William ‘Bill’ Dunlap is the first artist-in-residence at Mississippi State for the spring 2013 semester; there will be a reception for his “William Dunlap: Look At It — Think About It” exhibit on Feb. 21 in the Cullis Wade Depot gallery at MSU.
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These are some of the Valentines I made for Av this year (remember these are Valentines, so a certain degree of goofy/corny is acceptable)!
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Lilly Ledbetter’s story will be made into a movie. She sued Goodyear in Gadsden for paying her less than her male counterparts, and won a lawsuit for $3.8MM (which was later overturned because she waited too long to file her lawsuit). There’s a Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act that’s been signed into law as of 2009.
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I took a pic of this wonderful Frank Fleming piece, entitled ‘Dogman, Rabbitman, and Soup Tureen’ dated 1988, on a visit I made to the Southern Living offices in 2009 when working on a project. That campus is *amazing*.
The Meredith – Time Warner deal sounds like it may very well happen. This means…if so…Southern Living, Coastal Living, etc will be part of the company in Iowa that owns Family Circle and LHJ. And what happens then?? Ouch.
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A statue of Rosa Parks will be dedicated on February 27, at the National Statuary Hall at the US Capitol.
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I’ve had kosher for Passover vodka, but now there’s a kosher for Passover gin.
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Saks has chocolate-covered jalapenos.
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I have a genius friend from the Nashville area, Dan Furman, who graduated from Oberlin; just last year he earned financial sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts for his musical, ‘Rip! A Story of Love, Revolution, and What is Possible‘, a variation on the Rip Van Winkle story — and is working on a new musical called ‘The Proust Virus‘. If you are ever in NYC and enjoy jazz piano, you have to see one of his shows.
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What I’m reading (just in case any of these sound good to you too — and if you know of something you’d think I’d like, contact me! thanks!):
A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty
Zelda Fitzgerald: the Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age’s High Priestess
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker: A Novel
The Art of Fermentation
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Is what we call ‘Hummingbird Cake‘ really based on the recipe for ‘Dr. Bird Cake‘ in Jamaica? Looks verrrry similar, except we put yummy cream cheese icing all over. I just found something about this — Helen Moore, a writer for the Charlotte Observer, wrote on November 23, 1986 in an article entitled Hummingbird Cake from Jamaica Remains Popular: “When it comes to cake, the Dr. Bird or Hummingbird Cake recipe has been one of the most popular through the years. Originally the recipe came to me during the late `60`s, as I recall, from the Jamaican airlines…Ruth Threat of Matthews even sent a picture of a Dr. Bird, a national symbol of Jamaica”
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Twitter feed of the week: Literally Dying.
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The New Yorker has an article (by Susan Orlean, so you know it’s going to be good) about Brendan O’Connell, who paints scenes from WalMart. He grew up in Tucker, Georgia and ‘had an epiphany’ one day at Winn-Dixie.
He’s doing a Kickstarter right now for his national art event for children called ‘EveryArtist.Me‘ and will be on Colbert on March 5 to discuss it.
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One of my Tivos is set to always record Independent Lens on PBS; I was so tickled to see that it picked up ‘Beauty is Embarrassing‘, the doc about wonderful-wonderful artist Wayne White (who grew up on Sand Mountain / Chattanooga). Here’s the trailer:
http://dgjigvacl6ipj.cloudfront.net/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf