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Sally Mann: "The Two Virginias" | ART21 "Exclusive"

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    [Sally Mann: "The Two Virginias"]
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    My parents couldn't agree on where to live.
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    My mother found the South unbearable.
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    [May 11, 2000]
    Well, they went to New Orleans
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    [May 11, 2000]
    as soon as they were married,
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    [May 11, 2000]
    and she was miserable.
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    She was 98 pounds.
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    She was sleeping on the floor in a sweat.
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    She was living off Coca-Colas.
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    So they just looked at a map,
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    and they split the difference between New
    Orleans--
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    where my father was in heaven--
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    and Boston, and found Charlottesville,
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    and then they found Lexington.
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    And then they found this farm.
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    [Lexington, Virginia]
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    There are a number of things that
    set Southern artists apart
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    from anyone else.
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    Their love of the past
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    and their susceptibility to myth.
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    And their willingness to experiment with romanticism.
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    Their obsession with place
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    and their obsession with family.
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    My parents were important,
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    but Virginia may have been the single most
    important person in my life.
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    She's an extraordinary woman.
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    She was my family.
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    I was raised by Virginia,
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    [Virginia & Sally]
    who worked for my parents for 30 years.
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    Virginia Carter was born right down the road
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    and lived in a black community of freed slaves
    called Buck Hill,
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    and married very young and had five children.
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    And, remarkably, with what she earned,
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    sent all five children away to boarding school.
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    Because, of course, you didn't have public
    school for black children
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    here in Virginia.
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    And then she sent every one of them through college.
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    That's a remarkable woman--
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    she's just breathtaking.
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    And compassionate, and warm,
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    and big, and generous,
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    and embraced us in a way...
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    [SIGHS]
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    [VIRGINIA MANN]
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    [VIRGINIA MANN] Thanks, mom.
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    [SALLY MANN] Take a picture of you?
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    [VIRGINA] No, thanks.
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    [SALLY] This is good. What is this thing?
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    Do that again.
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    Good girl! [LAUGHS]
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    ["The Two Virginas" (1988–1991)]
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    Going to church with Virginia was an ecstatic
    moment.
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    First of all, you'd have to get dressed up,
    which we didn't do.
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    [Easter Sunday, 1956]
    We didn't get dressed up in our family.
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    We didn't go to church.
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    She'd get us all dressed up and we'd go.
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    And the singing, and the clapping...
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    it's like a great tide.
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    You felt like you were roiled around
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    and in waves of emotion and song
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    and feeling.
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    When I think of the hardships in her life
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    and the inequities,
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    it's astonishing that she could love three
    white children
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    who didn't have a clue.
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    [Virginia Franklin Carter, 1894–1994]
Title:
Sally Mann: "The Two Virginias" | ART21 "Exclusive"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
04:22

English subtitles

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