WINTER 2015
a sip of life from the most soulful state
art
<
in the South
Walter Anderson’s Legacy Family Keeps Art Alive
TRUEV GRRT Delta Grind Grits Hot in Water Valley
Chef Ty Thames Fresh & Local in Starkville
‘Valley Girls’ Run the Show up North
>
FOOD
Also: Delta Bohemian • River Gator • Art Advocate Sonny Boatman • Ardenland
Quapaw Canoe Company — Natchez, MS
An itinerary is a good start. But the real trip begins when you leave it by the wayside. Mississippi is alive. Let it grab you. The music. The food. The laughter. The peace. When you get lost in the moment, you find much more. And you’ll take it with you forever. Start your story at visitmississippi.org.
theâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;
Photo by Melanie Thortis
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CONTENTS
features Page 8
True Grit Becky Tatum, owner of Delta Grind Grits, is a one-woman show with her hot Water Valley grits business. COVER SHOT
Page 26
Page 36
Portrait: Sonny Boatman
The Anderson Legacy
Corinth native uses his love of art and design to help preserve and celebrate his hometown.
Walter Andersonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughter and grandson are keeping his story alive through art and nature.
Page 48
Page 58
Ardenland
Chef Ty Thames
Music promoter Arden Barnett brings the big-time to Jackson through his music promotion company, Ardenland.
Chef Ty Thames brings an array of local and organic food options to eager Starkville diners.
A large scoop of Delta Grind Grits sits on top of a barrel of fresh corn. Photo by Melanie Thortis
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CONTENTS
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departments 20
IN EVERY ISSUE 4 « Editor’s Note 6 « Spotlight 24 « ‘Sip Trip 56 « ‘Sip of Nature 64 « ‘Sip and Read
32
68 « The Last ‘Sip
LIFESTYLE 14 | Valley Girls Woman-owned businesses are prominent in Water Valley.
20 | Delta Bohemian Clarksdale couple’s blog brings awareness to Delta. Contents page photo by Melanie Thortis
ART
52
32 | Oxford Treehouse Gallery Oxford gallery owners showcase art they love. Contents page photo by Melanie Thortis
MUSIC 44 | Nick & Julia Blake Married music duo strike a chord with old-time tunes.
OUTSIDE 52 | RiverGator Nathan takes a once-in-a-lifetime canoe adventure. Contents page photo by Ralph Pace
66 FOOD 66 | Lillie’s Restaurant Clinton eatery serves up soul food. Contents page photo by Melanie Thortis
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| Winter 2015
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EDITOR’S NOTE
from the Front Porch Happy New Year!
What a glorious whirlwind it has been! This issue marks the end of The ‘Sip’s first year in print and an exciting year ahead. Since our last issue, our team has traveled around the state — from the red clay hills of Oxford for a brown bag lecture at my alma mater to the Gulf Coast for the Mississippi Governor’s Conference on Tourism — raising awareness about our publication. People from all walks of life have embraced The ‘Sip as a cultural guide to our state’s remarkable people and places. I could not be more proud or thrilled by its reception. And, it’s only the beginning. Our winter issue celebrates the soul-warming tastiness of one of the South’s favorite foods. For me, a good batch of grits — with garlic and cheese à la Vintage Vicksburg — is as close to food heaven as this Southern girl can get. Delta Grind Grits, one of several woman-owned businesses reshaping the quaint, artsy town of Water Valley, is singing a success story for grits in Mississippi. This issue also honors the legacy of Walter Anderson, a notable Mississippi artist I’ve admired since childhood. I was delighted to visit with the artist’s daughter, Mary, and her son Chris on the steps of the former barn at Shearwater, the family art compound, and it was fascinating to be in the company of two creative spirits. Our conversation was paused when a monarch butterfly flew overhead and Mary and Chris, true to their heritage, stopped to take note of the beauty of the nature around them — a humbling and memorable experience. Paying attention is part of Walter Anderson’s legacy.
Cheers, y’all,
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| Winter 2015
PHOTO by Melanie Thortis
As The ‘Sip delves into a new year full of fresh and exciting adventures — a mobile app, an office in downtown Vicksburg, plans for signature events and special issues — I will keep that inspiring conversation close to heart. This issue, complete with a canoe adventure on the Mississippi River, provides a nice kickstart to a new year of celebrating all the little details that make this state outstanding.
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SPOTLIGHT
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a big thanks to this issue’s talented contributors LESLIE CRISS | WRITER A native of Grenada, Leslie received a bachelor of arts in English from Mississippi College and taught junior high and high school students in Biloxi for six years. She attended graduate school in journalism at Ole Miss and spent seven years at The Vicksburg Post as a features writer, editor and columnist. She was the owner and operator of Snickerdoodles, a restaurant in Corinth. For the past 15 years, she has been features and special sections editor at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo.
KATE GREGORY | WRITER Kate, who grew up in Forest, is a lecturer of freshman English composition at Mississippi State University and an assistant at the Congressional and Political Research Center at MSU’s Mitchell Memorial Library. She has a bachelor of arts in English from Ole Miss and a masters in English from MSU. Kate’s passions are writing, traveling, good food, the Neshoba County Fair and the not-so-fine art of iPhone photography. She has written features and columns for the Starkville Daily News and Town and Gown Magazine. She lives in Starkville with her husband and cat.
LAREECA RUCKER | WRITER LaReeca studied journalism and literature at the University of Mississippi and has spent more than 20 years as a journalist in Mississippi. She spent a decade as a features writer at The Clarion-Ledger covering everything from crime and religion to arts and culture. She has won more than 40 awards for writing, photography and page design, including a two-week fellowship to the University of Maryland to study child and policy issues. Her work has appeared in newspapers and websites across the country, including USAToday.com,
CYNTHIA WALL | WRITER Cynthia, a former newspaper writer and editor, began writing for her high school newspaper when she was 17 and never quit. She worked at newspapers in Alabama and Mississippi for 30 years before leaving The Clarion-Ledger, where she was the features editor. She also has been an adjunct journalism instructor at Mississippi College and the University of Southern Mississippi. She and her husband live in Flowood.
JEREMY MURDOCK | PHOTOGRAPHER Jeremy is a fine art and freelance commercial photographer in Starkville. He earned bachelors and masters degrees in landscape architecture from Mississippi State University. A self-taught photographer, Jeremy captures, preserves and highlights the unique people, places and stories in Mississippi. He’s won numerous awards in various juried art competitions, and his work has appeared on TravelandLeisure.com, PopPhoto.com and John T. Edge’s Southern Belly smart phone app, as well as several tourism publications in the Starkville area.
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SPOTLIGHT
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Publisher/Editor Lauchlin Fields RALPH PACE PHOTOGRAPHER Ralph is a conservation photographer living in San Diego, California. He holds a graduate degree in marine conservation from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where he used his photography to help stop the construction of a marina project that would ruin a lagoon, critical sea turtle nesting habitat and a world-class surf break. Using his education in science, Ralph hopes to act as an interpreter to simplify scientific messages through imagery to help push conservation agendas. Ralph’s work has been published and used by many NGOs for educational, promotional, advocacy, identification and enforcement purposes.
LAUREN WOOD PHOTOGRAPHER Lauren graduated from the Michigan State University School of Journalism in 2011. After living her whole life in Michigan, she packed up and moved south when she was offered a job in Natchez. A year later, after the culture shock started to wear off, she decided she really liked Mississippi and moved to Tupelo to join the staff of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Lauren has been recognized at the state, regional, national and international levels for her photography.
Photography Director Melanie Thortis Design Director Erin Norwood Consulting Editor Karen Gamble Copy Editor Olivia Foshee Outside Editor Nathan Beane Writers Gordon Cotton Elizabeth Grey Designers Claiborne Cooksey Erin Norwood Sales Executive Tina Abernathy tina@thesipmag.com
Laura Todd
laura@thesipmag.com
Marketing/Sales Director Cortney Linares cortney@thesipmag.com
Interns Tiffany Carroll Mary Kalusche The ‘Sip is a registered trademark of
Front Porch Fodder Publishing, LLC. The ‘Sip magazine is published four times a year. Owner: Lauchlin Fields 1216 National Street Vicksburg, MS 39180 601.573.9975 editor@thesipmag.com Copyright 2015 The ‘Sip by Front Porch Fodder Publishing, LLC Reproduction of any part of this publication is strictly prohibited.
TRUE GRRT
Grits business is a one-woman operation in Water Valley
A yellow forklift is parked in front of an industrial warehouse in a rural area just outside the Water Valley business district. Plastic containers and sacks of Mississippi corn are stacked on wood pallets beside the entryway. Inside, corn dust covers the concrete floor decorated with small footprints that lead around the corner to large silver machines. Louisa, 8, and Graham, 5, sweep corn dust into piles while their mother, Becky Tatum, pours corn into a silver mill that is fed into the separator. Eventually, Delta Grind Grits fall from the bottom of the machine where they are collected and packaged. Eight years ago, Becky and her husband, John, knew they would have to make changes. The Oxford restaurant where both worked was set to close, and Becky, the mother of a baby girl, had to decide whether to seek another full-time job or become a stay-at-home mom. Instead of facing the “daily grind,” she opted to grind grits. Because the idea of staying home daily without a creative outlet seemed boring, Becky decided to buy Delta Grind Grits, a flexible part-time business that enabled her to care for her children and work simultaneously. Today, she is the only employee of the small company that has doubled in size since she purchased it in 2008. Becky typically grinds grits twice a week for two to four hours using 10–20 sacks of corn each time.
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“when i go to a farmers’ market, i’m kind of a rock star.” ~ Becky Tatum
The Chattanooga native studied art history, architecture and historical preservation at the College of Charleston while her high school sweetheart and future fiancé, John Tatum, attended Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., on the opposite side of the state. After the death of his father, John bounced around a bit in his early 20s, but eventually returned to Charleston to be near Becky and work as a cook while she sold tickets at Charleston plantations and worked as a concierge at a historic luxury hotel in an attempt to have a job related to her college major. “One day, after trying to make ends meet, we discussed the option of moving to Mississippi because it was cheap,” Becky said. The two moved to Oxford and were married in 2003. While John continued to work as a cook, Becky found a job as a bank teller. Then, a friend tipped them off to the low cost of living in the nearby town of Water Valley, about 20 miles south of Oxford. “A person in the kitchen told us they had just moved to Water Valley and bought a big house on Main Street for something crazy, like $60,000,” Becky said. “When we rolled into town, there wasn’t much there, but the houses were really cool, and that appealed to my background.” After six months of living in Water Valley, John and Becky bought a house off Main Street and decided to open a restaurant. “We had stars in our eyes because everything was so cheap, and his grandfather had left him some money,” said Becky. “Neither of us was really happy doing what we were doing.” The two renovated a historic building and opened the Main Street Grill offering casual, country lunches with fresh foods, such as mashed potatoes and green beans. At night, the Southern fare included steaks, chicken and catfish. “Nothing was out of a can,” Becky said. “He just wanted to bring quality food to a place that really didn’t have a lot of restaurants at the time.” The Main Street Grill closed after two years, and the Tatums still debate why it wasn’t a success. “Some said the place looked too nice and thought it might be too expensive,” Becky said. “My husband likes to
think we were boycotted because of our bar. At the time, beer was not legal. All we could serve was wine and liquor, and a lot of older people in the community looked at that and didn’t agree with it. I like to think we didn’t do our research. We started off too big. That doesn’t work in business.” After their restaurant venture, the Tatums found a renter for the property and decided to return to work. Becky waited tables at L&M Kitchen, an Italian restaurant off the Oxford Square on North Lamar, and later served as manager. “While I was there, the lady who had started Delta Grind Grits came in, and she got that in my head,” Becky said. “She was looking for the right person to buy the business.” John encouraged Becky to buy it. “The owner taught me everything she knew, and it was a fairly easy business to get into. All the clients were there. It was already making money for her. I just had to make enough and be able to pay myself more than I was making at the restaurant. The more I learned, the more I liked it.” Becky purchased the business name, the client list and the equipment and moved it to Water Valley. “It’s a one-woman operation,” she said. “I can handle it. I’ve learned to be organized and to write everything down because you can’t make mistakes. With a business this small, you have to keep your customers happy.” Since buying the business in 2008, Becky said the brand is now recognized more throughout the state. “When I go to a farmers’ market, sometimes, with some people, I’m kind of a rock star,” she said. “And it’s kind of crazy, because it’s just food. These people get really excited just knowing that someone cares enough to make something like this, make it fresh and have it locally sourced.” Delta Grind Grits has expanded from the Memphis and Oxford market since Becky bought it. She now sells grits to more than 20 restaurants and a few grocery stores throughout Mississippi, as well as restaurants in San Francisco, Florida, Missouri and Pennsylvania. Most clients learn about Delta Grind Grits by word of mouth. She takes orders Mondays and Tuesdays and grinds on Tuesday afternoons. She delivers to Memphis on Wednesdays,
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people out there don’t know what grits are.
