The Guide

SHELBY HUMANE PAWS FOR THE CAUSE 5K AND 1 MILE TAIL WAGGIN’ TREK

MARCH 6 Veterans Park

Who doesn’t run to support the lost, homeless and unwanted pets the Shelby Humane Society cares for? You can run a 5K course through the park around the lake and through tree-lined trails, and/or take on a 1-mile “obstacle” course run with silly fun animal-themed challenges for all ages. Register at runsignup.com and learn more about the nonprofit at shelbyhumane.org.

BLUFF PARK

MURAL COMING SOON

How cool is this mural designed by Jayne Morgan coming soon to Mr. P’s Deli and Butcher Shop in Bluff Park? The angel wings represent Mrs. P, Carol Pilleteri, who passed away in April 2018, and the red roses surrounding the wings were her favorite flower. Plus, the seven cardinals represent the seven grandchildren of Carol and her husband Charles. Donations to the project are now being accepted through Venmo @BluffParkMuralProject. Donations of $400 or more will receive a limited signed and matted 8x10-inch print of the mural image.

MARCH 6

ASPIRE Wine 10K

The Finley Center, Hoover Met

Time for a run—with wine! The USATF-certified course starts at The Finley Center and loops through the Hoover Metropolitan Sports Complex and adjacent neighborhood before returning to finish inside The Finley Center. Runners and walkers of all paces are welcome and encouraged to participate, and there’s also a virtual option for the 10K and the 5K. Register at runsignup.com.

THURSDAYS

Live From My Living Room

7 P.M.

Connect with your favorite musicians while remaining socially distant through the Hoover Public Library on YouTube or Facebook. Just one example: On Feb. 11, Sean Gaskell will play the kora, a 21-string harp-like instrument that he studied in Gambia. Find more virtual events happening at the library at events.hooverlibrary.org, or you can schedule a curbside pick-up at hooverlibrary.org. Check for event updates closer to dates based on COVID-19.

ALL DATES Various Events Hoover Public Library events.hooverlibrary.org

THROUGH FEB. 7 Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle Birmingham Museum of Art, Jemison Galleries

THROUGH MARCH 2021 All Things Bright and Beautiful Exhibit Birmingham Museum of Art, Pizitz Gallery

THROUGH MAY 2021 An Epic of Earth and Water: Clare Leighton and the New England Industries Series Birmingham Museum of Art, Arrington Gallery

FEB. 5 Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus The Lyric Theatre

FEB. 11 American Red Cross Blood Drive Hoover Met 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.

FEB. 14 The Great Backyard Bird Count 2021 Oak Mountain State Park Interpretive Center

FEB. 15 Presidents Day

FEB. 25 Jo Koy Just Kidding World Tour The Alabama Theatre

FEB. 27 Columbiana Cowboy Day Columbiana

MARCH 5 Alabama Wish Night Benefitting Make-A-Wish Alabama Ross Bridge Welcome Center

MARCH 13 GreenWise Market Village 2 Village 10K and 7.5K Mountain Brook Village

MARCH 18-21 James and the Giant Peach Jr. Virginia Samford Theatre

MARCH 22-26 Spring Break Hoover City Schools

MARCH 27 Rumpshaker 5K In Person or Virtual Options Homewood Central Park

MARCH 28

Darci Lynne & Friends BJCC Concert Hall

SCHOOLS

TIME FOR APPLAUSE

Hoover City Schools District Elementary Teacher of the Year Katherine Thompson (Riverchase Elementary School, pictured above) and Secondary Teacher of the Year Pamela McClendon (RC3, below) were honored in surprise ceremonies in December and will proceed to the state level for consideration. Other teachers of the year for the school system are: uDianne Row, Berry Middle uAvery Lieske, Bluff Park Elementary uTerri Davis, Brock’s Gap Intermediate uAshley Lloyd, R.F. Bumpus Middle uKatie Woolard, Deer Valley Elementary uJenny Smith, Green Valley Elementary uLaura Oliver, Gwin Elementary uAdrian Fitchpatrick, Hoover High uGinny Ezekial, Rocky Ridge Elementary uNancy McGowan, Shades Mountain Elementary uTamera Carter, Simmons Middle uHunter Birdyshaw, South Shades Crest Elementary uHannah Joseph, Spain Park High uAmanda Mundy, Trace Crossings Elementary

[ N e w b o r n + C h i l d + F a m i l y P o r t r a i t u r e ]

i n f o @ a p e p p e r m i n t p h o t o . c o m + 2 0 5 . 8 0 7 . 6 4 3 1 w w w . a p e p p e r m i n t p h o t o . c o m

ARTS CULTURE&

THE GLASS DANCE

Shapes and colors of all forms emerge in Micah Simpson’s glass-blown art.

