Clementine Hunter (1886-1988)

PHOTOS: one of Hunter's well known scenes, "Wash Day," these two painted on linoleum tiles. The yellowed and faded tag reads "$3.50". I bought these in Houston from a collector friend in the 1990s who had found them in the attic of a elderly friend she was helping sell down her own collection of art and antiques. That friend had bought them from Hunter in the 1960s. The signature, a backward C and H, is consistent with the period of the '60s.

Born into a Louisiana Creole family in Natchitoches Parish, Clementine Hunter's grandparents had been slaves. Hunter started painting in her 50s, when she found leftover tubes of paint in the room an artist guest had been using at the plantation house where she worked as a maid. Her artwork depicted plantation life in the early 20th century, documenting a bygone era. She sold her first paintings for as little as 25 cents, but by the end of her life, Hunter's work was being exhibited in museums and individual pieces being sold by art dealers for as high as thousands of dollars. Clementine Hunter was granted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Northwestern State University of Louisiana in 1986.

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Fuchs Family (Harris County, Texas)

What beautiful handwriting--art itself! A moment in history, November 23, 1893, Harris County, Texas. My great-great grandfather, August Fuchs, signed the marriage certificate for his son Louis (b. 1873) and Kate Rinkel (b. 1874), certifying that they were "of age". My mother,  (Tena Elizabeth Fuchs Hollis), told me many times that 3 Fuchs brothers married 3 Rinkel sisters. This is 1 of the 3 pairs. My great-great grandfather, August, was born in 1830 in Germany/Prussia and came to Texas with his family as a young man in 1853, arriving in the Port of Galveston. His is one of four known graves in the historic Fuchs cemetery, located in northwest Houston (Harris County). This small cemetery, completely surrounded by neighborhood homes, became known to a Fuchs family member a few years ago. "Fuchs Cemetery is one of several family cemeteries that existed in the White Oak Bayou (also known as Rosslyn) community of NW Houston. It is located on the land once owned by German immigrants, August and Christiane Fuchs. The only known use was between 1908 to 1914." (from find a grave dot com). Fuchs cemetery was designated as a Texas Historic Cemetery on March 11, 2015.

From Texas State Historical Assn, Handbook of Texas:

"Rosslyn Texas - Rosslyn, also known as White Oak, was a rural German community west of White Oak Bayou on what was then the western edge of Houston in west central Harris County. In the 1880s it had a population of 300. A post office was established in 1911 and discontinued in 1917, when mail was delivered from North Houston. In 1936 the community was listed on state highway maps. By 1982 Houston had grown around the two abandoned railroad stations that marked the site."

Early Texas Artist Marie Bruner Haines (1884-1979)

Iconic SAN FRANCISCO DE ASIS MISSION CHURCH IN RANCHOS DE TAOS, NM, painted by MARIE BRUNER HAINES (1884 -1979). In 1927, Haines exhibited this painting of San Francisco de Asis in the ANNUAL TEXAS ARTIST EXHIBITION, FORT WORTH, TX. Landscape, wildflower, and portrait painter, muralist, graphic artist, designer, lecturer. Haines was born in Cincinnati and reared in Dayton and Madisonville, Ohio. She studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (1900-1901), the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts, Philadelphia (1904-5), and the Art Institute of Chicago. She lived in Atlanta (1908-21), during which time she attended the National Academy of Design and studied at the Art Students League of New York (1915-17).

In 1921 Haines moved to College Station, TX, where she maintained her home and studio in the residence of Dr. F. B. Clark, her brother-in-law and professor of economics at Texas A&M College. In the 1920s she painted several summers in San Augustine, Florida and Taos, New Mexico. Haines is considered an early member of the Taos art colony. She also painted in New York during the period. After her marriage to Frederick A. Burt in 1950, she moved from College Station to Bennington, Vermont, where she painted under the name Marie Haines Burt. Haines died in Bennington.

