historic Mobile

Thursday dawned cold and grey, but the rain is forecast to give a little break until the afternoon. We headed for the historic downtown areas, to walk and look at the architecture. There are some very big houses in the Oakleigh district, and some very small houses, and some ornate and some plain houses. Greek revival, greek revival modified, italiante, bungalow, victorian, and mixed-breed ideas mix easily in this neighborhood. We spent the morning looking at gardens and paint schemes, wood trim and doors, windows and roof lines. It was pleasant, because we had gloves and hats. Afterwards, we moved the truck to the commercial historic district. By now, it's mid-day, and we're really chilled and our feet need a break. I spied a small sandwich board on the corner of St. Michael and Conception, advertising red beans and rice for lunch. No name on the building, and it looked very tiny. Hey, I can pick a good restaurant! We had a very good meal with Michael Ivey, chef. The little place had 9 tables, and the menu was whatever he had that was locally grown/raised. The blackboard menu had about 5 items listed, a small board just to the left of the menu board had a list of three frozen foods to take home. Michael knew everyone who came in, and Courtney, the waitress/dishwasher/assistant took care of everything else. We both ordered red beans and rice, with local sausage, and Courtney heated a cup of iced tea for me, to help me warm up. Hey, it's Mobile: they only serve iced tea here. We listened to the conversations around us, and agreed that we'd eat here for dinner. The chocolate torte we shared for dessert was yummy, adorned with a little cream.

Time for the Mobile Museum of Art, in the Spring Hill section of town. Spring Hill is the old, rich neighborhood. This is were folks escaped from the yellow fever plague in the city in the 19th century. Of course, today it's part of the urban area, the suburban shopping centers and neighborhoods have completely surrounded Spring Hill. The Art Museum occupies the outer edge of the old fancy-pants neighborhood.

Los Caprichos, by Goya is on display. Thankfully, there was a summary of the social climate during the time he was living, otherwise we'd have had no clue about the work. It's the kind of exhibit you need to see about 5 times to begin to understand. Upstairs, we saw a great collection of rhinestone jewelry, mostly from the early 20th century. Rhinestone came from the highly polished stones from the Rhine river, which gave way to the glass that was backed with silver, which gave way to the Swarovski glass that needed no silver backing to shine. I have several pieces from my grandmother's collections that remind me of some of the pieces on display. Years ago, when I owned a fabric shop, I did much business in lace and cording with a supplier in NY. In every shipment of cording, there was a big piece of rhinstone jewelry in the box, as a thankyou for my order. When I compare what they sent me with this exhibit, I believe I have a very nice collection of rhinestone jewelry, too. In conjunction with the old rhinestone exhibit, there was an exhibit of new work in glass. It was great! Such imaginative pieces of glass and metal! I loved that part of the exhibit.

The portion of the permanent collection that we both loved, though, was the contemporary art. The museum has made an effort to buy work from southern artists in every medium, and they have assembled a wonderful collection of wood, glass, clay and mixed-media. Stuart and I spent the most time in that part of the exhibit. I'll list a few of the artists in another post, the list is in the truck...The furniture, vessels in clay and glass, and a piece using only spoons made us which we were rich enough to collect work like this.

Dinner tonight: smoked chicken and cheese enchiladas, from Michael's. Yum!