“I’ve had calls from Texas, Oregon, Chicago and New York asking.” ~BECKY TATUM
the Mississippi Delta on Thursdays and Jackson on Fridays. She has hopes of hiring a few distributors. “It’s an easy job for me, personally, and the whole process is so methodical,” she said. “There’s really nothing to it. But you make it fun by going to farmers’ markets and talking to people. “The funniest ones that I have come into contact with are the people who think I’m selling bleached coffee. There was another lady who said, ‘Polenta? Isn’t that made out of bananas?’ Even out in Texas, there are people who call me, and they are like, ‘People out here don’t know what grits are.’ I’ve had calls from Texas, Oregon, Chicago and New York asking.” Becky is just one of many women of Water Valley who has started businesses with a modern take on the stay-athome-mother concept, capitalizing on flexible hours. “Water Valley is kind of big on women in business,” Becky said. “Most of the businesses, even the Main Street businesses, are run by women. There’s only a handful of them run by men. So it’s like we are all in it together. “April has a dance studio and a coffee shop. Tammy owns the Caboose Boutique. Coulter is an art studio owner. She’s redoing another building that will have textiles, sell fabric and sewing supplies. Alexe had a dream of opening a grocery store, and she did, dammit. Liz owns the funeral home. Jessica runs a gift shop. Ten after three, the buses come, and the children run into their moms’ stores instead of running into their home.”
Despite the high number of women who own businesses in Water Valley, Becky has encountered some oldfashioned skeptics who stare at her in awe, she said. “When I go pick up my corn, I do have people look at me like, ‘What is she doing with all of that corn?” she said. “My facility is in the middle of three industrial buildings. I’ll have neighbors come in and stand at the doorway and watch what I do. A couple are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t think my wife could do that.’” “It’s empowering to know that you are not alone, because so many women in Water Valley do run businesses. But when you see how some of the older generation watches you with all of the mechanical and heavy lifting, you kind of put them in their place by picking up that 60-pound sack of corn, heaving it over your head like it’s a little baby, and saying, ‘Yep, I can do it.’” Story LaReeca Rucker PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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CULTURE
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W AT E R VA LLE Y, MS
Valley Girls
A new generation of women takes charge in Water Valley
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Annette Trefzer is one of the Valley Girls — a growing number of women business owners in the small town of Water Valley just outside of Oxford. She owns and manages Bozarts Gallery at 403 Main St., a historic structure built circa 1880 that was purchased in the summer of 2005, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Annette, who also works as an English professor at Ole Miss, said she’s noticed a lot of enterprising young women in Water Valley who have sought and found opportunity. “There are women in their mid-30s who really have made a great leap of faith,” she said. “There are lots of women with a vision.” Business ownership is becoming more inclusive in Mississippi, according to the Small Business Administration. The number of women and minority business owners has grown. In particular, minority-owned businesses numbered 46,823 in 2007, a 57.3 percent increase over 2002. Census Bureau statistics show 122,561 male-owned businesses in the state and 60,849 owned by women, but the number of women-owned businesses in Mississippi has grown since 1997.
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According to American Express Open’s recently released State of the Women-Owned Business Report, the U.S. has 8 million women-owned businesses, a figure that has doubled since 1997. And Mississippi is one of three states with the fastest growing number of women-owned businesses since 1997. The other two are Georgia and Nevada. The report says Mississippi ranks sixth in the nation and had 77 percent growth in the number of women-owned firms between 1997 and 2013. Women should be encouraged to start their own businesses, but they should know what they bring to the table, Annette said. “You can’t open a tea shop if you don’t like the tea. I would encourage them to draw on their strengths. Follow your dreams, and build on what you’re good at.” Annette said life has changed in the past 40 years for women. “I have noticed in my profession, when I first was a graduate student in Tulane University in the 1980s, there were only two women professors,” she said. “Only one of them was a real professor, and the rest were male colleagues. Today, we have about an equal amount of female and male professors in our department.
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“ I think there are a lot of wonderful, creative female leaders in business and politics. I have definitely seen that change. I think in the ’80s when it was such a struggle in coming up and grabbing a place, women have really come into their
own.”
~ ANNETTE TREFZER
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“They have figured out a way to do this with kids and a business, and it’s more accepted today for a woman to be a business woman, and to have a family, or maybe even not have a family.” Annette said she’s noticed that many Water Valley Main Street business owners are very young women who have opened grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, art galleries, etc. “I think women have definitely come up in higher education, in businesses, in leadership positions, politics, economics, and I think it’s just more accepted today for women to run a business, be the head of a company or be a CEO. I think expectations for women’s success has changed in the last 40 years. Society is just embracing us more than it used to.” Karen Hancock, who owns The Velvet Glove gift shop at 307 Main St., in Water Valley, estimates that 85 percent of the town is run by women. “Several years ago, there was an article written about some of the women in business in the town, and I thought it was sad that they didn’t go from one end of the town to another to see how many women actually play a part in a town this size,” she said. “If you just have a walk-a-thon from one end of the town to the other, that’s what you’ll find — women who are running successful businesses, even to the extent that there is a farm supply store that is run by a woman north of town.
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CULTURE
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“I doubt you could go into one business in this town and not find a woman who is either running it, owning it or being a partner in it.” ~ ANNETTE TREFZER of Water Valley
“I doubt you could go into one business in this town and not find a woman who is either running it, owning it or being a partner in it. That may be unusual. I don’t know. But for a town this size, I would think that it probably would be.” Debbie Fly, who manages O’Tuck Farm Supply, at 831 Wise St., said the town has changed. “There’s more stores, and the downtown is more diversified than it used to be,” she said. “I’ve had to be more diversified here to support what people want in this area.” In addition to selling feed, seed, camouflage clothing and hunting supplies, Fly has added jewelry, wallets, stationery and women’s clothing to the inventory in an effort to appeal to male and female customers. “I’m quite proud of the fact that there’s a lot of women business owners here,” she said. Liz Reynolds owns Seven Oaks Funeral Home in Water Valley. “When I think of women in business in Water Valley, I really think of the younger crowd,” she said. “I’m older than most of the women in business here. I think of the younger people who step out, take a wild idea and turn it into something beautiful.” Jeannie Waller Zieren, district director of community relations for the Mississippi Main Street Association, said “from conversations with (Main Street) managers, it seems that more businesses than ever in Mississippi’s downtown districts are owned and run by women,” she said. “We actually had a ‘Girl Power’ session at our last conference with a panel of women who run their own businesses on Main Street. They talked about successes and challenges as female business owners and entrepreneurs.” The association’s recent session, called “Girl Power: The Rising Trend of Female Developers, Entrepreneurs and Business Owners,” was a panel discussion that focused on the rising trend of female entrepreneurs and business owners on Main Street and their perspectives on the benefits and challenges of what they do. Coulter Fussell was one of the panelists. Born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, she moved to North Mississippi in 1997 to attend the University of Mississippi, where she met her husband. They bought a historic home in Water Valley in 2004, and in 2010, Coulter, who had been a career waitress until that point, rented an old barbershop on Main Street and opened Yalo Studio and Gallery.
Coulter told the panel that small towns offer freedom and opportunities for experimentation. And, if you’re willing to sweat, think for yourself and have the patience of Job, the forgotten, small rural town can be the new frontier. “We’re doing it,” Fussell said, while standing inside a building that she is single-handedly renovating. “That’s happening here, and it’s no concerted group effort on anybody’s part. No city planning, no board has decided to push that agenda. It’s just the right people at the right time all in the same place who are sort of self-motivated in that way. And there are a good number of women here that are doing that. “We have women in a variety of businesses. It’s not just women owning a certain type of store. We have women owning art galleries and the grits thing and grocery stores, dress shops, the coffee shops and all sorts of stuff. I like the spectrum, and that’s something that can’t be planned as well.” Coulter owns a studio and gallery on Main Street, and she is renovating a second building that will house a textile shop. She plans to partner with New York fashion designer Susan Cianciolo, who will come down several times a year to conduct workshops. In the meantime, Coulter will curate quilting, crochet, knit and embroidery workshops. The new store will be called Yalo-Run, the combined name of both of their businesses. Coulter is hands-on with art and construction. She recently ripped three layers of paneling off the walls of the new building and pulled up layers of carpet and rotten corkboard from the floor and front stage areas. “It’s all me,” Coulter said. “I’m the only one. One reason it’s like that is I can’t pay anybody. I’m free labor. Another reason is I like doing it myself. I like to be in total control of what I’m doing.” It’s a common characteristic of the Valley Girls she knows. “Women in Water Valley are doing these things, and they’re doing it themselves,” she said. “They aren’t calling anyone to do it for them. “It wasn’t planned. It’s not really even something that any of us talk about too much or recognize, but it does happen to be sort of a perfect storm of women who have all decided to do this, and we all did it at the same time.” Story LaReeca Rucker PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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| Winter 2015
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LIFESTYLE
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C LA R K S D A LE, MS
Delta Bohemian
Mississippi roots allow couple to live as free spirits
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Delta Bohemian Guest House 1114 Seminole Street, Clarksdale, MS Standard rate based on two-person occupancy: $184 per week night, $214 per weekend night. Additional $40 per night per guest beyond two; four-adult maximum. Special rates and night minimums are applied during festivals, events and holidays. Call 662-392-9249 for reservations. Website: deltabohemian.com YouTube: youtube.com/user/thedeltabohemian Twitter: @deltabohemian Instagram: instagram.com/deltabohemian_ magic TripAdvisor: tripadvisor.com/ VacationRentalReview-g43722-d3630241Delta_Bohemian_Guest_House-Clarksdale_ Mississippi.html Airbnb: airbnb.com/rooms/741558 Yelp: yelp.com/biz/delta-bohemianexcursions-clarksdale VRBO: vrbo.com/472087
Starting with two words and a passion to promote their Delta birth land, Madge and Billy Howell have created an empire of celebrating the unity and diversity of the Mississippi Delta. They are Poor William and Magical Madge to locals and thousands of online followers. Collectively they are Delta Bohemian. It’s an appropriate designation for these two Mississippi Delta-born free spirits. “We both lived away from here, separately. And, we both found ourselves back here. When we came back, we kind of got to know all different kinds of people, because we’re not like everybody else here — we aren’t like the people we grew up with anymore. We’re different. And we like that,” Madge said. “And we kind of celebrate our differences. So, we liked the bohemian aspect, because we are ourselves. And that’s how I define bohemian, is, there’s all kinds of ways to define it — it’s more recognizing that you, me, everyone is different and unique. God made us that way and that’s something worth celebrating.” Billy said the juxtaposition of the words perfectly describes them and their mission. “They kind of — at the same time — are oxymoronic and redundant. I mean, there’s a strange connection between the two,” he said. The connection between the two words is not unlike the connection between Madge, who grew up in Tallahatchie County, and her husband, Clarksdale native, Billy. Both had recently returned to their Delta roots when they met. When they married in 2009, Billy wore a pirate outfit, complete with eye patch, and Madge donned a short wench outfit. It was the perfect beginning to their adventure. It was through Billy’s management of the Clark House, one of Clarksdale’s unique lodging offerings, and Madge’s management of actor Morgan Freeman’s now-closed Madidi Restaurant, that the Delta Bohemian was borne. “Not like we were the only ones that saw the value, but we really saw the value of trying to have some kind of linguistic vehicle to help locals really appreciate the socioeconomic impact of all the folks from all over the world that came to this low burg that we never really appreciated growing up as far as the genesis of the blues,” Billy said. “We have a huge community, and it’s just steadily growing with people who are discontent with the city life, looking for something more organic, more real, grittier.” After establishing a suitable tag, Madge and Billy were ready to take the next step in “celebrating the unity and diversity of the Mississippi Delta” with their newly developed online personas. “I was at a meeting with (John Ruskey, founder of Quapaw Canoe Company) once, and he made a comment I will never forget. He said ‘blogs’ — and this was back in 2009 or 2010,” Madge said. “He said, ‘Blogs are powerful,’ and John Ruskey is a man of few words. So, when he said that, I remembered. Billy and I just decided to start some kind of website. ‘Let’s just do something and call it the Delta Bohemian.’” “Quirky, off-the-wall, literary, zany, unconventional and fresh” were
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delta convicts TOP: Billy and Madge Howell stand inside their Delta Bohemian Guesthouse, one of their businesses promoting Clarksdale. LEFT: The Delta Bohemian Guesthouse offers unique temporary lodging. RIGHT: The Howellsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; guesthouse is decorated in true Delta Bohemian style.
