Month: January 2013

In November, Av attended a special event with Danny Ayalon, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel at the historic 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I asked him to take tons of pics for me, as I hadn’t been inside since several years ago when we were in the audience for Brian Williams’ NBC News show they broadcast as a town meeting forum from here.

Of course, the church is famous for a tragic event: the 1963 bombing that resulted ending the lives of four girls…Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. The bomb injured almost two dozen others.

There’s a memorial in another part of the building, and on one wall is a clock with a plaque: ‘This clock was located in the main sanctuary of the church. It stopped at 10:22am, the time of the bombing, September 15, 1963’ (they ask that people not take pictures of this particular memorial space).

After the bombing, people from all over sent in what accumulated to be more than $300k. Here is what has to be to most beautiful stained glass window in the city…a gift from the citizens of Wales to the church, placed upstairs in the balcony:

The day Av was there for Danny Ayalon to place a wreath at the spot where the bomb had gone off. Here he is with the mayor:

Danny Ayalon was presented with a print of the church by Reverend Price (to the right, below), and in turn he gave a gift that was in a Hazorfim box (I just asked Av and he said it was a silver pomegranate — Av was back inside the building after the event and Rev Price came up and asked Av what it signified (among others, the 613 mitzvot/commandments in the Bible)).

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This year, the city of Birmingham has events in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham civil rights movement.

Later this week, Av is meeting with an Israeli composer who is working on a piece (from al.com):
Titled “A More Convenient Season,” the 75-minute work by composer Yotam Haber will bring together the Alabama Symphony, UAB Gospel Choir and Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Children’s Choir at the Alys Stephens Center. It will incorporate archival footage and photographs, sound recordings from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute’s Oral History Project and texts from FBI reports and trial transcripts.

The work is being co-commissioned by UAB, the Stephens Center and arts philanthropist Tom Blount, and will receive its first performance on Sept. 21, 2013, six days after the 50th anniversary of the bombing. An additional performance by the CalArts Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in Los Angeles is being planned for 2014.

If you’re looking to make a Mardi Gras wreath, my directions with pics here.

I met Vernon Spicer last year at the Jerry Brown Art Festival in Hamilton.  His medium is…pasta.

If you look closely at my (not great) pic above, you can even pick out the different kinds. While many of us have embellished cigar boxes with macaroni as children, it’s quite different to see it done in a more serious tone — especially with all the history the Edmund Pettus Bridge brings out.

Last week, Al Benn had a piece in the Montgomery Advertiser as part of his ongoing series, Al Benn’s Alabama, and this time Vernon Spicer was the subject.

Asked why and how he came upon the idea, Spicer, 71, is quick to credit a dream — saying it propelled him toward one of Alabama’s most unusual artistic endeavors.

“It woke me up one night,” he said. “In it, I could see something that had a three-dimensional design, one that involved me using sticks to create.”

Audrey Spicer provided the spice to his dream, telling her husband to use pasta to achieve his goal, suggesting that the “sticks” could well have been uncooked spaghetti.

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“My most expensive piece was Brown Chapel (AME Church),” he said. “I’ve done two and taken one to art shows but haven’t sold either. I guess it’s because I’m asking $1,800.”

Brown Chapel served as the headquarters for activists who planned their strategy during historic demonstrations that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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“When I get started on one of my paintings, I put the TV on mute and use the light,” he said. “Then, I put on a pot of coffee and head into another world, working through the night.”

There’s a cemetery in Montevallo — Reynolds Cemetery — and it’s mostly known as having a monument there as the geographical center of the state of Alabama, but I actually think it’s remarkable for a different reason, below.

The monument:

It’s in front of this large rock-stacked structure:

On top: a monument for a couple of people who passed away in the late 1800s:

While it looks like so many other cemeteries from a broad perspective, this one had monuments made by a fantastic artist…

Who sculpted beautiful hands:

…not only the hands, but the sleeves:

and the different grasps:

Masonic symbols:

“In my father’s house are many mansions”:

Of course this one doesn’t have that beautiful Victorian detail, but done for a First Sergeant in Airborne during WWII, and was interesting nonetheless:

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I’ve put a lot of Montevallo pics here before, but here are just a few from that day’s visit:

Downtown Montevallo — old Quasar sign…

Professor Ted Metz‘ sculpture, ‘Becoming’, on the Montevallo campus:

Tim Tingle’s carvings at Orr Park:

From ‘Hotels of Various Wonderfulness‘ last week, one of our most fun stays was the last hotel on our winter break — the Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia.  It’s actually a Best Western Plus, and while it’s hard to get excited about that brand, I knew the hotel was historic and Queen Anne, and, well just take a look:

We were on the third floor (the ghost floor, since this hotel is supposed to be haunted — our bathroom door did lock us all out but I have a feeling one of two little boys in our room was probably playing with it…!). Anyway, all the corridors come to these fantastic little balconies:

You look down, and:

Such a pretty, pretty lobby:

And they had a gingerbread replica of the hotel:

Our room was large, and as this is an older hotel, the floors were uneven (which I thought was wonderful anyway). So, so, so pretty: