Oral history interview with Walter Nottingham

OralHistoryResource

Oral history interview with Walter Nottingham

2002 July 14-18

An interview of Walter Nottingham conducted 2002 July 14-18, by Carol Owen, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the studios of Idyllwild Arts, in Idyllwild, California. Nottingham speaks of his enthusiasm for basketball; being an altar boy and, as such, surrounded by beautiful fabrics at an early age; attending St. Cloud State University on the GI Bill; his teachers Jim Crane and Pauline Penning; serving as an art consultant for public schools in Jackson, Michigan; the lasting influence of an exhibition of battle flags at the Metropolitan Museum; articulating aging and decay through self-taught weaving; developing a fiber art program at University of Wisconsin, River Falls; attending Cranbrook Academy of Art and working with Glen Kaufman and Meda Johnson. He discusses specific works including his "Yahooties", that combine both his grandmother's and mother's crochet work; his trip to Mexico City on a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 1974; forming the company Off the Wall with his eldest daughter Karron and their decorative design commissions; the influence of his Catholic upbringing, oriental philosophy, and spirituality in his work; and techniques and materials. Nottingham recalls Shelly Ross, Helen Drutt, Francis Merritt, Don Miller, Lois Moran, Jack Lenor Larsen, Marianne Strengell, Mildred Constantine, Gerhardt Knodel, Lee Nordness, Ed Rossbach, and others.

Sound recording, master: 3 sound discs (1 hr., 30 min.) : digital ; 2 5/8 in.Sound recording, duplicate: 3 sound cassettes.Transcript: 29 p.

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8214755

Archives of American Art

Related Entities

There are 3 Entities related to this resource.

Nottingham, Walter, 1930-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hq6s7n (person)

Walter Nottingham, 1930-, fiber artist of Hilo, Hawaii. Carol Owen, fiber artist, Pittsboro, N.C. From the description of Oral history interview with Walter Nottingham, 2002 July 14-18 [sound recording]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 78430937 ...

Owen, Carol, 1936-

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6p28f95 (person)