Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
On Highway 231 between Troy and Dothan is ArtWurks, a gallery of Larry Godwin’s artwork – I think his brother, Ronald, does some of the artwork too.
Larry Godwin graduated from Auburn and became the first artist-in-residence in the Alabama school system (he installed a 12′ eagle made out of car bumpers at Goshen High School in 1972, and has other pieces at Troy Junior High and Alabama State University).
Out front is this huge rooster, made out of car bumpers.
Katie Brown comes up with some of the neatest ideas – and they’re never difficult. A few months ago, I was watching a re-run of her show All Year Round with Katie Brown – it was the episode where she made a reverse applique baby blanket. The overall idea is so simple – I figured I could make the baby wrap with the measurements she uses, and also make the dimensions bigger for a separate adult-size blanket for long car trips or just whatever!
A few days ago, I got a mailing that Hancock Fabrics was going to have a big sale on fleece this week, so I went in earlier today and bought material for three different projects – two of the ones I finished tonight are below:
Here’s the adult-size reverse-applique blanket:
I bought two colors of fleece and asked to have them cut to be 2 yards long each. In the picture above, I’ve put one color fleece on top of the other, and started to trim them up so they’re an exact match in dimension.
Second, I decided to make the reverse-applique a heart shape, so I made a template out of just regular copy paper.
Third, I drew the outline of the heart with a marker, then folded the material in half and cut it out (so it would be perfectly symmetrical). Remember to draw the template onto the color that you want to be the window – for instance, I wanted the heart to show up in pink, so I cut the heart shape out of the lime green.
Put the two pieces of fleece back together. I smoothed out the fabric and carried it to a table to do the gluing.
Fourth, I took my Aleen’s Tacky Glue and ran a bead of glue all around (under) the heart-shape cutout. I left it alone for a couple of hours to set (overnight would be a good idea too).
Fifth, I cut a five-inch notch out of all four corners (this makes doing the fringe possible). Then, I took my scissors and made a 5″ cut through both layers of the fleece, about 1-1/2″ wide (you don’t have to measure, just try to make them uniform). On the left side of the pic above you can see the fringe I haven’t knotted yet, and to the right are the ones I have.
Just tie the two colors of fleece together, all around the blanket. It will look best if you tie them all the same way – just make a knot, but do it in such a way that you always pull the same color out of the knot hole (so for instance, I pulled the green piece to the side, and pulled the pink side out of the hole of the knot, so the pink pieces are pointing ‘up’ all around the blanket).
…and here it is! It’s really nice and cozy, and because it’s fleece, washing it will be no problem (although I’ll wash it by itself). Neat!
Here’s the baby-size wrap/blanket:
Hancock Fabrics had some nice baby-themed fleece too, so I decided not to to the reverse applique on this project. This is a really pretty lilac fleece with embroidered teddy bears. I cut two squares of the fleece to 45″ squares and matched them together.
Next, I cut the notches – I made 4″ square cutouts.
Then, I cut the fringe, going through both layers of the fleece. I cut them about 4″ long, and about 1-1/2″ wide.
All the fringe gets knotted.
Finished! I think it will be a perfect gift!
The fleece I used for these projects was just the brand that was available at Hancock. I just noticed that Katie says that she used Polartec brand fleece – that’s made by Malden Mills. Malden Mills is the company that had a huge fire in 1995 and 3000 people were out of work – but the owner, Aaron Feuerstein, paid everyone their checks for months – $25 million total, and rebuilt the mill rather than just taking the insurance payout (60 Minutes story here). Next time I will *definitely* buy my fleece from their online store.
BTW, Katie Brown has a new book – it’s called ‘Katie Brown’s Weekends : Making the Most of Your Two Treasured Days‘ (I’ve got it on order now) and her website says that she will be starting a new show this coming Spring on PBS called ‘Katie Brown Workshop’. Great!
Each year, Av’s parents host a sukkah party at their home. I bring the pralines!
Ingredients:
1-1/2 c. white sugar
1-1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. evaporated milk
1/3 c. butter
1-1/2 c. pecans (you can use more or less)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
(also: use a bigger pot than you think you’ll need for this, use a candy thermometer, and have buttered parchment or wax paper ready to spoon the pralines on)
Directions:
Step one: put both sugars and the evaporated milk in the pot, and heat until the candy thermometer registers 228*. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon during the cooking process. At 228*, add the butter.
