Art/Photography – Lemuria Books

Category: Art/Photography (Page 1 of 7)

By Susan Cushman. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 12)

Inspired by the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., New Orleans native and documentary photographer Cheryl Gerber has, in her new book Cherchez la Femme: New Orleans Women, curated an incredible collection of over 200 color photographs and 12 essays, showcasing both famous and lesser-known New Orleans women. Gerber set out to show their “grit and grace” and their “beauty and desire,” and I believe she succeeded in a big way with this gorgeous large format hardcover masterpiece.

Cherchez la femme literally translates as “look for the woman.” In his 1854 novel The Mohicans of Paris, Alexandre Dumas repeats the phrase several times. Since then the French have often used it in a sexist manner, implying that women–or “the woman”–must be the cause of whatever problem is being described. It brings to mind Adam’s reply to God’s question concerning his transgression with the forbidden fruit; he blamed it on “the woman you gave me.”

In her homage to those women, Gerber has turned that phrase on its head, inviting the reader to look for the women who have made and are still making significant contributions to their colorful city.

My use of the word “colorful” is intentional. In the foreword, New Orleans native Anne Gisleson prepares us for the tour de force that Cherchez la Femme is–a tribute to the monumental achievements of colorful women and women of color.

Beginning with the Ursuline nuns and their beloved Lady of Prompt Succor who ran the hosptials and schools for people of all races as early as the War of 1812, and later as French baroness Macaela Pontalba fought to protect and rebuild the historic architecture of her beloved city. Gisleson introduces us to Henriette Delille–a free woman of color who started her won order to feed and educate the poor, since she wasn’t allowed to join the Ursulines.

Gerber’s loving tribute to chef Leah Chase (1923-2019) and Helen Freund’s essay about Chase in the culinary chapter set a celebratory tone for the stories that follow. Gerber organized these into topical chapters: Musicians, Business, Philanthropists and Socialites, Spiritual, Activists, Mardi Gras Indian Queens, Mardi Gras Krewes, Baby Dolls, Social and Pleasure Clubs, and Burlesque. The contributors include publishers, authors, historians, journalists, and educators.

Fifty years ago, the New Orleans-born gospel great Mahalia Jackson debuted at Jazz Fest. In her essay, Alison Fensterstock hails Jackson as “an artist whose powerful creative spark and spiritual passion shaped the sound not only of the city, but also of her nation.”

In her essay, Kathy Finn says that female entrepreneurs–including Voodoo practitioners, strippers, clothing and jewelry designers, and professional sports team owners–are “helping to ensure that the city” retains its unique character far into the future.”

Sue Strachan tells us about a bevy of female philanthropists, lobbyists, social columnists, and fundraisers who have “a passion for making the community a better place.”

The city of New Orleans–named for a young French girl who saw angels and saints and led France in a victory over England, “The Maid of Orleans,”–today “serves as the cauldron where these archetypal forms simmer together: the saints, the nuns, the witches, the mambo…a distinctively feminine spirituality…that runs through the streets…” Constance Adler found her true home there through a Voodoo priestess’ “gestures, words, and smoke at the altar.”

Katy Reckdahl shines a light on many women activists, showing us that “the tradition of resistance in New Orleans is particularly strong.”

Mardi Gras Indian Queens like essay contributor Charice Harrison-Nelson, also known as Maroon Queen Reesie, is one of 16 Indian Queens Gerber photographed for the book. Did I mention this city (and the book) is colorful?

While Krewes were male-dominted in the past, women have become “the architects of a new carnival experience,” as Karen Trahan Leathem explains in her essay.

Kim Vaz-Deville goes into more depth about the Baby Dolls, offering an opportunity for black women who were previously shout out of Mardi Gras. Gerber captures 14 of these dance groups in her amazing photographs.

Social and pleasure clubs keep the tradition of second-line parades alive. Karen Celestan explains in her essay: “The kinetic procession viewed on weekend streets in the Crescent City is nothing less than liquid muscle memory….It is fresh joyfulness, majestic, paying tribute to their ancestors.”

Gerber’s final chapter features an essay by Melanie Warner Spencer, who writes about the resurgence of burlesque. Today’s stars–like Bella Blue, Louisiana native and mother of two–are often trained in classic ballet. Blue is also headmistress of the New Orleans School of Burlesque. Spencer says burlesque “promotes a message of fun, fabulousness, confidence, and body positivity…keeping alive an art farm that is as much a part of the history of New Orleans as streetcars and beignets albeit a dash naughtier.”

“Fun and fabulousness” are also words I would use to describe Cherchez la Femme, a beautiful love letter to the women of New Orleans.

Jackson native Susan Cushman is editor of Southern Writers on Writing and two other anthologies. She is author of short story collection Friends of the Library, the novel Cherry Bomb, and the memoir Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer’s.

‘The Cofield Collection,’ now back in print, is a striking Faulkner portrait

By Guest Author

On December 3, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Fiction

By Allen Boyer. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 1)

“It wasn’t easy to get a smiling photograph of William Faulkner!” That was the fond, exasperated comment of J.R. “Colonel” Cofield, the Oxford photographer in whose studio Faulkner sat for the portraits that graced the dust jackets of his novels.

Dealing with William Faulkner was daunting. Yet Cofield endured and ultimately, he prevailed. He seldom saw Faulkner smile, but he captured striking images of the man. Those portraits, with other photos taken or collected by the Cofield family, supply the heart of William Faulkner: The Cofield Collection–published in 1978, now brought back to print.

Cofield first photographed Faulkner when he published Sanctuary, in 1931. Faulkner was thirty-three, a handsome young author with a tweed jacket and a cigarette. Late in life, when pressed by friends in Virginia, he posed in a fox-hunting outfit, with top hat and riding boots and blazing red huntsman’s coat. Other times he was indifferent; he would sit for Cofield wearing a three-piece suit or a simple blue work shirt.

