Atlanta History Center...

Brady has an internship in Atlanta this semester and his first meeting was last week on a very stormy day.  A day that I decided to drive with him to explore the Atlanta History Center.  A day that will live in infamy as the day that I careened into what seemed to be a lake in the middle of the road near downtown Decatur...at 45mph...while other folks drove at 75mph and almost killed us all.  Needless to say, by the time I got to my final destination of the AHC I was thankful to be on solid, albeit flooded, ground that I wasn't driving on.  I was also thankful that there was an exhibit on folk art in the ever changing south.

The exhibit was extensive and I spent several hours in there listening to old stories including one about a talking ghost dog that was hilarious.  In the music section there was a whole faux chapel set up for shape note singing which is something I grew up with in my youth and despite my lack of religious affiliation I still find the hymns something beyond beautiful to hear...

Hand-in-hand with stories and singing go quilting and weaving and stitching.  Quilting bees and the motif of quilts often gave women a chance to mingle and to express themselves and commemorate events. The ladies in the picture above were from the Collins family, a big part of the weaving community in a small town here in GA and the possessors of some mighty fine hats.  They never sold their work (the blanket in the picture was gifted to AHC) but they did enter the occasional item in textile competitions in Atlanta where they inevitably won.

There were also exhibits on basket weaving (I dream of owning a sweetgrass basket), sun bonnets, net casting, embroidery, lace making and so much more.  Oh, and pottery!  I love folk art pottery.  My learnings from the The Folk Pottery Museum came in handy on this adventure and I tried to identify styles and makers without looking at the information plaques.  Alas, I didn't fair too well but I had fun refreshing my memory...

There was an excellent display on 'modern' folk art and it focused not only with innovators in the field as well as the controversies that arise from different factions of artists but also how the immigrating population has infused southern folk art with their own cultural art.  I loved this part!  And I loved the paper planes that were displayed as part of the changing faces of old traditions...

The torrential rain meant that some of the outside exhibits and interactions weren't really open to the public.  But when the weather let up for a minute I walked around the historical farm and snapped just a few shots before it began raining again.  I cannot wait to go back and explore some more!

If you're in Atlanta for the day I highly recommend that you stop by the AHC and spend a few hours looking around.  There are lots of exhibits I didn't feature in this post including an Olympic display, a Civil War piece, Native Americans in GA (which a bit lean but had a great collection of brief documentaries that played) and one on some famous golf guy.  I skipped all those but the Native American one because the museum closes at 5.30pm and between the rain and an out-of-the-way trip to Revolution Donuts, I was very limited on time.  But, hey, vegan vanilla bean DONUTS!  It was totally worth it...