The mixture will bubble and pop, so be careful.
Step two: keep cooking until the mixture reaches 236* (236* is sufficient, but I always cook it to 238*. The thing is, the pralines won’t set unless you’re sure to reach this higher temperature – at least 236*. You don’t want it to go too far over, though, because then the candy will be brittle and grainy and not as good.) Once you reach the higher number, take the pot off the stove and add the pecans and vanilla. Beat the mixture with your wooden spoon until it just starts looking less shiny and more dull. This should take two or three minutes.
Step three: spoon the pralines onto your buttered parchment or wax paper. (Argh! You can see that I forgot I was out of parchment paper! Thankfully I had tin foil, so I just spooned the pralines onto that. It worked just fine.)
…and here they are all set (depending on the weather, they can set in anywhere from one or two hours to a few hours – I always make these the night before I need them so I don’t have to worry about how long they’re taking). Delicious!
Ever since I saw these neat glitter pumpkins on the new daytime Martha Stewart show, I just had to try it!
What you need:
small pumpkins (I did Indian corn stalks too)
glitter in pretty colors (Martha suggests ArtGlitter.com – they have some really pretty colors. My glitter came from Michael’s – they don’t carry Art Glitter, and they didn’t have a very big variety of colors, but I think it came out pretty well. If I had the extra time, I would have definitely ordered from artglitter.com)
foam paintbrushes (the cheapy ones)
craft glue that dries clear (I used Sobo)
brown acrylic folk-art paint (optional)
also: newspaper, paper plates, wet paper towels (for sticky fingers) for your set-up
Step one: put your pumpkin on a paper plate (I put that on top of newspaper too – I did this on my front porch so if I made a mess with the glitter it wouldn’t be a big deal).
Step two: use the foam brush, loaded with Sobo glue, to ‘paint’ the glue on the pumpkin. Don’t worry about painting the very bottom of the pumpkin, since nobody’s going to see that, and so whatever you eventually sit the pumpkin on later won’t be all glitter-y.
Step three: sprinkle your glitter all over the pumpkin. I think I used about 1/8 the bottle of glitter on this pumpkin – a lot of it I was able to pour back into the container from the paper plate. Step four (only if you want): paint the pumpkin stem with the brown paint.
Av asked if I was going to try it on the Indian corn we had, so I thought that was a great idea! I used the exact same steps as above and they turned out really nice!
I had never been to the original Dreamland in Tuscaloosa, so before we went to Kentuck, Av drove us over.
There are other Dreamlands – Birmingham, Huntsville, Northport, Mobile, Montgomery – and now there are two in Georgia (Peachtree Corners and Roswell)! The ones in other locations serve chicken and sides – this original Dreamland location in Tuscaloosa serves just ribs and bread, Golden Flake chips, and ‘nana puddin.
The King definitely would have liked Dreamland.
When the football season started, we heard on the radio broadcasts that Doe’s Eat Place was going to be in Tuscaloosa (Doe’s was sponsoring some play, or something….like how Verizon does the ‘best call’….something like that).
Av and I just looked at each other the first time we heard that – we were like….Doe’s….in T-town?….can it be?
Well, sure enough, there *is* going to be a Doe’s Eat Place in Tuscaloosa.
I went to Doe’s website, and I knew there was one in Little Rock and Lafayette, but there are others now – in College Station, Tulsa, Hot Springs, Fayette, Fort Smith, and Bentonville.
We didn’t go into the one in Lafayette when we were there in August, but I saw when we drove by that they had white tablecloths….
At the *original* Doe’s, you eat in ancient chairs at ancient rickety tables, you order from memory – we always split a porterhouse, Av gets fries, and we share tamales. As you walk in the door, the steaks are cooking *right there next to you*, if you go in the room just past the front entrance, the waitresses are making salads *right next to you*.
The steaks are amazing (everything is amazing), everybody is super-nice, and everybody talks about football – what more could a person ask for? If G-d told you an hour before you were going to die that you could go anywhere you wanted for a final meal, you’d say “first, can I have more than an hour? Because I need to get over to Doe’s.”
Anyway. That’s my love sonnet to Doe’s.
We’ll be in Greenville later this month or in early November, so I’ll take some pics and post them then.
So we finally got to Kentuck! Yay! Here are pics:
This is Holden McCurry‘s booth – his tower sculptures are really great.
