TRAVEL huntsville museum of art • lowe mill • flying monkey arts center • alabama constitution village • con*stellation 32 • huntsville ghost walks • vertical house records
Huntsville: Infinity and Beyond Rocketing into art, history, ghosts—and Da Vinci Story by Janis Hashe Photos courtesy of Huntsville Convention & Visitors Bureau and Lowe Mill
Huntsville
Artist Katherine Purves at Lowe Mill
Artistic Huntsville The fast-growing arts scene in Huntsville reflects both its highly educated, affluent sector— and a very vigorous alt sensibility. At the lovely Huntsville Museum of Art in the center of town, a 3,000-piece permanent collection is augmented by high-quality traveling exhibits. The collection is so large, in fact, that the museum’s 14 galleries cannot display it all permanently, so some treasures are housed below decks, waiting for their turn in the sun. Of special interest are the 400-piece Sellars Collection: Art By American Women 1850-1940, which the museum displays in a series of rotating exhibits, and the spectacular Betty Grisham Collection of Buccellati Silver Animals. The museum actually has a partnership with the centuries-old Milanese silversmiths, and has acquired a world-class, unique
12 • The Pulse • october 3-9, 2013 • chattanoogapulse.com
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untsville has a huge, fabulous, internationally famous elephant in its room: the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. You cannot miss the Space Center in the city; locals sometimes give directions based on the enormous Saturn I rocket visible from many points in town. Having visited both the Space Center and its near neighbor, the also-fabulous Huntsville Botanical Gardens (where the holiday display is designed by actual retired rocket scientists), I can personally attest these two attractions alone are worth the short two-hour drive into Alabama. But there is a lot of Huntsville beyond the Space Center. And that’s what I focused on during a recent weekend visit.
collection of the intricately detailed sculptures. 300 Church St. South. hsvmuseum.org If the center of town is perfect for the museum, the outskirts are perfect for Lowe Mill, the former textile mill and then shoe factory that is now, according to them, the Southeast’s largest center for the arts. The sprawling exmill already houses more than 100 working artists, small businesses, restaurants and live performance venues and is by itself a reason to visit Huntsville—it’s that amazing. Theatre and performance buffs should not miss whatever is going on in the Flying Monkey Arts Center (for example, the Rocket City Short Film Festival on Oct. 19). Arts and crafts collectors, pack plenty of dough. Some favorites from this recent visit: Danny Davis’s handcrafted acoustic instru-
ments (Railroad Suite 7), hard-to-find vinyl at Vertical House Records (Railroad Room 3), leaded glass at Julie Gill (Studio 120), Connie Ulrich’s silver jewelry, especially the tongue-incheekily named “Road Kill” series (Studio 121) and Susie Garrett’s wonderful, inventive mixedmedia sculptures (Studio 126). Be aware that the art studios are open only Wed-Thur noon - 6 p.m., Fri. noon - 8 p.m. and Sat. noon - 6 p.m. The restaurants and Flying Monkey have additional hours. 2211 Seminole Dr. SW. (lowemill.net) If all this ain’t enough art for ya, Friday nights are now ongoing arts and performance exhibits in the Quigley and Meridian Arts & Entertainment Districts downtown.