Allen also sends an ornament to the White House, and as she contemplated the theme for this year’s White House ornament weeks ago, she had in mind commemorating Auburn’s 2010 National Championship.

Then, Allen, who works as an aid at PHS, found herself at the PHS homecoming game, and as she watched the band’s halftime performance, her thoughts turned to the previous year when her daughter, Courtney, then a senior, was marching in step behind Carson Sumpter in the drum line.

“With this memory, I felt a gut-wrenching pain,” she said. “I thought, ‘How do I get beyond this, how do I go forward, God?’”

As a band mom handing out water and popsicles at many a summer band camp, she knew Carson well recalling, “it was a phenomenal experience to watch this child grow”.

“He’s mine, too. Every one of those 1700 PHS children are mine. I like to say, God graced me with two, but blessed me with many.”

Allen decided to paint the White House ornament for Carson this year. She blocked off an entire week to work on Carson’s ornament, thinking she would need that to get through the process. She went onto Carson’s facebook memorial page and left him a message.

“I asked him to be my guide, to be that angel that would hold my hand while I painted the ornament. And I finished it in an hour—never have I finished one in just an hour! When I took my hand off the completed ornament, I felt a peace come over me.”

The ornament was painted from a photo of Carson walking on the beach away from the camera with his guitar slung over his shoulder. “That was just one of his favorite places to be,” said his father Jim Sumpter.

The ornament was sent off to Washing D.C. along with a page of thoughts written by his mother, Kim McBrayer, and a copy of his CD called Patience EP.

“Carson had cancer, but cancer never had Carson,” Kim wrote.

“Carson had a unique spirit about him,” his mother said. “Just to be in his presence was healing. He had this effect on many people. The last week of his life Carson told Kevin Derryberry, “I’ve gotten to play music every day this week and that’s all I wanted to do.”

“I think the ornament is amazing,” Jim Sumpter said. “And I think Carson would smile to know that he trumped Auburn. He’d be laughing and saying ‘We got ‘em again!”

written by Laura Brookhart & Published in Pelham City News, November 2011

Atop a ridge with a magnificent 360-degree view positioned on the Shelby-Bibb County line, sits a barn that Ricky and Debbie Stallings have lovingly converted to a one-of-a-kind home.
Originally part of the 200-acre Al Rosser farm, the barn, built in 1961, crowns the summit overlooking the valley and hillside once populated by grazing cattle.
The Stallings, from Tuscaloosa, who had already made an offer on a Hwy 11 property, stopped by on a whim after seeing auction signs posted on the property. After that offer fell through, they found themselves considering more seriously two of the parcels carved from the original farm.
Their initial plans to build a new home on the hillside evolved to converting the barn itself after they realized its commanding vista.
“We have spectacular fall views, surrounded by the mountain ridges and overlook two lakes in the back. Come July 4th we can see fireworks from three surrounding towns,” Ricky Stallings points out.
“It was my idea to convert the barn to living quarters—a concept Ricky initially found very amusing—but came around to,” said Debbie. “My son told me outright that I had lost my mind.”
Work began in October 2005 and by February 2006 the barn was ready to be occupied. That the barn was exceptionally well built to start with was a plus. Retaining its rustic flavor was the core of Debbie’s remodeling concept.
“I had to repeatedly emphasize to our carpenter that we were taking an antique and enhancing it,” Debbie explains.
Where the dining and living room now are were once horse stalls. Hay was forked down through a hole in the ceiling, now covered. The existing concrete floor needed only to be treated and refinished. The tack room was converted to the downstairs bathroom complete with claw-foot tub.
By removing a wall, the feed room evolved to become the kitchen. Though a small space, Debbie’s ingenious angled placement of the stove and installation of cabinets that include a corner lazy-susan, results in a functional kitchen that is enhanced with a small window in which hangs a charming old stained-glass window curtained with a tea towel. Old jars and a butterchurn complement the setting; even the cookbooks are aged and the metallic paint used on the ceiling casts a mellow glow.
Interior columns and doorframes were surfaced with rustic barnwood; some planks still bear the teethmarks of the horses.
Debbie uses meaningful collected furniture and accessories throughout the house and seems to have her own trash & treasure angel on her shoulder guiding her to roadside castoffs, spectacular finds and unique vintage pieces that she incorporates in clever ways.
The downstairs bedroom occupies the former chicken coop and holds a brass bed found in the barn, now painted black. Black and white toile fabric anchors the scheme, with whimsical displays of vintage hats, purses and jewelry providing the wall décor.
The unusual whitewashed gingerbread door to the bedroom has a frosted glass pane with an outdoor mountain scene and the original doorknobs. Debbie acquired it for $75 and it fit into the opening with the addition of just one board at the bottom.
“I have a willingness to be eccentric,” Debbie says. It is that eye that has created such an eclectic and fascinating homestead.
Everything has a story—from the trash-rescued living room chair now covered with cowhide to the feeding trough used for storage in the bathroom to the barnwood-framed mule picture and rusted farm paraphernalia displayed in the stairwell. Two old-fashioned treadle sewing machines serve as bedside tables in the master suite.
Debbie, who is a realtor with ReMax, says weddings are a sideline for her and that last year, her daughter’s friend had the first wedding on their property. The ceremony was held under the large gazebo on the south side of the house. The back porch held the bar setup and doubled as a dance floor.
“The setting here is expansive but intimate, and quite special, we feel, but as my daughters and I develop our wedding business, we will take our expertise to any venue.”
Unexpected touches of humor throughout the home also leave any visitor with a smile on their face. A sign posted near Debbie’s desk proclaims, “Out of my mind. Back in 5 minutes.” It is a given, however, that an enormous amount of seriously creative in-mind time and effort went into and continues to expand the happily-ever-after possibilities of this labor of love.

