Tow Truck
Lipscomb AL, 2019.
This Week’s Various
Larry Harris’ map to art environments in Europe has been published, and it was made with the very generous help of one of my other friends, Henk Van Es. PS if you’re not on Larry Harris’ holiday card list, you want to be.
Purrissima is in the High’s permanent collection. From a visit last year
Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature opens at the High on February 24
Participating artists in the Outsider Art Fair New York March 2-5 special ‘We Are Birds‘ curated space:
William Edmondson, Beverly Buchanan, Minnie Evans, and Bill Traylor
Dairy Queen in Andalusia AL, from a 2020 visit
The Great Texification of Dairy Queen at Texas Monthly
…and yes, I once lived in a town in Texas with the only restaurant being a Dairy Queen.
A 3-D model of Salvation Mountain
The Hometown That Drew Jimmy Carter Back Keeps Vigil at the NYT:
“I think he’s America’s Gandhi,” he said. “We need him.”
Super Random:
Barbie’s Dreamhouse through the decades at dezeen
Party with Lightning Bug by Oak Tree at storySouth
The Archdiocese of New Orleans has released a list of fish fry events at Catholic churches around New Orleans
This wedding cake pavilion by artist Joana Vasconcelos
Nathalie Miebach’s sculptures
The 1830 Cedars Plantation in Natchez is on the market at $3M. Save $1M by choosing 1836 Devereaux instead.
The owners of Hopson Plantation in Mississippi are retiring and it’s for sale
from a 2016 visit
Photographer Robert LeBlanc will have a solo exhibit at Fahey/Klein in LA for his images from serpent-handling churches in West Virginia. From the press release:
“This is a sympathetic insight into a tradition more maligned than understood. This is their story and a view of a faith that many believe is fated to be abandoned. However, any obituary for this tradition is but foolish speculation. The obituary will never be written. Core photographs in GLORYLAND, focus upon Chris Wolford and his church. The picture of a rattlesnake on Chris’s bible during a homecoming is prophetic. Mark 16:17-18 clearly states that “And these signs shall follow them that believe…(Mark 16:17)”
“Gloryland” runs January 24 – 28 with a reception and book signing Friday, Jan 27
Rick Rojas’ article in the NYT: An Ailing Arkansas City Elected an 18-Year-Old Mayor to Turn Things Around
The shoe factory closed and the supermarket pulled out. So did neighbors whose old homes were now falling apart, overtaken by weeds and trees. Likewise, the best students at Earle High School often left for college and decided their hometown did not have enough to lure them back.
Jaylen Smith, 18, could have left, too. Instead, when he graduated from high school last spring he resolved to stay put in Earle, a small city surrounded by farmland in the Arkansas Delta, where his family has lived for generations.
He’s taking online classes at ASU and paraphrased a verse from Habakkuk: “write a vision, make it plain.”
The Eudora Welty Digital Archives is up at the MDAH
William Edmondson’s 1950 Eagle, from a visit to the Houston Museum of Fine Art in 2021
Through May 14, the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture in Knoxville will have 12 sculptures on view with their “The Sculptures of William Edmondson: Tombstones, Garden Ornaments and Stonework” exhibition in partnership with Cheekwood Estate & Gardens.
Ted Degener: At Home with Artists at Intuit January 19 – September 4, 2023. From the site:
Ted Degener (American, b. 1948) has spent more than 50 years road-tripping across the United States seeking encounters with the makers of art environments—artists who transformed personal spaces like homes, gardens and studios into continually evolving, site-specific and life-encompassing works of art. Degener’s pursuit was set in motion in 1970 after he learned about Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles, inspiring his first cross-country road trip. This initial trip sparked a fascination that resulted in Degener photographing more than 400 artists in and with their work, in addition to roadside attractions, eccentric festivals and other American cultural activities. To this day, he continues to travel the country to photograph the art and life of artists.
Among the pics Intuit shows are his visits to Dr Charles Smith’s other home in Illinois, Rev George Kornegay’s place in Brent AL, LV Hull’s home in Kosciusko MS, and in their winter publication, he mentions Margaret’s Grocery.
A visit to L.V. Hull’s home in 2009
Margaret’s Grocery, from a 2011 visit
Speaking of, Suzi Altman, who’s been restoring Margaret’s Grocery, has been doing some painting, so it should be looking much more vivid soon. I gave a few years ago; the GoFundMe to restore the site is up currently too.
Whole Foods, 2013
Will Harris of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia wants people to know — he’s been a celebrated supplier of grass-fed beef & other products at Whole Foods — that Amazon is Amazon-ing Whole Foods, and he’s not supplying them any more.
Jewboy Burgers, from a 2021 visit
Can’t even say how much we all love Jewboy Burgers in Austin, and so happy to see Mo in Texas Monthly
In Turkey there are the ice cream guys and in Corpus Christi, there’s popcorn guy
😉 – Céline Dion</a> </section> </blockquote> <script async src=”https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js”></script>
@oanderle This was totaly awesome! 😃 #oanderle #popcornguy #movie #cctx #thepopcornguy #popcorn #avatar2 #corpuschristitx #corpuschristi ♬ My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from “Titanic”) – Céline Dion
xoxo!
