I wrote a post in 2008 likening the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration to the southern tradition of Decoration Day (now known as Memorial Day). My friend Bobbye was the first person to tell me about Decoration Day and she shared the history of the tradition from the cleaning of the graves to the church services and dinner of the ground:
"The families arrived early Sunday morning to place the flowers on the
graves before Church services began. The Mother was a walking 'oral
Historian' and she could identify every grave. Many of the Mothers would
bring baskets of flowers from their gardens. She and the children would
place flowers on forgotten graves .Then the whole family would file
into the church building and fill up a whole row. Sometimes, there would
be as many as five generations on a given row. Flowers would be given
to the oldest mother and the youngest mother in attendance. Also, there
were flowers for the mother that had the most children and for the
mother that had the most children in attendance with her."
So much of this has changed but Bobbye remains my personal oral historian for her own family history, the state of Alabama and the entire south.
I went to the Mississippi Delta once with my cousin Jessica. We drove from St. Louis to New Orleans on the Great River Road. In Clarksdale we went to visit with Rat who runs the Riverside Hotel - the place where Bessie Smith is rumored to have died after a car crash and being denied access to a white hospital for treatment. This story has been a matter of dispute, but when we were there in 2001 Rat still had the room done up as a tribute to Bessie. I don't know if Rat is still around but he told us: "If you want to find Rat, he's down by the river." That's where I'd start.
I wanted to time this post to coincide with the International Center of Photography's exhibit of Grey Villet's photos of The Loving family but I blew it. The exhibit closed earlier this week. But given the recent vote in North Carolina to ban gay marriage, sharing the story of the Loving family became more relevant than ever.
"Forty-five years ago, sixteen states still prohibited interracial
marriage. Then, in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of
Richard Perry Loving, a white man, and his wife, Mildred Loving, a woman
of African American and Native American descent, who had been arrested
for miscegenation nine years earlier in Virginia. The Lovings were not
active in the Civil Rights movement but their tenacious legal battle to
justify their marriage changed history when the Supreme Court unanimously declared Virginia's anti-miscegenation law—and all
race-based marriage bans—unconstitutional. LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet's intimate images were uncovered by director Nancy Buirski during the making of The Loving Story..." (source)
Although the ICP exhibit in now closed, its related documentary film is still available on HBO GO. While watching it I found myself wondering what I would have done in a similar situation. My husband and I are not an exact match either (age and religious differences). He tells me I give up too easily and sometimes he's right.
How far would you go to fight for something you believe in? How far would you go to fight for love?
Last night, the James Beard Foundation held its annual awards ceremony in New York City. This morning, I woke up to a wonderful piece about one of the winners, Jones Bar-B-Q Diner, on the CBS This Morning. I also logged onto Facebook to find many of my southern friends (mainly the Alabamians) bragging on the winners from their region.
It got me wondering: Is the south still a place where home-cooking matters? Is it
dying off more and more as the newer generations want and demand the quickness of "convenience?" Does food still hold the same reverent focal point in family and other gatherings as it once did? Who's making sure to carry on the tradition? Do people still share (or guard) their recipes? I have the question floating out in the email ether to one dear friend from Bessemer, Ala., but I welcome feedback from everyone. What do you think?
In the meantime, here's a list of the southerners who took home awards last night:
Clio-award winning designer, art director and photographer Robert Rausch
lived and worked in Paris, New York and Los Angeles before heading back home to
The Shoals, in the northwest corner of Alabama, to open GAS - Design Center. There he completes a sort of creative trifecta
with fellow Shoals natives Natalie Chanin and Billy Reid.
A huge proponent of “Slow Design,” Rausch spoke with Southernist about his
design philosophy, high design coming out of the south, and the challenges of
working from Alabama.
What are some
of the struggles you've had because you are based there vs. when you were based
in New York or L.A.?
I
think in a bigger city there is more work to be had and there is a trust that
people have for you as a designer.
Working from a small town, the first question people wonder is “if you’re such a
good designer why are you living in a small town in Alabama/” It’s not
something they come out and ask but it’s an underlying thing they think until
they work with you and then they realize it's a lifestyle choice and not a setback.
Most of our clients see it as an asset. They feel like we give them something
fresh that the designers in the bigger cities can’t give them.
