Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
Hills Chapel Community School was built in 1910 for black students, from grades 1-6. It sat empty for 25 years until 1985, when it was purchased (for $3500 at auction the year before) to become a restaurant. Four generations of the owner’s family have worked here — just really good people (seriously, read their FB posts).
We last ate here last year, and because of Covid reasons, just masked up, got a go-plate, and ate in the car. Love this place.
Pie safe, baybeeeee
You *know* you’re in the south if they’ve got camp stew by the quart
Thinking of other restaurants in Alabama with similarities to Red’s — White House in Warrior also lines their walls with portraits of the presidents, and I wish I had taken pictures but we’ll have to settle for this pic of chicken, greens, and green beans:
To celebrate the reopening of New Orleans’ St Roch Chapel — dedicated originally in 1876 in gratitude for the saint’s intercession in protecting the city against yellow fever — last month, Father Patrick Williams, vicar general for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, led a prayer ceremony. The restoration, which took four years, also won a 2022 Louisiana Landmarks Society Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation earlier in the month. The building is officially the National Shrine of St Roch.
I know the room just off the chapel for what it holds inside — rhe pictures interspersed above and below are from some of my visits there.
St. Roch Chapel’s most famous interior feature was left largely untouched – the grotto-like room holding ex-votos – cast replicas of limbs, leg braces, crutches, children’s shoes and other tokens of gratitude for St. Roch’s healing intercession – survives as a historical freeze-frame of the prayers of past pilgrims.
St Roch was a “Third Order Franciscan who devoted his life to caring for victims of the bubonic plague and was credited with miraculous cures. Born in 1295 in Montpellier, France, St. Roch is the patron saint of the sick, invalids, dogs and dog lovers.
When New Orleans was plagued with wave after wave of yellow fever in the late 19th century, Father Peter Leonard Thevis, pastor of nearby Holy Trinity Church, asked his parishioners to pray to St. Roch for his intercession. In gratitude for a lull in disease outbreaks, Father Thevis’ flock erected the chapel in 1876 as a monument of gratitude.”
Leaders said the chapel will host a Healing Mass on the first Friday of each month at 10, open to all, especially to those in need of healing. More here: nolacatholiccemeteries.org.
I brought a friend out to Pursell Farms outside Sylacauga, Alabama this month; I’ve only ever been once before, and it’s absolutely gorgeous there. Leslie and I just found it by accident the first time and drove the grounds, enjoyig the scenery and especially seeing the longhorns
This time, my friend and I stopped for lunch at Old Tom’s Pub there, with a view of the golf course
This happens to be Jim Nabors’ 1903 Brunswick pool table (he was from Sylacauga, and friends with the Pursell family) – more abou that, and the object below, in this article.
The other sit-down restaurant is Arrington, which at the moment only seems open for supper on Friday and Saturday, with reservations on OpenTable.
The resort also features other activities, like axe throwing, archery, a UTV experience (I’m putting together a group this summer for that)…
There’s a 40-room Inn down this hallway, plus detached cabins and cottages, an 8-bedroom lodge, and the Orvis farmhouse.
They do a good number of corporate meetings and weddings here too; I’ll do another update once we go back for the UTV trip!
Ack, I’m so behind on doing a TWV and updating in general (tons of updates coming, but I def want to get this posted, even if it’s not everything! xoxo!)
As always, all images unless otherwise noted copyright Deep Fried Kudzu. Like to use one elsewhere? Kindly contact me here.
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Margaret’s Grocery, from a visit almost 20 years ago
We were thrilled to get the word that the Kohler Foundation would be restoring Margaret’s Grocery in Vicksburg, but then came the word that they won’t be, and it’s not 100% clear yet what happened.
“Gee’s Bend often gets mythologized as if it lives behind us,” Russell shared during a press preview of The New Bend at Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea, continuing, “I think it’s really important to understand that the Gee’s Bend quilters are creating in the world right now alongside every single [artist] in this room.”
Is there is a piece of Southern outsider art that was too meaningful to part with?
In my studio I keep a piece by Leroy Person, a sculpture made out of broken chairs that he carved and used crayon to color, next to a postcard of a Brancusi sculpture. To me there is a very clear connection between the two artists.
