Simmons-Wright Company
Kewanee MS, 2023.
Covered Bridges of Alabama, Now in Map Form
Among my niche maps, this one for covered bridges in Alabama. It’s not complete, and I’m having some back-and-forth about whether cute 12′ pedestrian covered walkways in public parks and residential side-yards built to look like the ones you and I think of as *real* covered bridges should be isted…but yeah! This gets the really big, beautiful, impressive ones and includes some that are just fun to run across too. The map is embedded at the bottom of this post.
And always, if you know of one that belongs, let me know — thanks!
Some of the faves
The newest one I’ve been through, at Madison County Nature Preserve in Huntsville on Green Mountain, is post & beam and built in 1974. The park is a super easy walk and really pretty.
This one in Waldo looks suspended in air
The Swann in Blount County is 324′ long which makes it the longest historic one in the state. It was built in 1933.
These are the supports for the nonextant Nectar Covered Bridge which was once the seventh-longest covered bridge in the country. It burned in 1993.
The bridge I grew up going to — Clarkson – Legg Covered Bridge in Cullman County. It’s 270′ long:
Horton Mill in Blount County is the highest covered bridge over water in the entire country
And I’m so tickled that I actually know someone who built a covered bridge! This is Tat Bailey, who was among the ultra-talented friends I got to know from being in the incredible circle of Wade Wharton. While both of these gentlemen are gone now, I think about them and celebrate them still…and will forever.
St Louis Cathedral’s Restoration
Holly & Smith, a Louisiana architecture firm, has been commissioned to “complete the historic building assessment and prepare design documents for the comprehensive restoration” of St Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. When we were there last month, the front was closed off but here are some pics from previous visits:
and this digital twin SO interesting to watch of the Cathedral.
The restoration is expected to cost $45M, with Gayle Benson leading the fundraising effort. Work will begin this summer.
The campaign is $75M to allow for endowments.
Daily Mass can be watched online.
It is the oldest continuously-operated Catholic cathedral in the US. It was established in 1718.
Pics from a behind-the-scenes tour
These scaffolding pics are from a 2022 project:
Here’s the Cathedral in gingerbread, at the Sheraton in 2016:
The St Louis Cathedral “Our City, Our Cathedral” fundraising page is here.
Wood Quilt
Southern Accents
Cullman AL, 2023.
The Aioli Dinner
Before George Rodrigue painted the Blue Dog, he painted Aioli Dinner, dated 1971, of a group of people who met monthly at a different home each month. This one is set at the Darby House Plantation, and Rodrigue included some of his family members, including his grandfather and uncle. Wendy Rodrigue, George’s wife, wrote about the painting here.
What’s immediately apparent is that this is nothing like the later paintings of his (though a lot like the other paintings of his with people as subjects) in that the colors here are not vibrant. Once you focus on the subjects, you see that each man has a bottle of wine, there are some kids around and younger men who are doing the serving, and women in the back who prepared the meal. One of the older men is the one who made the aioli. These gatherings are part of the Creole Gourmet Societies that were most popular 1890-1920; the Trappey family tried to revive these gatherings back in the 1970s, but apparently they never regained their popularity.
This was a real club, so Rodrigue had photographs to go by. And almost every person in the painting is identified by name. For instance, the man closest at the head of the table is Leon Loze, and next to him to our left is Jean Courrege (the grandfather).
The artist later did variations on the painting, increasing the color and contrast. He loved this painting and always had it priced higher than other paintings in his Lafayette gallery because it took him so much time to paint — about six months — and because he knew it was especially important. In 2001, he even included Blue Dog in one of the Aioli Dinner paintings. He later gave the painting to his sons, who put it on loan to NOMA, and it’s today at the Ogden.
We Stand Together by George Rodrigue at the Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA:
Stay strong, Baileyton.
Gravy and Biscuit Cancelled this Week
Baileyton Methodist Church, Baileyton AL, 2023.
Vadis Turner
For over a year now, there’s been a Vadis Turner sculpture outside the Frist in Nashville. I haven’t taken a picture of it (it’s here and pictured below at her Insta) but we’ve got ’til January 2029 to view in person. I’d love to see one of her works picked up by the Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans.
View this post on Instagram
I did get to see her works at her She Drank Gold exhibit in 2023 at the AEIVA in Birmingham:
She’s from Nashville and so interesting (and wonderful!) that she has had a residency at Yaddo twice.
The Unicorn
They still exist.
Rotary Pay Phone
Mandeville LA, 2023.
L-rd, Just Left Click
Cemetery Monument
Oneonta, Alabama, 2023.
Blosme, Marking Time
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
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.
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