Month: November 2013

As usual, we made tons of pies this year.  Some for our family’s Thanksgiving supper, a couple go with us to Cullman for Thanksgiving lunch, and the rest go to a church that feeds the hungry on Thanksgiving (at the grocery store, it was the pie version of Bubba in Forrest Gump when they asked what kinds of pies I was making: pumpkin, egg custard, pecan, chocolate pecan, buttermilk coconut, chocolate meringue…).

What things looked like in 2005 — that may have been the first year I went all-out at Thanksgiving.  I used to deliver 7-10 pies to that church every weekend too.  I…I have a love for pie.  How can you be anything but happy with a slice of pie?  And even happier sharing the pie love.  There are some apple pies in the mix here:

In 2011, I see some coconut meringue pies, chess pies, and hot fudge pies too  Oh!  See that big coffee urn on the marble table, there by the window?  That has a plaque on it with the company’s name of my husband’s family’s old restaurant supply business, so it’s like this great reminder.  We found it in an antique store where they were thinking about turning it into a lamp.  Whew.  You know how some families have a samovar that’s been handed down for generations?  We have a giant commercial coffee urn:

In 2012, some Pawley’s Island pies were included — these are the favorite of my and Av’s BB/BS little brother, so we call that recipe ‘Danny Pie’ here at home:

This year’s pies — thirty-three!  I think that’s a new record for us.

And we had the great good fortune of having Thanksgiving fall during Chanukah, so the boys helped me make some shapes with pie crust and we made a dreidel pumpkin pie for our family:

…and some others!  Happy Thanksgivukkah!

—
Hope your Thanksgiving is meaningful and delicious.  xoxo!

“Life in the Mississippi Cotton Belt” is the Section work in the Hazlehurst, Mississippi post office — the artist was Auriel Bessemer, paid $700 for this oil on canvas work.  It was completed in 1939.

Auriel Bessemer was a Columbia University grad from Grand Rapids, Michigan and was hired for two other works in post offices, one in Arlington, Virginia, and another in Winnsboro, South Carolina.  Bessemer also completed murals for the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.

From the National Register application:
Bessemer’s Hazlehurst mural is representative of the type of art work generated by the Treasury Department’s Section of the Fine Arts in the 1930s and early 1940s. It depicts in a realistic style “the American scene” as it would have been understood in Hazlehurst, a rural Mississippi community with a diversified economy. “Life in the Mississippi Cotton Belt” symbolizes the New Deal’s attempt to educate and inspire Americans…

further, in the application:
The Hazlehurst Post Office and mural illustrate how the Federal government through Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s leadership transformed its role from one of “neutral arbiter to social welfare activist”, a role the government has retained down to today. Hazlehurst, along with the rest of rural Mississippi, suffered greatly during the Great Depression. The construction of Hazlehurst’s post office and the painting of its mural demonstrate how the Federal government sought to
alleviate the economic hardships of an American community through work relief while also attempting to hearten and encourage that community through public beautification (Craig 1979: 343)

—
The Crystal Springs post office has this 1943 oil on canvas by Henry La Cagnina, trained at Cooper Union, who also was paid $700 for the work.  It is entitled ‘Harvest’.  In 1992, the artist was contacted by phone prior to the the National Registry application, and stated that a restoration on the work was detrimental in that the work lost its ‘pearly gray tonality’. While many artists who worked for the Treasury in doing these ‘Section’ works lived in some other area of the country, La Cagnina was once in Florida and moved to Hattiesburg where he exhibited his work.

From the application:
…Although local tradition holds that the farm workers depicted in the mural were residents of Crystal Springs, La Cagnina states that the people in the mural sprang from his imagination. Nevertheless, the mural was quite appropriate for a community which had once been known as the “Tomato Capital of the World”.

…”Harvest” is representative of the type of art work generated by the Treasury Department’s Section of the Fine Arts in the 1930s and early 1940s. The oil-paint-on-canvas mural depicts in a realistic style “the American scene” as it would have been understood by a community such as Crystal Springs whose livelihood depended on truck farming. Its appeal and significance to Crystal Springs is apparent due to the tradition among locals that Mr. La Cagnina made sketches of workers on the nearby experiment station grounds in preparation for the mural and that local people are portrayed in the painting. A mural disliked and unappreciated by its community could hardly have generated such a persistent rumor. Also, the restoration of the mural, though deemed inappropriate by the artist, is an indication of Crystal Springs’ continuing commitment to the La Cagnina work…

Inside the post office, Av ran into someone who took interest in him photographing the mural.  She told him about how they used to wrap each tomato individually (which is why at first glace, it looks as though the workers are packing giant plums).  She also said that the artist’s son brought him in to the post office one day to visit the mural and how upset he was at the restoration.  Av mentioned that they must have one of the less controversial murals (there’s been discord at other post offices, one instance in Columbus and another in Texas, for example) and she didn’t see why anyone would have any problem with any mural depicting the cotton crop, that she picked cotton herself when she was young, and there’s no shame in that, no matter who you are.

