Alabama Jubilee

It’s Memorial Day weekend which means it’s time for the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon Classic in Decatur. I prefer to stay at my own house on holiday weekends, but this year I made it over to Point Mallard Park because I just love to see all the colorful balloons. The last time I went was 15 years ago! (How can that possibly be? It seems like just a couple of years ago.) That time I gathered up the family and left the house at 4:30 in the morning to watch the balloon races, only to be disappointed because high winds prevented them from flying. We went back that afternoon though and we were rewarded with the sight of lots of colorful balloons (tethered). Of course, we also checked out the antique tractors and cars, but it’s not nearly so often that you get to see so many hot air balloons together. 

I had determined to go see the beautiful balloons again this year, but when Saturday started out rainy and gloomy, I decided against it. Then after a full day of cooking I changed my mind again, decided to go for the balloon glow, and convinced two of my kids to go with me. My daughter and I hadn’t gone for our walk yet and I knew there would be a lot of walking involved in attending the Jubilee so that convinced her to go. (The only time we didn't have a long walk to get in was when we arrived before the 6 am races.)

The long walk can even be entertaining 

Over 60 balloons participated this year

Years ago, they let us walk inside the balloons while they filled them using fans. Most were already up when we went this year. I don't know if they still do that.

Inside another balloon

Captain America and Black Widow were waiting in line for a balloon ride.

This event is very popular (meaning very crowded) so you might consider watching the balloons fly from afar if you don’t like crowds. If you want a tethered balloon ride, be prepared to wait in line a very long time. They have a lot more balloons offering rides now, but there are a lot more people waiting too. Two of my kids went up with me when they were little. The youngest was afraid to go – and he still is. He doesn’t like heights (and I don’t like lines) so we didn’t even consider waiting this time.

Very long lines for balloon rides

The hot air balloon glow

We did go for a ride way back in 2001.

A Journey cover band, Resurrection, was playing while we explored the balloon field (the Jubilee website notes that this is one of the only balloon festivals where you can freely walk among the balloons on the field). My kids like Journey and I actually recognized the music (some of my college friends were big Journey fans), so we enjoyed that too.

The Jubilee also includes sky divers, an art show, tractor games, fireworks, and lots of food vendors. It goes all day on Saturday on Sunday and admission is free!

Ezra Winter's Murals

World literature murals, main reading room of the Birmingham Library, 1929

Ezra Winter (1886 -1949) was an extremely successful artist whose colossal murals can still be seen at such majestic locales as Radio City Music Hall, the Library of Congress, the U. S. Supreme Court, Detroit’s fabulous Guardian Building, the Metropolitan Tower in Chicago…and the Birmingham Public Library.

Winter was a national celebrity; he was handsome and rich. His life was the stuff of Hollywood movies – lowly birth, rise to fame, sensational love affairs, wild parties, an attic studio/home above Grand Central Station, an expedition to the Antarctic, an absurd accident, and suicide.

Ezra Winter

Photo from the Smithsonian Institution Archives

Winter was born into a farming family in Michigan (after his father died); he graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago; he married a model; and he was awarded a prestigious 3-year art residency in Rome right out of art school. During World War I he designed camouflage for the U.S. Shipping Board, and he began to get painting commissions. In 1920, six months after the birth of his third daughter, he left his wife and children. His career continued to flourish and he married again – to Edna Patricia Murphey Albert, a divorcee and entrepreneur who developed an antiperspirant for women, marketed it, branched into other beauty products, and earned millions. They moved to the Connecticut countryside where she then built an herbal empire. Winter had more commissions than he could handle, even through the Great Depression, although he was not in step with the popular Modernism movement.

“Fountain of Youth” 40 ft x 60 ft, Radio City Music Hall, 1932 

Photo from artistandstudio.com

“Michigan and Her Industries,” Guardian Building, Detroit, 1929

Wow, I would love to visit this Art Deco, Mayan Revival building! 

Photo by Ash, Flickr

During WWII the demand for his murals subsided, while his wife’s career flourished. He still had commissions but on a smaller scale. In 1949 he was working on the last of seven murals for the Bank of Manhattan when, forgetting he was on scaffolding, he stepped back and fell. He fractured his tailbone which was inoperable and painful. His health began to go downhill. In pain, and with an unsteady hand, he was unable to paint. A month after the accident, at the age of 63, he shot himself. He left behind a magnificent body of work, some of which can be seen just a 90-minute drive from Huntsville.

Birmingham Public Library

After 57 years as the library’s central facility, this building was renamed the Linn-Henley Research Library and connected to a new, much larger library building across the street.

Birmingham’s first free-standing central library, a 4-story Beaux Arts building, opened in 1927. (The library was previously housed in City Hall and destroyed by fire in 1925.) The famous Ezra Winter was commissioned to paint a series of murals depicting figures from world literature for the main reading room, as well as a mural depicting fairy tales for the children’s room. As with most of his work, he painted the murals on canvas in his studio (New York in this case). In 1929 they were affixed to the walls of the library with white lead while Winter supervised. He also painted the decorative ceilings. 

During the 1985 renovation the original ceiling decoration 

was replaced with duplicate wallpaper

You can get a better look at the murals from the second-floor balcony.

Closeups of the children's room mural (photos by the Birmingham Public Library):

This entire library is gorgeous; even the hallways are beautiful, with marble floors, decorative metal work, and copies of famous art works such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Capitoline She-wolf with Romulus and Remus.

