my office walls: a (voluntary) mid-sabbatical progress report

i started my sabbatical in summer 2012 with a goal to research the history of the farm at black mountain college (1933 - 56). i began where BMC began, in north carolina, to attend and participate in the information professionals 2050 conference, organized by gary marchionini of the university of north carolina. i gave a talk, titled "digital natives on a media fast," which described a media fast i assigned (twice) to the students in my intro to media studies class. i also spoke briefly about green media and seasonal syllabi.

from chapel hill i drove west to asheville where, with support from USF's faculty development funds (FDF), i spent a week in the black mountain college collection, at the western regional archives. with help from archivist heather south, i became acquainted with the amazing and enormous collection and dug deeply into farm and food-related folders, documents, and photography. my work with (and love for) the bmc collection was featured in jon elliston's article "NC state archives opening its first western branch" in the carolina public press.

in july i began taping my research to the walls of my office. i started with a few photographs of students, faculty, and staff building a barn (in summer, 1941).

in august i flew to los angeles to spend a few days with the MC richards papers at the getty research institute. i learned more about MC's (BMC faculty, literature and drama, fall 1945 - summer 1951) proposed book on the history of black mountain college, located ray trayer's (BMC farmer, fall 1946 - summer 1951) 5-page syllabus "soil and steel," and discovered herb cable's (BMC student, still working on exact dates but sometime between 1945 - 1951) unpublished short story and poetry about the farm at black mountain college. by the end of summer, my office's east-facing wall, the one representing the farm at black mountain college in the 1940s, looked something like this:

in fall i returned to asheville, to attend and participate in the "re-viewing black mountain college 4: looking forward at buckminster fuller's legacy" conference and to conduct further archival research at the BMC collection. the conference, organized by the black mountain college museum + art center (BMCMAC) and hosted on the beautiful campus of the university of north carolina, asheville, brought together local, national, and international scholars and followers of black mountain college and (this year's conference focus) buckminster fuller (BMC summer faculty, 1948 and 1949). i gave a talk titled "the farm at black mountain college" which traced the development of the farm through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. with help from archivist heather south, my talk featured a table of farm-related "live artifacts" from the western regional archives. before and after my talk, i invited attendees to approach the table and witness the artifacts first hand. "if you like them," i said, "you should check out the whole BMC collection at the western regional archives."

the conference ended with a field trip to the lake eden campus. at the end of the regularly scheduled tour, alice sebrell, program director of BMCMAC and our excellent tour guide, invited the field trippers to walk to the farm where i would give a brief history. sharing my knowledge about the farm at black mountain college while at the farm at black mountain college was a true sabbatical (and career) highlight.

after the conference, and with help from FDF, i spent a week at the BMC collection, working primarily with the ted and barbara dreier collection, faculty meeting minutes, and photography of the farm.

much of winter was spent growing and tending my personal research archive of the farm at black mountain college. through google, i located and began corresponding with former members of the BMC community, including ron robertson (BMC student, 1950 - 51) and trueman machenry (BMC student, 1949 - 1951; worked on farm 1951). through emails with katherine c. reynolds, author of visions and vanities: john andrew rice of black mountain college, i learned about the john andrew rice collection at the south caroliniana library and obtained recordings of 8 oral histories with former BMC students, faculty, and faculty family members. i also continued (and continue) to build "a bibliography of the farm at black mountain college," a real-time, photo-based bibliography of the campus farm that now contains over 100 photo-entries.

the walls of my office also grew. soon i had three walls representing three decades of the farm at black mountain college. taped on my office walls were farm and farmer photographs; farm plans, maps, and planting charts; faculty and student discussions about the farm; and paintings, poetry, short stories, and personal memoirs about the farm. by the end of winter, my office walls looked like this:

i am excited by and focused on my remaining sabbatical activities. in april i will return to north carolina, to raleigh, for a two-day visit to north carolina state university. here i will give a series of talks (and hopefully classroom visits) on social media, learning, and libraries as well as a talk about the farm at black mountain college. from raleigh i go to boone, to appalachian state university, where i will give a talk titled "the farm at black mountain college: a history in five acts with lessons for today"; the talk is co-sponsored by the sustainable development program and belk library and information commons. while at ASU i will visit the john a. rice papers in belk library.

