It's all about music and games and pie and pie and ... - Mountain Mail

Page 8 • August 30, 2012 • Mountain Mail • mountainmailnews.com
Photographer finds inspiration from Russell Lee’s work in
Pie Town; returns for artist’s reception and Pie Festival
By John Larson
Photographer Arthur Drooker
has already made two trips to Pie
Town, and he will be back for this
year’s Pie Festival. His mission is
to document – in photographs – a
significant part of the community’s
history for a project called Pie
Town Revisited. He will be presenting
his latest photos at a reception
the day before the Pie Festival
at the Pie Star Art Gallery in the
Pie-O-Neer Café.
Drooker said he was drawn to
Pie Town after seeing color photographs
taken by Russell Lee for
the Farm Security Administration
in 1940. Lee’s Pie Town photographs
are all archived on the
Library of Congress website
(www.loc.gov).
“Lee took over 600 photographs
in depression-era Pie Town
and 75 were in color, using the
newly developed Kodachrome
film,” Drooker said. “This was a
period most of us are used to seeing
in black and white, and color
made them come alive. I was taken
with these images, and impressed
with the pioneer spirit of homesteaders
from Texas and
Oklahoma.”
Drooker made his first visit to
Pie Town in 2011 with a specific
mission in mind.
“Inspired by Lee’s work and
motivated to see FSA photography
anew, I began Pie Town
Revisited,” he said. “To create this
series I re-photographed a selection
of Lee’s pictures in Pie Town,
making visual juxtapositions that
merge or contrast past and present.
At the same time, I imagined
myself as an FSA photographer
documenting what happened to
the pioneer spirit that had so
impressed Lee.”
Drooker said what emerged
evokes William Faulkner’s quote,
“The past is not dead. In fact, it’s
not even past.”
He downloaded some of the
Russell Lee images and made
prints, mounting them on data
board.
“I brought those to Pie Town
and photographed the homesteaders’
descendants holding the Lee
prints,” Drooker said. “I wanted to
capture images of people who are
related to homesteaders or homesteaders
themselves.”
He also conducted short interviews
with the families.
“I found there is still that pioneer
spirit in the Pie Town area.
It’s a difficult place to make a living,
but they manage,” he said.
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“There is a strong sense of community.”
Drooker has been an exhibited
and published photographer since
1980. His work has been included
in several solo and group shows,
and in the collections of the
Petersen Automotive Museum
and the Music Center in Los
Angeles.
His first book, American Ruins
(Merrell), the first photographic
survey of historic ruins throughout
the United States, won a 2007
Best Book award from usabooknews.com
and was featured
on CBS Sunday Morning. A
related traveling exhibition included
shows at the Virginia Center for
Architecture, the Louisiana Art
and Science Museum, and the
Wichita Museum of Art.
Drooker’s second book, Lost
Worlds: Ruins of the Americas
(ACC), was published in
November 2011. Covering more
than thirty sites in the Caribbean,
Central America, South America,
and Mexico, the book presents a
visual meditation on the cultures,
conflicts and conquests that forged
the New World.
Drooker will be showing his latest
photographs from 5-7 p.m. on
Friday, Sept. 7 in the Pie-O-
Neer’s art gallery.
Rex Collins Norris, Jr. holds Russell Lee photo of his grandfather.
Used by permission of Arthur Drooker.