By Tess Manjarrez ‘24

South Korea, 1963. Kim In Soon, dressed in a polka-dot dress and recently diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, hugs a young goat. In an era of harsh isolation tactics, Hansen’s was a cruel and lonely disease to catch. While Hansen’s is not a cause of death, it often causes permanent disfigurement and disabilities, which were treated globally as a cause for ostracism. Korean sufferers of the disease were moved from their communities and isolated on Sorok Island, a ‘leper colony’ for those whom society wished to forget. However, children in the early stages of Hansen’s were allowed to stay home on the condition that they were being treated and also not in contact with other children. Six-year-old Kim In Soon was one of these children, as photographed by Lois Dale Whitney.

Whitney, a self-taught photographer and Salem resident, was born in Chicago in 1923 and spent much of her life working in Europe, immortalizing events such as the aftermath of Hungary’s revolution, or the World Health Organization’s outreach in Italy. Whitney’s work in Europe even reached the UN, through the lenses of photo series from Turkey and Germany. In 1963, she took her photojournalism to Wedong Nyun, a village in Southern Korea being visited by a WHO-sponsored mobile leprosy team, and there met the young Kim In Soon, who had just started her first year of school. In a series of photos which capture the playfulness of the young girl as well as the isolation brought on by Hansen’s disease, Whitney’s work deeply humanizes a population made invisible by policy and social stigma.

Isolated as she was from other children, many pieces of Whitney’s photographs from this series feature In Soon engaging alone in otherwise communal activities –– we see her sitting, eating, and playing alone, even as the discolored spots characteristic of Hansen’s begin to appear on her legs and ankles. Whitney was even able to capture the moment in which Dr. Youn Keun Cha informed In Soon’s parents of her diagnosis.

Kim In Soon, isolated after her leprosy diagnosis, hugs a young goat.

A successful photographer with achievements in both media photography and international photojournalism, Whitney moved to Oregon in 1979, where she remained until her death from cancer in 2003. Her legacy is one rich with stories and kept alive by occasional displays in the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, The Portland Art Museum, Salem Public Library, and Salem Hospital, as well as on the World Health Organization’s own website. Many of her original photographs and associated typed or handwritten context are housed in Willamette University through the Pacific Northwest Artists Archives (PNAA).

While Whitney’s Korean series shows events such as WHO-backed doctors visiting villages or conducting treatments, the truly standout piece in this series is that of Kim In Soon with her goat. By Whitney’s own admittance, the black-and-white photograph is underexposed –– “A great shot”, she writes in her brief notes on the piece, found in the WU archives. “Photo was made inside a barn where we had taken shelter because of rain.” Perhaps the effect was mere happenstance, but its significance remains. The result of the underexposure is a totally black background, a stark contrast to In Soon’s bright dress and white goat. The goat itself seems to be smiling at the camera as In Soon cradles its head, a point of joy in an otherwise lonely future. Truly, with the dark background intent on swallowing them up, it seems in this photograph that Kim In Soon and her goat are alone in the world.

Such images beg the question: what, then, happened to Kim In Soon? Was she, like many victims of Hansen’s, sent to live on Sorok Island? Did she become permanently scarred, and ostracized as a result? Well, no. While Whitney did not add these details in her photograph description, the World Health Organization did indeed check in. Hansen’s disease is treatable, after all, as long as it is caught early. Kim In Soon needed only to continue taking her sulfone tablets regularly for more than a year. She recovered well and was able to continue her education, with the “arrested”, or inactive, lesions on her legs the only reminder of her illness.

Kim In Soon, eating alone.

The practice of sending those with Hansen’s disease to Sorok Island was officially abolished in 1963, the year Whitney met Kim In Soon, but of course, unofficial abandonment or isolation of ‘lepers’ continued. Indeed, it was not until 2007 that a bridge opened from Sorok Island to the mainland, finally connecting the historically isolated island and its residents to the rest of the country. Decades later, Lois Dale Whitney’s adventures, her notes, and the lives she captured on her 35mm negatives, remain immortalized and frozen in time — much like six-year-old Kim In Soon’s soft smile and the moment she shared with her young goat companion.

