Nova's Primitives: Comments from Sayed

Hello everyone,

Here in Kentucky, we have just dug out of a record-breaking ice storm and things are almost back to normal. Internet is restored, cable is working, sun is shining. Yesterday, I was able to hike and enjoy the sites and serenity of the Kentucky River. Have you ever listened to the silence? Life is good.

Today, I'd like to remind you of Nova's Primitives, which are the creations of my mother, Nova Hicks Bussey, who was the daughter of Appalachian Kentucky pioneers, the wife of an East Kentucky coal miner, mother of six children, and a dreamer of better days than the harshness she came to know in the coal camp.

Today, I'm posting new Nova's and hope you enjoy seeing them.

A dear friend, Sayed, viewed the pictures and sent me this message that helps me articulate what I want you to know about Nova's art.

He said:

"I liked your mother's [Nova's Primitives] paintings...I felt she had the gift of an artist -- her paintings show so much of her essence, an ingredient for a real artist. I experienced a few times to be there in places in her paintings which I think was remarkable given her paintings are so simple."

Yes, Nova was truly an untrained primitive artist. She was painting to express, not impress. Maybe she accomplished her goal.

Thank you Sayed,
Peace,
Judy

My Mother's Name is Nova

My mother's name is Nova. Today I decided to randomly upload one of Nova's Primitives and see what memories it brought to mind. The painting you see is "Life on the Creeks". She struggled to learn perspective and found pleasure at each little advance in her style. As you can see, these creeks are running uphill, but that's not the point in my mother's art.

The point is that she had dreams and memories that signified or promised a better place and time. Her childhood was somewhat blissful according to her stories. Even though they had to eat mush during the depression, she recalled it fondly. Once, when I thought Mother was dying, I spoon-fed her homemade mush just so she could enjoy the taste once more. They ate parched corn, too. But poverty is relative, isn't it. Even with the normal heartaches like death, illness, WWI and WWII War injuries, the joy of her youth always shone through. She was an optimist and always saw the good possibilities in life.

Granny and Pap had moved from the farm on Beaver Creek to Stonecoal, just in time for Nova's birth in 1919, and baby sister Olga's birth in 1921.They were the last of 13 children . Granny, Lizabeth Gunnels Hicks, was 42 when mother was born and 44 when baby girl, Olga was born. Her age fully embarrassed the older children, who were teenagers by that time, but Pap and Granny unashamedly loved and petted those little ones and the whole family adored them. No one argued or fought in Mother's childhood home.
Pap brought them water at night, sat by their bedside during chickenpox and measles, took a mule to pick them up at school if it was snowing. He read to them regularly and also told wonderful, funny stories. When Granny tried to make them "be good" or help with the housework, he'd just flirt with Granny and say, "Let'em have some fun, Lizzie". He'd give her a big hug and she always gave in to him.

When they were little girls, my Uncle Rob, put electricity in their house, which was very special. Pap and Granny had both grown up in a log cabins where pine branches were placed in chinks in the wall and set on fire to provide light. Uncle Rob had a good job as underground miner in Wayland and prestigious position of president of the local UMWA. I still have his gavel, given to me by Aunt Olga.The Union was much needed in those days, when the mine operators weren't required to comply with safety regulations. But, that's another story.

Pap was a scholar of the Bible, as we say back home, and questioned some of the fundamentalist interpretations, much to Granny's dismay. "Be quiet, Johnny. Don't say a word in church today," she'd plea. The Old Regular Baptist Church, with its regular "dinner on the ground" was also an outlet for Granny, who probably enjoyed the socializing more than the sermon.

But Pap would always speak up when someone misinterpreted something or when he disagreed. He was "churched" (excommunicated) more than once for voicing his opinions. I believed in his assertion that there is "no burning hell" and that we should do right because it's right, not for fear of hell. Mother and I used to laugh and say, "If there is a hell, I guess we'll be there". This is a highly controversial view for most religions, so, I'm glad I learned it through my grandfather, who had more wisdom than most preachers I've ever known.

Pap's ancestors had come into from Scotland, England, and Ireland through Virginia to Kentucky, in the mid 1700s, when it was still frontier country. Before the Civil War education was emphasized in East Kentucky with records of 2 or 3,000 children being enrolled. After the war, with the total displacement of families and farms, only a few hundred were enrolled. (Johnson County Judge , John David Preston's book The Civil War in the Big Sandy is an excellent reference for true historians.) I work by memory and some of my memories are reinforced from Preston's first book.

Since so many people doubt the interest of East Kentuckians in providing education, I find it significant that Pap and a crew of men cut a six-foot path 4 miles long, through virgin timber so the children could walk to school through the forest. Pap and Granny emphasized education and scolded the boys if they stopped in the woods to chase animals or just have fun. They always obeyed Pap. He was our Abraham Lincoln, a man of honor and principle, who always stood for what was right--even if not the popular opinion. For example, Pap spoke out openly against the charges a black man faced for beating a white man who was calling him names. The man was lynched and Pap and his brother, my Uncle Jonah, never, ever recovered from the horrible emotions caused by this atrocity of justice. The last lynching (maybe this one?)in East Kentucky was in 1931. I'm proud that Pap and Uncle Jonah stood against discrimination and these heinous acts.

Pap, John A. Hicks, wrote his life and excerpts were published in Appalachian Heritage Magazine in the 1970s. That will also be a story for another day.

Nova's Primitives are true primitives according to art professors I have spoken with. Tom Whitaker, a renowned American Heritage Artist is from Magoffin County in Appalachian Kentucky. He advised me to let Mother paint in her original style, lessons would refine out the purity.Artists learn and grow, he said, by losing, then gaining something, as they are enlightened by a new style of expression.

Nova's life in the coal camps was rugged and hard. Knowing her struggles first hand, I'm always amazed to see the life, color, and optimism reflected in her art.

Thanks for reading more of my Appalachian roots.

As I go along, I will probably learn to shorten my stories.
Please share yours,
Peace,
Judy