You may feel like you have really fallen through the rabbit hole upon entering Debra Farley’s booth at Magic City Art Show or Kentuck—her signature silver or patinaed torch work jewelry draws shoppers from afar.

A mannequin torso layered in antique laces, ribbons and an exuberant assortment of jewelry made from a mix of re-claimed baubles, antique beads, baby shoes and old-fashioned keys welcome the viewer and lead the eye from one frivolously fabulous find to the next.

Vintage postcard images (the original inspiration for Farley’s jewelry when she began her business twenty years ago), shards of china, lace, toile, charms, scrabble tiles and Dresden doll heads hang singly or intermingled on ball chain and other types of finishes and links.

“The endless possibilities still sometimes keep me awake at night,” Farley says and notes she keeps a journal to note nighttime epiphanies.

Part of her line comes presented on “antiqued” and stamped label cards and there is a wide assortment of vintage holiday themes—Valentine, St. Paddy’s, Halloween, and Christmas, Santas and snowmen—that can’t help but bring a smile.

If you should be lucky enough to have accumulated old hankies, sepia photos, significant found objects, jewels (real or faux) from elderly relatives, Farley would be the artisan to combine them into a memorable piece(s) of wearable art.

“I have stepped up my one-of-a-kind work in the last year. For example, one woman had locks of hair she wished to preserve; for another I incorporated childhood mementoes including her Girl Scout memorabilia.”

Farley is fortunate to have an aunt in Germany who can excavate and send her Frozen Charlotte dolls and Dresden heads from the original factory grounds to use as the focal anchor in some necklace designs.

Farley also does the St. James Court Show in Louisville and Atlanta’s Yellow Daisy Festival of craft/folk art at Stone Mountain Park. Her husband, Bobby also contributes some of the leather finishing work for the cuff bracelets and vintage belts and he and their daughter, Summer, also travel and assist her.

Locally, you can next see Farley’s work aka The Charming Cherub on April 29-May 1^st at the 28^th annual Magic City Art Show.

It was a perfect fall day to see the Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling monastery in their colorful robes bless the waters of the Cahaba River with the sand from one of their famous sand mandalas created at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center,

The Cahaba River at the Grants Mill landing in Irondale received the ceremonial blessing and protection. “The Cahaba is especially in need of a blessing for a return to health,” said Beth Stewart, Executive Director of the Cahaba River Society.

Upon entering, I viewed the intricate red, green, blue, yellow and white mandala itself, but most unlike myself, did not take a close up photo. I emerged from the mandala lecture by Gala Rinpoche to realize that this is an event of interest to many people. And most of these people own cameras or recorders. And most of them were very proactive in positioning themselves for photo ops of the closing ceremony.

I found myself two rows behind a burly 6-foot+ guy with a huge backpack, monopod, full DSLR with flash attachment and Gary Fong diffuser. (Later I heard that was Beau Gustafson, aka ‘The Big Swede’  Birmingham photographer who told the lady near me that ‘he was working’ when she teasingly told him she should have seen better in front of him.) To the left was a photographer sitting very properly on his walkstool, whose gray head nonetheless was in the corner of almost every shot I was able to squeeze off.

To my right was a woman with a good quality video camera blocking my view whenever the guy with his camera phone on the left was not. The crowd was dense—no room to jockey for a better position—and no place to avoid the definitely  smelly odors that wafted through occasionally.

