Folk artist Gordon Roger Alexanders Buchanan Parks, born November 30, 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas died March 7, 2006. The youngest of fifteen children, Gordon Parks was born into the devout Methodist family of Sarah Ross Parks and Andrew Jackson Parks in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas. It was a town "electrified with racial tension," Parks remembered. The family was dirt-poor, but the children were taught to value honor, education, and equality, as well as the importance of telling the truth. The security that Parks derived from the quiet strength of his father and his mother's love was shattered when she died during his fifteenth year. As he recalled in Voices in the Mirror, he spent the night alone with her coffin, an experience he found both "terror-filled and strangely reassuring." After his mother's death, Parks was sent to live with a sister and her husband in St. Paul, Minnesota. His high school education was cut short when, after an argument, his sister's husband threw him out of the house just before Christmas one year. Suddenly and unexpectedly on his own, Parks was forced to take a variety of temporary jobs that included playing piano in a brothel and mopping floors. As a busboy at the Hotel Lowry in St. Paul, he played his own songs on the piano there and joined a band that was on tour after the leader heard him play. Parks became interested in photography while working on the railroad. Real life and photography were often closely intertwined in Parks's work. Parks took one of his most significant photographs on his first day in the nation's capital. He called it "American Gothic, Washington, D.C.," a portrait of Mrs. Ella Watson, a black woman who had mopped floors for the government all her life, posed with a mop and broom in front of an American flag. After a day of facing racial prejudice in restaurants and stores, Parks was angry when he took the photo. As the first black in the FSA, Parks did all he could to break down racial barriers, and he had the full support of his boss, Roy Stryker. While at the FSA, Parks took documentary photographs of everyday life. He spoke of his camera as if it were a weapon, "I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil—along with the evil of racism—with a camera."
Monday, July 23, 2007
Gordon Parks
Folk artist Gordon Roger Alexanders Buchanan Parks, born November 30, 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas died March 7, 2006. The youngest of fifteen children, Gordon Parks was born into the devout Methodist family of Sarah Ross Parks and Andrew Jackson Parks in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas. It was a town "electrified with racial tension," Parks remembered. The family was dirt-poor, but the children were taught to value honor, education, and equality, as well as the importance of telling the truth. The security that Parks derived from the quiet strength of his father and his mother's love was shattered when she died during his fifteenth year. As he recalled in Voices in the Mirror, he spent the night alone with her coffin, an experience he found both "terror-filled and strangely reassuring." After his mother's death, Parks was sent to live with a sister and her husband in St. Paul, Minnesota. His high school education was cut short when, after an argument, his sister's husband threw him out of the house just before Christmas one year. Suddenly and unexpectedly on his own, Parks was forced to take a variety of temporary jobs that included playing piano in a brothel and mopping floors. As a busboy at the Hotel Lowry in St. Paul, he played his own songs on the piano there and joined a band that was on tour after the leader heard him play. Parks became interested in photography while working on the railroad. Real life and photography were often closely intertwined in Parks's work. Parks took one of his most significant photographs on his first day in the nation's capital. He called it "American Gothic, Washington, D.C.," a portrait of Mrs. Ella Watson, a black woman who had mopped floors for the government all her life, posed with a mop and broom in front of an American flag. After a day of facing racial prejudice in restaurants and stores, Parks was angry when he took the photo. As the first black in the FSA, Parks did all he could to break down racial barriers, and he had the full support of his boss, Roy Stryker. While at the FSA, Parks took documentary photographs of everyday life. He spoke of his camera as if it were a weapon, "I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil—along with the evil of racism—with a camera."
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