Last week we wrote about Dust-to-Digital’s Drop on Down in Florida, a 2 CD release highlighting African American music traditions in Florida, paired with a 224-page hardcover book. Dust-to-Digital is a unique recording company: part archivist, part celebrator of cultural artifacts. We will be talking about several of these awesome (by the original definition) releases over the next few weeks.
Writer, artist, and curator Phillip March Jones’s latest book, Points of Departure, is a collection of roadside memorial Polaroids depicting scenes of reality, often stark eulogies on road sides, highways, and Interstates, that we routinely speed pass by in our busy lives. The collection demonstrates an irony between our hurried motion and the absoluteness of departure the memorials commemorate, as if the two, at least at moments, exist in parallel universes.
A busy man himself, Phillip March Jones is the founder of Institute 193 – a non-profit contemporary art space, small-scale publishing house, and cultural centre in Lexington, Kentucky – and the director of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, committed to raising public awareness of African-American vernacular art of the South. We were able to catch up with Jones for a quick Q&A about his newest book.
Husband and wife team Lance and April Ledbetter are protecting the sounds of our past with their highly acclaimed label, Dust-to-Digital. Founded by Lance a little over a decade ago, Dust-to-Digital is home to a growing catalogue of important cultural works from the United States and around the globe. I’ve been viewing their line-up for a few years and am constantly impressed by the amount of material and depth each release includes. The types of recordings they release are unlike most on the market. It’s really audio conservation in its finest form. I was lucky enough to meet them both last fall during our trip to Atlanta, when we both attended the Lonnie Holly show at the High Museum. Afterward, they attended our event with the Gee’s Bend Quilters at Grocery on Home.
Within the first few minutes of their arrival at the event, I barraged them with questions: “Can we carry your work? Can we do a blog post? Would you want to trade?”
The answer came back, “Yes.”
All of us at Alabama Chanin are so proud and honored to be able to introduce and begin to explore the work of Dust-to-Digital and to sell these treasured collectors’ items on our website.
We’ve been talking about friend and collaborator Anna Maria Horner all week, featuring a DIY A-line Tunic with her Little Flowers stencil, a Greek lunch in her honor, and a review of her new book, Anna Maria’s Needleworks Notebook, which we wrote about on Monday promising a giveaway later in the week. Details below on how to enter to win a copy of Anna Maria’s book, but first, a Q&A with the lady herself.
As most of our readers know, we have a deep love and admiration for our friend – and collaborator – Anna Maria Horner. She is an artist, fluent in more than one creative medium. She not only creates bold and unique fabrics, some of which we have adapted into Alabama Chanin garments, but she also designs kitchen and paper goods, writes, works as the spokesperson for Janome, and keeps up with her beautiful family, all while pregnant with baby #7.
As I read through my new copy of Anna Maria’s Needleworks Notebook, I was moved by her descriptions of family and creativity and how being surrounded by the beautiful handmade things they made influenced her life path. While my parents weren’t as prolifically artistic as Anna Maria’s, the stories of her grandmothers and their sewing resonate with me strongly.
Monday, we wrote about artist Tilleke Schwarz’s New Potatoesas inspiration for the week. However, Tilleke’s textiles have been a source for inspiration for me for years. When New Potatoes landed on my desk about a year ago, we started the skirt you see above as homage to Tilleke and her work.
We have produced narrative work over the years in the form of our Story Quilts. With that series, we take vintage quilts, refurbish them, and embroider oral histories onto the fabrics. You will find a Textile Stories Quilt project in Alabama Studio Stylethat describes this series. However, this series is small in comparison to the beautiful narrative work of Tilleke Schwartz.
I first saw Tilleke Schwarz’s work in an exhibition called Pricked: Extreme Embroidery at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York. The needlework was displayed proudly as contemporary art by extraordinary female artists. Boundaries were pushed as textile art was made. Friend, Maira Kalman, also had work on view.
Tilleke’s work resonated with me with its elaborate technique and profound artistic statement. At the time, her first book Mark Making (2007) had quickly sold out, so when her self-published second book, New Potatoes, came out a few years later I readily ordered 10 copies.
Leslie Williamson’s beautiful first book, Handcrafted Modern, captures several homes and interiors of some of the mid-twentieth century’s most loved architects and designers. The photos and essays blew us away and left us wanting for more. With a little more support for her Kickstarter campaign, we just might get to see her second book, Handcrafted Modern Europe, come to be.
From far away, Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s large-scale artworks take on the appearance of textiles and tapestries with patterns resembling those a master weaver might create. But upon closer inspection, the poignant pieces are actually constructed with simple bottle tops connected by copper wire. Flattened then stitched, their unique assembly allows the works to move, flow, and take almost any shape. They speak volumes about El Anatsui’s education and home.
There is no denying that I love stories and storytelling. In various and changing stages of my life, I have transformed from an obsessed to a simply avid reader, and everything in between.
These days, I have to admit that I have a hard time staying awake long enough to get through all the books on my nightstand, as some nights I seem to fall asleep before six-year-old Maggie.
Over the years, and as my love for reading grew, I developed numerous ways of moving through literature:
Choosing an author and reading everything: Hermann Hesse, Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Mary Renault, Steven King (the early works)…
Last week, I was on the phone with my dear friend Lisa who talking about Dr. Ruth and organizing a book reading with the famed doctor in the mattress section of a well-known store. Genius.
Dr. Ruth was suddenly on my radar and, in the process, I discovered her Twitter account (follow Dr. Ruth; you will thank me). So, as one thing leads to another on the internet, I follow one of the links to the video below, which brings me back to literature, specifically erotica:
So, I admit that when the Fifty Shades Series arrived on my radar, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Many women today are reading this series openly. I see school moms posting about the characters on Facebook and little old ladies sitting in coffee shops with the book proudly lying open beside their tea. So while I am thankful that erotica has found its way out-of-the-closet, I found the series (ahem) not as engaging as some of the classic tomes from my earlier days; however, I ADORE Dr. Ruth’s take:
All of this in a round-about-way to say Happy Valentine’s Month ahead of us. Here’s to a bit of literature (erotic or otherwise)–perhaps read aloud to a loved one.
These days, I mostly enjoy Ivy and Bean, recited aloud by my budding reader (if I can stay awake long enough).
There is no denying that I love