February 2005

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Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage, grew up in Detroit, Michigan, where her father was a church pastor who was heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement. After graduating high school, Cleage attended Howard University and majored in playwriting and dramatic literature. Later she moved to Atlanta and enrolled at Spelman College and graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama. After college she wrote 12 plays and 4 of the plays were produced by the Alliance Theatre. In 1997, she published her first novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. The book became a New York Times best seller and was later added to the Oprah Book List.

In the 1970's she worked as press secretary and speechwriter for Maynard Jackson. She has written columns in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Atlanta Tribune and co founded and edited Catalyst, a literary journal. Because of her body of work and her dedication to the medium she has received numerous awards including the Bronze Jubilee Award for Literature in 1983 and the outstanding columnist award from the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists in 1991.
To learn more about Pearl Cleage you can visit her website.

Albany Museum of Art

Albany, Georgia, founded in 1831 is a southern city rich in history. Located next to the Flint River, Albany was originally inhabited by the Creek Indians. When the Creeks were forced to move, Albany became a cotton producing city utilizing the railroad because the river was too shallow for steam boats to navigate.

Today, Albany is restoring its downtown area with the addition of the Flint Riverquarium and moving the Albany Museum of Art to a downtown location. Along the Flint River, visitors will find the new Riverquarium exhibiting aquatic life native to the river. Next to the Riverquarium in the newly refurbished riverfront and downtown, people can browse a collection of larger than life decorated turtles. The Albany Museum of Art, the only fully accredited art museum in southwest Georgia, offers a mixture of African, American and European Art. Visitors can browse their permanent collection or walk through their many galleries.

To learn more about the Albany Museum look them up on the web, or to find out more about the Riverquarium visit their website.

Ice Sculptures

Frozen blocks of ice are transformed into magnificent works of art when Atlanta based Ice Magic gets a hold of it. Ice Sculptures, popular at parties or banquets, has its roots in art. Ice sculpting is a temporary art form carved out of three hundred pounds of solid ice. It has a long history in the Eastern world but is relatively new to the Western World. In 1934, Fairbanks, Alaska started their annual winter carnival that was the beginning of competitive ice carving in the West and it was recently added to the Winter Olympics as a cultural competition.

Ice Magic of Atlanta creates hundreds of sculptures for events all around Atlanta. Dean Carlson, Master Carver and Owner of Ice Magic, has been sculpting ice for many years. He has won the National Ice Carving Championships and captained the 1998 Olympic Ice Carving team. Ice carving offers a cool alternative to traditional art.

William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum

The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum came about after a 1983 exhibit Jews and Georgians: A Meeting of Cultures 1733-1983, created a need for a space dedicated to the interpretation and preservation of the Jewish experience. The Museum became a permanent resident of Spring Street in downtown Atlanta in 1992. Its two permanent collections are Creating Community: The Jews of Atlanta from 1845 to The Present and Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years. Along with its two permanent collections the Breman Museum also houses the Ida Pearl and Joseph Cuba Community Archives and Genealogy Center, the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education Center, the Discovery Center for kids, and a Library housing archival and genealogical research for both scholars and students.

The Breman Museum's newest exhibit, Zap! Pow! Bam! The superhero: The Golden Age of Comic Books, 1938-1950, gives visitors a chance to browse through an exhibit featuring original comic book art, objects belonging to the creators and publishers and rare interviews from the 1940's with the artists and writers.
To learn more about the Breman Museum visit their website.

Bluegrass

Recognizable by its hard driving and powerful sound, bluegrass music uses traditional acoustic instruments and features highly distinctive vocal harmonies that entertain the masses. Bill Monroe, considered the father of bluegrass, brought this new sound to the south in the late 1930's and in 1946 Earl Scruggs completed the sound with his three finger picking style on the banjo. Modeled after Bill Monroe's band instruments, Bluegrass bands usually includes the banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar and bass fiddle.

In Georgia, bluegrass can be heard all across the state. In Lincolnton, Georgia, The Lewis Family has been performing for over 50 years all over the United State, Canada and Mexico. Just north of Atlanta in Marietta a traditional bluegrass music band, Cedar Hill travels around the south entertaining audiences at bluegrass festivals and concerts. To learn more about The Lewis Family visit their website. To find out what Cedar Hill is up to look them up on the web.