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the six words that kicked off the couple’s blog — www. deltabohemian.com — that now has more than 500 articles and nearly 250 YouTube videos penned and posted by Magical Madge, Poor William and a few guest bloggers. “We’re novices. We don’t profess to know what we’re doing. We just feel like there’s — we have something to share and from a unique perspective, because we’re form here,” Madge said. Since the blog launched in 2010, Madge said it has received between 300 and 400 hits per day, and she maintains stats on 10,000 visits, even though she knows the site has reached well over a million visitors. The popularity of the website has led to three businesses — all boasting the Delta Bohemian name and celebrating Madge and Billy’s beloved Delta. The Delta Bohemian Guest House, a renovated “funky and upscale” house adjacent to the Howells’ home that formerly was a long-term rental property, is open to weekend and short-term guests looking to explore the Delta Bohemian side of Clarksdale. “It took us nine weeks, and we did it. We had a blast decorating this place. It was great. It was fun,” Madge said. The cozy little house is warm and welcoming with unique — some vintage, some contemporary — light fixtures in every room. The walls and the furniture are brightly colored and the décor is authentically Delta-inspired. It also features the Delta Bohemian Garden, which Madge describes as “an eclectic Dollywood meets the Delta” display. Delta Bohemian Excursions, the newest adventure for Clarksdale guests who encounter Madge and Billy, began in April. The couple takes guests out on their pedicab, a bicyclelike taxi, or on a backroad tour of the Delta in one of two vehicles they have dedicated for the tours. Madge was inspired after riding in pedicabs in New York City and Savannah, Ga., both cities that are opting for the more al fresco, environmentally friendly form of shuttling
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tourists. After lots of research, the couple purchased a pedicab to begin this open-air offering for guests and locals to Clarksdale. “We’re really more interested in just a real and personal encounter with our visitors here,” Madge said. “But we’ve also done tours for our locals, too, because they don’t — a lot of the locals, even though they grew up here, like I said earlier, they don’t know anything about the blues.” Poor William pedals people around downtown Clarksdale, which is about three blocks from the couple’s home. The pedicab tour consists of strolls by Red’s Lounge, Ground Zero Blues Club, the Delta Blues Museum and other downtown Clarksdale landmarks. The Back Road Excursions offer a grittier Delta experience — a drive through what Billy calls the Delta “hinterlands.” They have a luxury tour in their Lexus sedan or a more “down and dirty” — no air conditioner, but they open the windows — adventure in their Jeep, highlighting the more unseen, off-the-beaten path scenes of the Delta. Deer in soybean fields, alligators behind the levee, sunsets over the Mississippi River and seldom-seen Delta churches along the treelines are some of the rare treats the excursions highlight. “It’s really added a neat leg to the Delta stool in that folks come here for the blues, but what informs the blues is really the landscape and the characters, and we’re rife with both,” Billy said. “Probably one of the most quintessential quotes I’ve heard that sums up, I think, why folks come here…one guy said a couple of years ago, ‘You know, I came here for the blues, but I’ll come back for the people.’ And I think that’s really the gist of why folks come here.” For Madge and Billy, Delta Bohemian is their perspective and their way of celebrating the Delta. “It’s not all encompassing,” Billy said. “It’s just one lens — one lens of the Delta.” They send e-mails to their devoted subscribers, who sign on for free to receive notifications of recent posts. While
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Madge and Billy don’t stick to any sort of schedule, the couple tries to post about five entries a week. Their content and subjects vary. They have nearly a dozen categories of posts, which range from writings with a faith-based element to some rather “racy” posts — think Poor William’s bare chest and legs in a Delta snow. Some posts are by fictional characters Billy and Madge have created and others note community outreach or local event offerings. They also post an array of columns, photos and video of everything Delta. “We are just constantly evolving — we don’t want to be all things, all people,” Billy said. “If we just happen to be out and it inspires us, we kind of cover it, either a video or audio, some writing or a combination thereof.” Delta Bohemian has become a way for Madge and Billy to connect with their community and the hundreds of tourists who flock to Clarksdale. Madge calls it “living like a Delta convict,” a concept she created after observing a friend who was a literal convict, forced to get along with his fellow inmates. Through his conviction, he discovered he had a talent for art, and it helped him make connections while serving time. Madge applies the same theme to her own life and encourages others to do the same. “I relish living like a convict in my own community,” she said. The Delta Bohemian Gift Shop, online through the website, sells all sorts of DB merchandise, including T-shirts that boldly state, “Delta Convict” and those that sport the Delta Bohemian logo. People all over the world don T-shirts, hats and stickers that display the two words that have become synonymous with celebrating life in the Delta. The widespread phenomenon that is Delta Bohemian has recently turned the heads of the state’s tourism professionals. Madge and Billy were presented with the 2014 Travel Media Award at the annual Mississippi Governor’s Conference on Tourism in September. The award, which is prominently displayed inside the guesthouse, has helped bring more recognition and even a little income to their efforts. They now have paid advertisers on their website. Bringing people to the Delta, keeping them there a while and making them want to come back is the name of the game for Madge and Billy. Their goal as they grow to reach more tourists is to keep the guesthouse booked and the excursion tours loaded. “We want to keep sharing the good news, so to speak,” Madge said. “I don’t know that there is another website that’s drawing the traffic (to the Delta) and doesn’t show a preference to anyone. We stay out of the conflicts and try to love as many people as we can. I hope I can just keep doing that.” With a “Tell ‘em Madge and Billy sent you” kind of experience, Delta Bohemian guests see a unique and very personal side of the Delta, and there is no doubt it keeps them coming back. “What it does, some of the folks we really connect with, it allows us to kind of stay in touch with them and when we post stuff, it’s just amazing the folks who come here and how they feel a connection with Clarksdale when they leave,” Billy said. “And, even though we see it all the time, it still always surprises us — the affinity they have for the area. But, even with what we post, even if it is not completely blues-related, we reach a lot of them. It still keeps them connected here, and they really appreciate feeling like they’re still here.”
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Delta Bohemian Excursions deltabohemian.com/excursions For reservations, text or call Billy at 662-645-9197. Back Road Excursion Tours • Lexus 460 LS: $50 an hour + 50¢ a mile per couple; two-hour minimum; additional passengers: $10 each per hour. • Jeep: $40 an hour + 50¢ a mile per couple; two-hour minimum; additional passengers are $10 per hour each. Pedicab Excursion Tours • Hot Spots Pedicab Tour: $40 per couple; one-hour minimum A tour of all the hot-spots in Clarksdale: live music venues, restaurants, museums, shops, banks, package stores. The tour allows passengers time to stop, take photographs, explore and meet locals.
Story Lauchlin Fields PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIBORNE cooksey
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Dunn’s Falls •
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EXPLORE MERIDIAN Meridian Museum of Art 628 25th Avenue Call 601-693-1501 or www.MeridianMuseum.org
Merrehope
905 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Dr. 601-483-8439 or www.merehope.com
Dentzel Menagerie Carousel and Carousel House 1720 Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Dr. 601-485-1904 or 601-485-1802 www.MeridianMs.org
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Causeyville General Store Causeyville Road and Hwy 19 South 601-644-3102 or www.visitmeridian.com
Jimmie Rodgers Museum 1725 Jimmie Rodgers Drive 601-485-1808 or www.jimmierodgers.com
MSU Riley Center 2200 Fifth St. 601-696-2200 www.msurileycenter.com
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From handcrafted Made-in-Mississippi items, to a wide variety of home decor, gift and specialty clothing boutiques, you can shop until you drop for just about anything in Corinth. From unique to antique!
Corinth’s restaurants offer a surprisingly diverse mix of cuisine. Savor international dishes or nd an interesting twist on American and regional classics, including our very own claim to fame, the slugburger. We promise, you won’t leave hungry!
Corinth offers a variety of things to see and do from outdoor recreation, to art, culture and of course, history. Explore our museums and civil war sites and visit the National Park Service Corinth Civil War Interpretitive Center.
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OCTOGENARIAN ARTIST
SONNY BOATMAN ‘AN OLD MAN WITH A LITTLE BOY NAME’ REMAINS PASSIONATE ABOUT DESIGN
SONNY BOATMAN has always had a flair for design and a love of designing. But he’s not sure of its roots. “It’s hard to put your finger on it,” said the 84-year-old artist. “Whether it has to do with the array of objects on a shelf or in a case or furniture in a room, I always seemed to have a sixth sense about how to make these things work together. And I have always received a personal satisfaction in accomplishing that.” Born in west Corinth, in Alcorn County, just miles from the Mississippi/Tennessee border, Sonny’s name was a point of family discussion. Two aunts suggested names, but no one could make a decision. “So I was Sonny Boy Boatman for a while, and later James Everett Boatman. I was called Sonny by friends, James at school, and my grown-up name became Jim, but later I realized what I could recapture of my youth was my name — Sonny. I’m an old man with a little boy name.” He attended The Memphis Academy of Art, now the Memphis College of Art, after high school. His first year there was filled with a broad spectrum — basic design, pottery, painting, drawing. These things would be the focus of his arts education until time came for him to concentrate on his major — interior design.
Sonny was drawn to the arts even as a child. During his first few years at West Corinth Elementary School, his favorite class was Expression, which intertwined music and expression.
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THIS PAGE: Sonny Boatman holds out a 1950s photo of himself when he was in the military.
“She gave us a huge party," Sonny said, still laughing decades later. “We felt so badly, we had to go join up. We were about to be drafted anyway."
“So I was Sonny Boy Boatman for a while, and later James Everett Boatman. I was called Sonny by friends, James at school, and my grown-up name became Jim, but later I realized what I could recapture of my youth was my name — Sonny. I’m an old man with a little boy name.” Sonny was drawn to the arts even as a child. During
his first few years at West Corinth Elementary School, his favorite class was Expression, which intertwined music and expression. He attended The Memphis Academy of Art, now the Memphis College of Art, after high school. His first year there was filled with a broad spectrum — basic design, pottery, painting, drawing. These things would be the focus of his arts education until time came for him to concentrate on his major — interior design.
BUT IT WAS 1950, & THE UNITED STATES WAS INVOLVED IN THE KOREAN WAR, AND AS A JOKE SONNY AND HIS ROOMMATE ANNOUNCED TO A FRIEND THAT THEY’D JOINED THE AIR FORCE. Basic training in Texas and some time in Selma, Ala., paved the way for young Sonny to be sent to Tokyo, where he spent two and a half years. “I had an office job working as a draftsman, making charts showing how many missions we’d done in Korea. It was top secret stuff,” he said. But at night, Sonny’s thoughts returned to art, and he signed up for night classes, taking art history. He sought a class in Japanese painting, and his search led him to artist Kazue “Baye” Mizumura, who taught traditional Japanese sumi-e ink drawing. “There were three of us who went by train to her house for lessons,” Sonny said. The Mississippi and Japanese artists became friends and remained so until Mizumura’s death. After his time serving his country, Sonny returned to Memphis and worked for Lowenstein’s Department Store in display. Then, thanks to the G.I. Bill, he continued his art education at the Academy of Art. After three years at the Academy, Sonny traveled to Mexico City and enrolled for a final year of college at Mexico City College, where he studied Spanish, anthropology and Mexican Early Art. From Mexico back to Memphis, Sonny worked with a decorator, but took a week’s vacation to visit New York City and became convinced by friends it was the place to be because of all the “fun and opportunities.” “With the promise of an interview — not a job — at Lord & Taylor, I went home to resign my job,” Sonny said. “If you are young and foolish, that’s enough, I suppose.” So with a few belongings and the promise of an interview, Sonny boarded a Greyhound bus and headed east to the Big Apple. The Lord & Taylor interview brought the offer of a job as a beginning staff person, but Sonny was not impressed. “I thought with all my experience from Lowenstein’s in Memphis, they could do much better,” he said, laughing at the arrogance of youth. “I turned down the job and started looking for others, but there were none to be found, so I called back to see if the job at Lord & Taylor’s was still available. I figured I could work there temporarily until I found something better.” Temporary turned into nearly 20 years, which, Sonny said, was a learning experience and a joy.
