Oral history interview with Wendell Castle, 2012 February 22-24 Funding for this interview was provided by the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. 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 Wendell Castle on February 22 and 24, 2012. The interview took place in Scottsville, New York, and was conducted by Jeannine Falino for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. OLD TRANSCRIPTS-NO INITIALS IN BRACKETS: {WHO} has reviewed the transcript and has made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview JEANNINE FALINO: All right, this is Jeannine Falino speaking for the Archives of American Art. And I am meeting here in an oral interview with Wendell Castle at his workshop in Scottsville, New York. It is February 22, 2012. Now, Wendell, what I probably should have said when I started, or before I turned down the microphone, is that what I'd like to do in this first session is to review your early career. WENDELL CASTLE: Okay. MS. FALINO: And then we're going to have a second session, and in that one I'd like to talk about more of your later work, and I want to explore more of your philosophies more in an expanded version. So obviously you're going to be talking about your approaches all the way through, but hopefully we can expand upon them in the second session. MR. CASTLE: Okay. MS. FALINO: So this will be ground that's been covered to some degree before, but we wanted to get your perspective of time since the last time you were interviewed by the archives. So, we're going to start at the beginning. MR. CASTLE: Way back. MS. FALINO: Way back when. MR. CASTLE: Back in Kansas? MS. FALINO: Back in Kansas. MR. CASTLE: That far back? MS. FALINO: Yes, all that way back. And if you would just start by telling us about you birthplace and your parents. MR. CASTLE: Well, I was born in Emporia, Kansas but really never lived there. My parents lived in a very small town near Emporia where my father was a vocational agriculture teacher. And the little town was called Staffordville — MS. FALINO: Oh. MR. CASTLE: — which I think maybe doesn't even exist anymore. It was just a kind of a wide spot in the road, but it had a school. MS. FALINO: [Laughs.] MR. CASTLE: But then we moved to Blue Rapids when I was three or four. And then by the time I was, like, 5 years old, we moved to Holten, Kansas — MS. FALINO: Okay. MR. CASTLE: — where I went through — there was no kindergarten in those days. So, anyway, 1st through, I think, 6th grade. Then my father took a job teaching — still teaching vocational agriculture in Coffeeville, Kansas. Coffeeville had a fabulous school system. I wish we'd have stayed there. MS. FALINO: Ah. MR. CASTLE: But that's where I had my one and only shop class in the 8th grade. Eight-grade boys in that school had to take three shop classes. One was electricity, where you kind of learned about how electricity works and learned how to splice wire and wind an armature and a few things like that. And then we had metal shop, which was really you bent some iron and did kind of wrought iron — MS. FALINO: Yes. MR. CASTLE: — sort of work. And the other was wood shop. MS. FALINO: And that's where you made a birdhouse? MR. CASTLE: No, I didn't make any birdhouse. MS. FALINO: [Laughs.] MR. CASTLE: It was amazingly advanced, if you were up for it. And I built two pieces of furniture, which still exist. MS. FALINO: And where are they? MR. CASTLE: Well, my brother has one, and I don't know where the other is but somebody sent a picture of it recently. MS. FALINO: Oh, that's great. MR. CASTLE: I mean, what the teacher told you to do was go to a Sears catalogue and cut out a picture of something you wanted to make, and he would help you make it. MS. FALINO: Wow. MR. CASTLE: And I cut out a picture of a — it was kind of a — kind of a Duncan Phyfe sort of coffee table. And I don't think Duncan Phyfe every made any coffee tables, but — MS. FALINO: Certainly not for Sears. MR. CASTLE: No. So it wasn't really. And the other was a — the design I think came through a hobby magazine or something — was a telephone stand. My brother has that in Kansas City. MS. FALINO: Still very useful? MR. CASTLE: Well, he doesn't use it, but you could. MS. FALINO: [Laughs.] MR. CASTLE: I mean, it's in fine condition. MS. FALINO: And you had a good teacher? MR. CASTLE: And I had a terrific teacher, Mr. Lake — I think his name was Donald Lake — who was really good. I mean, he — if he saw somebody had some talent, he really helped them, and so I got a lot out of it. MS. FALINO: Excellent. MR. CASTLE: That's it. Then the other — when my father then took another kind of job — he worked for a bank, actually and then moved back to Holten, Kansas. My uncle owned a bank and wanted my father to handle the farm loans, which he never liked that job very well, but — so we moved backed to Holten. And they had a shop class, so I thought I was going to take it. But I went in, and the first day in there I decided it was not anything I wanted to have anything to do with. It was a terrible shop compared to the one — the 8th grade shop. And the teacher — I could see, you know, just all the dumb kids were in there. MS. FALINO: Ah. MR. CASTLE: In the 8th grade, everybody had to take that shop class. It was not an option. You had to take it. But then the shop after that, it was optional and only stupid kids were in there — MS. FALINO: And the quality — MR. CASTLE: — so I immediately dropped out. MS. FALINO: And the quality wasn't anywhere near where you were? MR. CASTLE: No, they didn't have a good shop, and I didn't think the teacher knew what he was doing. So, that was my one and only shop class. MS. FALINO: Now, your dad had — you moved, like, one, two, three, four, five times almost until you were in 8th grade. That's quite a lot. And your dad was teaching most of the time and then he got into the banking business. MR. CASTLE: Mm-hm [affirmation] — but I only went to two different schools, though — MS. FALINO: Okay. MR. CASTLE: — because the early moves were when I was too young. MS. FALINO: When you were so young. MR. CASTLE: Yes. MS. FALINO: Right. That seems unusual for a teacher to move around so much. Why do you think that was? MR. CASTLE: I don't know. I mean, he got better jobs each time, so he moved up. MS. FALINO: So he was moving up maybe into administration? MR. CASTLE: Mm-hm. [Affirmation.] MS. FALINO: Okay. MR. CASTLE: In Coffeeville he had the best job in the state — MS. FALINO: Oh. MR. CASTLE: — clearly. MS. FALINO: Oh, okay. MR. CASTLE: Which he knew and I know he never should have left. MS. FALINO: And your mom, she was also college educated. MR. CASTLE: Yes. They both graduated from Manhattan — MS. FALINO: Kansas State. MR. CASTLE: — Kansas State. MS. FALINO: Great. MR. CASTLE: And she didn't work when I was little, but then later she began to teach grade school. MS. FALINO: And as I recall, they were not all that interested, your parents, in what you had to do in any kind of artistic way. MR. CASTLE: Not at all, no. MS. FALINO: They had different expectations for you. MR. CASTLE: Yes. And I actually drew a lot as a child, but nobody ever suggested that they were any good or I should save them. So I have no childhood drawings. MS. FALINO: No records. MR. CASTLE: And in high school I did — my high school had not art program, so you couldn't take any art. But I did do some illustrations for the high school newspaper, so I did still draw some. So, I guess I could draw better than other people. MS. FALINO: Yes. And it seems like, from what I've read, that you had — while you didn't — you weren't particularly athletic, at least by what was being offered in the Kansas school system, like football or basketball or baseball, it didn't particularly bother you, or you somehow made yourself immune to those things and didn't let it — MR. CASTLE: Well, yes, it didn't bother me very much. I mean, I kind of wished I had some skills, or had been bigger for football but, you know, I never thought much about it. MS. FALINO: But your dad was handy around the house and you observed him. MR. CASTLE: Yes.