"Today, I painted a picture of my mama, today is the day she died...."

The following comes from BoneWoman Outsider Art. Something is lost here by not having the two images below next to one another, but I think that the text and the juxtaposition of the images carries a well-constructed story of memories, love, loss, and development. I say "well-constructed" because this can be construction site-raw and hit like bricks. There is something blue-collar here and there is something that takes up our own construction of memories and loss and what we do with them. Intended or not, all of this poses questions for me of how to define art and how art carries time and life along.

Today, I painted a picture of my mama, today is the day she died. Lots of tears mixed with paint, I never stop missing her!

1972 - Riding in the front passenger seat in our yellow dodge dart sitting by my mama in her green lime checker polyester dress she made herself a white scarf tied around her head hiding the baldness underneath - chemo colon cancer she is dying rotting on the inside - I am the last born of eight children - 15 - it was a rare moment to ever have my mama to myself - it is cold the heat is blasting in the car it smells old and moldy we arrive to the shopping center - Piggly Wiggly - a sign with a pig wearing a white hat and apron a stripe red & white shirt smiling at us welcoming us to come on in but we do not we walk behind the store where a small record store is located - it is tiny barely five people can fit into the store - my mama had asked me what I wanted for my birthday - my mama had never asked me ever what I wanted for my birthday - I said I want the single of Roberta Flack the first time I have saw your face - we went into the store and there it was a black and red 45 vinyl slipped inside a plain white cover. Next to the single was the 33 - the full album First Take - A bright yellow album cover with Roberta seating on a piano stool her hands posed over the white keys looks like she playing in a smokey bar with her musicians to the side two orange lamps over her head she is wearing a black and white dress with a white scarf that looks like the one my mama has on her bald head. Roberta head is bowed as if she is praying to the piano. I so wanted the whole album but I will not ask because I know we cannot afford it.
We return to the car, it is cold, the wind chills my bones, I am holding on to this little white package for fear the wind will take it from me - we return home I run to my bedroom the one I share with my sister Dea - bunk beds I pull out our little record player from underneath the bed - looks like a red and white small suitcase. I flip the brass clasps - fling open the record player and gently place my 45 on the turntable lifting the needle and carefully carefully placing the needle on the record so as not to scratch this precious early birthday gift. Roberta comes to life her voice in my room all mine for that moment she sings
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies, my love
To the dark and the endless skies
And the first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command, my love
And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last 'til the end of time my love
And it would last 'til the end of time
The first time ever I saw your face
Your face, your face, your face
Mama is in the room next to mine, I can hear her grunting, pulling off the tight dingy white girdle, slipping out of her green polyester dress, the bra and then I hear the bed springs squeak and she is lying down in her bed.
Soon it will be time for me to go in and change the bandage that covers the oozing wound on her belly, where they removed a tumor the size of a grapefruit. She lays there and we both are listening to Roberta sing “The First time I saw your face" coming from my room. I cannot look at my mama because I know I will cry and we did not cry in front of each other in my house. All tears were hidden. Mama died two months later - January 17th -1973 Roberta Flack won a grammy award two months later 1973 for The First time I ever saw your face.

Two Stories From Journey Of A Mountain Woman

One of my favorite daily readings comers from the Journey of a Mountain Woman Facebook page. The woman who writes the stories or accounts on that page writes from her heart and from her experiences. it is often tough reading, but it almost always instructive and is often redeeming. Some people from the Appalachian mountains rite only with nostalgia or sentimentality or anger, but this writer writes with truth and can tell a story that sweeps in different points of view. If she had a book out I would buy copies and give them out to my friends and ask you to do the same. She has never answered the messages that I have sent asking if I could repost something so I'm going to post two of her recent entries and hope that she will be okay with that. If you're on Facebook please "like" her.

Here we go.

When I was about eight daddy sent me to the store to buy some nails. Back then they were loose and in a wooden barrel and sold by the pound, half pound or however many you needed. By the time I got out of the holler I had forgotten what size he said so I winged it. Size 51 penny nails, I told the store keeper, Claude Blair. He was a wonderful man and if his lips quivered a bit when I said that, I didn’t think much about it. He told me”I’m all out of that size but I have some I think will work.” There were several old men sitting around on sacks of feed and they all got a coughing spell at the same time. when I got home I told daddy that they were all out of 51 penny nails but he sent some that he thought would work. Daddy smiled and said” that will work fine.’’Later when I went into the store again and the same old men were there and a couple of others also. One spoke up and said “that was a plumb good joke your pa got on you with the nails. Your daddy is a sight.” The other men looked a bit uncomfortable. “What joke?” He said and suddenly I knew. I had asked for the wrong size nails. Daddy took the blame for it. Just another one of his jokes. He never once mentioned it even when some of the men told him that he shouldn’t have done that to me. But daddy and I knew and it raised my love for him a few notches.---December 26

