Category: The Arts

Praised Colors

From Sweden to Ragland, artist’s life takes many a turn

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan

Marie Barber shooed chickens and a guinea to welcome a visitor one bitterly cold day.

Once inside her woodsy home with warm Gulf Coast decor, she smiled and said, “It does feel like Sweden out there.”

Living near Ragland and the Coosa River, this Swedish native quietly creates designs and artwork that are nationally known and have been featured in many books, magazines and retail outlets.

Her resume is extensive: she has been an illustrator for the magazines Paula Deen, Victoria, Tea Time and Southern Lady; a designer for Chapelle Ltd. of Ogden, Utah, and creator of cross-stitch designs that filled six or more books for Sterling Publishing Co. of New York. In addition, she illustrated leisure, etiquette and decor books.

During her 15 years as designer with Hoffman Media, she did “hundreds and hundreds of cross-stitch leaflets and cross-stitch designs for magazines,” and all cross-stitch chart conversions from the Disney movie, Pocahontas. Also through Hoffman Media, she fashioned fabric designs for the former Hancock Fabrics and worked on Hancock’s Paula Deen Collection.

A count even commissioned Mrs. Barber to replicate in his mansion some paintings of the Sistine Chapel.

Mrs. Barber spent three weeks on eight-foot scaffolds in Count Albert von Oldenburg’s living room to paint the scenes on a 37-foot tray ceiling. The palatial estate in Eastaboga in Talladega County was like a museum and a history book, Mrs. Barber said.

“When you went to his home, it was like you were in a fairy tale. You were not in Alabama,” she continued.

During those weeks, the count taught her etiquette in the presence of nobility and gave her keepsakes from all over the world.

That, Mrs. Barber said, “was probably the most memorable experience” she has had with her art.

Now working in the decorative art of needlepoint, Mrs. Barber produces “fun” designs and projects. She designs belts, pillows, eyeglass cases, phone cases, lampshade covers, jewelry, purses and bags, rugs and tapestries, and has done custom orders for dining room chairs.

The formative years

Marie Olsson spent her early years in Skåne (pronounced skone-neh) on the southern tip of Sweden. Skåne is about 20 minutes from the Baltic Sea. The region is flat and experiences snow four months a year.

“Sometimes, your eyelashes iced up,” she recalled.

Marie and her parents lived with grandparents in the countryside in a home without indoor plumbing.

When she was six years old, she and her parents moved to Tollarp to what she described as an elaborate home with an indoor sauna.

Each Christmas, she wanted art paper and markers. By second grade, she was an acclaimed artist, at least to her classmates who would ask her to draw Donald Duck, Goofy and Mickey Mouse for them.

Her father passed when Marie was 10, and her mother, three years ago.

Although Marie has no siblings, she does have 40 first cousins living around the world. One of them — Anna Steed — lives in St. Clair County not very far at all from Marie.

As a teenager, Marie applied to the American Scandinavian Student Exchange program to become an exchange student.

Interestingly, while in a music class in ninth grade in Sweden, she had sung the lyrics, “I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.” But, Marie confessed, “I had no idea Alabama was a state.”

Nonetheless, that is exactly where she was placed as an exchange student. The girl from the southern tip of Sweden with a southern Swedish dialect found herself in the southern region of the United States.

Even though she was to be in Alabama only for Pell City High School’s 1983-1984 school year, Marie found she just could not stay away. One reason was Kinsman Barber, a Pell City native and Jacksonville State University student she met four months into her sojourn in the United States.

After completing the exchange program, Marie returned to Sweden, finished junior college and worked for a while in Stockholm. Then, at 19, she decided to attend art school either in Australia or the U.S. She chose the U.S., going first to California and then to Alabama by bus.

Marie traveled to Auburn University to stay with friend Wendy Bradshaw Weathers (who now lives in Ozark). Through an outreach ministry to foreign students, Marie heard about Jesus Christ, His love and the forgiveness He gives to all who will receive it.

“I utterly broke down and couldn’t believe anyone would love me in spite of all my unrighteousness,” said Marie. She asked Jesus Christ to save her.

A “long, winding road” brought her and Kinsman back into contact.

She enrolled in the Art Institute of Atlanta to study visual communication and, a week after earning her associate’s degree, she and Kinsman wed.

Marie, the artist, and Kinsman, the teacher and coach at Victory Christian School, have been married 27 years and have four children — Malin, 21; Peyton, 19; Daniel, 17, and Magdalena, 16.

They also have 18 chickens, three dogs, two cats, one guinea and an herb garden.

“I enjoy the simplicity of life,” said Mrs. Barber. To her, it is reminiscent of the childhood experiences she cherishes most. The years of living in the Swedish countryside as a child were simple and meager. But, “my best memories were in the country.”

In her Alabama country home nestled in the woods, she creates her art while listening to sermons by David Platt, president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and best-selling author.

“God has allowed me to work at home,” Mrs. Barber said.

