Ozark Folkways

Your Heart Would Ache Could You Be Here . . .

2011-10-24T06:36:00.000-07:00

“Teresadear, your heart would ache could you be here and see these mothers coming forclothing for their little ones. There is so much need for them to help themselves . . .”

Therugged terrain that families of the Ozarks had to travel on a daily basislikely increased the level of poverty in the Boston Mountains during the firsthalf of the twentieth century. Even when a year-round job could be had in FortSmith, Van Buren or on the other side of the mountain in Fayetteville, it wasalways a struggle to get to the jobsite or the factory in the middle of winter.In those days, just to get a truck out of the holler, to climb up steep snowpacked roads without sliding down into a canyon, was a major undertaking. Iceor snow could shut everything down for weeks, and not many steady employerscould tolerate such prolonged absences from the job.

Thiswas the world Clara Muxen drove into that foggy day so many decades ago; theworld she became a part of when she settled in the Boston Mountains, and, itappears from her letters, the reason she became intent on building the CraftSchool of the Ozarks.

Teresa. . .” something should be done to teach these people a way of making a living.May God grant that the school will help them to learn a skill that will beprofitable to them.”

ClaraMargaret Muxen was 58 years old when she arrived in the Ozarks. A retirededucator, she sought to lift the local people out of poverty. Being a devoutly religious woman, shealso worried over their spiritual well being.

MissMuxen not only founded the Craft School of The Ozarks, in the ensuing twenty-oneyears following her fateful arrival, this single woman founded Our Lady of theOzarks, Virgin of the Smile Shrine, located next door to the craft school, ashrine Danny Thomas has paid homage to, as well as the Winslow Thrift Store; anamazing legacy for one woman.

Itis not often we encounter someone who has the faith and fortitude to make sucha tremendous physical difference in the local community as Miss Muxen did.

Shewas so taken with empathy for the area’s poor, that she would dedicate the remainderof her life and all her material wealth and well being, to address the needs ofthe families of the Boston Mountains.

TheCraft School of the Ozarks was to be her ultimate gift to the community; thejewel on the mountain that would shine so brightly and lead those in poverty toa more sustainable, even profitable, life style.

Sowith pencil and paper in hand, a gift from her brother and the support ofnumerous friends from across the country, Clara Muxen began to set in motion adream that had once been only in her head.

Adream that would inevitably come so close to her heart’s desire, so close toher vision, so close . . . that it is painful to look into her future.

ButMiss Muxen knew none of that then, all she knew was the soreness of her musclesfrom pouring cement, the sweat on her cheek from the midday sun, and all sheheard, as she leaned back to rest, was a symphony ringing out over the hills ofthe Ozarks, of hammer hitting nail, and nails hitting good solid wood.

Sixty Bags of Cement and a Prayer for Dry Weather

2011-10-17T08:15:00.001-07:00

“Mydear Teresa: This is a hasty noteto tell you that the floors and the steps of the cement porches have been madeand that all went well . . .”

Ican only imagine what it must have been like when Clara Muxen arrived in thepoverty stricken Ozarks of the 1940’s. The rugged terrain of the BostonMountains, while breathtakingly beautiful, can be difficult to traverse today,let alone sixty years ago, especially in the winter months when everything cansuddenly come to a stop. Theslopes of our mountains are forested and, with their deep valleys and steepterrain, they can be a challenge for anyone to negotiate. Small clearings onmountain crests, valley bottoms, and crevices, seemingly carved out of thelandscape with a knife, are the only areas that can be utilized for building.In the 1940’s through the 1960’s when Miss Muxen worked with local craftsmen onthe construction of the Craft School of the Ozarks, the mountains were sparselypopulated, with much of the land belonging to the Ozark National Forest.

MissMuxen’s hand-written letters weave a tapestry of threads that are at oncebeautiful in form yet abstract in vision, leaving the reader with morequestions than answers.

Whatwould possess a retired woman in her sixties with a history of compromisedhealth due to tuberculosis attempt such a huge project on her own: that ofdesigning, fundraising and physically participating in the building of what shecalled the Craft School of the Ozarks?

Thedesign of the building itself is amazing. Reviewing Miss Muxen’s hand-drawnplans for the building, you’ll find each space, each room, each floor, isdesignated for a particular purpose, a particular goal. She includes pages of hand-writtensupply lists: how many light fixtures she will need, how many circuit boxes,how many rope pulls, how many bags of nails and yes, how many bags of cement itwill take to complete the porch areas.

“Mydear Teresa . . . the floors and the steps of the cement porches have been madeand that all went well. No rain until the cement had time to harden and no coldweather until all danger of freezing was past. They look so nice . . . It took sixty sacks of cement –twenty more than the contractors figured, besides additional labor, but theextra costs were offset by the good weather and the splendid job done . . .”

