PHOTO FROM THE ROAD

Sign in Lexington, GA

PHOTO FROM THE ROAD

Ten-cent pig ride outside Colonel Poole's Bar-B-Q in Ellijay, Georgia.

PHOTO FROM THE ROAD

George Paul, owner of Paul's Barbecue in Lexington, Georgia, feeding his donkey, Louis, a slice of bread.

ROAD TRIP REWIND: ATLANTA

ROAD TRIP REWIND: BIRMINGHAM

A NOTE FROM THE ROAD

Birmingham is already blur and tomorrow I'll be making tracks out of Atlanta. Goodness, how the days go by. I can ahrdly keep up, and I've only just begun.

If the past couple of days are any indication of what lies ahead, posting is going to be, well, light. I might tempt you with a photograph here and there (I've taken many), but the stories will have to wait.

Until then, have a good laugh at the welcome note I received when I arrived at my friend Shaila's house in Atlanta yesterday.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Tomorrow, I'll be on the road again. This time, though, I'll have my new and handy gadget at my disposal. Anything is possible!

I'm heading to Birmingham to attend the SFA's traveling Potlikker Film Festival on Saturday (and an SFA board meeting), and I get to hang with my cousin and her husband. I also get to have one of these. Good times ahead.

From the Magic City, I'll be heading to Atlanta, then Athens via Flovilla (there's bbq there that needs documenting), and on to Ellijay (more bbq) and finally, Dalton, where I'm giving a presentation at the Georgia Organics Conference. But my week won't be all work and no play. I have friends I'll be visiting along the way and, hopefully, they'll be time for a museum visit (or two) and some spring rolls.

I'll do my best to share some fun and interesting stories and images from the road. Meanwhile, send Kurt your get-well wishes, as he'll be at home, still nursing his healing wrist--and wishing he had some of this.

MANO A MANO

MANO 1: Kurt's wrist is on the mend. The pain is subsiding, and the cast is preventing him from doing any heavy lifting, thank goodness, although he made some noises about weed-wacking the trail through the woods over the weekend. It's hard for him to refrain from building, cutting, or tearing down.

MANO 2: All of this mano business reminded me of a painting I did some years ago--right before I moved to Mississippi, actually. The painting above, Fortun(at)e, was a response to getting accepted into graduate school and embarking on a new adventure. It was the postcard image for my show at Koelsch Gallery that year and sold to someone in Portland, Oregon, of all places. Right now, that seems like one of life's incredible coincidences. More like things coming full circle, I suppose. Since I've been blogging, I've made some friends who live near Portland (hi Katherine, Pino and Yolanda!), an old art school friend is there (I'm going to get in touch, Lynn!), and my mother and I are making a trip out that way in April.

Back to the painting. Most of the imagery is pretty self-explanatory, I think, but the gold finger often makes people scratch their heads. It's a representation of a reliquary, many of which I've seen in my travels abroad. I've always been fascinated by the Catholic church's obsession with little bits of bones and hair (pieces of saints and other important people, supposedly), which are kept in obscenely ornate containers. But you know what's incredible about this gilded finger? And I've only just realized this, right this instant. It happens to be the very same finger that got broken my first year in Mississippi. Those of you in-the-know should get a good laugh. Everyone else, the story of how I broke my finger will have to remain a mystery.

Mano a mano.

SUNSET WITH CRAPE MYRTLE

The Kroger parking lot never looked so good.

