PLAINS, Ga. (AP) 鈥� The world knew as a president and humanitarian, but he also was a woodworker, painter and poet, creating a body of artistic work that reflects deeply personal views of the global community 鈥� and himself.
His portfolio illuminates , his spartan sensibilities and his place in the evolution of American race relations. And it continues to improve the finances of The Carter Center, his enduring legacy.
Creating art provided 鈥渢he rare opportunity for privacy鈥� in his otherwise public life, Carter said. 鈥淭hese times of solitude are like being in another very pleasant world.鈥�
鈥極ne of the best gifts of my life'
Mourners at Carter鈥檚 hometown funeral will see the altar cross he carved in maple and collection plates he turned on his lathe. Great-grandchildren in the front pews at Maranatha Baptist Church slept as infants in cradles he fashioned.
The former president measured himself a 鈥渇airly proficient鈥� craftsman. Chris Bagby, an Atlanta woodworker whose shop Carter frequented, elevated that assessment to 鈥渞ather accomplished.鈥�
Carter gleaned the basics on his father鈥檚 farm, where the Great Depression meant being a jack-of-all-trades. He learned more in shop class and with Future Farmers of America. 鈥淚 made a miniature of the White House,鈥� he recalled, insisting it was not about his ambitions.
During his Navy years, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter chose unfurnished military housing to stretch his $300 monthly wage, and he built their furniture himself in a shop on base.
As president, Carter nurtured woodworking rather than his golf game, spending hours in a wood shop at Camp David to make small presents for family and friends. And when he left the White House, West Wing aides and Cabinet members pooled money for a shopping spree at Sears, Roebuck & Co. so he could finally assemble a full-scale home woodshop.
鈥淥ne of the best gifts of my life,鈥� Carter said.
Working in their converted garage, he previewed decades of Habitat for Humanity work by refurbishing their one-story house in Plains. He also improved his fine woodworking skills, joining wood without nails or screws. He also bought Japanese carving tools, and fashioned a chess set later owned by a Saudi prince.
Not just any customer
Carter frequented Atlanta鈥檚 Highland Woodworking, a shop replete with a library of how-to books and hard-to-find tools, and recruited the world鈥檚 preeminent handmade furniture maker, Tage Frid, as an instructor, Bagby said.
Still hanging near the store entrance is a picture of Frid, who died in 2004, teaching students including a smiling former president at the front of the class.
鈥淗e was like a regular customer,鈥� Bagby said, other than the 鈥淪ecret Service agents who came with him.鈥�
Carter built four ladder-back chairs out of hickory in 1983, and Sotheby鈥檚 auctioned them for $21,000 each at the time, the first of many sales of Carter paintings and furniture that raised millions to benefit The Carter Center.
It was rarely about the money, though. Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend who would have the Carters over to her home in Plains, recalled seeing the former president carrying out one of her chairs.
鈥淚 said, 鈥榃hat are you doing?鈥欌�� she recalled. 鈥淗e said, 鈥業t鈥檚 broken. I鈥檓 going to take it home and fix it.鈥欌��
He was at her back door at 7:30 the next morning, holding her repaired chair.
Carter compared woodworking to the results of his labor as a Navy engineer, or as a boy on the farm: 鈥淚 like to see what I have done, what I have made.鈥�
鈥楴o special talent,' but his paintings drive auctions
Carter employed a folk-art style as a late-in-life amateur painter and claimed 鈥渘o special talent,鈥� but a 2020 Carter Center auction drew $340,000 for his painting titled 鈥淐ardinals," and his oil-on-canvas of an eagle sold for $225,000 in 2023, months after he entered hospice care.
Carter鈥檚 work hangs throughout the center鈥檚 campus. A room where he met with dignitaries is encircled with birds he painted after he and Rosalynn took on bird watching as a hobby.
Near the executive offices are a self-portrait and a painting of Rosalynn in their early post-presidential years, hanging across from a trio of Andy Warhol prints showing Carter in office.
Carter鈥檚 earliest years predominate, with boyhood farm scenes and portraits of influential figures like his father James Earl Carter Sr., whose death in 1953 led him to abandon a Navy career and eventually enter politics in Georgia.
Some of his subjects, including both of his parents, are looking away. Carter's likeness of as a 70-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in India. Jason Carter said the piece was particularly meaningful to his grandfather, who lost reelection at a relatively youthful 56.
鈥淲hen he got out of the White House, she was standing there saying, 鈥橶ell, I turned 70 in the Peace Corps. What are you going to do?鈥� Jason Carter said.
One Carter subject who meets his gaze is a young Rosalynn 鈥� they married when she was 18 and he was 21. He described her as 鈥渞emarkably beautiful, almost painfully shy, obviously intelligent, and yet unrestrained in our discussions.鈥�
Another who doesn鈥檛 look away is Rachel Clark, a Black sharecropper who had hosted the future president after they worked in the fields. 鈥淓xcept for my parents, Rachel Clark was the person closest to me,鈥� Carter wrote of his childhood.
'Just a word of praise'
鈥� even a novel 鈥� but was most introspective in poetry.
On his first real recognition of Jim Crow segregation: 鈥淎 silent line was drawn between friend and friend, race and race.鈥�
On his Cold War submarine鈥檚 delicate dance with enemies: 鈥淲e wanted them to understand ... to share our love of solitude ... the peace we yearned to keep.鈥�
Rosalynn鈥檚 smile, he gushed, silenced the birds, 鈥渙r may be I failed to hear their song.鈥�
Perhaps Carter鈥檚 most revealing poem, 鈥淚 Wanted to Share My Father鈥檚 World,鈥� concerns the man who never got to see his namesake son鈥檚 achievements. He wrote that he despised Earl鈥檚 discipline, and swallowed hunger for 鈥渏ust a word of praise.鈥�
Only when he brought his own sons to visit his dying father did he 鈥減ut aside the past resentments of the boy鈥� and see 鈥渢he father who will never cease to be alive in me.鈥�
Bill Barrow, The Associated Press