BY ELIZABETH STURGEON PHOTOS BY MORGAN HUNT

GGlassblowing is a dance, choreographed with repetitive and rhythmic movements that shape each glass object. Honey-like molten glass balances on the end of the long blowpipe as it’s twisted or layered. Micah Simpson always thinks of the glassblowing process this way, as a dance that relies on precision and strength, as well as curiosity in the shapes and colors that he can create. “You’ve got to move quickly and move with the glass,” he says. “If you don’t get your timing just right, or if you dance too slowly, the glass will shatter.” The 2,000-degree heat point, the speed and intensity, and the color combinations that emerge have kept Micah involved in glassblowing for nearly 20 years, from his college classes in the studio to his current glass blowing and woodworking business, Glass and Grain. Through Glass and Grain, Micah crafts handblown glass drinkware, bowls and vases as well as furniture and large built-in woodworking projects. He’s the only glassblowing artist in the Birmingham area that he knows of, and one of a small group throughout the state and the Southeast. Glassblowing isn’t like other forms of glass art— it’s defined by the technique of forming the hot glass at the end of a long, 5-foot pipe that the artist blows through to create a bubble and then further shapes from there. “You have to see it to really understand it,” Micah says. “It’s a big operation, not just a little torch. You can make some really large pieces.”

Micah’s creative and innovative spirit began with a childhood interest in drawing and painting and even building Legos, further sparked by living in New Orleans until he was 17 and seeing a deeprooted appreciation for art. When he began a degree in accounting at Georgia Southwestern University (his creative side being met by a more mathematical half), he eventually stumbled upon the university’s glass studio.

This studio is a true gem as the only university glass studio in Georgia and one of less than 100 college programs around the country, and Micah began loading his schedule with extra classes in glassblowing. “It’s very captivating, and the process is intriguing,” he says. “There’s a danger element, and I like the challenge. Glass is probably the hardest medium to pick up, in all the mediums I’ve done.”

His glass work allows him to experiment with

colors and styles within a very particular technique. “With glass, I like to throw things together and try them out,” Micah says. “Sometimes I stumble upon a combination of colors that you have to see in person. It’s fascinating what colors can do.” He loves creating these remarkable designs in what he thinks of as everyday “vessels” like cups and bowls – objects that hold something else.

Micah decided to pursue his BFA after a few years of glassblowing, and he spent even more time in the glass studio and worked with painting, printmaking, metalworking and photography. After working with glass for hours each day, Micah then moved to Birmingham to attend Beeson Divinity School, thinking he left glass behind for a next step.

While in seminary, he found Bear Creek Studio, a glassblowing studio in downtown Birmingham where he would work 25 hours a week as their coldwork technician. Around 2009 when he graduated, Bear Creek closed, and Micah thought the glassblowing chapter had officially closed since he’d only be able to work whenever he was in Georgia.

With his seminary degree in hand, Micah began a role as the campus pastor at Southeastern Bible College, but with the need for pieces of furniture and renovations in his home, he started woodworking too. “When I didn’t have glass accessible, the creative spark was still very much alive,” he says. “It’s a fun process to make something the way you want it – the right fit and the right style.”

Micah first built a set of stairs in his home, and then built a bed frame when his wife, Heather, was pregnant. “We really needed it made quickly, so she could have it while she was pregnant,” he says, “and we’ve had it for ten years now. It’s stood up to our two boys wrestling on it, and it’s an heirloom piece.”

In 2017, with years of woodworking and glassblowing experience and while moving on from a nonprofit leadership job, Micah began to look at next steps and saw the blend of glass and grain—the mediums he’s made his own through years of practice and training. He created a workspace out of his own garage and driveway in Hoover to have room for tools and equipment.

