Sherry Chandler » 2005 » November » 12
The last ten days have been very demanding ones in my life — in fact, the last six weeks have been so — and I have not read much around the internet. What I did read, I could scarcely comprehend, though I did understand that Democrats won some fairly important off-year elections and somehow ANWR may be in play again and that Bush said we do not torture but want to reserve the right to do so. Okay — maybe it isn’t me; maybe events are just incomprehensible.
I am excited to have received my Fall issue of the Oxford American. This one is the Southern Arts issue with page after page of photographs of all manner of artworks from all periods. Eye candy, as the music issue is ear candy.[ I want to reconsider that last remark. The artwork in the OA is gorgeous and evocative but not decorative or lightweight, so I think using the term "eye candy" may be misleading.]
I haven’t had a chance to read deeply in this issue (haven’t finished all the articles in the music issue yet!) but I have already found an article by Louisville-born Julie Ardery. Julie’s family used to run Ardery’s drugstore, an institution here in Paris for many decades. Gone now, as are all the privately owned drugstores. One result of the new Medicare drug plan may be to put the quietus on those few remaining small-town drugstores. My sister, at least, will be required to buy her drugs from Wal-Mart.
But I digress again into the incomprehensible. Julie and I were briefly acquainted. I last saw her about 25 years ago in a big house we were renting across the street from another small-town drugstore, Wilson’s, when she was an aspiring poet and I was writing lame short stories. Now apparently she lives in Austen, that liberal oasis, and has become the director of The Human Flower Project. I recommend her post on the holy day we have come to call Veteran’s and the significance of the poppy.
Julie’s article, “Out of this World,” concerns Pearl Fryer, a topiary artist in Bishopville, South Carolina. If you think topiary is not an art form, read the article.
Erik Reece has also contributed an article about Shelby Lee Adams, a controversial Appalachian black & white portraitist. If you aren’t familiar with Adams, you can find examples of his work all over the web: here, here, here, etc.
And on the lighter side, here are a couple of contributions from Donna Marder:
This post was written by sherry
