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art savannah

Savannah Art Walk

savannah art walk attendees

The second Saturday of the month is the  Savannah Art Walk.  The Savannah Art Walk is a fun monthly art event where local artists are featured in galleries and stores.  The welcome reception was held at the Bohemian Riverfront Hotel, a boutique hotel on Bay Street with views overlooking the river. Red and white wine was flowing and it is where you pick up the art walk map.  Hosted by artist and entrepreneur Tiffani Taylor, a few of the local artists were on hand to talk about their work.  Then the walk started.  You have three hours to visit as many galleries as possible. The more galleries you attend, the better because if you attend 10 or more galleries, you are entered into a raffle that takes place at the Andaz Hotel.   I did,  and I won a sample of L’Occitane products. [My hands have never been this soft.]

I was excited to attend the walk since I met Tiffani Taylor at the beginning of the summer.  It was great to walk around and meet new people, talk to artists about their work and learn more about Savannah.  I was especially impressed at the art at Kobo Gallery. Coincidentally, one of the artists is my neighbors, Dana Richardson.

Anyway, I had a blast, and I highly recommend attending Savannah Art Walk every month.  In the past, I thought about getting a master’s degree in arts administration,  so this is not coming out of left field. I enjoy art, and I was a volunteer at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and an intern for an arts organization in college.  The art walk has also inspired me to curate a show of Savannah artists in New York. I don’t know how I can do it, but it’s possible.  I believe in infinite possibilities.

 

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savannah

It Didn’t Happen To Me: The First Person Industrial Complex

Even Jonathan Ames doesn’t want to write about himself anymore. He said that when he was recently interviewed on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. As much as I love to blog and express myself, I have always found the genre of online personal essays to be somewhat problematic. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy a good memoir. The thing about a memoir is that there’s usually some distance between the events that happened and when you write about them. It could be a troubled childhood or adolescence or experiences in a band or working in New York City. A memoir is not normally a “hot take”, but a personal essay typically is.

XO Jane’s personal essays are under the vertical, “It Happened To Me”. I hate the name since it connotes that the essayists have no agency in their own lives. Though Catalog has been remarkable for cataloging all the angst of the twenty-something millennials living in Brooklyn. If these essays are oversharing, then it is just a result of our current pop culture.

I have been living in Savannah for less than four months and when I tell people I am a writer, the reaction has been interesting.  I have been asked how to get a book published and how to document a family history.  No one asks for my opinion or hot take, but if they wanted one, just give me a day and I could probably whip up something.

 

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forsyth park savannah

Be An Ally Any Day and Everyday

 

The crowd at Savannah Pride

Being an LGBT ally means more than being OK with gay marriage because you love “Modern Family”. Being an ally means you support LGBT issues and you speak out against LGBT injustice. Being an ally means being consistent. Today I volunteered at Savannah Pride, but I won’t wait until next Pride weekend to support LGBT.

When it comes to LGBT in popular culture and media, it is still mostly focused on the Gay White Male. That needs to change. A few years ago, I got to speak at a conference, Salon LGBTQ, and I spoke about how to be an ally in the social media streams. At the conference, I got a chance to re-introduce myself Riese Bernard, one of the founders of Autostraddle, one of the most popular and influential lesbian blogs.

“Orange is The New Black” has brought attention to lesbian women of color and transgender women, but there’s still a dearth of Black, Asian and Latino gay men. I bet most people have yet to see “Noah’s Arc” or even “Paris is Burning” which is the source of all current slang today. No shade. 😉

Anyway, I want to see more like people who look like me in the forefront of the LGBT movement.  Just like not all “skin folk is kinfolk”, not everyone who looks like an ally is actually one. #CaitlynWhatsGood

 

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food savannah

Dora Charles And The Rehab of Paula Deen

Dora Charles

Dora Charles who worked for Paula Deen for over twenty years is finally getting her due with her first cookbook, A Real Southern Cook In Her Savannah Kitchen.

I got a copy of the cookbook and it’s a great primer for real southern/soul food cooking. I was talking about the cookbook last week with Erika who is the Yelp Savannah Community Ambassador, and she said,

“Why does soul food have to be elevated?! It’s from the soul, so it is already elevated.”

I agree. Soul food does not have to elevated. The family recipes in Dora Charles’ cookbook will remind you what your Mudear or Auntie made for Sunday dinners. The book comes out September 8th. The New York Times’ Kim Severson interviewed Dora Charles, and she’s doing press at the Decatur Book Festival this weekend. Hugh Acheson blurbed her book, but I’m not sure how much promotion the book is getting in Savannah.

Savannah is still Paula Deen’s town. Coincidentally Paula Deen has a cookbook coming on September 8th as well, and it was announced that she will be one of the celebrities on Dancing With The Stars. It was ONLY two years ago that Paula Deen got in hot water for saying the “N-word”. More disgraceful is that she grossly underpaid the employees at her restaurant. Dora Charles was reportedly making only $10 an hour. Why is Paula Deen allowed to be on TV? Did she go to racial slur rehab? I don’t know Paula Deen. I don’t know what’s in her heart, but I do know what’s in her wallet-wads of CASH.