I reconciled myself to the fact that this was a competitive event for the viewers, something of a conundrum at a sacred ceremony that should not be afflicted with such energies. I focused on remaining centered, but allowed my eyes to roam & appreciate the diversity & interest of the crowd, while occasionally being able to actually see a part of the chanting, the instruments and the ceremonial way the mandala was dispersed.

A bright yellow flower blossom was placed in the center of the mandala. With his fingertips, a monk first swept from edge to center from north, south, east and west. Then four more times in between these areas. Then he began to make arcing sweeps that methodically touched every piece of sand and formed it into another circle swirl of dispersed colors.

This was the point I was really disappointed not to be able to photograph for myself in a more controlled manner. But I got over it.

So was I was there to learn patience? To learn it’s ok to accept there are things one can’t control and simply be?

Yes, and no doubt a few other things that will rise to the surface of my consciousness as time goes by.

Or not.

Mama Bishop, my great-grandmother, has died. Daddy holds me up over her casket to look down on her powdery and still face. She was 96. She is the first dead person I have ever seen. We used to take sugar cookies to her in the nursing home in Pleasant Hill on Sunday afternoons. Maybe we also spent some time at her wonderful old home, as well, but it is only the nursing home I remember.

Sometime after this, the older women in the family have divided the pitcher collection, choosing, I guess, their favorites from the larger styles. On the front porch of my grandmother’s house they have laid out tables with all the remaining pitchers and all the younger children are allowed to choose the ones they want. It must be the first stirring of my collector’s gene that, as someone told me recently, is almost certainly inherited.

I was in pure delight picking out exactly the pitchers that were to be mine. The smallest one I could find was about the size of a pinky fingernail. It may be lost by now, but many of them are still with me—some packed in the attic, a few broken—but all were then-treasured ‘play-pretties’, as my grandmother would say, that were accessories in my dollhouses, used by my troll dolls in their Lego house and also shared by Barbie when she entertained.

Over the years, I have collected a few more in various appealing styles, especially old-fashioned creamers, which remind me of going to the drug store with Daddy Joe, my grandfather, for coffee. He drank the coffee, I drank the cream from those darling child-sized glass servers. He would order as many I as wanted and we were probably great entertainment for the waitress. Later I graduated to ‘tossie-milk’, a small amount of real coffee dribbled into the cream—the way I still prefer it today.

But, as usual, I digress. A highlight this past week while visiting relatives was finding this photograph that I had never seen of the entire collection. I may be nutty, but this was way up there on my excitement scale! It was only recently that I was wishing to know how many pitchers there once were & I have not counted yet, but obviously there were many!

I have circled the ones now in my possession. The smaller ones are unfortunately unidentifiable from the photo, though I had hope of the enlargement being clearer. It would be interesting to hear from other family members who may recognize from their own shelves any of these.

Butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and family and friends all enjoy the naturalized beauty of this Chandalar oasis.

The front yard of Johnnie and Edith Johnston’s home at the end of Chandalar Circle cul-de-sac is pleasing and inviting with collected statuary nestled throughout. Their passion-plant and hummingbird vine-covered mailbox gives a good hint that a dedicated gardener lives here, but it is what’s around back that really wows!

Edith Johnston, a ceramicist-turned-painter, has used her artistic eye to design the extensive plantings and multiple water features that wend their way toward Bishop Creek at the back border of their property.

Edith now retired for a third time, formerly owned Touch of Style Wicker for eleven years and previously worked in wholesale imports and as a property manager. Johnnie owns Sewage Equipment Sales & Service, is an environmentalist and supporter of Alabama Clean Water Partnership.

“My three sons nicknamed me Fern,” Edith says. It’s easy to see why when you take in the array and variety of ferns throughout the yard. There are conversation-piece ferns about—potted rabbit’s foot ferns, maidenhair ferns lining the walk, and a very large staghorn fern is suspended on bark. Ferns and more ferns bob gently underplanted in the tree shade presided over by a lush macho fern (Nephrolepis biserrata).

Tumbling down the hillside is a waterfall edged by stacked stones flowing down to a shady and greenery-filled pond filled with butterfly koi and Shubunkin goldfish and surrounded by a stone patio.

“You get to know your fish,” Edith says, as the fish swim toward her voice. “No two are alike. I have a new batch of baby goldfish—they are just an eyeball and a tail right now.”

Edith points out a common koi, but says, “She’s not really common though—she has her lips painted orange.” The Johnston fish are fed a grain that enhances their color and their pond has an electric fence “to prevent raccoons from dining out.”

