Month: April 2008

(This is a shoe we have that L.V. decorated)

On April 15th, L.V. Hull, a famous artist from Kosciusko, Mississippi passed away and was buried at Bethlehem Church Cemetery. She was 65 years old.

L.V. started creating her art in 1975 – she said she didn’t know exactly why – and eventually as the art overflowed her home and into her yard, visitors came from all over to 123 Allen Street to see her and her creations. In fact, the city of Kosciusko’s chamber of commerce promotes it, as does the official Natchez Trace site.

A doctor in town wrote a piece about Miss L.V. that appeared in the Star-Herald:

“Jesus is coming to Kosciusko, Ms. 39090.” This was one of her favorite sayings to put on her gaily painted wooden crosses. And, indeed, Jesus came last week to Kosciusko, MS 39090 and took home one of his truly unique creations, L.V. Hull, THE Artist of Kosciusko. Although her unusual art style was often sadly underappreciated and misunderstood, it could never be ignored!

I would like to think that L.V. considered me a friend. She loved company, and once you were allowed inside her humble house which was chocked full of the interpretations of her imagination, time seemed to stand still. Her no-holds-barred brand of homespun philosophy probably didn’t sit well with some visitors, but she certainly had an uncanny knack of telling it like it was.

Last year LV. was invited to display her art at a rather prestigious exhibit at Mississippi State University. Though some quirk of fate, it fell my responsibility to get The Artist and samples of her work there. Beth and I pulled up in front of L.V.’s house in our Ford Explorer which, as you know, does not sit low to the ground. Well, try as she might, L.V. was unable to get herself into the vehicle. I finally locked my hands like the stirrup on a saddle, leaned down and had L.V. put a foot in, then hoisted her in. “Don’t worry,” she reassured us. “If you can get me in, I can fall out!”

One of the last pieces she did for me was to be given to the president of our Mississippi State Medical Association when she spoke at our component society meeting here in Kosciusko this past December. The day of the meeting I received the following message taken by my office staff: “Your package is ready. When you come by to get it, bring me two pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken (extra Crispy) and a biscuit.” Needless to say, we both ended up satisfied!

L.V.’s impact on our town will probably never be fully known, but suffice it to say, it has been considerable. Since her arrival in Heaven, I imagine that she’s probably already tried to personalize the Pearly Gates. I can just hear now. “St. Peter, ain’t that cobalt blue BAD?”

Stanley Hartness, M.D.

Some nice pics of Miss L.V.’s home and yard are here (I’m trying to find our pics of her yard, but I think the last time we were there I was still taking pics with film!).

Well, Av and I have been working on getting people together so they can help with saving Wade Wharton’s endangered (thanks to the city of Huntsville) art environment – from personal friends to people we hardly know.

Av contacted Neal Boortz yesterday (he has a nationwide radio program – smaller than Rush, but still huge), and today Neal put the link to the Huntsville Times article about Mr. Wharton’s art on his website!

“The City of Huntsville, Alabama has decided that it has the right to tell a man that the recycled art he has displayed on his private property must go.”

Mwah to my terrific husband! Yay!

I am so tickled about the response already to the post on Wade Wharton’s endangered art environment, which I put up late this afternoon!

If you’re interested in contacting mayor Loretta Spencer, her email is Loretta.Spencer@hsvcity.com. The city councilman for Mr. Wharton’s area is Bill Kling, Jr: Bill.Kling@hsvcity.com. The director of Community Development (this dept. issued the notice) is Jerry Galloway: galloway@ci.huntsville.al.us.

The Huntsville Times staff can be reached here for a letter to the editor, etc.

Thank you!

Wade Wharton lives in Huntsville. He has an amazing art environment. And the city wants to get rid of it. (Update: this has all been resolved now – after he had to go to court, but it’s been resolved)

He lives at 3100 Nassau Drive in Huntsville and is just tickled to give tours. He gets visitors all the time and is just really generous.

