Georgia Long Rifles: “Truly American” Works of Art

Thomas discussing "Artful Instruments: Georgia Gunsmiths and Their Craft"

When Sam Thomas, curator of the T.R.R. Cobb House in Athens, first heard that Dale Couch was interested in spotlighting Georgia gunsmiths at the Georgia Museum of Art, it was music to his ears. After viewing long rifles on display at the Tower of London nearly 13 years ago, Thomas knew that exhibitions of that nature were well worth exploring and that the craft in Georgia has been overlooked for too long.

During a special Tour at Two on January 24, Thomas spoke to an interested crowd of two dozen individuals about the conception of “Artful Instruments: Georgia Gunsmiths and Their Craft,” which is on display at the museum through February 25. He noted that while many people see the guns on display as military pieces, he knew them to be “some of the earliest known forms of southern decorative arts,” and went on to classify them as “truly American works of art.”

Part of the crowd for the special "Tour at Two" on January 24

The craftsmen of these works known by many names — mountain rifles, hog rifles, long rifles — were truly jacks-of-all-trades. The guns were used for sustenance as well as defense, and in some cases they were crafted with the intention of being presentation pieces awarded as trophies or prizes in local contents and fairs. Decorated with themes from the craftsmen’s cultures carefully and with precision, some rifles were even signed by the gunsmith himself.

Because Georgia’s gunsmithing history has long been ignored, this exhibition is an important acknowledgment of that record. Thomas took time specifically to acknowledge gunsmith Wiley Higgins, stating that Georgia can safely claim that one of their own was the “best long rifle maker in the world.” Higgins has multiple guns displayed in the exhibition, including a pistol whose nickname, “Precious,” somehow fits the firearm perfectly.

“Artful Instruments: Georgia Gunsmiths and Their Craft” is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the museum (available for sale through the Museum Shop and on Amazon.com), and the exhibition is sponsored by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia/the MOTSTA Fund, the Watson-Brown Foundation, the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art.

Lamar Dodd

No visitor to the University of Georgia, or, in fact, the state of Georgia, can avoid seeing the name Lamar Dodd plastered in all kinds of locations: The Lamar Dodd School of Art (University of Georgia), The Lamar Dodd Art Center (LaGrange College), Lamar Dodd Professional Chair (a real job title), and even "Light one for Lamar" (a real anti-smoking ban protest). With his name being such a part of Georgia vernacular, Lamar Dodd’s actual identity eludes many – wealthy benefactor? Ancient regent?

Lamar Dodd at the Georgia Museum of Art

Dodd is actually one of the South’s most important and influential artists, contributing more than just his name to buildings, schools, and strange protests. His paintings are held in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Whitney, and Metropolitan Museum of Art – and of course at the Georgia Museum of Art – as exemplary pieces of Southern art. He enjoyed commissions from the likes of NASA, and his prolific output still permeates Southern culture, and particularly the Athens community, which Dodd made his home until his death in 1996.

Dodd’s beginnings are rooted in the region. He studied architecture at Georgia Tech, and then taught for a while in Alabama, but finding his greatest interest in painting and developing his own practice, he headed to New York in the late 1920s/early 1930s. This was a wise move – his stylized scenes of Southern landscapes and daily lives charmed New York crowds. Often dark in color, and with heavy black shadows, Dodd’s paintings of the American south appear sombre, yet romantic. This combination led to his first solo show in the city in 1932, and toward a name for introducing a renaissance in Southern art. He soon won the Norman Walt Harris Prize for his painting, “Railroad Cut,” which is now on display at the Georgia Museum of Art. 

Lamar Dodd, "North of Pratt City"

Following this, Dodd was invited to become the artist-in-residence at the University of Georgia, and so gladly returned to Georgia, and the South, to make art and advocate for its inclusionary sharing. He began giving lectures and teaching painting, and was appointed head of an essentially non-existent art department at the university. He expanded its programs, introducing more classes and a variety of courses, funded scholarships, saw the opening of the Georgia Museum of Art, and founded the Cortona Study Abroad program that is still enjoyed by students today, growing the art school until it was the biggest and most influential in the South. He retired in 1967, 16 years after the original residency program that was only intended to last a year. However, Dodd's legacy doesn't just lie with the school – he never ceased painting throughout these years, and exhibitions of his work continue today. The Monehegan Museum in Maine is currently showing a series of his works in an exploration of his 'artistic history.'