The ponds are embellished with a variety of aquatic plants—water grasses, pitcher plants, the bamboo-like snake plant and lavender-blooming pickeral that attracts dragonflies. Around the perimeter, white caladiums add a pop and impatiens, which come back in random places each year, insert bright color against the greens.

Edith recommends the grand Sun & Substance hosta for an eye-blinking spread of golden chartreuse, adding, “And I highly recommend coleus; they provide a great flash of color even in shade.”

Favorite plants include a plant called hidden ginger that Edith inherited from a special aunt. It produces a lavish purple orchid-like bloom on a leafless stem in May. She also has a specimen-sized peace lily named after a dearly departed friend, Jo Bridgewater.

The Johnston’s have converted a former basketball court to a patio and maintain their lawn all the way to the creek where have carved out a fishing place for their four granddaughters. “Mayor Murphy kept his word to me about cleaning out Bishop Creek. It flows throughout the neighborhood, eventually emptying into the Cahaba River, but it was polluted with the cast-off debris of uncaring people.”

The Johnston’s use no insecticides, environmentally minded as they are. Even the chipmunks receive patient tolerance; Edith places a pinecone in their tunnel to thwart their relentless tunneling.

Jeweler, watchmaker and woodworker artisan Frank Jones with his trusty companion, Alexander the Great, aka Allie.

Come September, Frank Jones will celebrate ninety years on this earth.

“And I like this earth just fine,” he said “ but I have had many years of missing my beautiful wife, Norma Jean, who died of cancer in 1980.”

“I often think if I could have somehow given her half the time I had left, I would gladly have done so for us to continue together.” Jones muses.

Jones and Norma Jean met in 1939 in Indianapolis while she was a member of his evangelist father’s church choir.

The couple dated for two years and married on Pearl Harbor Day, 1941.

Jones served thirty-four months in the South Pacific as a Seabee during WWII. He tells of waiting to be shipped out from his base north of Los Angeles and receiving a call from Norma Jean saying that she wanted to come visit.

“I told her it would be difficult to get here, but she was insistent. When she arrived, I used my 12-hour pass to slip out and meet her. We had sixteen days together, staying at the home of my uncle in L.A.”

“They put me in the brig, fined me $105 and sentenced me to 50 days of camp confinement,” Jones recalled. “The confinement was waived, because by that time we were in the biggest coconut grove in the world, Fiji, and Guadalcanal Campaign was imminent.”

“It’s not as if those sixteen days hindered the war effort,” he says. No regrets, just an obviously a special memory of Norma Jean he recalls still.

Jones had an early interest in jewelry and watch making and after the war took a position with Bardach and Grau, Inc., a factory that made emblem rings. His proficiency was evident then and later when he spent a year at the Chicago School of Watchmaking.

The school asked him to remain as an instructor, but his dream was to own his own business.

Some may remember Valley Jewelers in Homewood, where Frank and Norma Jean established their solid reputation in the community. “My wife could remember all the customers and greet them by name and prompt me, because I could never remember names.”

They sold the business in 1976 and retired to enjoy more time at the contemporary home they built on acreage in Helena where Norma Jean especially enjoyed birdwatching and Frank expanded his woodworking and furniture building interests.

Jones’ eye for precision is evident in tables of his design, a highboy, Bombay chest, his prized grandfather clock and his Sam Maloof-style rocking chair, where he spends many hours reading with his cat companion, Allie.

Addendum 9/15/2010:

Frank Jones told me, “My earliest memory is of New York City, then we moved to Long Island. I attended first grade in Blytheville, AR, then we moved to Des Moines, Oklahoma, and Minneapolis and after I graduated high school, Indianapolis.”

Jones’ father, Floyd Jones, was a leading Schubert tenor who performed on Broadway then later became an evangelist, moving his family of four boys frequently from city to city. For this reason, Frank never had a birthday party until a recent 90th celebration in Birmingham given by his daughters Pam Hiam and Beth Missimer, which I was privileged to attend.

Old friends Bob Dailey (l) and Johnny Howell (r) flank retired FSU coach Bobby Bowden and his wife, Ann.

La Reunion was the recent site of a gathering of high school friends, all who have gone on to make their stamp on the world.

Football teammates who played together at Woodlawn High School and Howard College (now Samford) in Birmingham included Bobby Bowden, Johnny Howell, Bobby Daily and Earl Langer, accompanied by their wives, Ann, Bettye, Joyce and Ann.

“We get together annually. The men golf for at least two weeks and the women shop and visit for about eight days,” said Bettye Howell, who was Miss Alabama in 1951. “We enjoy meals together and we like to dance. Johnny loves to jitterbug!”