“Iworried over those steps so very much for fear of bad weather at the time ofpouring the cement. That would have been tragic as all the labor and materialswould have been a complete loss . . .”

Theone thread we find throughout this weaving is the intention, desire, and prayerfor the poor people of the Ozarks: the elderly, the young mothers and theirchildren, the fathers out of work following the depression.

Whetherit was religious fervor or humanitarian zeal, Clara Muxen had a vision for thismountain and for the people carving out crevices in the hard landscape . . .

“MayGod grant them that this school will help them learn a skill that will beprofitable to them . . .” Clara Muxen March 15^th 1951

Clara Muxen: The First Miracle

2011-10-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

The FirstMiracle

Iimagine the fog was thick, as their V-8 pulled around the last curve nearArtist’s Point, south of Winslow. Parking to stretch, Clara Margaret Muxen, her ailing mother and herbrother, made a discovery that would change not only their lives but the livesof many others in the Boston Mountains in the 1940’s, a discovery, in fact,that continues to change lives today.

Itmay have been the color of the sky, the water down in the valley, or the sunstreaming through the fog, but whatever it was, Clara Muxen would later tellfriends of her epiphany: “I knew this was the place for my school.” The school that she spoke of was whatshe later lovingly referred to as the Craft School of the Ozarks in Winslow,Arkansas, known today as Ozark Folkways on Highway 71, south of Fayetteville.

MissMuxen was said to have been a tall, rather masculine woman who began her adultlife as a nun. It was only aftershe contracted tuberculosis and upon her brother’s offer and, it seems,insistence that she agreed to leave the convent and travel to a sanatorium inSwitzerland where she remained until her health improved. Following her convalescence, Miss Muxendevoted the rest of her life to teaching children and adults in the field ofeducation.

Onthat spring morning when she stepped out of the car and into the ArkansasOzarks to stretch, she was a retired educator in her early sixties, asociologist in search of a way to help the poor of the Ozarks, and a piousreligious woman who had apparently been praying for a miracle for some time.

Thatprayer, the one that led to the miracle that morning, would be the first ofmany that she and others across the nation would lift up on behalf of the CraftSchool of the Ozarks over the next twenty years of its construction; a prayerthat began a dream, a dream that was sadly was not completely realized in MissMuxen’s lifetime, but a dream that lives on today through Ozark Folkways.

Noone knows exactly what led Miss Muxen to this dream, this calling, but what wedo know, is that she had a great desire to lift the poor of the Ozarks out ofthe throes of poverty, and this Craft School of the Ozarks was to be theinstrument she would use to devote to that cause . . .

2011-10-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Located just south of Winslow, Arkansas in the beautiful rollercoaster of the Boston Mountains, the Ozark Folkways building was constructed gradually from the late 1940's through the early 1960's at the behest of Miss Clara Muxen, a retired educator from Iowa. Her unrequited dream for the building was that it be used as a craft school, but she died before its completion and the large, native stone building sat unused for many years.

In 1973, the rapidly growing Ozark Native Craft Association took up residence and thrived there as a member-based social welfare craft group until the late 1980's, when employment opportunities in northwest Arkansas expanded due to intense economic development in the area. By 1997, income had dwindled to a third of its former gross and a new interstate highway was being constructed that would bypass the area. The board of directors recognized the cue to adapt and made the decision to shift focus away from retail, to concentrate future efforts on the preservation of and education in regional heritage and crafts. By spring of 2004 the sprawling retail portion of the building had been reduced by half, a free resource library and museum established, and later that year the organization was approved for 501(c)(3) status under the new name of Ozark Folkways.

The long-term goal of this rebirth, is the creation of the "Clara Muxen Folk School of The Ozarks" a respected and competitive arts and craft school which will include an "artist in residency" program, summer activities for the community and a year-round curriculum of classes and workshops for children and adults of all ages.

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the creation of new sources of income, namely grants and charitable gifts, are of central importance to our survival. Equally important is an expansion of the community we serve.

In the past, Ozark Folkways has behaved primarily as a service to the people of Winslow and a few surrounding communities. Today, due in large part to the expansion of the internet and social media, we are fast becoming a resource to the larger regional community of the mid-south, as we continue to move towards the creation of an educational center for the teaching and preservation of folk arts and craft.

Presently home to several arts and crafts groups and guilds, including Boston Mountain Quilters and the Wool and Wheel Handspinners, Ozark Folkways continues to add new venues each year. In 2010 we are offering classes and workshops in basket-making, spinning, weaving, painting, creative writing, and pottery.

With our rebirth and rededication to the original goals and mission of our founder, we are moving closer to Miss Muxen's long-ago dream of a craft school in the Boston Mountains, and so the dream lives on.