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Indiana University Press - Jon Kay

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131 pages

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Growing old doesn't have to be seen as an eventual failure but rather as an important developmental stage of creativity. Offering an absorbing and fresh perspective on aging and crafts, Jon Kay explores how elders choose to tap into their creative and personal potential through making life-story objects. Carving, painting, and rug hooking not only help seniors to cope with the ailments of aging and loneliness but also to achieve greater satisfaction with their lives. Whether revived from childhood memories or inspired by their capacity to connect to others, meaningful memory projects serve as a lens for focusing on, remaking, and sharing the long-ago. These activities often help elders productively fill the hours after they have raised their children, retired from their jobs, and/or lost a loved one. These individuals forge new identities for themselves that do not erase their earlier lives but build on them and new lives that include sharing scenes and stories from their memories.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Folk Art and Aging
1. Bob Taylor: Stories in Wood and Words
2. Gustav Potthoff: Memory Paintings
3. Marian Sykes: Recalling Memories and Making Rugs
4. John Schoolman: Objects, Life Review, and Sociability
5. Milan Opacich: Life-Story Displays and Narratives
Conclusion: Life-Story Objects and Aging in Indiana
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Social Science

Sociologie, société et politique

Folclore

Mythology

Folklore

Informations

Publié par	Indiana University Press
Date de parution	08 août 2016
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9780253022202
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

