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Tuesday 28 September 2010

The Way Through


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File:Cherokee Pass2.jpg

Camp 59: Cherokee Pass, Rocky Mountains: Daniel A. Jenks, June 1859
(Library of Congress; restoration by Lise Broer)


In a heavily

forested pass
beneath snow

covered peaks
on the way
north

toward the Oregon
and California
trail

-- Our wagons
had to be
chained

to keep them
in their
places

the hillside
was so
steep --

Jenks made camp.



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Camp 23: Arkansas River River, on the Santa Fe trail: Daniel A. Jenks, April 1859 (Library of Congress)

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Camp 100: Humboldt River, on the California trail: Daniel A. Jenks, July 1859 (Library of Congress)

Monday 27 September 2010

Russell Lee: Riches (Along the Million Dollar Highway)


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Rocks and stream along the Million Dollar Highway, Ouray County, Colorado
: photo by Russell Lee, October 1940

The golden silence rained


photo

Farmland in the vicinity of Mt. Sneffels, Ouray County, Colorado: photo by Russell Lee, October 1940

The world less ugly, the people less sad


photo

Hay stack and automobiles of peach pickers, Delta County, Colorado: photo by Russell Lee, October 1940

A harvest ascending to the sky


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Llano de San Juan, New Mexico, Catholic church: photo by Russell Lee, July or October 1940

Movement of clouds, the beautiful day


photo

Stand of virgin ponderosa pine, Malheur National Forest, Grant County, Oregon: photo by Russell Lee, July 1942

Swept through us there, waiting


photo

Horse breeding ranch, Grant County, Oregon: photo by Russell Lee, July 1942

In the world where we walked where we walked, saw what we saw


photo

Bands of sheep on the Gravelly Range at the foot of Black Butte, Madison County, Montana: photo by Russell Lee, August 1942

A world of the infinitely small


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Farmland, cherry orchards and irrigation ditch at Emmett, Idaho
: photo by Russell Lee, July 1941


The fullness disguised as bareness, remembering


photo

First snow of the season in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains, Lewis and Clark National Forest, Meagher County, Montana: photo by Russell Lee, August 1942

Junipers shagged with ice


photo

First snow of the season in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains, Lewis and Clark National Forest, Meagher County, Montana: photo by Russell Lee, August 1942

Awaiting the sapphire point of a tomorrow


photo

View of Mount Shasta, California: photo by Russell Lee, June 1942


Photos by Russell Lee from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Russell Lee: Boom Town


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Signs in the oil town of Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Main street Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs is an oil boom town: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Signs in front of theater, Hobbs, New Mexico
: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940


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Cot house in the oil town of Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs is now experiencing a boom and the cot houses are necessary for the swarms of workers who come in. This is typical of all oil boom towns
: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Boarding house in oil boom town of Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Houses of oil field workers in Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Recess time at grade school in Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Store in Hobbs, New Mexico, oil boom town: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Shops on the main street of the oil boom town of Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Oil well supplies, Hobbs, New Mexico: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940


Photos by Russell Lee from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Russell Lee: The Middle of Nowhere (A Texas High Plains Survey, 1940)


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Beer joint on the Texas high plains, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Sign on the high Texas great plains, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Farmhouse on the high Texas great plains, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Wreckage of burned cotton gin and compress at Big Spring, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Power lines, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Grocery store and filling station in the high plains, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Farmstead in the high plains, Dawson County, Texas. Windblown field in the foreground: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

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Telephone poles along the highway, Gaines County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940

Grave on the high plains. Dawson County, Texas

Grave on the high plains, Dawson County, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, March 1940


Photos by Russell Lee from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Russell Lee: Everything Must Go


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Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Signboard on land near Iron River, Michigan: photo by Russell Lee, April 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Sign advertising land for farm purposes, pine area, New Jersey: photo by Russell Lee, January 1938

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Los Angeles, California. Auction sale sign in Little Tokyo. The stock belongs to a Japanese subject to evacuation from West Coast areas under Army war emergency order: photo by Russell Lee, April 1942

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Sign of farm for sale, Malheur County, Oregon. The notice of eighty shares of water is indicative of the dependence of agriculture on irrigation water: photo by Russell Lee, May 1937

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Auctioning pigs at Frank Sheroan's closing-out sale near Montmorenci, Indiana: photo by Russell Lee, February 1937

Image, Source: intermediary roll film

Notice which appeared in a Montmorenci, Indiana newspaper. Frank Sheroan sale: photo by Russell Lee, February 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Men taking bed apart at S.W. Sparlin auction sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Goods to be auctioned at Sparlin sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Farmer at S.W. Sparlin's auction sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Speculators at S.W. Sparlin's auction sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

The auctioneer at S.W. Sparlin sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Group of children at Sparlin sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

An old farmer at the Sparlin auction sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937

Image, Source: digital file from intermediary roll film

Women at the Sparlin auction sale, Orth, Minnesota, photo by Russell Lee, August 1937


Photos by Russell Lee from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Sunday 26 September 2010

My Master's Lost His Fiddlestick: Raymond Williams on Art and Commodity Production


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The rose is red

The rose is red: from Denslow's Mother Goose, W.W. Denslow, 1901 (hand-lettering by Fred W. Goudy)


Art has been used in English from the 13th Century. It was widely applied without predominant specialization, until the late 17th Century, in matters as various as mathematics, medicine and angling. In the medieval university curriculum, the arts… were grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Artist, from the 16th Century on, was first used in this context, though with almost contemporary developments to describe any skilled person.


Jack be nimble

Jack be nimble: from Denslow's Mother Goose, W.W. Denslow, 1901 (hand-lettering by Fred W. Goudy)


The emergence of an abstract, capitalized Art, with its own internal but generalized principles, is difficult to localize. There are several plausible 18th Century uses, but it was in the 19th Century that the concept became general.


Deedle, deedle, dumpling

Deedle, deedle, dumpling: from Denslow's Mother Goose, W.W. Denslow, 1901 (hand-lettering by Fred W. Goudy)


It can be primarily related to the changes inherent in capitalist commodity production…[as a]…defensive specialization of certain skills and purposes…not determined by immediate exchange (value)….This is the formal basis for the distinction between ….fine arts and useful arts.


Cock a doodle doo

Cock a doodle doo: from Denslow's Mother Goose, W.W. Denslow, 1901 (hand-lettering by Fred W. Goudy)


As these practical distinctions are pressed, within a given mode of production, art and artist acquire ever more general (and more vague) associations, offering to express a general human (i.e. non-utilitarian) interest, even while, ironically, most works of art are effectively treated as commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, are effectively treated as a category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal commodity.


Three wise men of Gotham

Cock a doodle doo: from Denslow's Mother Goose, W.W. Denslow, 1901 (hand-lettering by Fred W. Goudy)


Art: Raymond Williams, edited excerpts from Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, 1976