Exhibitions: Southern States Art League Annual Exhibition (1926-30,1933-34,1936,1937 prize,1938); Annual Texas Artist Exhibition, Fort Worth (1927, 1930); Annual Exhibition of Texas Artists, Dallas Woman's Forum (1928); Edgar B. Davis Competition, San Antonio (1928-29); Highland Park Art Gallery, Dallas (1929 one-woman); Annual Texas Artists Circuit Exhibition (1931, 1948); Annual Southeast Texas Artists Exhibition, Houston (1937,1939); Corpus Christi Art League (1943-45); Corpus Christi Caller-Times Annual Exhibition (1944); Society of Vermont Artists (1953-61); Women Artists of Texas 1850-1950, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon (1993); Taos; Port Arthur and Wichita Falls; Atlanta and Macon, Georgia; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe; Charleston, South Carolina.
Murals: Austin High School, Bryan; library, Texas A&M College, College Station.

We get what we give

I’ve been thinking about principles we hear all of our lives: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, or “do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself”, and "you get what you give”. Even "good karma". Here’s what someone has to say about Karma in a column from The Huffington Post: “‘What goes around comes around’” or “‘as you sow, so shall you reap'” is the basic understanding of how karma, the law of cause and effect, works. The word karma literally means “activity.” Karma can be divided up into a few simple categories — good, bad, individual and collective. Depending on one’s actions, one will reap the fruits of those actions. The fruits may be sweet or sour, depending on the nature of the actions performed. Fruits can also be reaped in a collective manner if a group of people together perform a certain activity or activities.
"Everything we say and do determines what’s going to happen to us in the future. Whether we act honestly, dishonestly, help or hurt others, it all gets recorded and manifests as a karmic reaction….”

Gadadhara Pandit Dasa (also known as Pandit) is a monk, lecturer and the first-ever Hindu chaplain for Columbia University, New York University, and Union Theological Seminary.

This is what we need to know

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice: they shall have their fill.”—the Gospel of Matthew 5:6

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”—Martin Luther King Jr.

“I believe in justice and truth, without which there would be no basis for human hope.”—His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the most entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”—Mahatma Gandhi

“To live a just life in this world is to identify with the longings and hungers of the poor, the meek, and those who weep".—Richard Rohr, meditation for February 2, 2018

Photo credit: flowering almond, Prunus jacquemontii, a symbol for hope

1950s, Northwest Harris County Texas, YMCA Camp Holden

In 1952 there was no camp for minority youth in Houston. Remember those days? By 1970 all the Houston Y Camps were fully integrated. What I knew in my childhood as the Bagby Y began in the early ‘50s when a property near Cypress Creek in far northwest Houston came on the market. The property lay just down the road from where our family lived. It was anchored by a large ranch-style home on 55 beautiful wooded acres, with a lake and a pool. The name changed over the years to YMCA Camp Holden, then Cypress Creek YMCA, and later the D. Bradley McWilliams YMCA at Cypress Creek. Virtually from day one, the camp was ready to use, serving primarily minority youth and organizations for over 20 years. Notably, Camp Holden hosted the first conference on interracial understanding with YMCAs in the Southwest Region of the USA, leading efforts to desegregate YMCAs across the country. (Thanks to Jennie Stephens and Gary Nicols of the YMCA of Greater Houston for filling in the blanks in my memory.) "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the Trail with Black American Cowboys

"Roy Rogers and Billy the Kid may have been the most famous cowboys of the Old West, but one-third of America’s cowboys were African Americans. From the freed slaves who found work on the earliest cattle drives to the contemporary rodeo circuit, African American cowboys have been part of the West’s heritage for generations.

“‘A lot of African Americans went west —— that’s the one place where they could be judged like anyone else,'” said Kevin Woodson of the Texas-based Cowboys of Color, sponsors of the largest multicultural rodeo tour in the world….Many western ranch foremen of the 1850s were African American, Woodson said. African American cowboys were in high demand during the boom years of the western cattle drives from 1866-95.’” (from an article by Kathaleen Roberts, Santa Fe New Mexican, June 29/30, 2013)

“Black cowboys predominated in ranching sections of the Coastal Plain between the Sabine and Guadalupe rivers.” (Teresa Palomo Acosta, Texas State Historical Association online handbook)

Photo credit: from the TSHA online handbook, Black Cowboys preparing for a horse race at the Negro State Fair. Image courtesy of the Erwin E. Smith Collection. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.