As well as Faulkner, this book covers the postage-stamp of native soil about which he wrote. Field hands work mules, and farmers sell produce from trucks parked on the Oxford Square. Cotton wagons crowd the lot outside the gin. Barnstormers pose beside grass airstrips. Schoolchildren line up, some outside the Oxford Graded School, others on muddy lawns out in the county. A string band warms up the crowd for a speech by youthful Senate candidate John Stennis.

Some pictures have the glossy look of publicity shots. Years after he had won the Nobel Prize for literature, Faulkner posed at a Memphis preview of Land of the Pharaohs. He had a screenwriter’s credit on the picture, and it was a film by Howard Hawks, the director who took Faulkner dove-hunting with Clark Gable. Faulkner’s own favorite photo looks like something from Hollywood, a studio close-up straight out of film noir.

Faulkner summoned Colonel Cofield to Rowan Oak to record his celebrated costume-party hunt breakfast, that Sunday morning in May 1938. He called him back for two weddings, his daughter’s and his niece’s, and at those receptions Cofield caught him smiling.

Some of Faulkner’s past is dead–very clearly past. There are images here from Life Magazine and the Memphis Press-Scimitar. As a teenager, Faulkner often rode the train to Taylor and hiked back along Old Taylor Road, then a red-dirt track, now choked with the cars of Ole Miss student traffic. Black men and women appear on the edges of their white employers’ family portraits. (John Cofield, grandson of Colonel Cofield, whose internet collections preserve his hometown’s history, energetically documents the past of both black and white communities. Forty years ago, this was harder.)

In Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the Sartoris family seems modeled on Faulkner’s own relations. But, ironically, there is much of the novelist in a different character, strong-willed black tenant farmer Lucas Beauchamp. Beauchamp is a match for Faulkner in independence and a subdued haughty knightliness, a taciturnity shaped by battles with misfortune. Beauchamp’s face, Faulkner wrote, “was not sober and not grave but wore no expression at all.” Can the same distant unreadable expression be seen in these pages? For in nearly every photograph, studio portrait or snapshot alike, Faulkner’s gaze is similar–serious, reserved, never quite directly into the camera. Cofield knew that expression well. Quoting Kipling, he wrote: “‘No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.’ Bill Faulkner lived up to this principle to a T.”

Some of these images will be familiar. It was this book that made them well-known. Eudora Welty praised the original edition of “The Cofield Collection.” “These photographs,” she wrote, “eloquently tell us what no voice now can tell, what no words are likely to express so clearly and intimately about William Faulkner’s life.” Miss Welty was no mean photographer herself, and her judgment still holds true.

Allen Boyer lives and writes on Staten Island. He grew up in Oxford, where Colonel Cofield took the Boyer family’s portraits every year.

Lawrence Wells, the editor of The Cofield Collection, will be at Lemuria on Saturday, December 7, from 1:00 to 2:00 to sign copies.

Will Jacks’ ‘Po’ Monkey’s’ allows one last visit to famous, shuttered Delta juke joint

By Guest Author

On October 31, 2019

In Art/Photography, Blues, Southern Culture

By Chris Goodwin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 27)

Becoming a famous and beloved institution is no guarantee of permanence. So with Po’ Monkey’s Lounge outside Merigold, the creation and full expression of Mr. Willie Seaberry—farm laborer by day, internationally known juke joint proprietor by night.

After decades of those-who-know-don’t-need-to-ask operation catering to locals in search of a Thursday evening respite, the establishment rose to prominence as white photographers and journalists enthralled by its authenticity brought news of its existence to their audiences, turning it into a must-see site for blues tourists traveling the Mississippi Delta.

Alas, the death of Mr. Seaberry in 2016 was also the death knell for the lounge. We’re fortunate to have Will Jacks’ moving photographic tribute, Po’ Monkey’s: Portrait of a Juke Joint (University Press of Mississippi), to document—and remind us—of what has been lost.

A trained photographer and gallery owner who grew up not far from Po’ Monkey’s, Jacks spent a decade at the lounge, connecting with the people who worked there and reconnecting with school friends who were some of its regulars. Jacks often had his camera in hand to capture the riotous, exuberant dance floor as well as quieter moments off to the side. More than seventy of those images are reproduced in black and white in this oversized hardcover edition. That color choice denies readers the full glory of Mr. Seaberry’s famous bright outfits, but it perfectly suits the fundamental nature of a vernacular structure begun nearly 100 years ago.

Jacks gives equal time to the people and the place in his selection of shots. There are women and men, black and white, young and old pictured shooting pool, dancing, or listening to music (in the tight confines of the lounge usually provided by a DJ or jukebox, not a live band), sitting together at the tables with drinks at hand, or posing for portraits outside the building in front of an improvised screen.

But equally rewarding are the images of the building. Po’ Monkey’s was located in the house where Mr. Seaberry lived for much of his life. He reserved for himself a small bedroom at the back—the rest was richly decorated with stuffed monkeys (the juke joint took its name from Mr. Seaberry’s nickname) and posters, photographs, beads, and strand after strand of Christmas lights, which transformed the Spartan interior of a sharecropper’s cabin into a joyous space where people came to forget their cares for the night.

The photographs highlight the textures of that space, from the plastic hung to keep out the rain—a pragmatic decision that became a design feature when they were tufted to the ceiling—to the corrugated tin and candy-striped handrails of the exterior. The hand-painted signs near the front door clearly laid out the owner’s positions: No loud music, dope smoking, rap music, or beer brought inside.

An introductory essay by journalist Boyce Upholt and a photographer’s statement at the end of the book tell the particulars of Willie Seaberry’s life story as well as they can be teased out, his close relationship with the Hiter family who owns the house and farmland on which it sits, and the story of Po’ Monkey’s during its years of operation and in the time following his death.

It seems unlikely that the lounge will ever reopen, and even if it were to, it would be a different place from what its patrons have known. It was the larger-than-life personality of its owner that made Po’ Monkey’s the welcoming place that it was for so many, and it is thanks to Will Jacks that we have this record of that time and that place.

Chris Goodwin lives in Jackson. He visited Po’ Monkey’s for the first time in 2007 and hasn’t danced that much since.