More of Winter's murals:

Nautical-themed ceiling murals in the Great Hall of the Cunard Steamship Company building in Manhattan, 1919. Passengers bought tickets for the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth here. Photo from from thecityreview.com

Detail of Cunard murals in one of the pendentives

Unattributed photo from Pinterest

Seven murals, each 16 ft x 28 ft, in the George Rogers Clark Memorial, Indiana, 1936

                        

Thomas Jefferson mural, Library of Congress John Adams Building

 Photo from the Library of Congress

Canterbury Tales mural, Library of Congress John Adams Building, 1939

Photos from the Library of Congress

Coffee and Cheeks in Nashville

Cheekwood Estate

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I have certainly heard of Maxwell House Coffee. What I didn’t know is that it got its name from a hotel in Nashville. The Maxwell House Hotel opened in 1869 in downtown Nashville (right across the street from the Downtown Presbyterian Church) and was the largest hotel in the city. In its heyday it hosted all sorts of celebrities and politicians including seven U.S. Presidents, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, “Buffalo Bill,” Sarah Bernhardt, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. 

 The Maxwell House Hotel in 1925. (Destroyed by fire in 1961.)

In 1907 Theodore Roosevelt was at the hotel enjoying the house blend of coffee. The story goes that when he was asked if he would like another cup he responded, “Delighted. It’s good to the last drop!” The coffee was created by local entrepreneur Joel Cheek who had had his own coffee business since 1882. He named the coffee after the hotel and adopted Roosevelt’s description as his advertising slogan. It became the best selling coffee brand in the U.S. until the 1980’s. Cheek sold the business to General Foods in 1928 for $45 million.

Leslie Cheek (President of the family’s wholesale grocery firm) had invested in his cousin’s coffee company and used some of his windfall to buy 100 acres of land and build a country estate for himself and his wife Mabel. They hired New York residential and landscape architect, Bryant Fleming, to build it. He and the Cheeks traveled to England to decide on what sort of house, garden, and antiques they would use. They came back with four railroad freight cars full of furniture, doors, door frames, handrails, iron work, mantels, wall panels, molding, chandeliers, tapestries, and statuary. The result was Cheekwood (the name is a combination of Cheek and Mabel’s maiden name, Wood), a limestone mansion with extensive formal gardens inspired by the grand English houses of the 18th century. It was completed in 1932.

In the 1950’s the Cheeks’ daughter gave the estate to the city for use as a botanical garden and art museum. It opened to the public in 1960.  I love this place and continue to visit year after year. Cheekwood is a historic home, art museum, botanical garden, arboretum, and sculpture garden all in one! You can easily spend an entire, very enjoyable, day here.

You can take a self-guided tour of the mansion (guided tours are also available most weekends). 

Tromp l’oeil paintings in the main floor hallway

Dining room

Marble table in the loggia

Loggia

Modern chandelier in the stairway rotunda

Part of the staircase is from Queen Charlotte's Kew Palace.

Drawing room and Worcester gallery

Fireplace mantel in the drawing room

The upper floor of the mansion contains galleries for changing art exhibits (including rotating exhibits from the permanent collection). When I visited last month, the galleries contained the indoor portion of Steve Tobin's "Southern Roots." Along with the outdoor portion (ends Sept. 4, 2016), the exhibition is spectacular! 

In addition to the permanent sculpture trail, the grounds of Cheekwood often host changing exhibits such as the outdoor portion of Southern Roots and the upcoming International Playhouses. There are regularly scheduled guided tours of the gardens and art exhibits on weekends. 

The original formal gardens around the mansion include the reflecting pool and wisteria arbor. I have some beautiful photos of my kids beside the reflecting pool (and many other spots in these gardens) when they were younger. It's a great place to take kids of all ages, and you can bring your own picnic.

The 55-acre grounds incorporate several gardens: Japanese, boxwood, wildflower, water, perennial, and herb.  

The Carell Woodland Sculpture Trail starts at the mansion and winds over a mile through the forest (it's all in the shade on hot summer days). It features contemporary sculpture by internationally recognized artists. I have many favorites on this trail (and Cheekwood has continued to add to it over the years), but a stand out is the Blue Pesher by contemporary light artist James Turrell; it is so different from most “sculpture.” It is one of his Skyspace works, which is a “specifically proportioned chamber with an aperture in the ceiling open to the sky.” “‘Pesher’ is an ancient Hebrew word meaning, ‘to comment upon.’ In this room, discover a commentary on the heavens.” It's a cool place to sit and rest, and there is a nice echo in the concrete structure! (I would love to see Turrell's monumental Roden Crater project in Arizona.)

Another of my favorites is Glass Bridge by Siah Armajani. “More than 500 years ago the great glassblowers of Murano, Italy, tried to build a glass bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice. Sadly, the sparkling gem collapsed into the lagoon, not to be recreated - until now.”

Girdled Figure by Tom Czarnopys. You can easily miss this one if you’re not paying attention; it looks like a real tree.

Steeple Dance, Frank Morbillo 

Untitled by Ulrich Rückreim

Turtle by Frank Fleming

Crawling Lady Hare by Sophie Ryder

Tree Poem by John Scott

Also on the grounds are the Frist Learning Center, the Pineapple Room Restaurant and gift shop, and the Botanic Hall/Visitor Services. It's been many years since I've eaten in the restaurant, but my kids always had to stop in the gift shop.

The Frist Learning Center
It incorporates the estate's original stables and carriage house.

Botanic Hall/Visitor Services

Bonus - The Cheek family's pet cemetery is right beside the mansion. The burials date back to 1937 and the pets have great names such as Aristotle, Daniel the Spaniel, and Hulda's Hero.

Cheekwood participates in both the American Horticultural Society reciprocal program and the Southeastern Museum Reciprocal Membership Program. So, if you have memberships with either of those you get in free! (This includes Huntsville Botanical Garden and Huntsville Art Museum memberships.)