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Av and I visited Tom Hendrix, who has built the largest monument to a Native American woman, which is also the largest monument to any woman in the United States. It’s also the largest unmortared stone wall here.

Tom lives in Lauderdale County, Alabama, and was moved to build the wall in honor of his Yuchi (Euchee) great-great grandmother, Te-lah-nay, who was forcibly removed from this area of Alabama in the 1830s to be sent to the Indian Nations in Oklahoma. She later walked all the way back from Oklahoma to Alabama. She is the only person known to have successfully returned home.

Tom tells the story of his grandmother in If the Legends Fade. The book is sold from his home (also on the web and through mail-order) but not in bookstores because *all* the money from it goes to Oklahoma, where Yuchi girls are learning their native language – and these girls will also be sent to college with help from the funds. There are only a handful of people right now that know Yuchi language, so it is vitally important that it be passed down.

The book is really enjoyable, and I think would be a great story to read to children especially. It can be ordered from Tom here.

Tom’s been building the wall for about seventeen years now, and besides the rock he brings in himself, others bring him rocks from all over the world — over 120 countries.

When we left, Tom offered for us to take a couple of small stones as a remembrance. Tom’s philosophy is that anyone who should find this place, will. I won’t put directions to it (we found it on our own, too), but visitors can get more information from Tom’s website, here.

Those of you who either know me in person or through DFK know that outsider art is one of my very favorite things. I want to let you know about a book I’ve been reading that’s simply wonderful, whether this genre is of particular interest to you or whether you just enjoy a really good (nonfiction) story.

I just finished ‘The Last Folk Hero‘ last week – and it was wonderful. It was mostly centered around Bill Arnett, an Atlanta art collector/dealer, and his penchant for ‘outsider art’ – Thornton Dial (who he introduced to the world), Lonnie Holley, Gee’s Bend quilters (although they had been ‘discovered’ several times in the past, it was Bill Arnett who really gets the credit for bringing them mass attention through museum shows and the like), and others (i.e. my fave – Joe Minter, Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Charlie Lucas). BTW, my pics from visiting with Joe Minter are here in my Flickr set.

The really beautiful thing about the book is that the author, Andrew Dietz, doesn’t play sides…the reader is left to determine whether Bill Arnett is an art saviour or a devious and greedy paranoid self-promoter. Truth is, he’s seems to be all those things. His contracts with artists seem to be muddled and based on emotion, and not paper-based – and in return, he gets either unequivocal trust or (later) extreme hostility.

His ‘deals’ often (or maybe always?) include him getting first refusal on all his artists’ work: that is, he gets to see everything first and chooses for himself all their ‘best’ work. On certain levels, this seems…fair…but much of the work he purchases lingers in the dark recesses of an Atlanta warehouse rather than on museum or gallery, or even his dining room walls.

In other words, Thornton Dial’s best work is probably in a warehouse. Whatever you or I get to buy isn’t his best, because if it was, it would be in Atlanta right now.

Of course, if it weren’t for Bill Arnett, the world may never have learned of Thornton Dial. It may have been years before Gee’s Bend quilts were ever ‘rediscovered’. And so on. Do you thank him for promoting, or aim displeasure at him for hoarding what is America’s great art? Um, probably both.

…and I have to put my favorite two segments of the book here:
Arnett puts it like this, “I know how I feel about things. I know I can go to Arezzo, Italy, and look at Piero della Francesca’s frescos and melt. I mean, honestly, it’s like I’m in the presence of some kind of god. I’m a card-carrying athiest. I don’t know about what’s up in the sky guiding us, and if there is a G-d I don’t believe he gave his only begotten son to Christians, nor does the idea of Jews being the chosen people make any sense to me. But when I stand in front of Piero della Francesca’s fresco cycle of The Legend of the Cross I can’t dispute G-d…”

…and then later, he relates to Peter Marzio (and others) that:
“Alabama is America’s answer to Tuscany!”I’m hoping that whoever changed our state tourism motto from “Alabama the Beautiful” to “Alabama: State of Surprises” to “Share the Wonder” calls Bill Arnett and asks for the rights to that…hahaha!
The book is beautifully written, and it’s a great story. Not to miss in particular is the *very* interesting section about Jane Fonda (yes. Jane Fonda.), Bill Arnett, a cast and crew of family members, museum and media people, plus Lonnie Holley, Joe Minter, and Thornton Dial going to Gee’s Bend (Boykin) in a tour bus to have dinner with the quilters, having the preacher at the church there warn the congregation of the “outsiders”, Lonnie Holley in effect shutting him down, then driving on to Selma where they all walked across the Edmund Pettus bridge. Oh, and Lonnie had them all make something out of repurposed ‘stuff’ on way down, and Jane Fonda put together a…well, you can read the book for that part. But OH…my…goodness.

Since tonight begins Shavuos, I decided rather than making Av a cheesecake (because it’s traditional to have something dairy), I would make him something that he equally loves…and has plenty of dairy ingredients – his favorite lemon bars! I make these several times a year, and they always, always turn out perfectly.

