Play Me
Moon Shine: Photographs of the Cumberland Plateau
Photographs by Rachel Boillot
With an essay by Lisa Volpe, Associate Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Daylight Books, 2019
Review and Q&A by Lauren Greenwald
44 color plates
Rachel Boillot’s Moon Shine begins and ends with music. Literally. When you open the book, the first thing you notice is the intriguing endpaper. It is a facsimile of a handwritten copy of the lyrics to Home on the Range, written in pencil on lined paper, dated 11/28/44. The paper is discolored and smudged, and marked with the crimson imprint of a mouth, the kind you get when you blot your lipstick. I wonder, who was this young woman, with her loopy cursive writing and her bright red lips? What was her story? What a wonderful introduction.
Photographs by Rachel Boillot
With an essay by Lisa Volpe, Associate Curator, Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Daylight Books, 2019
Review and Q&A by Lauren Greenwald
44 color plates
Rachel Boillot’s Moon Shine begins and ends with music. Literally. When you open the book, the first thing you notice is the intriguing endpaper. It is a facsimile of a handwritten copy of the lyrics to Home on the Range, written in pencil on lined paper, dated 11/28/44. The paper is discolored and smudged, and marked with the crimson imprint of a mouth, the kind you get when you blot your lipstick. I wonder, who was this young woman, with her loopy cursive writing and her bright red lips? What was her story? What a wonderful introduction.
Published this year by Daylight Editions, Moon Shine is a glimpse into a disappearing world. The project, which won the 2017 PhotoNOLA Review Prize, documents a community linked by music and faith located deep in Appalachia, in the Cumberland Plateau region of Tennessee. Rachel Boillot began the project in 2014 when she was hired by “Folklorist, naturalist, and musician Bob Fulcher, who currently manages Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail State Scenic Park.” What was originally intended to be a short-term assignment turned into a massive project, spanning years and multiple media. Boillot writes about the project, “These photographs were made along the serpentine mountain roads between Signal Mountain and Cumberland Gap, tracing Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail corridor. They detail my own exploration of the region as I listened to its sounds and considered how they might translate to visual imagery. I’m still out somewhere on one of those roads – and I’m still listening.”
The book contains 44 color plates of photographs made between 2014 and 2018. The images are complemented by two essays – an outstanding one by Lisa Volpe and an illuminating and sensitive Author’s Note. There is also a final section to the book, titled In Their Own Words, containing interviews with nine of the subjects of this project, each illustrated by old family photographs. It offers a rare, genuine glimpse into the subject's lives. Memories are stated matter-of-factly but are often gut-wrenching, a look into a way of life many of us will never know. In the words of Evelyn Sharp Conaster, “I married the wrong man when I met him. Kermit was a preacher’s boy. Could get by with anything. This was the worst thing he done to me in all my lifetime.” Many of these oral histories were gathered while Boillot was in the process of making the Cumberland Folklife series of films, which culminated in a feature length film, In That Valley of Gold.
Published this year by Daylight Editions, Moon Shine is a glimpse into a disappearing world. The project, which won the 2017 PhotoNOLA Review Prize, documents a community linked by music and faith located deep in Appalachia, in the Cumberland Plateau region of Tennessee. Rachel Boillot began the project in 2014 when she was hired by “Folklorist, naturalist, and musician Bob Fulcher, who currently manages Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail State Scenic Park.” What was originally intended to be a short-term assignment turned into a massive project, spanning years and multiple media. Boillot writes about the project, “These photographs were made along the serpentine mountain roads between Signal Mountain and Cumberland Gap, tracing Tennessee’s Cumberland Trail corridor. They detail my own exploration of the region as I listened to its sounds and considered how they might translate to visual imagery. I’m still out somewhere on one of those roads – and I’m still listening.”
The book contains 44 color plates of photographs made between 2014 and 2018. The images are complemented by two essays – an outstanding one by Lisa Volpe and an illuminating and sensitive Author’s Note. There is also a final section to the book, titled In Their Own Words, containing interviews with nine of the subjects of this project, each illustrated by old family photographs. It offers a rare, genuine glimpse into the subject's lives. Memories are stated matter-of-factly but are often gut-wrenching, a look into a way of life many of us will never know. In the words of Evelyn Sharp Conaster, “I married the wrong man when I met him. Kermit was a preacher’s boy. Could get by with anything. This was the worst thing he done to me in all my lifetime.” Many of these oral histories were gathered while Boillot was in the process of making the Cumberland Folklife series of films, which culminated in a feature length film, In That Valley of Gold.