A diverse talent

Mrs. Barber’s art spans many genres.

“I used to do Christian art — cards and prints,” she said. “I did that for a little while.”

One of her pieces hangs in her church, which is Hardin Chapel in Ragland.

From the large floral acrylic on canvas that accents her dining room to the vibrant needlepoint pillow she had just finished, all her pieces show her penchant and flare for color.

“I’m all about pink leopard with some fur,” she said with a laugh. “… I like color. I’m not traditional.”

When she formed her own art design company, it was appropriately named Colors of Praise.

“Most designers use their name for their design,” she said. She chose, however, to use the name Colors of Praise because its gives her opportunity to tell others who Jesus Christ is. She said all her accomplishments are small in comparison to what Jesus has done for her.

Getting to where she is now in her art was the result of another “winding road” in life that started with an economic recession.

In February 2009, downsizing at Hoffman Media claimed her position as illustrator and cross-stitch designer. Because of that, she sought a new direction for her art.

Mrs. Barber had seen Kaffe Fassett’s color schemes in his decorative arts designs and noticed that they resemble her own use of color. When her love of color was paired with her appreciation for the tapestries of Europe, Mrs. Barber found a new direction for her art – needlepoint designs.

That April, she sent her application to The National NeedleArts Association and was accepted to a trade show in Columbus, Ohio. Her first show was in June, during which she received $15,000 in orders.

Since then, she has shown her wares in trade shows in Los Angeles and San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Dallas, Texas, and many other cities. The majority of her creations are marketed in Florida, California and the northeastern states. Locally, they can be found at Needleworks LLC in Birmingham.

Kinsman said his wife frequently gets ideas for needlepoint designs from sources like magazines and record covers.

And the designs are not “your grandmother’s needlepoint,” Mrs. Barber said.

“Her work truly is an original style,” said Judith Carter, owner of Needleworks LLC. “To me, she has captured the essence of a younger generation of needlepoint stitchers…She has been an exciting addition to our industry.”

One of the needlepoint belts Mrs. Barber recently completed boasts a spectrum of colors, flosses, textures, patterns and accents. Retail is estimated between $160 and $200.

She develops 200-250 designs for each January’s needle arts trade show and another 100 for the summer show.

“I like to design a lot of new patterns every year,” she said. “… I want it to be more of what they would have fun with.”

Plus, she has monthly trunk shows. “I sell to a lot of stores in California,” she said.

Her venture into needlepoint designs followed a different path from the norm, she explained.

“I am an illustrator coming in as a designer (who had to learn needlepoint),” she said. “Most are needlepointers becoming designers.”

To be able to do what she does, she had to become accomplished in the various needlepoint stitches and learn the difference in flosses and other aspects of the art.

Actually, her needlepoint enterprise has grown into a family endeavor.

“The girls are very creative,” Mrs. Barber said. “There are times I ask them for advice. Malin could run my business. She has done trade shows without me.”

The family sometimes travels to shows with her and, together, they see sights and tour landmarks. “That has been a fun, fun part of it,” she said.

Mrs. Barber is in an almost constant state of creativity, whether painting a canvas, stitching a needlepoint project or using seashells washed ashore by Hurricane Wilma to turn an accent mirror into a conversation piece.

“Taking away paint from me would be devastating.” She said it would be like telling her husband — who happened to be playing guitar in the background — to give up his music.

“… It’s my crazy world!”

For more about Marie Barber and Colors of Praise,

visit www.colorsofpraiseart.com

Other Stories

Looking to the future

Curtain goes up on new director, new energy at CEPA

Story by Linda Long
Photos by Michael Callahan

Jeff Thompson is fitting right in to his new role as executive director of the Pell City Center for Education and the Performing Arts (CEPA), but at four years old, Thompson was on a totally different career path.

“At my preschool graduation, I told the whole class that I was going to be an aeronautical engineer. Well, that brought a whole bevy of laughs,” recalled Thompson, “but I loved planes and as a child, that’s all I wanted to do. That is, until I found out the engineers get paid by contract work. I didn’t see much stability in that. So, suddenly, aeronautical engineering didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.”

The intrepid young Thompson then turned to “Plan B.” Architecture.

Though foiled again, he was not the least chagrined. “I could not pass Physics. I failed it twice. I do not understand the concept – never have, never will, and you can’t be an architect if you don’t get Physics. I can draw just fine,” laughed Thompson. “I just wasn’t able to do those high level equations.”

Those two early career misdirections are clearly St. Clair County’s gain. Thompson, who has been in his new role as CEPA director for only two months, already has a clear vision for leading the top notch 2,000 plus-seat sports arena and a state-of-the-art, 400-seat theater into the future. That vision is clearly spelled community.

An Auburn University graduate in Journalism, Thompson comes to CEPA with a 10-year background in newspapers, most recently as editor and general manager of the St. Clair News Aegis.

