Profile
Story: Gary VanDeWalker
Photos: Kara Stewart
Making HISTORY
IN THE
award - winning F ilmmaker , M A R k oli v er
As Mark Oliver walks through the green steel archway into the small town of Weed, he enters a portal into layers of time and history. The community’s streets and buildings are placeholders of a rich and a unique past, which are seen in many layers, especially through the generations of African Americans whose lives are foundational in the city’s heritage. Oliver, an artist and award-winning documentary filmmaker, is drawn to the mountain town. His mother grew up in Weed, part of its equally deep Italian foundation. “I knew the stories of my own family and my own experiences visiting there,” Oliver says. “I discovered another piece of the picture as I began to understand the ethnic diversity and contributions which made this place.” Weed began as a company town, centered around the logging operation of Abner Weed. In the 1920s, Longbell Lumber purchased the business. Following the practice of other Northern California logging towns, such as McCloud, Quincy and Sloat, African 24 Enjoy February July 20102012
Americans were hired from the South to be part of a dependable team of workers needed to make the mill successful. When the California Council for the Humanities offered a grant for films to be made of little-known histories of California communities, Oliver applied, knowing Weed’s story was important to tell. With the help of James Langford, Weed’s first black schoolteacher, Oliver won a grant and set out with Langford to document this tapestry of experiences, through more than 60 interviews. Oliver is an artist drawn to the lives of others. One of his career ventures was to live with the Amish and camp alongside his horsedrawn buggy. His Mount Shasta studio is the eclectic mix of his creative mind, from the roll-top desk, handmade masks, shelves of paints and books, and the electric drill waiting for direction in the center of his work table. Toying with video in the 1980s, Oliver began to realize the career potential of documentaries.