tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post1583962334558403169..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Marion Post Wolcott: A Baptism in Black and WhiteUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-61347821718175445602014-05-29T09:56:12.534-07:002014-05-29T09:56:12.534-07:00These are amazing pictures. How good we have it n...These are amazing pictures. How good we have it now!!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11415834564856682181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-21149041114346809272012-12-22T11:00:56.110-08:002012-12-22T11:00:56.110-08:00Curtis,
Ditto, on all counts.Curtis,<br /><br />Ditto, on all counts.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-56607381744070211352012-12-22T10:04:37.015-08:002012-12-22T10:04:37.015-08:00Wolcott's probably the best of the WPA photogr...Wolcott's probably the best of the WPA photographers. Lange and Rothstein are over-rated. <br /><br />It's all good, but she's just a magician--how she got such shots with a hand-held graflex--no tripod--slow shutters, slow film. . . .<br /><br />It's as good in its way as Walker Evans, though she's much better with people and candid situations. Where Evans is symbolic, she's direct and concrete. <br /><br />Wow.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65284084094926353242012-12-20T11:14:07.797-08:002012-12-20T11:14:07.797-08:00And isn't that the beauty of it.And isn't that the beauty of it.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-7365679810777124282012-12-20T11:04:10.106-08:002012-12-20T11:04:10.106-08:00She made it all look so simple--all the trappings ...She made it all look so simple--all the trappings of her art.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66392308493551121612012-12-20T10:23:48.682-08:002012-12-20T10:23:48.682-08:00Yes, good analogy. A righteous pride may make its ...Yes, good analogy. A righteous pride may make its statement with small means, against whatever weather.<br /><br />That picket group was protesting conditions in the foul mines of the Tennessee Copper Basin, which were killing all vegetation for miles around by covering everything in a noxious deposit of sulfuric acid.<br /><br />Marion took one of those sedentary stay-at-home poets out with her on that junket, yeah. <br /><br />(You'd hardly expect he'd have made it there, otherwise.) <br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/marion-post-wolcottts-eliot-goin-for.html" rel="nofollow">Marion Post Wolcott / T.S Eliot: Goin' for a Ride in the Wasteland</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-470042985895872192012-12-20T10:07:03.942-08:002012-12-20T10:07:03.942-08:00The sharp dressers in the jitterbugging photos bri...The sharp dressers in the jitterbugging photos bring to mind Peter Meaden's definition of the term "Mod": "clean living under difficult circumstances".<br /><br />That tough little picket with the plain sign.<br /><br />Great photos. Every figure is alive.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67192225546647132512012-12-20T09:48:51.307-08:002012-12-20T09:48:51.307-08:00From the Robert W. Snyder article excerpted at the...From the Robert W. Snyder article excerpted at the bottom of that post:<br /><br />"Although Post took considerable pride in not being what she herself called a 'sissy,' she also discovered that traveling alone in the rural South was very risky and frightening. She reported that after dark everything closed up, and people went to bed, leaving only drunk and tough bums and derelicts on the prowl. 'If anything goes wrong you’re just out of luck,' she wrote from Montezuma, Georgia, 'and no one understands it if a girl is out alone after dark -- believe it or not.' [FSA Historical Section director Roy] Stryker had earlier instructed her to stay off the roads and remain indoors after sunset. 'I would feel very upset if anything should happen to you while doing our work,' the director had informed her. 'To hell with the work when night comes. Find yourself a nice safe place and settle down.' Both Post and Stryker agreed that evenings should be safely spent checking equipment, changing and packing supplies, captioning photographs, and planning the next day’s itinerary. Post enjoyed driving her convertible around the South with the top down, drinking in the bright sunshine during the day and the pleasant breeze in the evening. But she found that some people confused the deep brown tan she acquired with minority group membership, while others saw her as a loose woman. 'I’d at least like to be able to go for a little ride in the country with the top down on the car,' she complained while driving through Morehead, Kentucky, 'but good girls in the mountains in this country don’t ever ride around after dark! And since I’m trying to make a "good" first impression, I must do as the natives do. Ain’t it awful.'”<br /><br />Morehead, Kentucky by the way is the site of that wading-in-the water brother-where-art-thou baptism scene {#35) I picked out to title the post.<br /><br />But of course the phrase has another sense; the photos selected here represent Post's baptism as a serious artist, working with black and white in her early outings. (Her FSA colour work would instantly make her the house Kodachrome Queen; I think the short stocks of Kodachrome were reserved for those who used it best, and Post seems to have got the share her abilities deserved; quality of production not dimension of reputation determined your allotment -- happily for us all who would wish to grasp the reality of the world that made us what we are.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82697736532036000702012-12-20T09:44:27.888-08:002012-12-20T09:44:27.888-08:00Annie,
Thanks so much for that. A good close eye ...Annie,<br /><br />Thanks so much for that. A good close eye like yours is what Marion Post's work was made for -- giving each picture the attention it demands of anyone who cares.<br /><br />These images were (obviously) obtained one by one, and under problematic conditions in many cases. Nothing like now, where a robotic arm could take a picture as easily as any human.<br /><br />#6 "young girl on right, has no socks" -- And it appears her sister (next to her) has none either. As to their mother, we can't see her feet, but socks would be a wonderment. One can't imagine the trouble she's seen.<br /><br />It's always a small shock to turn from the custom of common conveniences that most people enjoy routinely now, to see images like these, and get a sense of the strength it took in those circumstances to maintain a bit of dignity in the face of a relentless wave of everyday difficulty. The father, with head bowed, shows us another aspect of the humiliation which poverty imposes.<br /><br />#21 "woman in a flour sack, branded" -- She's the center of the post. Are those shoes she has on, or socks? Two persons further up in line, another no-socks woman. Behind the flour sack woman, laces dangling loose from man's shoes. <br /><br />#33 "two sleep in shoes, one doesn't" -- Well, the two have at least untied the their laces, a small comfort. The ragged state of the socks of the no-shoes sleeper hints of the probable equally religious (=holey) state of his shoes.<br /><br />But #15 -- "the joy of jitterbugging" -- she's got a fine pair of leather riding boots, for tripping the light fantastic, those smiles!<br /><br />It's beautiful to know someone has taken the trouble to look with such care at the work of this marvelous photographic artist, who never sought fame for herself and therefore of course never got it.<br /><br />Though Dorothea Lange became the "iconic" woman photographer of the FSA group, one always has to remember that Lange did it the Hertz way -- left the driving to someone else. Whereas Marion Post was the ultimate DIY kid in the pack.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/marion-post-wolcott-modern-gypsy-in.html" rel="nofollow">Marion Post Wolcott: A Modern Gypsy in an Automobile</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10795362282668185382012-12-20T07:06:30.341-08:002012-12-20T07:06:30.341-08:00Little things that jumped out
in those photos:
# ...Little things that jumped out<br />in those photos:<br /><br /># 6 - young girl on right, has no socks<br />#15 - the joy of jitterbugging, those smiles!<br />#21 - woman in a flour sack, branded<br />#33 - two sleep in shoes, one doesn't<br /><br />The Vermont street scene looks like my street outside today, only the piles are higher :)<br /><br />Thanks, Tom!<br /><br />awynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01541564613932885469noreply@blogger.com