“My formal training is newspapers,” said Thompson, “and certainly one of the things newspapers gives you is intimate access and understanding on how to build identity. And that’s what we’re looking to do with CEPA at the moment is to take this phenomenal product which is here and really does benefit the community and build it around that.”

Already finalizing the 2016 fall season, Thompson said, “We’re looking to create programming that attaches itself to numerous demographics in the community. We don’t want to follow a show with another show that attracts an identical audience. We want to make sure that everybody across St. Clair County feels like they have a home at CEPA. This facility was built, created and conceptualized on that bedrock. There shouldn’t be anyone who doesn’t have access to this facility. It was built for this community.”

To that end, CEPA is kicking off a fall line-up which should indeed include something for everyone. The season begins in September with an amazing magic show followed just days later by a performance of the full Alabama Symphony Orchestra, a first for Pell City.

The “top tier” magic show features Brian Reaves, and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra is seen as a major coup for the theatre. Next up will be country music band, Confederate Railroad, another major act, with Two Halos Shy as opening group.

Confederate Railroad, a country rock, southern rock band, is a multi-platinum recording group. It has been nominated for a Grammy Award, and it won an American Country Music award. In May, the group appeared in Nashville with Willie Nelson, John Anderson, Colt Ford and former NFL Coach Jerry Glanville for the 20^th anniversary version of its signature smash hit, “Trashy Women.”

Two Halos Shy features Madibeth Morgan and Anna Tamburello. When their vocal harmony hits an audience’s ear, you would swear the halos were there as the vocals sound almost angelic. Very little sounds better than a pair of voices in perfect harmony, and this talented duo fits the bill. Although still teenagers, they have been writing music and singing since before they could legally drive a car. They are working on their first album.

Capping the season is a multi-faceted arts festival featuring Alabama’s top storyteller, Dolores Hydock, and bluegrass group, Whitney Junction.

“This event is all about St. Clair County,” said Thompson. “It will feature local artists of all kinds.” Hydock is an award winning, premiere storyteller based in Birmingham, who has entertained audiences large and small around the country. She will be performing, Footprints on the Sky, a story about the time she spent on St. Clair County’s Chandler Mountain. Sharing the stage with her, providing music for her words, is Whitney Junction.

This bluegrass group formed as a ministry of First Baptist Church of Ashville and while its primary musical focus is a unique brand of bluegrass gospel, the band also performs old time bluegrass music at festivals, rallies and other events. “We want to wrangle in as many people as we possibly can and get them tied into this,” said Thompson.

Built nearly 10 years ago as a partnership among the Pell City School System, City of Pell City and the community, Thompson said, “community builders came together to support this facility.” A huge granite marker hangs in the lobby, telling the story of the people who built this facility. It is not just for Pell City, but for everybody. “We want to make sure every bit of our programming educates, inspires or entertains and gives them a reason for coming back.”

CEPA has already established many ongoing traditions, such as its annual summer drama camps, performances by many artists from local schools and the Pell City Players, a local drama troupe created as part of its community theater offerings.

But Thompson is hoping the facility will soon have some new programs making new traditions.

“We want to maximize the availability of the facility as much as possible. One of the main activities we’re looking at now using some captive audience around football games to open up the center and let folks come and be entertained prior to or following a football game. “According to Thompson, “Whatever legacy we can create with it, I want it to be something that includes the idea that we build community off of it. II think it fits in with the chamber of commerce, the city, and the school system. I think there are ties for to almost every aspect of generating a positive image for Pell City and St. Clair County. I know community, and I love community and when I look at this building, I know it can be what my definitions are for it.”

Features

House of Treasures

Inside a collector’s collection

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan
and Wallace Bromberg Jr.

It has long been said that a man’s home is his castle.

While that surely is true for Frank Phillips of Pell City, his dwelling is also a cache of artistic, literary and photographic treasures.

Surrounding him everyday are hundreds of volumes and artwork in various media, as well as photographs of historical figures and moments in life.

“I don’t just collect this stuff,” Phillips said. “I live with it. … I look at it everyday. You might see something new in it.”

Much of the artwork is considered “outsider art,” having been produced by individuals with no formal training. Mose Tolliver, known as Mose T, was one of those.

In fact, Phillips’ collection started in 1986 with a Mose T watermelon painting he purchased directly from the artist.

“I gave him every dime I had in my pocket that day,” Phillips said.

Phillips’ art collection now boasts about 20 names. Among them are Dr. Art Bacon, Charles Lucas, Lonnie B. Holley, Fred Nall Hollis, David Driskell, Bernice Sims and Jimmy Lee Sudduth.

A few acquisitions in the Phillips coffer were rare, thrift-store finds. A sculpture by Frank Fleming was one of those, as was a pottery piece by Bill Gordy.

Phillips added to his pottery collection numerous “jug faces” by Burlon B. Craig and items from the Meaders family of artisans. One of Phillips’ favorite pieces is a 1938 Gordy bowl adorned with the state flower.