I also have a little carved figurine that Howard Finster gave me. It was a piece he had carved — whittled, he would say — for one of his children or grandchildren, before he had his ecstatic vision that set him on the course of becoming an artist. But he recognized my interest and the friendship. I’ll keep it forever.
The new Elvis movie trailer
Looks from the Chloe AW22 show that featured Gee’s Bend designs
The drawn-out fight pitted a best-selling American literary icon against the descendants of filmmakers who had produced an acclaimed movie that was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and that Lee herself professed to love.
also in the NYT:
Harper Lee Estate Told to Pay $2.5 Million in Dispute Over ‘Mockingbird’ Plays
The estate is contesting an arbitrator’s ruling that it had been too aggressive in limiting productions of a 1970 adaptation of the novel as Aaron Sorkin’s new staged version came to Broadway.
I once — for whatever reason (actually I think it was a day I had lunch at Maggie’s Diner) — stepped into the Howard & Linton Barber Shop in Tuscaloosa in 2011, and asked to take this pic
The Tuscaloosa News reports
…the contents of the late Rev. Thomas Linton’s barbershop planned to populate a future civil rights history museum in Tuscaloosa, amounts to, unscientifically speaking, a lot.
and After racists threw food and garbage on Autherine Lucy as she attempted to enroll at UA, she was brought to the shop to get cleaned up. On “Bloody Tuesday,” June 9, 1964, when activists attempting a peaceful march, to protest the segregated courthouse, were beaten by deputized thugs, some ducked into the shop, while Linton himself reported directly to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, helping arrange hospital care and bail money for the 94 people arrested, and the 33 beaten badly enough to require medical care.
Pasaquan, from a visit in 2012 (it’s been restored since)
MPB Radio on the Emmett Till’s family members who met in Jackson to ask the state AG to bring murder charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham.
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum, 2012
I missed this from May, but:
The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Mississippi is pleased to announce a major donation of 50 artworks by Los Angeles-based, advocate and collector Gordon W. Bailey. The transformative gift features African American artists Leroy Almon, David Butler, Richard Dial, Thornton Dial, Minnie Evans, Roy Ferdinand, Sandy Hall, Clementine Hunter, Charlie Lucas, Juanita Rogers, Sulton Rogers, Welmon Sharlhorne, Herbert Singleton, Willie White, and Purvis Young; Native Americans, Silas and Bertha Claw, Betty Manygoats, Elizabeth Manygoats, Wallace Nez, and Lorraine Williams; and Southern potters, Burlon Craig, Cheever Meaders, and Lanier Meaders.
In the late 90’s, an art dealer named Bill Arnett visited Gee’s Bend and was captivated by the artistry he saw. Another master quilter, Mary Margaret Pettway, remembers when this stranger showed up in town wanting to buy her mother’s quilts.
Mary Margaret Pettway: He bought quite a few quilts. But what he wanted was the old raggedy quilts.
Megan Thompson: To you, they’re old and raggedy.
Mary Margaret Pettway: I promise you they were.
Megan Thompson: But to him?
Mary Margaret Pettway: Apparently they were gold.
Megan Thompson: Arnett bought hundreds of quilts and curated an exhibition that became a sensation. The New York Times called them, “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.”
Africatown, by Mobile, the community established by West Africans in 1860, who were on the last known (illegal) slave shipment to the US:
World Monuments Fund (WMF) includes Africatown on the 2022 World Monuments Watch to highlight the need and opportunity for authentic, community-led preservation and storytelling.
I wish the audio here was better, but this is Horton Foote being interviewed about Carson McCullers
Another winner was Brett Ratliff of Kentucky, who co-produced documentary “Bright Morning Stars: The Johnsons of Hemphill” (which won the inaugural Boone Docs Film Festival Judge’s Award) and I wish wish wish there was a clip I could show, but it’s about (from Appalshop:)
…the story of Mabel and Gwen Johnson as they navigate the post-coal world in Eastern Kentucky. Faced with unspeakable obstacles, they pulled together and started a community center and a bakery. The film is the first in a new series entitled Bright Morning Stars from filmmaker Ethan Payne documenting contemporary Appalachian folkways.