The layout of the book is straightforward and clean; we progress through images of people, landscapes, homes, and striking details. There are two foldouts enclosed within, each presenting a three-image spread. One is particularly poignant, hinting at the themes running through the book – the center image is of an open coffin, lined in white linens, showing the crossed hands of an old individual, dressed in overalls and a plaid shirt, with a violin and bow tucked in with him. Flanking this image are a view of a distant snow-covered mountain and a slow-moving river, both potent and iconic representations of the eternal nature of this place.
In her essay, Natural Rhythms: Time in the Cumberland Plateau, Lisa Volpe begins, “Time has no meaning in the Cumberland Plateau... Like the mountains and sky of their home, the robust and resilient lives of these Appalachian residents are sharply defined against visions of the eternal—both natural and religious.” Volpe explores how we understand time and how Boillot, with her camera and her dedication, communicates these ideas to us, using tactile elements, textures and surfaces, signs of weight or mass, the posture of a body, and the more ethereal presences of religion and music.
These elements are beautifully illustrated in the opening image: a lone woman stands in a clearing under the dappled sunlight of a stand of trees. She faces away from the camera, her arms flung back stiffly, extending behind her body, as if presenting herself to an audience, or a judge. Her clothing, a long dark skirt and white smock and white head covering, identified by Volpe as Mennonite garb, suggests a more casual form of a nun’s habit. The portraits in this series weave through the book like memories, some bright and shining, some obscured. Men and women are photographed, usually as solitary figures, sometimes with their instruments, sometimes in the act of playing. Many of the faces are old and careworn; it strikes you there are no young people in these pictures. Bibles and animals make regular appearances, and there are exquisite small details captured—a snakeskin dangling from a fence, a peacock feather bathed in sunlight. Interiors, especially kitchens, are portraits of another kind. In one, a pot rack over an antiquated farmhouse sink proudly displays thirteen cast iron skillets arranged carefully in descending order of size, while in another, a riotously colored wallpaper of fruit and leaves adorns not only the walls of the room but the fronts of the kitchen cabinets, a scene that would be right at home in a collection of Eggleston’s photographs. And even the scenes we might expect, with our pre-conceived notions of what this place is, are handled with sensitivity and restraint. A bearded man wearing a Jesus Rocks muscle shirt stands in front of a black painted bus with his message inscribed upon it, the man holding out a handful of rocks, proffering them to the viewer. His expression is calm, serene, and there is a sense of camaraderie between the photographer and subject.
What do we think of when we think of Appalachia? A massive geographical area extending from Mississippi to New York State, it is a region that has been lumped together into a collective identity dogged by stereotypes and misconception, but it is also home to a rich cultural heritage and unique musical traditions. Boillot writes about the reasons she was hired for the project, noting, “Bob [Fulcher] believes that preserving cultural resources is just as important as land conservation in this region, which is the more explicit prerogative of the parks system. But in Tennessee, music is ‘in the water’ as the saying goes.” Indeed, her photographs show this quicksilver thread of music running through the community—music is and has been the glue of the society here. It elevates people and allows even the most downtrodden to be exceptional. But home to an aging population, the beauty and artistry of this sheltered part of the country are riches that will be lost when these individuals pass on. Who can keep these traditions alive? Who is the archivist appointed? From the Library of Congress, the American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress to "preserve and present American folklife" and American Folklife Center Archive is “one of the largest archives of ethnographic materials from the United States and around the world, encompassing millions of items of ethnographic and historical documentation recorded from the nineteenth century to the present. These collections, which include extensive audiovisual documentation of traditional arts, cultural expressions, and oral histories, offer researchers access to the songs, stories, and other creative expressions of people from diverse communities.”