depending on FDF support, i will then go to asheville, again to the BMC collection, with a focus on the black mountain college research project, the recently-catalogued helen post modley collection, and, if they are ready by then, mary emma harris' black mountain college project papers.

in may, again, depending on FDF support, i will fly to washington, dc, to colonial williamsburg, to conduct research in the a. lawrence kocher archive. kocher (BMC faculty, architecture 1940 - 43) worked with students, faculty, and staff on numerous construction projects including, most famously, the studies building (completed in 1941). kocher also designed and worked with students, faculty, and staff to build many of the farm structures on the lake eden campus, including the barn, a milking house, two corn silos, and a machinery shed/corn crib.

finally, in july, i will return again to north carolina, to chapel hill, where i will give the keynote talk at the triangle research libraries network annual meeting 2013. from chapel hill, i will drive to - where else? - asheville and conduct research at the BMC collection for as long as possible.

between all this travel i look forward to watching my office walls grow.

it's been an exciting and fulfilling first half+ of my sabbatical and i look forward to what remains.

a field trip to black mountain college

since 2009, the black mountain college museum + art center has organized an annual conference called reviewing black mountain college. the conference includes performances, talks, and panels and the last two conferences had a thematic focus. last year, the focus was john cage. this year's focus was buckminster fuller, who, among many other things, was a faculty member at black mountain college in the summers of 1948 and 49.

it was a good conference and a lot went down. for this post, though, i want to focus on my favorite part of the conference: the field trip to the lake eden campus of black mountain college.

alice sebrell, program director of BMCMAC and one of the main organizers of the conference, led the field trip. she began by explaining that when BMC started, in 1933, they were across the valley at the blue ridge campus, where they stayed until 1941. from 1941 to 1956, the college existed on the lake eden campus. throughout the tour, alice told fascinating stories and anecdotes about the college and shared a thick photo album that brought to life the buildings, campus, and college.
 

alice was sure to include a number of bucky fuller-related nuggets. for example, when we got to the studies building, the beautiful, modern building that BMC students, staff, and faculty designed and built between 1940 - 41, alice brought us to the room that bucky slept in during his stay at the college. a sudden and prolonged hush filled the room. as other tour members began filing into "bucky's room," the guy next to me, wearing a "i heart domes" shirt, whispered to the incoming group, "this is where bucky slept!" a sudden and prolonged hush fell upon the group.

i must admit i was less interested in bucky stuff and more interested in farm and food stuff, including the dining hall, where our campus tour began. the dining room was, well, the dining room - the place where students, faculty, and faculty families sat, at tables of eight, to break bread in the morning, afternoon, and evening. it was also a space of endless talking, scheming, suggesting, debating, arguing, and fighting. after meals, student work crews moved the tables and chairs to the side and the dining room was transformed - into a rehearsal space for the dancers, into a performance hall for the musicians, into a lecture hall for speakers, or into a dance hall for saturday evening dances.

while the tour group was in the dining room, i snuck into the kitchen. the kitchen is an essential part of my research on the farm at black mountain college. the kitchen was where they took dairy, meat, and produce from the farm and made it into meals. further, the kitchen was where a remarkable group of men and women, mostly black, worked hard and creatively to feed the college. BMC kitchen staff -- each of whom will soon receive a blog post of their own -- included jack lipsey (chef, 1933 - 1945), his wife rubye lipsey (assistant chef, 1934 - 1945), and cornelia williams (cook, 1947 - approximately 1950).

our field trip also included a tour of a student lodge, what was once the quiet house, and the studies building. as the official tour ended, alice turned to the group of about thirty or forty and said, "if folks feel like walking a bit, we can take a quick tour of the farm and, er, maybe david silver would be willing to say some words about the farm." (this wasn't a surprise for me. i had the good fortune of carpooling to BMC with alice and during our ride she asked if i might want to share some stories about the farm. i believe my answer was: "yes! oh hell yes!") then, like so many black mountain college students, staff, and faculty before us, we walked, about twenty or thirty of us, from the studies building, northward, up a gentle hill, and to the farm.