Author Q & A with William Dunlap

By Guest Author

On October 20, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 20)

Mississippi native William Dunlap takes a look back at folk art as he highlights his former father-in-law’s paintings and storytelling from the 1970s in Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster (University Press of Mississippi).

While the late O.W. “Pappy” Kitchens’ work is hard to classify, his is a style that combines visual folk art with parables that reveal moral virtue. The Crystal Springs native first picked up a paint brush after a long career in the construction business, at the age of 67. He referred to himself as a folk artist, explaining: “I paint about folks, what folks see and what folks do.”

In the book’s introduction, acclaimed art curator Jane Livingston speaks of Kitchens’ intuitive talent.

“He is remarkably uninfluenced by other artists,” she states. “It is the stories and not the form they take that arise naturally from the man’s life and the fables of his imagination.”

It was that “imagination” that Dunlap picked up on immediately when he saw for himself the sincerity and intensity of Kitchens’ “piddling” in his son-in-law’s studio.

“As a Southern visual artist, (Kitchens) employs a birthright inherent in his rich oral culture and tradition,” Dunlap writes in the book’s preface.

The hats Dunlap wears include that of artist, arts commentator, and writer. His paintings, sculpture, and constructions are included in numerous widely recognized public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He authored numerous publications including the books Short Mean Fiction: Words and Pictures and Dunlap, the latter published by University Press of Mississippi.

An exhibit including the paintings from The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster will be on display at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson through Nov. 17.

Please tell me about your relationship with “Pappy” Kitchens.

I knew Mr. Kitchens from 1963 until his death in ‘86, because I was married to his only daughter Bobbie Jean Kitchens. We moved to the mountains of North Carolina where I taught at Appalachian State University. After Mr. Kitchens retired he and Ms. Kitchens visited us in the fall and in the spring, It was there in my studio that Mr. Kitchens begin to “ piddle,” as he called it, and made some of the most remarkable works of art it’s been my pleasure to see.

Briefly tell us about the story of The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster–which you have deemed to be Pappy Kitchens’ “magnus opus.”

Always a fine storyteller of the Southern tradition, Mr. Kitchens often ruminated on the problems of the world and spoke in parables. The official art world at the time did not embrace the narrative, but that did not stop “Pappy” Kitchens, as he begin to call himself.

His long and involved narrative series called The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster was made over a period of several years, in groups of 20 works at a time. Taken as a whole, there’s nothing in the annals of folk art quite like it.

The work includes 60 separate panels, each 15 inches by 15 inches, all polymer paint and mixed materials on paper. The artwork chronicles the pursuits, habits, and appetites of Red Eye the Rooster, who is very familiar to many of us.

How did you decide to take on the project of producing this book to showcase Kitchens’ talents and achievements in art–and why now?

It has fallen my lot to care for Mr. Kitchens’ body of work and I’m happy to do so. The idea for a book has been out there for some time. Both Jane Livingston, an early supporter of Pappy’s work; and Dr. Rick Gruber, whose scholarship on Southern Art is unmatched, encouraged me to pursue it. Craig Gill, head of the University Press of Mississippi found it compelling enough to underwrite this project. Hence, the book, The Saga of Red Eye the Rooster in all its metaphorical and allegorical glory.

“Pappy” combined his art with an incredible talent for storytelling to produce his greatest works. Please tell me about the personal influences that drove Pappy’s art and his stories.

I’m not the first to come to the conclusion that language is a birthright for we Southerners. What Mr. Kitchens was able to accomplish was to translate the oral into the visual, sometimes with the help of his handy portable typewriter.

It’s all quite seamless. Mr. Kitchens had the skill set all along to make these paintings but what he lacked was the time and motivation. With retirement and the use of the materials in my studio he was able to make up for considerable lost time.

So much of his material was not unlike other so-called folk artists, Bible stories, memories from childhood, etc. Mr. Kitchens also did research–he read widely on art history and folk art and made a very charming painting of the Venus of Willendorf, whose carver and Pappy Kitchens had a great deal in common.

William Dunlap will be at Lemuria on Monday, October 21, at 5:00 to sign and discuss Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster.

William Dunlap’s new book rediscovers savvy, ingenious art of Mississippi’s Pappy Kitchens

By Guest Author

On October 16, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

By J. Richard Gruber. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 22)

O.W. “Pappy” Kitchens was a distinctive Mississippi character. He was a building contractor and house mover, as well as an accomplished storyteller, who, after he sold his business and retired, discovered that he was an artist.

“I began to draw and sketch and found my experience in drafting was a big help in this adventure.” He was, he explained, a specific type of artist. “I am a folk artist. I paint about folks, what folks see and what folks do.”

In 1970, at the age of 69, Kitchens began to paint and draw, inspired by what he saw in the art studio of his son-in-law, in Boone, North Carolina. That son-in-law was William Dunlap, then a professor of art at Appalachian State University (and now one of Mississippi’s most recognized national artists).

The rapid evolution of Kitchens’ art, driven by his life experiences, his storytelling skills, his religious beliefs, and his inspired visions—all channeled through the crystal ball he consulted—brought him regional and national recognition in the 1970s.

The art and life of Kitchens (1901-1986) is the subject of Bill Dunlap’s handsome, and thought-provoking, new book, Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye The Rooster. Kitchens staged his ambitious project in a methodical fashion, as Dunlap notes in his Preface. “This fable consists of sixty panels, each one measuring fifteen inches square, composed of mixed materials on paper and executed in three groups of twenty from 1973 to 1977.” All sixty panels are featured in the book as individual full page, full color illustrations.

The story follows the life of this mythical bird “from foundling to funeral,” as Dunlap describes, tracing the arc of his allegorical adventures and his confrontations “with antagonists of all sorts, including his recurring nemesis, Colonel Harlan Sanders. Red Eye encounters violence, avarice, lust, greed, and, most of all, the seven deadly sins, dispatching them in heroic fashion until he finally succumbs to his own fatal flaw.”

In addition to Dunlap’s lively text, the book includes an excellent essay by noted curator and folk art scholar, Jane Livingston. Livingston included the “Saga of Red Eye” in the 1977 Corcoran Biennial Exhibition in Washington, DC, the first time folk art was included in this prestigious show. By 1977, the “Saga of Red Eye” had been “discovered” by the national art world.