But these collections depend on people who are willing and able to go out and live in these communities, to visit, listen, and record. There is a certain melancholy aspect to this, as we know these collections are records of a vanishing world, but this does allow them to live on for future generations, and hopefully not only for researchers. The photographs Boillot has created are a visual record not only of this particular moment in time, this place, but also the experiences and memories of her subjects, a deeply personal collection of time. She articulates this with a wonderful sentence, “What else does a photographer do but gather time?”
And while she plays the role of archivist well, these images are more transcendent than simply documentary in nature. Lisa Volpe concludes her essay with a wonderful assessment of this power, as she writes, “Boillot produces images ripe with sensory elements that reference the eternal forces of both nature and the religious afterlife, and confront the ultimate reality of mortal death. In the moonlit shadow of an ancient mountain range, time is measured by different metrics. Moon Shine celebrates this difference, safeguarding a past for the present and future.”
Q&A with Rachel Boillot
You’re identified as a photographer and documentary artist on your website, and I see you also have a BA in Sociology. What started you on your path of image-making originally? Can you tell us a little bit about your journey?
I was fortunate enough to go to a high school where photography was offered as an elective. Believe it or not, I didn’t even really want to take it, but I needed an art credit to graduate! I immediately fell in love with the magic of the darkroom. I didn’t have much confidence in myself as an artist, though—and I certainly didn’t believe I could make a living as a photographer! So, upon my graduation from high school, I went on to study the liberal arts at Tufts University.
At Tufts, I continued to take photography classes in addition to my major course of study. It had become my greatest passion in life, and I spent most of my waking hours doing photo-related activities. I had even come up with a system so I could stay and print in the darkroom all night, undetected by campus security. One morning, I was napping in a chair while my prints were in the wash and my professor walked in, early for a day’s work. Not long thereafter, he called me into his office for a meeting. He encouraged me to apply to art school. His argument was pretty simple: I was already spending all my time and energy making photographs while enrolled in college—why not study photography? I distinctly recall my reply: I was worried that a life in photography would be a fundamentally selfish endeavor, a primarily self-interested and insular pursuit. None of his answers that day fully answered the selfishness concern, but he did succeed in persuading me to apply to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Soon I decided I wanted to be a photojournalist, which seemed to be the perfect blend of a passion for photography and commitment to social justice. With time and experience I moved away from photojournalism and have come to embrace long-term documentary projects. Working in this way, I am able to maintain creative control over the stories I tell. Most importantly, I am able to have deep, impactful, lasting relationships with those on the other side of the lens, which ultimately has answered my concerns about selfishness.
I was fascinated to learn that Moon Shine is one piece of a much larger story. You describe your involvement and experience in your Author’s Note, starting with your invitation by Bob Fulcher, park ranger, beginning the project as an outsider unfamiliar with the place and culture, collecting the first images and information, then later getting recruited into “running a record label” and finally to making a film. Can you talk a little more about that experience, and how it’s impacted you and the way you work?
There’s always a story behind the pictures, isn’t there! The truth is that I was only supposed to be in Tennessee two months, but it’s been five years now. What began as a short-term gig grew into a life.
It all started when I accepted a job I really didn’t know much of anything about—but it was an opportunity to go where I had not been before. Moreover, it was an opportunity to go somewhere new and make pictures.
As it turned out, I was to be a multimedia documentarian for Sandrock Recordings—which represents folk artists and releases field recordings—and the Cumberland Trail’s musical heritage project. (Side note: This is all a project of Tennessee’s state parks system. The Cumberland Trail is the only park in the entire world to have its own record label. There’s more about that in the book.)
I knew absolutely nothing about the traditional music of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau region at the time. But I dove in, and I really fell in love with it—so much so that the music became the wellspring of inspiration for my own photographs.
What immediately appealed to me about the music, particularly balladry, was that it was a genuine expression of the human condition. It seemed completely unadorned. It hadn’t been masked by studio magic; it just was. It was the result of one person using their voice as an instrument, without any other accompaniment: human experience distilled into song. It was an attempt to tell a story as best as one could recall the narrative. I personally was mesmerized by the mysterious gaps that emerged due to the failings of human memory. That seemed like such a photographic concept to me. The music was making me think about photography a lot, in fact, and challenging me in new ways in regard to my own photography. How might I translate something meant to be heard to a silent medium? How might I capture the same sense of revelation I found in the gospel music that seemed to be so illuminating in regard to the culture of this place?
