ART: R.I.P. Jake McCord

Photo: Mike's Art Truck

Jake (JT) McCord passed away September 1 at the age of 64. Funeral services were held at Zion Baptist Church near Lincolnton, Georgia. A native of Lincoln County, where he picked cotton as a child, McCord moved to Thomson as a young man and worked for the city for over 40 years.

Jake will be missed by many. He was a soft-spoken gental soul, despite his tragic and abusive childhood. Jake became famous for his paintings on plywood, which he would nail to the walls of his porch. He called this his gallery and said he put them on his porch, so the town children could come by and see his art.

His paintings were usually children playing with their pets, cats, dogs and animals from the farm. He had a unique vision using bold strokes and bright enamel paint. The McDuffe Museum will reconstruct the front porch of Jake's home and display his art as he did for years.

One of his paintings of his home church rested against his casket, during his funeral service. Henry Drake, a longtime friend of Jake, said during the service "I was always glad to see J.T coming to see me. Sleep on my friend J.T. and save a seat for me."

(courtesy of Ted Oliver, Oliver’s Folk Art. REPOSTED FROM DETOUR ART TRAVELS)

ART/SCENE: Central Green (VA) fundraiser @ Honey Space tonight!

Monday evening, May 18, Honey Space will host its first fundraising event for its next phase. The event, titled Visions and Sounds, will be a joint fundraiser and celebration with friend Tucker Robbins in mutual support of projects here, and Tucker Robbins' Central Green, Tucker's vision for breathing life into an historic community center- Central High School, in Painter Virginia. The event will be built around food and sound- a gourmet buffet dinner accompanied by The Gamelatron, the world's first and only fully robotic Indonesian styled Gamelan Orchestra by Zemi17 and the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR); a live performance by songwriter Emily Arin, and sculptural sound installations by Thomas Beale and Adam Stanforth. Tickets are available online and at the door on a sliding scale of $35-$100. You can purchase them online at by following the link here.

About Central Green: Tucker Robbins' Central Green, currently in development with a planned opening date of late 2009, is a vision of a sustainable community center in Painter, Virginia, built around the traditional arts and local community and environment. Encompassing 23,000 square feet of historic Central High School, Central Green will include a residency program for both local craftspeople from the Eastern Virginia region and remote cultures abroad, an organic garden and restaurant, educational programs, and meditation and yoga classes, all powered by green energy technologies. You can learn more about Central Green here.

SCENE/ART/BOOK: Rejoice!!

"Rejoice" by Vicksburg, MS artist H.C. Porter seems to sum up how at least 50+ million folks are feeling this morning!!

H.C. Porter's mixed-media paintings begin as black and white portraits. Using a printing technique called serigraphy, Porter screens her photographs onto paper and begins painting. It is an unusual process but it's one that reflects a way of life. Beneath the vibrant colors are the black and white images that begin each piece.

Porter takes this process to the next level with her extensive documentary project, BACKYARDS AND BEYOND, which combines mixed media visual art with audio allowing each image itself to tell the story of Mississippians affected by Hurricane Katrina. “Amazingly, my time on the Coast has revealed that many people throughout the United States have no idea that Mississippi was affected by Hurricane Katrina,” states H.C. Porter, “much less that our entire Coastline has been annihilated. People’s lives have been altered for generations. This is not the Great Depression or The Dust Bowl Days, but it is Hurricane Katrina, a part of our nation’s history that unfortunately landed head strong into every single Coastal community of Mississippi. I am simply a vessel through which the story is being conveyed. It is about the faces and emotions and words of those I am documenting. This Exhibition will be their stories …our story … Backyards and Beyond … a story that must be told for a very long time.”

Porter is currently on tour throughout the south to promote the exhibit's companion fine art coffee table book.

ART: Like A Rolling Thunder Tent Revival Revue

My brother always threatens to leave town. Like that would magically solve all his problems. What people like him fail to realize though is that wherever you go, there you are. I don't mean that in a Zen way either. I mean, you take your problems with you, especially if it's you that is the problem.

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere
(The Avett Brothers, "The Weight Of Lies" from Emotionalism)

But running away....It does hold the hopeful mirage of a clean break, a fresh start where no one knows you. And all your wrongs can be made right or maybe never even existed. You can be the person you always believed you could be. The you that you know you are, but maybe nobody else can see. There is no possibility like that of a new place...and the story whose end has yet to be told. And besides, it's just a few tracks later on Emotionalism that the Avett Brothers sing that "all my mistakes, They brought me to you."

So, I guess you never know...

When he's not making music with his brother Seth, Scott Avett is painting. An exhibit of his work, in collaboration with husband & wife photography team Crackerfarm, is up now thru August 29 at the Envoy Gallery on the Lower East Side, NYC. The Avett Brothers The Gleam II is out now.