Constance Thalken is an American artist
Episode 531: Constance Thalken is an American artist based in Georgia, whose recent book, Heart of a Bird, was published by Stanley/Barker. I have to admit this conversation was incredibly meaningful, and Constance is an absolute gem of an artist whose patience and intriguing stories create a wonderful world to delve into.
During the conversation, we discussed her recent book, which, loosely speaking, observes the American South, its rituals of masculinity, and its Alligator harvest. If we scrape a layer off the surface, we find those topics, but also distinct ideas about community, policy changes, and an America that is quickly becoming something controlled, where freedoms are being encroached upon, and ways of life have changed quite a bit over the intervening decades.
Constance and I discussed all of this: her approach to making the work, her memories of photographing in a highly charged environment, and her compelling documentation in both photographs and writing, which we cover in detail as Constance reads from her journals, a snippet I will provide here. Please tune in to this special conversation. It was an absolute pleasure to record.
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When I was in the midst of that work, in the fall of 1990, the youngest of the my four older brothers, Bill, died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack. He was only 41 years of age. He was married with two young sons, 7 and 5 years of age.
Bill had moved from Omaha back to the small town of Columbus where we were raised to work for Nebraska Public Power District as their environmentalist. He was 6’4”, red-headed with a very vivacious, outgoing personality. He served on the City Council, so was well known and respected in the small town community.
The day of his death was a crisp, crystal clear fall day. He was out pheasant hunting in the countryside with two of his old high school buddies. The three of them had spread out to enter a cornfield to flush out birds. My brother went down as they approached the field and his two buddies thought Bill was playing a gag on them. But when he didn’t get back up, they rushed to him and found he was starting to turn blue. One buddy began CPR while the other drove like a madman to the nearest little community to seek help – only to find that their emergency medical squad was out on another call. So he drove madly to the next little town and secured medical assistance there. When they arrived back at the scene, Bill’s buddy was still doing CPR. But Bill was no longer alive and the medical people pronounced him dead.
It utterly devastated my family. All three of his older brothers had been hit by heart attacks in their late 40’s and early 50’s and survived them. They all felt guilty, thinking it should have been them. I don’t think my Mother ever fully recovered from it.
I had just began teaching at Georgia State University that fall. So I returned to Nebraska at once for his funeral. The day after my late night arrival was warm with crystal blue skies. All the leaves had suddenly fallen in my Mother’s yard. We adult children went out and raked her yard as we shed tears. The next day the weather changed with gray skies and a rapid drop in temperature. And then the following day, the day of Bill’s funeral, a massive blizzard hit the town. We thought people would not be able to attend because of the storm. But when we arrived at the church, it was packed inside with people oozing out the door standing in the whipping snow.
I was so struck how we moved through the herd of seasons as we buried him, this wonderful environmentalist who worked in care of the natural world.
I’m attaching a piece I made just for myself upon return to Atlanta. It commemorates Bill’s passing. I made the images from my Mother’s front porch and at his grave site. The rose trellis at the end of the porch in the last image was made by Bill for my Mother.
All this merely expands upon masculinity and death. So here I was…..in this landscape along the coast, filled with men working in the natural world, several with young sons at their side……
