Timeout for Mississippi has squeezed the Timeout for Art to the sidelines this week. As you read William Percy’s words from his autobiography, “Lanterns on the Levee,”enjoy these images taken throughout the Mississippi Delta.
Cotton at its peak and awaiting harvest… Heavy rains at this critical time would ruin the crop.
“My country is the Mississippi Delta, the river country. It lies flat, like a badly drawn half oval, with Memphis at its northern and Vicksburg at its southern tip…
(Highway 61 near Clarksdale Misssissippi) Memphis is an hour behind in the rear view mirror and Vicksburg is hours and hours away at the other end of the road!
Its western boundary is the Mississippi River, which coils and returns on itself in great loops and crescents, though from the map you would think it ran in a straight line north and south. Every few years it rises like a monster from its bed and pushes over its banks to vex and sweeten the land it has made…
Soybeans near Clarksdale
For our soil, very dark brown, creamy and sweet-smelling, without substrata of rock or shale, was built up slowly, century after century, by the sediment gathered by the river in its solemn task of cleansing the continent and deposited in annual layers of silt on what must once have been the vast depression between itself and the hills.
Near Yazoo City Mississippi
Near Yazoo City, Mississippi
This ancient depression, now filled in and level, is what we call the Delta. Some say it was the floor of the sea itself. Now it seems still to be a floor, being smooth from one end to the other, without rise or dip or hill, unless the mysterious scattered monuments of the mound-builders may be called hills…
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. – William Faulkner
The above drawing hangs on a butterscotch-painted wall in my son’s kitchen. When I recently looked at it, memories of that long-ago 1993 pre-spring day came flooding back, and we were once again at No Mistake Plantation in Yazoo County. Charles had injured his ankle during a sports event, and we were sitting on the grounds of a daylily farm and soaking in the warm rays of sunshine. The hen ambled along with her chicks, fluffed out her feathers and settled into a comfortable pose not far from where we sat. The pencil drawing captured the moment much better than any camera, and the memories were branded with each stroke of the pencil.
New Albany (Mississippi) Heritage Museum
A few days ago I visited the Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany, Mississippi, and the back gardens provided an abundance of artsy material. They will represent the first of many attempts to capture the essence of Mississippi!
Enjoy the walk through the gardens, and don’t forget to apply mosquito repellent!
Coming up for a fast gulp of cyber air, I am thrilled to upload photos in less than a minute instead of several hours!
The flights from Guayaquil Ecuador to Quito, and from Quito to Houston went well; after hearing that grand, “Welcome back,’ greeting at immigration, I boarded a flight to New Orleans. Landing there 12 hours after leaving Guayaquil, I received a second ‘Welcome Back’ greeting from a friend, Danny Bond, who drove from Gulfport for a fast visit before I made the last leg of my journey.
After checking in at the Amtrak station and confirming a seat on the 1:30 ‘City of New Orleans,’ we visited several salvage shops crammed with antiques and relics from old houses. Hundreds of old wooden doors and wavy-glassed windows, claw footed tubs and wooden mantles triggered creative ideas, and I asked Danny if my family had paid him to take me to those places to tempt me to move back!
The $50.00 six-hour Amtrak journey from New Olreans to Greenwood Mississippi was surely the best travel value for the year! There is so much to share, but for now, enjoy the views from the City of New Orleans! Continue reading →
“Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there’s feedback.” (Malcolm Gladwell)
Last week’s drawing/painting class went well. The ladies no longer chatter as much as they did in the first few lessons! As we were painting in silence, every so often someone would ask, “How did you mix that color?”
Most of the time I switched to a blank section of my paper and demonstrated the process; they watched as I mixed the colors, applied water to the paper and floated the pigment into a defined area.
The exercise began as a fun drawing, but the students learned that even simple designs demand an attentive eye and a steady hand!
“Welcome back,” a straight-faced immigration officer often says when he returns my just-stamped passport.
Those two unexpected words always touch my heart, and I reply with a heartfelt, ‘Thank you’and legally enter the United States of America.
Are the agents required to say that to all returning citizens, or am I just lucky to be greeted with those words?
Quito International Airport (Arrivals) – Hey, I think I know those people! Hank and Marie Groff (pictured above) illustrate their mastery of positive airport experiences.
After placing my passport back in its proper place and double checking the boarding pass gate details for my connecting flight, I proceed to baggage claim – if needed – and then follow the maze of signs.
While preoccupied with flight arrivals and departures, one rarely has time to notice the other travelers and workers in the airport setting. Many times when I step on that ‘this will get you there a bit faster’ moving-floor option, I always look at my fellow travelers. Few people are smiling. When eye contact is made, I quickly smile or grin before they have a chance to look away, as if one might be arrested if caught interacting with a stranger!