This booth above was Jack Beverland. He does these bumpy pieces that glow in the dark. This one is of cotton pickers.
The pic above and the two below are the work of Jimmy Descant. We are always totally wowed by his art.
Below: microphone lamp. Cool.
This pic above and the couple below are of Myrtice West and her art – she is just *amazing*. A lot of her art includes Jesus, but we found and bought one of Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the ten commandments (mitzvot). I am just so enamored with her art.
This pic above is from Tom Haney‘s booth. You *have* to go to his website to see his automated pieces.
This pic above is of Ab the Flagman’s booth.
This pic above is of the Project Alabama booth (I heart Project Alabama – they were nominated for the 2005 Fashion Design Award from New York’s Cooper-Hewitt museum, named finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award, and UPS sponsored their first-ever runway show this year), but thing is – see that dress that the people above are looking at? – it’s $16000. And it seemed like every person that left that booth turned to the person they were with as if to say, “did you see that dress? yes. $16000.”
This pic above is of a piece that we almost bought. It’s by Kreg Yingst, and it’s this great piece about Hank Williams. Oh, I wanted that one.
Art car (and art) by Chris Hubbard
Yvonne Wells and her quilts
Av bought a piece from Lonnie Holley a couple of years ago, and Lonnie stood there for five or ten minutes turning it over and telling Av all the symbolism of the piece. He’s a total genius.
Above, York Show Prints – we got one print for a show that Kathryn Tucker Windham did, and another that had Sambo Mockbee’s “proceed and be bold” statement on it that had been done for the Rural Studio. When we bought the prints, we were invited to make our own print on the machine. Â Oh – one more thing – YeeHaw Industries from Chattanooga was at Kentuck, and we got four small pieces of theirs. I’ll take pics and post those later. We had a wonderful time!
Av and I had supper before services in Selma at the Tally-Ho restaurant (507 Mangum Ave, 334.872.1390), which has been in business since the ’40s.
It has this really interesting English foxhunt-style theme running throughout, which is really very charming; what made it particularly lovable was that it looks as if it hasn’t been reinvented over the years….that the restaurant was decorated ages ago and it’s been carefully kept intact, without need for further embellishment.
Our waitress was a lovely lady, and it was all ‘thank yous’ and ‘yes pleases’ and pleasantries back and forth. Av had the New York strip and I had the prime rib, which was just delicious. They don’t serve horseradish sauce automatically with my dish, but when I asked if they had any prepared, our waitress offered to make some up – and it was just perfect. I didn’t order any dessert, but Av had a slice of peanut butter and chocolate pie, which was very nice.
Downtown Selma is just great – old drugstores, signs painted on brick (I really like this ‘Sweet Alabama’ faded sign above). I wish I’d taken more pics – I should be back really soon, so I’ll take and post more later.
Whenever we go to Selma, which is a few times every year, we always visit Live Oak cemetery. I know it sounds weird to visit a cemetery, but Live Oak is truly special. It is just *so* beautiful. Spanish moss hangs over everything – the oaks, of course, and magnolias too.
Above is William Rufus de Vane King’s tomb. This is what the marker beside it reads:
William Rufus de Vane King
1786-1853
Native Sampson County, North Carolina.
Admitted to the 1806. North Carolina House of Commons 1807-1809. U.S. Congressman 1811-1816. Secretary U.S. Legation Naples and St. Petersburg 1816-1818.
Moved to Dallas County, Alabama, 1818. A founder of Selma, named city. Delegate Alabama Constitutional Convention 1819. U.S. Senator 1819-1844, 1848-1853. U.S. Minister to France 1844-1846. President pro tempore U.S. Senate 1836-1840, 1850-1852. Vice President of United States, 1853.
William Rufus King ran with Franklin Pierce on the Democrat ticket in 1852, and when he was to take the oath of office in 1853, he was actually in Cuba to recover from tuberculosis. It was by a special order of Congress that the oath was taken by someone in a different country. His health in Cuba did not improve, so he decided to return home to Alabama. He died the next day.
All the pics below are of beautiful Live Oak cemetery:
The St. James Hotel was built in 1837.
Sitting area in lobby
Lobby: The lobby was nice.
courtyard
Room: Our room was an average size with tall ceilings, which helps make the large-scale furniture not seem out of place. When we first walked in, there was a bit of a musty smell, but it went away soon after we turned the air on and left the door open for a minute or two. The bed wasn’t comfortable – not really too hard or too soft, just not very comfortable. The pillows were flat, and the sheets were frayed. Not so good. There was a ceiling fan, and thanks to it along with the air unit, we slept with the room nice and cold.
