Short Family Visit with Headhunter’s Bowl

Transferring 2021 Christmas presents, 1 May 2022

My brother Peter Dickinson visited briefly this afternoon. We enjoyed lunch with friends and family and transferred 2021 Christmas presents that have been waiting for the opportunity. Pete and I also made our every-ten-year swap of the Headhunter‘s Bowl our mother gave us. I think every family has its odd traditions and this is one of ours.

When Pete and I were little kids, our mother (Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson) bought special Christmas present for our father (Wade Dickinson). We were so curious that she said if we could guess what it was without unwrapping the package, we could have it. Because it was such an odd thing, she was sure we could not guess and gave us unlimited questions. Eventually, we did guess that it was a very old wooden headhunter‘s serving bowl from the Solomon Islands. (I remember we had to get out a global atlas and narrow down the location by global quadrants and then ask many questions about what the Solomon Islands were historically famous for.) Ever since we were old enough to have our own homes, Pete and I have been trading our strange bowl back and forth. It is now Pete’s turn to play host.

Note: The San Francisco store where my mother bought the bowl said it was from the Solomon Islands. Its design looks similar to the Kava bowl of Samoa or Fiji.

Friends and family lunch, 1 May 2022

Dickinson family 1 May 2022

Transferring Solomon Islands Headhunter’s bowl, 1 May 2022

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home). Images Copyright 2022 by Katy Dickinson.

Update for eleanordickinsonart.com Art Website

Thanks to my daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, for updating my mother’s website, eleanordickinsonart.com. We put up the website after Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson died in 2017 as a way of keeping information about her and her remarkable art and legacy in circulation. Unfortunately, Jessica just had to remove all of the e-commerce features of the site because it attracted bad behavior rather than buyers.  At least once a month for two years, I was contacted by someone through the site who purported to want to purchase an artwork but really wanted to use us for money laundering. It seems that the web is not a good place to sell high-end fine art. This site redesign still makes information available but asks buyers to contact us in email. I hope the site maintains communication but reduces the fraudulent contacts.

My brothers and I are trustees of the Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson Charitable Art Trust. During the last three years, my brother Pete Dickinson and I have been working with Natalie Piazza to inventory and properly archive my mother’s art collection. During this Corona Virus lock down, I have asked Natalie to work from home preparing a selection of photos and descriptions of Eleanor Dickinson’s art for display on eleanordickinsonart.com. This site redesign will make that expansion of materials much easier – thanks, Jessica!

More about the eleanordickinsonart.com website:

Eleanor Dickinson Art contains selections of original creations from the archives of Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson, a remarkable American artist who was actively creating, teaching, and exhibiting fine art for over 75 years.  Her work has been exhibited at many dozens of galleries and museums around the world, and is collected by a wide variety of individuals, universities, museums and other major institutions, including:

• Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
• Smithsonian Archives of American Art
• Tennessee State Museum
• The Oakland Museum
• University of Tennessee Libraries, Special Collections

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Images Copyright 1971-2005 by Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson.

Art by Grandmother and Grandson

I just passed my theological Spanish translation class at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley where I am a Master of Arts student. Our Spanish class was held in a room next to the Doug Adams Gallery at the GTU. As a result of a serendipitous conversation, the gallery will include two of my mother‘s art works in the exhibit that opens next month, “Beyond Words: Art Inspired by Sacred Texts.”

My mother, Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson (1931-2017), was interested in art and religion all of her life. An early exhibit was the 1967 Old Testament figures show at the Temple Gallery, Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco. The figures were life size, free standing, line drawings on paper inspired by Bible stories. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden are two of the figures from the Temple show. Another famous series she created was called “Revival!” presenting fundamentalist Christian worship in the American South. “Revival!” was exhibited in a variety of locations from 1970 to 1981, has two books about it, and can be seen in part in the collections of the Oakland Museum, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and Tennessee State Museum. Eleanor Dickinson was a powerful artist, beloved Professor Emerita at California College of the Arts, feminist and art activist. She was involved in drawing the emotional expressions of people in all aspects of life, often in a religious context. My brothers Mark and Peter and I are Trustees for the Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson Charitable Art Trust, created in 2014 to provide donations of art works to charitable organizations or institutions.

I am also the Manager for my son Paul Dickinson Goodman‘s art business. Paul is a ceramicist, wood worker, and metal worker who was graduated from the San Jose State University – Spatial Art program in 2018. He is actively exhibiting his work at galleries and art sales in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am proud to have two accomplished artists in our family!

Images Copyright 2018-2019 Katy Dickinson, Paul Dickinson Goodman, Adams Gallery GTU

Chairs Carved by Ella Bolli Van Gilder

Thanks to my husband, John Plocher*, for reassembling and restoring one of the fumed oak chairs carved by my Great-Grandmother, Ella Rachel Bolli Van Gilder.  We found the chair in pieces in the attic of 2125 Broderick Street, my parents’ home in San Francisco, when we were clearing out the house for sale in 2012.  I have several other pieces carved by my Great-Grandmother – including another of her chairs. I am delighted to have one more.

Ella Rachel Bolli Van Gilder was a remarkable woman who early in her life worked with Jane Addams at Hull House – a settlement house for European immigrants in Chicago.  She later returned to Knoxville, Tennessee, where she married Walter Van Gilder.  They were both were enthusiastic craft workers (in the Arts and Crafts style) and gardeners, in addition to his founding and managing Van Gilder Glass Company.  My mother, Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson, grew up in their house at 1007 Circle Park Drive in Knoxville.

* with help from John Gibbs – Workshop (Campbell, CA)

This is what the chair pieces looked like when we pulled them out of the attic:

Here is the chair today, after much effort by John:

1911 portrait of Ella Bolli Van Gilder:

1007 Circle Park Drive in Knoxville: photo taken by Eleanor Creekmore when she was 10 years old, in 1941:

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Images Copyright 1941 by Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson, and 2016-2018 by Katy Dickinson.

Eleanor Dickinson’s 83rd Birthday & Art Show

Peter and Julie by Eleanor Dickinson 2013

My mother Eleanor Dickinson celebrated her 83rd birthday while I was with the TechWomen delegation to Rwanda earlier this month. While I was gone, she attended the College Art Association annual conference in Chicago. Now that we are both back home in San Jose, California, I delivered her birthday presents today and enjoyed seeing the “Sketch Book Drawings” exhibit of 64 small pictures that the Atria Willow Glen senior community put up. The images are of residents, staff, and visitors – most are in pencil but a few are in ink or watercolor. I am proud of my mother having two current shows at the age of 83! Her “Old Lovers” exhibit at the Peninsula Museum of Art is open through 16 March 2014.

Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson 2014

Thalia and Fifi by Eleanor Dickinson 2012

Vivian by Eleanor Dickinson 2013

Jim by Eleanor Dickinson 2012

Sherry by Eleanor Dickinson 2013

Nancy Flynn by Eleanor Dickinson 2014

Atria Art Show by Eleanor Dickinson 2014

Art Copyright 2012-2014 by Eleanor Dickinson, Photo Images Copyright 2014 by Katy Dickinson