More than forty years later, Livingston offers this observation. “Though it has taken nearly half a century for this book to enter the unpredictable trajectory of American cultural history, it comes at a moment when its authenticity and subtly intense truth-telling are especially welcome.” And she adds that “Pappy Kitchen’s work, once seen, is difficult to forget … in contemplating other artists … who were Pappy Kitchens’s chronological peers, his images resonate for me in a way that few of them achieve.”

This, alone, should give you enough reason to buy this book. Yet, there is another, equally intriguing side to this artist’s story. It relates to his self-awareness, and to current issues in the field of folk art (also known as “outsider,” “self-taught,” “naïve,” “vernacular” and more recently, “outlier” art). These issues question the proximity of self-taught art to contemporary art, increasingly arguing for its parity with more “elite” art forms.

Kitchens was a savvy character. He grew a beard and started calling himself Pappy. He read and studied art history. He referred to specific artists in his art and writings. This historical awareness is seen in his text (he hand wrote, then typed texts), “Preface—American Folk Art “ (included in the book), where he notes that the “first exhibition devoted to American folk art was held at the Whitney Studio Club, organized and sponsored by one Gertrude Whitney, in New York City in 1924.”

Today, a “folk artist” with this level of self-awareness might well be called “woke.” To underscore this self-awareness, he continued. “I sketch, draw, paint, talk, and write what I see, hear, read, feel, taste, and smell from a concept originating and composed from expierance [sic], my crystal ball, photographs, news medias [sic], archives and history, the Holy Bible, and a general knowledge of nature.”

It is time for Pappy Kitchens, and Red Eye, to be “discovered” yet again. He may have been a man ahead of his times.

J. Richard Gruber, Director Emeritus of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, is active as an independent art historian, curator and writer.

Finally art, life of Mississippi’s Dusti Bongé celebrated in lushly illustrated biography

By Guest Author

On July 24, 2019

In Art/Photography, Southern Culture

By William Dunlap. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 21)

I can objectively say that this is one of the most sumptuous and satisfying books that has ever been my pleasure to hold and read. It is as profound as it is long overdue.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me state that I know Rick Gruber, and I know him to be a scholar of the first order who has at his command more information about art of a southern nature than anyone alive. It is also worth noting that his prose is infinitely readable, unlike so many of those who write about art in a scholarly fashion.

I also know Paul Bongé, grandson of Dusti and son of Lyle, who like his father is a terrific photographer, sailor, builder, waterman and keeper of the family faith and tradition on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Lyle Bongé, Dusti’s son, was a fine friend who I came to know through the poet/publisher Jonathan Williams. The two were both alumni of Black Mountain College and lifelong collaborators. The Sleep of Reason, Lyle’s book published by Jonathan Williams’ Jargon Society Press, contains photographs of New Orleans Mardi Gras from the 1950s and says more than we really want to know about our people, time, and place.

I met Dusti Bongé toward the end of her life, and recall a memorable studio visit. She was working with pure pigment and fiberglass to create her Windows that were a part of her last exhibition at the Betty Parsons gallery. They contained rich colors that were, at the time, hard to love but it was easy to see her mastery of the medium and why the New York School, a.k.a. Betty Parsons et al., were devoted to her.

Dusti Bongé Art and Life is published by the Dusti Bongé Art Foundation. The book was designed by Philip Collier of New Orleans and distributed by the University Press of Mississippi. This lavishly illustrated tome of some 350 pages with 500 illustrations was four plus years in the making and accompanies the Ogden Museum of Southern Art exhibition, “Piercing the Inner Wall: The Art of Dusti Bongé’” curated by Bradley Sumrall. This exhibition will come to the Mississippi Museum of Art in the fall of 2020.

Many of the very telling photographs included in this book are by Jack Robinson, the internationally known and enigmatic photographer from the Mississippi Delta who is worthy of further study and serious scrutiny.

All of this begs the rhetorical question: Why has it taken so long?

It is inexplicable that this most accomplished and recognized woman who was with us from 1903 until 1993, mainly in Mississippi but sometimes in New Orleans and New York, and yet has all but fallen through the proverbial cracks.
For a place like Mississippi that is so obsessed with its native sons (could this be a reason?) to overlook this remarkable artist for so long is a question that wants to be addressed.

While New York and New Orleans are discussed in depth, it’s Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast that come in for the most revealing and substantive writing and research. In addition to chronicling a life, art, and sense of place, this book is also a profound social history of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and exploration of the extraordinary pull of this place for artists like George Ohr and the Walter Anderson family.

That the Gulf Coast has more in common with New Orleans than it does with say Tupelo hardly comes as a surprise, but it helps explain the complexities of a place like Mississippi.

William Faulkner once said that in order “to understand the world you need to understand a place like Mississippi.”

Rick Gruber’s book, Dusti Bongé: Art and Life answers many of these questions and helps us understand much, much more.

William Dunlap is a painter, writer and native son of Webster County. His first collection of stories , Short Mean Fiction is soon to be followed by Lying and Making a Living. He will talk about that and his book from University Press Of Mississippi, Pappy Kitchens and the Saga of Red Eye the Rooster at the Mississippi Book Festival, August 17.

Richard Gruber will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant (along with William Dunlap) in the “Southern Art” panel at 1:30 p.m. in State Capitol Room 204.

Author Q & A with Glennray Tutor

By Guest Author

On November 18, 2018

In Art/Photography

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 18)

Oxfords’s Glennray Tutor–who has been cited as not only one of the world’s top hyperrealist artists, but also one of the three who actually began the movement–shares his visionary style developed over more than three decades in his debut album, Portals.

Tutor has expanded the definition of visual art through works that seem to defy the viewer’s imagination with his meticulous technique that blends bright colors with razor-sharp detail and a large measure of metaphor.