It was 1960 and Lord & Taylor was one of the premiere department stores in New York. Sonny started as an assistant to a man named Tom McNeese who hailed from south Mississippi — cue “It’s a Small World.” “He was in charge of two designer floors — sportswear on fifth floor and couture on third,” Sonny said. “After about a year, Tom quit and I was given his responsibility and an assistant. And three years later, the assistant to the director of display resigned and I became assistant director of display for the interior of the store.” And, as if leading a charmed life at Lord & Taylor, Sonny eventually replaced the director of display. At Lord & Taylor, Sonny worked long hours, but the job was not without its fun moments. “We’d be in our office and we’d get a phone call from someone out in the store with an alert: ‘Garbo’s in the fabric department’ or ‘Dietrich is on the seventh floor’ or ‘Kate Smith is on the main floor.’ We’d rush to whatever floor and try to pretend we were shopping just to catch a glimpse of these famous people.” Sonny’s designing skills did not keep him confined to the store’s Fifth Avenue building. He was tasked with putting together multiple suburban stores for Lord & Taylor openings in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. And, in advance of a planned Florentine promotion at the New York store, Sonny was sent for a week to Florence, Italy, where he visited art museums and borrowed reproductions of famous works to use in the windows and on the floors of the New York store. “A reproduction of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ was one foot shy of hitting the ceiling back in New York,” Sonny said. “The Florentine event six to eight months later in the store was well publicized and successful. That was a very exciting assignment.” Another store promotion completed by Sonny and his staff was a salute to all museums in the NYC area. Sonny was assigned to go to all the museums and talk with people about loaning reproductions to Lord & Taylor. “I found a much-hidden Tibetan museum that loaned us real pieces for the store promotion,” he said. As if Sonny were not busy enough at Lord & Taylor, he did some freelance business on the side.
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“I set up the wholesale showroom for Wear-Right Gloves, where they had as many colors of gloves as in the color wheel,” Sonny said. “I also did some work for Brownstone Studio, a catalog house that sold mainly to folks — not skinny models — and for Glentex scarves. They opened a shop a few blocks from Lord & Taylor. I could run over during lunch to work and also work on weekends and evenings.” While at Lord & Taylor, Sonny found time to start his own small art gallery on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. “Sonny Gallery was open evenings and weekends,” he said. “I had the gallery for several years until other job responsibilities took up more of my time. One of the first artists whose work was shown in the gallery was from Memphis.” After nearly 20 years with Lord & Taylor and a decade more in New York, Sonny began thinking of a place to retire. “I looked around New Jersey and other places near New York, and all the towns I was attracted to reminded me of Corinth,” he said. “So, I decided that’s where I should go.” Sonny returned to his hometown in 1992 and soon was asked to help with set design for a production at Corinth Theatre-Arts. He’d had some experience a few decades earlier at Front Street Theatre in Memphis. He has served on the CT–A board several times. Because of his interest in historic preservation — he’d bought and refurbished a brownstone in Brooklyn – he became a part of the Preservation Commission in Corinth, where he served at least eight years. And he’s served on the board at
the Verandah-Curlee House and Museum, putting to work his passion for preservation, history and architecture. He helped establish the Heritage Festival in Corinth 13 years ago and hopes to re-establish it — “if I can find a young person to take it on.” With his snow white beard and crystal clear blue eyes, Sonny’s a dead ringer for St. Nicholas and dresses the part each holiday season for photographs with people’s pets, all to benefit the local animal shelter. It’s no surprise he was recently named Corinth’s Citizen of the Year. And, don’t forget about art. Retirement has not dulled Sonny’s sense of style. More than a decade ago, he helped start a co-op gallery in Corinth that today, with a revamped mission statement, operates with the help of volunteers as Corinth Artist Guild Gallery. Sonny, as guild president and founding member, has used his design skills to arrange the art in the gallery’s newest building at 609 Fillmore St. Looking back over his years in New York and his just-as-busy retirement years in Corinth, Sonny seems a bit overwhelmed. “I can’t believe how quickly it all happened,” he said. “I made a living doing what I love. And after retirement, I thought I might do something different, but it’s just a part of me. There are favorite activities I just feel compelled to continue in some form.” Story Leslie Criss PhotographY Lauren Wood
“WE’RE HERE TO CREATE AN APPRECIATION FOR ART.” 609 Fillmore Street The Corinth Artist Guild Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday.
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“MY ENERGY COMES FROM INTEREST IN WHAT I’M DOING. I DIDN’T COME HOME TO SIT IN A ROCKER ON THE FRONT PORCH.” I KEEP GOING BECAUSE I KEEP GOING. ALL THESE THINGS GIVE ME A GOOD REASON TO GET UP IN THE MORNINGS.”
- Sonny Boatman
CORINTH ARTIST GUILD GALLERY 609 NORTH FILLMORE STREET CORINTH, MISSISSIPPI
HOURS:
10AM UNTIL 4PM TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY
ABOVE: Sonny Boatman, founding member of the Corinth Artist Guild Gallery, draws on his interior design background when arranging exhibits at the gallery. LEFT: Sonny Boatman poses with Ralph Barnes’ “Spike,” a piece that reminds him of his personal collection..
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Treehouse Gallery
A hidden treasure for art and art-lovers
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Jackson native Walter Neill, 62, is a jack-of-alltrades who combined his interest in carpentry, construction, photography and art to co-create Oxford Treehouse Gallery, one of Lafayette County’s hidden treasures nestled in a forest off County Road 418. The gallery (formerly Neill Studios), owned by Walter and Vivian Neill, was built in 2005 and is aptly named because it is partially supported by two trees. It doubled as the couple’s home and studio until construction was finished on their nearby house in 2013. The opening party and art show was held in April. Walter Neill, a graduate of St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and Murrah High School, both in the Jackson area, attended Ole Miss for three years after college, but the liberal arts major wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. He eventually became a plumber. “Getting into the plumbing aspect of it was not something I ever thought I would do,” he said. “Some guy wanted me to help him, and the next thing I know, that’s what I’m doing.” Walter opened Neill Plumbing in 1981 and sold the business 10 years later. He also ran a photography business off and on in the 1970s and 1980s with his brother. “I really loved photojournalism,” he said, “but I got to the point where I was depressed being in the darkroom. I did not want to be in a darkroom for four or five hours on a sunny day.” He later became interested in metalwork and today owns a metalwork shop near the gallery where he creates artistic bottle openers, steak turners, kitchen knives, fireplace tools and letter openers. He said bottle openers have been selling well lately because of the rising popularity of the craft beer movement in Mississippi. Many examples of his work are displayed in the gallery. “I think the gallery was the first time I ever did a house from the ground up,” he said. “I did everything, pretty much, except the sheetrock, floors and framing . . . Everything is really inter-realted. Construction is related to art, and art is
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related to construction. They are all similar in many ways.” Vivian Neill, also a Jackson native, attended Louisiana State University briefly after high school and later became one of the founders of Hal and Mal’s restaurant, a popular Jackson business where her mother and daughter still work, carrying on the family tradition. She took a 25-year break from college, but after moving to Oxford 16 years ago with her husband, she decided to begin working on an art degree at the University of Mississippi and completed it in 2003. “I took a break with the art, and I would make an effort to get back into doing my artwork, but the restaurant would override those areas,” she said. “So after we moved here, I went back to school.” Since then, she’s been focused on painting and running the gallery that was originally envisioned as an office and studio space. “Walter got carried away and turned it into a great gallery,” she said. The building houses the gallery, office space, a kitchen and lounge area and a screened porch on the second story. “In the summertime, it’s like you are in green clouds,” Vivian said. “We’re up in the trees, and there are some trees that are actually part of the support system.” There is a 575-square-foot apartment downstairs that the couple rents out on Airbnb.com, a site where individuals provide accommodations to renters as an alternative to hotels. They also host wedding receptions and corporate parties at the gallery. In the future, they plan to hold more art shows. Right now, the gallery features artwork by Mississippians. “We started with some artists we appreciate and have collected over the years,” Vivian said. “Our process, right now, is that we both have to love it to hang it, so it’s more of an intuitive process for us.”
Story LaReeca Rucker PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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ART up in the trees TOP: The Oxford Treehouse Gallery is nestled in the woods. LEFT: Artlovers admire art inside the gallery. RIGHT: Paintings by local and regional artists fill the walls of the gallery.
Oxford Treehouse Gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and by appointment. For information, call 662-2361667 or visit oxfordtreehousegallery.com.
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DLIVING
LEGACY
Walter Anderson OF
Famed artist’s daughter and grandson are connected through art & nature
Family resemblance LEFT: Walter Anderson and his wife, Sissy, on their wedding day. ABOVE: Mary Anderson Pickard sits with her son, Chris Inglis Stebly. BACKGROUND: A photograph of Walter Anderson’s mural inside the Ocean Springs Community Center.
“The art of the past is our inheritance and, unless we accept that inheritance, we are being fools.” RWalter Anderson R O c e a n Springs — Every once in a while 77-year-old artist and retired educator Mary Anderson Pickard will paint something and think, “I’d like to show this to Daddy.” “But, not very often,” she laughed. Perhaps it’s because her father, Walter Inglis Anderson, was one of America’s most skilled and prolific painters and artists. Anderson, who lived most of his life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast until his death in 1965, left behind a massive collection of work that is still collected and celebrated throughout the world. “He’s one of those few giants among men,” Mary said of her father. The oldest of Walter and Sissy Anderson’s four children, Mary dedicated much of her adult life to raising awareness of her father’s unmatched talent. Now, she and her son, artist Chris Stebly, are carrying on Walter Anderson’s legacy through their own art and a shared love of nature. “Mama and I share the art part and the going outside together and birding and looking — paying attention,” said 47-year-old Chris. By observing her father, who was constantly immersed in the nature around him, Mary learned to see things differently. “When I was a child, my father — for at least the first eight years of my life — lived pretty much with us at Oldfields in Gautier. He would sit on the ground and draw horses or chickens or cats, and he didn’t mind a bit if we sat down and watched,” she said. “And, it was fascinating to watch him draw, because he was magic.” “He was not a very fatherly man, but he shared his enthusiasms for birds and for wildflowers, and I learned a great deal from him — not because he was teaching me or being fatherly, but because he was so enthusiastic about the things he was enthusiastic about — walking the beach and finding Indian things,” she said.
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Art in Common ABOVE: A painting by Walter Anderson and his art supplies salvaged from Hurricane Katrina. BELOW: A painting of a great horned owl by Andersonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grandson, Chris Stebly.