The expansive inventory of books Phillips has amassed includes many first editions signed by such noted authors as Truman Capote, James Dickey and Harper Lee.

Phillips’ assemblage also features a handmade quilt from Gee’s Bend and memorabilia marking historical and special events. One piece of memorabilia is a paper fan autographed by Phillip Alford and Mary Badham, the child actors who played “Jem” and “Scout” in the 1962 movie, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Phillips said several pieces in his trove are rather valuable.

Yet, that is not why he acquired them.

“I’d like it even if it didn’t have value,” he said. “… You don’t have to have a reason to collect.”

Selected pieces from his collection have been on display in the past at Gadsden Museum of Art, Heritage Hall Museum in Talladega and, most recently, Pell City Library.

The exhibit at the library generated much interest and conversation among visitors, said Susan Mann, assistant library director.

“Frank’s collection was very well received at the library,” Mrs. Mann said. “… It was a great opportunity for people to see Southern folk art at its best. Frank graciously shared a pleasing mix of paintings, pottery, photographs and a primitive, handcrafted stringed instrument from his extensive and diverse collection. Most patrons were fascinated by the exhibit and were drawn to it, opting for an ‘up close’ view.”

Early influences

Phillips grew up in St. Clair County in a family of nine children. When he earned his English degree from Jacksonville State University, he became the first in his family to graduate from college.

He is drawn to magnolia paintings and Southern cuisine and says that putting sugar in cornbread “is a sin.” He prefers to read the works of authors Rick Bragg, Eudora Welty and Robert Penn Warren, who all have Southern roots.

He listens to the blues, likes to travel, and serves on the executive committee of St. Clair Democratic Party.

Nonetheless, he feels an attraction to New York, Chicago, London and Paris.

“I rode a Greyhound to New York just to see a (Picasso) painting,” Phillips said.

As a young man, he went to Paris to view the gravesite of poet Gertrude Stein. “I was 20 years old in Paris by myself,” Phillips said.

Once, he saw artist Andy Warhol in Manhattan at the Museum of Modern Art. Warhol asked to autograph Phillips’ shirt, and Phillips said, “Sure!”

Even so, Phillips does not own a piece of Warhol’s art. “Who could afford that?” questions Phillips.

His recounting of that meeting with Warhol is one representation of the final piece in Phillips’ treasury. That piece is not tangible, however. It consists of details and memories about places, events and encounters with noted figures.

His conversation flows easily from one recollection to another and is peppered with observations about talents and personality traits.

With the certainty that comes from first-hand knowledge, Phillips speaks of Capote’s flamboyance and gives an account of Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy. Phillips tells of attending JSU at the same time as Jim Folsom, Jr., who would later become Alabama’s governor; seeing Gov. Lurleen Wallace in Ragland, where she was accompanied by Hank Williams Jr. before he was a famous singer; meeting President Jimmy Carter; attending the funerals of author Kathryn Tucker Windham and civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth, and getting an autograph from actress Butterfly McQueen.

“I’m writing my memoirs now,” Phillips said.

If the opportunity arises, Phillips wants to add to his collection of memories – seeing the Hope Diamond and the painting, Whistler’s Mother, and attending a snake-handling service at a church. “Not to handle (a snake),” he said with a chuckle. “Just to observe. My faith is not that strong.”

Other Stories

Jamie Merrymon

Artist’s work making television appearance

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Jamie Merrymon sees possibilities when others simply see the object in front of them. Evidence of it hangs behind her mother’s desk in the Pell City courthouse – “a painting without painting.”

Fashioned from frame corners that don’t meet and scores of mismatched buttons from her great grandmother’s button tin, it is a work of art others would never have thought to create.

“I have an eye for it,” she said. That, she does. Jamie sees art in just about everything around her. A wine cork. Newsprint. Bullets. A stack of old license plates found in the courthouse basement. They all are possibilities in a Jamie Merrymon original.

She once carved a self portrait from a block of linoleum. It took her three months to finish, but when she was done, it earned her the Dean’s Merit Award at Auburn University and a cash prize.

She sees color as her greatest ally, and she isn’t afraid to use bright hues and bold strokes to tell her story on canvas. “Colorful makes me happy,” she said. Nor does she shy away from texture, using tissue and paint to create a three dimensional work of art.

Working in the garage of her parents’ Pell City home, she said, “When I get in the mood to paint, I get in and paint.” It is not unusual for her to spread materials on the ground, circling it as she works. Her professor once told her the best abstract looks good from any angle, words that drive her approach. It’s why she signs the back of her work. There is no true bottom or top. It is in the eyes of the beholder.

“Art to me is the freedom to be creative. There is no right way or wrong way,” she said.

It is that same eye for creativity that landed her a TV gig behind the scenes on the show of professional organizers, The Amandas, after graduating from Auburn in Fine Arts. And it is that same flair for creativity that moved her work in front of the cameras on that show as well as on Fix It and Finish It with Antonio Sabato Jr.

