Posted @withrepost • @yonder.jh The only access I had to the arts growing up was from what I read in magazines or from television shows. Before I was born Winthrop Rockefeller was elected Governor of the state. His wife, Janette, was a socialite, arts promoter and civic activist. As First Lady of Arkansas she brought the arts to rural communities.
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When I was in elementary school a train came to town. It was a mobile art gallery with works from the collection of the Arkansas Arts Center. I asked my grandparents if they would take me to Little Rock to visit the Arts Center and they did — it changed my life. Years later I submitted a photograph of a broken window in an abandoned house on our block to an Art Fair there. I won an award and received a $75 check in the mail along with a letter from Mrs. Rockefeller.
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In high school I joined the newspaper staff and worked as a photographer. I saved up enough money to buy my first camera, a Yashica 35 GSN. One day a man who owned a lumber company in town called asking if I was available to take photos of fences his company made. He drove me around the state when I could get off work and I took pics of his fences at private homes and on ranches. He paid me $300 and one night we drove to Hot Springs to dine at Coy’s Steak House. On the drive back to Prescott he stopped the car and we had sex. The next Sunday I saw him at church with his wife and kids.
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