Working with still life materials of everyday life, Tutor transforms marbles, comic books, glass jars, retro dinner plates, toys, fireworks, and soft drink bottles into artifacts filled with deeper meanings than meet the eye. Outdoors, he presents nostalgic, barren landscapes filled with abandoned trucks, isolated buildings, roadside signs, filling stations, vending machines and period outdoor furniture, to name a few, with the same intense examination.

Credited as being “the first artist to merge Pop Art with metaphor,” Tutor’s paintings have appeared on TV programs (including Seinfeld) and movies (among them, The Blind Side), as well as record albums, book covers and magazines.

Glennray Tutor

Growing up in southeast Missouri as the only child of native Mississippi parents, Tutor earned a bachelor’s degree in Art and English, followed by an MFA in Painting, at the University of Mississippi. During his career, his art has been included in many group and solo exhibitions, and today his work is shown in numerous public and private museum collections around the world.

Tutor’s schedule of appearances in the Jackson area for Portals, published by Yoknapatawpha Press, includes the following:

Nov. 28 – Fischer Galleries, Jackson, 6 – 9 p.m.
Dec. 4 – Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, 4 – 9 p.m.
Dec. 5 – Lemuria Books, Jackson, 5 p.m.

In your book you explain how that, as a child, you enjoyed looking at things (ordinary objects, the stars at night, pretty much everything) and state that “To me, physical objects are portals to a fuller, deeper realization of the world around me.” You later describe how your paintings are made up of different kinds of portals. Please explain this further.

My paintings consist of contemporary objects used metaphorically. The paintings are my arrangement of matter to form an interplay of the visual, emotional, and intellectual. When I say there are “portals” in my paintings, I’m saying that there are layers or dimensions or rooms beyond what a viewer first encounters. It’s sort of like the Chinese Box idea. But the portals contained in a painting of mine are all of equal importance. A viewer can explore these different portals as he desires. Of course, how far into the portals one goes is dependent on the viewer’s perceptive abilities, and intelligence.

For example, my firework series. What the viewer first sees is an arrangement of common fireworks. But let’s look into a further portal in the paintings. The fireworks are metaphors. They are objects like ourselves. They have their existence in the shapes and colors they contain. And they, like ourselves, are going to change. We will change from life to whatever comes next. The fireworks will change into star-backed splendor. Hopefully, we too will achieve such an exalted metamorphosis.

Now, let’s go deeper, into another portal. Looking at the arrangement of the objects one must contemplate whether they have been purposely arranged, or have they arrived at their positions accidentally? Here I’m presenting the ideas of order and happenstance. In our existence was everything set at the instant of the Big Bang? Or is everything happening randomly?

Another portal: the ideas of peace and conflict. One person might use a firework to make a beautiful entertainment. Another person might choose to aim the firework at another person and use it as a weapon. A comment on good versus evil? Responsibility versus recklessness? Yes; both. And I could go on and on. But maybe I’ve illustrated my point.

Describe how you were always absolutely certain that you were born an artist.

I’ve always had a complete sense of self, and how the physical elements around me affect that self. A person knows things about oneself, such as knowing if one likes a particular color or not, or a piece of music, etc. Most people—usually in their 20s —choose a career, usually related to what they like and what they are competent at. I never had that experience.

You state in the book that you’ve “always been able to find treasure” every time you’ve gone looking for it–and “in what generally is thought of as the most unlikely of places.” How do you define “treasure,” and in what ways have you felt it has not been difficult for you to find?

I define “treasure” as something that evokes wonder. This treasure can come to me through any of my senses. It has never been difficult for me to find because my senses, especially my sense of sight, are very acute.

Your artwork is classified as “Hyperrealist,” and you are listed among the top 50 Hyperrealists in the world. Define Hyperrealist art, and why you believe it has become so popular with art lovers today.

The list of the top 50 Hyperrealist artists was compiled earlier this year by Didi Menendez for an article in the magazine Poets and Artists. She is one of the most prominent art arbitrators in the world today; she is a curator, writer, editor, publisher. There are many writings on Hyperrealism and Photorealism–which I am also considered to be a part of–that have appeared in the past 35 years, in which I am included.

One of the more authoritative and beautifully done books presenting and explaining Hyperrealism is Juxtapoz: Hyperreal, edited by Evan Pricco. In this book each artist has a short essay in which he or she describes what they are doing with their art. In this book I’m presented as one of the top 30 Hyperrealists in the world today. Also in this book I am credited as one among three artists who actually began the Hyperrealist movement.

A Hyperrealist painting or a Photorealist painting are paintings that are so technically refined and painted with such clarity that they look more like photographs than paintings. What distinguishes a Photorealist painting from a Hyperrealist painting is that a Hyperrealist painting is dealing with more than simply the physical subject matter it depicts. A Hyperrealist painting is also making a social statement, a statement about a cultural issue, or it is commenting on a moral or ethical issue. Or, as in my case, I’m using objects metaphorically to express my feelings and thoughts about various aspects of reality that intrigue me.

Explain why metaphor is such an important element in your work.

Using metaphor is the only way I know to fully present the ideas that I want to examine in my artwork.

There is a lot of nostalgia represented in your work. Can you speak to that?

This may come as a surprise, but I’m not concerned at all with nostalgia. The world of childhood and the world of adulthood interest me greatly–their similarities and their differences. I’ll use a metaphor to describe this. I’m standing on a shore, which society terms “adulthood;” but the ocean, which we’ll call “childhood,” laps on the shore, wave after wave. For me, it’s difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Throughout the entire book there is an ongoing interview with you, conducted by your son, artist and curator Zach Tutor, and it sheds much light on you and your work. Tell me about how this idea came about. It reads like something the two of you greatly enjoyed doing together!

In the book, I wanted to give the reader a start on understanding what I’m doing with my art. I wanted this to be informative, but also entertaining. My son, Zach, knows as much about art as anyone I’ve known. Having grown up in my studio and through his observations and our discussions, he knows more about me as an artist than anyone else. It occurred to me shortly after I had begun putting the book together that for the text a conversation between the two of us might be the best way accomplish these aims.

