Day 5: It's All About Chubbs!

This morning we had an hour to tighten up our presentations, which we did. But it was pretty tight to begin with. This was a tough morning because some groups didn't follow the format of the project and other groups went over and some folks were just lecturing about the information rather than the form of the presentation. Definitely not one of my favorite mornings!

Then we heard from Dr. William L. Andrews, who's an expert in Slave Narratives. It was a nice lecture, and it is clear he is knowledgeable and passionate--he's been doing this since the early 70s, before the form made it into the American Literature Cannon. He gave us a bunch of examples and some really interesting and terrible information!

Dr. Andrews says that there are five founding institutions, and that slavery perverted four of them. The fifth was slavery itself. The others are these: marriage, Protestant Christianity, capitalism, and representational democracy. Think about it.

But this afternoon made it all worth it! Today we got to meet to crafters and artists. One is a woodworker who makes furniture in the vain of Thomas Day, except this guy, Jerome Bias, was self taught. He says his story starts here, when he and his soon-to-be wife were bed shopping. They found a Thomas Day reproduction for a mere $11,000, and he refused to buy it. Instead he made it as a wedding gift. Wow! The bed is so pretty, and I'd bet his now wife absolutely loves it!

He showed us some zebra wood veneer. Look how thin this stuff gets cut! I cut instrument tops and bottoms down to less than an 1/8th of an inch and these cuts are 1/4th of that! That is some serious skill! You can barely see it when I turn it sideways.

He explained how the veneer is used on the pieces that he constructs, but it was cool to hear him talk about the woods that he likes to use. He loves black walnut. But who doesn't, really?

But the highlight was, without a doubt, Nellie "Chubbs" Miles, a seamstress who, using old-school methods, doesn't take measurements when she makes clothes. She just looks, cuts, and sews!

And the stories! Damn, those stories! Not only has she lived over 70 years, but she grew up as a sharecropper with her family. She did a slide show of where she grew up. It was a mix of pictures that her family took and those that were taken by Dorothea Lange on her way through where Ms. Chubbs grew up! It was an amazing anecdotal tale told in the vernacular. It was amazing and wonderful and I couldn't get enough. She was so engaging that she went 50 minutes over and nobody complained or left!

And we got to do some sewing with her!

There is nothing more to say that this video doesn't!