FOLK ART AND AGING
Jason Baird Jackson, editor
FOLK ART AND AGING
Life-Story Objects and Their Makers
Jon Kay
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2016 by Jon Kay
A free digital edition of this book is available at IUScholarWorks: http://hdl.handle.net/2022/20906
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kay, Jon, author.
Title: Folk art and aging : life-story objects and their makers / Jon Kay.
Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2016] | Series: Material vernaculars | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016017119| ISBN 9780253022066 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253022165 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253022202 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Folk art-Psychological aspects. | Art therapy for older people. | Memory in art. | Aging-Psychological aspects. | Folk artists-United States-Biography.
Classification: LCC N5312 .K39 2016 | DDC 745.01/9-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017119
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17 16
For Bob, Gus, John, Marian, and Milan May your stories be remembered and your art treasured
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Folk Art and Aging
1 Bob Taylor: Stories in Wood and Words
2 Gustav Potthoff: Death Camps and Memory Paintings
3 Marian Sykes: Recalling Memories and Making Rugs
4 John Schoolman: Objects, Life Review, and Sociability
5 Milan Opacich: Life-Story Displays and Narratives
Conclusion: Life-Story Objects and Aging in Indiana
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
0.1 Harold Stark s half-size steam engine, 2012.
0.2 John Bontrager knotting a rug at the Center for the Traditional Arts in Shipshewana, Indiana, 2009.
0.3 Eli Jackson at Conner Prairie playing a mandolin made from a ham can, 2007.
1.1 Bob Taylor in his workshop holding his dead whale carving in Columbus, Indiana. Photograph by Greg Whitaker Photography, 2015.
1.2 Bob Taylor at the Mill Race Center, Columbus, Indiana, 2013.
1.3 Bob Taylor s Excursion Train to Coney Island displayed at the Mill Race Center, Columbus, Indiana.
1.4 Bob Taylor s Coney Island river trip panel displayed at the Mill Race Center, Columbus, Indiana.
1.5 My Town by Bob Taylor.
1.6 Mission Festival by Bob Taylor at St. John s Lutheran Church at White Creek, Indiana.
1.7 Bob Taylor at the Franklin Woodcarving Show, 2013.
1.8 Bob Taylor s carving of a dead whale on a train.
1.9 Larry Carter at the Franklin Woodcarving Show holding a chain and puzzle ball he carved, 2013.
2.1 Gustav Potthoff at the Atterbury-Bakalar Museum in Columbus, Indiana. Photograph by Greg Whitaker Photography, 2011.
2.2 Gustav Potthoff s painting of freedom.
2.3 Gustav Potthoff s painting of his transformation from a soldier to a POW. This image records the camps along the river where he worked.
2.4 Gustav Potthoff s Rainbow Angel painting.
2.5 Gustav Potthoff s painting of a plane bombing the wooden bridge.
2.6 Gustav Potthoff s painting of him stealing his coat from the back of an elephant.
2.7 Gustav Potthoff s Wounded Camp .
2.8 Gustav Potthoff s painting of the tree growing in the Hellfire Pass.
2.9 Painting of Gus playing a harmonica along the railway and the swarm of butterflies that came to him.
3.1 Marian Sykes holding her rug, Rima s Bloomers , in her home in Chesterton, Indiana.
3.2 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting a greased pig contest.
3.3 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting Little Italy in Chicago.
3.4 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting the worst snowstorm in Chicago.
3.5 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting the Fourth of July at family home on Dickens Street in Chicago.
3.6 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting an ethnic festival on Dickens Street.
3.7 Rug made by Marian Sykes depicting her children trick-or-treating.
3.8 Rug made by Marian Sykes of her daughter getting thrown into a trash can by lifeguards.
3.9 Rug made by Marian Sykes of a family trip to White Pines State Park.
3.10 Rug made by Marian Sykes of her family visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
3.11 Rug made by Marian Sykes of a Chinese New Year parade in Chicago.
4.1 John Schoolman in his home, North Webster, Indiana, 2008.
4.2 Schoolman s General Store cane.
4.3 Handle of Schoolman s General Store cane.
4.4 John Schoolman s Presidents cane.
4.5 Handle of John Schoolman s Presidents cane.
5.1 Milan Opacich in his shop with his first instrument, 2009.
5.2 Display on the back of the door to Milan s shop in Schererville, Indiana, 2007.
5.3 Milan Opacich and the Drina Orchestra playing at the Jovial Club in East Chicago, Indiana, 2005.
6.1 Elmer Schlensker making a broom in his basement in Millport, Indiana, 2009.
Acknowledgments
I N THE 1970s, just before my grandfather retired from the Pekin Banner in Washington County, Indiana, the paper switched from a movable-type system to a newer method; so my grandfather brought home the drawers that once organized the metal letters and hung a few of these ready-made shadow boxes on the walls. He filled the divided drawers with old pocketknives, arrowheads, marbles, and a variety of other keepsakes from his life. He used these objects to launch into stories about his youth and life in southern Indiana. I credit my grandfather, Harry Axsom, for sparking my interest in the narrative nature of things and starting me on my life s work of listening to the stories of elders and learning from the things they make, display, and share.
The insights that led to this book are the product of years of working with elderly storytellers, tradition bearers, and artists too numerous to name, but I am thankful for their patience with me and for the many lessons they taught me. Three elders whom I will name are Damon Helton, a willow furniture maker from Middlesboro, Kentucky; Zelton Connor, a storyteller from the Okefenokee Swamp; and Nancy Morgan, a quilter in White Springs, Florida. Each of you taught me the true importance of the arts in later life and how the stories and skills we learn in our youth can help us as we age.
From Warren Roberts and Michael Ann Williams, to Richard Bauman and Henry Glassie, many teachers have shaped my research perspectives and understanding of folklore and folk art. I thank them all. I am grateful as well for the thoughtful advice and support of my friends and colleagues in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, but especially for Pravina Shukla, Diane Goldstein, and Michael Dylan Foster, who offered comments on this manuscript and whose collective depth and breadth of knowledge made this book better. Jason Baird Jackson, my friend and teacher, deserves special credit, for without him this book would not exist. I also thank two reviewers, Marsha MacDowell and Daniel Swan, whose valuable comments improved this work.
I would be remiss if I did not recognize the graduate assistants and workers at Traditional Arts Indiana, who contributed greatly to my research, work, and knowledge. I appreciate each of you: Ilze Akerbergs, Jill Hemming Austin, Arle Lommel, Christopher Mul , Maria Kennedy, Selina Morales, Kat Forgacs, Thomas Grant Richardson, Hsinwen Hsu, Joseph O Connell, Jennifer Jameson, Kate Schramm, Suzanne Godby Ingalsbe, Anna Mul , Kara Bayless, Josephine McRobbie, Betsy Shepherd, Kelley Totten, Hannah Davis, Meghan Smith, Emily Polembella, Meredith McGriff, and Maria Zeringue.
Finally, I thank my parents, Emil and Marilyn Kay, and my in-laws, Johnny and Sharon Dorn, for their support in my work and my life. However, I truly could not have written this book without the support and sacrifice of my wife, Mandy, and my son, Zelton-I love you both very much.
FOLK ART AND AGING
Introduction: Folk Art and Aging
There are elderly people all over America, waiting only to be asked about their stories and folk art. Their memories and works are stored in boxes, in cellars, in trunks, in attics . . . needing only a witness to bring them to light, a recipient to complete the interchange that is requisite to all cultural transmission.
(Myerhoff 1984a:38)
I ARRIVE AT THE Indiana State Fairgrounds on a hot July afternoon to interview Harold Stark, a longtime state fair volunteer, and steam engine enthusiast. It is still weeks until the fair, but the eighty-nine-year-old senior is busy moving tractors and equipment into place for the big event. The fair selected Harold as this year s Indiana State Fair Master, an award that the program I direct (Traditional Arts Indiana) produces for the fair. From sheep shearers to fiddlers, I have produced short documentaries about the fair s veteran competitors, judges, and performers for this program. Like several of the other State Fair Masters, Harold is