There are other reasons to stay serious while navigating airports; those little bullet trams demand intense focus – to confirm you’re getting on the right one as a computerized voice reminds you to stand away from the door. Most of the people seem catatonic, as if any personal interaction might cause them to fall from the tram or miss their flight.
Long long ago, a 4-H judge awarded me top prize in showmanship after my ‘runaway steer’ pulled me around the arena. The judge quietly said, “Honey, don’t you EVER lose that smile.”
Realizing that I am also caught up in the hamster cage, I release that clenched-jaw tension and smile. I smile to remind myself that the world will not stop if I miss my flight. I then try to pass that smile to others and remind them to savor the moment. To watch someone’s tightened expression suddenly transform into a light-hearted smile touches my heart. There are times when a tired irritable toddler refuses to stop crying. When possible, I look into his/her eyes and ask, ‘Hey! What’s wrong? I’ll bet you are tired. Or hungry.’ That almost always halts the crying, and the child adjusts to the unexpected encounter (distraction!) with the stranger.
Surely these children were obediently sitting with orders not to move! They did not want to smile either!
If English is not their primary language, I then start chattering in English, and the child looks at me as if I am the star attraction of the circus! I talk for about a minute, then tell the child, ‘Goodbye!’and go on my way. Almost always, the tears and heavy heart are forgotten, and the airwaves remain blissfully peaceful as the child and baffled parents wonder, ‘Who was that grinning woman?”
Some days my inner smile expands so much that I wonder if my heart might burst, and during those times of self-inspection, I worry that I might cry. Why is it so easy for me to find joy in the everyday experience of Life, and why is it so difficult for others? I do not know why, but I am grateful that through the random luck of the genes that make me ‘Z’ – I have evolved into a very happy person.
2011- Brookhaven Airport (Mississippi) Surely the man didn’t just say, “You can use it as the courtesy car”!!!
This next month I will be traveling back to the alluvial flatlands of my childhood – the Mississippi Delta and surrounding area.
Atypical of my usual WordPress writing style, I will be observing and recording my thoughts with pen and paper and will pause every so often to transcribe and share with you. A month is not a long time when the circle of my loved ones stretches from the Gulf Coast to Memphis, across the Mississippi River to Little Rock Arkansas and back down to Natchez. Continue reading →
“Little by little does the trick.” Aesop’s Fables – The Crow and the Pitcher
When traveling, I always yearn to stop when I see roadside stands. Watching a skilled machete artist whack open a chilled coconut is a bonus for the one-dollar orb that holds nutrient-rich water.
Sometimes I give a wistful look toward the pottery stands if I am traveling via bus.
No matter what mode of travel, I ponder how much an item will weigh before I add it to my growing load of loot! Pottery’s weight makes it hard to justify when using public transportation. If I take that fateful first step into the pottery scene, a few new pieces will have a new home!
So many choices!
After getting those items home, I never regret the extra burden, although I have moments of self doubt when I’m in transit!
Ten dollars will buy a lot of pottery, but oh, extra pottery will add a lot to my load!
Sometimes I wonder why road trips exhaust me, and then I ponder the items purchased (ahem – gallons of paint and varnish; quarts of special-colors of paint, plywood, items for the kitchen…) A day after the human burro unloads the parcels, hibernates and incubates a plan for the materials, she’s ready to proceed! As stated with last week’s post, the difficult part is wading through that invasion of ideas and focusing on one.
Sometimes a dollop of unused acrylic paint prompts me into a ‘seek and find’ mission, and I walk through the house with paintbrush loaded with pigment! Too much black paint prompted the painting of the mask on the door! (Below) It seemed a waste to wash that black paint down the drain – one learns to be frugal when good acrylic paints are not available in the area. Continue reading →
The third eye icon, often associated with the pineal gland and the sixth chakra, dates back to early Egyptian times. Long ago, the amulets represented protection, power and good health, and the designs were sometimes painted on ships for protection at sea.
Prompted by a desire to find creative ways to deter the neighborhood thief, I mischievously painted an all-seeing eye on the gate to Casa Loca. (An amulet from the treasures of King Tut served as the model.)
While the monochromatic art transformed the gate, a second, more-serious design evolved in the studio.
When one focuses on a particular subject, more images seem to pop up in unexpected places. While showing students my museum/archaeology sketchbook, I viewed this old sketch (below) with wonder. I never realized how this tiny detail resembles the Egyptian-Eye Icon:
From Quito’s Casa de la Cultura – Detail from Golden Mask –
From Quito’s Casa de la Cultura
Compare the pencil sketch to the eye of the coconut head (below) which was painted about ten years ago. Continue reading →