You talk a lot about “slow design.” Can you explain what that
is?
Slow Design approaches design from a holistic
(individuals, society, and environment) view, with
consideration to the social factors as well as the short and long term impacts
of the design and materials used. We use the Slow Design as a way to
rethink not only the design but the needs of the client.
Traditionally Slow Design has
these six components (defined by the slow lab project)
1. Reveal: Slow design
reveals spaces and experiences in everyday life that are often missed or
forgotten, including the materials and processes that can easily be overlooked
in an artifact’s existence or creation.
2. Expand: Slow design
considers the real and potential “expressions” of artifacts and environments
beyond their perceived functionality, physical attributes and lifespans.
3. Reflect: Slowly-designed
artifacts and environments induce contemplation and ‘reflective
consumption.’
4. Engage: Slow design
processes are “open source” and collaborative, relying on sharing, co-operation
and transparency of information so that designs may continue to evolve into the
future.
5. Participate: Slow design
encourages people to become active participants in the design process,
embracing ideas of conviviality and exchange to foster social accountability
and enhance communities.
6. Evolve: Slow design
recognizes that richer experiences can emerge from the dynamic maturation of
artifacts and environments over time. Looking beyond the needs and circumstances
of the present day, Slow Design processes and outcomes become agents of both
preservation and transformation.
Who else in the south is doing notable design work and what is
it about their work that you find unique or appealing:
From
crafting to farming, Southern tradition cultivates beauty. Good design stimulates
intellect and elevates the lives that exist around it. Here are a few examples
of Southern High Design:
Belle Chevre: This goat cheese from rural Alabama
is sold in Beverly Hills and Dean & Deluca in New York City. Tasia
Malakasis is the face of this passionate company. Tasia has so much vision for
her cheeses. Not only are the cheeses innovative (she has a whole line of
breakfast cheeses) but the packaging is hip, with an appeal to a younger
demographic. Her goal is to sell cheese back to the French and she will do it.
For a small town Alabama Cheese she is already sold on the east and west coast
of the U.S.
Knobstoppers
& Cake Vintage: Featuring paper goods and accessories for the table
that are sold at retailers such as Anthropologie, West Elm, and Williams-Sonoma.
They have a traditional classic stye and design. They have unique table papers
for food. Classic designs used in contemporary ways. So their innovation is
more with reuse than unique design.
Bella
Cucina: The pleasures of dining with Bella Cucina's foods as well as their
ceramics, linens and home goods are a luxury you can take home with you- or
enjoy at their shopping and dining location, Porta Via in Atlanta, GA. It's
hard to beat Italy when it comes to food. Smith has done a killer job with the
design and his wife has done an incredible job with the food. Just look at the
packaging and it evokes what is on the inside and what the whole company is
about. Simple, detailed, chic.
Wesley Baker of Baker Binding: Based in
Anniston, Alabama, Wesley Baker handcrafts books with quality practices and
materials. It's no wonder that his clients include the famous luxury brand
Asprey in London. The craftsmanship of Wes
is amazing. I love working with him and on every project he puts so much time
into the smallest detail. It’s nice to have that in today’s world where you
have to go with the standard. When you work with Wes there are no standards.
It's all custom.
****
Rausch's photography can be seen in The New York
Times, Travel & Leisure, Garden and Gun, Southern Living, Ladies Home Journal,
and Veranda Magazine, just to name a few. His design work can be seen at
Anthropologie, Hilton Hotels, Whole Foods, Ted Montana Grill, The Waldorf
Astoria, and Billy Reid.
Robert's devotion to Slow Design is evident
in his work and the clients his work attracts.
He works out of a magnificently
converted historic building in downtown Tuscumbia and he lives on a small farm with
his wife and four children.
I've been in conversation for the past few weeks with a friend who grew up in the Mississippi Delta about the fallout from everything that occurred there during the 60s and 70s and where the Delta is now. I don't know that there will ever come a day when race is not a hot button topic in America. It's either the pink elephant in the room or a snarling divisive pit bull. We don't often get a chance to engage in productive conversation about what happened then, what's happening now and how to move forward together.
With his film, Booker's Place, Raymond DeFelitta gives us that chance.