You share with readers that it was at age 15 that you discovered that adulthood is simply a “fabrication,” after you sold your entire collection of comic books so you could buy your girlfriend some perfume–and she broke up with you a week later! Why did this lead to your conclusion about adulthood, and how does it affect your art?

That incident is only one among many that influenced my decision regarding adulthood. Look around. Can you find any so-called “adults” anywhere?

Why did it bother you so much, at age 18, to finally see original artwork in a museum and realize that visual brushstrokes were routinely apparent to the viewer in most of the artwork?

I’ll give you two analogies. I don’t want to see how a magician constructs his magic trick. I want to feel the wonder of the “magical” act. If I know how he does it, his performance doesn’t work for me. The same with a pianist. I don’t want to hear all the wrong notes he made while he practiced for the recital. I want to only hear the performance played with perfection. And so it is, for me, with painting. If a viewer, when looking at a painting, must contend with how the painting was technically constructed, with brushstrokes on textured canvas for example, it distracts, to say the least, from his experience of the art itself. When viewing a painting of mine, I want the viewer to experience the art I’m presenting, and nothing else.

Explain your advice to young artists and why you make this suggestion.

If an artist can’t express his own individual ideas then that artist shouldn’t be wasting his time and others’ with his efforts. There is no reason for one artist to re-do some other artist’s expression. But if you do have something artistically fresh to say, then go ahead and get to it.

Glennray Tutor will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, December 5, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Portals.

Author Q & A with Robert St. John & Wyatt Waters

By Guest Author

On December 13, 2017

In Art/Photography, Gift Books, Southern Cooking

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (December 10)

Mississippi natives Robert St. John and Wyatt Waters have teamed up once again to create yet another “coffee table cookbook” worthy of the attention of good cooks and art admirers far beyond the boundaries of their home state.

ms palate In A Mississippi Palate: Heritage Cuisine and Watercolors of Home, St. John and Waters serve up another full plate of exceptional recipes and watercolor scenes–and this time it’s all about the Magnolia State. Included are 105 recipes and 66 watercolors, all representing the Delta and Hill Country, the Central Region, and south to the Gulf Coast.

A syndicated weekly food columnist, St. John has authored 10 books (three with Waters) and is the owner of four noted eateries in his hometown of Hattiesburg. He has been named the state’s top chef three consecutive years and has been honored with the title of Mississippi Restauranteur of the Year.

Waters grew up in Florence, began art lessons as a first-grader, and is now widely recognized for his “Southern culture” watercolors and plein air paintings. He has received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Art, the Mississippi Library Association Special Award for Art and the Mississippi Arts Commission Governor’s Award for Excellence in Arts. In addition to his collaborations with St. John, he has released five other books, and his work has been featured in numerous regional and national publications. Today, he lives in Clinton, where he owns an art gallery.

How did you two meet and begin creating books together?

St. John: It all started as a suggestion by one of our restaurant customers. She had been bugging me for months about writing a cookbook. I had no interest in writing a book, but she persisted. One day, she was sitting in the restaurant with a man and called me over to the table. She said, “Robert, this is so-and-so with so-and-so publishing company. Tell him about your cookbook.”

I had no cookbook, and, seriously, had never ever thought about doing a cookbook before that moment. So, trying to think quickly on my feet, I said, “If I were to do a cookbook, I would have recipes I have developed here at the restaurant over the years, stories like in my newspaper column about the South, growing up in the South, and food in the South, and watercolors by Wyatt Waters.”

Without missing a beat, the publisher said, “Well, if you get Wyatt Waters, you’ve got a deal.” The problem was that I didn’t know Wyatt. I was a big fan of his work and the two books he had released at that time. So, the next day, I hopped in my car, drove to Clinton to his gallery, introduced myself, and told him that I had an idea for a book that would be like a coffee table cookbook, and a publisher willing to publish it. We hit it off, and here we are.

Waters: Robert and his wife Jill came to my gallery. He had this idea for a book that used stories, food, and heart to describe Southern culture. The idea intrigued me. I went to visit and meet with him further at his restaurant in Hattiesburg. I was impressed at how everything was done in an excellent way. Robert relates everything to food. I knew he was someone I wanted to work with and know better. Right before we met, my father had a stroke, and during the work on the book, he passed away. Putting the book together was a bonding experience, and I knew this was someone who would be a friend for life. I think Robert invented the coffee table cookbook genre. Most of the time, I don’t know if we’re working or just having a good time.

Tell me about the collaboration process.

St. John: This is our fourth collaboration. The process for each one has been different. When we worked together on our first book, A Southern Palate, we had just met each other. We had a lot in common–musical interests, family backgrounds, childhood memories, and the like–but we were two guys without a work history.

Today, we are best friends who have been collaborating for over 17 years. It’s way, way better. I love collaborative projects. There is a point where you reach when you’re working in a type of shorthand and a lot goes unsaid and unspoken. It’s familiar in a good way.

We have a blast hanging out with each other and working together. We have driven all over Mississippi for years, with the radio turned up way too loud, and we still encounter people, places, and things we have never seen before.

Waters: First of all, Robert has what I would call generosity of spirit. It’s not always clear whose idea it is. The project always take more importance than who came up with it. Another thing that helps is that i don’t pretend to know the food part. Robert has been a very good guide in that world.

The word most associated with artist is “starving.” Not something I have to worry about with Robert. When we get together and talk about ideas, I frequently grab a pencil and an envelope or a napkin and draw out ideas. When we are making final decisions about the book, another thing we do is spread out all of the paintings in consideration and begin culling the ones we don’t think fit. We also try to figure out what gaps need to be filled. There are several versions before we land on a final draft. It’s mostly based on intuition.

(L) Robert St. John and (R) Wyatt Waters

A Mississippi Palate is your fourth book together, but it’s your first that is strictly about Mississippi. Tell me how you approached this book.

St. John: In all of my–and our–other books, I have known going in what the structure would be like and how the recipes would be listed by chapter. I didn’t know on this project until we got into the recipe-testing phase of the thing. I wanted to have heritage recipes that reminded me of my childhood, but I also wanted up-to-date preparations. Ultimately, I chose things that were “Mississippi to me.” I’m happy with the end result.