“I wanted to be a decorator, but I couldn’t get out of Chemistry,” she mused. That put her on course for a Fine Arts degree and a stint as a “starving artist.” She shotgunned 60 resumes and found The Amandas willing to take a chance on her. “I lived in Atlanta a month, New Orleans a month and Birmingham for a month,” helping behind the scenes with reorganizing rooms and making over houses for use on the TV show.

In New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina struck, the owner of the house to be redone for the cameras mentioned she loved original art. “We have an artist right here,” Jamie recalled Amanda Le Blanc saying. And with that, she plopped down on the driveway and painted herself right into the show. It was a 5 x 5 foot abstract featured in a room makeover.

Although that show was later cancelled, she got a second chance when Le Blanc sent her a message about creating artwork for Fix It and Finish It. Yet another of her works appeared in that show. It gave her the opportunity to work with Orlando-based Pink Sneakers producers Craig Campbell and Trish Gold, who helped produce such reality shows as Project Runway and The Kardashians.

These days she spends her time crisscrossing the county as a court referral officer, carrying on what has become a family tradition of serving St. Clair County. Her mother is judicial assistant to Circuit Judge Bill Weathington. Her grandmother, Sara Bell, was chief clerk of the Probate Office.

“I love my job. I love people,” Jamie said. “I’m a good people person.”

You’ll get no argument from attorney Van Davis, who serves as municipal judge in several St. Clair County cities where Jamie works. “She’s amazing,” he said when he learned she would be the subject of a magazine piece.

There’s no argument from District Judge Alan Furr about her artistic talent, either.

He offered her mother $500 on the spot for her Painting Without Painting, she said. But it’s not for sale. Vicki counts it among her most prized possessions, a Mother’s Day gift from Jamie.

Other pieces are for sale, and Jamie continues to spend her off time producing them in an unlikely sanctuary – her parents’ garage she calls her ‘studio.’ There among the stacks of boxes and usual occupants of a garage, she has carved out her creative corner of the world. “I don’t have to answer to anybody but myself when I’m in my creative zone. I do what I want to do. It’s my zone.”

And as she works toward some of the same goals as other 20-somethings – a house, perhaps a family – her art is never out of the picture for her life. “If I could afford it, I would just retire and paint.”

Other Stories

Celebrating CEPA

[Show as slideshow]

EDUCATION & PERFORMING ARTS
‘What If’ played big role for CEPA

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photography by Wallace Bromberg
Submitted photos

Once there was a city that needed an auditorium.

Once there was a school that needed a better gymnasium.

The city and the school system decided to join together to do what neither could do alone.

When even the combined efforts were not quite enough, the citizens, businesses, industries and other government entities pooled their resources to make it happen.

And thus, our tale comes to its happy beginning eight years ago with the opening of the Center for Education and Performing Arts (CEPA).

Since then, CEPA has been the site of community theater productions, recitals, conferences, symposiums, private events, a host of school functions, concerts and performances by nationally known artists, basketball games, high school wrestling matches, archery tournaments, JROTC competitions, graduations, church services, and – right now – a Smithsonian exhibit with local flavor.

“CEPA has brought a whole new dimension to Pell City,” said Kathy McCoy, who was executive director for seven years and is the current artistic director. “We are the gathering place for Pell City.”

Also called Pell City Center, CEPA features a 399-seat theater-concert hall and a 2,100-seat sports arena.

Plus, it boasts the only movie theater in the area, McCoy said.

CEPA, however, does not sit silently, waiting for a concert here and a theatrical performance there. Rather, activity at the building is nearly constant.

During the school year, for example, the theater is used daily for drama classes, said Kelly Wilkerson, CEPA’s executive director.

Much of the time, especially during December, the center is in use every day of the week, Wilkerson said. Sometimes, two events are happening simultaneously.

“It definitely gets a lot of use,” he said.

That is part of the beauty of a performing arts center, said Barbara Reed, public information officer of Alabama State Council on the Arts in Montgomery.

“Community arts centers provide access to a wide range of art and performance opportunities, which bring many people together,” Reed said. “These centers are often the heartbeat of smaller cities. Its programming inspires children, adults and families alike, creating a vibrant and connected community.”

Reed said any community is blessed to have a performing arts center.

“It put us on the cultural map of Alabama,” said Bill Hereford, who was mayor from 2008 to 2012.

Dr. Michael Barber, superintendent of Pell City Schools, said the center has had a significant impact on the school system.

“It has transformed our school system in several ways,” Barber said.

Having the center has helped to revive the high school drama department; provided a venue to bring shows to the students instead of having to transport them elsewhere to see productions; has given students stage performance opportunities; has accommodated the entire high school student body for assemblies, and has offered space for teacher training during in-service meetings, Barber said.

The school system, he continued, even got to host a State Board of Education meeting at CEPA, “which was a great honor.”