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Paying attention was — and still is — a way of life in the Anderson family. It’s something Mary said she tried to pass down to her own children, who, like their grandfather, spent time immersed in the nature at the uninhabited Horn Island, just 12 miles from Ocean Springs. “It was actually sinful not to pay attention when the dewberries were ripe. And, to ignore the blooming of the Pitcher plants — good gracious — that was not something you did. You had to be aware of everything that was going on around you. It’s the awareness that makes the difference.” It was Chris, perhaps more so than the others, who seemed to really feel drawn to Horn Island like his grandfather, who would row out to the island in a small skiff to paint and live primitively for weeks at a time. “I started seeing all the same creatures and the trees and the plants that are from my grandfather’s artwork, and it related well,” Chris said. “And, it’s just nice to be there because it’s just so away. It’s just right there, but you’re like on another planet. People don’t appreciate it like we do — for its natural beauty.” While her father exemplified closeness to nature, it was actually Mary’s grandmother and Walter Anderson’s mother — Annette McConnell Anderson — who taught her to appreciate art and emphasized art being made from nothing. “She was the one who started me drawing and, particularly, she liked to teach you about design. She would give us circles of cardboard and she would say, ‘Now, put two crabs on that circle,’” Mary said. “And you had to draw two crabs inside the circle so that they fit in the circle and filled it up. And, if you did a good job, she’d give you a split stick of bamboo, so you could make a fan. That was your prize.” Born just two years after his grandfather’s death, Chris didn’t have the luxury of observing Anderson’s artistic endeavors and draw to flora and fauna. He never received instruction from his great-grandmother either. But, coincidentally or, perhaps, more intrinsically, Chris came to know art in a similar way as his mother, who often encouraged him to draw and, more importantly, pay attention. Chris spent his childhood at Shearwater, the 24 acres of Anderson family land that was purchased by his greatgrandparents in 1918. The land facing the Mississippi Sound in Ocean Springs is the compound where Walter Anderson and his brothers, Mac and Peter, lived, painted and showcased pottery, and it continues as a haven for Anderson pottery and artwork. Even though the spirit of the Shearwater land certainly nurtured Chris, he didn’t
start creating his own art until the late 1980s when an artist friend, Stig Marcussen, started teaching him how to draw. At the same time, Chris’ older brother, Mark, had started a guide-fishing charter business on a houseboat he built by hand. Often left out on the houseboat for a month or so at a time during the off-season, the budding artist and temporary guide fisherman felt the urge to feed his hunger for art, even though the boat didn’t have any paper for him to use for his drawings. “But, what there was were stacks of paper plates that Mark fed his clients on,” Chris said. “I started on the circular paper plates and found it very satisfying to fill the circle like Mama was saying her grandmother did. It just felt right to me.” At age 20, straight off the houseboat with a stack of about 45 paper plate drawings, Chris started selling and showing his art. He also received a scholarship to study for a year at New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. “I learned how to pay attention in a classical way because I’m very bohemian. At the end of the year, I felt like I had made progress, but Auseklis, the main instructor and founder of the academy, he came to me and said, ‘Chris, just go back to Ocean Springs and paint, you Ocean Springs aborigine.’” Chris’ raw talent makes him a sort of kindred spirit to his famous grandfather, with whom he shares the middle name, Inglis. In fact, Chris’ style resembles that of Anderson, especially when he paints with watercolor. “I guess I took up a little bit of his technique subconsciously, because it works and it’s sort of simple. Yet, I still feel amateurish. It’s a big shadow to follow, you know — big footsteps. That’s been somewhat intimidating, but if you relax and be yourself, there’s no excuse for not becoming your own. It’s important that I step away from it and go be myself and draw and pay attention. That really helps.” Mary notices similarities between her father and her son. “I think that Christopher has an extraordinary gift for watercolor. When he puts watercolor on paper, it goes where he wants it to. It’s sort of uncanny,” she said. “I think what Chris shares with my father is that hunger for art.” While Chris never knew his grandfather, he has always felt a connection to him and his work.
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Like mother, like son Mary Anderson Pickard and her son, Chris Stebly, share a love of art and a deep appreciation for nature, which they inherited from Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father, famed artist Walter Anderson.
“I thought he was amazing and legendary. I’m around all this incredible artwork that is very magical, and i always felt comfortable and drawn to his work. it’s fun to look at. And, they’re all subject matter that I love, too — indigenous plants and creatures. it made me happy to be around it.” ~ Chris Inglis Stebly
Unlike his grandfather, Chris has made a living as an artist. He paints on commission, paints murals and decorates Shearwater Pottery whenever he is moved to do so. While Walter Anderson had an undying need to create art constantly, his creations — many of which were discovered in a locked room of his cottage after his death — weren’t exactly celebrated — or purchased — during his lifetime. “To me, it’s absolutely wonderful that Chris can make a living,” Mary said. “My father never sold anything. He worked in Shearwater for $10 a week for 10 pots a week.” Creating art was not always to feed his own desires. He also felt an obligation to create. “He recognized that an artist has a duty to the public, so he made what he called public art,” Mary said of her father. “His public art was the pottery that he decorated and the figurines that he made, the block prints and the murals in public places.” Perhaps the most admired of his murals is the one he painted on the walls of the Ocean Springs Community Center. Anderson was commissioned by the city for $1 to paint the intricate mural, which depicts the historical significance of Ocean Springs. The mural is on exhibit in the center, now adjacent to the Walter Anderson Museum, where people come from all over the world to view his work. At the time, though, the community didn’t celebrate Anderson’s creation, Mary said. His anonymity changed when Bob McKnight, director of the Brooks Museum in Memphis, was in town to judge an art show. “He saw Daddy’s work, and he just went bananas. He couldn’t believe it. And, he said — immediately — he wanted to mount an exhibit, but they needed to be catalogued. There had to be a complete list,” Mary said. Mary’s mother and two aunts — Pat and Sara — went to work numbering watercolors until the work became too overwhelming. Mary took over the family collection and began promoting her father’s art. “That’s how I started. My mother said, ‘We can’t get this catalog done. You’ll have to work on it. I’d teach school all day, and I would work on the catalog at night. That’s when I really got to know Walter Anderson — who he was,” she said of her father. “I would look at something, and it would be so funny and I’d say, ‘That man was a funny man.’” The tenderness of some of it — I would
find myself crying at night. I would be crying because the tenderness of the way he looked at something. It was very wonderful for me.” Finally, in 1968, after the pieces were catalogued, an exhibit, titled “The World of Water Anderson” was mounted at the Brooks Museum in Memphis. And, the world recognition of Walter Anderson was almost immediate. Many paintings started selling for $60 and $80 and, quickly, they went up to $100 and $200 each, Mary said. “They were in the thousands after I started, because nobody had really taken time to show them before. And, of course, when art dealers get interested in things then the prices get manipulated,” she said. “But, it was quite dramatic — very, very dramatic. I couldn’t keep up with it full-time — even with a secretary, I couldn’t keep up.” Mary began working to create the Walter Anderson Museum in downtown Ocean Springs, and she traveled around the country giving talks about her father. “I have spoken about Daddy all over the country, and I think he’s among people like Van Gogh. He’s on the international level of being a major artist,” she said. “The fact that so much of his work was ephemeral — he, I think, was proud of that. Most artists want their work to last. He prided himself on doing work, like, what had been left on the beach by the last wave.” The Walter Anderson collection in its entirety yielded an unimaginable number of drawings, paintings, sculptures, block prints, puppets, books and more. “If you count drawings and all, in excess of 50,000, but my brother, John, says, ‘We’re not supposed to talk about that,’” Mary said, laughing. Among his collection were what the family calls illustrative drawings —2,000 drawings from “Don Quixote,” 1,100 from “Paradise Lost” and “only” 100 from “Alice in Wonderland,” to name only a few of the collections “He would read at night and turn the pages with one hand and color with the other,” Mary said. “There are many, many, many pencil drawings. There are also ink drawings of flora and fauna. I think most people would be content had they done even an eighth of what he did.” In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated Shearwater, home to the Shearwater Pottery showroom and several Anderson family homes. The storm destroyed five
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houses on the property, including Mary’s, her father’s cottage and the vault with the family collection. A 20-foot piling rammed through two doors of the vault, destroying a majority of Walter Anderson’s work. Chris, who returned to the compound four days after the storm, said it was a heart-wrenching scene. “There were watercolors on the ground. There were folders full under this thick, slimy mud. You’d slip on something, and there was a folder full of Walter Anderson, and the colors were bleeding like a Sno-cone,” he said. “It was sickening. That was devastating — surreal, you know. It was an other-worldly kind of nightmare.” Hurricane Katrina was a devastating blow to family members who had worked so hard to bring recognition to Walter Anderson’s legacy. It didn’t change the notion that art and creating were as natural for the artist as was breathing. “My mother said he had no choice,” Mary said. “People used to say to her, ‘He never could have done it without you.’ She said, ‘That is a joke, He didn’t have any other choice.’ But, I think she did make it easier. She was just in love with art. Art was her passion. And, he was a real artist and she knew that.” Much like her father, Mary has never been able to just turn it off. “I always needed to draw — it was like a hunger. You have to do it. But, I didn’t do very much of it ever. Now, I do it whenever I want to,” Mary said. After a life spent teaching and showcasing her father’s work, Mary has just now begun to spend time painting. She took it up after the museum was completed and when Chris started painting. He and Marcussen would buy her supplies to encourage her to paint. “Before that, I had drawn on the weekends, and when I found a spare moment, I would draw, but I never painted,” she said. Mary and Chris both have artwork on display at Shearwater Pottery, which is now run by the children of its founder, Peter Anderson, Walter Anderson’s older brother. The showroom has an array of creations by the Anderson family, including Walter Anderson’s famed alphabet block prints. A stroll through the showroom and on the grounds of Shearwater reveals a unifying family theme — a true love of creating and an eternal appreciation for nature. It seems to be a fundamental birthright for the Andersons. “That thing about the plates and my grandmother and the round circles — that, to me, it’s very potent stuff,” Mary said. “Circles are mandalas, and they’re reflective of an image that comes from inside.” In order to truly take advantage and accept this artistic inheritance, one must pay attention. Nature seems to present itself to Mary and Chris as it did Walter Anderson. Like a brown thrasher that perches in a tree or a rare monarch flying overhead in December, nature rears its head. “It’s up to us to see it flying by, though. We have to pay attention,” Chris said. Mary agrees.
“My father felt, ‘Nature is here. Only the beholder is missing. When the beholder is there, then it’s complete.’”
“And, we have to be the beholder.” Story Lauchlin Fields PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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Nature abounds Birds perch on a tree at Shearwater in Ocean Springs, the former home of artist Walter Anderson and the current site for Shearwater Pottery.
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Nick & Julia Blake
Warren couple strikes a chord with their love of music
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Nicholas Blake plays the violin and his wife, Julia, plays the piano, but it was the penny whistle that got them together. That was about seven years ago when a mutual friend introduced them because they both loved music. “I wanted to play Celtic music,” Julia said. “Nick and Joanne Ryan were starting a Celtic band, and they asked if I wanted to try out.” She began playing with them, and though she admits there isn’t a lot of demand for penny whistle music, “It is important because that’s how we met — and we ended up getting married!” The very word “music” brings joy and excitement to Julia’s voice, and though Nicholas is a bit more reticent, he smiles and his blue eyes sparkle. Both began their musical training when they were 4. Nicholas’ mother, Phyllis, “thought I had an ear for music,” he said, and he started learning the violin by the Suzuki method. He later took lessons in Jackson and at All Saints’ Episcopal School in Vicksburg and then in Florida when the family moved there. But, since he was 16 or 17, “I’ve been
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pretty much on my own.” When she was 4, Julia was playing the piano by ear. After the family moved to Vicksburg, which was her mother’s hometown, she began taking lessons from Barbara Tracy, who taught her piano and organ “and encouraged me and exposed me to all sorts of wonderful music.” Julia participated in competitions across the state and took organ lessons and studied composition at Mississippi College. Her talent also comes from her mother’s side of the family. Her grandfather, Charles Carlson, played the accordion, and had a good voice. Her mother, Sarah Carlson Dionne, plays the piano and organ and, once with her sister Gerda and brother Eric, joined a circus band and traveled around the country. It was also music that brought about an introduction of Nicholas’ parents, Danny Blake and Phyllis Ashcraft Blake. Danny first saw and heard a dulcimer in Mountain View, Ark. He came home, built one, but didn’t know how to play it. That’s when and why he met Phyllis, who was teaching at All Saints’ and played the dulcimer. “And I’ve still got that dulcimer,” Nicholas said.
