UA Press Treasure, Part II: Folk Artist, Remade

Tin Man is a triple play for The University of Alabama Press.

This new book about folk artist Charlie Lucas is a gift, plain and simple, for the eye, mind, and heart. It brings together Lucas’s art, Chip Cooper’s photographs, and Ben Windham’s narrative skills into a visual story of the magic in the human spirit that can redeem a soul, make art, and know life intimately, despite deplorable odds.

Left to right: Cooper, Lucas, Windham, and art

An added bonus in Tin Man is Georgine Clarke’s insights into the art. Clarke is Visual Arts Program Manager at the Alabama State Council on the Arts and founding director of the state’s nationally known Kentuck Festival. Yes, it is “folk art,” but it creates a path to a broader art world through his “formal aesthetic values combined with a consistent vision and purpose.” Yes, it belongs in Alabama’s strong folk art tradition, capturing the state’s diversity and special character, but its thematic foundations “speak to the world as well as to his neighbors” of Pink Lily and Selma, Alabama.

Charlie Lucas in Pink Lily

We call his materials recycled. He calls himself recycled. His pieces range from small iconic items to sculpture to wall art to life-sized statues to large murals created by discarded metals, paints, whole buildings, garden hoses, picture frames, tools, wheels, wire and fencing, and cloth.

Being Taken Apart

Carrying a Heavy Load

 

After his serious truck accident, he explains that he had to reinvent himself: “And that’s when I feel I was really free from the old Charlie Lucas. The Tin Man was the new part of myself.”

“I had a professor come down from Yale to study me. I mean, they didn’t come down just because I was a person out in the woods, they wanted to know how could I have this knowledge about stuff when I didn’t go to school and I couldn’t read.”

Blue Madness

Cooper’s 150-plus photographs capture the spirit of the art, in some ways better than an exhibition of a limited number of pieces could. The latter section of Tin Man is an art gallery of photos that capture the depth and breadth of Lucas’s work.

Caveman

Ben Windham, retired journalist and editor with The Tuscaloosa News, currently writes a Sunday column, Southern Lights, for the News: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20091025/NEWS/910249958/1216/OPINION01?Title=SOUTHERN-LIGHTS-Learning-not-to-accept-some-lessons

Tin Man also showcases a university press working at its best level, offering a first-class book on a sometime overlooked topic, folk art in this case; a book that showcases a treasure unique to this state and of interest to the nation; and a topic as presented through the eyes and ideas of experts.

Grandmother in Blue

Growing Trees

To order Tin Man on line, go to: http://www.uapress.ua.edu/

To order by phone, call: 800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000; to order by FAX, send it to: 800-621-8476 or 773-702-7212.

To inquire about Charlie Lucas’s folk art pieces, contact Chip Cooper at ccooper@ur.ua.edu, 205-348-8329 or 205-454-2335.

Jumping Over the Fence

Born on the Color

For a broader look into Cooper’s photography, go to Southern Artistry at http://www.southernartistry.org/. Click on “Photography” and find Cooper in the alphabetical listings.

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Cuba Revealed: Photos on Exhibit

 Photos: Chip Cooper

Although the Obama administration has loosened some restrictions on relations with Cuba, you still can’t just go there. An upcoming exhibit, however, opening Nov. 6 at Patina Gallery in the art community of Fairhope, Alabama, will give viewers a look at Cuba that hasn’t been possible for most  Americans since 1962.

In 2003, The University of Alabama was able to travel to Cuba after receiving an academic travel license to initiate educational development and cooperation. UA photographer Chip Cooper went several times and returned with stunning photos and an agreement to a joint exhibition, “Side by Side,” with Néstor Martí, which has shown in Havana’s Julio Larramendi Gallery in the Hostal Del Havana, and will show at UA next year.

Havana at night

Don’t wait. Travel to the quaint town of Fairhope to see images of Havana, other parts of Cuba, and the “beauty and grace” of the Cuban people as seen through Cooper’s eyes and lens.

The Patina Gallery is located on Church Street. For more information, call 251-928-2718. For information on purchasing limited edition photos, contact Chip Cooper at ccooper@ur.ua.edu or 205-348-8329.