Ginger
Hokus Pokus
Hokus Pokus Liquor
Alexandria LA, 2013.
Trust
In G-d We Trust Small Engine Repair
Guin AL, 2019.
Elvis Elvis Elvis
We had THE most fun earlier this month at an Elvis tribute artist show. OMG. We first saw this performer, Terry Padgett, at a holiday event at The Club, then I looked to see where he’d be performing just a couple of weeks ago, and found him at a restaurant that has all kinds of performers (heavy on the gospel side) in rural Walker County, Alabama. We had just the best cheesy fun before and I was all about doing something like this again.
at The Club, December 2022
I mean we laughed, we sang…it was just sweet and funny. I’ll put some random Elvis pics at the bottom of this post, but first, this performance in Walker County:
Haaaa I was “scarfed” by Elvis and we both look crazy goofy in this pic!
Just the best, sweetest fun. We laughed so hard! Okay, now let’s really talk Elvis. I’m not a huge fan, but he certainly occupies a certain amount of space and respect in my consciousness as a southerner who started out small and captured the attention of the world. Okay, I do love some Elvis.
We’ve been to Tupelo to the Birthplace Museum; his home:
The museum’s chapel:
Tupelo Hardware, where Gladys famously bought her son his first guitar:
…and the story isn’t exactly as many people know it:
Johnnie’s in Tupelo, where Elvis would frequent (and they have an Elvis booth):
The Arcade in Memphis, where you can still order a peanut butter and banana sandwich, just as he did
And LAWD, Graceland Too in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where Leslie and I toured/survived, and Paul MacLeod gave me a membership card
Elvis in Israel:
A Ned Berry Elvis face jug:
Stereo Jack’s in Cambridge MA:
Clyde Broadway’s Trinity at the Ogden:
At Square Books in Oxford:
A 1991 Howard Finster of Elvis in Army Uniform at the High
Elvis at Corky’s in Memphis
Elayne Goodman’s Altar to Elvis at the Ogden
My fave, from the Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioing Art from Paper exhibit at Dixon Garden & Gallery in Memphis, from a visit in 2017
Isabella.
Isabella United Methodist Church
Isabella AL, 2020.
Pizza Neon.
Pizza Bar
Carbon Hill AL, 2019.
Cornelia’s Oranges and Oranges and Oranges and Bell Peppers
Orange Squeeze, New Orleans, 2017
George Wallace’s daughter Peggy wrote The Broken Road (here on Bookshop, here on Amazon) about her experience growing up in that family, and one of the lighter bits (there’s plenty of serious, so the more comical parts are very welcome) is about how one Christmas, George’s second wife Cornelia decided to do an orange-themed holiday.
Gibeau Orange Julep, Montreal, from a 2005 visit
“Cornelia imported a chef to assist the kitchen staff with the preperation of our ‘Christmas a l’Orange’ extravaganza. Two large candelabra holding orange-scented candles sat amid orange blossom bouquets in the middle of the mansion dining room table.
Orange rolls, The Club, Birmingham AL
Orange Rolls, The All Steak, Cullman AL
We sipped fresh-squeezed orange juice in the First Lady’s Room and then sat down to a dinner of duck a l’orange, creamed sweet potato orange cups, orange-glazed squash, orange bread pudding, and ambrosia. Daddy surveyed the Christmas feast.”
Mark Rothko: Orange, Red and Red, at the Dallas Museum of Art, from a 2014 visit
Anyway, George asks Cornelia what’s going on, she explains the obvious, he says the only time he got an orange growing up was at Christmas when what he really wanted was a bicycle, and at that point, he pushed a buzzer that alerted the kitchen and asked them to bring him some barbecue. Ha!
Get the FO — Frosted Orange, from a 2014 visit to The Varsity in Atlanta
Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life of Oranges and Lemons wiht Blue Gloves, National Gallery of Art in DC, from a 2019 visit
Ellsworth Kelly, Oranges, LaGrange Art Museum in LaGrange GA from a 2022 visit
Golden Orange dispenser at Candlelight Antiques, Elkmont AL, from a 2022 visit
And now for the bell peppers part:
When the Washington Post reported about marital trouble between the Gov and Cornelia, they wrote MRS WALLACE MOVES OUT OF THE MANSION: A dark-haired mystery woman went around Montgomery at night, distributing photocopies of a divorce petition to newspapers, TV, and radio stations. One local TV reporter received a call from a woman who instructed him to go to a supermarket to the produce section and look beneath a pile of bell peppers. And there, among the peppers, was a petition for divorce.
The dark-haired woman was Cornelia, and the masthead of the petition read “In the Matter of Cornelia Wallace v. George Corley Wallace.”
We Come with the Keys
Sonny Livingston Bail Bonds
Montgomery AL, 2007.
The Mac Dad’ll Make You Jump Jump
5lbs frog legs $26.99
D&T Store Clarksdale MS, 2005.