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“Music also played a big part in our courtship,” Julia said. “We got to know each other as friends and bandmates before we ever dated. We found we had a lot in common.” “And somewhere along the way I found out she could really cook, too,” Nicholas quipped, and Julia added, “One day I brought oatmeal and raisin cookies to band practice, not knowing they were his favorite, and his eyes lit up and he looked at me in a very different way.” He said, “You can cook!” and he asked her out the very next week. They dated for six weeks and were engaged for six months, marrying in March 2006. It was the union of families from opposite ends of Warren County — Julia from Redbone, in the south, and Nicholas from Redwood, the north. “We are both from interesting and unusual families,“ Julia said, and Nicholas interjected “and eccentric.” Though Julia has music in front of her when she plays — “It’s my lifeline” — Nicholas does not. He can read music “but it’s not my greatest strength,” he said. “I read it in order to learn a song but soon I put it away. It just gets in my way.” Their first public performance was at RebStock, a short-lived Civil War music festival in Vicksburg. They’ve also played at “Music in the Courtyard” at the Southern Cultural Heritage Center. They play for churches, weddings, festivals and background music for parties where, Nicholas said, if the crowd has too much wine, “We can start repeating songs.” Nicholas’ resume includes two trips to Europe. When he graduated from Flagler College, he went to Ireland for more than four months and he sometimes played on the streets. After he and Julia married,they spent six weeks in England, Scotland and Wales. “I played in Wales and Scotland,” he said. “They call it ‘busking’ — or it may be ‘busquing.’ It means playing on the streets and putting your hat out in front of a crowd.” Julia went along just for the ride, she said, “for its hard to pack a piano around.” Though she was trained in classical music, Nicholas often played at the other end of the spectrum — blues, jazz, rock and roll. Now they play it all — classical, folk, old-time country, gospel and church songs, Celtic and Irish and easy listening like “’Stardust, 40ish stuff.” Their favorite tunes? Well, Julia might be able to boil hers down to the Top Ten, but she and Nicholas agree that “Star of the County Down” is near the head of the list.
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Their diverse interests in music have a common background, for classical music often is based on traditional folk melodies, and a violin is a fiddle, Nicholas said, depending on how you play it though “a fiddle is usually a little more run down.” What do they do if they forget the music? Nicholas improvises, she said, “but I just keep a poker face, just make something up. The show must go on.” The worst situation, he said, was when he got the music out of order and he was playing the ending in the middle, “But we just charged through and it all worked out. Sort of avant-garde.” People said it was beautiful. They don’t practice as much as they used to for two very good reasons — Patrick, who is 4 1/2, and Andrew, who is 2. Patrick already has a tiny violin and Andrew wants one, and they both sing quite well for their ages. Though music is the center of the Blakes’ lives, they also have other interests. Julia’s grandmother, the late Margaret Carlson, taught her to knit and embroider, and Julia has seven knitting patterns for sale on “Ravelry,” a knitting website with 4 million members. She has people around the world knitting sweaters, and “It’s exciting! People in Russia and Germany especially like my designs.” She’s also a talented baker and, before the boys were born, taught private piano lessons. Nicholas designs and builds fine furniture, meticulously cutting, fitting and dovetailing pieces. He also enjoys blacksmithing, and recently he helped his father restore a 1948 Jeep. He taught high school English for a few years, and he and Julia have an orchard, raise goats, sheep and chickens. “Life is so short and there are so many things to do,” Nicholas said. Yet they’ll always have time for their music. It may be a worn-out cliche, but Nicholas and Julia Blake make beautiful music together. The Blakes released their first CD, “Come Thou Fount,” an instrumental collection of 17 classic hymns arranged for violin and piano just in time for the 200th anniversary of Redbone Methodist Church. The CD may be purchased for $20 by calling 601-636-1639 or by email, heavenlymelodies@aol.com.
Story Gordon Cotton PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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mag.com 47
Music promoter sheds a bright light on Jacksonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s music scene
When it comes to musical talent, you have it or you don’t. It’s not something you can easily fake without falling into the ostracized category of lip-syncers. Arden Barnett has tried his hand at it throughout the years from toddler days of banging pots and pans to the tunes of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to playing saxophone in the school band. Once he was old enough to realize he just didn’t “have it,” he decided to go with the next best thing to being a rock star: being a music promoter. Born in Forest, Miss., as a Navy brat and son of a busy entrepreneur, Arden spent time with his family in Clinton, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and West Palm Beach before settling in Boise, Idaho, during his high school years. He made a little money helping run lights and sound for touring bands passing through town. His first “real” gig was working backstage during a 1979 show by Hoyt Axton, a folk singer and songwriter known for the Three Dog Night hits “Joy to the World” and “Never Been To Spain.” “That was my first backstage exposure. That’s when I knew how into the whole music scene I really was,” said Arden, now 53. The Barnett family moved to Birmingham in 1982, and it was there that Arden’s true talent in the music promotion industry began to flourish. He started his freshman year at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and dove right in, chairing the university concert committee, Center Stage Productions. “We did close to 150 shows while I was there, including a lecture series with Hunter S. Thompson and Dr. Ruth. My last year there we did 56 shows — club shows — like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Cyndi Lauper, Sting and Billy Idol,” he said. Arden made a pivotal move back to the Jackson area in 1986, the same year Madonna and Bon Jovi graced the top of the music charts with singles like “Papa Don’t Preach” and “You Give Love a Bad Name.”
TOP: Arden Barnett of Ardenland discusses how he became a music promoter. LEFT: Arden stands in front of the Duling Hall stage, the main venue for his Ardenland shows.
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He was riding high on the band promotion wave, and Jackson needed some help. “The music scene here in the ’80s wasn’t exactly thriving,” he said. “(Old Tavern on) George Street, the Subway and Poets were all getting some local and regional music, but Hal and Mal’s was the only venue booking anything national at all.” Arden asked Malcolm White, who was then just a few years into organizing the now legendary Mal’s St. Paddy’s Parade, if he could start helping him book shows at Hal and Mal’s. “He said, ‘No’ but said I could wait tables,” said Arden. So, that he did. It wasn’t long before he convinced White to give him a chance, allowing Arden to help with a show for renowned bluesman Taj Mahal. “That truly started my longlasting love for promoting,” he said. The show was a success, and Arden spent the next eight years, from 1986 to 1994, booking events for White, including noteworthy Jackson street festival Jubilee Jam. “When I first started promoting in Jackson, I just reached out to some of my music friends, and people would start calling me — and still do — and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got so-and-so coming through town.’ I really think we started a movement of getting more club acts to Jackson. 50
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Nobody else was doing that,” he said. He had such a knack for it that he branched out and started his own promotion business in 1996: Arden Creative Talent Solutions and Fresh Produce Productions, bringing such acts as Widespread Panic and Lynyrd Skynyrd to downtown Jackson. But by the mid-2000s, Arden hit a wall. The music industry was changing, as was his personal life, and he just wanted something different. He got out of the promotion business and into the golf business, mowing fairways at Reunion Golf Club in Madison, then working for Sky Golf, a course-mapping firm. In his six years out of the music industry, not a day went by that it wasn’t still on his mind. “I saw a niche that wasn’t being filled. There were just no good shows,” he said. “I guess it’s like that for musicians. If you’re a true musician, it’s hard to ever leave the biz.” Fate came calling just a few days after the start of 2011. Arden was laid off from his job with Sky Golf when his department was shut down. “I went to sleep that evening, and in the middle of the night I woke up my wife, Heidi, and told her I wanted to give music another shot,” he said. With the midnight blessing of his wife, Arden opened Ardenland on the morning of January 4, 2011. His first show to book was the Love to be Loved
ABOVE: Posters and meorabilia from past Ardenland performances and items from Arden Barnett’s personal collection fill the new bar area inside Duling Hall.
series at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Jackson’s Fondren neighborhood, featuring an acoustic concert by Carrie Rodriguez, Erin McKeown, Pierre Bensusan and Cary Hudson. He started booking shows again for Hal and Mal’s and at the newly refurbished Duling Hall, a dream venue for Arden. He took over the lease of Duling Hall two years later, finally giving Ardenland a home base for its productions. “This is just a great space,” said Arden, who runs his office out of the Fondren Corner building. “It finally has the right combo of retail and restaurant space to make it work.” From weddings and private parties to intimate shows by the Black Crowes, Flaming Lips and Willie Nelson, Ardenland has helped establish Duling Hall as a premiere event space in Jackson. It’s also been the key to putting Jackson on the national music map. “For me, the one event that really changed things was Wilco at Thalia Mara in May 2012,” he said. The Chicago-based alternative rock group with Mississippi ties played a sold-out show with two encore sets that night. “The energy in that room was electrifying,” he said. “I had never felt that in Jackson before. We knew then that we were even more determined to keep our mission of
bringing great music to Jackson.” With as many ties to famous musicians as Arden has cultivated through the years, you’d think he’d have a brag wall full of photos. “There have been times when I look back and think that it’d be cool to have my pic with some of these guys, but that’s not why I‘m in the business. It’s not about me,” he said. He does, however, have a signed promo poster from every band he’s booked. Some hang in his home in Belhaven, a historic neighborhood in central Jackson, and some in the renovated “groom room” and bar adjacent to the auditorium space at Duling Hall. The posters include personal messages to Arden from the likes of REM, Rickie Lee Jones, Ray Charles, Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Blind Boys of Alabama. The future of music in Mississippi is a little brighter because of Arden. Ardenland books shows throughout the state — from backroom venues to coliseums, and it’s only growing. Chances are, if you’ve seen a good show lately, it’s because of this guy. He wants to share his passion for music with the world, and he’s proud to start with Jackson. Story Elizabeth Grey PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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River Gator
PHOTO by RALPH PACE
Canoe adventure provides insight for water trail
A winter exploration down the Mississippi River in a wooden canoe — no motors, only paddles. I couldn’t have dreamed of anything wilder. A 10-day expedition of 207 meandering miles on the most untamed river in North America.