The food is on the stove cooking, the lights are twinkling on my tree, the great grand is napping and I'm trying to warm my feet with a cat in my lap aggravating me. I was thinking as usual. Lately several people have told me that their spouses have not forgiven them for things they have done even though they have tried to change. They have tried to bring God into their hearts and be better people. My daddy was a kind and gentle person to me. He was a lot of fun...most of the time. I loved him dearly and I always will. I'm going to tell you all a story of forgiveness beyond imaging. I was in a store one day while visiting my mother. She and I were together. Suddenly the woman in front of us fell and somehow became tangled in a cart. Her daughter was screaming and no help. I looked at my mama and told her, find someone to call an ambulance. She might have had a heart attack! Mama stood there glued to the spot, her eyes filled with tears. I can't! She told me. By this time others had come to help. I took mama outside and helped her into the car. Soon my husband and uncle had found us and we headed home. Mama told this story "I never told anybody, not even family," she said in a soft voice. "It all hit me when I saw Her again! My husband cheated on me. With that woman. He caught Syphilis from her. I was pregnant. He was really sick and had to go in the hospital for weeks. He was very sick when I found out that I had it. I couldn't go into the hospital. I had three young children. One just two years old. The doctor treated me at home and I told nobody. When the baby was born she was perfect, even though she was early. She had beautiful skin, not wrinkled and she seldom cried. She lived five days. Our old Dr told me after she died that he knew she would but he prayed anyway. Only he, my husband and me knowed why she died. I had syphilis, so did she. We had no pictures so the photographer from Cumberland took a picture of her after she died so my husband could see her. He was still in the hospital. It was hard for me to forgive him. I wouldnt let him come home until I was sure I could put the past into the past. He stayed with his maw for several months ànd after a while and a lot of praying I let him come home. I talked to the old Dr about it and he told me, 'now Lizzie, if you can't let it go and truly forgive him, then you shouldn't let him come back. You can't have a relationship when things, even terrible things, aren't forgiven.' I forgave him and went on to have that one last baby." She said, "I never saw the woman again until today I suspect it will take a whole lot of of prayers to forgive her." Honestly I'm not sure I could have forgiven that but I would not have allowed him into my life if I had been my mother, but if not I would not be here today. I was the last child. But she said she never mentioned it to him again. She never forgot her little children though and I saw her tears when we visited their graves, and I witnessed horrible heartbreak. I am in the process of writing a book about those days and I was not sure if I should include this story or tell it to anyone but today I felt I should write about it ànd about forgiveness. My Christmas message is that forgiveness is the hardest thing we can possibly do and if we can't forgive that person then we shouldn't allow them back into our lives, for forgiveness is not forgiveness if you keep reminding them of their fall from grace. It's not easy, never easy to truly forgive! I hope you all can forgive me for this heartbreaking story on Christmas. (Christmas snow two years ago)--December 25

Some thoughts on where we come from

 Waiting for the northbound train in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1921

during the Great Migration.

Youngsters from Washington D.C. in the early 1940s.

The following was written by Bobbie Rutledge and appeared on the Appalachian
Americans Facebook page:

I knew a man, he was a poor man but an honest and hardworking man. He pulled corn for $.25 cents a day. He graduated from high school in a time, where most young people did not. He wanted to go to University of Georgia to become a Soil Conservationist since he came from sharecroppers. He wanted to import their lives and see that they could own their own land. However he got a letter from Uncle Sam that he was needed. This man, who had never gone any further than 25 miles from Georgia went to Texas, California, Florida, France, and Germany. He drove a tank. When he got back he farmed along side his parents. He picked cotton from sun up till sundown with no complaints. He married a beautiful black haired lady. They had a child that was their world. The year the child was born his cotton crop made $50 and the hospital bill was $48. He finally decided that farming wasn’t gonna get since child any future. So he went to work driving he’s y equipment for the county he lived in grading roads thru the farm land he used to farm. That broke his heart. But life goes on. One day he was driving with his son in law , in the SIL new trick when they turned wrong and the SIL got on ONSTAR to find their way back. The man listened to the directions given and when they were back home, he turned to my hubby and said that was nice of that man to stay in the phone with us. Hubby laughed and said it was a computer. Daddy said well I swear, this came from a man, who walked to school, did his homework by lamplight and saw electric light come into his house. Saw TV come into it’s on. Finally got a telephone at the age of 40. This man who went without dinner so his child could eat. This man. Is who Americans have to thanks for being what we are today. This man is my Daddy, thanks Daddy, I sure miss you.

A Victorian street scene

From Journey of a Mountain Woman:

When I was growing up when a person was near death, the Drs would say 'call the family in' and in most cases no matter where they were they would go back to the old home place in the mountains. It was a duty and a thankfulness, and A loving grateful opportunity to say goodbye. we all dreaded to hear those words...call the family in. Things have changed but us old folks remember...we remember the goodbyes, the casket set up in the living room, us sitting up all night, drinking strong coffee, that last time. The house smelled of flowers and fried chicken and the table was laden with food brought in by neighbors. Many of us will grieve this Christmas for those who have left us. Many of us are the only one left of a large family and we will smile through the tears as we remember those sad words...call the family in. Have a good night and God bless.

