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DF Archive - Street/lockhart collection |
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Betty Street and bill lockhart* were longtime art professors at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Both came to kites in the 1970s, casually at first: as bill notes he made kites with his granddaughter (women always led him astray) but then more seriously. Both had extensive experience in Asian art and craft, and both had serious collections: bill’s, Palauan story-boards; Betty’s, regional fabrics and batiks from Thailand. As art teachers they As they became more interested in kites, they began collecting examples and traveling specifically to find them. With their practiced artistic eyes, they brought home beautiful examples from Thailand, Malaysia, and China. They sought out contemporary kite makers in the US and Europe and bought examples from the likes of George Peters, Martin Lester, Dan Leigh, and Steve Brockett. Their contemporary kite collection is a time capsule of leading-edge artistic kites of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, while their traditional kites, especially from China and Malaysia, came directly from personal interaction with the kite makers. Travel to the Dieppe, France, International Kite Festival in the early 1980s put them into contact with the leading European kite artists and enthusiasts and led to their first trip to Malaysia – changing their involvement with kites, completely. As a “thank you” to their hosts in Malaysia, and knowing the airline sponsorship that their Malaysian kite friends enjoyed, bill and Betty organized the first Junction, Texas, International Kite Retreat in 1989. Using their invited Malaysian friends as the featured guests of that year’s retreat, bill and Betty sought to run a retreat “their way”: plenty of classroom and workspace, time to complete serious projects, and emphasis on creativity and original artistic expression. For ten years, “Junction” did just that and more, complementing American teachers with international presenters from Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Wales, the Netherlands, England, France, Guatemala, Australia and New Zealand. Serious kite makers and artists were able to exchange ideas, compare techniques, solve problems, and have some old-fashioned Texas fun. Throughout the ten years, bill and Betty enhanced their collection with examples from this “who’s who” of the kite world. The Drachen Foundation is excited to add these kites to its archive since many are one-of-a-kind items, not to be found again. Their collection was put together with clarity and focus, and the kites all stand as excellent examples of the time. Betty and bill have been vocal and financial supporters of the Foundation, as well as mentors to both Ali and me, and we thank them for all they have given us. --Scott Skinner
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immediately recognized the power of kites as a teaching tool, and both began making serious artistic kites as an extension of their own previous work. Both settled on geometric patchwork as the prime motif for their kites, since it was a direct link to American craft and their own rural backgrounds.