Tag Archives: Val Martin

Serge Nekrassoff Shared His Skills with the Hutchinsons

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In the early 1960s Jim and Joan Hutchinson lived among the Seminole Indians on the Brighton Reservation near Lake Okeechobee.

Jim and Joan Hutchinson built a home in Golden Gate not far from the Nekrassoff home on Willoughby Creek. As kindred artists they became friends and Serge taught both Jim and Joan the basics of copper enameling.

Jim Hutchinson gained fame as a fine artist and was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

https://dos.fl.gov/cultural/programs/florida-artists-hall-of-fame/james-f-hutchinson//

Joan and Jim built their rustic home on Delmar Street in Golden Gate in stages.

I think I first heard about Joan and Jim from “Babe” Hudson, the mother of my brother-in-law, Dale Hudson. Mrs. Hudson was very worried about the “starving artists” who had been living on the Seminole Reservation at Brighton and now had a baby boy.

After Serge Nekrassoff taught Joan enameling skills, and allowed her to use his kiln,  she began taking commissions to paint people’s homes on copper trays. Mrs. Hudson became a patron, commissioning Joan’s pieces for gifts for friends and relatives. Two of Joan’s trays have remained in our family. One is of the Thurlow home on Riverside Drive and one was of Dale and Mary Hudson’s home Krueger Parkway.

Joan Hutchinson painted the home of Jane and Tom Thurlow . The house, though much modified, still stands on Riverside Drive at the end of Hibiscus Avenue.
This was Mary and Dales first home on Krueger Parkway. It has been demolished. Dale Hudson’s mother, Mrs. Dennis S. Hudson, Sr., commissioned the enameled tray .

I was able to photograph examples of Joan Hutchinson’s enameling but I did not know where I could find an example of Jim’s.

As is often the case, serendipity rules my life. Right after I visited Mary and Dale Hudson to photograph Joan’s enameled pieces, I drove to Florida Classics Library in Hobe Sound to buy books. When I stood at the counter to pay for my books, I glanced down and saw a copper enameled dish. It was Jim’s work! Val Martin, who founded Florida Classics Library was a close friend of the Hutchinsons. Jim had given the dish to Val Martin when his book store was across from Memorial Park in Stuart.

There is one other local person who learned copper enameling under Serge Nekrassoff, Jane Morrison, the granddaughter of George W. Parks who founded the merchandise store that is now Stuart Heritage Museum. Even though Jane lived all over the world after her marriage to Ray Fentriss, her experience with Serge Nekrassoff was mentioned in her obituary. The obituary, published in The Stuart News on August 24, 2017 stated “She also assisted and trained in copper enamel art under Serge Nekrassoff.”

Jane Morrison Fentriss stands in the Washington Square Gallery in New York City where a Nekrassoff exhibit was featured.

Today, an Internet search of “Serge Necrassoff” bring up many things. There are items for sale on eBay. My interest is primarily his copper enameling but the pewter pieces that cannot be replicated today are of interest to collectors and authorities on metalcraft.

https://www.kellscraft.com/Nekrassoff/nekrassoff.html

Serge Nekrassoff’s son, Boris and his wife, Lois, presented a program for Stuart Heritage Inc. in April 2000.. To complete this blog I am featuring the Nekrassoff display that is there for all to see at the Stuart Heritage Museum, located in the commercial building constructed for Jane Fentriss’ grandfather, George Washington Parks, in 1901.

https://www.stuartheritagemuseum.com

Mosquito Switches (in three installments)

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This worker is using not only a mosquito switch, but also a smudge and protective clothing. Courtesy Florida Memory

An Ernest F. Lyons Column published in the Last Cracker Barrel entitled “The ‘Good Old Days’ in our Small Town” tells us:

“The salt marsh mosquitos and sandflies were a plague all summer long. Inhabitants kept mosquito switches handy (made from shredded palm fronds) to slap at ankles, wrists and face as they walked abroad.

“When the townfolk went down to meet the mail train in the evening, the passengers were amazed to see them doing a sort of St. Vitas Dance in the street alongside the tracks. It was the famous East Coast of Florida Mosquito Dance, accompanied by slaps of the palm switches.

(“St. Vitus’ dance” is an old fashion name for rheumatic chorea a disorder characterized by rapid, uncoordinated jerking movements.)

Ernest Lyons, beloved longtime editor of The Stuart News wrote weekly columns using prose that bordered on the poetic. Two books of selected columns were published in the 1970s.

The late Val Martin of Florida Classics Libraries, obtained rights to the Lyons books and republished them.

This edition of The Last Cracker Barrel is still available.

When 90 year old Eden pioneer Reginald Waters was interviewed by Debi Witaschek in 1977, he related: “The settlers employed many different methods to ward off the pests, including buring a ‘mosquito power’ in their homes which had a fairly strong odor. It was better than the mosquitos

“The main vehicle used to thwart the bugs was a switch made from the heart of a palmetto tree frond. Waters said it was almost impossible to describe how they were made. Part of the technique involved shredding the frond until it was about the same texture as hair. The switch, one of which everyone owned, was carried everywhere and in constant use swinging back and forth to keep the mosquitos off the owner.”

Of course, I wanted to learn how to make a mosquito switch. I did learn, about thirty years ago. I made several and used them to talk about  what it was like in pioneer times before mosquito control.

Recently, I realized I was not sure I remembered how I had made mosquito switches. I tried to recall and was successful.