Jimmy Carter's woodworking, painting and poetry reveal an introspective Renaissance Man

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — The world knew Jimmy Carter 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 — and himself.

His portfolio illuminates his closest relationships, 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 “the rare opportunity for privacy” in his otherwise public life, Carter said. “These times of solitude are like being in another very pleasant world.”

Mourners at Carter’s 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 “fairly proficient” craftsman. Chris Bagby, an Atlanta woodworker whose shop Carter frequented, elevated that assessment to “rather accomplished.”

Carter gleaned the basics on his father’s farm, where the Great Depression meant being a jack-of-all-trades. He learned more in shop class and with Future Farmers of America. “I made a miniature of the White House,” 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.

“One of the best gifts of my life,” 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.

Carter frequented Atlanta’s Highland Woodworking, a shop replete with a library of how-to books and hard-to-find tools, and recruited the world’s 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.

“He was like a regular customer,” Bagby said, other than the “Secret Service agents who came with him.”

Carter built four ladder-back chairs out of hickory in 1983, and Sotheby’s 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.

“I said, ‘What are you doing?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘It’s broken. I’m going to take it home and fix it.’”

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: “I like to see what I have done, what I have made.”

Carter employed a folk-art style as a late-in-life amateur painter and claimed “no special talent,” but a 2020 Carter Center auction drew $340,000 for his painting titled “Cardinals,” and his oil-on-canvas of an eagle sold for $225,000 in 2023, months after he entered hospice care.

Carter’s work hangs throughout the center’s 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’s 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 his mother shows “Miss Lillian” 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.

“When he got out of the White House, she was standing there saying, ’Well, I turned 70 in the Peace Corps. What are you going to do?” Jason Carter said.

One Carter subject who meets his gaze is a young Rosalynn — they married when she was 18 and he was 21. He described her as “remarkably beautiful, almost painfully shy, obviously intelligent, and yet unrestrained in our discussions.”

Another who doesn’t look away is Rachel Clark, a Black sharecropper who had hosted the future president after they worked in the fields. “Except for my parents, Rachel Clark was the person closest to me,” Carter wrote of his childhood.

Carter wrote more than 30 books — even a novel — but was most introspective in poetry.

On his first real recognition of Jim Crow segregation: “A silent line was drawn between friend and friend, race and race.”

On his Cold War submarine’s delicate dance with enemies: “We wanted them to understand ... to share our love of solitude ... the peace we yearned to keep.”

Rosalynn’s smile, he gushed, silenced the birds, “or may be I failed to hear their song.”

Perhaps Carter’s most revealing poem, “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World,” concerns the man who never got to see his namesake son’s achievements. He wrote that he despised Earl’s discipline, and swallowed hunger for “just a word of praise.”

Only when he brought his own sons to visit his dying father did he “put aside the past resentments of the boy” and see “the father who will never cease to be alive in me.”

FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter hands a copy of his new book, "A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety," to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, on July 10, 2015, at the Free Library in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - Georgia State Sen. Jimmy Carter hugs his wife, Rosalynn, at his Atlanta campaign headquarters on Sept. 15, 1966. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - President-elect Jimmy Carter gets a kiss from his mother, Lillian Carter, on Dec. 6, 1976, in Plains, Ga. (AP Photo/File)

Former Pres. Jimmy Carter marks a board to be cut as he works with the Habitat for Humanity project in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday, July 27, 1987. The group of workers plans to build 14 homes in five days. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Bouquets of flowers and peanuts are placed at the base of a bust of former President Jimmy Carter at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter answers questions during a news conference at a Habitat for Humanity building site, in Memphis, Tenn., on Nov. 2, 2015. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is facing more international rebuke than at any time in his 12 years in power.

The self-declared socialist is widely believed to have lost last year's election by a landslide. That sparked criticism by the United States and others that the vote was stolen and forced Maduro to turn to security forces to repress and arrest opponents.

Now he's set to be sworn in for a third term Friday, even as the opposition challenger who claims to have won is vowing to return from exile by then.

Maduro seems to have thrived on conflict since the late Hugo Chávez passed the torch of his Bolivarian revolution to his loyal aide in 2012. The challenges have ranged from a drone attack and mass protests over the collapse of the oil-rich economy to an international criminal investigation for human rights abuses and a $15 million U.S. bounty tied to allegations of drug trafficking.

The history of Latin America is full of strongmen who rode out disputed elections only to find themselves ousted in short order, from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's attempt to tamper with votes in a 1988 referendum to Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori's constitutionally barred third term in 2000.