Besides benefiting the students and residents, programs and functions at the center stand to boost the local economy, said McCoy.

A significant percentage of audience members come from outside Pell City, she said. While in Pell City, those patrons dine, refuel and maybe even stay in a hotel.

The chance to seek out and promote local talent is yet another advantage of the center, McCoy said. A group of 30 or so actors and actresses have been brought together to form the community theater group, Pell City Players.

“I can’t say enough about Pell City Players. We have some really good actors here. I’ve kind of been amazed,” McCoy said of the award-winning group. McCoy came to CEPA from Monroeville, where she led the Mockingbird Players, who performed both nationally and internationally.

In 2007, Pell City Players presented their first production, which was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Since then, they have done two or three productions a year – some comedy, some drama, some musicals. Among the group’s list of presentations in the past seven years are Dearly Departed, To Kill a Mockingbird, Crimes of the Heart and It’s a Wonderful Life.

At the opening of the Smithsonian exhibit, The Way We Worked, the players used performing arts to augment visual arts. The thespians dressed as figures in Pell City’s history to tell their stories, said McCoy.

Having a community theater has naturally led to summer drama camps for children, preening them to take a future place in Pell City Players, said McCoy.

Ginger McCurry of Pell City is the instructor. During the camps, students learn the crafts of acting and staging a production. A show at the end of the two weeks allows them to demonstrate what they have learned.

This summer, their production was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, said Wilkerson.

McCurry has staged shows at the center since it opened. She presented students in concerts when she was music teacher at Coosa Valley Elementary and choir teacher at Duran Junior High North and Duran Junior High South and has staged productions as theater teacher at Pell City High School.

“I’m very pleased with this theater,” she said. “It was designed for everyone to be able to hear and to see. The setup is excellent, in my opinion.”

Wilkerson said the “flying system” of stage rigging lets scenes be lowered into place or lifted out of sight when not needed. He noted there is also an orchestra pit for live accompaniment.

When the orchestra pit is not in use, a safety covering makes it part of the stage, Hereford added.

McCurry is just as complimentary of the potential of the area’s residents.

“Pell City is covered up with talent,” McCurry continued. There is more of it represented in the schools and in the community “than I can imagine.”

She would like to see the formation of a civic chorale to showcase some of those abilities.

This summer, the center also worked to groom another kind of artist – those gifted in visual arts. The center hosted an art camp for the first time.

Act I, Scene I
The center’s beginning dates back more than 14 years.

Former Mayor Guin Robinson said that after he moved to Pell City in 1989, he heard time and again about the need for an arts center. After he was elected mayor some 10 years later, the city government conducted a needs assessment and found the desire for such a facility.

In May 2000, the mayor and Council appointed an “auditorium feasibility committee.” The group consisted of Elizabeth Parsons, Ronnie White, Harold Williams, Jason Goodgame, Terry Wilson, Brenda Fields, Gaston Williamson, Suellen Brown, Carol Pappas and Bob Barnett, who would serve as chairman.

Along the way, Dr. Bobby Hathcock, then-superintendent of Pell City Schools, expressed the need for a new gymnasium for Pell City High School, Robinson said.

By March 2003, the City Council and school system were considering combining efforts to build an auditorium and gymnasium, Council records show.

In November of that year, Robinson’s state-of-the-city address referenced the venture as being a $4.5 million project, with the city’s portion coming from a multipurpose bond issue. The State of Alabama and the St. Clair County Commission also provided some funding. Yet, still more was needed.

Robinson asked Hereford, who was presiding circuit judge at the time, to head a committee to raise funds from local individuals, businesses and industry.

Hereford said approximately $350,000 was given through that fundraising campaign.

“That’s a lot of money to come in from a community our size,” Hereford said. “(The center) wasn’t that hard to sell. People were ready for it. If you’ve got a good project and a real need, the people of this city will step up.”

Groundbreaking for the center occurred in 2004 before Robinson’s administration ended. The center opened in 2006.

By 2008 when Hereford became mayor, the center was taking on a larger and larger role in the life of the community, and Pell City Players had come into existence. The community theater and the high school drama department were “doing absolutely amazing things,” Hereford said.

During Hereford’s tenure as mayor, a governing board for the center was created. Charter members were Ed Gardner, the late Carole Barnett, Don Perry, Carol Pappas and Judge Charles Robinson, president. Matthew Pope and Henry Fisher replaced Perry and Robinson on the board, and Pappas is president. New members are expected to replace Gardner and Barnett in the next few weeks.

Managing the facility and programming events is now done by CEPA Management Corp., which operates independently of the city and school system, McCoy and Wilkerson said. It is a 501(c)3 entity.

Recently, the center added a movie screen and projector system, giving the community another outlet for entertainment. The theater-concert hall easily transforms into a movie theater as the movie screen is lowered into place by the “flying” stage rigging.

