Charcoal Drawings_Old Time Songs & Stories

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Oh My Gourd!

Charcoal on Paper

24" x 18"

2016

"Oh My Gourd!" is the jocular title of this drawing of a woman playing my homemade gourd banjo. The woman's name is Mitch. (See "Communitas," "Gourd Banjo 4," and "Gourd Banjo 1" for more information about the gourd banjo).

Historically, society considered women who played the banjo as reprobates who should be shunned. When the banjo became a parlor instrument in the mid 1880s, it was somewhat more acceptable for women to play. Into the mid 20thc., Upland Southerners still thought it was socially unacceptable for women to play the banjo.