Art From the Edge at Kohler Arts Center

×

Expand

Photo credit: David Eberhardt

Blacky, Ron & Punky Union Pacific Yard Portland, Oregon 1992, On Display at John Michael Kohler Arts Center in the exhibit "On Being Here (and There): Good Road to Follow"

People who live at the edges of society occupy a very different world, one filled with both deprivation and wonder. Just ask David Eberhardt, a Twin Cities photographer and documentary filmmaker who literally spent years riding the rails and documenting the lifestyle of modern-day hobos.

“It can become addictive,” says Eberhardt, who took his first cross-country train trip from Minneapolis to Seattle and back while still a student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. “When you’re living on the edge, everything is heightened and you can feel the adrenaline rushing through your heart and the soul. It’s like the Bob Dylan song lyric, ‘When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.’ It helped me appreciate life a whole lot more.”

Eberhardt chronicled his experiences on film, and a display of 24 of his black-and-white photographs help form  “Good Road to Follow,” part of the exhibit “On Being Here (and There)” now on display at Sheboygan’s John Michael Kohler Arts Center. The center is open but requires reservations to meet social distancing guidelines. The exhibit runs through January 2021.

Eberhardt’s photos are joined by examples of notch and chip carving, a form or woodworking mastered by hobos on the road, either produced or collected by the late Adolph Vandertie, a Green Bay artist who was never a hobo himself but became fascinated by the art form. The pieces are largely drawn from the museum’s 1,200-piece collection of Vandertie’s work, or work he had collected from hobos he met, who produced them as a form of currency on the road.

Hobo Conventions

“We also have an archive that includes Vandertie’s knives, clippings, paraphernalia and buttons from annual hobo conventions he attended in Britt, Iowa,” says Laura Bickford, who curated the exhibit. “Vandertie romanticized the lifestyle and would actually dress up—or down—to attend hobo conventions.”

Hobo carving techniques could be simple or ornate, but often showed a high level of technical ingenuity. Chains made of wooden links all carved from one solid piece of wood or a cage with a wooden ball inside, also carved from a single piece of wood, were common totems.

The heyday of hobos, if there was one, came during the Great Depression, when men would ride the rails chasing hard-to-find jobs, most often of the heavy-labor variety. The etymology of “hobo” is unclear, but it’s thought to have derived from “hoe-boy,” a reference to farm laborers, or a shortening of the term “homeward bound,” the ultimate goal of any hobo journey. The name “hobo” referred to job seekers who were different from either “tramps” or “bums”, who were unemployed individuals not seeking work.

“This was usually not a lifestyle choice for those living it, and it was important for us not to romanticize it in the exhibit,” Bickford says. “David’s photos are beautiful and the lives they show were not at all glamorous.”

Collecting Images

Eberhardt lived the hobo life, getting to know many of his impromptu traveling companions to gain their confidence so he could chronicle their lives. Working with New York documentarian Jack Cahill, Eberhardt traveled first with a chase van, which primarily carried the film stock the pair was using, then later simply shouldering their loads in 100-pound backpacks. As word of the pair’s project spread, hobos down the line were more welcoming, allowing them unprecedented freedom to collect their images.

The net result was Long Gone, an award-winning 2003 documentary named after Joshua Long Gone, one of six hobos whose story was part of the film. Many of the images in the Kohler Art Center exhibit were taken at the same time the film was being shot and will appear in Eberhardt’s upcoming book of photography You Can’t Catch a Ghost.

“I realized early on that I was not going to get rich making documentary films,” says Eberhardt, who more recently chronicled the journey of some St. Paul “punk rock river kids” who first sailed the Mississippi, and later the Mekong River in southeast Asia. “Long Gone chronicles the lives of [the subjects] with compelling stories. They all seemed to have an event or series of events that pushed them toward this lifestyle, and they formed a default family. I like the lifestyle and I grew to like the people.”

Eberhardt’s images have attracted a lot of fans, not the least of whom is singer/songwriter Tom Waits, who did the music for Long Gone. “He said my pictures had a lot of soul,” Eberhardt says. "That was the best compliment I ever received."

Much of the project’s appeal also had to do with a long-gone lifestyle, Eberhardt explained. While young people still ride the rails, nothing is quite the same as they had been, even though society once again seems to be driving people toward life on the road. “When we made the film we were traveling broke, too, and did our share of dumpster diving,” he adds. “Maybe it’s the pandemic, but lately I’ve had the urge to say, ‘Fuck it,’ hop a train and do some traveling.”

For more information on the John Michael Kohler Arts Center or the “Good Road to Follow” exhibit, visit jmkac.org.

To read more visual art reviews, click here.

To read more articles by Michael Muckian, click here.