Ahead is Maduro's toughest challenge yet — one that will determine the future of Venezuela's already debilitated democracy.

A biopic produced for last year's campaign recounted how Maduro grew up in a working-class barrio of Caracas torn between his love of baseball and student activism.

“Make a decision,” a coach tells the teenage pitcher portraying Maduro in the movie. “It's either baseball or politics.”

In real life, after embracing his father's radical politics, Maduro was sent to communist Cuba in 1986 for a year of ideological instruction — his only studies after high school.

Upon returning home, he found work as a bus driver and union organizer. He embraced Chávez after the then-army paratrooper in 1992 staged a failed coup against an unpopular austerity government. Around the same time he met his longtime partner, Cilia Flores, a lawyer for the jailed leader.

After Chávez was freed and elected president in 1998, Maduro, a young lawmaker, helped push his agenda of redistributing the OPEC nation's oil wealth and political power.

In 2006, Chávez appointed Maduro foreign minister, a recognition of his work smoothing over tensions with the U.S. following a short-lived coup. In that role, he spread Venezuela's petrodollars throughout the world, building alliances.

“He was always very disciplined,” said Vladimir Villegas, who has known Maduro since high school and served as his deputy foreign minister until breaking with Chávez.

When Maduro took power in 2013 following his mentor's death from cancer, he struggled to bring order to the grief-stricken nation. Without “El Comandante” in charge, the economy entered a death spiral — shrinking 71% from 2012 to 2020, with inflation topping 130,000% — and opponents and rivals inside the government smelled blood.

He earned the nickname of “Maburro” among elites for folkish antics like claiming Chávez appeared to him as a “little bird.” Less than a year into his accidental presidency, hardliner opponents launched demonstrations demanding his exit.

Leaning heavily on the security forces, Maduro crushed the protests. But with supermarket shelves empty amid widespread shortages, they resumed with more intensity three years later, leaving more than 100 people dead. In 2018, the International Criminal Court initiated a criminal investigation into possible crimes against humanity.

The crackdown continued into the 2018 presidential race, which the opposition boycotted when several of its leaders were barred from running. Dozens of countries led by the U.S. condemned Maduro's re-election as illegitimate and recognized Juan Guaidó, the head of the National Assembly, as Venezuela's elected leader.

More unrest ensued, this time bolstered by the Trump administration's “maximum pressure” campaign of punishing oil sanctions. Then came a clandestine raid organized by an ex U.S. Green Beret, a barracks uprising and finally the coronavirus pandemic.

Somehow, after each crisis, Maduro emerged stronger, even if the country's problems deepened. By 2022, with his opponents vanquished, he took on a new nickname: Super Bigote, a nod to his thick black mustache. It was also a tribute by supporters to his reputation for defying the odds.

He entered the 2024 election with the same mindset, confident that opinion polls showing a groundswell of support for his previously unknown opponent, Edmundo González, were a political weapon leveraged by his enemies and the U.S. to destabilize the country.

Since claiming victory in the face of credible evidence of vote rigging, Maduro has relied on the security forces to round up opponents. This week, González said his son-in-law was kidnapped by masked men. Carlos Correa, a prominent free speech attorney, was also hauled away by masked assailants. The government hasn't commented on either case.

Michael Shifter, a former president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said such acts of repression may indicate weakness that could boomerang against Maduro.

“The key is the armed forces,” Shifter said, adding that the recent downfall of Syria's ruler, Bashar Assad, has renewed Venezuelans' hopes for change: “These regimes are very unpredictable and can fall any moment even if they appear quite strong. If it collapses, it will collapse internally.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

FILE - Pro-government supporters rally for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez, File)

Public workers hold rifles prior to a march of government-backed militias in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, days ahead of President Nicolas Maduro's inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Government-backed militias pass through a street during a pro-government march in Caracas, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, days ahead of President Nicolas Maduro's inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

FILE - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro flashes victory hand signs at supporters during a pro-government rally, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez, File)

Members of government-backed militias pose with rifles prior to a march in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, days ahead of President Nicolas Maduro's inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

FILE - Protesters clash with police during demonstrations against the official election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro's reelection, the day after the vote in Caracas, Venezuela, July 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

FILE - A supporter displays a poster of President Nicolas Maduro during his closing election campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

The sun shines onto a pro-government march in Caracas, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, days ahead of President Nicolas Maduro's inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

President Nicolas Maduro points the crowd during a march in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, days ahead of his inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)