To this day, I can not look at a piece of sculpture without hearing the voice of an old friend, David Crook, purposefully mispronouncing the word as “sklputcher”.
He’d jokingly said it in order to assure those of us who’d attended the swanky art opening, featuring his work, that he’d not forgotten his roots. He’d wanted us to know that the glamorous atmosphere had not gone to his head. That just because he was finally in a show among the jet-setters in the ritziest part of Atlanta, this did not mean that he considered himself above his south Georgia up-bringing.
Those of us who’ve been raised in the deep south and mid-south have been shaped by our elders regarding the perils of getting too high fallutin’ once our ships start to come in. A mechanism used for managing the inevitable shaming and shunning to come from those fearing being left behind, is to belittle oneself before friends and family can. Friends and family who’ve been taught by Mother Nature’s granting of an abundance of crops in one season, followed by drought, pestilence and flooding the next, the importance of humility when things are going well.
Using the affectations of hillbilly language or language delivered in a deep southern drawl is like a built-in harness or breaking system programmed to kick in at the precise moment that success starts to show up and we feel the need to communicate in a way that best suits the occasion. We want to appear more expansive in order to rise to what the surroundings call for and we want our language to reflect that we’ve been around, but we know better than to count our chickens before they’ve hatched.
In the 90’s I was married, living in Barcelona, Spain and my ex and I played in a touring honky-tonk band. The lead singer was from Virginia, the bass player, Texas, my ex played rhythm guitar and is from Georgia, I sang back-up and was born and raised in Arkansas. For a year and a half, based out of Barcelona, we played all over Spain, Holland and France, as well as a gig in Brittany and Scotland and Switzerland.
At the hotel bar, after the gig in Eindhoven, Scotland, where snow fell in blankets and Orkney Island could be seen from the window of our hotel, the bartender gave us all a lesson in drinking scotch.
Another band from the festival was also bellied up to the bar. When we heard their Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama accents, without thinking, we all slid our southern and hillbilly drawls into high gear. Typically we’d tried to flatten out our accents so as to be better understood. But once we all started talking, we sounded like an episode of Andy Griffith meets Hee-Haw. “Ya’ll got inny sweet tea or biscuits and gravy back ere?” We’d lovingly mock the voices we’d grown up with and imitate ourselves speaking to the Scottish waiters who had no idea what we were talking about. We could scarcely understand what they said as well.
Then the conversation would switch to our disbelief and gratitude for how far from home we’d come. How we loved the travel but hated missing home. The familiar sounds of our language was a deep comfort so far from our grandmother’s kitchens.
My intake of famous sculpture, modern sculpture, or any piece of art or culture that I experience while traveling, serves as a touchstone to remind me of my inner journey. How I experience and create the world around me and how much it is shaped by my ancestors who’d clawed through generations long enough to give me the chance, has a gauge on it. It’s like a valve which I like to play with by adjusting it to different settings.
Embracing my Hicksville roots as the daughter of an airplane mechanic who learned how to sing growing up in the Baptist church, learned about far away lands and languages from the missionaries at Vacation Bible School, and learned about culture from watching Kukla, Fran and Ollie, is the beginning of my journey of crafting a new self image. Nothing is yet set in stone.
While I honor the voices of friends and family who have shaped my experiences, seeing parts of the world gives me new materials and tools to use in sculpting a new me and I have final say about how I communicate, not them. Traveling has broadened my vocabulary, solidified my pride in where I am from and humbled the tone of my newly crafted voice.
With David’s voice in my ear, I share my photos of sculpture from some of my travels. Enjoy them and please write me about some of your travelutionary experience with sculpture.