TELLING TALES IN MISSISSIPPI

Our friend Sara Roahen was in town last week to spread the good word about her fabulous new book, Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table. She gave a reading on Thacker Mountain Radio, (Oxford's version of Prairie Home Companion, I guess you'd say), which is held in our used book store called Off Square Books (sister store of our much loved independent bookstore Square Books). Anyway, Sara pretty much stole the show. I'm certain she won't agree with me because she's modest like that, but her personality shines thought in everything she does, and the radio show was no exception. She read a funny bit about po' boys, which got everyone's tummy rumbling, but the book is far more than a collection of musings on iconic New Orleans fare. It's a personal account of a Wisconsin girl, who spent almost a decade peeling back the layers of her adopted home, laughing, learning, loving and losing in the Crescent City. Sara started writing the book before Hurricane Katrina. To finish it she had to try and put some pieces of the place and her story back together. Some of the pieces went missing. The rest became stories that are testaments to a place and its people and the effect they had on this gal--this writer, eater, traveler, storyteller, listener and lover of New Orleans.

Enough of this rambling. Get the book.

CRAZY FOR KITSCH

Last week I teased you with a mention of the tacky tableauxs that dotted my gramma's desert mobile home park in Las Vegas. Well, here they are in all their glory. I'm only posting a few, mind you, so you won't be completely overwhelmed.

But first, meet my gramma, Marjorie A. Evans--Marge to most. Imagine this picture in color, her geometric-patterned polyester moo-moo a collection of day-glo colors and the house behind her a vibrant yellow. Everything is bright in the desert. I mean Vegas.

My gramma grew up on a farm in rural Montana and made her way to California on her own as a teenager--a real do-it-yourself kind of gal. But when retirement hit, I guess she and my grandpa wanted someone else to take care of things, so they moved into a mobile home community in Las Vegas of all places (truth be told, Vegas was just becoming Vegas when they moved there in the 1940s). That means there was a clubhouse, a couple of swimming pools, a security guard, and not a blade of grass to mow in sight. And with so much time freed up to do other things, you put some effort into making your aluminum cracker box stand out from all the rest. You could use a color (like yellow), or you could clutter your curb with cement figurines. Or both.


















I took these pictures about ten or so years ago, not long before my gramma passed away at the age of ninety-three. Looking at them here takes me back. Most of my childhood--the childhood I spent visiting my grandparents, anyway--was spent admiring all of these cement figurines. Finally, I decided to document them. I'm glad I did. Fortunately or unfortunately, these images are black and white. I could have loaded my Polaroid Land camera with color film. I don't know why I didn't. But I also like the nostalgia of these images. They look like they could have been taken fifty years ago, not ten.

While I haven't included the portrait of my grandparent's "yard" here, for the record, they were one of the few who had a large fountain in front of their bright yellow immobile mobile home. At the top was a naked little girl holding a small duck in her lap. Water for the fountain spewed from the duck's mouth. Far from the sleeping Mexicans, working donkeys, and squirrels eating rocks that dotted the rest of the community. I can only wonder what her neighbors thought. "They must be so cultured, so refined!" That is until my gramma stuck a gigantic wooden bumble bee with spinning wings in the rocks at the foot of the fountain.

WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT

Two weeks ago, Kurt hurt his arm. Yesterday, he finally went to the doctor for an X-ray. The diagnosis: his wrist is shattered. He's having surgery today. Later this afternoon, Kurt will have a metal plate and a couple of screws in him. And a lot of pain killers.

If we were anywhere near the Santuario de Chimayo, I might be tempted to make an offering, collect some dirt, and say a few prayers. Actually, I have some sacred dirt from the Santuario de Chimayo that I collected some years ago. Maybe I'll sprinkle a little bit on Kurt's cast tonight when he's not looking.

{Arm milagro via Milagro Mercado.}

CLASSIC COME-ON

Happy Valentine's Day.

{Image via 7deadlysinners}

NO MORE SHAKIN' GOIN' ON

The digital age has claimed another victim: Polaroid. According to the Boston Globe, Polaroid is closing its two remaining US plants to focus on digital technology and digital technology only. They phased out production of their instant cameras last year and will bring film production to a complete halt sometime in 2008.

Polaroid. The instant camera. Gone.

I have three, maybe four, Polaroid cameras, a vintage Land Camera among them. Nothing compares to the image made using a Polaroid. Nothing. And even though I haven't used mine in ages, it hurts me to think that I am about to not even have the option. Maybe it's time to take the boys out for one last run.

