T.
ABSTRACT
INTERVIEWEE NAME: Gladys Clark COLLECTION: 4700.0512
IDENTIFICATION: Acadian weaver for the Acadian Handicraft
Project
INTERVIEWER: Pamela Rabalais and Yvonne Olivier
(Folklorists from LSU's Human Ecology Department)
PROJECT: Acadian Handicraft Project
INTERVIEW DATES: August 17, 1995
FOCUS DATES: 1950s – 1960s
ABSTRACT:
Clark was born
in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, in 1918; Her community was called the Judice
Community; Her parents Ambrose Leblanc and Closte Hebert LeBlanc; Learning to
weave from her mother; Clark's mother wove cotton blankets for her children
(twelve each); Clark has nine living siblings; Gladys Clark is the only one of
her siblings that still weaves; Clark was married when she met Louise Olivier,
director of the Acadian Handicraft Project (AHP); Clark's maternal
grandparents, Ignace Hebert and Donetile Breaux; Clark never saw her
grandmother weave; Clark does not know where her grandmother's loom is; Meeting
Louise Olivier and getting involved in the project; Clark sewed for the project
first, but eventually began weaving; traveling with Olivier to demonstrate
weaving; Olivier taught Clark how to drive on one of the trips to demonstrate
weaving; Clark and her husband bought their first car from Olivier; Experiences
at the International Rice Festival in Crowley, Louisiana, in 1950; Clark and
her family reenacted an Acadian funeral procession and they demonstrated
weaving and hand milling rice in an Acadian house; They wore costumes during
these demonstrations; Weaving different items for the AHP, including,
placemats, blankets, hand towels; Using two different looms for different
projects, one small, on large; The money Clark made selling items through the
AHP went into the houses general budget; Clark was not paid to demonstrate but
the AHP covered traveling expenses; A trip to New York sponsored by the Lion's
Club to demonstrate weaving; Singing “Allouette” on the train to New York;
Clark's parents supported their involvement in the AHP; Discussion of some
postcards, letters and photographs from Olivier to Clark and of the women who
worked in the AHP; discussion of the costumes that Clark and her family wore
during demonstrations; description of a carding party, la cardrie, a gathering
where women from the neighborhood would come to a house and help card the
cotton to prepare it for spinning and weaving; Ginning brown cotton occurred on
the last day that the cotton gin was open; People used the brown cotton for
their own use; After Olivier died, Dinky Daspit bought some of the looms and
attempted to keep the Project viable; Interviewers read article about Acadian
weavers
Interviewers
continue reading article about Acadian weavers, the article is about Clark's
mother; Clark discusses how she moved from sewing to braiding palmetto to
weaving for the AHP; Olivier taught the children to braid palmetto; Collecting
palmetto with her husband and Olivier; Clark discusses the drying process for palmetto;
Palmetto drying, striping, soaking it in water to make it pliable; Clark did
not see anyone braiding palmetto as a child; Clark does not remember anyone
wearing palmetto hats; Discussion of braiding palmetto fans; Clark talks about
why she quit braiding palmetto; Olivier would bring baskets from Mexico for the
Acadian women to duplicate; Of the items in the photograph that the
interviewers and interviewee are looking at, none of the items made by the
Acadian women would have been used by the people of the area, according to
Clark; Clark used hand spun cotton thread along with commercial thread; Clark
taught Elane Bourque to weave for a grant project through Maida Owens;
Discussion of carding, including the uses for the cotton once it was carded, either
weaving or stuffing for mattresses or quilts; Clark tells a story about her
grandmother at a carding party; Clark goes to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with
Olivier to a weaving workshop to learn how to weave patterns; Clark attended
the Acadian Bicentennial Celebration in 1955 in St. Martinsville, Louisiana;
Clark taught female inmates at Angola to braid palmetto
TAPE: 734 TOTAL
PLAYING TIME: 1 hour
# PAGES
TRANSCRIPT: 75 pages
OTHER
MATERIALS: None
RESTRICTIONS: None