Deep Fried Kudzu

We have a George Jones Jr. broom here in our home.  Now, George makes brooms to be used, and brooms to be displayed.  Seeing as our house is populated by three Roombas (one for each floor and a dedicated one for kitchen duty each evening as we sleep.  I'm a fan.) a Dyson, and a steam mop, I just don't feel like using my George Jones artsy broom.

I think George comes each year to Kentuck -- this is a shot from his tent one year -- and we must've gotten ours from him eight or nine years ago.

George isn't the first person in his family to make brooms -- his great-grandfather started a broom operation at the tenant farm in Lauderdale County he managed during the Depression.  It's just gone from generation to generation.  George has been named a Master Craftsman and a Craft Fellow by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.  My favorite of his brooms is here.

Last week I heard about broom makers in North Carolina -- Marlow and Ralph Gates (article about them in the Asheville paper here).  There's a tutorial on how to make a cobweb broom here on their website.

I've heard of 'jumping the broom' but wow these wedding brooms he makes -- and these too...

Last month, I was in Scottsboro for a little project -- more about that next week, because I'm actually going to be asking for help on it, and it's something very worthwhile, and I would love your help, and I need your help.

But for now, here are a few pics from other things around Scottsboro:

I had lunch with a friend at -- of all places, the Unclaimed Baggage Store (which has a little sandwich shop inside it) where we looked at all kinds of things.  Now, as strange as this sounds, the Unclaimed Baggage Store is kind-of...famous.  Famous because...well, all that lost luggage from airlines goes somewhere and a lot of it goes here, and a thousand years ago you could find things for very little money but nowadays they have people pricing things that know what they're looking at.  They have everything from off-brand Keds to haute couture.  Seriously.

On the way out of town, I walked the Courthouse square.  Top left is Payne's Soda Shop -- an old soda fountain that's been in business since 1869!  Well, I had to stop for a drink, then I remembered that they have something called a 'red slaw dog'.  I average about two hotdogs a year, so I thought I'd have a bite or two and that be it.  I think what puts the 'red' in a red slaw dog is a lot of ketchup in the slaw, so one bite was really enough for me.  Some people love it though.

Now, I knew that I had to bring something back for Av and the boys, so on the other side of the Square I found Variety Bake Shop.  I got four doughnuts and a dozen cheese straws.  Oh wow!  The doughnuts were fantastic -- Av and the boys devoured them!!  And the cheese straws (my thing) were really great too!  I'll admit...I left the doughnuts alone, but the cheese straws were half-gone by the time I got home...

One of the other places I visited in town was the Scottsboro-Jackson Heritage Center, which is an 1880 home, somewhat sparsely furnished.  The interesting thing was upstairs -- this case of what I was told were original documents:

This says across the top "War Department, Washington, April ? (maybe 22 or 23) 1865" then "$100,000 Reward! The Murderer of our late beloved President Abraham Lincoln is still at large!".  There's a picture of a similar one at this CNN site.

Back on the Payne's side of the Square is this monument to Andrew Jackson -- it's after him that this county, Jackson, is named.  This was dedicated in 1976:

Thank you a million times to my friend Larry Harris (who has his own fabulous website, who also loves Niki's West, who doesn't mind running around Elmwood with me, and who still owes me supper in Texas for Bama's win in the National Championship -- it all makes him a wonderful person) for telling me about the upcoming James Turrell project at Rice in Houston.

Maybe it's because he knows I have a thing for (Indian) mounds, but Larry sent me this link which explains that James Turrell will be building one of his Skyspaces on top of a ceremonial mound, right there on campus.

Well, I'm a James Turrell fan.

Thanks to Marc0047 for use of this pic of the Skyspace at Pomona College, where Turrell attended college, under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Art21's biography of him reads in part:
...born in Los Angeles in 1943...Turrell’s work involves explorations in light and space that speak to viewers without words, impacting the eye, body, and mind with the force of a spiritual awakening. “I want to create an atmosphere that can be consciously plumbed with seeing,” says the artist, “like the wordless thought that comes from looking in a fire.” Informed by his studies in perceptual psychology and optical illusions, Turrell’s work allows us to see ourselves “seeing.” Whether harnessing the light at sunset or transforming the glow of a television set into a fluctuating portal, Turrell’s art places viewers in a realm of pure experience. 


...Influenced by his Quaker faith, which he characterizes as having a “straightforward, strict presentation of the sublime,” Turrell’s art prompts greater self-awareness through a similar discipline of silent contemplation, patience, and meditation. His ethereal installations enlist the common properties of light to communicate feelings of transcendence and the Divine. The recipient of several prestigious awards such as Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, Turrell lives in Arizona.


Even better is this piece by the BBC of a Skyspace in a private residence (the sunset is just fun to watch) and the crater (crater!) that Turrell has been working on.  I know, it's 17 minutes, but it's so good.  Oh yes:


James Turrell - Goldstein Skyspace/Roden Crater Project from Rindermulch on Vimeo.

Last graveshelters for a while!  Once again, these were found with the aid of this really great website.

These were at the Morris Chapel Catholic Church in Lawrence County, Alabama:

The cemetery included a lot of folk customs -- curbing, sanded/swept, rounded, homemade memorials (and one even had a water feature)...

...and several graveshelters:

This one was at the Jones Chapel cemetery:

Another one exhibiting folk customs was this 'swept' cemetery ('swept' meaning sanded so grass won't grow):

Diamond plate (!!) headstones:

...and two more graveshelters:

...and now, happy neon:

Last month, we were in Courtland, which has such a great variety of historic architecture (they have a walking and driving tour here) -- saw an old NEHI and Royal Crown sign downtown:

...and many gorgeous homes.