The last time I remember using my Land camera was about ten or twelve years ago, when I took it with me to Las Vegas. I was in Vegas to visit my gramma and wanted to document her neighborhood: a mobile home village in the desert, each gravel "yard" complete with its own cement lawn ornament tableau. (I know I've appropriately piqued your interest. I'll dig up those photographs tonight, promise.)

I have so many Polaroid memories. Frank taking pitcures at my senior show at HSPVA. Lisa documenting at our wedding just three years ago. My favorite Walker Evans book. That song.

The Polaroid above is an anonymous image that is part of a project that is a collection of notes and letters and photographs that have been found by strangers. Visit Found Magazine online to see more fascinating detritus that got separated from its intended owner/recipient. A very cool site, indeed.

So, goodbye Polaroid. You will be missed.

GOODBYE, OLD BARN

I blogged about the old hay barn on Kurt's family's farm back in January, right after we returned from our trip to Michigan. I didn't spend a lot of time outside while we were there (too cold!), but I did take a bunch of pictures of the barn just after a snowfall, the red of its walls like a beacon in the wintry sky. Luckily, I have a tendency to over-document sometimes. A few days ago, the old gal decided she'd done enough work over the years and collapsed. Kurt's mother took the picture below.

It just takes one strong wind to take down a 100-year-old barn. Fortunately, there wasn't anything inside but some old hay. Still, the barn was was an important part of this place, this family. A farm just isn't a farm without a barn. This bright red building was a symbol of the years--the generations--of work done on this piece of land: milking cows, raising calves, putting up hay. Its demise signals the end of an era.

Barns like this one are hard to come by anymore. The old ones are expensive to repair and impossible to insure. So if they go unused (filling barns with square bales of hay acts as significant structural support), the integrity is compromised, and you end up with a pile of wood and stones.

Kurt has had his eyes on that wood and stone for a while now. His demo job just got a little bit easier. Looks like we might be making a trip to Michigan this summer to pick up the pieces of this grand old barn.

A MAGICAL DAY IN MEMPHIS

Me. Memphis. Mediterranean food. My day began with a trip to the Mediterranean grocery store, where I loaded up on everything from halva to harissa. The only thing I passed up was the saffron brittle, and I regret it. Next time.

Then it was off to various retail havens to pick up some frames, shoes for Kurt and finally, some jasmine tea from the Asian grocery store. After the Asian grocery store, my Vietnamese lunch. It did not disappoint.

After filling up on spring rolls, I headed over to David Lusk Gallery to experience Tim Crowder's work in person. Incredible. So incredible, in fact, that one of his pieces came home with me.

And then, upon my return home to Oxford, Kurt and I headed to the film festival, where we saw three wonderful films. If America Unchained or The Listening Project come to a festival or theater or DVD player near you, make sure to catch them. But the highlight of the evening, I must say, was meeting Adrian Belic, who was there to screen his new film, Beyond the Call. Adrian, together with his brother Roko, made one of my very favorite films, Genghis Blues. And if you haven't seen Genghis Blues, rent it immediately.

It was a very, VERY good day.

OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL

The 5th Annual Oxford Film Festival starts tonight. It's a young fest but a good one, and it's a pretty big deal around here--four days of films, filmmakers and panel discussions. My friends April and Joe are each screening their films, and a family friend, Hayes, stars in another. I'm going to be sitting in the dark quite a lot this weekend.

Tomorrow, though, I'm spending part of the day in the light, driving to Memphis. My schedule there is pretty varied: drop off glass for recycling, pick up goodies at the Mediterranean grocery store, visit a few galleries and yep, eat some Vietnamese food. I'm sure there will be plenty of fodder for the blog--definitely another portrait of spring rolls.

I hope to get back in the studio, too. My mind is swimming with imagery that I need to get onto wood. Part of me feels that confessing this here will actually make it happen. It might be hard to fit art making into a weekend packed with a road trip and a film festival, but I'm sure gonna try.

