Written by Clara Gunderson Hoover
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Mother (Marion Gunderson) was disappointed that the Rolfe Consolidated School did not offer art in any grades. We had music in elementary grades and listened to the different instruments in Peter and the Wolf but had no art production or appreciation during the time I was in school (1947-1960).
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Carla Jones, as pictured in the 1965 Rolfe Ram yearbook.
In the early sixties, Carla Jones began teaching art in Rolfe. During her at least ten years in Rolfe, she taught high school art, junior high social studies and, sometimes, elementary art. My sisters Martha, Louise and Peggy remember Carla as encouraging students and giving them a great deal of latitude in choosing projects. Martha recalls, “Carla was my first formal art instructor who had me really ‘look’ at something, to see its shape, the lines, the texture, their relationships, and had me do exercises related to those topics on newsprint. Her lessons were an important foundation for me and very relevant to [art] classes at Iowa State.”
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Recently I’ve reflected on things Mother and others did to help us not only learn about art, but also create art. Arts and crafts were part of vacation Bible school (VBS). Steven Graeber is an accomplished potter who grew up in Rolfe and later moved with his family to a farm near West Bend. He now lives in Evergreen, Colorado, and said his first experience with clay was as an elementary student in VBS. My brother, Charles, was in the same class, and Mother was their teacher. They worked with slabs, coils, free forms and pinch pots. Arts and crafts were the primary motivation for my sister Martha to attend VBS where she made plaster of Paris handprints, loom-woven potholders and small items formed from Popsicle sticks.
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Vera Fisher invited the girls in her high school Sunday school class to her home after school to glaze ceramics and fire them in her kiln. While few of these projects were original creations, we enjoyed making them and learning about the ceramics process.
From the February 5, 1953, Pocahontas Record-Democrat.
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At least one summer, Mother drove me and some of my siblings to Pocahontas for lessons with Grace Pearl Walters in her Art and Hobby Shop, which at that time was located on the west side of Main Street across from the Rialto Theatre. Grace was known as the “Bird Lady,” perhaps because her store also sold pets, and traveled to shows and fairs with her items. I have only a vague memory of being in her classes and suspect I made enameled copper jewelry and created something with beads.
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Pictured is Clara painting at the kitchen table with one of Sharon (Wickre) and Jerry Rickard's sons. (Sharon and Clara are classmates from Rolfe's class of 1960.)
In the summers when I was young, I occasionally accompanied Mother when she painted on location with members of the Barr Art Association. Once we went to the gypsum plant near Otho; another time we went to either the Pocahontas or Gilmore City elevator. I took my own small stool, paints, watercolor paper and coffee can of water for rinsing paintbrushes. Getting to paint with the adults was a treat. As children, we sometimes watched Mother paint at home and enjoyed seeing her paintings propped up in the kitchen or dining room. Later, as adults, we smiled as Mother and her grandchildren* (or children of our friends) painted on papers spread across the kitchen table.
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City Hall, Gunnison, Colorado, watercolor by Marion A. Gunderson, 1964. (Click on image to enlarge.)
The summer after her sophomore year in high school, Martha traveled with Mother to a watercolor course in Gunnison, Colorado. Martha went on some of the painting outings and enjoyed the scenery and peacefulness of the surroundings but doesn’t remember doing much painting herself. Martha said she was always interested in art and was influenced by Mother as a 4-H leader and by her artistic background, use of color and way of arranging things. Influenced by both Mother and Carla Jones, Martha majored in applied art at Iowa State.
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*Mother had seven grandchildren. Four of them are pictured here.
“Art Education — Part II” will be posted later this week.
Mother was born 92 years-ago today. Happy Birthday, Doll! : )
(Click here to go to Louise Gunderson Shimon’s blog’s home page.)
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Marion Gunderson Art (and the Farmer's Daughter) 