Throughout the evening, Johnny Howell, the first principal of Vestavia High School when it opened in 1970, was spinning the ladies around to Mac the Knife and other classic oldies performed by The Whistlestop Combo.

Ann Estock Bowden and Bettye Burson Howell were cheerleaders together at Howard where Johnny Howell played end and Bobby Bowden played quarterback.

Bobby Dailey, another member from the Howard team, went on to play at Alabama under Bear Bryant. After college, he worked with Bowden’s father selling real estate and later owned a business that sold stadium seats. At LaReunion that evening he brought his harmonica to the occasion and sat in with the band for a couple of tunes.

Retired Judge Earl Langner and wife Ann were also at the table, snapping their fingers along to the music.

Throughout the years, the friends have remained close and of course, attended most every FSU game over Bowden’s long stretch as head coach—377 wins over thirty-three years. He retired in December, 2009, just after his 80^th birthday. His final coaching appearance was the 2010 Gator Bowl game on January 1 with a 33-21 victory over his former program, West Virginia.

For other photos from the evening, see:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31705166&id=1296455720#!/album.php?aid=70827&id=1234363672

Blaire Blackmon has found a place to be herself. Perched on her colorfully ribbon-wrapped stool, with her blue Indiana Madison guitar and rainbow-rimmed sunglasses, her music gives off the aura of a ‘60s coffeehouse or a Sunday afternoon in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

Essentially a singer/songwriter, Blackmon covers a few songs by Colbie Caillat, but says, “I really am not influenced much by anyone in particular. I like to be original in everything I do.”

Blackmon says she tried cheerleading and sports through middle school, but none seemed a fit. A guitar her mother bought for her on ebay when she was fourteen became a turning point.

Her song, Better Things in Life, expresses Blackmon’s philosophy to appreciate the little things in life. “You can’t put a dollar figure on everything that’s good in life. Open up your eyes to see all the beautiful things that money could never buy . . . Money is not what makes the sun shine.”

Mom, Teri Blackmon, says her daughter is a ‘different little bird,’ as she lounges nearby, singing along with her daughter’s lyrics. Here is a strong and supportive mother-teen daughter relationship.

Blackmon joined the PHS band her freshman year. She came home saying, “These people get me.”

“Mr. Burnside has made the PHS band a community,” Blackmon enthuses. Older students take the young ones under their wings to create an aura of camaraderie and support.

Her fellow band members, she says, are ‘sweeter, more random people, who just want to have fun.’ They are friends who meet at one another’s house to cook pancakes or to stream someone’s car with Sponge Bob floaties.

Blackmon is part of the drum corps at PHS that soon begins their three-week summer intensive.

“The drum corps is the heart-beat of the band; we have to learn the cadence and play as one.”

Blackmon has played cymbals, marimba and this year, the bass drum.

Blackmon anticipates college in the future at JSU or UAB, where she will play the marimba. Beyond that, she hopes to travel and see the world, playing her guitar.

“I would like to spend a year in NYC on my own, with no assistance—living the life of a street performer,” she says.

“You only live once. Appreciate life, appreciate the little things, but don’t get into trouble and don’t do bad things,” says Blackmon.

Her colorful expressiveness has even been tagged by friends and family as The Blair Flair.

That’s my horn you are hear/seeing.

I prefer the act of creation over the act of promotion, but tough tiddlywinks, I’m going to stick my neck out and do a little promoting for my current show with Warren Mullins at the Stray Art Salon Gallery. There is still time to see it full size and in person through April 1st.

The opening last Sunday (3/21) was well-attended and since we had gusting wind, rain, a 20 degree drop in temperature and a few moments of sunshine with snow on the way in that four-hour period, I thank everyone who made the effort to come by!

Warren had whipped up some really wicked sangria & some simply lemony lemonade garnished with beautiful fresh fruits. The raspberry rugala, Boursin cheese and caramel-filled chocolates were tasty, too.

The dance theme was Warren’s idea back in January as he was inspired by some salsa dancers he saw in New Orleans to create several new canvases in acrylic and sepia sketches, as well.

As a complement and as a challenge to myself, I worked with the images of dance students from Stevan Grebel Studio.

The original photos documented a recent recital and I used the graceful and disciplined bodies as inspiration in combination with other photographs that added mood, namely an abandoned church building in the Indian Springs area.

Many told me they pass it regularly and have wanted to peek inside, but have never taken time. It is empty and doorless and windowpane-less, and upon entering, I knew it was ‘my kind of place’. Expressing an interior ravaged by time, it obviously receives some care standing adjacent to the Allen Cemetery.

All photographs copyrighted 2010 by Laura Brookhart.