Floyd centenarian Effie Brown attended an exhibit of her hand-sewn quilts and quilt block designs at the Old Church Gallery on Saturday. Gallery director Catherine Pauley said that, along with Brown’s full-size quilts, the exhibit features close to 30 patchwork patterns that Brown quilted and donated to the community through the gallery.
With names like Bear Claw, Nine Patch, Rising Sun and Pine Tree, the squares represent traditional quilt pattern examples and are accompanied by handwritten descriptions and histories, written in longhand by Brown. One pattern, the Log Cabin, dates as far back as ancient Egypt and was discovered wrapped around a mummy in a tomb.
Brown said she grew up with quilting and is self-taught, preferring to hand sew her quilts. “I can’t get the corners to meet with a sewing machine,” she said. After finishing her last quilt, Brown stopped quilting when her husband suggested that she spend more time with him. He lived for five more years after that.
As the gallery’s guest of honor, the 100 year old former school teacher and Check Elementary School principal greeted a steady flow of visitors and told stories of growing up in the county.
When asked about her secret to long life, she said, “I worked on the farm my whole life.” She remembered when she was 15 years old, her father had a stroke and it was up to her mother and her to mow, rake and put up the hay. Her mother got stung by bees and so Brown was in charge of the chore, which was done with horse drawn equipment.
Her family (the Kings) had an apple orchard and it was Brown’s job as a young girl to cut apples for drying after school. Her mother sold the dried apples to buy sugar and other supplies, Brown remembered. The cut apples were spread out on the family wagon shed roof to dry. In the winter, apples were strung by the woodstove and hung from the ceiling in the house.
“There were always apples in the fruit bowl,” Brown said. Recalling the old saying about an apple a day keeping the doctor away, Brown joked that she ate three a day.
With her 101st birthday coming up in December, Brown is grateful for her good health. “I saw the doctor a couple of times and he said, ‘I can’t find anything wrong with you,’” she said. ~ Colleen Redman
Post notes: Brown’s exhibit of quilt blocks can be viewed on Fridays 4 p.m. to 6:30 and Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Old Church Gallery on Wilson Street. Watch a video clip of Effie Brown reciting a poem she memorized in grade school HERE. In another clip she talks about growing up on the farm in Floyd County HERE. ~ The above also appeared in The Floyd Press newspaper on September 15, 2011.
I keep writing Floydfest 11 for the year but the actual annual event is at year 10 and the Floydfest family has been getting lot of mileage out of using the Roman numeral X, with words like X-tradoinary to describe the 4 day music Xtravaganza. Here is a sampling scenes from Floydfest X thus far.
My sister Sherry and her husband Nelson, pictured here with me in the VIP beer tent, traveled from Massachusetts for the festival.
People enjoying music at the Workshop Porch, one of the nine festival stages.
Two Toms standing on Tom Phelp’s pottery vending porch deck.
The view from Tom’s highrise of the Dreaming Creek main stage.
Donna the Buffalo, one of my festival favorites back for decade celebration.
View of the sold out crowd from the main stage.
While waiting in line for my favorite pesto quesadilla my friend Emily shows off her tattoo.
Catching an impromtu performance of the Blue Man group in rainbow colors was a Saturday highlight. Video HERE.
A group of teens chilled out in the Global Village’s iBme Imagine Tent. This shot was taken during a wisdom talk given by my husband Joe (iBme founder) titled Sex, Drugs, Facebook and Ice Cream.
The heat numbers were up just like the attendance. We appreciated taking pit stops at the misting fans.
After attending every festival for the past ten years, I think I qualify as being Floydfest X-perienced.
I love everything about Floydfest but festival family time is my favorite part. ~ Colleen Redman blogs daily at looseleafnotes.com.
Note: Watch Donna the Buffalo video from back stage and with an appearance of my 3 year old grandson Bryce HERE. More photos, videos and narrative HERE.
The 10th annual Floydfest music festival kicks off six weeks from today. The Floyd Fandango Beer and Wine Festival is just two weeks away. Volunteers were busy last weekend preparing the 80 acre Blue Ridge Parkway site for the annual festivities.