Suffice to say, I found myself engaged artistically even though this was supposed to be a brief commercial appointment. After two months, I just knew in my gut that I wasn’t done with this work. I had fallen in love with the people and the place. So, I was ecstatic when I got the opportunity to return about six months later.
“Rachel, I’m in a bit of pickle,” he said. “I need an audio engineer for the record label.” I replied, “Bobby, I’m no audio engineer, but I’d come back in a heartbeat.” The phone cut out at that moment, and Bob was gone.
Two days later, Bob returned the call. “Did you say you’d do it in a heartbeat?”
-An excerpt from Author’s Note
Only this time I wouldn’t necessarily be a photographer for the day job—I’d essentially be running the record label. I certainly didn’t have the requisite experience or skillset, but I decided to go for it. It seemed the best way to continue my work and a rare opportunity to get to know the music—not to mention some of the musicians themselves—even better than I had that first summer. And did I get extremely close to the community of musicians depicted in Moon Shine. They became an adopted family of sorts.
To finally answer your question, this was the first time I had documented people I was so personally attached to. That has had a tremendous impact on my practice and approach as a photographer. You know, I was spending an enormous amount of time with people without even having my camera present. But all that time, all that bonding… I do believe it ultimately served the pictures. And if it didn’t, it at very least enriched my life. The overall experience has made me want to continue photographing what I love, even as that changes, or what that looks like changes.
With all of this rich material, how did you develop the book? Did you always see this as a publication?
That’s an excellent question. First off, yes, I had always seen this as a publication. How or why, I don’t know—I just had. As for developing the book, it was a multifold process of editing that evolved over about a year. By 2017, I had a solid edit of pictures, as well as archival photographs, transcribed interviews and oral histories, and countless hours of audio/video footage. I also had handwritten song sheets that one of the musicians had left to me when she died. They are really beautiful objects, and rather precious to me for obvious reasons.
Given all this material, I initially thought of the work as being something that would intertwine text and image, as well as the archive and my contemporary photography. That’s definitely a trend within the photobook world these days, and I had all those elements at my disposal. So, I envisioned a much busier approach to the book than what ultimately took shape. But I guess I just found that when I actually laid things out, or mocked it up, I preferred to keep it sparse and separate the various elements. That way each element could have its own voice and make its own unique contribution. Otherwise it felt like pure cacophony. I found that I actually didn’t want to make a book that was driven by the clever relationships between disparate elements. To me, that seemed like I would just be talking over the material rather than allowing it to speak for itself. Also, it ended up being really important to me to have a lot of white space in the book. I mean, this is a work about an extremely rural place. I wanted to maintain that sense of space that is so bedrock to the place itself.
I say all this as if I came up with it all on my own, or it happened quickly and easily. It didn’t. Like I said, it took about a year, and I was having conversations all the while. I co-edited the book with the brilliant Sasha Wolf—I never could have done it without her. I am just not the best editor of my own work; many (if not most) photographers aren’t. Likewise, the process of working with a designer was crucial. Luckily for me, Daylight has a really stupendous designer in Ursula Damm. Both Sasha and Ursula were essential contributors to the book process.
That’s an excellent question. First off, yes, I had always seen this as a publication. How or why, I don’t know—I just had. As for developing the book, it was a multifold process of editing that evolved over about a year. By 2017, I had a solid edit of pictures, as well as archival photographs, transcribed interviews and oral histories, and countless hours of audio/video footage. I also had handwritten song sheets that one of the musicians had left to me when she died. They are really beautiful objects, and rather precious to me for obvious reasons.
Given all this material, I initially thought of the work as being something that would intertwine text and image, as well as the archive and my contemporary photography. That’s definitely a trend within the photobook world these days, and I had all those elements at my disposal. So, I envisioned a much busier approach to the book than what ultimately took shape. But I guess I just found that when I actually laid things out, or mocked it up, I preferred to keep it sparse and separate the various elements. That way each element could have its own voice and make its own unique contribution. Otherwise it felt like pure cacophony. I found that I actually didn’t want to make a book that was driven by the clever relationships between disparate elements. To me, that seemed like I would just be talking over the material rather than allowing it to speak for itself. Also, it ended up being really important to me to have a lot of white space in the book. I mean, this is a work about an extremely rural place. I wanted to maintain that sense of space that is so bedrock to the place itself.
