Untitled Document

Delta Land.
Photographs by Maude Schuyler Clay. Introductory Essay by Lewis Nordan. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. $35.00.

After spending 12 years in New York City working as a photographer, Maude Schuyler Clay returned home to Mississippi and began photographing the places where she grew up. Following are excerpts from an interview in which Steven B. Yates, of the University Press of Mississippi, asks about her work and the recently published Delta Land, a book with 75 black and white images taken by Clay between 1993 and 1998.

Tell me about your family’s connection to the Delta, to Sumner and its history.

My maternal great-great grandfather, Cullen McMullen, born in 1794, came from Carroll County, Tennessee, to the then-wilderness of Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1839. The McMullen cotton farm was at Graball Landing on the Tallahatchie River. (Everything in those days was transported by steamboat.) After a great cyclone in the 1890s swept away both the family house and commissary (and, as legend goes, all the water from Bonnette Lake!), his son, Nathan James McMullen, and family moved to Sumner, about 10 miles north of Graball.

You were in New York working as a photographer for 12 years. What was your primary subject matter in New York and where did your work appear?

My primary subject matter was the color portrait work I was doing on frequent visits back home to the Mississippi Delta. Some of the photographic portraits I did as an “exile” in NYC appeared in such publications as Esquire, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. I guess what I am trying to say is that, even while residing in what is probably one of the most photographed cities in the world, the work I considered the most important to me was always tied to the South, and especially to the Delta.

In New York, what did you learn about photography that can only be absorbed in a high-powered work environment like that?

As an employee of the LIGHT Gallery, which was one of the very few galleries in 1976 to exclusively exhibit and sell contemporary photographs, I got what might be considered a “crash course” in the history of photography. . . . All the photographers, curators, critics, and dealers who were involved in the world of photography came through there. Later, as a photo editor at Vanity Fair, Esquire, and Fortune, I learned about photojournalism and the world of magazine photography (which, although it paid more, was a lot less lofty). It was a wonderful experience working with photographers in New York, but again, it only made me realize I had my own mission: to somehow capture the essence of the place I knew and loved best--the Mississippi Delta.

When you returned to your home place, what changes struck you? What changes made you sad, or alarmed you?

On a purely photographic level, the changes I saw that saddened me were the disappearance, a kind of natural erosion, of the “old” Delta’s structures: commissaries, mule barns, cypress sheds, signs, advertising murals, etc. On a personal level, I experienced the sadness of the deaths of many of the older members (lots of great storytellers!) of my family and the community. . . .

What special challenges did you face in photographing a landscape that is not, on its surface, very photogenic?

For several years before the Delta Land project, I had tried to take color photographs which I hoped would reveal the natural beauty of the Delta landscape. For me--unlike, say, for Bill Eggleston--I simply couldn’t make the color photographs work. Then, in late 1993, I received a commission (which, initially, I refused), to photograph the Delta landscape, the stipulation being that the photographs had to be made in black and white. Around this time, I came into possession of a Mamiya 645, a medium-format camera which has almost the exact proportions as a 35mm camera. This turned out to be the perfect vehicle for the landscape project; with this camera, I began to “see” in black and white, and what I had erroneously viewed as a limitation became an exciting challenge. Once I got started on this project, I couldn’t stop! It seemed that the stark beauty of this landscape was meant to be photographed in the somber contrast of black and white. . . .

How did this project evolve? What made you realize it was worth a photo essay or a book?

In late 1997, after I had worked on this project for almost five years, I had a gut (call it hopeful) feeling that it would make a great book. I sent the pictures to JoAnne Prichard Morris at the University Press of Mississippi, whom I had always wanted to have as my publisher because of the commitment UPM had demonstrated in supporting both photography and Southern authors. After the book was accepted, we cast about for a contemporary fiction author who was familiar with the Delta: Lewis Nordan, a native of the Delta hamlet of Itta Bena. “Buddy” Nordan and I had met in 1992, when he received the Fiction Award and I received the Photography Award that year from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. MIAL also does a terrific job in supporting the writers and artists in this state. I am indeed honored that he magnanimously agreed to write the eloquent and heartfelt foreword to Delta Land. His voice is a perfect “match” for the photographs.

You do such a remarkable job of taking what could have been cliche--old barns, rustic fences--and making the subject matter fierce or isolated or even serene in its nearly vanquished state. How did you erase the sentimental and bring out the astonishing in so many of these photos . . . ?

Well, I’m not completely sure I did erase the sentimental. These “cliches” were a very big part of my (and the five preceding generations’) vision growing up here. That vision was colored by a plethora of fantastical--some comic, some tragic, all interesting--stories. Just about every patch of ground I’ve photographed in Delta Land either belonged to a family that I knew, or knew of. As you are well aware, some of the history here is very dark; I am thinking especially of the shameful and tragic Emmett Till story, which was the most publicized, though certainly, by far, not the only lynching to happen in Tallahatchie County. . . .

Now that it is a book and you’re able to the view the project between two covers, what does it express to you as a cycle of photographs, as a statement? What surprised you about this gathering of your work?

I am both relieved and apprehensive about finishing Delta Land. When an artist “wraps” a particular project, it travels on to the next realm: how the work will be perceived by others. The work then makes its own path, as the artist can no longer control or shape it. So I can only hope that, in addition to my not having left out anything really important, that Delta Land will retain some of the value I tried to bring to it: a historical as well as artistic relevancy. The relief comes in not having to scrutinize every part of the Delta landscape, every day, wondering how it will fit into the Delta Land book. The wondrous surprise is that my vision of the Delta has now become a tangible thing--a book. My “statement” is that I love this place and hope I have somehow managed to portray its complex beauty.