FOR THE LOVE OF CACTI

After looking through the sketchbook I kept on my semester abroad, I was inspired to pour through my photo albums. Man, there are a lot of photographs.

The picture above was taken in Spain, which was part of my travel itinerary with friends after we finished our studies in Cortona. I fell in love with the Spanish landscape--and people and food and culture--and was especially taken by all of the gigantic cacti that dot the countryside. This cactus is inside the walls of the Alhambra in Granada. If you look closely, you can see my hennaed head poking out from behind a few of the leaves.

I studied printmaking and book arts while in Cortona and made quite a lot of work. But when I returned to Baltimore, I was even more inspired. The Spanish landscape cropped up in lots of my imagery. The print pictured here is a small hand-painted lithograph I did after my return to Baltimore, and it was inspired directly by that cactus at the Alhambra. You can see a few more of my cactus prints right here.

I'm still wooed by cacti. There's a wild one that grows in the back of our acreage. We found it once, but it's eluded us for a while now. And there's a neighbor down the road who has quite a large cactus in his front yard. Still, I'd love to see those Spanish cacti again.

TIME TO DREAM

Photo: David Kadlubowski for The New York Times

There's a house in Arizona that's made of stones and stumps, jars and jewelry. Almost thirty years ago, Leda Livant and her late husband, Michael Kahn, moved to the desert and began work on their handmade living environment made from recycled materials and known as Eliphante. A recent New York Times article, "A Handmade Home", is a wonderful tribute to the place, as well as the unique spirit of its creators.

Since Kurt sprained his wrist, we have some time to reflect on our own building projects and dream up some new ones. For a long time Kurt has been talking about installing a bowling alley underground on our property. I believe he'll do it, too. And me, I've always dreamed of a having building made of bottles.

DRAWINGS FROM MY SEMESTER ABROAD

In a fit of reorganization (and finding where some things actually are), I happened upon a box of my old sketchbooks. There are a lot of them. Twenty-two years worth, to be exact. But the sketchbook I kept while studying abroad in Cortona, Italy, in 1991 is a standout. It's chock-full of drawings, ideas and, of course, memories.

The drawing featured here is one of my favorites. It's from the end of my time in Europe, when a group of friends and I spent some time traveling after our semester spent in Cortona. It was Thanksgiving morning in Madrid, Spain. My friend Laurie and I ducked into a cafe for an espresso--or two--and I sketched two men standing at the bar, drinking their coffees. I love this drawing because it's so immediate, so of-the-moment. And I'm particularly fond of the chandelier and the vent in the ceiling that I saw fit to include. And if memory serves, later on that day, we met up with some friends for our European version of Thanksgiving: Chinese food. In Spain. Good times.

So I've decided to feature a drawing from this sketchbook every week here on the blog. It will be where the "Painting of the Week" image usually lives. Hopefully, I'll be inspired to be diligent about keeping a sketchbook again.

STUDIO ON HOLD

Bad news on the construction front: Kurt is injured. With Kurt's semester of teaching gearing up, him getting a cold, and it being a rainy winter, there hasn't been a lot of progress on the studio. But Saturday was the first day of nice weather we've had in a while, so Kurt got back to work (still in a cold medicine induced haze, mind you). Unfortunately, though, he wasn't on the job site for more than a couple of hours when the ladder gave way beneath him, and he hit the ground. That wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that he tried to break the fall with his hand, which ended up hitting the cement support. The result: a sprained wrist. His right wrist. His working hand. So he's taking his carpenter hat off for a while to mend. Meanwhile, I just might pick up that nail gun--with some supervision, of course.

BLOG OF UNNECESSARY QUOTATION MARKS

My photograph of the deep fried snickers sign in Monroe, LA, can now be seen on The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Check it out and get ready to be sucked into the hilarity that is the phenomenon of random punctuation. (Thanks, Bethany!)