Summer 2007

Model storyteller

Dr. Frank Woods is a storyteller, but maybe not in the most conventional way.

While he uses words to weave tales of African American heroes and everyday folk, he uses art to craft historical models that speak of the accomplishments, hardships and day-to-day moments of people captured in history.

“This is a soldier from World War I,” he says, pointing to a figure resting on a shelf in his office. “The U.S. didn’t want them to fight, but France did. The medals they earned were given by the French.”

Nearby, a figure of a man hefts a large club, threatening a British Redcoat. He is Crispus Attucks, the first man to die in the Boston Massacre, a catalyst that led to the Revolutionary War.

But the 1/6 scale models aren’t limited to military figures. There’s the artist Henry Tanner, sculptor Edmonia Lewis, musician Robert Johnson and baseball great Jackie Robinson.

“They all have a special meaning,” says Woods, director of the African American Studies Program.

He uses stock bodies and clothes that he orders online and then works on the details, trying to make each as accurate as possible. A Civil War soldier holds a pipe and a mug as a turkey roasts over a campfire. Edmonia Lewis is in the process of sculpting a bust of Abraham Lincoln (which Woods created himself). A living room slave auction – just the buyer, the slave trader and the slave – shows the papers on the table while the buyer relaxes in his comfortable chair.

“I want them to be consistent and original,” Woods says. “It’s all about teaching the history.”
He sometimes is asked to talk to elementary school students. “But how do you talk about African-American history to first graders?”

“Creating these models is something I wanted to do, and now I’ve found a reason to do them.”

He also uses them in his classes, asking students to look at the models while he shares their history. “I tell my student to think of me as a storyteller, and they get it.”

Woods has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 or more figures. So many, in fact, that he doesn’t have places to put them all.

But he still has visions of ones he would like to do. He pulls out a videotape and points to the actor portraying Matthew Henson, co-discoverer of the North Pole, who is wrapped in a hooded fur coat. He, along with Robert Peary, made the dangerous trek in 1909.

“As long as there are stories to be told, I’m going to keep making them.”