OK, the only thing I know about working with clay is what I’ve seen in the movie “Ghost. ” And while having a sensual, mud-covered experience with Patrick Swayze is not up my alley, I spoke to someone who knows a little more about the subject of clay. A ceramicist with a master of fine arts degree, Joel Kaylor has been an educator, an artist, a community volunteer and an activist since before many of you were born. When I asked, “Why clay?” he told me with a smirk it’s because he likes to get dirty. Maybe he knows something I don’t …
PGN: Where are you from? JK: I was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and my family moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., when I was 3. So I’m a kid from the South. I moved to Philadelphia in 1976 after graduate school.
PGN: What was family life like? JK: I have a brother who still lives in North Carolina, and he’s a bit of a “good old boy” type. He’s a National Park forest ranger. My dad was a professor at University of North Carolina and my mom was a homemaker. It was a very-1950s “Ozzie and Harriet” kind of life: mom at home fretting over what to make for dinner and dad coming home after a hard day at work.
PGN: What were you like? JK: Well, we lived out in the country so I had a very active interest in animals. We had chickens, we had a goat at one time, we had pigs and, for a while, we boarded a pony, and eventually my mother even bought a riding horse. I liked taking care of the chickens and farm animals. [Laughs.] I guess you don’t find many gay guys in Philadelphia who used to tend chickens!
PGN: Not too many. Did you have fresh eggs every day? JK: You bet! My parents were “back to nature” people before “back to nature” was popular. They recycled everything and grew their own vegetables and fruits. We even had our own grapevines. They were really into nature and used to love bird watching. My father was also into fishing and hunting, but I never got into that. I did some target practicing with bows and arrows and guns, but I have never killed anything and I never want to …
PGN: Did you go to a regular school or were you home-schooled? JK: Regular grammar school, but the schools in the South didn’t have a lot to offer. I always loved art but there was nothing to encourage that. There really weren’t any arts or other enrichment programs and it was a segregated school system: one school for the black kids and one for the white. I was an interior-designerwannabe when I was 10 but I never had the opportunity to explore it. I guess French and English and the languages were my favorites of the classes that were offered.
PGN: Do you speak any languages now? JK: Oh yeah. I joined the Peace Corps after high school to avoid the Vietnam War. I served for two years in South America and became fluent in Spanish. It comes in handy at the oddest times. I was on SEPTA the other day and a young woman on the bus came up to me and asked me in Spanish if I spoke Spanish. She was lost and, between me and another woman who was Latina, we were able to help her get where she needed to go.
PGN: What was one of your favorite moments in the Peace Corps? JK: When I ran into Mick Jagger face to face on the streets of Peru. I think he’d been busted for drug possession and was taking a hiatus in South America. We looked right at each other and his eyes said to me, “Don’t say a word … ” so I just kept walking.
PGN: What was the scariest? JK: When I thought I was going to be busted by federal agents for marijuana possession! [Laughs.] Peace Corps volunteers were pretty free and unsupervised, especially those of us who were in the areas not near the headquarters. The really remote ones who lived in the jungle areas grew their own pot! They would have big green garbage bags full of it! Once a month they’d come into Cuzco, Peru, where I was stationed, to pick up their paychecks and they’d bring a lawn-size garbage bag of marijuana with them and we’d have a big party. We almost got busted once and that was scary because we were government employees: The feds would not have taken a really good view of it.
PGN: Tell me a little about your civil-rights activism. JK: Well, the early 1960s started with the Freedom Rides and lunch-counter sit-ins to help end segregation. In North Carolina, the most famous one was in Greensboro when four black students from the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina sat down at the white’s only lunch counter inside the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro and ordered coffee. They were declined service but refused to leave and were later joined by other students. They became known as the “Greensboro Four.” Eventually students all over the state started protests and eventually many of the stores reversed their policies. In contrast, Chapel Hill was a liberal community in the midst of conservative counties, primarily because it had a huge university, which brought in a lot of educated people from all over the world. It was a very multicultural and multi-national town, except for the public school system — I guess because that was under state jurisdiction. I don’t know. So while other areas were doing sit-ins, we had a voter-registration drive through my high school and I volunteered to go from house to house in the black communities to get people registered. Then in college at University of North Carolina, I was part of the Students for a Democratic Society movement and we were asked to join picketers at a cotton mill near Greensboro who were trying to unionize. It was just like the scene from that Sally Fields movie, “Norma Rae.” We were there with the workers holding up our signs and on the opposite side of the street were KKK members protesting as you can only imagine.
PGN: I think people today don’t understand the harm of segregation. JK: Well, not being black, it’s hard for me to speak, but every day of life in a segregated community was difficult. Black people weren’t allowed in the same movie theaters or restaurants or schools. They had their own “equivalent,” but they were never as good as the ones built for white people. The bus station had black and white water fountains and, in restaurants, some owners would carry baseball bats and if a black person tried to come in they could be rejected. And this was in my lifetime! I’m sad to say that things didn’t change in most of North Carolina until long after I left.