Long-range plans include a book-length publication.

Nestor Marti (l) and Chip Cooper “Side by Side”

For information about UA's 2003 Cuba Initiative, go to: http://dialog.ua.edu/2003/02/ua-deansfaculty-explore-opportunities-in-cuba/.

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UA Press Treasure, Part I: An Astonishing Ride on Alabama Rivers

Spittin’ Grits’ last post, October 14, promised to feature several treasures published by The University of Alabama Press. Like other Southern university presses, the UA Press is a treasure trove of books for everyone, not just scholarly and research books, but also books of general interest, gorgeous art books, nature field guides, books on the particular presses’ states and regions, great cookbooks, books on off-beat topics, books on overlooked subjects, and books the major publishing houses wouldn’t touch for fear that they wouldn’t contribute to profits.

Headwaters: A Journey on Alabama Rivers is the first of the series of treasures; it combines the features of an art book, a nature guide, and a portrait of Alabama’s natural beauty. Headwaters takes the reader on a breathtaking trip down the abundance of rivers, called metaphorically Alabama's Great River, from the northern part of the state to the fall line, through the coastal plain to the Gulf of Mexico. Truthfully, it is an astonishing ride.

Conservation photographer Beth Maynor Young teamed with John Hall, longtime UA professor, former curator of UA’s Museum of Natural History, and currently curator of the Black Belt Museum at the University of West Alabama, Livingston, to raise awareness of the rivers’ beauty, the wildlife they serve, and the need to continue conservation efforts in Alabama. The Dedication says it all:

“For all of the people: advocates, scientists, teachers, paddlers, fishermen, and agencies; who are working to secure a future for these waters, that our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren may enjoy and be inspired by the mystery of rivers.”

The Beginnings

Alabama’s “Great River” begins in the state’s northern uplands, particularly in Jackson County – as drops, trickles, seepages, creeks, falls, streams, which transform into the big rivers that all make their way to the Gulf.

“At Cheaha, walk the Chinnabee Silent Trail from Turnipseed to the top of the [Cheaha] mountain. Follow the little stream up on the flank of the mountain to where the little trickles run down and it smells like damp earth and mint and Galax.”

Or start at Lethe Brook in north central Alabama’s Winston County: “Surely the Great River of Alabama must begin in a place like this. Humidity fills the air, and groundwater oozes onto the roots of ferns and mosses. Slowly the trickles gather and begin to flow downhill, five hundred miles, home to the Gulf of Mexico.”

The Falls

Where the waters of the uplands fall from the geologically older granite rocks onto the younger, softer rocks into the coastal plain is the Fall Line. Below that, rivers become slower, lower, more meandering. In Alabama the fall line runs from the Shoals, with Florence being the fall line town, down to just below Tuscaloosa, over to Tallassee at the falls of the Tallapoosa River, into Georgia; after that the waters begin to fall into the Atlantic Ocean, through the Appalachians, and all the way to New Jersey.

The fall line physically demarcates features that can or cannot occur on either the up- or down-side of the line. For example, our Cahaba Lilies (shoals lily) can only survive on the upside of the fall line. The water’s flow must be strong enough to sweep away fine sediments that can smother the lilies’ roots.

The Exit

The waters of the Great River seep, drain, and spill into the Gulf by way of two major rivers – the Tombigbee, which gathers the western waters, and the Alabama, which gathers the eastern waters; these two rivers merge north of Mobile Bay to form the Tensaw Swamp. Finally fresh water merges with salt water in salt marshes. The journey is then completed.

Headwaters boasts more than 150 full color plates of Young’s inspiring photos, each with descriptive and informative text comprising the captions.

Once readers complete this journey, they have the knowledge and inspiration to ensure the future of Alabama’s Great River. And it’s a trip they can take over and over again.

For a slideshow of a sample of the photographs at Young’s Web site, go to: http://www.kingfishereditions.com/headwaters/phpslideshow.php?directory=.&currentPic=14

To order go to http://www.uapress.ua.edu/.

Options include ordering on line, calling the toll-free number, or faxing an order. Photos reprinted by permission of the UA Press.

By phone: 800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000

To fax: 800-621-8476 or 773-702-7212

 

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