Waters: This was like the most difficult of all art forms: the self-portrait. You never really can say exactly who you are. The best you can do is say at that moment what you believe you see. I’ve tried to be honest with my eyes and honest with my heart. This is the most personal of the books we have done together.

What is life like when you’re on the road for a book tour?

St. John: I love going to book signings and speaking events. I get to meet people who have read my newspaper column for almost two decades who remember stuff about my family and me that I had forgotten years ago.

But what I really enjoy is hanging out with my best friend. I drive. He rides. We listen to a lot of music. There’s a lot of me laughing at Wyatt. He cracks me up. He is one of the most clever and witty people I’ve ever known. I speak in “quantity,” he speaks in “quality.”

Waters: Music. Yes, lots of music. After we finished putting the book together, we went to Muscle Shoals and hung out with musicians Mac MacAnally and Norbert Putnam. I didn’t paint, and Robert didn’t cook. But we had a really good time. We cut up and goofed around.

There are some people who we only know from the book tours. They tell us what they’ve been doing since the last time we saw them. It’s a sort of a distant family member that you can’t exactly remember the name of.

Tell me about your new TV show, Palate to Palatte, on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. What can viewers expect, and what do you like most about doing it?

St. John: Palate to Palette has been a blast. It has been well-received–actually, way better than we could have ever imagined. Our friend Anthony Thaxton wears many hats, and is the director/editor/goat wrangler. It’s Wyatt and me having fun, eating too much, listening to music too loud. He’s painting. I’m cooking and eating, we are visiting off-the-beaten-path places and unique people. I think people are going to enjoy it, but there’s no way anyone will have as much fun watching it as we have had during the filming (in Mississippi and northern Italy).

Someone asked me what the TV show was about the other day, and I said, “It’s really kind of cheating, because it’s the same thing we’ve been doing for the past 17 years, except now we have cameras with us.”

Waters: The idea is for people to see what we do when we are working together. After a few minutes, we forget the cameras are there. WE’re just being ourselves and it’s very unscripted. Anthony Thaxton is the videographer and edits this into a story. Anthony is an old student of mine and an excellent painter himself.

Do you have another book or project that you’re eyeing now?

St. John: I’ll be opening four new restaurants in the next two years. Wyatt and I have a couple of projects we have been talking about. This TV thing has a lot of possibilities. We will definitely keep taking people to Europe on food/art tours, and we have talked about a potential New Orleans book sometime in the future. I have no interest in slowing down anytime soon. In a way, we’re just getting started.

Waters: We’ve already done a lot more than I though I would ever do. Yes, the tours and TV shows are good to do and I like the ideas of a New Orleans book very much. New Orleans is close enough to where we have a lot of experience and feel its influence.

Anything else you’d like to include here?

St. John: One of the unexpected joys that has come with being a Mississippi writer is getting to know the independent bookstore owners throughout the South, and especially in Mississippi. They are on the front lines of a very challenging business model these days. We do everything we can to support them. We are their biggest cheerleaders, but it’s a two-way street. They’ve been there for us over the years, too.

Waters: We are both sons of Mississippi, so we’re kind of like brothers. It’s a real honor to work on something that we believe in as much as these projects we do. All the things that I’ve done all my life feel like preparation for where I am right now. I want to tell those future sons and daughters of Mississippi that they can do more than they think they can. You can live your dream and you can do it in a place you love around people you love.

Robert St. John and Wyatt Waters will be at Lemuria signing copies of A Mississippi Palate on Saturday, December 16 at 11:00 a.m.

Sally Mann is here tonight, and one of her biggest fans can barely contain her excitement

By Former Lemurians

On May 12, 2016

In Art/Photography, Biography/Memoir

I have read so many great books lately, I was torn about what to write my monthly blog about…until I finally did what I have been putting off for over a year, and that is read Sally Mann’s memoir, Hold Still. I am never one to run for nonfiction because oftentimes it can get really dry, and that disappoints me to no end. It’s not that I don’t want to know about all these things people write about, because trust me I do. It’s just that I don’t want my image of someone I hold in such high esteem to be flawed by their attempt at writing.

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“Candy Cigarette” from Immediate Family

Being a photographer myself, Sally Mann is someone I hold in the absolute highest regard; she is without a doubt my favorite living fine art photographer. Her photographs stir something inside of me that no one else can. The first time I saw the image “Candy Cigarette” from her body of work Immediate Family, I was hooked. With each image I saw thereafter, I fell more and more in love with her and equally became fascinated by her. I have studied her work and process for years and soaked up anything I could read about her on the internet and in books. I have had little glimmers of her in my life through various other people who know her. These stories are like little flashes of light in my peripheral vision that, if I hadn’t been paying close attention, I might not be sure that I had seen at all. But I can assure you, I am always paying attention when her name is spoken. Like a horse, my ears prick up, seeking out wherever the origin of the name came from.

One such story was from a friend of a friend who was at a dinner that was a veritable who’s who of photography. William Eggelston, of course, was there, and he said Sally was happily snapping, snapping away the entire dinner. Then there was the occasion when I walked into James Patterson’s studio, and Sally had sent him a ruined print with a note written on back, which is a common practice of hers. (That was certainly a thrill for me.) And last but not least is the time Marcy Nessel, James, and I went to Nashville to visit Jack Spencer’s studio. Jack is one of my other favorite living photographers. He and Sally are longtime friends, and to hear someone speak of her in such a familiar way was in a word surreal. But the best part was that Jack had a book of photography of her work; however it was no ordinary book. All of the images were handprinted, platinum prints, and the book also included her poetry. It was heaven in the softest shade of ballet pink. Digging into the recesses of my mind, I come up empty when thinking of another time I have coveted something so greatly.

So needless to say when I heard SALLY MANN was coming to the bookstore, all of my tendencies for a flair of the dramatic were sent into overdrive. The fact that I didn’t weep is in actuality a miracle. I did however make a 911 text message to my dear friend Ashleigh to tell her she had to call me immediately because it was a matter of the most importance.

