Deep Fried Kudzu

I was thinking lately of Floyd Shaman, the late sculptor. He was born in Wyoming and studied under Robert Russin, known for several large-scale public pieces including those installed at the Department of Energy in DC, the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, the Hyde Park Museum in New York, Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania and the University of Wyoming.

Shaman moved from working with stone to wood when he moved to Mississippi. He founded the sculpture division of the art department at Delta State in 1970 and taught there for several years.

If you’ve been to Square Books in Oxford, you know his work from this piece upstairs:

 

In the mid-70s, he had a residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY

As his work gained more notoriety, his work went to New York and other galleries (here’s Salvadore and his Dolly) and museums, including the permanent collection at the Ogden in New Orleans, the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi. I think there’s also a piece that’s been on display at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale.

There was an exhibit of his work at the Walter Anderson Museum in 1997-1998, and a 2019 exhibit of his work, Wood & Whimsy, at the Lauren Rogers.

From this site, a couple of quotes:

 “I don’t really know if my art is any good,” he says. “That’ll all have to be sorted out in a hundred years.” Discussing the legendary Mississippi folk artists, Shaman gives me a short lesson in the origins of true artwork. “I’m a University trained artist,” he says. “I could do folk art, but it would be a fraud.”

and

Shaman was commissioned to create pieces for a church, including an altar on which he sculpted The Last Supper in bas-relief…”They were one of the more pleasant clients I’ve had”, he says. “They actually called me and said; ‘are we paying you enough money? Should we give you more?’ I said; ‘no, that’s fine.'”

This is the work of his that we have, just a little over 20″:

found him for sale years ago for an astonishing $50…I guess they weren’t familiar with his work

inside, this image of the “Owl Lady”

Victory in Jesus truck
Cullman County AL, 2019.

It was great to get to do my usual annual visit to the Rothko Chapel, the Menil, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts this year.

This was my first time in since the Rothko Chapel underwent a renovation and reopened late last year. This video explains some of the changes:

No photography inside, but completely appreciated — a terrific experience to just be absorbed by the large-scale works.

At the Menil:

Photography is only allowed in the hallway and not in exhibit areas. I did get to see the Cy Twombly Gallery in another building, which was great to be able to take in how his work transitioned over the years. Also, right now, interior designers seem especially taken with…let’s say very-very-very Twombly-inspired works…so in my mind, comparing those with the genuine articles was particularly interesting. From the Menil’s site:

The works on view in the Cy Twombly Gallery, dating from 1953 to 2004, comprise a veritable retrospective of the artist’s career, including a number of large canvases, sculptural works, and suites of paintings and drawings. Among the works on display are five paintings from 1959, featuring subtle graphic notations on white grounds; the vividly colored Bay of Naples and Triumph of Galatea, both from 1961; three of the so-called “Blackboard” paintings of the late 1960s; five paintings dedicated to German Romantic poet Rainer Maria Rilke from 1985; and the untitled “Green Paintings” that Twombly showed at the 1988 Venice Biennale. An entire room is given over to the artist’s monumental Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor), 1994. 

At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, a fabulous visit. Some highlights:

Pablo Picasso, Portrait Bust of a Woman

Thornton Dial, Roosevelt: A Handicapped Man Got The Cities to Move

William Edmondson, Eagle, 1935

Carmela Gross, A Negra (The Black Woman)

Thomas Demand’s Cardboard Recreation, Control Room

John McQueen, Untitled #125

Jasper Johns, Cicada

Mary A. Jackson, Low Basket with Handle

Jaydan Moore, Platter #4

Settee from Hard Times Plantation, Vicksburg

El Anatsui, Aso Oke

Niki de Saint Phalle, Gorgo in New York

And here, Gyula Kosice, The Hydrospatial City:

Couple of quick things: Texas Monthly declared the MFAH’s restaurant, Le Jardinier, as the best museum restaurant in the state. It was terrific to see the museum’s new Kinder Building. Lots about it here.

…and more in the kitchen.

This year (in Bubba’s voice): you got yer pumpkin pie, pumpkin chocolate swirl, your sweet potato, your pecan, your chocolate pecan, chocolate brownie pie…

Those two pumpkin pies above — one in the middle and one lower-left — with the chocolate swirl were interesting and good, but not so much so I’ll do those again.

48 pies to shelters, three pies for the family. Happy Thanksgiving! xoxo!

Daufuski Fancy Whole Boiled Oysters
S&S Foods
Holly Pond AL, 2018.

Cornersville TN, 2019.