—
This mural of a peanut farmer, done by Charles Johnston in Colquitt, Georgia in 2010 is terrific.

—

Both Crystal Springs and Hazlehurst have Robert Johnson museums (he was born on the outskirts of Hazlehurst and stayed there again when he learned and played with Ike Zinnerman, and Robert’s son Claude Johnson’s foundation runs the museum in Crystal Springs).

There’s a 20 foot tall mural of Robert Johnson that was just completed in Chattanooga.

—
http://videoplayer.vevo.com/embed/Embedded?videoId=USSM21100796&playlist=false&autoplay=0&playerId=62FF0A5C-0D9E-4AC1-AF04-1D9E97EE3961&playerType=embedded&env=0&cultureName=en-US&cultureIsRTL=False

In 2007, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis wrote about this gorgeous ca. 1857 ‘Columbus Eclectic’ (because it has Italianate, Gothic, and Greek Revival elements) 8000 sq ft home that’s now furnished with many John Henry Belter pieces:

As a founder and co-owner of Crye-Leike Realtors, Dick Leike is used to seeing “For Sale” signs in yards.

But there was no sign in the front yard of White Arches, a majestic 1857 home in Columbus, Miss., when Dick and his wife, Jo Anne, first saw it five years ago.

“People in this town love these homes so much when they do put them up for sale they don’t put signs in the yard,” Jo Anne said. “If they really like you, they might sell you their house.”

—
This NYT article from 1998 goes into the state of the house at that time, and goes on to mention Mallard beds (we should all sleep in a Mallard bed at least once, right?).  For a time, it was a BandB with five rooms.

—
Another historic Columbus home, the 1837 Temple Heights, is on the market right now at $782k.  It is *gorgeous* and has a punkah (if you like those too, take a look at the punkah George Washington had in his study at Mt Vernon — he could operate it himself, with pedals) which some people simply call a ‘shoofly fan’ and an electric version, not particularly 1830s-ish, can be purchased here.

Also on the market:
ca 1840 Weatherbee in Byram, MS
ca 1840 Cedar Grove (Cedar Grove Inn) in Vicksburg MS
ca 1860 Kenworthy Hall in Marion AL — the Richard Upjohn Italianate

—
And the large, unrestored LeBeau Plantation home in St. Bernard Parish was set ablaze this month, and is a total loss.  It was once the largest plantation south of New Orleans.  It now looks as though this arson was the work of several ‘thrill-seekers’.
//player.vimeo.com/video/19149964

Market Noel in Birmingham is a few notches above the general holiday exhibitor show, and after hearing that my friends Kristin and Sulynn were going to be there, with Black Belt Treasures (BBT is the shop in Camden, Alabama that carries and promotes the work of artisans in the Black Belt, and one of my very favorite places in the whole state to shop, so having them here in Birmingham was not to be missed (plus I just love those girls)).

Well, there weren’t any big surprises about what would be on display from the other exhibitors — there was a chevron and monograms, and monograms on chevron. There were cheese straws and glittered banners and vintage jewelry pieces, and clothes, clothes, clothes.  But it was so nice to walk over to BBT and have these terrific unique, handmade artisan pices.

Two of the best booths were/are (the market goes through Saturday) Black Belt Treasures (of course) where they have Gee’s Bend quilting — lots of potholders which, trust me, make great holiday presents — and Charlie Lucas art, and baskets, paintings, rustic pieces, and pottery.

Here’s Kristin Law’s pottery available at the BBT booth from her Possum Pottery and Jewelry studio:

…and she made this armadillo necklace which of course came home with me:

Next, Favor Candles, which was started by sisters Marie and Susan, and *ohmystars* the scents of these.  I asked why the name ‘Favor Candles’ and got this very hopeful, heartwarming reason, which is also in part on here: ‘…found themselves praying for favor for each other, friends, family, careers, in sickness, in health, and much more.’  Here, not only are the candles for sale but also the rustic fixtures which are made by another family member:

Some candles feature quotations from the Bible, and others from philosophers great and small.  I came home with one scented as sandalwood gardenia.  Other choices include red currant orange, citrus tarragon, brown sugar fig…

The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society is housed at the University of Alabama and you would think maybe this kind of thing never happened.