I say all this as if I came up with it all on my own, or it happened quickly and easily. It didn’t. Like I said, it took about a year, and I was having conversations all the while. I co-edited the book with the brilliant Sasha Wolf—I never could have done it without her. I am just not the best editor of my own work; many (if not most) photographers aren’t. Likewise, the process of working with a designer was crucial. Luckily for me, Daylight has a really stupendous designer in Ursula Damm. Both Sasha and Ursula were essential contributors to the book process.
In That Valley of Gold from Kyle Wilkinson on Vimeo.
Can you tell us more about the Cumberland Gap Folklife Project, and your role in it? Your film, In That Valley of Gold, is described as a “distinct feature-length documentary film” and the final in a series of five episodes. How did this project evolve?
Yes, absolutely. I haven’t really discussed the films at all here. Time to do so!
In 2015, I applied for funding to make a film, or what turned out to be a series of films, even though—again—I didn’t know what I was doing. (Honestly, my own cluelessness is probably the most prevalent theme in all of this.) But I felt compelled to work with the moving image because I wanted to do lengthy video interviews with many of the old-timers I knew before they passed. There seemed to be an urgency there. As an artist, I absolutely adore the limitations of the photographic medium—but I also recognize as a human being that there is a time when a more complete form of storytelling is warranted, especially for the sake of the archive.
I was fortunate enough to receive generous funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission to conduct the Cumberland Gap Folklife Project. I was—and am —director of the initiative. There were many different project components; for example, I put on a roots music festival. Additionally, I oversaw a series of apprenticeships between my students and local folk artists. I then curated an exhibit showcasing these collaborations. But for me, the films were always of paramount concern. The Cumberland Folklife series of documentary films consists of five episodes, all celebrating traditional Appalachian arts and music. Four of the episodes are thirty minutes long, with the fifth--In That Valley of Gold—clocking in at an hour. Many of the characters in the films are those I met that first summer, and others are new friends that I have met since.
I’m really glad I made the films, even if it admittedly made me less productive as a photographer for a little while there. One of the protagonists of In That Valley of Gold passed away mid-production, which really underscored the importance and timeliness of the entire endeavor. And for me, I learned so much about myself as a person and an artist by doing all of this. I became even more aware of the unique strengths of both the still and the moving image, as well as how they exist in relation to one another. I mean, I think you can really tell that In That Valley of Gold was made by a photographer.
You write in your Author’s Note, “What else does a photographer do but gather time?” It’s a beautiful and poignant question. You gathered imagery, voices, and so many memories that may have otherwise disappeared with this project. Is there anything you feel was left out? What more is there to do?
Well, there’s always more to do—but I do genuinely feel that the project is thoroughly completed at this stage. The book is out, and all the films will air on public television in 2020. I’m ensuring that all material is properly archived and preserved for the ages. You know, I think I’ll always wish I had more time with certain people, but I think what I’ve done—or at least, what I’ve tried to do—is preserve their legacy in some capacity. I hope I’ve done justice to their voices. I did the best I know how to do, and that’s the truth. With that, I’ll be moving on to the next project.
Thank you, Rachel!
Links:
Cumberland Folklife
http://cumberlandfolklife.com
Sandrock Recordings
http://www.sandrockrecordings.com
Daylight Books
https://daylightbooks.org/products/moon-shine-photographs-of-the-cumberland-plateau
Well, there’s always more to do—but I do genuinely feel that the project is thoroughly completed at this stage. The book is out, and all the films will air on public television in 2020. I’m ensuring that all material is properly archived and preserved for the ages. You know, I think I’ll always wish I had more time with certain people, but I think what I’ve done—or at least, what I’ve tried to do—is preserve their legacy in some capacity. I hope I’ve done justice to their voices. I did the best I know how to do, and that’s the truth. With that, I’ll be moving on to the next project.
Thank you, Rachel!
Links:
Cumberland Folklife
http://cumberlandfolklife.com
Sandrock Recordings
http://www.sandrockrecordings.com
Daylight Books
https://daylightbooks.org/products/moon-shine-photographs-of-the-cumberland-plateau