Month: May 2011

Since we were already in Mississippi, we figured we couldn’t do any better for the boys than to take them to the Vicksburg National Military Park for Memorial Day weekend.  We’ve been here a half-dozen times, but this was the first time the boys were old enough to really enjoy it (the ride is about an hour long to see all the memorials).  This is the one for Illinois:

Inside, this mural on the floor:

Stand on the mural and look straight up:

This monument is a great place for people to get out and walk around, and kids to run around.  Shug and Shugie enjoyed being in the spotlight:

Not all the monuments are this big and stately (Illinois’ is the best in this sense) — in general, though, the ones that the northern states had built here are more grandiose than the Southern states’ ones.  This is the one for Alabama:

…and Tennessee:

We were in Jackson this weekend for a couple of different reasons, but one of the main ones was to see a speaker at Beth Israel: Rabbi Philip Posner, who was a Freedom Rider that spent 39 days at Parchman.  He was a *wonderful* speaker.  Wonderful-wonderful.  The sanctuary before services on Friday evening:

We had a great time, the boys had a great time, and we finally stayed at the 1923 King Edward Hotel in downtown which has been completely renovated into a Hilton Garden Inn (the room seemed much smaller than all the other HGIs we’ve stayed at, but it was okay).

One morning, we had breakfast at Brent’s Drugs (since 1946) in Fondren, which is such a great neighborhood.  This mural between Brent’s and McDade’s  was put up last year when filming for The Help was going on here:

This sign welcomes yankees into Brent’s:

Inside, oh the retro goodness:

Aqua boomerang laminate?  Oh yes:

I’ve been here before but this was the first time for the boys who are now big fans of their pancakes (and of course the lemonade):

Their website: “One of Jackson’s Original Drug Dealers” and “Brent’s Drugs, Where All of the Employees are Jerks”.

Last month we went out to see the ruins of the Forks of Cypress plantation near Florence.  It burned down in 1966 after being struck by lightning; these are pics of it from the Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress, by Alex Bush in 1934:

It was built around 1830, and the gentleman who owned it was famous for raising thoroughbreds.  One of the most interesting things about the plantation, though, is that some of Alex Haley’s (author of ‘Roots‘) ancestors, including his grandmother, were slaves here at Forks of Cypress.  His book, Queen, named after his grandmother, was based here.  This is a pic of one of the slave cabins:

The chimney is still there:

The Regions bank in downtown Florence was built to be a replica of Forks of Cypress:

Beginning in 1882, Sloss Furnace produced iron.  It hasn’t been making iron commercially in that same way for years, but it is open for artists to come and do their work — and over the last week or two, my friend Suzanne and I have been there to make our own cast iron art.

They gave us each a sand mold for a platter, and onto that mold, we carved our designs.  Suzanne did a nice hand motif, and I decided to draw tomatoes and okra.  Of all the implements we could use, I drew most of mine with a large nail.

Oh, and I can’t draw, really, but you don’t need an incredible amount of technical talent to do this kind of thing.  Some simple tomato shapes, okra pods, and a tomato slice:

The deeper you draw the outlines, the deeper the cast iron will sink in so that when it’s cast, the lines pop out even more on the finished piece.

My favorite part of the surroundings was this safety sign:

It was pretty dark when we left, which made looking back at where we had been even prettier:

Early the next week, they did the pour and out came our cast iron platters.

Suzanne’s taking this further and is even attending a class on sculpture.  There’s a listing of all the classes at the Sloss calendar.

Phillis Wheatley was a poet — the first slave and the third woman in the US to publish a book of poems.  She was kidnapped in West Africa, and brought to Boston in 1761 to be a servant for a woman.  Phillis did not enjoy good health but she learned English, Latin, and Greek classics.

In 1767, she published ‘Poems on Various Subjects’ and that same year the man who had ‘purchased’ her had her emancipated.  She even did a book tour that took her to London.  She met George Washington, and Voltaire complimented her on her poetry.

No wonder that a school in Treme (in New Orleans), or anywhere really, would want to be named after someone who accomplished so much in so little time, under such circumstances.

In 1955, the Phillis Wheatley school was built.  The architect was Charles Colbert, who designed it with 22 classrooms for 770 students.  The structure was raised, giving children additional space to play underneath, in the shade of the building.  It’s cantilevered, has open corridors for accessibility to rooms, and enjoys bilateral lighting and cross ventilation. It’s a steel and glass Modernist beauty.

And it didn’t get water from Katrina: the three feet or so did not reach the first floor by virtue of the building being built raised.  Afterwards, though, the school was not reopened and it sits now slated for demolition late this summer.

The Louisiana Landmarks Society named the school to the 2008 New Orleans Nine Most Endangered Sites.

This is the huge part: it is considered so important that the World Monuments Fund (!!) added the Phillis Wheatley school in Treme to its 2010 watch list.  


This new (wonderful) video discusses the Phillis Wheatley school — its meaning to the community, and its significance architecturally:

A Plea For Modernism from Evan Mather on Vimeo.

While looking up what other sites the World Monuments Fund seeks to bring attention to, I found its annual lists for several years.  Inside are photographs and descriptions of the most incredible, dream-like places around the world…

Last month on the way back from Jackson, I stopped in Meridian at Rose Hill Cemetery where the Royal Roma Mitchell family is (they’re seriously Roma royalty).

Queen Kelly Mitchell died in 1915 while giving birth at a camp in Coatopa, Alabama (which is west of Demopolis). Her family brought her to Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian to be buried. A recollection of that event can be found at this very good site that also refers to the rest of the family of Emil Mitchell, who was Kelly’s husband, the “King of the Gypsies”.

Along with Kelly Mitchell are buried her husband, Emil, who died in 1942 close to Attalla (AL), Flora Mitchell (Emil’s sister), Joe “Sharkie” Mitchell and Princess Diana Sharkey Mitchell, Slatcho Mitchell, Helen and Frank Mitchell, Mehil Mitchell, Lawrence Mitchell, Nicholas Gulumba, Costa George Bimbo, and Ovdoikia George Bimbo.

People leave things there — Mardi Gras beads, coins, fruit, jewelry, dolls, liquor, you name it:

I’ve been photographing this same site three or four times a year since 2004 or 2005.  This is the way Kelly’s picture looks today:

…and this is how it looked when I photographed it in 2005:

Among the collection this day include a superhero doll, a tin of gum, and a lighter:

A set of the pics is on Flickr here.