This is the Presbyterian church, built between 1859 and 1868 (construction was halted for the War):


My favorite find, though, was Saunders Hall, also called the Saunders-Hall-Goode Mansion, built around 1830.  It's considered a rendition of Palladian architecture here (huge emphasis on symmetry).  I wish I could find a floorplan of this home in one of my books, but it is built in an 'H' shape without hallways; the middle section is one room (one room bottom floor, one room top floor) with with entrances to the wings which are each two rooms deep.  This means to get to any room in the house, you have to go through other rooms rather than walk down a hallway.

No one has lived in this house for ages.  In 'Lost Plantations of the South' the author notes that it sits in disrepair and "may soon join the list" of lost plantations "if decisive action is not taken."

Below are pics of it from 1935, and I'm able to use these here because they're in the public domain (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code) by virtue of them being done for the US Federal Government:

One house related to this one nearby (built by the son of the gentleman who built the house above) was Rocky Hill Castle, built c. 1845.  What's most interesting architecturally about this house is the Gothic tower you can see there to the left:
Now something about that tower (and more in a bit) -- this is from my Antebellum Mansions of Alabama book:

The brick tower with turrets has six floors and was used as a lookout post by the master as he surveyed his vast domain of fields being worked by slaves.  The winding steps inside have since disappeared.

Well actually, it's all disappeared because the house was plundered (it's been written that when the last family members left the house, they left it with its furnishings and everything -- even food on the table) and later was destroyed.  Just ruins now.  These pics are all from 1935:


There were walnut banisters, marble fireplaces, gorgeous pocket doors, intricate moldings.  It cost $48000 to build -- of course, today that would be over a million dollars.

Two or three weeks ago when I mentioned Dred Scott and the Seventh Day Adventist, historically black Oakwood University in Huntsville, I meant to show one of the sculptures on the Oakwood campus -- it's their "Monument to Service":

It's a bronze sculpture and is a newer 'signature' piece of Oakwood art.  It was dedicated in 2006.

---
An article came out last week, published in USA Today and other periodicals, about newly-released data showing that Seventh Day Adventists are the fastest-growing Christian denomination in North America.

Drawing inspiration from the rich aesthetic traditions of the black South and with no formal education, Dial has forged a major body of astoundingly original work. Influenced by the found-object displays of African American yard shows, his work incorporates salvaged objects—from plastic grave flowers and children’s toys to carpet scraps and animal skeletons—to create highly charged assemblages that tackle a wide range of social and political subjects, with a particular focus on the struggles of historically marginalized groups such as women, the rural poor, and the impoverished underclass. Born out of decades of his own struggle as a working-class black man, Dial’s work also explores the long history of racial oppression in America and offers a moving testimony on the human struggle for freedom and equality.

There's an image gallery of the museum show here.

While I was expecting a lovely piece by Studio 360 to air, the content for what they titled 'Thornton Dial is not an Outsider Artist' was disappointing:


The interviewer spoke with Thornton's sons (the past year has been hard on him health-wise) which was fine, and she did a good job explaining the materials that are used, and how the larger pieces are immediately viewed.  She scratched the surface of if this is what's titled 'folk art'.

The interviewer spoke with James Nelson, the visual arts critic at the B'ham News.  He said:
"if we had promoted art like football, made it the thing to do, the thing to go to, the thing to argue about, the thing to drink beer with, it'd become important in people's lives.  At this point, a very small minority of Birmingham goes regularly to small galleries around town.  They just can't support all the artists that are working."

Now, James Nelson is accomplished and well regarded, for good reason.  But please, someone: name me a city in which the citizens support all the artists that are working, and where the galleries outdraw sports teams.  He probably gave a hundred better quotes than this, yet this is what ended up in the finished piece.

To top it off, the interviewer next goes to Bob Sykes BarB-Q in Bessemer to ask customers if they've ever heard of Thornton Dial.  Okay, you know the answer.  If you were in Sumter, South Carolina and you asked people at the local dairy bar who Jasper Johns is...  We could play this game all day, anywhere in the country.

I'm not going to take forever and dispel the notion that Thornton Dial is unknown here (although exhibit one would be APT's Mr. Dial Has Something to Say documentary which went on to win awards at film festivals and was even a SE Emmy Award winner).  It's fantastic that he's getting attention now more than ever, all over the country, but I wish the piece by Studio 360 hadn't been so shallow.

Good news: Thornton Dial's exhibit going on right now at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in NYC (coincidentally, Andrew also has works by Tuscaloosa's Frank Calloway, for whom he has put on two shows already).

I've said before that the best, best source on the web about grave shelters is this one; this past week I was just tickled to find a couple of new ones that I could tell John there about -- this one is on Trussell Road in Winston County, AL:

Each of these graveshelters are relatively new -- the earliest date here is 1997.

For those of us who are interested in folkways and customs, this is great news that people are continuing these traditions.  This particular graveshelter was decorated very nicely:

Av thinks successful weekends include dirt roads, so he was happy as we were driving around:

We found this out of the blue -- a family who had put in a row three old trucks and what I think is an old mule-powered hay rake:


The important part about that is that these are memorials to family members, with names and dates:


Kevin's still with us.

We were next off to the Rocky Plains Church - they have a covered 'dinner on the ground' pavilion there on the right (if you have never been to a church dinner on the ground, go) which are thankfully very common here:

One poor family lost four babies in the space of about four years.  A couple of the other stones had many Mason symbols:

We came to see the three graveshelters, which interestingly were for members of the Thomas family (wonder if they're related to the Thomas' up the road):


Nice calla lily on one of the monuments:

Next, I went to see the church:



Love that lecturn.