Glass and Grain bring out different sides of Micah’s style. In his glass work, experimentation and spontaneity in the process generate striking color combinations with deep royal blues or warm golds. Woodworking brings out an extreme attention to detail in each piece. A professor once encouraged Micah to “consider the square you make,” which he does in the details of the custom wood pieces he puts into the world.

There’s a functionality in the mediums that Micah enjoys about both. With the glass, he makes cups and bowls and other objects you use on a daily basis. “Glass and art could be just something you look at,” he says, “but I want people to participate in the art.” The vessels he’s putting into the world are certainly beautiful objects, ones that you pay much more attention to than an average cup.

Micah’s blown glass turns vessels into what he calls considered objects. “You don’t usually consider the cup because you’re more interested in what’s in the cup. With the glass blown, handmade cups, people stop and consider the vessel,” Micah says. Though he’s worked on large-scale projects and sculptures—like the “Tree of Life” in Surgical Dermatology Group’s lobby with 100 pieces of glass-blown fruit—it’s the functional pieces like the everyday drinkware or the bed he made for his wife that mean the most to him. The slowness it takes to stop and look deeper into an object—to make art a part of something as simple as drinking from a glass—is something Micah sees as going deeper, beyond the art, and representative of how we can interact in the world around other people. “We’re so often more interested in what we can get out of someone than the person themselves,” he says. “But we hold memories and fears, and much more. It would be nice if we could always consider the vessel as much as we consider what’s in it.”

Follow Micah’s work on Instagram @glass_ and_grain and learn more about it at glass-andgrain.com.

Coming back in 2021 for a 5th Year

The only pick-your-own tulip field in the Southeast

The Festival runs mid-February through March

*(depending on bloom time) Check our website or Facebook page for opening date and field conditions before your trip.

Open Monday-Saturday 10-4, Sunday 12-4 during bloom time

The American Village

3727 Hwy. 119, Montevallo, Alabama www.americanvillage.org • (205) 665-3535

THE PROCESS

The key to glassblowing is keeping the material moving. “You start to have a feel for the heat,” Micah says. First, as the glass is heating up in the furnace, he takes a 5-foot-long blowpipe to gather the glass on the end, with molecules rapidly moving and expanding to be flexible and shapable. He uses a bench and different tools to manipulate the shape, then “dances” back to the reheating furnace to keep the texture moving until he gets the design he has in mind. The more glass you have, the more heat it captures and the more working time you have. You can see videos and photos of the full technique on Micah’s Instagram @glass_and_grain.

Southern Voices Retrospective

To say that 2020 was a struggle would be a big understatement. The Hoover Public Library changed the way we operated during this time and moved programs, story times and book groups to an online environment. One program that we could not adapt though was our annual Southern Voices Festival.

For the last 28 years, the Hoover Public Library has brought artists, musicians and writers to our Theatre stage for the Southern Voices Festival. That magic, frankly, cannot be replicated online, nor is it feasible to hold it in the Library Theater with social distancing guidelines in place. Carrie So, instead of putting the last minute Steinmehl finishing touches on our conference, Technology Manager we’ve been spending a lot of time reminiscing on past conferences.

Our Library Director Amanda Borden says one of her favorite memories was meeting author Lisa Scottoline in 2007. Scottoline not only connected with Amanda on a very personal level, but she generously donated her honorarium back to the library.

Pam Bainter, library specialist and past SV co-chair, says one of the highlights of her career was driving her favorite author, Lee Smith, to the airport after the event in 1999. Smith regaled her with stories about the South and southern literature.

Matina Johnson, Library Theater manager, recollects hosting Odetta in 2005. As down to earth as she was, Johnson says she was well aware that she was rubbing elbows with a living legend—one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and the queen of American folk and blues.

As for me, my fondest memory was from 2019 when I introduced one of my personal heroes, Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Few books have spoken to me more than Stevenson’s Just Mercy, which was adapted into a movie later that year and starred Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan.

During the week of what would have been Southern Voices 2021 (February 23-27), we are going to share some more memories from past festivals each day on the Southern Voices Facebook page. In the meantime, know that your Southern Voices Festival committee will be hard at work planning an engaging, fun and “normal” event in 2022.