The movie theater comes courtesy of allocations in the amount of $6,200 from the city for the projector and electronics upgrades at the building; $7,500 from the Arthur Smith Estate for the movie screen and sound reinforcement upgrades and $1,000 from Congressman Mike Rogers for a new popcorn popper and concession supplies, Wilkerson said.

Already, the center has presented the movies Frozen and Steel Magnolias.

Wilkerson noted that special showings are possible for people with particular needs, such as sensory challenges. Private screenings are available, too.

The goal for the movies is the same as it is with the other presentations at the center – to provide quality entertainment at an affordable price, said McCoy and Wilkerson.

The center continues to receive funds through “Support the Arts” specialty vehicle tags; from businesses, industry and state arts council grants to bring certain groups or performances to Pell City, to decrease the price of student tickets for school-related productions or to provide tickets for students who cannot afford to pay, said Wilkerson.

Robinson said the story of Pell City Center is that “some things just come together at the right time. I think that project was worth waiting on.”

A lot of work and dedication from all involved and much support from the citizens went into this project, said Robinson, who now lives in Birmingham.

“It was definitely a labor of love,” he said.

Additional assistance with this story was provided by Penny Isbell
and Anna Hardy of the City of Pell City.

Other Stories

Huckleberry Pond

A place deep with memories

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photography by Michael Callahan

Huckleberry Pond sits quietly between Sugar Farm Road and Riddle Road in Riverside.

Hardwoods and other trees knit a canopy as they stand in the shallow water near shore.

In the greater depths, tall and jagged trunks of dead trees jut toward the sky.

The chirp of frogs breaks the silence and some unseen creature ripples the water.

The pond has been described as spooky, eerie, mysterious and, at the same time, beautiful.

It has different personalities, depending on time of day and season.

Daybreak is the favorite of Lance Bell, who owns 17 acres of the pond and 110 acres adjoining it. Wayne Spradley likes it best in early spring and late fall. Bobby Parker prefers winter.

One of its many moods is that “it looks like the Florida Everglades sometimes,” said Parker, who lives in Pell City.

“It’s a mystical-looking place with the dead trees,” added Greg Ensley of Pell City. “It’s a pretty place, a good place to go sit and watch animals.”

The stillness of the pond tends to shroud the fact that the place is actually teeming with memories.

“In high school, we’d sneak over there and fish, (go) frog-gigging and kill a snake here and there,” said Bell, who grew up in Cook Springs and now lives in Riverside. “I think generations and generations before me did the same thing.”

Frank Finch of Cropwell can attest to that. “We used to hang out over there when I was young.”

He and his cousins would ride a mule-drawn wagon to get there. That was in the early 1950s, when life was simpler.

“That was when kids knew how to use a weapon,” Finch said. “We killed things to eat; we’d fish on Huckleberry Pond. We knew how to take care of ourselves in the woods.”

The pond and the surrounding land just seemed to beckon those who wanted to explore, play, fish and hunt.

“It was a wild place. It was a place that was basically untouched,” Finch said. “It was a place to go back in time. We fought Indian battles. We fought World War II there, all the things that young boys do. Back then, it was a time of innocence. We didn’t have much. We enjoyed what we had.”

The memories of Wes Guthrie of Pell City go back more than 40 years. As a young boy, he went to the pond with his grandparents, Hob and Iantha Guthrie (both deceased). They would fish or his grandmother would pick huckleberries and blackberries.

“When we were young, we’d go there about once a month on a flat-bottom boat,” Guthrie said. “No trolling motor. Just a paddle and boat and your cane poles.”

Moss spanned much of the water’s surface, so it was necessary to put the fishing line down through a break in vegetation.

“It was good bream fishing and good bass fishing in the holes,” Guthrie said.

Huckleberry Pond held so much intrigue for Spradley when he was a boy that he would walk all the way from North Pell City to get to it.

“We went up there pretty often,” Spradley said. “We’d stay gone all day long.”

The fascination lasted right into adulthood, when Spradley – a renowned artist – chose Huckleberry Pond as the subject of his first wildlife print.

“(The pond) brought a lot of inspiration to me to do paintings,” Spradley said.

Through the years, Spradley has captured the pond, its mystery and its wildlife in several pieces of artwork.

Earlier this summer, he worked on several pencil sketches in preparation for his next Huckleberry Pond piece. Two sketches feature the pond’s familiar treescape. Another is of bluebirds flitting and diving.

The bluebird idea came to him from a fly-fishing experience about 15 years ago. Spradley saw bluebirds at the pond behaving in a manner he had not seen previously.

The birds would take flight, then dive down like kingfishers, Spradley said. “I didn’t have any idea bluebirds would do that. (They were) hitting the water, getting something to eat and carrying it back to the stump and eating it.”

For Dale Sullivan of Pell City, talking about Huckleberry Pond is somewhat of a sentimental journey.

“It’ll always hold a special place for me because I grew up there in its heyday. It was somewhere you wanted to go,” said Sullivan.