i was so excited to be at the farm that much of it is, alas, a daze. at one point, i do remember a fellow field tripper approaching me and asking some questions about BMC's livestock. my first reaction was surprise -- i totally knew the answers! my second reaction was to share my knowledge about the college's history of livestock -- from chickens to pigs to dairy to beef cattle. when i finished, i sensed something behind me. i turned around and saw about twenty people surrounding us, listening in, curious about the farm. "a talk about the farm at black mountain while at the farm at black mountain college," i thought to myself, "let's go!"

my talk was brief, about ten or fifteen minutes. i shared with the field trippers a brief history of the farm, from its student-initiated veggie garden in the 1930s to the farm buildings and pastures and livestock in the 1940s to its slow demise in the 1950s. i explained the role of the farm within the college's work program and the ways the farm was used to build community and encourage collaboration among students, staff, and faculty. and i shared some of BMC's sustainable practices -- everyday practices that would, today, immediately qualify the college as the country's "greenest" campus.

after some Q and A, we turned our backs to the farm and began a leisurely walk, southward, down the hill, towards and past the studies building, back to the parking lot, and into our cars. perhaps i'm projecting but at the time it seemed that many of us, myself included, wished we didn't have to leave so soon.

a ten-day trip to north carolina

sarah, siena, and i recently returned from a ten-day trip to north carolina. we stayed mostly in hickory, where sarah's friend and college roommate pattie, her husband dan, and their daughters kenzie and maya live. good times for all, including the girls.


for three days, i bolted to nearby asheville. with help from a USF faculty development fund award, i was able to spend time with the black mountain college museum + arts center collection at ramsey library at the university of north carolina asheville.


black mountain college, or BMC, was a small liberal arts college that existed between 1933 - 1957 in the blue ridge mountains in western north carolina. the focus of black mountain college was the education of the whole human being.

for its time - and for our times - black mountain college was massively experimental. faculty owned the university. all students, faculty, and faculty families lived on campus, where they ate together in the dining hall and danced together on saturday nights. there were no grades. classes were not mandatory but once enrolled, students - as well as professor - were expected to be fully prepared and participatory. at the center of the curriculum was arts because arts encourage students to focus, create, engage, and cooperate. students were included in nearly all meetings and committees, even those responsible for faculty hiring and firing. the responsibilities of running the college were shared by all.

i am especially interested in BMC's work program. black mountain college combined formal studies and physical labor. in between classes and coursework, students - and sometimes faculty - cleared the hillside for pasture, waited tables in the dining room, maintained campus roads, hauled coal, dug ditches, collected field stones for masonry work, served and cleared four o'clock tea, and, miraculously, designed and built a building.


my main interest is the farm on black mountain college. in particular, i am interested in the history of the farm and its changing role within the college and its work program. i am interested in the farm work - who taught the skills? who organized the teams? who did the work? i am also interested in the farm's output - what was grown? which animals were raised? who got the food? and finally, i am interested in how the farm was used as a creative and collaborate space for student and faculty learning.





black mountain college is primarily known and remembered for the remarkable faculty, visiting faculty, and students it attracted. a partial list includes josef and anni albers, ruth asawa, john cage, robert creeley, merce cunningham, willem and elaine de kooning, buckminster fuller, alfred kazin, jacob lawrence, charles olson, arthur penn, robert rauschenberg, and m.c. richards. new and important things happened here - bucky fuller would attempt his first geodesic dome, john cage would stage the world's first "happening," and merce cunningham would form his dance company.

because of this, black mountain college has received plenty of attention. there's martin duberman's black mountain college: an exploration in community and mary emma harris' the arts at black mountain college. there's cathryn davis and neeley house's documentary fully awake: black mountain college and the black mountain college project. and then there's the über archive, the black mountain college collection at the state archives in raleigh, north carolina.

after three days in asheville, i said thanks to sally klipp, special collections librarian at ramsey library, and drove back to hickory. then, pattie, dan, kenzie, maya, sarah, siena, and i drove to blowing rock for a few days in a log cabin in the mountains. fun, watermelon, and good food were had by all.




before we left, i asked pattie when the best times are to visit north carolina. "april and october," she answered without hesitation. thinking of my sabbatical a year from now, i said, "cool - we'll be back then."