On the Tribeca Film site, William Goldberg writes: "In 1965, documentary filmmaker Frank DeFelitta traveled to Mississippi
to shoot a film on the subject of racism in the American South. As he
went about observing life in Mississippi and interviewing the locals,
Frank was introduced to an African-American waiter named Booker Wright.
With utter candor and a brazen lack of concern for his own well-being,
Booker appeared on tape in the documentary and spoke openly and honestly
about the realities of living in a racist society. This brief interview
forever changed the lives of Booker and his family, and more than 40
years later, Frank's son Raymond DeFelitta (director of City Island) returns to the site of his father's film to examine the repercussions of this fateful interview." (source)
Mr. DeFelitta answered some poignant questions for Southernist about his trip to Mississippi, what he found there, and the experience of making this film:
Is your father’s original piece still
viewable anywhere?
Not
at the moment. I took it off Youtube when we started negotiating with NBC for
the footage to be used in Booker's Place. Hopefully we'll be able to include it
as a DVD extra.
Was this your first experience with Mississippi?
Yes,
I'd never been in anywhere in the south except Florida...and that was Miami!
What preconceived notions did you go to Mississippi with? Did any of
that change as you worked on this project?
I
had no preconceived notions about the people. My sense was that it was a
different place from the place that my father had visited fifty years ago and that
was correct, to a large extent. What I wasn't prepared for was the level of
poverty. You hear about these things as statistics but until you see it up
close, you don't realize that that "other America" truly does exist
and it's appalling. Gives a special jolt to the whole "one-percent"
bullshit and the money being spent to elect Presidents who can do nothing about
the poverty I'm talking about.
It is not often that people get a chance to go back and talk about certain
things that happened during that time in Mississippi. How much resistance were
you met with when you first got there and how did you overcome that and get
folks talking?
The
people in Mississippi--at least the ones I talked with--are eloquent and
interested in their own history. They've thought a lot about these issues,
about their dark past and want to explore the truth of it with others since
they feel (rightly) that they've been stereotyped over the years
as a
land filled with Klan members and nothing else. The only thing they ever made
clear that would make them uncomfortable would be if they sensed we were there
to patronize them i.e. portray them as "hicks" and in some way demean
them.
What would have happened to/with this film if you had not been able to get
folks to talk to you? Could you have still made this film – would the story
have been worth telling – if you didn’t get the interviews you got (e.g. the
judge)?
No,
there's no historical retrospective possible, to my mind, without witnesses and
direct testimony. It's what separates a true narrative documentary from, say, a
History Channel documentary. Not that I'm knocking what HC docs, but they are a
different breed than what I do and am interested in.
It seems that your dad may have suspected that something bad happened to
Booker. Was he surprised to learn of his demise?
Yes
as was I.
That last sound bite on the trailer is a bit gut-wrenching. Does your
father truly regret leaving Booker in? Would he have done Booker a disservice
if he had left him out, even if it meant sparing his life?
I
think he has mixed feelings, true ambivalence (which defined is: strong
feelings in either direction). Ultimately I think he realizes that censoring Booker
"for his own good" would have been just as patronizing an act as any
white person had committed on Booker through his life.
What do you expect that New York audiences
will think of or get from this film?
I
don't think of NY audiences as a separate group than other audiences really. I
hope any audience gets a chance to see the tragedy of the Civil Rights struggle
through a fresh lens--that of one man, and not one of the heroes (King, Evers)
but a simple working man. Personalizing the story will, I hope, give people a
more nuanced perspective on the subject and how many-sided the story of the
struggle was.
Is this just another sad Mississippi story?
Why is this story important?
Because
it's the story of a great movement but seen from the point of view of one man's
life and his reactions to his everyday treatment, his life's history and how he
finally broke down and spoke out.
In what ways did it seem that the fallout from the 60s was still affecting
the lives of Mississippians today?
In
the south it seems like every conversation eventually circles back to the
subject of race. It's their original sin and they can't get away from the
subject. So yes, in terms of dealing with the past and trying to move forward
into the future--and making filmmakers and journalists and
other
interested parties understand the complexity of their history--there is still
much fallout.
Is there another narrative about
Mississippi that will begin to be told one day?