“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”---Dorothea Lange

Well, here I go again. I have said it before: a person can talk day and night on something they know nothing about, but ask that person to talk about something that they do know and they will run out of talk in about 15 minutes. That and I always say that experts are just people far from home. If the people that you grew up around heard you advertising as being an expert, they would just die laughing. Here I am going on.

Now, on May 4, 2022 I did two posts here about art and photography in Appalachia. They are titled "Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting---Parts One and Two.” They were not particularly well written or profound. My point in writing those posts was to talk about painting and photography, and about some painters and photographers as people who not only document or record life as it changes, but also as people who we informally appoint to tell us and others more about ourselves and our experiences. They become our representatives to a larger world.

Every time you turn on the radio or the tv you hear someone talking from a particular place and a particular viewpoint that is shaped by their experiences and who they’re representing. I’ll wager you that in a day of listening to the mainstream tv or radio you won’t hear any working-class people telling our stories the way we tell them or would like them to be told. It’s not the fault of the media; their sponsors and their mindset don’t allow for us to be much more than consumers or victims or rough people. We know that we’re more and better than that, but sorting that out is hard if we don’t have the means to do that.

That’s why the painters, photographers, singers and bands, poets and writers, carvers and whittlers, cooks, storytellers, six-time-mommas who still tell bedtime stories, and so many other creative people who come from the working-class are so important. If you can find something of yourself in their work you might be on the way to sorting out your life essentials---where you came from, where you want to go, how you want to get there, and who is coming along with you. This helps people break out of their bad sides and start getting along with others, and who knows where that will stop once it takes off?

If you know where you have been and you get a vision of where you want to go, you’re more likely than not to start loving the people around you. Most of us want for others what we want for ourselves most of the time and you can’t care for yourself without caring for others. Life doesn’t work that way. You’re more likely to put down that bottle or that joint or the meth because, well, at some point it’s either that or it’s your future and it's either that or the people who care for you.

I tried to make the point in my May 4 post that I think that Kristen Kennedy, the woman who does the photography at Virginia Lee Photography in southwestern Virginia, is one of those people who helps us sort ourselves out. Her work gives me a good push on most days because I can see myself or people who I come from in her work. You can catch up with Virginia Lee Photography on Facebook, and if you live in Central Appalachia, I hope that you will make an appointment with her and get some photography done.

But how is she documenting people, and what does her work have to say to us? Some things are subtle. You have to let them sink in over time. A photograph is usually something more than a picture. The person or place that you see when you look at a photograph is held there at a particular moment. Yesterday they were different, tomorrow they will be different. It’s good to ask yourself how they happened to get there and where they’re headed. Ask yourself those questions, too.

I’m going to focus here on Appalachia, big and diverse as it is, and certain rural areas. You can be Appalachian and be in Northeastern Pennsylvania or in parts of Alabama. You can live in a holler or a patch or in a city. You can use yellow, white, or blue cornmeal. Your family’s roots can be in any part of the world. My grandmother would say that labels are only good for cans of soup.

Once, not so long ago, we looked a lot like this:

We were mostly poor, and many of our people were undernourished. Our families lived in rural areas, coal patches and hollers, “across the tracks” in towns and cities, in segregated and “ethnic” neighborhoods. 

And many of our families lived in homes that looked like this:

And when we look at the Virginia Lee photography this is some of what we see:

Now, what changed? How is it that, with all of our troubles, many of us look healthier and happier today then we used to? Some of it is color photography. Some of it is that today people smile in the camera. Some of it is that people go to Virginia Lee Photography to have a happy occasion photographed. But it’s also true---and this is central for me---that between those old times and today lots of people stuck together, showed love to one another, and made positive change by protesting, going on strike, and fighting for better living conditions.

Freedom is a continuing struggle, but we have had victories. Most kids in the United States don’t go to work in the mines and factories now. We have mine safety laws. We have seen times in this country when we had majorities or near-majorities of people who believed in peace, civil rights, union rights, and policies that put people ahead of profits. Appalachia and many rural areas were key to those movements.

From the film "Harlan County, USA"

From the film "Harlan County, USA"

Please take another look at some of the work done by Kristen Kennedy with what you have read above in mind.

The sentimental person within me says that this love and joy did indeed fall from the skies. But another voice tells me to take a minute and reflect. Do you see an evolution here or cause-and-effect? Where do you see the evolution and the change? I see it in the means of doing photography itself and in the very bodies and faces in the photographs, but I also see it in the development of real human feelings. The protests and the movements for change have expressed something good in people, but they also helped those feelings to find expression. The proof that these movements succeeded to some extent is in the smiles that you see here and in the faith needed to have a child or graduate from school today. And Kristen Kennedy is there to capture that love and joy and represent us.

Sources:  The photographs here and other work done by Kristen Kennedy can be seen at the Virginia Lee website and on the Virginia Lee Facebook page. Some of the photographs above come from my family album. Most of the photographs here have ended up on my desktop over the years and come from sources that I can't trace. Mr. Bob Wilson and the Appalachian Americans, Scenic Harlan County, and Forgotten Coalfields of Appalachia Facebook pages are good sources. One of my best and favorite sources is the Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections. If you are fortunate to find the work of Marat Moore anywhere, snap it up.