Coming together....

It's been a long time comin'.  Yesterday and today were spent installing the exhibit in its new home at Christ Church Cathedral.  It will live there the entire month of February in celebration of Black History Month.  It's exciting to look at all the work that has gone into this production.  I have enjoyed watching our downtown neighbors take an interest and ask questions about the photographs.  I've watched people come through and watch us work and stop and stare and smile.  Some frames  have been covered for the unveiling on Friday.  I don't know why but I don't seem to tire of looking at the pictures again and again.  Hope all the visitors will feel the same.  

*Thank you Dean Kinman for taking the pictures.

Who is pictured in the Exhibit?

One of the most exciting things about collecting this large amount of photographs has been the stories that accompany them.  What a fascinating history lesson!  I loved the stories of everyday sheroes and heroes, the stories of sacrifice and struggle,  the stories of change, of joy and celebration , and the stories of praise and thanksgiving.  There are stories of chance meetings with everyday folk that turned out to be the legends of history.  The exhibit has photographs of African Americans who interacted with Booker T. Washington, Mary Mcleod Bethune, The Inkspots, Hattie McDaniel, Ernest Hemmingway and Julia Davis.  While not having the names and stories of all the photographs, one has to but stare at the photographs to have the pictures whisper their stories.  Hidden away in boxes and a variety of storage containers, these images have been shared to look at with new eyes and help tell the many missing chapters in our country's history.  

Guest speaker to celebrate Black History month

  By Joe Holleman jholleman@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8254

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Wiley Price

Enlarge Photo

Local lens legend Wiley Price will be front and center this weekend at the Christ Church Cathedral, which will feature the "As If We Weren't There" exhibition.

Price will be at the opening of the exhibit at 7 p.m. Friday. Then on Sunday, he will lead a 9 a.m. presentation and discussion about race relations and then preach at the 10 a.m. service.

Price, who recently was inducted into the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame, is with the St. Louis American and has been recording images in STL history for more than 30 years.

"Like no one else, Wiley Price has told the story of St. Louis in all our diversity through his photos," said Mike Kinman, dean of Christ Church Cathedral.

The exhibit includes about 300 photographs of blacks taken between the Emancipation Proclamation and the civil rights movement. It is a production of Hands On Black History Museum, curated by Deborah Nelson Linck.

Framing and wiring and sorting...."oh my!"

Once the story/ photography boards were complete, helping hands helped attach eye hooks and wire for hanging.  First, the large frames, then the smaller frames were finished.  Frames were sorted again in tubs to make sure all the content areas were covered.  Of the largest frames there are 10, these contain a variety of  portraits, family pictures, pictures of children, Mothers and children and photographs of African Americans at worship, in the military and at play.  At this stage there are 54 frames ready for the exhibit.  Who are all these people in the photographs?

The frames meet the photographs

Finally, the photography was positioned on each frame with carefully chosen paper, smaller frames or artifacts that acted as supporting backdrop.  Some pieces on the frames are interactive with the intent of having viewers drawn into the photographs. Photographs and frames dictated what additional artifacts needed to be added, the beauty of many of the photographs needed very little added other than mats or smaller framing.  Each  frame took on its own personality and no two frames are alike.  This process was both fun and exhausting.  It became a challenge to have each frame tell  its own story.  The mounds of pictures and frames at one point seemed endless, but finally the end was in sight.

Framing the exhibit

Once the photographs for the exhibit had been collected the hunt for frames was on.  It was important that the frames used would frame the stories they would tell.  I hunted in Thrift shops and  took donations from friends.  I was specifically looking for distressed frames, old and worn with stories of their own.  I chose a combination of sizes and shapes, wood, metal and plastic frames.  I removed the glass so that there would be no glare when viewing the pictures.  Frames were sorted into size and shape then stored in boxes.  Foam core and covered boards were attached to each frame.  Then, the fun part....pictures, artifacts and frames were arranged in groups for each story board/frame.

Sorting things out

When beginning to collect photographs I set a goal of 100 pictures. I didn't know how I'd possibly get that many but I knew if I collected 100 I could sort through them to find enough good shots for the display.
Over the course of several months the pictures started to come in.  Some pictures people game me to scan and return other pictures came through email.  Some pictures were gathered by visiting the homes of the contributors.  At last count I had 300 plus photographs.  All the pictures were perfect, full of stories and all of them keepers.  As I received the pictures they were  scanned then sent out to be printed.  The next task was how to display them....by the age of the photograph?..by contributor?...by similarities?  Finally the pictures were divided into categories_ portraits, portraits standing, portraits sitting, children , school, people at worship, people at play, people in the military, romantic couples, weddings, people at work, special occasions, and families.  Each set of photos was placed in an envelope.  Then it was time to frame.

The next step

Once I  purchased the pictures I let them sit for a while. There was something in the eyes of the people in the photographs that begged for their stories to be told.  Who were these people?  How had they come to be photographed ?  What were their lives like? What message was in their story for the next generation?  Slowly the idea began to form, maybe I could collect other photographs and combine them with my Mom and Dad's pictures for some type of display.  I purchased several books on African American photographs and photography.  A friend suggested I learn more about W.E. B. Dubois' series of photographs for the "American Negro" exhibit  in 1900. I asked friends, neighbors and everyone I cold think of to dig through their family scrapbooks and boxes and share photos with me.  I needed a time frame for the pictures to fall in.  One of the most significant times of growth and development in our country for  African Americans as they struggled to define themselves was the period after the end of slavery and the beginning of the civil rights movement. The time frame decided upon for pictures was 1863 which marked the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and 1955, the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.  The story told in the  display would be a picture walk exploring the lives of African Americans sharing their stories through their deep glares  from the frames and photos, their proud poses and fashionable dress, and  the many ways they are photographed living simple, quiet, distinguished lives.  

The beginning of the journey

     Early in the summer of 2012 I was at a favorite antique mall  and came across some old photographs.  What made these particular photographs stand out is they were photographs of African Americans.  Also, several of the shots were very old, somewhere in the 1800's.  I could approximate the age of some because of the fashions and the style of the photography.  I had fond memories of flipping through my parent's scrapbooks growing up and remembering the pictures held in place with the paper corners, mounted on black paper with white writing that told of the occasion the picture was capturing or the names of the people in the photographs.  I was so excited I bought all the pictures they had, about 40, not yet knowing what I'd do with them. I knew it would be something to do with the museum.

Save the date, February 1st, for our upcoming photo exhibit gala. There's still time to send in your photographs. Final date for submitting photographs is January 11, 2013.   Photos must be between the dates 1863 and 1955.  Please scan and attach pictures and send them to:  dlinckhandsonblackhistory@gmail.com