The bathroom had only three bath towels, but the shower water pressure was great.
Each of the rooms has a ‘sponsor’ – when the hotel was restored back in the ’90s, Selma families would sponsor rooms and in return, the family name would be put on the room’s door, and a brief history of the family framed in each room. I don’t recall the name of the family whose name was on our room, but we had room 315, so we giggled that it was Bear Bryant’s room.
Service: Service was okay… I just get the impression that not enough effort is put into a thorough housekeeping of the guest rooms.
What was really neat was that our room faced the river, and we were able to share a balcony with a view of the Edmund Pettus bridge.
Extra: It was nice to have the balcony available, and we sat in the courtyard for a little while the night we were there. It’s nice.
A couple of days ago, I ran across a business card for the Tatonut Shop in Ocean Springs (it’s called ‘tatonut’ because they use potato flour in their recipe). Av and I had a doughnut there earlier this Summer, and I’m wondering now how the shop survived the hurricane. It also made me think about some other things in Ocean Springs…
I went to the website of the Realizations shop, a place we visited about three years ago that sells prints and textiles of Walter Anderson’s art (he’s even his art posthumously exhibited at the Smithsonian) to see how they did after the hurricane. The shop is run by the artist’s family, and it sells prints and textiles of his work to the public. From their website, it looks like the shop got a *lot* of damage from the hurricane, but what they have for sale on their site right now is okay – so I placed an order yesterday for a couple of things, hoping that even my little tiny order will help in a way. (Also in town is the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, and things there seem to be okay after the storm). BTW, Walter Anderson is a *very* interesting person to read about – he had problems with depression and would spend huge amounts of time on Horn Island (just off the coast) completely by himself – I think I remember reading that he even rode out a hurricane on Horn Island.
Walter’s brother, Peter Anderson was also amazingly talented, and he opened Shearwater Pottery, and three brothers – Peter, Walter, and Mac – made pottery. It’s still run today by Jim Anderson.
There’s really been a lot of really great pottery along the coast, in addition to Shearwater. In Biloxi is the new Ohr O’Keefe Museum (architect: Frank Gehry!), dedicated to George Ohr (1857-1918), lovingly referred to as the ‘mad potter of Biloxi’. The museum was damaged in the hurricane but thankfully, their website says that the Ohr pottery is now in the vault at the Mobile Museum of Art.
If you haven’t seen George Ohr pottery before, it has this really neat abstract look – very different. It sells for *lots* of money in galleries…I don’t have any of his work, but sure would like to….
A couple of times a year, Av and I will have lunch at the Irondale Cafe in Irondale (just outside of Birmingham). Fannie Flag made the restaurant famous with her book, which was made into a movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes” – it was inspired by the Irondale Cafe when the restaurant was under the ownership of Fannie’s aunt, Bess Fortenberry.
It seems that the restaurant get lots of tourists coming in for the fried green tomatoes, which are served every day. They sell t-shirts, cookbooks, and even have their own batter mix that’s sold in grocery stores. The restaurant itself is set up as a cafeteria-style meat and three. I especially like their chicken livers, and collard greens – Av likes the fried chicken. Yum!
As for those famous fried green tomatoes, though, my favorite are the ones at Andrew’s Bar-B-Q in East Lake (another B’ham neighborhood). Â Plus, Andrew’s has this great sign:
Next weekend is one of my *favorite* weekends of the year! It’s Kentuck!
I’m *really* looking forward to seeing:
Music:
Willie King – blues, blues, blues. Oh yes. The Alabama Blues Project is trying to get a lot more attention put toward Alabama-born or -based blues musians (W.C. Handy – father of the blues, ‘Big Mama’ Thornton, Clarence Carter, etc), including a program they’re doing to get the blues into schools.
Red Stick Ramblers
Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas
Quilts:
Chris Clark
Hallie O’Kelley
Yvonne Wells
Other:
Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr with York Show Prints
Art:
Alpha Andrews
Butch Anthony
Lonnie Holley
Jimmy Lee Sudduth
…and LOTS and LOTS of others. If you can get to Northport, AL (Tuscaloosa) next weekend, do! See you there!
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