Happy boys! Shugie will turn two later this month! Shug is building LEGOs, riding his tricycle, drawing shapes, playing with trains… They are the most fun together, holding hands or playing chase, or other games. So sweet!
Happy Boys!
Kentuck, Part 1
Well, first, my computer is finally back (yay! yay!!) so I’ll be catching up on emails, etc. over the next couple of days. Here’s a slideshow of art by the artists at Kentuck – if you missed it yesterday, it’s still going on today…
http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
Martha Beadle, Missionary Mary Proctor, Peter Loose, Bethanne Hill, Ab the Flagman, Charlie Lucas, Lonnie Holley, Chris Clark, Yvonne Wells, Chris Beck, Yvonne Wells, Joe Minter… I’ll post several pics from the festival of all that (and more!) terrific art tomorrow!
Not Yet
Well, today my ‘good’ computer is supposed to be fixed, but just in case: Kentuck begins tomorrow and I hope to see many of you there! If all goes well, I’ll be all caught up on emails in a couple of days, too. Have a wonderful weekend!
Ouch
My main computer has passed away, and we are trying to resurrect it.
But that means all those great emails that I am needing to answer are somewhere that I can’t get to right now. Hopefully I’ll see you Thursday afternoon! xoxo
Bluff Park Art Show
We had a nice time at Bluff Park Art Show two weekends ago. The artist I can’t wait to see each time – Brenda Dailey-Parsons – was there with her fantastic work:
Ooooh, these pics are much darker than they really should be but look at all the fantastic detail in her pieces:
Swooning over this magnolia (Brenda doesn’t have a website but I have her contact information – let me know if you need it):
Chris Clark has gotten his bi-pap machine and is feeling much better; he wasn’t there early in the morning but was supposed to get there later in the day. Baptism:
This one on the bottom was the Last Supper, with each participant’s head made from a bottle cap:
I should have figured out a better way to take a pic of our friend Barry Altmark‘s photography – he is fantastic:
There were so many other great artists there: Nada Boner, Paveen Chunhaswasdikul, Amy Crews, Toby Klein, Guadalupe Robinson…many more. This coming weekend is Kentuck – more about that later…
Meeting Everywhere
Last week in the Clarion-Ledger, there was an article entitled, “Congregations Meet in Nontraditional Places“.
Last summer, the congregation was meeting in a movie theater with a 30-foot screen and recording studio that enabled it to create multimedia presentations.
Members later met in Rooster’s Blues House bar on the square, where Ward sometimes served Communion.
In March, they moved into the funeral home.
The church was founded to reach those disconnected from traditional church.
“We purposely have met in places that were beyond people’s notions of what a church would be so they would come back and hear the message or give it one more chance,” Ward said. “In the bar, there was a glowing beer sign behind us, but what was being spoken of and what we were reading about together seemed to overshadow it.
“I think the thing we have learned through all of our moving is what you really need for a church building is a place where people can focus, feel safe from distraction and the world. You want a place where people don’t feel like they are alone.”
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Shane Brown leads TurningPointe Church, a young, nondenominational congregation of about 200 members that meets in a storefront beside Pump It Up, a children’s party place, on Old Fannin Road in Brandon. It already has outgrown the space. Members hope to expand the the space from 3,400 to 6,400 square feet.
“We are unable to buy land,” Brown said. “Land in the area is $300,000 to $500,000 an acre.”
Besides, he said, “All the thinking is kind of gone that you have to have this and that, a steeple and your own standalone building. Because last year, we had 54 baptisms. That’s like one a week.
“I always think of it like a restaurant. Some of the most hole-in-the-wall restaurants are your favorite places to eat.”
Since 1926, there was a barbecue restaurant close to downtown B’ham called Ollie’s. It doesn’t exist anymore (due to a not-great decision in 1999 by a later generation to move from to far south of town from this great round building) although their sauce is still being bottled. The ‘old’ Ollie’s was famous for their sauce, pies, and sassy waitresses who memorized the orders. They were also famous for the Supreme Court case Katzenbach v. (Ollie) McClung from 1964.
Since Ollie’s isn’t around anymore, the building now houses the Grace and Truth Church.
Where the pit, the barbecue altar, once stood in the center of the building, now there’s a traditional church altar:
…and alongside the sanctuary, just on the other side of this wall on the right in the pic above, the church has a food ministry / restaurant called Kairos Kafe. And it is good:
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We travel so much, we’ve thought about doing a series of pics called “Not Your Momma’s Baptist Church”.
When most of us here in the South think of Baptist church architecture, we think of this, like New Hope Baptist in Natchez AL:
When most of us here in the South think of Baptist church architecture, we think of this, like New Hope Baptist in Natchez AL:
or this, pretty First Baptist in my hometown of Cullman:
…but First Baptist in Selma looks like this (gargoyles, even!):
and this is First Baptist in Montgomery:
On the opposite end of the spectrum, and this isn’t a Baptist church but rather a congregation meeting in a non-traditional space – is this church in Troy AL, with a galvanized metal steeple atop a mobile home:
Another great series.
