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Oral History Interview with Jack Lenor Larsen, 2004 February 6-8

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Oral History Interview with Jack Lenor Larsen, 2004 February 6-8 Oral history interview with Jack Lenor Larsen, 2004 February 6-8 Funding for this interview was provided by the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. 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 tape-recorded interview with Jack Lenor Larsen on February 6-8, 2004. The interview took place in East Hampton, New York, and was conducted by Arline M. Fisch 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. Jack Lenor Larsen and Arline M. Fisch have reviewed the transcript and have made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview ARLINE FISCH: This is Arline Fisch interviewing Jack Lenor Larsen at LongHouse in East Hampton, Long Island, for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, on Friday, February 6, 2004. This is disk number one. Jack, let’s talk about your childhood in Seattle. Were you born there? JACK LENOR LARSEN: I was born there in the Norwegian Hospital. My parents had come from Alberta, Canada, a few years before and married in Seattle, and I lived on the outskirts of the University District of Seattle. MS. FISCH: Was it a great place to grow up? MR. LARSEN: Yes. We were always sort of on the outskirts, maybe because land was cheaper, and there was always water around – fresh water or salt water bays – woods, places to explore, lots of space. MS. FISCH: So is that what you liked best about living there? The kind of landscape and space, or were there other things – MR. LARSEN: Yes, I never – until I was in high school – I was not in a built-up area in which you couldn’t get into the woods within a block or so, and, for me, that was my life. I loved it. MS. FISCH: So you were very affected by the landscape, by the sea and the mountains? MR. LARSEN: Well, the mountains – you had to go to the mountains, and we did, including Mount Rainier and such, but on clear days you could see them. Puget Sound has five volcanic peaks that are always snowcapped. MS. FISCH: What did you like to do with your time when you were a boy? I know you told me you were a cub scout and a boy scout, but what kinds of things did you like to do? MR. LARSEN: Building shelters – places -- was my most consistent occupation. That and adventures – going places alone or in a group – [inaudible] – and usually leading a small group when I did. MS. FISCH: What kind of adventures? MR. LARSEN: The excitement of going some unknown place through the woods. For both what we were building and where we were going, I would think this out inside or in class or – and dream up an activity for – usually for the weekend, and lead those who would follow, either to create some sort of structure or to go someplace. And particularly when we got lost in swamps and thornbushes and nettles and so forth, there was always the threat of mutiny. [Laughs.] MS. FISCH: So you were the leader – the ringleader of all of this? MR. LARSEN: I was, not because I was a so strong, but because my followers were so easily coerced. MS. FISCH: Or you had all the good ideas about where to go. MR. LARSEN: Well, I had ideas. And I realized recently that this hasn’t changed. I’m still doing it. I do it with LongHouse Foundation and anyone else who will follow. And I dream up projects and try to get somebody to go along with it. MS. FISCH: Well, tell me about the things you built: the tree houses and stuff. [Cross talk.] MR. LARSEN: My father was a building contractor – mostly houses – and I don’t know whether I was imitating him. He was very successful and persuasive and magnetic, and maybe that’s why I was doing it, but it started simply – you make a tent out of a blanket, when I was four, and became more ambitious. And any material – and usually they were on the ground and not in trees, but sometimes underground. I also built boats and tents, but – and circuses -- but the making was the thing. MS. FISCH: That was what interested you? MR. LARSEN: The circus never went on. And the boats I usually sold, and not – MS. FISCH: Were these small boats, or boats you get into? MR. LARSEN: No. They were boats to get into. And I didn’t make them to sell them, but I didn’t really make them to go boating either. I was lucky on one. It was a dugout made out of madrona wood and it virtually sank, and I think maybe that’s why the mother bought it, because her little boy who wanted it wouldn’t go floating off anyways. [Laughs.] It was destined to remain at the water’s edge. But I somehow got out of this predicament and was paid for my folly. MS. FISCH: Was your father involved in all of this? MR. LARSEN: Not at all. MS. FISCH: Was he teaching you? MR. LARSEN: Not at all. No. He even – he very seldom came to see what I’d done – boats, yes. He also built a very successful fishing boat, but no, he sort of kept an eye on the boats – some of them, the kayaks and so on -- but the camps not. And Mother would check it out usually, and friends, but sometimes we slept overnight – George and I or someone else – some other weekend guest at one of these tents or camps, but usually it was just making it. MS. FISCH: It was just the building that was most interesting to you. MR. LARSEN: Mm-hmm. MS. FISCH: What were the strongest parental influences on your character? From your father or your mother, or both? MR. LARSEN: Both. Hers was the most constant, but his voice was stronger. Maybe because it wouldn’t come so often. But being an only child and in the Depression I was usually taken along – babysitters only happened on New Year’s Eve and rare occasions. Being parked with friends’ kids was more frequent, and I was totally agreeable to that, because that way I had constant companions and that was the only time I did. But as I was the only child, I was also the youngest grandchild on one side and the oldest on the other, so I had some grandparental focus. MS. FISCH: And did they live in Seattle as well? MR. LARSEN: No, but they came to visit on occasion. They were still in Canada. And we went to Alberta every once in a while, and later I had relatives in British Columbia. Mother was remarkably well organized and I learned that from her. MS. FISCH: Well, that’s a very positive influence then. MR. LARSEN: Some of it I resisted when I was home, but it immediately took over when I went off to college. Having a tidy room and so forth, which I think I resisted just to be more independent, but once I was away, I became – then I immediately took over these things that I’d been taught, and I used – I got in the habit as a young undergraduate of trying to leave my digs like I’d like to enter them. MS. FISCH: Well, that was certainly a very positive characteristic to develop. MR. LARSEN: And my dad was an achiever. He was successful. He was also very popular. Everyone liked him – all ages and all genders -- and he was the darling of all their adult friends. The men wanted to be with him, and so did the women. He was attractive, which my mother – I didn’t think she was at all. MS. FISCH: Was he a storyteller? MR. LARSEN: Sort of, yes. Yeah. He had – he flirted with women, and my – even my girlfriends -- and he was charming, and he had – he always had something amusing to say, even if it was the same things. MS. FISCH: Was he a sportsman? MR. LARSEN: Yes. He – when I was a little boy, they played golf a lot and I would follow them along. And later he became a fisherman and he never stopped that, and they would go all the way out to the – to the ocean to fish, and to Canada to fish. He was a very good fisherman and – MS. FISCH: Did that interest you at all? MR. LARSEN: No. Salmon fishing is boring. MS. FISCH: All fishing is boring. MR. LARSEN: No, stream fishing, which I did with my uncle, you keep constantly moving and doing things. There’s skill and prowess and so forth. But getting up at 3:00 in the morning and sitting in a cold boat for hours and hours and hours and trolling was – and even reeling in a fish I never really thought was so wonderful (which is why you do it). Mother went along and did fairly well, and they got salmon up to 60 pounds. Once they came back with 1,000 pounds and gave it – most of it -- away.
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