Celebrating the Spartans Class of 2023

Mountain Brook High School honored 326 graduates during commencement for the Spartans Class of 2023 on May 18 at Samford University’s Pete Hanna Center. Photos by Richard Force.

The show will be put on by the Vulcan Park & Museum at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, July 4.

The 20-minute fireworks show will be handled by Pyro Shows of Alabama and shot from the base of the Vulcan statue, allowing for easy viewing from both sides of Red Mountain.

The official soundtrack for the show will be simulcast on all iHeart Media Birmingham radio stations, including Magic 96.5, News Radio 105.5 WERC, 103.7 The Q, 102.5 The Bull and La Jefa 98.3.

Pyro Shows of Alabama begins designing the show about six months in advance, and it usually takes three days for about 10 people to set the show up at Vulcan Park & Museum, said Marvin Jones, the company’s show director.

It takes about 15 people six or seven hours to clean up afterward, he said. “We’re there til 3 or 4 in the morning,” Jones said.

The show will feature some of the traditional favorites such as happy faces and hearts, but Pyro Shows of Alabama always tries to do something different each year and works to meet special requests of the sponsors, Jones said.

This year’s sponsors of Thunder on the Mountain include the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau, city of Homewood and city of Birmingham.

Homewood

The city of Homewood and Homewood Parks and Recreation Board are having an Independence Day celebration on Tuesday, July 4, in downtown Homewood at 5 p.m.

Two blocks of 18th Street South and one block of 29th Avenue South will be blocked for pedestrian traffic, rides and inflatables designed to appeal to all ages of children. A disc jockey will provide music and interactive activities for attendees.

There is no admission charge to enter the area, but the rides and other attractions require a wristband that can be purchased for $10. The wristbands will be sold in a tent near the intersection of 18th Street South and 29th Avenue South. All money raised from the event goes to the Homewood High School band.

All activities will end when the Thunder on the Mountain fireworks display begins at Vulcan Park at 9 p.m.

Chelseafest And The Big Kaboom

About 15 miles down U.S. 280 West, Chelsea’s city-wide annual celebration will be held on Saturday, July 1. The city’s largest event of the year usually draws crowds of over 7,000 attendees.

The event kicks off at 6 p.m. with the Yankee Doodle Dandy Children’s Parade, in which children are encouraged to decorate their bikes, tricycles, scooters and wagons and trek the route beginning at Chelsea Corners Way and Chelsea Road.

Around 25 food trucks will be on-site serving meals, sweets and treats. There will be tents, tables and chairs near the food truck area, or guests can bring their own blankets and choose a spot to eat and watch the fireworks at the end of the evening.

A Family Zone area provided by local churches will include inflatables, face painting, games and more. Vendor Alley will be set up with local vendors, churches and businesses.

Live music on the main stage will be provided by Fake News and The Park Band before the fireworks kick off at 9 p.m. The fireworks’ synchronized music will not only play at the main event but also will be simulcast by radio station KOOL 96.9.

Public parking will be in the field behind the event area as well as behind Winn Dixie, and handicap parking will be provided behind the stage. There is no cost to attend the event and details can be found at chelseafest.com.

Fire On The Water

It’s only a 20-mile trip from Mountain Brook to Oak Mountain State Park. On Monday, July 3, OMSP will host Fire on the Water, the city of Pelham’s annual fireworks show.

Beginning at 5 p.m. Flip Side Watersports will present some of the top wakeboarders in the nation. Music will be provided by DJ Blaze Entertainment during the event. Food and beverage vendors will be on-site and begin serving at 5 p.m. Guests can bring their own chairs and blankets for viewing the show and are allowed to bring in their own coolers (no outside alcohol is allowed). Picnic tables are available throughout the event area, and grills are scattered throughout the park that are open to the public. and 3 p.m. where guests can get up close and personal with slithery and scaly friends.

Annual park passes are valid on July 3 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. For non-passholders, regular entrance fees apply until 5 p.m. From 5 to 7 p.m. Pelham residents only will receive a special rate of $10 per vehicle by showing proof of residency. All other attendees will receive a rate of $15 per vehicle. Both entrances into the park will take cash and card payments.

Gates into the park will close to the public at 7 p.m. to ensure the safety of all visitors leading up to the fireworks show. Campground and cabin guests will be let in and out of the park through the back gate after 7 p.m.

Guests are invited to spend the day exploring the park before the events begin.

The Alabama Wildlife Center will host Bald Eagle Talks throughout the day, and the Oak Mountain Interpretive Center will have "Teacher Creatures" sessions at 11 a.m., 1 p.m.

Other activities in the park include beach volleyball, the Treetop Nature Trail, playgrounds, basketball courts and fishing piers.

More information is available on the Fire on the Water Facebook event page.

Hoover

The city of Hoover has a 15-minute fireworks show scheduled for 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium. The fireworks will be shot by Pyro Shows of Alabama from the lower Hoover Met parking lot by the soccer fields.

Music will be broadcast on 87.9 FM.

Located in the Green Valley community, Hoover Country Club has a fireworks show scheduled for shortly after dark (roughly 9 p.m.) on Monday, July 3.

It’s a private show designed for club members and their guests, but people frequently gather on surrounding streets and at Star Lake, a small public park, to view it. The show, handled by Pyro Shows of Alabama, will be shot from the golf course driving range behind the clubhouse and usually lasts 10-15 minutes, said Kia Macon, director of special events for the club.