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Tomorrow: pics from the Bluff Park Art Show. Later this week: a ‘real’ castle in Tennessee that we visited this past weekend. Oh! And I am so behind on my emails! I’ll get caught up today and tomorrow. I’ve got a new volunteer ‘job’ that’s been keeping me super-busy and I can’t wait to tell you about that too. Exciting! Talk with you soon! xoxo
Create An Art Car
Image courtesy rhaaga, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic. Thank you!
Lesley Silver sent us an email about this last week – she’s inviting everyone to come out tomorrow, Saturday, and make her Corolla into an art car!
Lesley owns The Attic Gallery in downtown Vicksburg (truly one of the greatest galleries featuring self-taught / visionary / outsider art anywhere, and she also carries contemporary and fine art) and has been friends with Av’s family forever. She is *wonderful* and if you’re anywhere close to Vicksburg this weekend, bring an empty Altoid tin – she’ll have plenty there if you don’t have one handy – and come ready to have fun. And of course, don’t miss the gallery. Fantastic.
The CBS station in Jackson did this story on the art car event tomorrow.
This Weekend
In Alabama:
39th Annual National Shrimp Festival, Gulf Shores
Pilgrimage, Eutaw
Tannehill Woodcarvers Show, Tannehill State Park
Indian Summer Arts & Crafts Festival, Eufaula
Oktoberfest, Cullman (a ‘dry’ Oktoberfest – no alcohol)
In Mississippi:
Fall Pilgrimage, Natchez
Fall Pilgrimage, Raymond
Art Car Creation at The Attic Gallery, Vicksburg
In Louisiana:
Red River Revel Arts Festival, Shreveport
Angola Prison Rodeo
World Championship Gumbo Cookoff, New Iberia
Fall Pilgrimage, Natchitoches
Tamale Festival, Zwolle
In Georgia:
MeccaFest Arts and Crafts Festival, Carrollton
Georgia Mountain Fall Festival, Hiawassee
Apple Festival, Ellijay
Honeybee Festival, Hahira
Oktoberfest, Helen
Sorghum Festival, Blairsville
In Tennessee:
Tennessee Fall Homecoming, Clinton (will be *wonderful*)
Oktoberfest, Nashville
Oktoberfest, Crossville
Meriwether Lewis Arts & Crafts Festival, Hohenwald, on the Trace
Picking Scuppernongs
Last year, we went to Wenker’s Vineyard in Albertville and picked muscadines. It was such a great experience that this past weekend, we went back to do it again, especially since the baby is big enough to really join in.
We pulled up and a sign read that “U-pick” was closed for the year. Now, on their website, it says that they are open for picking seven days a week between Labor Day and the end of October. Rather than turn around, I went inside to let them know (in a very nice way) that they should really change their website, considering that people like us did and will drive a long distance – with small children – only to end up disappointed.
I was told that they didn’t change the website because there’s a lot of drama going on with how it gets updated and so on & so forth…not really what I wanted to hear. Apparently all the muscadines had been picked in September. But just as I was about to leave, the gentleman’s wife (co-owner) came out and said that if we had any interest in picking scuppernongs (which are, to me anyway, muscadine’s green-hued cousin) that we could go down aisle 8 and pick those. Well, sure! The boys don’t care if they’re picking green or purple, and I’m ready to make anything out of anything, so off we were with a basket for each boy:
They had a great time!
We got home and I made scuppernong chess pie. The scuppernong flavor is there, but really-really not over the top at all. Here’s the recipe:
1 stick butter, softened
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup scuppernong juice
Dash salt
2 regular (not deep-dish) pie crusts
–This is a great chess pie recipe, if you make the milk 3/4 cup rather than 1/2 cup and omit the juice altogether. That’s why I’m putting the recipe here.–
Preheat oven to 350*. In the Kitchenaid, combine the butter and sugar. Add each egg one at a time until each is incorporated well. Add the milk, juice, and salt:
((I took 1-1/2 pints of scuppernongs and hulled them (meaning I just pinched the skins enough for the pulp and seeds to come out), mashed them in a sieve, and made about 3/4 – 1 cup of juice, much more than needed even for this recipe. You can add the extra juice to a small saucepan, add sugar to taste, and make a nice sauce for another dish, if you like.))
Baked for 15 minutes at 350* then lower the temperature to 315* for another 35-45 minutes (start checking at 30 minutes) until set – no jiggle in the middle:
It’s best the next day – I kept them both, covered, in the refrigerator. Here’s the first slice. Nice:
Now — I do want to be honest here. This was a nice slice of pie, and if you serve it and don’t say the word ‘scuppernong’ then your guests are most likely going to just think they are having chess pie. Which – to change this back to ‘regular’ chess pie, you just omit the 1/4 juice and make the total milk in the recipe to 3/4 cup. All that to say, this is a great way to use your scuppernongs. And it’s a great way to make a lemon- or lime- flavored chess pie by substituting whichever kind of juice you like in the recipe.
Scuppernongs also make a nice jelly (I made muscadine jelly last year, here) and the best thing I’ve made so far since we’ve brought these home is:
A baguette I sliced up, sauteed in a little butter, scattered with some Belle Chevre goat cheese, and a little bit of scuppernong jelly:
*That* was great.
