Deep Fried Kudzu

Cemetery Monument
Oneonta, Alabama, 2023.

A bit of a rewind — I’m thinking of a couple of exhibits from a couple of years ago at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Barbara G. Haines
Exhale an Atmosphere: Blosme

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Carlyle Wolfe Lee
Marking Time

She has an exhibit at Spalding Nix in Atlanta this summer and SouthSide Gallery on the Square in Oxford this fall.

At The Brooklyn Rail, Ralph Lemon: From Out of Space by Allison Carey on the show at Paula Cooper Gallery.

Leading with the Sorites Paradox (when does a heap stop being a heap?), the author brings up the image of Bryant’s Grocery in Money, Mississippi, the initial setting for the Emmett Till tragedy. She writes:

But to me, the gradual decay of this grocery store is quite loud. By letting the earth slowly reabsorb the remains of the store, the traumatic histories of this space, and a lack of resolution, remain at the forefront. To tear down the store would be an attempt to obliterate the past; to replace it would be an attempt to write a new story altogether; to conserve it would confine it within the past. This subtle process of decomposition continues to take new forms, albeit slowly, rejecting finality.

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I’ve been photographing the Bryant Store in Money, Mississippi since at least 2005. These aren’t all the visits I’ve made, but shows a progression.

2005:

2011:

2016:

2018:

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Google Street View, January 2024:

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In November last year, the barn where Emmett Till was beaten was purchased to be opened as a memorial site.

I read Wright Thompson’s The Barn (available here at Bookshop / Amazon) — highly recommend.

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The museum — called the Intrepid Center — as I visited it in 2013:

There’s also an interpretive center / library now across the street from the Tallahatchie County courthouse, which has been preserved as a museum.

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Thinking back to Allison Carey mentioning the Sorites Paradox: it’s crumbling, but preserving, saving — seemingly so much in such a state of flux. There’s more structure in understanding…and what’s disappearing is actually adding.

This is a bit of a rewind to a tour of Sloss Furnaces — I’ve taken classes there twice now and recommend, in fact one time I was able to bring a group and we did a custom project with one of the resident artists, which was just an incredible experience.

Choose a good day to explore and take pictures…maybe overcast a little for best lighting …and enjoy. xoxo

Here, a little rewind of the Thornton Dial exhibit I, Too, Am Thornton Dial at the LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge — this was up in summer 2023 when I visited last (and really wanted to get to again last week, as they have a Marc Chagall exhibit going on).

Oh, and one more thing: this museum regularly shows some really terrific exhibits. Starting mid-September this year, they’ll hang The South’s Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson, and  a really impressive set of shows in the past, including one of my favorites of all time:

Hunt Slonem: Antebellum Pop! from 2016

From the 2023 visit for Thornton Dial:

As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.

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from a 2009 visit to her home in Kosciusko

“L.V. Hull: Love Is a Sensation,” the exhibit about L.V. Hull and her art environment opened March 20 at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson

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a pic of the sign I took in 2006

The Ted’s Frostop in New Orleans will be demolished to make way for Tulane housing but the neon sign and the restaurant itself will survive as a tenant in a new development.

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By W. Ralph Eubanks at Oxford American: A Way of Seeing the Mississippi Delta
Landscape photographs as evidence of the region’s past and present inequities

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It’s a very abbreviated Various this week — I’ve been on spring break with both boys the last two weeks, one for Bama and the other for the high school calendar, but we did enjoy a long weeked with the boys together in New Orleans. More on that soon. I hope you’ve had a really terrific week and are looking forward to more beautiful spring weather. xoxo!

Brent and I were in downtown Birmingham a few days ago and popped by Cathedral Church of the Advent for one of their Lenten lunches. Some of my neighbors have had signs about it in their yards and people talk about how great they are — and they are!

A special treat was getting to see their sanctuary, and we chose to take in the daily Lenten service. The guest speaker that day from another congregation focused on verses in Psalms, so it was really enjoyable.

Their chapel:

…and then, lunch in this really pretty room:

Brent had the chicken enchilada and I had half a chicken salad sandwich along with tomato aspic (I was in charge of savory dishes for FP Garden Club this month so I made aspic and a couple of the members said “oh my grandmother made aspic!” which made my little heart happy):

Brent had the bing cherry salad and one of the sweet ladies working brought around homemade mayonnaise which she said would be perfect with it:

Strawberry cake has a special place in the collective culinary repertoire of Birmingham, so we took that in, too. People were friendly and it was terrific all around.

Thinking about other community Lenten meals, there’s:
The Waffle Shop at Calvary Episcopal in Memphis with dishes like fish pudding, chicken hash, waffles — and a salad plate with tomato aspic,  shrimp mousse, pears with cottage cheese, and chicken salad.

St Paul’s Episcopal in Richmond, Virginia is well-known for their cheese souffle at Lenten meals. I’m sure there are tons of others who have a fun signature dish! If you think of one that’s unique to a particular place, please share.

Canoe the Sequatchie
Gentle Thrills
sign in Alabama, 2011.

Brent and I made it to the Tannehill Opry in McCalla, Alabama. It was a really sweet evening and we had a wonderful time listening to not only the planned performers but people who were willing to come up from amongst those of us in the audience.

I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time — taking in places like rural opera houses, old theaters whose purpose is now as small community playstages, country stores with neighbors coming together in jam sessions, and live radio shows, like Thacker Mountain Radio Hour.

I’ll make a map of these kinds of places in Alabama and Mississippi over the next couple of months and will post it here and publish on the Niche Maps page. That’s where other super-specific maps I make reside…slugburgers, A-Frame Whataburgers, indie bookstores, and the like.

Soon, we’ll be visiting the Hilliard Art Museum at the University of Louisiana Lafayette again. We were last there in June 2023 for the Luciana Abait exhibit:

Video installation

Wheel

This survey show featuring the work of Luciana Abait offers the opportunity to experience the artist’s striking work across media in painting, photography, sculpture, video installation, and augmented reality. Comprising 20 pieces from 2017 to the present, the exhibition “Luciana Abait On the Verge” conjures imaginary worlds that portend global climate catastrophe and show signs of humankind’s intrusion on nature.

The Maps that Failed Us – made up of maps that Abait digitally collaged together before printing on large strips of paper. Behind the paper: cardboard, wood, and bricks. This installation, at 18′ high and 35′ wide has been the largest.

Buoy II

Black Water (The Exquisite Edge of the Precipice)

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Showing at the musuem through August 15, 2026:
Andy Warhol: Plus One
Selections from the Hilliard Permanent Collection