Jessie Aaron, Deer Head, carved red cedar, green plastic eyes, real applied antlers, 20 inches high. JJA drilled in back of head, “64” side of head.
Jessie Aaron was one of Florida’s best-known early folk artists. Aaron grew up in Lake City, Florida, one of eleven children, a descendant of slaves, with a Seminole Indian grandmother. At the age of seven he was hired out as a field hand. In 1932 he moved to Gainesville, building a home at 12077 N. W. 7th Ave not far from the University of Florida.
Jessie Aaron, carved wood mask, 11 by 9 inches.
Aaron worked as a cook, first in a hospital, then for a University of Florida fraternity, and later for the Florida Seaboard Railroad. At age 81 he became an artist.
Panky Glamsch, writing for the Tampa Tribune, April 23, 1974, quotes Aaron, “In 1968, it was three o’clock in the morning, July the 5th, when I heard the voice, I got out of bed and with the butcher knife, hammer and chisel, went to work on an oak block I had. I finished it two or three days later and set it up there in the front yard.”
Aaron began carving humorous faces of people and animals into the natural grain of Florida cypress and cedar. He believed he was liberating the spirit or form already present in the wood. In 1976 Arron received a grant from the National Endowment of Fine Arts. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City.
Jessie Aaron, Horse Head, carved red cedar, with resin eyes, 54 by 16 by 167 inches with base.
Born: June 10, 1887, Lake City. Died: October 17, 1979, Gainesville. Exhibits: One-man shows in Tallahassee, Miami, Jacksonville, Daytona, White Springs, Ocala and other Florida cities.
Jessie Aaron, carved Wood Totem, 25 inches.