Lamar Dodd is an excellent figurehead for our institution as a great leader of the concept that we still work toward today – art for everyone. His name is proudly used to reflect the values that he instilled in (what he didn't know would become) the Lamar Dodd School of Art, and that they maintain in his memory. The school was renamed after him in 1994, not long before Dodd's passing, in celebration and tribute to his contributions to Southern art and its community, and you can visit the Georgia Museum of Art to see some of the paintings from the beginning of this great movement.

Jewelry by St. EOM, Georgia Folk Artist and Visionary

St. EOM, Courtesy of Pasaquan Preservation Society

   The Georgia Museum of Art is pleased to announce the acquisition of three bracelets and four necklaces by Georgia artist St. EOM (1908–1986), some of which are pictured below.

                

Born to a Georgia sharecropping family, he left his home to spend time in an artist’s colony in New York City during the 1920s before coming back down to Georgia and transforming the farm in Marion County that he inherited from his mother into a colorful compound called Pasaquan. Claiming to receive messages and visions from people from the future, he refused to go by his birth name, Eddie Owens Martin, instead going by the moniker “St. EOM,” as he felt it more accurately depicted him as the prophet and visionary that he saw himself as. He created Pasaquan in order to show the intersection of the past, present and future as a seamless whole, combining the visual art from many different cultures, such as patterns from ancient Greece, architectural forms from East Asia and statues inspired by ancient Mayan art. Visitors to Pasaquan are frequently overwhelmed by vibrant color and seemingly endless variety on display throughout the compound.

Sadly, St. EOM died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1986, but his legacy is now preserved by the Pasaquan Preservation Foundation and by the Kohler Foundation, who are now restoring Pasaquan to its original glory.

St. EOM’s jewelry that the Georgia Museum of Art recently acquired also displays the same love for vibrant color and the use of motifs from many cultures.

                                      

For more information, see:

ST. EOM (1908-1986)/ New Georgia Encyclopedia

Eddie Owens Martin (St. EOM), Pasaquan, SPACES

Nellie Mae Rowe: Making Something Out of Nothing

Photo Credit: Souls Grow Deep Foundation

Nellie Mae Rowe was known for creating imaginative works of art. Her sculptures made of found objects and drawings were inspired by her faith in God, by current events and by African American narrative traditions.

Rowe was born in 1900 in Fayetteville, Ga., but lived in Vinings. Her father had previously been enslaved, and her mother was born after emancipation. Both of Rowe’s parents were creative. Her mother was an expert quilter, and her father was a basket weaver. They both encouraged Rowe in her art. When she was a child, she would lie down on the floor and draw every chance she got.

She did not always have supporters as encouraging as her parents. After her second husband died, in 1948, people would tear Rowe’s fence down, throw things at her house and destroy her property. She told Maude Wahlman and Judith Alexander in the early 1980s that she would make “old weavings . . . make the eyes on them, make the big popeyes. They thought I was a hoodoo or something like that. I put up wig heads. I put the wig on them and sometimes have a shawl hanging on it. From here look like a person sit up in the tree.”

After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1981, Rowe increased her art output. She believed that she had been given this artistic talent by God, and she wanted to prove to Jesus that she was worthy of it. She considered her art to be a connection to and a way to honor God. She would draw people and ask the Lord to help them. Drawing, for her, was almost akin to praying.

Rowe was also inspired by current events. Between 1979 and 1981, more than 20 Atlanta-area children were sexually molested and murdered, allegedly by Wayne Williams. Rowe created several drawings on the subject because she believed they would protect the children. Her 1981 work “Atlanta’s Missing Children” features five charms and the color blue, traditionally used to ward off evil spirits in the homes of southern African Americans.

Her work was featured in a gallery for the first time in 1976, in the Atlanta History Center’s exhibition “Missing Pieces: Georgia Folk Art 1770–1976.” Her first solo exhibition was held two years later at the Alexander Gallery in Atlanta. She quickly garnered national recognition. Her first exhibition outside of Georgia was at the Parsons/Dreyfuss Gallery in New York City.

Rowe primarily used simple materials to create her art, like crayons and found objects. She told Wahlman and Alexander that she “[took] nothing, you know, [took] nothing and [made] something out of it.”

Rowe’s drawing “Foot with Deer” is part of the Georgia Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The museum also owns “Flower,” a crayon piece, and “Doll,” which is made from cloth, thread and found objects.

Currently, these works are not on display in the museum’s permanent collection galleries, partially because their fragile materials cannot be exposed to light for long periods. Many of Rowe’s works can also be found at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which owns more than 100 of her drawings.