PGN: How did it affect you? Because racism doesn’t just affect one race; everyone loses out. JK: Absolutely. I hate to use this, but the movie “The Help” kind of expresses that. There’s deep love between black and white people even in the midst of segregation. I felt that: I dated a black woman in high school. That was before I came out … obviously!
PGN: That much I figured! So how did you come out? JK: After I came back from the Peace Corps, I met a guy who was a Vietnam veteran. [Laughs.] He had a head of beautiful blond hair and I fell head over heels for him. [Sighs.] Unfortunately, his head was kind of messed up from the whole war experience but he was a gorgeous guy. We were living together and one day my father stopped by to pay a surprise visit and the surprise was on him. He caught us in the middle of having sex! So I didn’t come out, I was thrown out of the closet.
PGN: How did the family handle it? JK: There were some tears and some vague references to getting some psychological help, which was what they knew at the time, but they ultimately came around. Soon after that, the gay-rights movement started in New York and once I caught wind of that, everything changed.
PGN: So you were still in Chapel Hill when you were caught in flagrante delicto? JK: Yes, after the Peace Corps I decided to go back to school and change my major so I could get a degree in art education. Then I went to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., to get my master of fine arts degree.
PGN: That’s a jump! JK: Yeah, a professor of mine at UNC (who was gay) knew a woman in Tacoma who was a fantastic ceramicist and asked if I wanted to go out there and be her apprentice. I jumped at it. I was there for two years working in her studio learning the trade. With her recommendation, I was admitted into the master’s program at Puget Sound. At the time a friend of mine had moved to Philadelphia from North Carolina and was starting The Clay Studio. I moved here and became one of the first members. It was about 1976, which was not a good year. The country was going through a recession, not unlike what we are going through today. You were only allowed to buy gas on certain days, depending on if your license plate ended in an even or odd number, and there were long lines that you had to wait in at the pump. On the West Coast, a lot of the businesses were going belly-up, so there was nothing to keep me there.
PGN: Why clay? JK: I guess I always liked working with my hands rather than with a paintbrush. I like getting dirty. I’m kind of like a kid playing in the mud.
PGN: What piece of art would you like to own? JK: Michelangelo’s “David”!
PGN: Any famous relatives? JK: When I was a teenager I remember reading Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” with great interest I might add. Later I’d heard rumors that we were related to him but kind of put it aside. For some reason in my 50s I picked up a biography of him and, as I was reading it, I realized that there were family names and places that were familiar. I asked my dad if we were really related and he said, “Yeah,” and that was about it. I think my extended family was very prudish and didn’t take well to those who flaunted the norm. So they didn’t really like to acknowledge Walt Whitman, but I did some research and found out that his grandmother and my grandmother were sisters.
PGN: I was told you sometimes channel him? JK: [Laughs.] I think I sometimes am him! He was a dirty old man and so am I!
PGN: Ever have any paranormal experiences? JK: Oh yes, right before my mother died, I was sleeping and woke up out of the blue like a lightning bolt had hit me. She appeared before me and told me she was going. I found out she’d died right after that. I also had two extremely vivid dreams after my lover died of AIDS. In the first he was very confused and didn’t know where he was supposed to go, then in the next one he’d found his way and told me he was happy. It was uncanny.
PGN: I understand you were one of the first people involved with Gay and Lesbian Artists — GALA. JK: I got involved in art activism — if there is such a thing — and in 1989 or so, a number of artists and I got together with Tommi Avicolli. He’d just been given a grant from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts to do a gay and lesbian arts festival and we volunteered to be the artists shown. We did shows for 20 years. And a lot of the artists, including me, were HIV-positive so I count that as part of my AIDS activism. I’m positive, my partner is positive, almost everyone I know is positive! So, that’s it.
PGN: What’s the worst antigay discrimination you’ve experienced? JK: Well, having people scream “fucking faggot” is not very pleasant and I’ve had that happen from here to Rehoboth. Luckily it hasn’t been more than that, but as an artist, I’ve experienced homophobia. I’ve had galleries or people not wanting to deal with my work because of me or the nature of the work.
PGN: In a nutshell, explain the work of Joel Kaylor. JK: Well, my hero is Claes Oldenburg, of “Clothespin” fame. He did the giant statue across from City Hall. I do similar pop art. Currently, I’m doing ceramic shirts that you hang on the wall: Some of them have a Western theme, like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and some of them are tributes to people who have died from AIDS.
PGN: How did you meet your partner, Kurt? JK: We met at The Bike Stop years ago. We were both into the leather community, him more than me. He once even ran for Mr. Philadelphia Leather: He didn’t win, but he was a great contestant. My, how things have changed, though: I stopped smoking, so going to bars became a chore so we haven’t gone for a while. I kind of miss them!
PGN: Tell me something wonderful about Kurt. JK: He’s a great cook! And let me tell you, it’s true: The way to a man’s heart is most definitely through his stomach.
To suggest a community member for “Family Portrait,” write to [email protected].