Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.
Bob Dylan, Song for Woody
Both of my parents were born in 1927, and grew up with the Depression. Now that I'm seeing the New Frugality firsthand, some of my mother's intense and sometimes irrational food-saving, bowl-scraping tendencies make more sense to me. Her father worked in a factory, and their French-Canadian ethnicity gave them a very specific kind of New England life, seriously Catholic and very modest. My mother made beautiful clothes when she was young, and I think she might have been the first child to go to college.
My father mostly grew up on a relative's farm in Easton, Penn., after losing his mother at age 4. His father had emigrated from Russia as a political prisoner; he'd been a counter-revolutionary anarchist in his teens and sentenced to prison. My father bore real emotional scars from his mother's death but seemed less fearful around money; after Easton, he was a photographer in the Army, then went to Yale on the G.I. bill and finally to Berkeley for graduate school. But he could never successfully stay in one place.
This is on my mind for two reasons; my father's brother is ill and near death, and he's really my last strong link to my father, who died 18 years ago. He's also the last person who remembers and can tell me anything about my grandmother, a seamstress, who died in 1931. My uncle Gene is a wonderful man who left no stone unturned on his quest for enlightenment, San Francisco style, and I will miss him. He believed in the Tao, not the Dow.
Second, thinking about the Depression years leads any artist to think about the legendary public works program that put artists to work -- making art. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has an exhibition of paintings called 1934: A New Deal for Artists. They've put 56 of these paintings on Flickr, with detailed information about each piece, so you can see the show for yourself at whatever level of viewing excellence your computer offers. From the museum's introduction:
The nation looked expectantly to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inaugurated in March 1933. The new administration swiftly initiated a wide-ranging series of economic recovery programs called the New Deal. The President realized that Americans needed not only employment but also the inspiration art could provide. On December 8, 1933, the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts organized the Public Works of Art Project. Within days sixteen regional committees were recruiting artists who eagerly set to work in all parts of America. Between December 1933 and June 1934, the PWAP hired 3,749 artists who created 15,663 paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, drawings, and craft works. The PWAP suggested “the American Scene” as appropriate subject matter, but allowed artists to interpret this idea freely. PWAP images vividly capture the realities and ideals of Depression-era America. The PWAP art displayed in schools, libraries, post offices, museums, and government buildings lifted the spirits of Americans all over the country. The success of the PWAP paved the way for later New Deal art programs, including the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project.
Here are a few of the paintings from the exhibition. Many of these are beautifully rendered images of a younger country, now gone; though suffering, America always had a wealth of resources in its cities and its countryside. Click the images to enlarge; they're quite dramatic.
The Farm, Kenjira Nomura, 1934, oil on canvas
Black Panther, Alice Dinneen, 1934 (this painting seems so anomalous to the rest, but it's beautiful in its Rousseau-like dreaminess, and I like the mythology of panthers so I included it)
Golden Gate Bridge, Ray Strong, 1934, oil on canvas (enlarge this amazing scene of the construction of the bridge)
Third Avenue, Charles L. Goeller, 1934, oil on canvas
A lot of people aren't sure who they are in this new economy, but looking back tells us that some people were able to do amazing work (yes, with the help of imaginative government programs) in the last great depression. Some friends and I were talking about how equalizing this economy is; suddenly there's less shame in driving an old car, living in a rented apartment, not having money for fancy. There's less pressure to do a certain kind of job, because there aren't many jobs. None of this is easy, but suddenly, if we can avoid losing heart, we're all more creative and more flexible than we've been before. And as we stitchers know, having skills that can be practical, beautifying, and satisfying is a valuable thing.
All images are from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with some rights reserved under a Creative Commons license. 