The Good Ship Concreteblock

The home overlooking the small private lake was built with identical block and terracotta materials.

Super 'gloo

I can't get enough of vintage hand-tinted photographs, and recently bought these examples. They're from the Winter Carnival in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the buildings are called Ice Palaces or, in the case of the bottom image, the Ice Court. There was a huge skating rink in front of that semi-circular structure. Each has the date 1938 on the back, but it seems the first one is from 1939, the second from 1937, and the last from '38. They're stamped Arrow Photo Service, Minneapolis, Minn.

Why was it important to color these photos to sell to tourists?

"At night electric lights illuminated these crystal palaces in patterns of changing color." "Their brilliant lighting consumed as much electricity in ten days as a town of 7,000 inhabitants normally required in a year." ("Ice Palaces" by Fred Anderes and Ann Agranoff; Abbeville Press, Inc., New York , 1983.)

There is some wonderful related imagery here.



And just because I'm easily distracted and enjoy vernacular architecture, too, I'm adding this image of more great ice structures, an Inuit village on Baffin Island circa 1865.

Snow Balls

Years ago while driving on a scouting adventure through rural Alabama, this remarkable structure appeared. It was built right on the shoulder of the little two-lane road. I stopped to look more closely, and found that it was abandoned. While taking some photos, I saw a lady sitting on the porch of her home a few hundred yards away. So I strolled over to ask about the stand. She told me that it was the remains of an entrepreneurial effort by a local teenager, with the idea of selling flavored-ice treats. He built it from salvaged lumber and recycled sheets of corrugated tin and painted it himself. All was going well until an inattentive driver swerved to avoid hitting a stopped school bus, crashing into and crushing one side of his business, thus putting an end to his enterprise.

Well, I have a weakness for hand-painted advertisements and folk Americana in general, so I wanted to see at least the paintings preserved. The lady put me in touch with the young man, and I was able to negotiate a purchase. I returned a few weeks later and dismantled the facade and panels on each side, which I still own. Maybe I'll go into business myself someday.

I love the blue clouds and the floating images of his product. That elaborate painted feature on the front left is called a Love Knot. It has appeared on several decorated folk art objects that I've seen over the years.

Red and Yellow, Black and White

When I saw this building while driving through south Alabama some years ago, I had to stop and take a picture. Several things about the scene attracted me: the bright red and yellow two-tone design, the weathered-into-nothingness of the sign above that identified it, the fact that it's an old railroad car with the wheels removed...I just liked it. I also liked all the angles and linear elements. The two windows with awnings - was it a fast-food place? The No Smoking sign and the colors - a fireworks stand?

While I was scanning the picture, I wondered what it would look like as a black and white scene. And I liked the results of that, too.

House of Worship

This one-room chapel stands on a forest knoll in western North Carolina. Though only a short distance from the highway, it's invisibly isolated above it among ferns, trees and mountain laurel. It can be reached only by walking up a steep trail. Built around 1872 and made of hand-hewn poplar with hand-pressed glass window panes, until recently it was solidly monochromatic, with weathered, unpainted wood, but the soffit and fascia have been replaced in the last year. The austere lines are very appealing to me. Even a headstone on the grounds reflects the triangular pediments, all pointing toward heaven. Though the hard pews seem uninviting, there's an uncompromising integrity throughout that reflects the sensibility of the settlers who built it. The site, the sunlight through green, the wildlife all around - it's a place that inspires reverence.

Hale County Alabama

Hale County Alabama is in the west central part of the state. It is largely rural and has a population of less than 20,000. I claim no special knowledge of the place. In fact, what I know most about it is that it is the setting for three significant bodies of work in American arts.

Walker Evans, working with James Agee and on assignment for Fortune magazine, spent several weeks there in 1936, documenting the life of sharecroppers in the cotton belt. One result was Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a seminal photo essay and probably one of the more important books of the 20th century. Evans' images from there continue to represent some of the collective American imagery of poverty and the Depression. The Library of Congress owns a number of these images. The first two photos above are his.

William Christenberry is a photographer, painter and sculptor. I have a particular weakness for his photographs. As a child he spent time in Hale County on his grandparents' farms. Later, as an artist, he used a Brownie camera to take snapshots in Hale County as references for his paintings. After discovering Let Us Now Praise Famous Men in 1960, he sought out Walker Evans in New York. Evans encouraged him to use the Brownie camera seriously and got him a job at Time-Life. They were friends until Evans' death in 1975. Christenberry has had a long and prolific career as artist and teacher. The third and fourth images are his.

The Rural Studio is a project of Auburn University's school of architecture. It was founded in 1993 by Sam Mockbee and D. K. Ruth, with the aim of teaching students about the social responsibilities of the profession of architecture and building well-constructed and inspiring homes and facilities for the people of western Alabama. They have utilized bales of hay, tires and other recycled materials in their innovative designs. It is based in Newbern, in Hale County, and has many exemplary projects in the area. You can see some of them and learn more here. The fifth image above is an animal shelter they created for Hale County.

The Hale County Road 51 sign, blasted by gunfire, is an artifact we enjoy in our house.

Mrs. C. C. Beasley, Artist

Dan was a fireman in the county where we grew up. My friend since childhood, he knows something of my interests, and called me after being summoned to put out a small kitchen fire. He gave me directions to a rural house and promised the trip would be worth my time.

That's how I came to meet Mrs. C. C. Beasley, artist. She lived alone in a small wooden house with a tin roof and a dirt yard she swept with a homemade broom.

Quiet and soft-spoken, she was obviously pleased by my interest in the way she had enhanced her environment. It was not yet spring, so nothing was growing, but that she was a gardener was apparent by all the planters on her porch and around the yard. Each planter, whether terracotta, a cast iron washpot, a galvanized metal tub or black plastic containers from the nursery, was individually dotted, dabbed or striped with paint. Colored Christmas lights were strung along the top edge of her porch, and on the floor below them was an arrangement of animal figurines, a doll in a basket and a plastic Santa Claus - what some might call an installation. Even a large quartz rock at the base of her shade oak was done in dots and drips.

When I asked if I could take her picture, she chose to hold an iron tine from an old piece of farm equipment, which she had also decorated with a declaration: "Painted by Mrs. C. C. Beasley Born Apr. 1909." Artist.

Personal Security

Ruby defiantly protects what is hers with this folky burglar bar system. There are no fewer than three deadbolts on the security door, and the glass panel is protected by a patterned metal screen, overlaid with this custom wrought iron identity. The name is emphasized with white paint. I have the feeling that Ruby was not someone to be trifled with.

Orange Efficiency

This snapshot of a structure built in the shape of an orange was found without any information as to its location, who created it, or its purpose. I like the curved slot doorway and that the surface is pebbled just like orange rind. Ma and Pa are both smiling.