William Christenberry

William Christenberry received his masters in painting at Alabama University in the 1960's. He claims to "know nothing about photography," though he clearly has an eye for it. He started to take pictures in the 1960's as a way to help him understand his southern upbringing. He would revisit his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and document the change over the years with a Brownie camera he received as a child.
I am very inspired by Christenberry's work because of its content and the method in which he works. Everything is very reactionary - He uses his images as inspiration for other works in different mediums as sculpture, painting and drawing. Each house or barn he documents is brought to life in a miniature sculpture of almost exact likeness of the building he documented. He also paints more abstract images based on the color and shapes from his images. Christenberry's method of working has made him produce over hundreds of works, all based off of his reaction to his documentation of Alabama living.

Christenberry gave a lecture at Emory University in 2007 that discussed his work and experiences with southern living. Though he told some background stories of a few images, he did not go into depth about his opinions on the South. Christenberry's images do not uplift the South, but rather show more of its downfall. He documents old buildings, many that appear to be abandoned, vacant stores, overgrown brush - all things that signify a place that is behind the times, looked over, and not worthy of anyones attention. But despite his lonesome images, Christenberry says he cherishes his Southern upbringing, and would not have asked for anything more.

I think in watching the lecture I was looking for a little more emotion behind Christenberry's words in reaction to his images and discoveries. Because I feel I am dealing with a similar content, I was interested to know how he felt about his discoveries. His work is more grounded in the past, documenting a town's demise during the Civil Rights movement to the current day. But he is still dealing with issues that are controversial and rarely addressed, and I wanted to know how he coped with exploring such a difficult topic.

In the late 60's at the height of the Civil Rights movement when Christenberry was still in school, he heard word of a KKK meeting that was to take place in Alabama and knew he had to attend. He re-tells his experience of walking up three flights of stairs in the house in which the meeting was to take place, seeing nothing until he reached the third floor. At the top of the flight of stairs, a Klan member stood decked out in his white robe and hat, remaining completely still except for the slow turning of his eyes underneath the slits of his hood. Christenberry got one good look at him and ran out as fast as he could. This experience set off his series of work known as the Klan Tableau, a room filled with GI Joes dressed as Klans men, coffins, flags, and other Klan inspired works. He has documented his small Klan members so as not to reveal the scale to make it as realistic as possible. In 1978, the Klan material was stolen out of his studio; the suspect unknown.