammy standin’ by

Frank Bowman, Bobby Hicks, Sam Parker, PawPaw, 2022.

Sam, “It has been my great pleasure to call Hicks my friend and to be in the regular presence of one of the founders of the bluegrass genre.”

Little Worlds - Tobacco

Dellie, and most of the tobacco farmers in her community, believed in cultivating and hoeing their tobacco three times. She liked her rows to be clean of weeds. There is a rhythm to hoeing - slow and steady, pulling dirt around the plant, careful not to nick the stalk. It can be meditative, lost in the repetition. Perhaps, if you’re lucky, you’ll find an arrowhead, suddenly visible on the surface, where it’s laid hidden for hundreds of years.

Little Worlds - Goodby Lionel

Lionel’s coffin and grave, Foster Creek, Madison County, NC, 2022.

Lionel Filiss was a complicated man who loved simplicity. He eschewed modernity in most ways and chose to live his life close to the land he loved. He requested a simple coffin, a cardboard box; I’m sure to save his family money, but also as his son Alex said in his eulogy, to speed up the process for his next journey. Magic markers were on hand and everyone left a message on the box. He also loved flowers. His message for those of us who remain is one we all should heed.

Little Worlds - Marshall Portraits - Morgan Diep

Marshall has changed. It is a much different place from when I moved here. And really, it’s all good.

Little Worlds - Lionel Filiss

Lionell Filiss and his daughter, Jemima, Big Pine, 1983.

We lost Lionell Filiss this past week. Lionell had been a mainstay in the county for well over forty years. I would see him at parties, at demonstrations, at music festivals, and most recently at his daughter Jemima’s store, the Laurel River Store, on Highway 25-70 where it turns up the mountain to Hot Springs.

I had the opportunity to interview Lionell, along with his wife Mary, and Jemima when I was documenting the building of I-26, a project that eventually became my book, The New Road. Here are some excerpts from that interview that speak to who Lionell was.

It seemed like people in our situation had a local family that sort of took you under their wing. You became some kind of extended family. The first year we were here we grew tobacco. We had seventy year old people in the fields showing us how to do it., not only showing us, but out doing it. When I first moved here, daily I’d go up to the local store. There’d always be guys hanging out. They’d done some farming work in thee morning, and then they came for a Moon Pie and a drink, and we’d swap lies and tell jokes and stuff. There was a secular sense of community. The cohesiveness may be hard for some people to believe.

The most meaningful thing I could do was to take care of Mother Earth, or at least the portion that I could take care of because anything that I did for money seemed senseless. I think the American Dream is flawed. It was less meaningful. Just the fact that I could work a patch of ground and build up the soil. Anything I did around here was much more meaningful than putting some nylon carpet down in somebody’s house. I did mention to some people the best floor I ever had was a dirt floor. You raked it once a day whether it needed it or not.

Whatever the kids are going to do they’re going to do., but at least they saw this. I thought it was important that they know that, if they had to, they could raise their own food.

Lionell was a good man. A quiet man. Unassuming. A common man. A man you could count on to help. Madison County will miss him.

Lionell at the anti racism rally in Marshall.

Little Worlds - Social Change

Farmer Donald Stokes teaching English as a second language to Haitian migrant farmworkers, Newton Grove, NC 1987.

A few days ago I received a phone call from a young Ph.D student in History at Duke University. Ayanna was Haitian-American from New York and as part of a personal project was researching Haitian migrant farmworkers in eastern North Carolina. She found this image of mine in the archive at the Duke Library where much of my work is housed. We talked at some length about the picture, my work, her studies and research. The call left me heartened.

When I first started making photographs seriously I viewed the medium as a tool for social change. I wanted my pictures to make a difference in the world in the manner of Timothy O’Sullivan, Lewis Hine, and W. Eugene Smith. I wanted to picture the human condition and have those pictures elicit change.

The sheer omnipresence of photographs in this day in time makes that goal near impossible. One rarely sees images like Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl that helped change public opinion about the Viet Nam War and certainly altered that young woman’s life. Or, W. Eugene Smith’s story about Maude Callen, a Black nurse midwife in South Carolina in the 1950s in Life Magazine that helped Callen build the clinic she dreamed of.

I’ve been fortunate as a photographer. My work with non-profits and philanthropic foundations has offered me the opportunity to document the human condition. I worked with the Rural Advancement Fund for a number of years, both on staff and as a freelancer, and one of my jobs was to photograph small struggling family farmers in the two Carolinas. I want to believe some of those pictures made a difference in someone’s life.

Photography is largely about memory. Pictures stimulate our minds and inform us of the textures and gestures of life, the way things were, and how people acted. They remind us of who we were and where we were at that time. Sometimes they cause us to think differently, to open our minds, to educate us about new ways to view the world.

Yet, still, I often wonder how much of a difference a photograph can make.

And then a call from Ayanna, expressing her interest in this picture made thirty-five years earlier, her questions and curiosity, and me understanding the picture has moved her.

And I think, Perhaps this the definition of social change?

Little Worlds - the Mountain Pre-Heat, Part 2

After five full days and nights of hard work - cutting and gathering wood, loading the kilns, stoking the fires, carrying more wood, and weathering hot days and rainy days - the potters were ready to cut loose and relax. That came in the form of the Pottery Olympics, an event new to me and one I would clearly never participate in.

The potters were broken up into four teams that competed against each other in a number of clay-related events. There were judges who scored every event although I later discovered that cheating was expected and bribing the judges was completely okay. The two referees were on hand to keep it from getting totally out of control.

The referees and judges, Joey Sheehan, Michael Manes, Josh Copus, Alex Matisse, Camille Shaffer and Joey’s daughter.

The preparations for the games were elaborate and detailed - costumes, dances, shouting practice. The events themselves were challenging and interesting mainly to the potters - the 5 minute vessel that held the most water; the best piece thrown on a 90 degree wheel; the best 5 minute piece thrown with two people on the wheel (much harder than it sounds; and a couple of other competitions.

But, clearly, the defining and fun-filled event was the team tug of war. It came last. A large sheet of plastic was spread out and coated with many mud buckets full of liquid clay.

At different times during the day, but most especially during the tug of war, Josh would sidle up to me and ask what I thought of it all. I didn’t know how to answer. It clearly wasn’t an old man’s affair and just gawking from the sidelines was exhausting and left me and my camera mud splattered. It seemed silly and almost pretentious.

I’ve thought about it a lot in the two weeks hence and began to understand the mud bowl as part of a piece. I thought back to the beginning, specifically the half-loaded kiln, glowing like a temple, a testament to hands, and clay, and the earth that bore it. And then the extended firing, the purification, and the rebirth of the clay as something totally new to the world.

I began to see the tug of war differently, too. There was something wonderfully primitive about it, a kind of baptism in clay. A cleansing. A complete immersion and joining with the clay. For the potters I suspect it was a deeply spiritual experience, a commitment not only to the clay, but to the earth that bore them.

The Aftermath.

Josh Copus