—
From March 7 – August 15, 2014, the Misissippi Museum of Art will show ‘This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement’:

Four years in the making, This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement is a paradigm-shifting exhibition that presents the Civil Rights Movement through the work and voices of nine activist photographers—men and women who chose to document the national struggle against segregation and other forms of race-based disenfranchisement from within the movement. The core of the exhibition is a selection of 157 black-and-white photographs, representing the work of photographers Bob Adelman, George Ballis, Bob Fitch, Bob Fletcher, Matt Herron, David Prince, Herbert Randall, Maria Varela, and Tamio Wakayama.

—
USA Today writes of Auburn’s Rural Studio today.

—
From TrueToUS:

Suddenly wondering how irritated Nelle Harper Lee’s lawyers get, and at what, these days.  There’s a ‘Boo Radley’s Deli‘ at the mall in Decatur, Alabama and another ‘Boo Radley’s’ sandwich shop in Muscle Shoals, and Radley’s Fountain Grille right in Monroeville (unsure if these have permission to use the name).  From a bar in Toronto to a bakery in Salt Lake, there are a few iterations of Boo (Boo = obviously taken as a multi-talented character) once or still in business.

Law360 from Lexis-Nexus reports that the Monroe County Heritage Museum, which Lee’s lawyers are suing on her behalf — Miss Nelle is not well and one wonders what and why this is all suddenly about — has asked a federal judge to dismiss the case:
…said Lee’s claims were barred by the doctrine of laches because she “slumbered” on her right to sue for at least 18 years after the museum began operating in 1992.

…Lee, who just wrapped up a separate lawsuit against her agent over royalties from the book, sued the museum last month, claiming it wrongfully uses her name and the title of the famed novel to advertise the museum, to sell souvenirs, and for the URL http://www.tokillamockingbird.com.

In addition to merely waiting too long to bring those claims, the museum said Wednesday that Lee had visited the site on several occasions and had twice contacted the museum to object to certain products — meaning she was well-aware of the operation.

“The defendant and the plaintiff have had a friendly relationship in the past,” the suit said…

The museum also listed various other reasons for tossing the suit, like fair-use defense and the fact that Lee has no federal trademark registration for the name.

—
From The Atlantic: The Best City for the Next Generation of Artists Just Might be Jackson.  You know, Mississippi.

—
The subSIPPI trailer that’s mentioned in the Atlantic article above is here, and yes yes yeeeessssss:
//player.vimeo.com/video/58493295

—
Mike and Ed’s Barbecue in Columbus, Georgia had a fire costing an estimated $30k of damage.

—

Use here via CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 — thank you Wigwam Jones!

And *another* Heidelberg Project house (the record house this time) in Detroit fell to arson this week:
“No, we won’t give up or give in,” Whitfield said. “We will continue to positively impact our community through art. When I stop and reflect on what 2013 has brought with these series of fires, I am convinced that we are on to something very powerful. If this were not the case, negativity would not rear its ugly head. However, we were not stopped by bulldozers and we will not be stopped by acts of arson. Instead we WILL become smarter, stronger and even greater… We cannot do this alone and are reaching out to our supporters in Detroit and around the world to help us secure and strengthen the Heidelberg Project, a legacy in the making for sure.”

—

(above: still life at old Greenbrier, with the ever-present white sauce)

Eatocracy at CNN ran ‘5 Southern Dishes that Deserve a Comeback‘ — and while for many of us ambrosia, fried bologna, bread and butter anything, and benedictine never went out in the first place — the inclusion of ‘Alabama White Sauce’ as #5 is bewildering.  When did the author think white chicken sauce was on the wane, and why is he not aware of its steady gain in popularity?  Someone somewhere please do your doctoral thesis on the history and rise of the use of what many of us from north/central Alabama simply call ‘chicken sauce’ and why hushpuppies everywhere, especially those from old Greenbrier — were meant to take a little swim in it.  And to make matters worse, to not even mention Big Bob Gibson’s (Big Bob developed white sauce in the first place) in that paragraph is a shanda.

Business Insider did a little feature on the best sandwiches in America, and Alabama’s was the chicken sandwich with white sauce.  Mississippi = pig ear, Georgia = fried chicken sandwich, Louisiana = poboy, naturally.  People in Idaho eat potato salad sandwiches with toasted bread.

—
From Austin’s 90.5: Here’s What Austin’s Newest Housing for the Chronically Homeless Looks Like.