Okay, and because I love when things connect all over the place, it’s the co-producer of Bright Morning Stars — Ethan Payne — who did:
and Lonnie’s ‘I Went to Sleep’ which was filmed in part in Joe Minter’s art environment
…and look at beautiful Hilda at 4:45 in the clip. When I was at Joe’s a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Hilda’s voice and I have some of her voicemails to me that I’ll neverrrrrr delete just so I can listen to her.
Among those presented with the AIA’s 2022 Architecture Award:
I grew up weekends on Smith Lake on a Chaparral (which was beyond cool) and always thought of pontoon boats as the Family Truckster of the water, but then Robb Report says “hey how about this Bennington 25 QX Sport?” (which is btw almost $400k, Lawd!) and also, a reminder that it’s time to put the boat back in the water.
Anyway, I’d maybe rather have a Modern Shed DW (Dwelling on Wheels) and have it at a lake and then a backyard and then the boonies, though their pricing is the “let’s play around and get your dreams in here, then once you’re fully heart-invested, we’ll talk $$” model, so no idea of cost…
When he was done cooking, Mr. Benton took a paper plate of meat, potatoes and cornbread and settled back into his chair. “I prefer it to foie gras, to be quite honest,” he said, staring through the campfire smoke to the nearby river. “It’s even better out here.”
A performance of the Appalachian spiritual Bright Morning Stars
What’s been done to The Great Gatsby now that it’s no longer protected by copyright, from The Guardian. James West, emeritus professor of English at Pennsylvania State University and general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of F Scott Fitzgerald notes in his study that he researched 34+ new print editions released in the last year and found:
“17 editions dropped Fitzgerald’s dedication to his wife, Zelda: “Her name has been erased – a serious problem … because she was Fitzgerald’s muse. She was partly the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan.”
…The first edition’s cover – artist Francis Cugat’s painting of a woman’s eyes hovering over an amusement park – is “probably the most famous jacket in all of American literature”, West said, with Fitzgerald particularly wanting it, saying that he had “written it into the book”. It may have inspired details such as Doctor TJ Eckleburg’s “blue and gigantic” eyes.
It appeared on the novel’s numerous reprints, but not on the new editions… Another depicts a couple next to what resembles “a Dodge Charger, the muscle car popular during the 1980s”.
Well, I feel confident that Billy Reid mentioned the woman he’s talking about here is Teh-lay-nay, Tom Hendrix’s great-great grandmother and inspiration for the incredible monument by the Trace that is Tom’s dedication to her, the Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall. Teh-lah-nay was part of the Yuchi people, but someone at Magnolia must’ve edited the story for time. Regardless, everyone needs to know this story and pics from a few of my visits are here.
Learned that alma mater just means that one attended an instituion, not necessarily that one graduated from it. Out of the blue, decided to look up where Cormac McCarthy went to college (his alma mater was Tennessee, but he didn’t graduate) after reading the David Shields interview in the NYT where he quotes McCarthy, “Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us. It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd.” and PS, Shields says, “In graduate school, I thought Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” was the greatest book ever written. On many levels, I still believe that, but I can’t read it anymore. Proust’s epic now feels to me sort of twee and also not discontinuous enough. I need more comedy, more urgency, more white space.”
Crystal Grill’s mile high pies, y’all.
Chocolate meringue pie, from a 2005 visit
and 2016
Ralph Blizard with the Reeltime Travelers, from 2015
If David Lynch had done a promotional video for a steakhouse chain, it might have looked a little bit like this five-minute oddity created for Sizzler in 1991. “Looking at it now, I’m like, ‘Oh, God, were we all in a cult?’” Erickson said. “What makes the video so fascinating to me is that they’re basically equating Sizzler with the idea of freedom and the idea of choice, because you can go to either the grill or the buffet.”
and here it is:
also, I seriously think the new Max Siedentopf campaign with the Gucci GG Monogram in blue has sick Severance vibes
The Mark Landis “Creative Conscience” exhibit at Salomon Arts Gallery in Manhattan is open; among the opening events was a screening of Art and Craft, about his forgeries and how he went about convincing museums they were authentic
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