This is another large piece in progress, inspired by a photo from The History Center, of Lufkin Dunbar High School’s marching band performing at a Christmas parade in 1965. So much to like about this photo that I wanted to capture – the uniforms, the mod-looking building behind the crowd. and while it is hard to see here, the Christmas decorations in the background.
This photo was taken in 1965, whenLufkin was still a segregated school district, and Black students attended Lufkin Dunbar High School. The school, named for *poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, was known for excellence in academics, athletics and leadership.
After integration, Dunbar became the district’s middle school, and it now serves as both Dunbar Primary and the Lufkin ISD education center, as well as hosting the Dunbar Hall of Honor.
As with so many other subjects I have researched, this photo was a valuable if much, much belated opportunity to learn more about Dunbar High School and its legacy.
*Note: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1899 poem Sympathy inspired the title of Maya Angelou’s bookI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings!
“Waves,” by Stephanie Khattak, Acrylic Monotype on paper, 12X16.
This piece was taken from a vintage photo of my great-aunts and one of their daughters playing at the beach in the early 40s. The young woman to the far left, in the pink dress died of appendicitis in 1944 at age 18, which is probably not too long after the photo was taken. Our family has always been close to our “aunties” and this one has been a bit of a mystery to us. Her sisters had “flower” names, Myrtle, Lila, Viola, Lucille Lilly…her name was Letha, perhaps after the town of Oletha where her father was born. Very few photos of her exist, and this is the only one I have seen, shared with me by my cousin. But this is a great one, capturing what I imagine was a nice day at the beach with her sisters and little niece.
If you have been connected with me for any amount of time, you know I am a cat lady. Here is the kitty that started it all, Baby Kitty in my arms, in this print based off of a 1979 photo. Baby Kitty was a gray striped tabby who lived in the barn between my house and my great-grandmother’s house. I don’t remember her being an inside cat, but she was always around and a really good sport while I learned to love animals. Baby Kitty was a beloved member of our family, to be cherished and pampered as such. As has been the case with every cat, dog (and in my cousins’ cases – horse, snake, parakeet and Galapagos turtle) since then.
My grandmother’s cousin was a career flight attendant. She worked for Braniff International in the swinging sixties, among other notable things, and retired from American Airlines in the mid-nineties after a long and interesting career. Now she lives across town from me with a designer cat and a bunch of friends who are (almost) as fabulous as she is.
Here she is with her mother in their yard. I would estimate the year as somewhere in the late 50s. This was definitely not a Braniff outfit, so I’m guessing it was early in her career. All of her Braniff photos are at her house, and I’m sure she will share them when I pester her about it enough.
The Texas Forestry Museum invited me to contribute a piece to auction in its annual Feast in the Forest fundraiser. While the end sale would be an original piece, the museum worked with me in a similar process as a commission, providing a few photo options to work from for the end result. This piece is from one of their archival photos, and I chose it to work with because I loved how it set the scene and really brought back a sense of time and place. For my process, I have to prioritize which elements of a photo I want to emphasize on the print and for this one, I wanted to make sure to capture the railroad tracks, the water tower and the smoke coming from the building on the far right. While I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture the detail in every letter on the water tower, I loved the stylized first letters and wanted to retain those. In the original, many of these elements were further enhanced with iridescent and metallic paint.
This project captured all of my favorite things about working on commissions, and it was nice to be able to contribute a piece to an organization that is so important and shares my passion for capturing and preserving the rich history of this part of East Texas.
This was a unique piece, but the Texas Forestry Museum is also a retail partner, so please get in touch with them if you’d like to see another option in their inventory.
Contact me if you’re interested in initiating a commissioned project of your own! If you’re thinking of one for the holidays, its best to get in the pipeline by Oct. 1.
I’m not the first amateur archivist in the family. My dad, for as long as I can remember, has documented community and family life in East Texas, first with reel-to-reel recorders and Super 8 videos, then with a huge brick of a VHS camcorder (which went on every family vacation, duct-taped and cumbersome, until the late 90s, when the battery kept falling out at Graceland.) Now, like everyone else, he uses his iPhone and sometimes the video functionality on his digital camera. But he kept EVERYTHING, and a few years ago gifted me with a box of roughly 30-40 discs, each with 4-5 events captured on it. Best of all, he had long before captured the Super 8s onto the VHS, a painstaking process where he set up the screen in the living room, put on his oldies records, and videoed the screen while my mom and I tiptoed around the set-up and tried not to knock anything over or share incriminating gossip that might be picked up on audio. He later transferred those videos to DVDs as well, so they’re also in the box.
As modern technology evolved, I eventually found myself with no DVD player, and also no real way to copy those discs to a digital format. But they are treasures, and I knew that in particular, there was a Homer history talk by the OG Homer Historian, Mrs. Ruth Grant, in an event at our church in the early aughts. Because I don’t know of a labled map of old Homer, I needed to see if she mentioned any locations or had other information that I could use in my upcoming folklore presentation. So, I went on Amazon, bought some new equipment and started my journey down memory lane.
The good news is that it all works perfectly and I have been having a great time seeing so many memories again. I did find Mrs. Grant’s lecture, and it provided some missing links and also, since she was an expressive talker, I am able to estimate some of the important landmarks of old Homer based on which direction she pointed as she spoke.
This is really exciting for me, not only for this particular event I am preparing for, but also in general to see how I can use more multimedia content to create for and enhance the Pine Curtain Project.
The missing link!
The family dog’s haircut and then his funeral. Not on the same day. RIP Tater.
Not sure what happened at the Smokey Bear museum, but it must have been unpleasant!
My patron saint these days. She’s done all the hard work, I’m mostly just sifting through and organizing it. How I wish she was still with us to discuss these things in person!
“Catch it! Got it!” By Stephanie Khattak. 12×18 Acrylic Monotype on Paper.
This print was taken from a vintage photo from the late 1960s in Lufkin, in the deep East Texas. My uncle and cousin playing baseball in my great-grandmother’s yard, dodging pine trees to catch the ball. Somewhere in front of them, there must have been a batter and a photographer. No cameras were harmed as far as I know!
“Paper Mill Car Share.” Acrylic monotype, 18X24 by Stephanie Khattak.
This piece is based on another Farm Security Administration photo by John Vachon. It shows four Southland paper mill workers and their car share vehicle. I like that it also shows their work gear and lunch boxes. Reminds me of how my dad used to dress for work and the lunch box he carried for so many years. My mom always packed my dad’s lunch (or dinner, if he was on an evening or overnight shift) and used to put Mrs. Baird’s fruit pies in there for dessert. So, when I see these types of lunch boxes, I think of fried pies and those big metal clasps snapping shut.
The paper mill has been a theme in my work before and probably will be again. As I’ve mentioned, it had a huge effect for Lufkin and surrounding areas, too. It was one of the largest employers for generations, and when it shut down, it didn’t necessarily tank the economy because I feel at that time the town’s economic drivers were changing anyway. But it definitely caused a shift and left a lot of people displaced, professionally. It is integral to the larger East Texas story.
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