Sculptor Margot McMahon wanted to build a testament to some of Chicago’s finer citizens and make it a family project. She called her father the artist, her brother the photographer, and her friend the writer. Together they created “Just Plain Hardworking,” a show of drawings, sculpture, photographs, and brief histories that document the lives of ten longtime Chicago residents.
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The idea for the show emerged from a dinner McMahon had with Egan, a family friend, in November of 1987. McMahon and a writer had just completed “These Hands Have Done a Lot,” an exhibit documenting the lives of residents in north-suburban Highwood. Why not try a similar project, Egan suggested, celebrating Chicagoans?
“It was a natural idea,” says McMahon. “And it was something I could do with my family.” As she conceived the show, she would sculpt the ten residents chosen, and her brother, William Franklin McMahon, would photograph them. Her father, Franklin McMahon, would make drawings of the subjects’ neighborhoods. And James Ylisela Jr. would be brought in to write brief biographies.
“All the candidates were great people,” McMahon says. “But we felt some of the others were already well-known. We wanted Delois to get some deserved attention.”
“While I was sculpting, I taped interviews with the subjects with equipment I borrowed from a friend who’s a video artist,” says McMahon. “The tapes will be donated to the historical society.”
“I learned a lot from meeting these people,” says McMahon. “Lumpkin in particular had a great line. He said: “What we are about is the ebb and flow in the struggle for survival.’ That about sums it all up.”
