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the car with her mother, showed me the video of Katherine Fahey’s haunting crankie. Willow’s mother, folklorist, Carole Moody Crompton wrote the song Francis Whit- more’s Wife as part of an assignment for her local history class when she was a student of Tony Barrand at Marlboro College in Ver- mont in the 1970s. Katherine Fahey had been singing the song – which is set to an old shape note tune, Fiducia – for years with her group called the Shape Note Sisters.
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The song is about Elizabeth Whitmore, a strong and colourful character who lived in Marlboro, Vermont in the 1700s. She was left to guard her home and provide for her daughter and cattle during a rough and snowy winter whilst her husband pursued his trade elsewhere. For this crankie, Katherine incorporates exquisite shadow puppets scenes of Elizabeth Whitmore on her horse riding through the forest and chopping logs with an axe. She uses Tyvek (a synthetic housewrap material) and tissue paper for the scroll and cut-outs.
When approaching the making of my own first crankie, a lullaby my husband and I wrote for our son, I knew I wanted it to be illuminated by candle glow. First I found a sturdy coloured cardboard box and then the wooden cranks were made to fit on the dowels. I used brown baking paper for the scroll and black paper for the paper cut sil- houettes. Baking paper made a perfect scroll because it sounded like crackling fire when cranked. The result was pure magic. Never had I seen my little one so mesmerised with wide-open eyes full of pure bliss.
With an upcoming art exhibit, I needed to roll out a few more crankies. I also felt compelled to learn more about the stum- bling blocks and troubleshooting other artists had to go through. Luckily, I found crankologist Sue Truman’s informative web- site, The Crankie Factory. Sue Truman is a fiddler, step dancer, quilter and crankie artist from Seattle. She has hand-stitched over twenty crankie scrolls that incorporate quilted fabric, appliqué and lace. They are full of heartwarming, whimsical charm, accompanying ballads and traditional tunes. She performs one of her delightful crankies, Valse Des Sucres, with her band, Podorythmie, featuring step-dancing with French-Canadian tunes.
Which came first the crank box or the scroll? For my second crankie, I decided to make the scroll first. Entitled Theatre Botan- ica, this large needle-felted wool crankie is based on mediaeval illuminated manuscripts from herbal codices. It is a spoken word and music piece about the love lore of plants. Consumed with a monastic mission to painstakingly needle-felt loads of detail with delicate wisps of plant-dyed wool, I soon forgot which century I was living in. Fear jolted me when a moth flew into the room. “Please don’t eat my crankie.” I begged nervously.
Many more people will be lured into crankie making after seeing The Lost Gan- der [
youtu.be/MbPJSOef4NE ] by old-time musicians from Southwest Virginia, Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle, who tour the UK in May. Their banjo instrumen-
y friend Willow Broaddus who grew up in Vermont surrounded by maypoles and mummers and singing English murder ballads in
Anna & Elizabeth – coming to the UK in May
tal with shadow puppet of a lost gander gently floating through a moving landscape feels like a guided visual meditation – Appalachian style.
Anna is an award-winning fiddler and Elizabeth may be the most sought-after bal- lad singer of her generation (see fR348). The two started making crankies after Anna saw Aviva Steigmeyer’s Love Has Brought Me To Despair. Anna & Elizabeth’s meticu- lously stitched fabric crankies are rich with folk song characters and scenes that flow from one frame to the next. Some of their works in clude Lord Bateman [
youtu.be/ycmpn1bLN14 ] and The Devil’s Nine Questions. At the soulful heart of their shows is the sincere love of old ballads and the history of everyday lives.
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very crankie artist has had their share of disasters. Such was the case with my next piece. It was to accompany my song, The Sowing Song, which is based on the folklore of sowing seeds by the phases of the moon. I decided to experiment with clear scratch art paper – something that could be made a bit quicker then my last one. What I didn’t plan for was how to adhere all the scenes of scratch sheets together to make a continuous scroll. I remembered vaguely that Sue Truman had mentioned that a crankie artist had used contact paper to seal their artwork. It sounded easy enough. Not a chance – it was an absolute nightmare! Contact paper was sticking to itself, wrinkling over the artwork, and pulling up black film. Then a well-meaning friend suggested covering it with water so it wouldn’t stick to itself. Did I listen to this? Yes! I was desperate enough to cover my hours of hard work with water! It ruined several panels that I had to redo. I needed serious intervention to help me with this crankie crisis! I contacted Sue and asked, “Who was that artist who used contact paper?” That someone was artist and musician Dejah Léger.
Dejah got me out of trouble in the nick of time, giving me tips on how to apply the contact paper with minimal destruction before my opening night performance and exhibition. I have to say, her crankie, La
Chasse-galerie [
youtu.be/asIFgBgs5zQ ] is one of my favourites. She uses paper-cut and shadow puppets to illustrate the entertain- ing French-Canadian folk tale about a group of lonely lumberjacks who make a pact with the devil to fly home to see their sweet- hearts on Christmas Eve. It is set to French- Canadian tunes performed by La Famille Léger, Dejah’s band with her husband Devon and his parents Louis and Barbara Léger.
This art form has the power to inspire musicians to return to their roots as story- tellers, giving voice to everyday people. When you’re under the spell of a crankie, you get that same feeling of excitement when the electricity cuts out during a thun- derstorm and you are sitting in utter silence; stillness falls and there’s no choice but to be fully present. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time before crankies become a household word and start capturing the imagination of people everywhere.
Crankies go on tour in the UK this spring. See Anna & Elizabeth and Pamela Wyn Shannon’s web sites for dates:
annaandelizabeth.com pamelawynshannon.com katherinefahey.com dejahleger.com thecrankiefactory.com
An Anna & Elizabeth creation
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Photo:
c-ville.com
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