This is a sculpture he calls the cowboy – he’s made out of VW Beetle parts:

The Huntsville Community Development Department wants this art gone because it does not fit within their black-and-white Code of Ordinances. The H’ville Times writes that the city sent Mr. Wharton a notice because “it is unlawful to keep or store any inoperable vehicle, auto parts, metals, tree limbs, litter, debris or similar items unless such items are stored in an approved, fully enclosed and covered structure.”

That’s a problem, because Mr. Wharton makes his art by recycling things that are cast-off. Whereas other Alabama artists like Charlie Lucas and Lonnie Holley and Joe Minter (and I could go on & on) who develop their art similarly are celebrated in museums, Mr. Wharton says that what the city is threatening “worries me to death”.

All those gorgeous bottle trees in his back yard – the city wants them gone. In this clip, Mr. Wharton explains why, and at the end of the clip explains how he was told by the code enforcement supervisor that if his yard is art, that makes the landfill a museum:

He has such a wonderful sense of humor too. About one work, he said he threw down a bunch of lugnuts and “just look at what sprouted up”:

Mr. Wharton says he had a stroke when he was 36 and had always been right-brained, but after his stroke, he became “whole-brained” and gets “unique ideas”. He had another stroke before all this business with the city began. Then he says, “this is my last fight, I guess. I’m going to fight”.

It’s hard to believe that the Huntsville Museum of Art or the BMA or the High hasn’t heard of him before and put on an exhibit.

This praying mantis even moves:

It’s upsetting that this art and this artist is being threatened. I wonder what the Huntsville Museum of Art’s position on this is, and if the mayor can be persuaded to step in (I’m writing emails).

All over Alabama we are blessed with genius artists – I remember Bill Arnett, who brought the world to Thornton Dial and the Gee’s Bend quilters, was quoted as saying “Alabama is America’s answer to Tuscany”.

Rather than scaring Wade Wharton, we ought to be showering him with thanks and promoting his art environment.

—
If you’re interested in contacting mayor Loretta Spencer, her email is Loretta.Spencer@hsvcity.com. The city councilman for Mr. Wharton’s area is Bill Kling, Jr: Bill.Kling@hsvcity.com. The director of Community Development (this dept. issued the notice) is Jerry Galloway: galloway@ci.huntsville.al.us.

The Huntsville Times staff can be reached here for a letter to the editor, etc.

John McCain was in Alabama yesterday and visited Selma, Thomasville, and Gee’s Bend – Av says there’s a pic of his campaign bus on the ferry to Gee’s Bend in the B’ham News, and apparently some quilters rode over with him, singing Gospel songs. Before he left Alabama, John McCain bought three large quilts and paid $14,030 for them! Nice!

This weekend, we spent some time in the Bankhead National Forest (it’s named after Tallulah’s daddy, who served Alabama in the House of Representatives and became Speaker of the House).

The forest makes up over 180,000 acres and is just so pretty. There’s lots of hiking, canoeing that can be done on the Sipsey, and lots of things that we want to do when Shug gets a little older and can enjoy them. On this trip, we just drove all over – there are plenty of paved roads but we did a lot of backroads driving on dirt and gravel/dirt roads:

One thing we wanted to get to but didn’t was the home of Aunt Jenny Brooks Johnson:

She is a local legend and has an amazing story – her husband and oldest son were killed during the War, and her other five sons got into all kinds of trouble. I read that she said she was proud because all her sons ‘died like men, with their boots on’.

Carla Waldrep, a librarian in Haleyville, gets dressed up as Aunt Jenny and tells her story to schoolchildren and others:

One really great thing that we did find was Pine Torch. We were looking for the Pine Torch Schoolhouse and found the Pine Torch Church, which is one of the oldest remaining original log churches in Alabama.

The historic marker beside it reads:

My WPA book says that the school was .3 miles from the church, but maybe that’s something different.

Shug decided he wanted to pull one of his socks off for this pic:

One of my friends’ mother is from Southeast Alabama, and she grew up with a ‘swept’ yard. The ground is pretty sandy down where her family lived, and the children were given the job of making sure that the yard was kept well-raked/swept so that no grass would grow and ruin the look. They grew up being told that nice people who kept up their homes didn’t let grass grow in their yard!!

The New York Times did a story about swept yards back in 1993. I never knew the history behind it until I read that article. Interesting!