Progress
is slow but it's undeniable. The town of Greenwood, Miss. was a terrorist state
for black people back when my father made his film. And the schools were
segregated. Neither of those things are true anymore--something that none of
the white community’s leaders who my father shows in his film would have ever
thought possible. So even though much remains to be done, those are two major
changes. I think life in the south is like life for all of us. There's an
inextricable pull to events. We can't go backward so we must go forward.
Booker's Place is now available on-demand and is playing at Noho 7 in Los Angeles, CA and opens at Quad Cinema in New York, NY tomorrow.
Please also visit the blog of Booker's granddaughter Yvette for additional riveting commentary and thought provoking conversation.
A few
weeks ago The New York Times ran an op-ed from a woman who, like so many
others, was lamenting over something to do with the change in Burning Man and
its new ticket/lottery policy. The thing that stuck out for me was that she
needed to go to this event to be a person that she could not be the other 362
days of the year. She needed permission to be the type of person who could
engage with other people for no other reason than they were sharing an
experience. She chose to participate by riding her bike around The Playa and
handing out Chinese fish kites. I wondered: why can’t she do this all this
time??
Doo-Nanny,
dubbed by some to be the “Burning Man of the south,” allows folks the same
freedom (come, see, share, create, be, doo). And for some, again, this once of
year gathering is the only time they can really explore another side of
themselves. But there are others who live the Doo-life 365 days of the year and
I wondered what lessons they might share with the rest of us on how to
incorporate more creativity into our everyday lives.
First up:
the Laster Family (Mr. Charles M., his wife Grace Kelly, and their daughter
Ruby Elvis Rose). “We doo- live this everyday. . .”
5 Tips for Living the Doo-Life:
1. creative-financing/ FAITH- the doo -dream, work hard at everything, expect
nothing . gifts come to you .... not money . but shared moments . some spare
bucks thrown in... ,
birds find seeds . so do we. jesus by c.m.l.
2. doing -the doo - is kinda like the hillbilly way of the doo it yourself
repair kit for life. ...barn raising ... people pitch in . lead by example.
3.creative-resources- well, this is a curse and a blessing . live off the waste
. and turn back the clock at the same time. we find our materials in junk piles
, yard sales and gifts from people who see us drive an art car ...and think.
they might need this , and we doo.
4. Live
and Drive Art. - the "Inner Galactic Shack-o-LLacc " opens doors
helps you meet folks . that doo. like wise thinkers , freaks who seek
understanding of what this is. we draw in all types with the art car . this is
our daily driver ... and you can put alot of stuff on the top.
5, the Krewes-community- it’s the people who you meet by being you . it’s LOVE
. understanding . a gathering of souls who all share. It’s" the Hillbilly
burning man" with slight adjustments. southern hospitality... music,
rain...eats . art and movies . but all LO-fI - RUSTIC , charm . real. ....we
built our shack out of junk I found in the woods of wonder.
And on
raising a creative child:
Ruby Elvis
Rose is a natural. I think living the doo lifestyle has taught her how to find
purpose in all things. she is always inventing . and she sees us surrounded by
like minded doo folk. and just does. anything....etc. also, ... she wants to
get rid of all he roads and paper money.
she out
arts us.... she has written several books already and illustrated them. she
spent her own money from doo-ing portraits on art supplies yesterday. and took
us to Disney World Last Year .
#####
CM and Grace Kelly Laster, and their five year
old daughter Ruby Elvis Rose are a family of artists from Kentucky. They travel
the country in their third artcar, the Inner
Galactic Shack-a-llac, participating in parades, and showing and selling their
art in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. Their work is in
the permanent collections of the American Visionary Art Museum, The House of
Blues, The Bill Clinton Presidential Library, and the Library of Congress Folk
Life Center . Currently they each have an Abraham Lincoln art piece At the
Historical Society of Washington D.C.in traveling exhibit, Portraying Lincoln.
Their art work reflects a variety of themes, particularly visions, dreams,
music icons, historical figures , the rural south and the natural world.
(source)
The
Lasters are currently on the road . ARTSCAPE in Baltimore and Dynamic Arts
Gallerie @French Broad River, Fest . shacks, movies music and art. So, be on the
lookout and spread LOVE.
