Oral History Interview with Martha Wilson, 2017 May 17-18
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Oral history interview with Martha Wilson, 2017 May 17-18 Funding for this interview was provided by the Lichtenberg Family Foundation. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Martha Wilson on May 17 and 18, 2017. The interview took place at Wilson's home in Brooklyn, NY, and was conducted by Liza Zapol for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Martha Wilson and Liza Zapol have reviewed the transcript. Their corrections and emendations appear below in brackets with initials. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview LIZA ZAPOL: Okay, so this is Liza Zapol for the Archives of American Art, [Smithsonian Institution] oral history program. It's May 17, 2017. And if I can ask you to introduce yourself, please? MARTHA WILSON: My name is Martha Wilson, and I'm going to not hold anything back. LIZA ZAPOL: Thank you. And we're here at your home in Brooklyn. So, if I can just ask you to begin at the beginning— MARTHA WILSON: Okay. LIZA ZAPOL: —as I said. MARTHA WILSON: Okay. LIZA ZAPOL: Where and when were you born? And if you can tell me a little bit about your early memories. MARTHA WILSON: Okay. I was born in Philadelphia in Philadelphia General Hospital or something like that, and raised for the first six years of my life on a houseboat. The houseboat was parked across the Delaware on the New Jersey side, but looking at the waterworks of the Philadelphia city—the city of Philadelphia. So, some of my early memories involve water that was frozen and was washing up on the shore, or stepping from one root to the next through a puddle—I thought if I went fast enough my shoe wouldn't get wet. Seeing a black snake, which I thought was huge, running along the edge of the water; holding a green balloon and letting go of it accidentally and watching it—crying while watching it float into space. I have memories also from later when I saw pictures of myself. My father was an architect and my mother was a designer. They met at Philco. This was—they met during the Second World War. He was designing radar; she was designing radios. Actually, that's one of her designs right there. And everybody had to wear a smock at work and then, one day, the whole office went down to the [New Jersey –MW] shore and my father saw my mother in a bathing suit, [laughs] became interested, and the rest is, you know. In the beginning, they had—so, they got married and in the beginning, they had a design company which didn't really work. They were trying to start a business in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, so that didn't work out too well. He then got a job as an architect for Carl White, who was a friend of his, I think, or maybe it was Mickelwright and Monford. Anyway, he was working as an architect. And we were—my sister was born—so I was born in 1947, my sister was born in 1950, and we would fight over, you know, the territory in the bed. And I went back years and years later to the houseboat. There was a ventilation pipe sticking out of the ground that, as I remember as a child, was a huge, huge thing, and when I went back it was about 12 inches high [laughs]. My best friend growing up at—we were in Riverside or Riverton, a little town along the shore of the Delaware. My best friend growing up was Evelyn Nijsky. She was down the block. And Evelyn's parents served completely different kind of food and spoke in an accent. I think they were Polish. And Evelyn was my best friend. She was, you know, not only the girl down the street, but my best friend. This went on for some years, and then my mother decided that she wanted to have more help with raising the kids, and so they decided to move to Newtown, Pennsylvania. My grandparents—my grandmother and grandfather—had, after the Second World War or maybe during the Second World War, converted the Victorian house—huge Victorian house—into apartments. One, two, three, four—at least four apartments. Five? At least four—four apartments. And the barn in the back was not being used as a barn anymore, so my father, the architect, converted the top floor into our living space, and then, as time went by, we got older and bigger and needed more space. Then he started converting the ground floor. Eventually, we occupied the whole barn. So, there's the Victorian house in the front, there's the barn, and then there's a chicken house in the back, and in the back of everything there's a woods. My mother would go out and pick blackberries, and she didn't care that her arms got all scraped up, and we would go out in the back. And my friend Donnie Motson, who became my new best friend—Donnie Motson lived two doors down Lincoln Avenue. He also had a wood in the back. So, we— Mrs. Hillborn was in the middle, but she didn't care, so we would build roads for the—what is that thing called? You sit on it and you move the handle back and forth and it propels the—this four-wheeled vehicle forward. [A go-cart. –MW] So, we built roads, we built forts. I was a tomboy. I basically didn't come in unless my mother rang the bell for dinner. My sister was the bookworm; I was the person out in the woods. And at first, my mother was sending me to the Quaker elementary school, the Newtown Friends Elementary School. That was kindergarten—no, kindergarten was in Newtown itself. Miss Starr was my kindergarten teacher. But then, I went to Newtown Friends and Miss—isn't it funny how you can remember the names of your early teachers and none of the names of the later ones? LIZA ZAPOL: [Laughs.] MARTHA WILSON: Mrs. Fletcher, I think, and Miss Fulton and Mrs. Atkinson. Then, my mother was not happy with how the school was disciplining or not disciplining kids or something. I don't really know why she took me out, but she took me out after third grade and put me in fourth grade in the public school in Newtown, by which point I could walk to school. Because it was in, you know, the next—we were on Lincoln Avenue and the school was on Chancellor, so I could just cut through somebody's side yard and go to elementary school. And I want to—the things I want to talk about eventually are Quakerism. I want to talk about Quakerism, and I also want to talk about trauma. I think trauma is a big subject that we should talk about. And maybe my relationship with my sister. We should cover that stuff. LIZA ZAPOL: Okay. So, do you want to talk about Quakerism? So, you started in the Quaker school— MARTHA WILSON: Yeah— LIZA ZAPOL: —first, but then you— MARTHA WILSON: —let's talk about Quakerism. LIZA ZAPOL: But then, you switched to a— MARTHA WILSON: Public. LIZA ZAPOL: —public school. MARTHA WILSON: Public school. LIZA ZAPOL: So, what was that environment like in the beginning? MARTHA WILSON: Well, there's—Quaker—my mother's family was Quaker. My father's family was not Quaker. They were fallen Presbyterian or—who knows what they were? I don't know. LIZA ZAPOL: And where was your father's family from? MARTHA WILSON: Scranton. From Scranton, Pennsylvania. But my mother's family—actually, I have a genealogy on the wall over there—came over in 1653 or something and settled in Valley Forge, and then eventually moved to Bucks County, and they have been in Bucks County for 300 years or something. And so, my mother's social life revolved around the family and you—visiting family and taking jelly—you always take a gift; you take jelly or something when you're visiting. And—and being proud of the legacy of the family, the Quaker family. I didn't—I was—I spent most of my young years rebelling against Quakerism. For example, you get a Bible when you get a certain age, and I think I refused to accept this gift from the Meeting [for Worship –MW] [laughs]. I'm not quite sure what I was rebelling against at the time, but— LIZA ZAPOL: Who gave— MARTHA WILSON: My sister told me that I had refused to accept this gift. LIZA ZAPOL: Who gave [you] the Bible? Where did it, you know—was it— MARTHA WILSON: I think it was— LIZA ZAPOL: —part of a meeting? MARTHA WILSON: I think it was part of the Sunday School, after you got through Sunday School, and you're now a—you know, old enough to make up your own mind. You graduated into the Meeting itself. LIZA ZAPOL: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. MARTHA WILSON: Oh, I know. I was trying to prove that I was a member of Newtown Meeting in order to get my son a scholarship at George School, which I should get to next.