The Grady Project
The Grady Project is an effort to know Grady Cundiff through the records he left behind, the people whose lives he touched, and the questions his life continues to raise. It is both a family inquiry and a public exploration of decency, trust, authority, responsibility, and play.
Apple Butter Making
Locust Grove Methodist Church Members
Mid-1950s
8mm photographer - Joseph Wilbourne
- What does authority look like when it does not require humiliation?
- What does it mean to presume goodwill without becoming naive?
- What makes someone comfortable sharing authority inside a family?
- When does restraint require more strength than assertion?
- How do people communicate confidence in someone without burdening them with expectation?
- Where is the boundary between helping, intervening and placing oneself in unnecessary danger?
- What role does play have in a serious adult life?
- What forms of conduct become almost unthinkable when respect for the other person is built into one's idea of love?
- What do rituals, jokes, funny hats, meals and ordinary celebrations tell us about whether people feel safe with one another?
- Can dignity survive disagreement without somebody having to lose standing?
- How do families create private narratives about one another, and what happens when they refuse to create them?
- How much can we responsibly know about someone's character from the small traces a life leaves behind?
- What makes an ordinary life worth recovering a century later?
- What makes a home feel safe?
- What happens to play after the person who helped make play possible is gone?
- How does grief get converted into routine, hospitality, food, cleanliness, or ritual?
- When does care become control?
- What do children notice about loss before they have language for it?
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We can know about these items by looking at archival images. What else can we know?
Image developed by examination of archives.
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