Many were the times he and his dad, Ernest Sullivan (now deceased) fished or hunted on pond property.

On occasions when the pond was frozen, Sullivan — as a youth — skated or rode bicycles on it.

One time while a teen, Sullivan borrowed his dad’s truck — without permission – to haul a boat to the pond. Once there, he decided to back the truck to the water’s edge to unload the boat.

By accident, he backed the truck into the pond. In the process of trying to get the truck out of the water, he nearly burned up the clutch.

Realizing he was in trouble, Sullivan begged a neighbor to use his tractor to free the truck.

The neighbor obliged and came with his tractor, which subsequently got stuck.

With the predicament now doubled in size, Sullivan called in the cavalry — which in this case was Riverside service station owner Frank Riddle.

Riddle brought his wrecker and extracted both the tractor and the pickup.

Then, Sullivan had to go home to tell his dad all that had transpired, as well as explain why the truck’s clutch would not function exactly right anymore.

“That’s one of my most vivid memories” about the pond, Sullivan said.

Just as the pond has been a natural source of human adventure, it has also been a haven that attracted animal life.

Those who frequented the pond through the years have seen quite an array of creatures, including chain pickerel, frogs, beavers, muskrats, deer, loggerhead and soft shell turtles, blue herons, snipes, whippoorwills, woodpeckers, numerous species of ducks and so very many other winged creations.

“You’ve never seen the like of birds there in all your life,” Ensley said.

In recent months, Bell has caught images on his game cameras of coyotes, bobcats and wild turkeys.

People also say the pond is fed by a spring and that the water is rather chilly in spots.

“It’s a unique place,” said Sullivan.

Protecting that uniqueness is one of the many reasons Bell purchased some pond property when it became available.

Bell said it is nice to own property that holds such a legacy of memories for so many people. He wants to preserve it and pass the legacy and the love of nature to his sons, Hudson and Holden.

The pond, which encompasses about 40 acres, is divided into three sections of ownership. Sonny and Jane Kilgroe of Pell City own another portion of the pond and bordering land. The third section belongs to Headwaters Investments Corp. of Atlanta, Ga.

Standing along the shore in an area not visible from Sugar Farm Road, Bell watched as his sons chatted and tossed sticks into the water.

“I enjoy watching them play out here,” Bell said.

Gazing out toward the middle of the pond, he said, “It’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful.”

His screensaver, he confessed, is an image of Huckleberry Pond.

Holly, his wife, said she wants to live on the expanse.

“I would like to build a house out here,” she said. “I like being out in nowhere, the slower pace.”

If it had been a snake …
Almost no tale of Huckleberry Pond, it seems, is complete without a snake story.

As a matter of fact, in enumerating some of the pond’s traits, Gordon Smith of Pell City listed snakes first.

“You would see them swim by,” Guthrie said.

Ensley said he has seen them, after dark, hanging from tree limbs close to the water, just waiting for a meal.

Sullivan has had several snakes in the boat with him, thanks to his dad. He said his dad would run the boat under a bush to make non-poisonous snakes fall into it, just to see the reaction of the occupants.

Spradley had the particular experience of falling out of a boat one time on Huckleberry Pond. “I don’t think I got wet getting back into the boat!”

Sometimes, Finch and his cousins camped overnight at the pond. But they were certain to sleep inside the wagon instead of on the ground to avoid any uninvited guests.

“There were some big snakes over there,” Finch said. “In the eyes of a child, every snake is pretty big.”

Then, there is the story of a teen-aged Dana Merrymon. He lived in the Center Star area at the time, and Sugar Farm Road was unpaved.

Merrymon and a buddy went fishing in a flat-bottom, aluminum boat. With them, they had a .410 shotgun, just in case of a serpent sighting.

The two guys had caught six or seven fish, which they put in the front of the boat. Merrymon sat in the middle of the boat, and his buddy was in the back.

It was growing dark as they rowed toward shore, but they stopped to fish one last time.

That is when Merrymon saw a head pop up out of the water. Then, the head and the rest of the body came right over into the boat to get the fish.

Merrymon yelled, “Snake!”

Almost instantaneously, he heard a deafening “boom” from behind him and realized that his buddy had shot at the snake.

The slithering visitor swam away unscathed.

But the boat was not so fortunate.

It started taking on water.

Although the water was only about thigh-deep where they were, neither fisherman wanted to be in it.

The two paddled with all their might to reach shore before the boat sank.

More than 40 years later, Merrymon, who lives in Pell City, tells that story with laughter and animation.

But at the time it happened, “it wasn’t funny,” Merrymon said. “I was scared to death!”

Additional assistance with this article provided by Realtors Bill Gossett and Carl Howard; Riverside Mayor Rusty Jessup; Porter Bailey; Julia Skelton; Vicki Merrymon; Jesse Hooks; David Murphy; Glenn Evans; John Pritchett; Jerry Smith; Bill Hereford; and April Bagwell of the county mapping department.

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