Along with landscaping volunteers trading labor for festival tickets, were workers finishing building projects. New construction at the site includes a Japanese styled entrance to the Global Village, a permanent community coffee house, and a timber framed on-site headquarters building.
The headquarters building, situated where the old Floydfest office trailer used to be, was designed by Streamline Timberworks and has a reception area, a kitchen, a radio room, a loft area and bedroom.
Construction manager Bob Forman said the building was sponsored by the generous donations of Streamline; Acme Panel, who donated the panel for the walls and roof; and Griffith Lumber, who donated the floor and siding lumber.
He pointed out a patio for sitting, where staff will eat during the festival, and explained that the back porch will be incorporated into the nearby Beer and Wine Garden, providing a laid back place where VIP ticket holders can sit and enjoy stage performances.
The new Floydfest Community Coffee House is a collaboration of Red Rooster Coffee Roasters and the Black Water Loft. Haden Polseno-Hensley of Red Rooster Coffee Roaster said the coffee house will sell Red Rooster’s freshly roasted, organic fair trade coffee by the bag and by the cup. The post and beam structure is being built with white pine by Polseno-Hensley and family members and friends.
The new entrance to the Global Village is a Japanese Tori Gate designed by Streamline Timberworks and constructed by Streamline and Sticks and Stones Construction.
“It seems a fitting way to honor our Japanese brothers and sisters given all that they have been through this year,” reads an update on the Floydfest webpage (floydfest.com) Bruce Reisinger of Sticks and Stones Construction said the structure, made of indigenous locust and white oak, will be completed after Fandango with a top arch being added to the design.
The push to finish the building projects for the July 2 and 3 Fandango date was evident by the sound of hammers banging. What isn’t finished by then will be completed for Floydfest, which promises a “best of the decade” musical line-up from July 28- 31. Colleen Redman blogs daily at looseleafnotes.com.
~ For more information call Across the Way Productions at 888-823-3787. The above also appeared in the Floyd Press.
National Music Festival (NMF) performances took place over a two week period at various locations in Floyd, including the Floyd Market Pavilion, Bell Garden and Gallery, the elementary school gymnasium, the high school auditorium, the Presbyterian Church of Floyd and the Jacksonville Center for the Arts. Performances have varied from improvisational playoffs to band marches, from Bach concertos to a Piecaitis CATcerto, written for a piano playing cat named Nora.
At the Floyd Country Store on June 2nd, NMF apprentices and mentors played an assortment of chamber music to a full house. Audience members were transfixed as apprentices, who auditioned to play earlier in the day, presented performances with intense focused expression. The evening’s program included a cello solo, a double bass solo, a harp duet, song and NMF founder and art director Richard Rosenberg on the theramin, an early electronic musical instrument that’s played without any physical contact for an eerie effect.
Preceding his introduction to a French horn performance, horn mentor Lowell Greer explained to the audience that the playing of French horns originated as hunting calls in the fields of Europe to communicate the status of the hunt. The horn became a rage in France like Super bowl Sunday is in the U.S. today, he said.
Under the community pavilion at the Artisan Market Friday evening, shoppers and artisans gathered to hear a group of young violinists play. Violinist Zhangyi Chen repeated his original composition that he played at the Country Store the night before, after it was requested by an audience member. Chen, who is from Singapore, is scheduled to perform his composition at the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra later this year.
At the Floyd Elementary School later that evening, Roberto Palmer, a Spanish apprentice conductor with a lively conducting style, joked that the audience was about to hear something “brand new” before leading the NMF Symphonic Wind Ensemble in a performance of John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. March Militaire, written by Richard Strauss and arranged by Richard Rosenberg was part of the program. 
Mentor Demondrae Thruman and three apprentices in a tuba-euphonium quartet presented one of the evening’s memorable performances.
A NMF family concert at the Presbyterian Church was geared towards children. Musicians explained the instrument families – horn, woodwind, and stringed – what they are made of and how they are played. One of the songs performed was a version of Old McDonald Had a Farm with stringed instruments representing different animals. The string ensemble also played Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldiers Tale as dancer Allie Berger danced the part of the princess.
The piece was conducted by mentor Janina O’Brien, who explained that the composition included jazz, tango, waltz and march rhythms.
