Alabama

Last week Aaron & I took a poorly timed vacation to Alabama (poorly timed only due to the gallery opening this week and the amount of things to finish). I was lured there for a number of reasons, but the main objective was to hang out with my friend Merrliee Challiss who I met through the art community a number of years back (Merrliee also happens to own this fantastic bar/cafe/venue in Birmingham called the Bottletree that you should check out if you find yourself in that area).

Anyhow, Merrliee was recently in a show I curated at Craftland. We both flew to the opening in Providence which is when she told me about this mysterious place called "Dismals Canyon" where you can see glow worms. I was sold. Tickets were bought & an amazing trip occurred. Not only did we hang out at her bar, we drove to Ave Marie Grotto on the way to the Dismals and then got to explore Birmingham a bit, including a trip to meet Joe Minter the "outside artist" (read the 2009 Raw Vision article) who created the African Village in America.

Needless to say, I took a TON of photos and broke them down into four categories for you to check out. It's back to work for me. Trying to finish the layout for the limited edition zine for the gallery launch this Saturday at Sky High.


{Ave Marie Grotto photset here}




{Dismals Canyon photoset here}





{Joe Minter's Africa Village in America photoset here}


{Random Birmingham photoset here}

P.S. this is a pretty sweet southern blog