Yesterday’s post on the Detroit Institute of Arts included several van Gogh works, and we wound up attending the preview last night for Beyond van Gogh: The Immersive Experience last night at Birmingham’s BJCC.

I walked in with no expectations of what the exhibit would be like — Omega Mart but trippy sunflowers and starry, starry nights?  Candytopia-ish so works in lots of unexpected media (our visit to the Atlanta Candytopia here) and spaces built for selfies?

It was more along the lines of the new projector-based show written about at  Artnews yesterday — the Mexican Geniuses: A Frida & Diego Immersive Experience that’s opening in London and DC next year.

First, there’s a walk-through timeline of several screens to set things up

the set-up

and the finale room, where there’s a :45 show of works looping, changing, morphing — this is where you want to stay

I’m smiling under this mask, but this is also a chance to say I felt “safe” the whole time — everyone was masked and plenty of room all around

Tickets here.

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Completely different, but I got a media invitation back in September to Downtown Abbey: The Exhibition in Atlanta and didn’t get a chance to go, but it’s completely open now and looks terrific.

The Detroit Institute of Arts Museum is beyond.

Beyonnnnddddd.

Let’s just skip to the art — you know it’s huge, you know it’s going to have the big names, you know it’s…well…there has to be something about cars. All that.

The Diggers, Vincent van Gogh

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh

Bank of the Oise at Auvers, Vincent van Gogh

Portrait of Postman Roulin, Vincent van Gogh

Claude Monet

Eve, Auguste Rodin

Sylvette, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Girl Reading, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

On the Beach, Edouard Manet

View of Le Crotoy from Upstream, Georges Seurat

John Singer Sargent

Something You Can Feel, Mickalene Thomas

Red Man on Blue Horse with Dog, Bill Traylor

Diego Rivera Murals:

…and now for Shugie’s favorite part, the Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950–2020 exhibit

Standard Station, Amarillo Texas, by Edward Joseph Ruscha

Rusting Red Car in Kuau, Jean-Michel Basquiat

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Edited to add:
Speaking of Diego Rivera…
Today, Sotheby’s sold Frida Kahlo’s “Diego and I” self-portrait at $34.9M

This is not a Kenny Chesney song
West Point AL, 2019.

The post title is from Truman Capote, in A Christmas Memory.

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My fruitcake recipe, done cupcake style, with chocolate chips even, because yum.

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Eater had a piece last week entitled Fruitcake Season is now upon Us: Making the the holiday-appropriate dessert is a boozy two-month process that you need to begin right now

The idea is, you’re going to want it to soak in the alcohol, then, well, give it more to drink as you go along. Amanda Hesser in the NYT wrote in the Good Fruitcake recipe that:

AH/NYT: In a good fruitcake the batter should barely be perceptible, acting merely as adhesive to bind the fruit and nuts.

Me: Okay, actually we’re making a fruitcake here, not a crabcake. The batter should be delectable. It’s a cake, we want cake. Studded with lots of goodness, yes, but the batter doesn’t function as a glue, it functions as added yumminess.

AH/NYT: Broken down into its parts, a good fruitcake contains ingredients that most people love: plump dates, candied cherries, almond extract, pecans, walnuts and sugar.

Me: I’m not a date person (except in sticky toffee pudding). Maybe you’re not a candied cherry person. The thing about fruitcake is you put in what tastes good to you, when it comes out it’s a fruitcake (albeit victim of jokes) that tastes incredible. Leave out the dates, put in golden raisins if you like that kind of thing. How about — I love doing this — dried pineapple rehydrated with some whiskey. You do you.

AH/NYT: And when it comes out of the oven, it is showered in whiskey.

Me: Ha, no disagreement here.

AH/NYT: This is by no means an inexpensive cake to make, and that is largely why it became a traditional gift. It is a cake that you wouldn’t make for yourself. It is a treat.

Me: It is a treat, but I’d like us to all consider reframing that things are so good we wouldn’t make/keep/buy/enjoy things that are wonderful (but yes, make a delicious one for a friend). This goes back to a sermon Rabbi Glusman gave one HH about someone having expensive china/crystal that they kept displayed rather than enjoy because it was so beautiful and precious. In an earthquake, it was ruined. Takeaway: use the good china, wear the special jewelry, eat the fruitcake. Remember that, always.

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Don’t miss Sweet as Sugar, Rude as Hell at Bitter Southerner, on an interview with Truman’s aunt Marie Rudisill

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…if we talk fruitcake, we can’t go without A Christmas Memory

and the 2021 Fruitcake Festival in Capote’s Monroeville hometown is this weekend, Nov 13-14.