PORTRAIT by Melanie Thortis
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NATHAN BEANE THE ‘SIP OUTSIDE EDITOR
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An adventure between Vicksburg and Baton Rouge felt more like an invitation to join up with early explorers and fur trappers. It turned out to be perfect timing — the trip was scheduled Dec. 6-16. I didn’t have any upcoming work travel, and I could be home before rifle season reopened. A trip like this is why I had saved up vacation time. This journey that could potentially kill me — I mean thrill me — wasn’t a new thing for the trip’s organizer, Quapaw Canoe Company, based in Clarksdale (with an additional outpost in Natchez). Their fearless leader, John Ruskey, is compiling River Gator, a paddler’s guide detailing the Lower Mississippi, the river section from St. Louis to the mouth at the Gulf of Mexico. River Gator will serve as a mile-by-mile go-to reference for anyone journeying down — or up — the river. The book, planned for release this year,
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will detail islands, campsites at low and high water levels, locations for resupply and places to explore. A guide for adventure junkies is a grand idea, and I couldn’t believe one didn’t already exist. But, quickly, I realized why. It’s the Mississippi River, a certain death trap for paddlers that serves as the fourth largest watershed in the world and drains all or parts of 31 U.S. states. It’s known for being unable to curtail, with eddies and water boils capable of swallowing you and your gear. I told several colleagues of my upcoming adventure. Their replies stemmed around questions of my life insurance policy and what my wife, Heather, would get when I didn’t return. It’s not unusual for me to spend days and evenings out on the sandbars with my 14-foot jon boat, and every year I’m told that it’s ludicrous to take such a small boat on such a big river. A canoe adventure seemed even wilder. And, I was all in. I reserved myself a spot for the trip and began the task of compiling my gear. I discovered that Quapaw provided everything — paddles, food, water, all necessary safety gear and even a tent and sleeping bag. All I was required to bring were clothes, toiletries and refillable water bottles. An avid camper, I had my own sleep gear, and I was asked to demo a hammock and shelter system from Sierra Madre Research (SMr), a Vicksburg-based company. We met midday Saturday at the Vicksburg waterfront, which launches into the Yazoo River Diversion Canal, merging into the Mississippi River. That Saturday was cold and ominous. The sky was filled with charcoal gray clouds and a chilling 8 mile per hour wind. It had rained all day, and the temperature was in the 50s, but it felt much colder. It could not have been a more dismal day, yet a strong vibe — like a battlefield sensation — was present on the landing. Everyone was ready. Everyone, that is, except Heather, who was freezing cold, bundled up with my raincoat. I could tell she was nervous for me to embark on such a journey. We loaded all the gear and everyone pushed off and jumped into the canoes. Watching Heather wave goodbye was hard for a softie like me. As our canoe made way into the river, I gained an immediate respect for what this trip would entail. The waters were freezing, the wind was chilling and the sky could not have been more foreboding. This was a day for enjoying the indoors, yet we were just beginning our rugged, outdoor adventure. Our crew numbered 10, including John, who called us Gators, referring, of course, to the book we were helping create. Our experiences would provide valuable intel into canoeing this stretch of the river in winter, at lower-thannormal water levels. John was joined by three of his Quapaw team members from Clarksdale — Mark “River” Peoples, Braxton Barden and “Little Mike,” as well as Adam Elliott from the Natchez outpost. They made the entire journey, along with Ralph Pace, a conservation photographer out of San Diego; Layne
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PHOTO by RALPH PACE
Logue, a kayak/canoe enthusiast from Vicksburg; and me. Four passengers couldn’t make the whole trip, so two made the first stint to Natchez and two made the longer haul from Natchez to Baton Rouge. We were planning to resupply with bread, water and a few other necessities in Natchez, so the crew-swap was going to work out great. For the journey to Natchez, Michael Jones, a program manager for outdoor recreation at Visit Mississippi, and Tom Claycomb III, an outdoor writer from Idaho, joined us. At Natchez, the Orr brothers, Paul and Michael, environmental stewards from Baton Rouge, joined us for a trip down the river to their hometown. Our transportation included a 23-foot Wenonah canoe and a 30-foot wooden canoe known as the Grasshopper. The Grasshopper was custom built by Quapaw out of locally resourced bald cypress — and capable of holding 14 passengers, or, in our case, 1,000 pounds of gear and seven passengers. The design of this wooden mammoth was gorgeous — simple, strong and built with purpose. As our canoes cut the choppy waters, we paddled in sync for a couple hours, a nice warm-up session for my arms and shoulders. Our first night’s camp was just north
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of the Le Tourneau boat landing south of Vicksburg. We’d paddled 11 miles that afternoon until we found a small cove and sandbar. As our canoes planed onto the sandy shore, everyone quickly shed life jackets and unloaded gear. We provided a sturdy tie out with two lines securing the Grasshopper and one tied to Adam’s canoe, the Yellow Rocket — mustard yellow and faster than our loaded-down wooden canoe. The veteran Quapaws prepared dinner while the Gators scavenged for firewood. Braxton was our fire starter. Watching him set-up fire each night was quite a display. It assuredly was not his first time. As he started the fire, we all began searching out spots to set up our tents for the night. Since I would be using a hammock, I headed into a wooded area where I saw Layne making camp with an SMr hammock and shelter. It was the first time for each of us to sleep in a hammock, which came equipped with a winter barrier to keep us warm and dry. Back at the campfire was our first chance for us to get to know one another. Although the wind was biting, the warm, blazing fire and hot venison chili made the cold dissipate. Adam prepared the chili with campfire cornbread, which closely resembled a pancake. As we all devoured our hot meal, I called Heather to tell her we’d made it safely. Since our campsite was only a few miles from our home, she decided to drive out to see the flames from our campfire across the river. As I saw lights pull up at the landing a mile or so away, the guys around the fire joked that it couldn’t be my wife. Heather, then, shined a spotlight up-river toward us. Still, the guys questioned me. I called her and had her flash the light three times, which quickly quieted the naysayers in the group. It was night one, and we were having a blast. The next morning, we were stirring by 7. With a chilly temperature of 46 degrees, I dressed warmly, packed up my gear and made a beeline to the campfire. The coffee was on, and a campfire breakfast of eggs and bacon with sliced cantaloupe was in progress. We were on the water by 9 a.m., with a day of paddling ahead. We had twice the distance to cover as our first day and with 40 to 50 paddle strokes per minute, we were quickly pressing forward. With John as our leader, we explored a few spots each day. Our lunches were midday stops and included turkey sandwiches with pepperjack cheese and apple slices, or similar. On two of the cooler days, we built a quick fire for warmth and enjoyed small-talk around a flame. Our meals at night — always warm and tasty — were a highlight. We estimated 4,000 paddle strokes a day, so the protein and carbs were vital. Between Adam’s chili, Braxton’s raft potatoes with cheese and the gumbo we enjoyed on the last night, we feasted like kings. I’d brought alligator meat, deer meat and wild hog sausage that we added to an array
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of dishes and stews we made during the trip. I wanted Ralph and Tom to get a good dose of Mississippi wild game. Outside of paddling, eating and sleeping, our days were filled with hearty conversations. Tom, like me, is an avid hunter. But, his stories involve bear, wolves and elk, while my hunting adventures are more of stalking wild hogs and hooking into big alligators. Ralph shared his expert knowledge of photography and helped several of the crew take night-sky photos. John played blues tunes with a travel guitar. For a makeshift guitar slide, we found an old beer bottle and etched the neck of the bottle with a multi-tool file and heated the etched part in the fire to break it cleanly. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. And, we had a blast making it. Each day was a new adventure filled with fascinating scenes for a nature-buff like me. Some of my favorite stops were the Loess Bluffs of Tunica Hills and large sandbar islands, such as Spithead Towhead. We didn’t see river otter, but we found fresh tracks. The tree and plant ecologist in me was thrilled to peruse the forest landscape, and John seemed delighted to have me provide tree and notable plant species lists at each of our stops for him to incorporate in the River Gator. The weather seemed to improve each day. Our coolest mornings were in the low 30s and our warmest days in the low 70s. No torrential wind or rain meant our journey took nine days instead of the 10 we had scheduled. As we approached Baton Rouge, the vista changed dramatically. We paddled past massive ships that made us feel like we were ants among a herd of elephants. Within a couple of hours of dodging freighters, our destination was in sight. It was an event of celebration as we pulled up to the landing. Heather had made the drive to spend the evening with us at the Orrs’ place to celebrate a successful trip. I was sad to tell newfound friends goodbye. The Orr family sent Heather and me home with a bag of tangerines, grapefruits, oranges and kumquats that we’d picked from the trees on their property. I’m a sucker for citrus, and these were divine. Quapaw will complete the final stretch of the Mississippi from Baton Rouge to the Gulf this summer, but they also offer shorter trips. When the weather warms up, Heather and I plan to have Adam drive up with gear and take us on a day trip around Vicksburg. This trip took me back to my wild side and has reshaped my love of the Mighty Mississippi. The experience was an adventure unlike any other. I’d tell you that the Quapaws are crazy, but they are just adventure-seekers that all share a love of the Big River. A trip with these guys will push you to find your next wild adventure. So, get involved! Story Nathan Beane PhotographY Ralph Pace
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photo by nathan beane | ILLUSTRATION by mary kalusche
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’SIP OF NATURE
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’SIP OF NATURE
N Night~Blooming Cereus : ( Epiphyllum oxypetalum )
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The Night-blooming Cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) offers flowers the width of a saucer and a fragrance that is overwhelmingly intoxicating. If you desire to own a houseplant that requires minimal attention and presents a flower fit for royalty, look no further. This plant, also known as the Queen of the Night, does not require a green thumb to maintain. It blooms for only one night, and many plant-lovers host blooming-event parties to partake in the splendor. That’s right, it’s only for a night — but it’s worth it. Trust me. The plant is available through a number of online plant retailers or through a friend who is willing to cut from an existing plant. They’re more common than one might think. This plant has two types of stems. One grows erect and resembles a green twig, while the other type is flattened and appears as a succulent, flattened leaf. Cuttings from either type may be used, but I prefer using the flattened “leaves.” Botanically they are stems, and they are easy to trim. Regardless of what type of cutting, let it air dry for a day or two before starting a new plant. Simply place the trimmed piece with end closest to the original plant in a glass of water or in a small pot with soil. This plant grows best in a well-drained sandy soil, but can be grown in just about any common soil type. Be careful not to overwater. If you use a soil that holds water too effectively, the roots will rot and the plant will suffer. Overwatering is about the only way to kill the plant other than freezing temperatures — it’s a tropical cactus, and must be treated as such.
Now, before you run out and buy one and begin preparations for your bloom party, be aware that time is required to get your plant from a small cutting to maturity where flowering is possible. And, even when it’s mature, you’ll need to create conditions ideal for it to bloom — this is the tricky part, but rewarding if you’re successful. It’s a costly endeavor for the plant to bloom so vividly. Once you witness the blooms, you’ll understand, but it takes substantial energy and, as such, is used a mechanism of survival. So, if your plant is green, healthy and happy, don’t expect to see the beautiful flowers. The trick to persuading the plant to produce flowers each year is to let it endure a period of stress. I like to wait until the full heat of summer to expose my plant from the part-sun conditions it normally endures as a hanging plant on my porch to full sun conditions. In a few days, you will notice the plant turning yellow (burning) from too much sun exposure. Once the yellowing is clearly evident on the majority of the plant, but not all, I water the plant and place it back on the porch. This sun stress, plus keeping it rootbound in a smaller pot, provides just enough hardship for the plant to provide blooms each year. I highly recommend growing this houseplant. My wife and I love ours and, each year, we wait up to witness the blooms. Not only are they easy to keep alive, they are easy to share with friends. For any questions or comments about this plant, send me an email at outside@thesipmag.com.
g BY NATHAN BEANE
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RESTAURANT TYLER
CHEF
Ty Thames
OFFERS A FULL PLATE OF FRESH AND LOCAL DINING IN STARKVILLE, MS
In addition to Restaurant Tyler, he has Bin612 and the newly opened Upstairs at Tyler and The Guest Room.
Starkville — As brunch winds down on any given Sunday in Starkville, diners hug goodbye under the shade of the wrought iron balcony above the entrance to Restaurant Tyler. It's because since 2008 when chef Ty Thames and his business partner, Starkville lawyer Brian Kelly, opened Restaurant Tyler, or simply "Tyler," the eatery has become such a staple that most consider it a must-stop; not only for Sunday brunch but for a fine Saturday evening meal, as well. It’s fitting that the restaurant has taken on the simple moniker of its owner’s name, as the restaurant is a clear reflection of Ty’s warm personality and eloquence. His menu reflects his thoughtfulness and depth, and its myriad choices reflect his generosity. And despite the differences in their atmospheres and offerings, those qualities transcend all four of his Starkville establishments. “I always wanted to have my own restaurant,” Ty said. “It was the only thing I ever wanted to do.” A graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi and the New England Culinary Institute, Ty had a full plate of professional experience before his return to Mississippi. After leaving Vermont, he spent a year interning in Parma, Italy, and later worked in a number of East Coast establishments, including The Ritz Carlton in Washington, D.C. Restaurant Tyler was not his first foray into the Starkville eatery scene. A decade ago, he packed what he could fit into his car and headed south to Starkville, where he and Brian opened their initial venture, BIN 612. It will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year. “I slept on a mattress on the floor at first,” he said, laughing. But, he quickly settled in. Instagram feeds from Starkville locals on an early spring afternoon feature idyllic shots of house-made pizza on a patio table with captions exclaiming, "Finally! It's BIN weather." Here, a large outdoor seating area overlooks the heart of the city's dreamy, historic residential neighborhood, the Cotton District. "It's like an upscale pizzeria, where we make all our bread and dough,” Ty said. “Coming from Italian roots, I just went with what I liked and what I knew.” As the afternoons fade into evenings, hearts beat to the tune of live local music and vivacious crowds of Mississippi State University students. In fact, most Starkville residents would argue “the continued
TOP: The kitchen staff of Restaurant Tyler is hard at work. MIDDLE: The view into Restaurant Tyler from the front. BOTTOM: Seared duck breast over an apple, beet, and goat cheese salad with pomegranate dressing topped with kale pesto.
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ABOVE: Pork Chop. Bone-in, cold-smoked grilled pork chop over root vegetables, confit of house smoked bacon, sweet potatoes, and charred kale. Finished with pork demi glaze and pomegranate seeds. BOTTOM RIGHT: Moscow Mule a.k.a. the “Mississippi Mule” cocktail. The signature drink of The Guest Room is similar to the classic Moscow Mule cocktail, except Restaurant Tyler uses Mississippimade Cathead Vodka. It is served in a signature copper mug, which blends well with the speakeasy’s coppertop bar.