Explorations In Antiquity Center, LaGrange GA
This past summer, we were in LaGrange, Georgia – we got there later in the day than we meant to (we were planning to take the boys to Wild Animal Safari) so we only had time to go to a place we’d only gotten the sketchiest details about: the Explorations in Antiquity Center.
Well, now that I’ve been, I’m still not too sure what to say about it.
I knew it was a place where they were trying to recreate some of the scenes from the Bible, and since Av’s been to Israel ten or eleven times and I’ve been there three times, I figured it would be something we could get ‘into’.
And I also thought it might be something like a Biblical theme park, where you walk on a path and can visit different ‘scenes’ at your liking, etc.
But it wasn’t really like that so much.
We paid our admission and were immediately asked if we knew who Dr. Fleming, the gentleman who started EiA, was (no), they acted surprised, and then we were strongly suggested to join a group to go through the exhibits.
Well.
One of the more interesting things was that they offer a ‘Biblical Meal’ for $30pp as “an example of First Century culture” which sounds interesting – what were people typically eating in the years 0-99CE? Turns out, it’s “15 different food items, including soup, salad, main course, dessert and all beverages (grape juice, water, or wine).”
I wasn’t really expecting spit-roasted whole kid goat but I guess I thought it was cute that it this ancient experience came with 21-century trappings like soup, salad, and dessert. Dining area:
Outside was the Biblical garden area, which seemed smaller than somehow expected, but included an “Israelite House” and “City Gate Judgment Chambers” and “Tomb Replicas” etc.
I feel as though I’m not being as positive about the experience as I want it to be, just because I was expecting so much more than there was. And that’s my error, not really so much a judgment of what they were offering. When religious groups attend, they probably have a much better idea of what to presume and therefore can enjoy it for what it is much more.
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Av and I were talking the other day about religious theme parks. Most people have probably heard of the Holy Land Experience in Orlando (USA Today article). It’s run by TBN, which probably most people get in their basic cable package.
Image used courtesy Old Shoe Woman under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic. Thank you!
Lots of pics of it on Flickr.
There’s more than just the Holy Land Experience in Orlando though.
Holy Land USA in Bedford, Virginia (was closed last year, but now reopened)
Bible Park USA, not yet built but planned for the Nashville area
Fields of the Wood in Murphy NC
Cabazon Dinosaurs in Cabazon CA with museum disputing Evolution
(not so much a park, but…) Christ of the Ozarks with The Great Passion Play in Arkansas; similarly, Sight and Sound Theatre in Strasburg PA and Branson MO
Creation Museum in Petersburg KY: “The museum’s striking exhibits demonstrate to guests that the Bible is the “true history book of the universe” as they take a time journey through a visual presentation of the “Seven C’s of History” according to Scripture: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross and Consummation.” Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola is closed now and was not as high-tech, but carried a similar message.
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Image used courtesy Ahia under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic. Thank you!
The new Noah’s Ark Park in Hong Kong – from the Bloomberg article:
The structure’s religious theme — drawn from Christian, Jewish and Islamic culture — has stirred admiration and ambivalence among the city’s mostly Taoist and Buddhist population. It is 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high: the ark’s builder and the city’s biggest developer, Sun Hung Kai Properties Co., claims it’s the first in the world built to measurements in the Bible.
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The most popular interactive displays include video games that score players on how quickly they feed animals in the ark and an animated show explaining how ventilation worked in the vessel and how its proportion compared favorably in terms of ocean-worthiness to the largest and most-prestigious ships of the day, such as Queen Mary 2.
Visitors delighted in a Cantonese-speaking Noah and the knowledge that the Chinese character for ship is a pictogram of a vessel with eight persons. According to the Bible, Noah boarded the ark with seven other people, including his wife.
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China may have its first religious theme park soon, called Harmony World. There’s a PDF of the intro booklet here. On page six: “From the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, the Bible is a truthful record of earthshaking moments. From the perfect harmony at the beginning of history, going through to the Great Flood and crossing the Red Sea to receive the Ten Commandments, the Park leads you into a marvelous journey through all the rise and fall in history with special 3D effects.” and “Unfolding Jesus’ 33 years on earth according to the Bible, encounter the Prince of Peace by witnessing His miraculous deeds such as changing water into wine and calming the stormy sea, and His powerful teachings that live through the ages. Through various scenic installations, virtual reality set-ups and creative performances, you will stand in awe in the presence of the heavenly kingdom.”
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Image used courtesy Lep under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic. Thank you!
Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires
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In Israel:
The Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem has many animals mentioned in the Bible, including some that have become extinct in Israel. Would **love** to see the Noah’s Ark Sculpture Park there (wow), with art by Niki de Saint Phalle. The children’s zoo in Central Park in NYC is also named in the Tisch’s honor.
Kings City in Eilat,with another description here
Genesis Land
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…and that’s only a *few* of the ones all over the world. Most of the ones (outside Israel) I found were geared towards Christians, but I wonder what other ‘theme parks’ are out there for other religions…
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