	Photographer Talks about New Book

	Delta Land. Photographs by Maude Schuyler Clay. Introductory Essay by Lewis Nordan. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. $35.00. After spending 12 years in New York City working as a photographer, Maude Schuyler Clay returned home to Mississippi and began photographing the places where she grew up. Following are excerpts from an interview in which Steven B. Yates, of the University Press of Mississippi, asks about her work and the recently published Delta Land, a book with 75 black and white images taken by Clay between 1993 and 1998. Tell me about your family’s connection to the Delta, to Sumner and its history. My maternal great-great grandfather, Cullen McMullen, born in 1794, came from Carroll County, Tennessee, to the then-wilderness of Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1839. The McMullen cotton farm was at Graball Landing on the Tallahatchie River. (Everything in those days was transported by steamboat.) After a great cyclone in the 1890s swept away both the family house and commissary (and, as legend goes, all the water from Bonnette Lake!), his son, Nathan James McMullen, and family moved to Sumner, about 10 miles north of Graball. You were in New York working as a photographer for 12 years. What was your primary subject matter in New York and where did your work appear? My primary subject matter was the color portrait work I was doing on frequent visits back home to the Mississippi Delta. Some of the photographic portraits I did as an “exile” in NYC appeared in such publications as Esquire, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. I guess what I am trying to say is that, even while residing in what is probably one of the most photographed cities in the world, the work I considered the most important to me was always tied to the South, and especially to the Delta. In New York, what did you learn about photography that can only be absorbed in a high-powered work environment like that? As an employee of the LIGHT Gallery, which was one of the very few galleries in 1976 to exclusively exhibit and sell contemporary photographs, I got what might be considered a “crash course” in the history of photography. . . . All the photographers, curators, critics, and dealers who were involved in the world of photography came through there. Later, as a photo editor at Vanity Fair, Esquire, and Fortune, I learned about photojournalism and the world of magazine photography (which, although it paid more, was a lot less lofty). It was a wonderful experience working with photographers in New York, but again, it only made me realize I had my own mission: to somehow capture the essence of the place I knew and loved best--the Mississippi Delta. When you returned to your home place, what changes struck you? What changes made you sad, or alarmed you? On a purely photographic level, the changes I saw that saddened me were the disappearance, a kind of natural erosion, of the “old” Delta’s structures: commissaries, mule barns, cypress sheds, signs, advertising murals, etc. On a personal level, I experienced the sadness of the deaths of many of the older members (lots of great storytellers!) of my family and the community. . . . What special challenges did you face in photographing a landscape that is not, on its surface, very photogenic? For several years before the Delta Land project, I had tried to take color photographs which I hoped would reveal the natural beauty of the Delta landscape. For me--unlike, say, for Bill Eggleston--I simply couldn’t make the color photographs work. Then, in late 1993, I received a commission (which, initially, I refused), to photograph the Delta landscape, the stipulation being that the photographs had to be made in black and white. Around this time, I came into possession of a Mamiya 645, a medium-format camera which has almost the exact proportions as a 35mm camera. This turned out to be the perfect vehicle for the landscape project; with this camera, I began to “see” in black and white, and what I had erroneously viewed as a limitation became an exciting challenge. Once I got started on this project, I couldn’t stop! It seemed that the stark beauty of this landscape was meant to be photographed in the somber contrast of black and white. . . . How did this project evolve? What made you realize it was worth a photo essay or a book? In late 1997, after I had worked on this project for almost five years, I had a gut (call it hopeful) feeling that it would make a great book. I sent the pictures to JoAnne Prichard Morris at the University Press of Mississippi, whom I had always wanted to have as my publisher because of the commitment UPM had demonstrated in supporting both photography and Southern authors. After the book was accepted, we cast about for a contemporary fiction author who was familiar with the Delta: Lewis Nordan, a native of the Delta hamlet of Itta Bena. “Buddy” Nordan and I had met in 1992, when he received the Fiction Award and I received the Photography Award that year from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. MIAL also does a terrific job in supporting the writers and artists in this state. I am indeed honored that he magnanimously agreed to write the eloquent and heartfelt foreword to Delta Land. His voice is a perfect “match” for the photographs. You do such a remarkable job of taking what could have been cliche--old barns, rustic fences--and making the subject matter fierce or isolated or even serene in its nearly vanquished state. How did you erase the sentimental and bring out the astonishing in so many of these photos . . . ? Well, I’m not completely sure I did erase the sentimental. These “cliches” were a very big part of my (and the five preceding generations’) vision growing up here. That vision was colored by a plethora of fantastical--some comic, some tragic, all interesting--stories. Just about every patch of ground I’ve photographed in Delta Land either belonged to a family that I knew, or knew of. As you are well aware, some of the history here is very dark; I am thinking especially of the shameful and tragic Emmett Till story, which was the most publicized, though certainly, by far, not the only lynching to happen in Tallahatchie County. . . . Now that it is a book and you’re able to the view the project between two covers, what does it express to you as a cycle of photographs, as a statement? What surprised you about this gathering of your work? I am both relieved and apprehensive about finishing Delta Land. When an artist “wraps” a particular project, it travels on to the next realm: how the work will be perceived by others. The work then makes its own path, as the artist can no longer control or shape it. So I can only hope that, in addition to my not having left out anything really important, that Delta Land will retain some of the value I tried to bring to it: a historical as well as artistic relevancy. The relief comes in not having to scrutinize every part of the Delta landscape, every day, wondering how it will fit into the Delta Land book. The wondrous surprise is that my vision of the Delta has now become a tangible thing--a book. My “statement” is that I love this place and hope I have somehow managed to portray its complex beauty.