Hmong Studies

A few years ago I scanned and posted the pages of “Faces of Laos“, a picture book I found in my father’s desk drawer after he died. The book was familiar to me, having appeared on coffee tables and book shelves throughout my childhood, but it surprised me to find the slender volume among my father’s effects. My father was not much for the arts (he only responded to my creative pursuits, including this web site, with a cigarette-ashed wave of his right hand and a “psssst” sound) but I think he valued “Faces of Laos” for its uniqueness and connection to his tours of duty in Laos.

I brought the book home to New York. My goals were not clear to me (they never are) but I wanted to bring these excellent photographs to a wider audience. I imagined making contact with the elusive photographer whose name and works did not appear in any library card catalogues or lists of published works.

A few months after posting the “Faces of Laos” pictures I received, at my 181, a type-written letter from the photographer, George Archer. His son had found my web site. A friendly e-mail correspondence followed, and I also corresponded with Mr. Archer’s ex-wife (the book’s dedicatee).

Faces of Laos. George Archer, Photographer

Fast forward to last week, when this notice from the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University appeared under one of my stories:

“Thank you for sharing your story and also the book. I just spoke to the author today. I’m thrilled that through your action, the author has agreed to donate copies of his photographs to the Center for Hmong Studies.” “…we will now set up a Goerge (sic) Archer Collection at the Center for Hmong Studies.”

That, I say, is pretty freakin’ cool. I don’t know what my father might have said or thought or thought he said or said he thought he said about this but I think he and my mother would be proud and satisfied to know that this valued memento from dad’s second tour of duty in Laos helped raise these photos to a deserved place of respect among America’s Hmong Laotian community.

My mother collected art while in Ghana, and with my father she donated some cool stuff to the Spurlock Museum at her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She conspicuously resented how dad’s name went first on the listings at the museum when she did everything and he did nil to get the works transported safely from Accra and to the Spurlock museum.

At this very moment some of those pieces are on display at Spurlock, dad’s name first, including a Yoruba Gelede Mask, a Carving: Ancestor Figure, a Ndomo Mask, a Funerary Head Effigy, and some other stuff which might include some airport art, but it’s all good.