Using fresh, local ingredients, and through support of Starkville's seasonal farmers’ market, he rewrites the narrative of traditional Southern comfort food. BIN” is the heart, the vital organ that sparked the District’s 21st century life. It was BIN 612’s success that gave shape and focus to the vivid nightlife that now attracts area visitors to the Cotton District. And as the neighborhood evolved, the restaurant grew to fit the needs of its customers. “Three years ago we renovated and expanded. It was real small. Now we've got a whole big kitchen where we can do a lot more,” Ty said. For late-night revelers, BIN 612 has a small window for last-minute reinforcements. “It’s like a cheese fries bonanza,” Ty said, laughing. On the heels of BIN 612, in 2008, Ty and Brian opened what is now their prime venture, Restaurant Tyler. Even amid a staggering recession, the restaurant found its footing, and by the fall of 2009, it catapulted toward the top of must-visit SEC town eateries with a spotlight by ESPN’s “Taste of the Town.” The restaurant's booming popularity has given Ty a lot of pride. "It's great to have people recognize that what you're doing is something abnormal and different from the mean," he said. "It separates you from other restaurants." The restaurant's cozy booths or corner tables provide the perfect setting to sample one of Ty's unique, creative and often inventive dishes. “If you do it right, you can use techniques to make something really flavorful,” Ty said. “Then it gives the customer a different take on something they haven't normally eaten.” Especially for longtime patrons, though, that adventure is what makes a trip to Tyler all the more rewarding — and that's true for Ty as well. "What you're serving is a reflection of your personality and yourself,” he said. “It's really come around now where the customers in the dining room, I've kind of gained their trust over the years. They may say, 'Whatever, I wouldn't try that, but I'll try that because Ty is cooking it.' That means a lot to me.” Ty's value of the community stems from his Italian roots, and it spreads beyond the doors of the restaurant. Using fresh, local ingredients, and through support of Starkville's seasonal farmers’ market, he rewrites the
narrative of traditional Southern comfort food. "You're getting the freshest ingredients possible. You're supporting the community because you're buying from the community and then you're giving back to the community,” he says. “It's that cycle of keeping the money in-house and keeping the money in your own community.” He reels off his local sources as familiarly as if they were family members. It’s one of his favorite parts of his job. “I love working with the farmers’ market, that interaction and all the different farmers and all the different farms — whether it's a pork farm in Mathiston or a chicken farm in Beaver Dam Farms in Indianola, sweet potatoes in Vardaman,” he said. “Once people start realizing where your sources are, they know what they're getting.” The menu changes with the seasons, highlighting produce thriving at the time. “It’s all about using the seasons to your advantage, rather than just relying on a truck that's going to come with tomatoes year-round,” Ty said. “It's a lot more challenging for the restaurant owner because now you have to be creative on a daily basis rather than, 'This is our menu year-round.’” Despite the demands of two wildly successful restaurants, Ty isn’t out of culinary bullets. In 2014, in order to give Restaurant Tyler a more well-rounded bar area, he and Brian renovated the basement of the restaurant to become The Guest Room, an intimate, chic speak-easy drenched in vintage, New Orleans-style décor and offering an array of both traditional and edgy cocktails. On the first crisp fall nights of October, as MSU's gridiron success welcomed more national buzz about Starkville than ever before, you'd hear whispered rumors float above the cowbells' clangor of such famous faces as CBS Sports’ Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson slipping into the back door of The Guest Room. “The positive feedback has really been gratifying,” Ty said, adding that it gives Restaurant Tyler itself more depth by giving it a functional meeting room. “Opening up and continued
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In a fast 10 years, Ty has peppered the city of Starkville with dining establishments that suit virtually every mood, taste and budget. What might be most important, however, is his strong belief in the benefits of the local product. That has allowed him to educate even the most knowledgeable in a college town.
The Guest Room
The new renovation to the basement of Restaurant Tyler.
renovating down here gave us that opportunity to have all those things that I felt Restaurant Tyler was missing.” He’s also in the process of renovating Upstairs at Tyler, a flight of stairs above the main restaurant, which according to Ty, is his version of a sports bar. “We have Restaurant Tyler food, but it’s more casual dining,” he says. “With all the TVs we have up there, we play all the different games on HD and the projector.” He said the current rustic feel will be redecorated to tie in more fluidly with the theme of its mother restaurant downstairs. And for Ty, at least for the moment, the four establishments are enough. He feels as if he’s hit all his target markets in Starkville and is pleased with his existing ventures. Ty said some of the best advice he received in training was from a French chef who said, “You don’t have to be a jack of all trades. Just be really good at one thing and let other people fill in the rest.” “Achievement for me is more within my own evolution as a chef. I know who I am and where I want to go and what I want to become,” he says. “But the day-to-day grind is really what it's all about. To have my team and those guys following me is important. If they can't follow me, I'm already dead in the water.” Ty also is actively finding new ways to march forward. “A big movement right now that I'm starting to get on is the ‘Can you eat what you kill?’ diet. If you don't either know where it is or you can take it and harvest it yourself, you don't eat it,” he said. “One thing I’m trying to do now is to get all my beef local, which is challenging.” He said he’s involved in a West Point farm being developed with heritage pigs. “Once that gets rolling, I’m going to open up a slaughterhouse and processing plant there that will supply the restaurants with our own packaging,” he said. “That hopefully will be down the road of what my career will branch into — the processing of whole and natural foods.” In a fast 10 years, Ty has peppered the city of Starkville with dining establishments that suit virtually every mood, taste and budget. What might be most important, however, is his strong belief in the benefits of the local product. That has allowed him to educate even the most knowledgeable in a college town. “I'm still young and I'm never going to know everything. I'm never going to reach the end of the line. I think the end of the line is going to reach me before I reach it,” he said. “That evolution of always having the drive to learn something new and be openminded is really what I'm all about.”
Story Kate Gregory PhotographY Jeremy Murdock
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’SIP SIP & READ
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Here’s a list of a few recent highlights from the Mississippi cookbook stacks at TurnRow Book Company in Greenwood. Eat up!
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1.) Eat Drink Delta by Susan Puckett (University of Georgia Press, 2013) Enhances any road trip through the Delta, whether it’s a restaurant guide or a history book for this singular food culture 2.) Sweet & Southern by Ben Mims (Rizzoli, 2014) Mims, of Kosciusko, offers a lovely palate of classic Southern desserts with a few tasty curve balls and updates. 3.) Southern Comfort by Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing (Ten Speed, 2012) Mississippi roots meet French Quarter flair. The first recipe — grits and grillades — is worth the price of the book alone.
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4.) Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey by John Currence (Andrews McMeel, 2013) A new staple of young Southern kitchens and fully stocked hunting camps — where swillers, smokers and cussers learn to cook
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5.) Field Peas to Foie Gras by Jennifer Hill Booker (Pelican, 2014) Refined soul food from a Mississippi native, who took her countrykitchen roots to Paris’ Le Cordon Bleu 6.) Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Foose (Clarkson Potter, 2008) Foose: Deltan, storyteller, chef extraordinaire. No cookbook list from Turnrow would be complete without our all-time best-seller.
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TurnRow Book Company 304 Howard Street Greenwood, MS 38930 (662) 453-5995 turnrow@turnrowbooks.com turnrowbooks.com facebook.com/turnrowbooks twitter.com/TurnRowBooks instagram.com/turnrowbooks
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C LI N T O N , M S
Lillie’s Restaurant
Family adds a little soul to its food The sign flicks on at precisely 11 a.m., and by 11:03 the line is six-deep at the Lillie’s counter. Soon the 32-seat lunch spot hums with orders and shouts to favorite customers:
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Servin’ up good eats! Lillie’s, 3070 Clinton Blvd., in Clinton, is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday through Friday. Call 601-573-7465 for information.
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”Hey, Mr. Bo!” Timothy Bright shouts from the kitchen as Bo Tolar of Clinton enters. The phrase echoes as others on the staff join in. Mr. Bo is a regular. “It’s just good home cooking,” Tolar said, acknowledging he comes almost every day. “I really like everything here. They have a good variety of food.” Quietly, owner Tammy Wince said, “We’d be worried if he didn’t show up.” Three men from a nearby construction crew add their praises. They tried Lillie’s once and now come several times a week. That blend of home-cooked meals with a healthy side of customer devotion is drawing diners to this Clinton restaurant. Timothy and Tammy opened Lillie’s on Sept. 7, 2013, and hope to move soon into a larger space on U.S. 80 in Clinton. The partners trod a familiar food path in different states, before they met four or five years ago. “We both love to cook,” Tammy said. “My grandmother taught me how to cook. Tim went to culinary school and he’s been an executive chef for a few years.” Tammy said her grandmother, Lillie Wilson (the restaurant’s namesake), taught her much of what she knows, including how to make her famous cornbread muffins. Tim nods, adding, “A hot batch comes out every 14 minutes.” Tammy talks as she prepares that sought-after cornbread batter. Cornmeal, eggs, buttermilk go in the bowl. As she stirs, she turns and talks to Tim and Gilbert Henderson, who work the kitchen with her. Soon the batter has the look she’s seeking and she pours it into a waiting pan before using a dipper to fill a 12-space muffin tin. Into the oven it goes. Out front, Devontae Smith and BreAnna Henderson are readying the tables, the condiments and preparing for the lunch rush. Tammy, a Tchula, Miss., native and Tim, an Iowa native who grew up helping at a Louisiana restaurant owned by his great-uncle and later his parents, have blended their cooking styles. These days, they start each morning getting their children, Tammy’s daughters Lillie Ann, 5, and Lillie Delores, 15 months, and Tim’s son, Timothy, 12, off to school, open the kitchen with a prayer and turn on the music. “We pray when we open and we pray when we close. We put God first and it just comes,” Tim said of the restaurant’s success. “We play all types of music,” Tammy said. “Eagles, B.B. King, gospel on Sunday.” Pointing to two work areas, Tim said, “She takes one side and I take the other and we start working.” They use fresh vegetables and focus on serving healthy dishes.
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ABOVE: Lillie’s Restaurant employees, from left, BreAnna Henderson, Timothy Bright, Tammy Wince, Devontae Smith and Gilbert Henderson. TOP LEFT: A lunch special of black eyed peas, turnip greens, fried pork chops and cornbread. BOTTOM LEFT: Cornbread batter is scooped into individual servings at Lillie’s Restaurant in Clinton.
“We pray when we open and we pray when we close. We put God first and it just comes.” ~ Timothy Bright of Lillie’s “We don’t use pork in the vegetables. We use a lot of herbs and spices like oregano and thyme,” Tim said. “No sugar. We try to get it as fresh as we can so it is sweet on its own, so it’s natural.” His excitement grows, and he literally bounces as he talks about a vendor they’ve found who can provide hothouse vegetables this winter. The menu can change daily depending on vegetables but a few items are constant: fried and baked chicken, the cornbread muffins and, on Wednesdays, the competition between Gilbert and Tim over who makes the most pork chops. Gilbert fries them. Tim grills them. This day, Tim is encouraging customers to order his grilled chops, and he is winning. Gilbert shakes his head. There’s a nod to Tim’s heritage in the menu, too. Monday includes red beans and rice with andouille and roasted red peppers. He leans forward, “I use Camellia red beans, the dry beans.” The two prepare dishes people have ordered for their homes as well as fare for the lunch crowd. Tammy laughs as
Tim describes one customer who brought her own dishes for them to use in preparing her Thanksgiving feast. “She wants her company to think she did it.” The take-out casseroles are ready, and prep time is over. Tammy has filled the banana pudding cups, Gilbert has just finished pulling the day’s first batch of fried chicken from the vat, customers are beginning to line up outside and it’s time to fill some plates with food. Morris Hammond of Ridgeland, who stopped to pick up a casserole he’d ordered earlier, watches the pre-opening churn with the familiarity of a regular customer. “I attend Mount Helm Missionary Baptist Church and both Bible classes come here to eat. Everything is good. She makes it all from scratch,” he said. “I’m into cooking also, but when someone can cook like this, why warm your stove up?” Others must agree. Hammond leaves, and the line is growing. Story Cynthia Wall PhotographY Melanie Thortis
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THE LAST ’SIP
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photo by Melanie Thortis TH OR T I SP HOT OGRAP HY.C OM
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