The club will have other activities for club members and their guests that day, with wristbands required to enter the premises, Macon said.

Helena

The city of Helena has its fireworks show planned for 9 p.m. on Monday, July 3. The fireworks will be shot by Pyro Shows of Alabama from Helena High School, but people are encouraged to gather in Old Town Helena for the Old Town Live celebration and concert at the Old Town amphitheater.

Food and arts and crafts vendors should be set up by 5 or 6 p.m. in the Old Town district. There will be a free concert by Telluride and the winner of Helena’s 2023 Battle of the Bands competition.

Parking will be available in several places along Main Street and at the Helena Sports Complex at 110 Sports Complex Drive, with a shuttle going back and forth between the sports complex and Old Town district.

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“Jemison Trail is such a special place to so many people that I thought having Erika capture it would be so special to the Birmingham community,” Maddox said.

Painting Along The Trail

Huddleston worked on her paintings along the trail each day that the weather permitted, creating pieces at various points along Shades Creek from Cahaba Road to Overbrook Road.

“I had just come off some shows earlier this year and all the logistics fell into place for me to come,” she said. “I’ve never painted outside Texas and New York City. It was exciting.”

However, this wasn’t Huddleston’s first trip to Mountain Brook. She grew up in Dallas and visited the city when she was 18. She remembers hiking in the very area where she was painting and the lasting impact it had on her.

“I've been to Mountain Brook before and remember being amazed by how beautiful the whole area is,” Huddleston said. “Mountain Brook has been on my heart since college. It's not a random thing.”

One of Texas Monthly's “Top Ten Artists to Collect Now,” Huddleston specializes in capturing the beauty of nature in urban settings. Other outdoor spaces she has painted include the Shoal Creek Trail in urban Austin, Texas; Waco Creek in Texas; and The Ramble in New York’s Central Park.

Huddleston began her days along the trail around 9 a.m., making several trips to her car to carry her bags containing all of her supplies, from oil paints to powdered pigments and canvases.

“I love all the Southern pine trees, it’s so majestic. It’s beautiful to be in a mixed forest where there’s pines, elms, redbuds — it's a full canopy and understory forest in the middle of the city,” she said.

She planned to create 10 to 15 oil paintings in two different sizes, 16x27 inches and 30x40 inches, along various parts of the trail.

“Each spot location will have a different painting,” she said. “I’m observing what I see and recording it on canvas, all the changes in nature. Oil painting on site allows you to stay in one spot a long time and capture things you can't put on a map very easily.”

The first spot Huddleston painted was across from the old mill, next to the house designed by Jemison to look like Mount Vernon — the first house ever built in Mountain Brook. While she paints, Huddleston said people always stop and speak to her. While in Mountain Brook, she said she would see people on the trail and then spot them again at restaurants or other places in the city.

“Mountain Brook is small enough that when a stranger comes to town they see the same friendly people,” she said.

While her work isn’t technically about advocacy, Huddleston said it “sort of is.”

“I want to draw attention to hav[ing] publicly accessible wilderness places and parks in the city is good for everybody’s mental health,” she said.

It was evident that Huddleston had done her research on the area. She recounted how

Robert Jemison Jr. developed the area in the 1920s and how the Olmsted Brothers designed Jemison Park. She was thrilled to make the connection with a previous body of work she painted in 2018 in Central Park, which was designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

“Four years later to be here — who knew the thumbprint of Olmsted was here?” she said. “It's so exquisite how the roads in Mountain Brook follow the ridges and topography. It's so clear and beautifully laid out.”

She said her painting inspiration comes from early 1900s Texas painter Frank Reaugh, known as the “dean of Texas artists.” She found out about him after she started painting and said he was a renowned part of the Texas art scene, creating pastels of West Texas.

“He had to adapt to being outdoors and I've had to do the same,” she said.

Past And Future Projects

Huddleston is a member of Preservation Dallas and a finalist for the Hunt award, and her work is on display in locations across Texas.

“I have a piece at the Four Seasons in Austin and at UT Southwestern in the Charles Simmons Cancer Center,” she said. “It’s a big deal to be in that collection and I’m really honored.”

She took part in a six-week residency at The Vermont Studio Center in fall 2019 and another residency at 100 West in Corsica, Texas. Her most recent invitation was from BRIT — Botanical Residency Institute of Texas at the Fort Worth Botanical Garden, where she painted parts of the two-acre blackland prairie behind BRIT.

She has an upcoming show at Art Space 111 Gallery in Fort Worth with three other female artists who paint natural subject matter.

Before that, Maddox is hosting a show on July 20 where her Jemison Trail paintings will be on display and available for purchase. Huddleston is gifting a portion of the proceeds from her paintings to Friends of the Trail in celebration of what they continue to do for the area.

Huddleston also takes on a lot of commission projects where she paints on client’s property. She only does about two garden design projects per year to mix things up and said she enjoys the collaboration of working with a team.

One place she hopes to paint in the future is Percy Warner Park in Nashville.

“I used to go there as a student and I'd love to paint a series there,” She said. Maddox said she’s always loved her friend’s art.

“To me, it captures the outdoors in a way that I can enjoy long-term indoors,” Maddox said. “Her art always has inspired me to find beauty in all things, which is how she lives her life.”

For more about Huddleston, visit her website at erikahuddleston.com.

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