Jacket Just a week ago I realized that I could not have the woman I basically worship come to Lemuria without even reading her book. So I did it. I picked up the book I had treasured like a child for almost a year. This book has had permanent residence beside my bed in two different homes at this point. I can only blame putting it off for so long because of my own stupid fear. What if it wasn’t as good as I needed it to be? After all, she is human. She could get it wrong. Thankfully all that worrying was in vain because not unlike Patti Smith, Sally Mann is a Renaissance woman. And if I had looked a little more closely, I would have seen that Patti had even blurbed the damn thing on the back.

Y’all, I couldn’t put this damn book down. Not only is Sally’s life amazing, it is so utterly real. She is a mother who fiercely loves her children and a wife who adores her husband Larry. The seemingly unwavering drive she has to make her art is awe-inspiring. With three children, a husband, and a full-time art career, I would imagine she falls into bed every night, asleep before her head hits the pillow.

There are so many layers to this memoir: family history (which is riveting), discussions on the bodies of work Immediate Family and Deep South, her creative process… I’ll have to tell you, the family history stuff, at times will leave you with your mouth hanging open in shock. Lots of families have those stories, but Sally just busts it out very matter of factly and tells it like it was. The honesty is very refreshing.

Jacket (2) And then we come to her writing about her work. Well I could read about that until I am I don’t know what. Immediate Family was the first body of work that I became familiar with of Sally’s, but it was her writing about Deep South that really resonated with me. Being a Mississippi delta girl and someone who is very connected to the land, I very much get what she was doing with this work. But I can honestly say I didn’t feel the images before as I do now. I am looking at those images in a completely different way now. In one part she says that the images look “breathed onto the plate.” If you haven’t read the book or aren’t familiar with her process, she is referring to the way the southern landscape and the light appear on a collodion plate. “Breathed onto the plate.” Now that is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever read, and it will always be with me.

The way she writes is so readable and beautiful at the same time. I imagine she writes exactly as she speaks, which is how it feels when you are reading it. Like someone is just telling you a story. And Sally has got some stories. Come and get some of these stories on Thursday night. It’s going to be unbelievable!

Come Check Out My Spring Display (Pt 1)

By Former Lemurians

On March 24, 2016

In Art/Photography, Decorating, Gardening, Gift Books, Nature

Despite all the rain of the past few days, spring means a number of very sunny and happy things to me. So in honor of this most wonderful time in Mississippi, during the two-week period when we don’t all feel like we will surely die from wretched, wet cold or suffocate from the stifling heat, we can all walk outside our homes and just say “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I have built a display. This display is what spring means to me and essentially all of the things it makes me want to do. I feel certain I’m not the only one who gets the planting bug in the spring. I have a particular fondness for succulents and terrariums. Why you might ask? Well that is because they are low maintenance, they are clean and fresh looking, and depending on your arrangement, they can look rather elaborate. I like to appear like I know what I’m doing, people. And I truly, to goodness do not. I was not blessed with the green thumb of father and mother. It is not necessarily a black thumb; I fondly call it my gray thumb. So in this situation everyone wins…including the plants. If anyone feels so inclined, I’ve placed a book on this display for each of these loves. One is called Terrarium Craft, the other Hardy Succulents. Another favorite is Tiny Terrarium. If you are interested ask me and I’ll show it to you! Essentially you create scenes inside your terrarium with people and any manner of thing. I know Joan Hawkins Interiors had the makings for these things.

Anyhow moving on…spring also makes me want to spruce my house up. Justina Blakeney’s new book The New Bohemians makes me want to completely rethink my entire decorating scheme – just completely start all over again. I love the clean lines of a mid-century furniture, but lord knows I can cram a lot of stuff in a space and hang a lot of art on the walls. So does this make me a modern bohemian, as a section in her book suggests? I have many questions left on this matter, but honestly this book is a feast for your eyes. Blakeney has gotten quite a lot of acclaim for design aesthetic over the past few years, and this book only further proves why. Now if I really want to build on what I’ve got (which my mother would say is my best option), I should really invest in the new Apartment Therapy Complete + Happy Home. This book pulls from a little bit of everywhere just like their incredible blog of the same name (Apartment Therapy…in case you missed that part). I mean this book talks about it all, down to the frames you use for your art, without being overwhelming and nitpicking. Oh I almost forgot to mention that The New Bohemians has great DIY projects in it which segues into my next desire of spring…CRAFTING.

I pretty m 9781617691751 uch always love to make something, but I think the whole new life thing that comes along with spring really does something to me. A book I’ve been drooling over for quite some time now is The Modern Natural Dyer. Not only is it a gorgeous book, but it also tells you how to dye fibers with flowers, vegetables, and spices. Basically head on over to the grocery store and make a mess because I love to make a mess. It’s the cleaning up that presents a problem for me. This book has twenty projects for your home and your wardrobe, including knitting and sewing. Pretty amazing if you think about it. “Oh, why yes, I did make this! I dyed it as well. Eat your freaking heart out!!!” Next up on the docket we have Materially Crafted: A DIY Primer for the Design-Obsessed (that’s me). So this book’s projects are broken down into sections of spray paint, plaster, concrete, paper, thread, wax, wood, and the list goes on. I could definitely get into a modern looking concrete cake stand or some precious wax bud vases. There is more to come about this display, but I feel like I am close to losing all of you so I will leave you here

Category: Art/Photography (Page 1 of 7)

‘Cherchez la Femme’ shows grit, beauty of New Orleans women

‘The Cofield Collection,’ now back in print, is a striking Faulkner portrait

Will Jacks’ ‘Po’ Monkey’s’ allows one last visit to famous, shuttered Delta juke joint

Author Q & A with William Dunlap

William Dunlap’s new book rediscovers savvy, ingenious art of Mississippi’s Pappy Kitchens

Finally art, life of Mississippi’s Dusti Bongé celebrated in lushly illustrated biography

Author Q & A with Glennray Tutor

Author Q & A with Robert St. John & Wyatt Waters

Sally Mann is here tonight, and one of her biggest fans can barely contain her excitement

Come Check Out My Spring Display (Pt 1)

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