Southern Roots 2008

On Monday evening, March 31st, the opening reception for SOUTHERN ROOTS 2008 was held.

SOUTHERN ROOTS is a Juried Exhibition of Contemporary Artists with Alabama ties. The exhibition is presented each year by The Academy of Fine Arts, Inc., (AFA). This current show marks the Nineteenth Annual event. This year, the Juror was Gail Andrews, R. Hugh Daniel Director of the Birmingham Museum of Art. I'm pleased to announce that I received a 1st Place Award for my linoleum block relief print "Like a Martin to its' Gourd" (which you can view here).

Unfortunately, the artwork which was selected for the exhibition is not available on the www. I hope that 'yall will take the time to go downtown Birmingham and see the art which will be available for viewing until May 2nd at the Birmingham Public Library, 2100 Park Place North, Birmingham. My BFF Donna Branch of Tara Glass Art Studio and my best bud, Bill Goudy, are exhibiting also.

Don't know why Julian Hazlett didn't submit his art tiles. His work is wonderful!! I meet Julian, albeit briefly, about 3 years ago as I was strolling thru the Loft District in Birmingham at the Sidewalk Art Festival. When I spotted his art tiles my eyes lit up; my soul squealed with delight! I saw striking black and white jewels which, at first glance, appeared to be wood engravings. I asked him a couple of questions about his technique and he didn't hesitate one bit to share information about resources available in the metro area. Okay, (cue the music) here's where I say, ". . .he had me at hello." I love his eyes. They're intense but friendly. You can't tell if he feels imprisoned by his own muse or if he's looking inside of you. Now . . . and here's the best part . . . fast forward to this year. I met my BFF (that's Donna) at a seminar about six weeks ago and guess who was sittin' there with her!?? Yep! Mr. Julian! There they were just a sittin' and a talkin' and a grinning and havin' a good old time. They've known each other for a while. Gosh, is this a small world or what???!!!!! I love how we're all connected to each other. . . Six Degrees of Separation, right? For those of you who don't know, six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person he or she knows and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

We're all connected to accomplish something good.

An Afternoon with Kathryn Tucker Windham

This weekend seems to have flown by! Maybe, because of the time change. Did you remember to reset your clocks?

I had a list of things to do but only one item was actually completed. Bummer! At the top of the list and a real priority was to have those two bad links/pages on my website corrected. But, I didn't feel like sitting at the home computer after having spent the work week, eight hours a day, looking at a monitor and shifting thru mundane graphic requests.

The second item that was (kind of) a priority was to carve a lino block for an upcoming art show. This would have been a relaxing endeavor until I reread the application and realized that the image had to be reduced considerably. This was a show of mini-works on paper and the specs indicated that the art could not be larger than a dollar bill. Whaaaaaaaat??!! Okay, I took a pass on that; too much measuring and thinking.

However, the third item on my list was to make time, on Sunday afternoon, and drive downtown to the Birmingham Museum of Art to listen to one of Alabama's greatest treasures, Kathryn Tucker Windham, talk about her life as an author and photographer. What a storyteller! What a treat! A lot of her stories are told, "off the top of her head" and her photos have the same unstudied quality. She's wonderful. 'yall missed it. Google her name and read about her. Better yet, start with the Wikipedia entry, and click to your heart's delight.