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Highlands Today

MOFAC Photo Exhibit Reminisces About Old Florida

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: November 18, 2008

AVON PARK - "The past isn't dead," William Faulkner, the writer, once said. "It isn't even past."
Peter Schreyer and Rick Lang might argue the point. The two Winter Park photographers are the subject an exhibit at the Museum of Florida Art & Culture.

Don't dismiss this as nothing of local relevance. Their subjects are well north of Highlands County, but what's occurred there is also happening here.

"Where Two Roads Meet" features stark images of an older Florida. Lang's black-and-white images are devoid of people. Schreyer has people in nearly every snapshot, stolidly facing the camera, as subjects did in days of yore, posing, waiting for the photographer to click the shutter.

There's John Strawn, for instance. His ancestors moved to Volusia from Illinois. They were the first to plant orange trees in Central Florida. They eventually became the area's largest citrus growers, but their operation closed after the 1983-84 freeze.

Volusia is also the fern capital and the home of the Estrada family. Timoteo, a fern cutter, stands with the rest of his three-generation family, his parents, and his children. How often these days, the photo seems to ask, do three generations live in the same home?

From Winter Garden, there's Carol Anderson and a couple of her grandchildren. They're black, and Anderson taught during the 1960s, when schools were racially integrated.

Schreyer's ubiquitous photographs are "about how we make a place for ourselves in the landscape," said Kristin Congdon, a folklorist and professor of film and philosophy at the University of Central Florida. "His images depict the farmworker, the produce stand owner, the mechanic who build lives based on hard work and an unwavering belief in the future."

Lang is more enigmatic. No people. Just signs. He calls them silent voices.

From Okeechobee, there's a boarded up window, a cracked sidewalk, and a door, its veneer peeling from the bottom, as if it's been in far too many floods. The 12-inch by 12-inch sign nailed to the door says, "NOT AMTRAK OFFICE." Apparently, the owner doesn't want to be bothered again.

In 2 Egg, Florida, there's an image from 2003. If you blink while driving through 2 Egg, you might miss the whole town. There are two general stores, each with one gas pump. One is clearly 50 years old; the other is just as obviously a generation older. The clapboards on the oldest store - which doesn't even bear a name anymore - are so weathered, little paint remains.

And then there's this photo, which Lang found along the highway: "Reward $200 LOST Black Chow & Lab mix has one eye old dog."

Those simple, crude signs, said Lang, describing his own work, "are a reflection of the people. They do have a voice, as surely as if their makers were there in person."

"Those signs speak to you right away," said Museum director Molly Doctorow, who points out that even in the computer age, typographers keep inventing fonts that are really just imitating those old hand-lettered signs.

And Schreyer's work points out something that Highlands County people have known for years - which we're disappearing too. As Florida urbanizes, those closed-down orange factories have become Orlando.

Look at Avon Park, Doctorow said. "Parts of it are transitioning out."

A photo of American Beach in Jacksonville is the last remnant of the nightclubs and restaurants that once welcomed black people, but are now taken over by tony, upscale developments. The black areas of Southside, Washington Heights and Highway Park are also fading.

"And I don't think we've quite really come to grips what we're losing when it fades away," said Schreyer. "Florida is still such a new state. A lot of towns and communities are growing so fast. People are willing to let it be bulldozed down, and then head out to the shopping center."

Meet The Artists
Peter Schreyer and Rick Lang will discuss their photography from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday.

"Where Two Roads Meet" is on exhibit at the Museum of Florida Art & Culture, at South Florida Community College.

At the same time, a collection of photographs from early Avon Park, one featuring the construction of the Hotel Jacaranda is exhibited in the Learning Center Gallery.

Museum hours are from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday.

More info: 784-7240 or www.mofac.org

Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863 386-5828

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