*Photograph 07 W.U., 1963, Subseries A, Box: 3, Folder: 7. Dale Whitney papers, WUA017. Willamette University Archives and Special Collections.

By Sanja Zelen, Willamette Student

Walking through downtown Salem along High Street, one will see a bright blue, 68-foot-tall mural portraying actors and actresses known for their groundbreaking performances in the 1920s and irreplaceable contributions to the world of theater. The mural, titled “Theatrical Heartscape,” was originally designed and painted by Jim Mattingly and was later renovated by Portland-based artist Dan Cohen. The mural, completed in 1984, serves as not only a striking piece of artwork for Salem to enjoy, but a community-inspired commemoration of Salem’s theatrical history as well.

Theatrical Heartscape mural on the back of the Elsinore Theatre.

James “Jim” Mattingly, the artist behind “Theatrical Heartscape,” was born in 1934. He was an art professor at the Oregon College of Education, known as Western Oregon University today, from 1968 to 1994. He was the head of the art department from 1977 to 1986, founding a printmaking program. His artwork has been displayed in the United States, Australia, and parts of South America, Asia, and Europe. In Salem, he was an active member of the arts community, increasing the Northwest Print Council’s recognition on both the national and international levels.

It was Jim Mattingly’s presence in the Salem arts community that ultimately led him to be selected by the Historic Elsinore Theater to commission a mural for the theater’s East exterior side facing Ferry Street. The goal of the project was to beautify the wall by creating a design representative of the Elsinore’s theatrical culture. Mattingly’s concept stood out from the other artists’ because it incorporated actors and actresses that rose to fame during the early years of the Elsinore, including Theda Bara, Marlene Dietrich, W.C. Fields, and Charlie Chaplin. The community board at Elsinore felt that Mattingly had picked “people of substance” that highlighted the Elsinore’s vaudeville origins. The chosen colors and shapes for the mural− white and black for the actors, red for the hearts, bold three-dimensional boxes that framed the characters, and a blue backdrop− encapsulated the drama, comedy, and excitement of theater.

Mattingly started the mural in 1982 with a $31,000 budget funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Oregon Arts Commission’s Art in Public Places, and the City of Salem’s transient occupancy tax. However, it was donations from Salem community members that guaranteed the project’s completion.

Mattingly’s process for creating the mural started out as an individual project and ended as a community effort. Mattingly was permitted to set up butcher paper on the floor of an elementary school gym to sketch out his concept. Artist Don Hoskisson assisted Mattingly in painting the mural. One group of citizens making up the Gorilla Wall Flare dressed up as gorillas to assist in fundraising efforts. Inmates were recruited by prison superintendent Hoyt Cupp to set up the scaffolding for the mural’s creation. A kickoff party in September 1984 celebrated the two-year long project’s completion. Jim Mattingly summarized his appreciation for the community’s involvement and support by saying, “I am really trying to do art for all the people”.

Portland artist Dan Cohen works on updating the mural in 2013.

The mural started to fade over time, but the community base that the original project had obtained came together once more to fundraise $20,000 for renovations of the mural in 2013, including power washing moss, repainting, and applying a protective layer to the wall. Dan Cohen, a Portland artist known for his murals displaying movie scenes, was selected as the painter to renovate the wall, filling in the missing parts and preserving Mattingly’s previous work. He painted with the goal of honoring the community just as Mattingly had, with the hope that restoration would “bring inspiration and colors into people’s lives” (Cohen as cited by Curtin).

Jim Mattingly’s mural was a success, portraying figures that were later shown on screen at film festivals at the Elsinore and creating an urban art piece to be enjoyed by pedestrians and drivers alike. Mattingly died in 2006, but his legacy lives on through Cohen’s and Salem community members’ 2013 renovations of “Theatrical Heartscape,” which stands as blue and bright today as it did in 1984.