With a mission of mentoring and providing performance experience to gifted musicians at the beginning of their professional careers, while also providing high-quality performances, education and other music-related activities at reasonable cost to residents and visitors, the festival’s 2012 season is scheduled for June 3 to the16th. ~ Colleen Redman blogs daily at looseleafnotes.com.
~ The above (a slightly different version) also appeared in The Floyd Press newspaper.
1. A group of Tour de Floyd cyclists in the Harvest Moon Parking lot last Saturday morning prepare to begin the 4th annual ride. The weather was warm and sunny for the 62.4 mile loop that stretches along the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. The ride is a Town of Floyd event and fundraiser for the Floyd Rescue Squad, organized by local cyclist Paul LaCoste and supported by rest stops and support vehicles.
2. Future cyclist, Colden Doyle, balances on his father Michael’s bicycle seat. Michael came from Charlottsville with his son and wife Kathleen to participate in the ride, staying the weekend in a local B&B.
3. Sheriff’s deputy Chris Reeves stopped traffic at the stoplight, allowing cyclists turn onto 221 from Route 8.
4. The majority of riders shouted “thank you” to Deputy Reeves as they passed.
5. Floyd resident Dennis Ross waved to bystanders as he passed the courthouse.
6. A group of Tour de Floyd cyclists make their way up Franklin Pike. Floyd Countian Robert Shelor is pictured in front.
8. A rider on Franklin Pike.
9. Tony Nesbitt said he drove four hours from Stafford, Virginia only to get a flat tire in the first three miles of the ride. Fellow cyclist Greg Edwards from Fincastle stopped to aid Nesbitt. Edwards had his own flat tire just before stopping to help Nesbitt.
10. A Tour de Floyd cyclist on the Blue Ridge Parkway takes in the view of Buffalo Mountain.
~ See photos from the 2009 ride HERE.
The above first appeared in The Floyd Press newspaper on May 26, 2011
Our first tour-goers for the Sixteen Hands Artisan Tour came on Friday, the day before the start of the tour. It was a small group from a ceramics class being taught at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts. Local potter Sarah McCarthy came up on the front porch and called out my name. She was enthusiastic to see and touch the simple forms of my son Josh Copus’s wild clay wood-fired pots, on display in my kitchen since he left for Tasmania in early April.
On Saturday, just after 10: a.m., a couple from Winston Salem, North Carolina, who have been collecting pottery for more than 30 years, were the first to arrive, complaining that their GPS got them lost on our back roads (those who didn’t use GPSs didn’t get lost). They were familiar with Josh and his guest artist Joey Sheehan’s work from the Crimson Laurel Gallery in Asheville and already owned a piece of Josh’s work. She, a potter, wanted a picture of Joey to compliment her purchase of a tile wall hanging and a mug.
The next couple came from Virginia Beach, but have a weekend house in the area. The woman said she was prompted to take the tour after reading about Sixteen Hands (of which Josh is the newest member) in Clay Times, which thrilled me because I had written it. She browsed through that magazine and others I had displayed that had stories written about Josh’s work or were written by him. They went home with a glazed vase.
Throughout the day people came from Radford, Blacksburg, Rocky Mount, Laurel Fork, Fairfax, Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia, and from as far away as D.C. We also had guests from Minnesota and Georgia who were visiting friends in the area. Two separate groups, including the above snacking ladies, came from Smith Mountain Lake.
There were a couple of waves of traffic that filled the two gallery rooms (otherwise known as my living room and kitchen) and spilled out onto the porch and then trickles of people throughout the day admiring pots and sampling salsa and chips, wine and cheese, hummus, grapes and more. The weather was beautiful, the keg of wedge Brewery beer cold and there were lots of good stories to tell and to listen to.
~ The Tour continues today (Sunday, May 1st) from 12:00 to 5:00 pm. Watch a video from Crimson Laurel Gallery of Josh’s big pots on display HERE and visit their webpage which features Josh’s pots on the header HERE. More posts about Josh are HERE. Read about last spring’s studio tour HERE. See some of the other 16 Hands potter’s studios from an article I wrote for The Floyd Compass HERE. ~ Colleen Redman blogs daily at looseleafnotes.com.
Read about Day Two HERE.
