FOUND ART

The last time I was in New York City, almost 10 years ago, I went to a show at the Whitney Museum for the Biennial that was going on then. It's a show of new artists that gallery owners picked over the last year or two as up and coming and some older ones out there on the cutting edge.

Much of what I saw tested the boundaries of art/not art. Much of it the kind of thing you look at and think nothing of it because you yourself could do it easily and see there's nothing to it but, essentially a pile of trash. I stepped out of the elevator and saw before my very eyes a big wad of at least a hundred mattresses suspended from the ceiling by cables. In one little niche the artist had smeared a cake with her hands. It was called

Mattresses and Cake. My thought at the time: OK, whatever. Beauty was not its reason for being there. Art has nothing to do with beauty any more.

After an hour or so looking over the place, liking some of it, disliking some of it, I stepped out the door onto the sidewalk. There at the street corner was a power pole, a steel trash container with a big black plastic bag in it, a post holding a fire alarm box, the post with the blinking sign of a hand and a figure walking to indicate when it's more or less safe to attempt a crossing on foot. This cluster of mundane objects struck me as better than anything in the show inside. It was what everything inside was imitating in the name of art.

As I drive around in our county I see mundane objects spontaneously displayed in such a way that if put in the Museum of Modern Art with, say, Robert Rauschenberg's name on it, it's art. Out here in the world it's not art. Well, I'm saying it is art out here in the world. Out here in the world is where the inspiration comes from in an artist's expression of his/her own time in the evolving natue of art. I like it even best when it's spontaneous without any thought of art.

I've been getting pictures for the Found Art column, which I change ever how many days. The two above were found yesterday. I love the broken sign. Whoever put it there must not have anticipated the force of wind through the gap there. It's the envy of every mall in the country. The black square with duct tape is minimalism pure as it gets. Right out here in the world. It's all around us.

THE OLD WHITEHEAD MILL

(click on images to enlarge)

Another monument in Whitehead is fading away. The old mill has seen better days and nights. It won't be long before it's as gone away as the old barn behind it that fell down from the weight of snow several years ago. I've seen surveyors and been told the state is changing the road through there and maybe the bridge. That's not even hearsay, but it does look like something along that line is happening there.

Daniel Whitehead and Doc Billings are two men I've been told operated the mill at different times. Glen Richardson and John Joines made caskets upstairs. There was a time that mill was the focal point of Whitehead where you took your grain to be ground into meal. It wasn't in the trunk of the car or back of the pickup, either.

Tom Pruitt lived 4 miles up the mountain from the mill and would carry a 50 lb bag of grain on his shoulders down the mountain to Whitehead. He'd carry the 50 lb bag of meal back up the mountain 4 miles on foot. Once, I asked him if he could guestimate how many times he'd walked to Whitehead and back. He went inside his forehead and calculated for a moment. He said, 'About six thousand.' I'd say that was close.

Jr Maxwell told me about the old barn that is gone now, when he was 12, one night he and another kid took Jr's horse, Prince, and some pulleys and ropes to the barn. It was J.D. Fender's barn at the time. They deconstructed a wagon, piece by piece, and using ropes, pulleys and the horse, pulled the parts to the top of the barn. They reassembled the wagon on the spine of the barn roof and mystefied all of Whitehead next day. That would have been around 1934. He said no one ever knew they did it. They didn't tell and no one would imagine 12 year olds could do such a thing. He said the grownups had a heck of a time getting the wagon down from there.

THE TIME & THE PLACE

Ever since this small angel statue was put up in front of Landmark in Whitehead, I drive by and think I want to get a picture of that angel. I was in no hurry, don't carry a camera most of the time, thinking there would come a day the light would be just right on the angel and bring her to life. Today I drove by and she hollered at me with a brilliant glow. This was the day.

Landmark Union Baptist Church brings Tom Pruitt to mind every time I pass it. More than once over the years I knew Tom he said, I can tell you the time, I can show you the place where the Lord saved me, and as the song goes on to say, In His wonderful grace. I never asked him to take me inside and show me the place, though thought I wanted to a few times. And he might have wanted me to, both of us too shy about it to bring it up. Ever since, when I drive by Landmark that was a Regular Baptist Church when Tom was there, in my mind I know there is a spot on the floor in that house where Tom Pruitt was standing, on his feet or his knees, in the most memorable moment of his life.

The day of Tom's funeral and burial I stood in the cemetery, a pallbearer, under the tent with everybody else during a downpour. I felt like it was the sky crying. Another true human being gone from this earth. In Tom I learned the old time ways were about honor and respect. Many times he defined himself to me as just a man. Through Tom I learned what respect really meant.

FIDDLIN ART WOOTEN LIVED HERE

The town of Sparta is laying pipe from the New River to Sparta alongside highway 21. They have put the pipe in the ground all the way to Twin Oaks. It looks like they will be crossing the highway there with the underground pipe and run it up Twin Oaks mountain on the mountain side of the highway.

They have prepared this lot pictured above for what looks like might be a pump station to give the water a pressure boost up the mountain. The lot is where Fiddlin Art Wooten's trailer stood in his last years when he came back to Alleghany to live out his days with his wife Minnie. He was born and grew up at the Nile, near the bend in the river close to the state line off hwy 21 just beyond Twin Oaks. He's buried in the Elk Creek Primitive Baptist cemetery on hwy 93 at Farmer's Fishcamp Road.

Art Wooten (1906-1986) will forever carry the name, 'The first fiddler of bluegrass.' Bill Monroe showed Art how he wanted bluegrass played on the fiddle, using his mandolin that tunes the same as a fiddle. Art was with the Bluegrass Boys their first time on the Grand Ole Opry. Muleskinner Blues was the first song they played that night. The recording made then has been released on a 4cd set called, THE MUSIC OF BILL MONROE from 1936 to 1954.

Art recorded 7 other songs with Monroe. All of them are on an RCA cd called COUNTRY LEGENDS - BILL MONROE. Art also recorded with the Stanley Brothers, I think 8 songs; and Flatt & Scruggs, I think 4 songs. A 4cd set, FLATT & SCRUGGS and THE STANLEY BROTHERS, 1947-1953, JSP Records, has everything Art recorded with both bands. It also lists which songs he's playing on. He recorded 4 songs with Carl Butler, country singer of Knoxville area. They're on Butler's cd A BLUE MILLION TEARS. He's known to have made music with Earl Taylor's band in Baltimore, 1953. I don't know about any recordings with Taylor.

Art made music with bands around here when he returned to Alleghany.
He played quite a lot with the Green Mountain Boys, the area's first bluegrass band with Whitehead's Jr Maxwell playing banjo. Art also played with LW Lambert's band, the Blue River Boys from the Statesville region of the state, and recorded two 33 lps, one of old-time and one of bluegrass with Blue River Boys backing him both sessions. He won Galax 7 times.

Fiddlin Art appeared at the end of a documentary film made of Low Gap fiddler Tommy Jarrell called SPROUT WINGS AND FLY, 1983. The camera crew is with Jarrell at the Galax fiddler's convention in the parking area where musicians jam. Jarrel found Art Wooten and introduced him to the camera crew, 'I said this is Bill Monroe's first fiddler, the famous Art Wooten. I know you folks heard of him. Aint that right, Art?' Art said, 'I used to pick once in awhile. I about quit though. My old ticker's gone bad on me.' Tommy asked him to play a tune for the camera people. Art tore up Sally Goodin sitting down. When he was done, Tommy slapped him on the knee and said, 'You aint near dead yet.'