Ingredients:
For the crust:
1-3/4 c. all-purpose flour (I use White Lily)
2/3 c. confectioner’s sugar
1/4 c. cornstarch
12 tbsp. butter, very cold, cut into small cubes
1/2 tsp. salt

For the lemon filling:
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/3 c. sugar
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
juice from three or four large lemons – you won’t use it all, but you’ll need enough to add to your taste
1/3 c. sweet milk
1/8 tsp. salt

Directions:
First, make the crust. Preheat the oven to 350*. Use a 13×9 baking dish (or a 8×8 like I have and use about 3/4 the recipe for the crust). Rub some butter inside the baking dish and line with parchment paper (the butter helps make the paper stick to the pan).

Take your Cuisinart and add the flour, confectioner’s sugar, and salt.
Next, add the butter a little at a time and pulse the mixture until it just starts to hold together.

Press the dough into the pan. Since this time I wanted to use my 8×8 pan, I only used about 3/4 the quantity of dough. If you’re using the bigger 13×9 pan, you’ll be using all the dough. Be sure to press it in well, and up the sides a little so when you pour the filling in later, it will make a bit of a well. Refrigerate this for 30 minutes, then cook for between 30 and 40 minutes, or until it gets to be a nice light brown. Once this comes out of the oven, lower the oven to 325*.

Next, go ahead and start the filling by squeezing the lemons for juice, and reserve.
Break four eggs into a medium-size bowl and whisk gently.

…then add the sugar, flour, milk, and salt. Add the lemon juice a little at a time and keep testing in between until you get the exact amount you like of lemon flavor.

Pour the filling gently over the still-warm crust. It’s okay if it goes over the tops of the crust a little, but you don’t want to do it too much to keep the crust from getting soggy.

Now, put this back in the 325* oven for 30-40 minutes, or until it doesn’t ‘jiggle in the middle’ – you want it just this side of *completely* set when it comes out, because it will continue to set after it comes out of the oven. Put the pan over a wire rack and let cool *at least* thirty minutes. Next, just lift out with the parchment paper, and cut into bars.

Yummy!

I noticed today when I was looking for a book on Amazon that Tinwood is publishing a new book about Gee’s Bend quilts, “Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt” – it can be preordered here. It’s due to be released November 28, 2006.

It almost looks as though these Gee’s Bend books are becoming more and more valuable – I have “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend“, and even used, it is being sold on Amazon for $90. “Gee’s Bend: The Women and their Quilts” is being sold for $275 on Amazon (and $289 on Alibris, even)!

Auburn has a site with some pics from the Freedom Quilting Bee Festival in 1966 here and many more quilt pics with some short commentaries here; a Gee’s Bend Quilt is Alabama’s ‘Official’ Quilt – and the state site has instructions on how to make it.

This was our second stay at the Marriott Shoals Hotel in Florence, and it was just as great as the first time! The room was nice, and the bed was *so comfortable*. There’s also a nice private balcony which overlooks the pool and gives a view of the river.

I also like that they supply Bath & Body Works toiletries…I really want to get a bottle of the Orange Ginger Body Lotion now!

We *almost* decided to stay an extra day because Sunday night they’re having fireworks and a “dive-in” movie at the pool — so nice.

The June issue of Conde Nast Traveler has a small feature on ‘shopping cities’ that are really good values, and one of them is Santa Fe. Av and I went to Santa Fe in 2001 – we were going to Denver and decided to drive rather than fly so we could see and do more things along the way (and out-of-the-way). Some of the highlights were: being touristy and having lunch at The Big Texan in Amarillo (although Av didn’t try to eat the 72 oz. steak); ‘catching’ a giant tumbleweed in Dumas and putting it in the back of the car so that when we arrived at our hotel in Denver, the bellmen just looked at each other like we were crazy (we still have it – it hangs high above in the set of stairs that leads from the first to second floor of our house); driving on Route 66; Av finding the best country fried steak in the universe in Tucumcari, New Mexico; spending a few days in Denver; the day we spent in Cheyenne, Wyoming; and the couple of days we spent in Santa Fe.

In Santa Fe, we stayed at the Hotel St. Francis, which Conde Nast recommends in this month’s issue. We had wanted to stay at the Eldorado Hotel, which is a 4-diamond hotel with kivas in the rooms, but if I remember correctly, they were booked and we hadn’t tried to make reservations in advance. Anyway, the St. Francis was great – it was right at the Plaza, and the room was just fine. We did eat supper one night at the Eldorado’s The Old House restaurant (which on their website mentions that Zagat rated them ‘best in NM’ and is also 4-diamond) – it was *soooo amazing*…we loved it. We also spent lots of time at the Plaza, and also did some gallery shopping, which was really, really fun.

One of things we didn’t do last time but was mentioned in the article is the Friday-Sunday Tesuque Pueblo Flea Market where it says that “nearly 500 artisans offer their handcrafted pieces tax-free.” That sounds wonderful! I’d also like to see the Museum of International Folk Art there the next time we go. Fun!