S ue McAllister
Bringing Ar t Back to
Joe Lee’s New Book
New Nashville Bars
Photographer Michele Wedel Lou Stant & Cur tis Moore
Ar tist Patricia Rhoden Bar tels
Start your new year off healthy and with lots of flavor by incorporating this tasty tip for roasted salmon into your regular rotation of recipes.
Create a glaze blending our Blood Orange Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Maple Balsamic (or substitute your favorite Wild Olive flavors) with minced garlic, honey, salt, and pepper over low heat. Place salmon fillets skin-side down and brush liberally with glaze before baking or drizzle over already roasted salmon.
We’ve been bringing great taste to you since 2012 from our inviting little shop in the heart of Brown County, Indiana.
We have curated a flavorful collection for your tasting pleasure with plenty to offer for foodies, the experienced cook, or the novice. It goes well beyond the high-quality olive oils and balsamics we built our reputation on. We’ve added jams, pastas, dipping oils, salsas, sauces, and much more. Come in for a tour of tastes and let us be your guide. You’ll be wild about our shop. Shop us online from anywhere, anytime at www.thewildolive.com
www.thewildolive.com | 37 W
| (812) 988-9453
Cover: Patricia Rhoden Bartels and Gary Bartels next to a mosaic rendering of Patricia’s art at the new IU Health Regional Academic Health Center in Bloomington. courtesy photo
Bob Gustin worked as a reporter, photographer, managing editor, and editor for daily newspapers in Colorado, Nebraska, and Indiana before retiring in 2011. He and his wife, Chris, operate Homestead Weaving Studio. She does the weaving while he gives studio tours, builds small looms, and expands his book and record collections.
Joe Lee is an illustrator and writer. He is the author of The History of Clowns for Beginners and Dante for Beginners and illustrator of six other titles, including Dada and Surealism for Beginners, and Music Theory for Beginners. He is an editorial cartoonist for the Bloomington Herald Times, a graduate of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and a veteran circus performer.
Jeff Tryon is a former news editor of The Brown County Democrat, a former region reporter for The Republic, and a former bureau chief for The Huntsville Times. Born and raised in Brown County, he currently lives with his wife, Sue, in a log cabin on the edge of Brown County State Park. He is a Baptist minister.
Jim Eagleman is a 40-year veteran naturalist with the IN DNR. In retirement, he is now a consultant. His program “Nature Ramblings” can be heard on WFHB radio, the Brown County Hour. He serves on the Sycamore Land Trust board. He enjoys reading, hiking, music, and birding. Jim and his wife Kay have lived here for more than 40 years.
Mark Blackwell no longer makes his home in Brown County where “the roadway is rough and the slopes are seamed with ravines and present a meatless, barren, backbone effect.” He now resides within sight of the sixth green of an undisclosed golf course. He was born in the middle of the last century and still spends considerable time there.
Julia Pearson wrote for a Franciscan magazine for ten years and served as its human interest editor. She and husband Bruce now reside in Lake Woebegone Country for life’s continuing adventures. Julia enjoys traveling and visiting museums of all types and sizes, with her children and grandchildren.
Boris Ladwig is a Columbusbased journalist who has worked in print, online and TV media in Indiana and Kentucky and has won awards for features, news, business, non-deadline news, First Amendment/community affairs and investigative reporting.
Ryan Stacy and his wife recently moved to Pennsylvania and continues to stay connected with our Brown County. He appreciates good movies, good food, and enjoys cultural events. His other interests include reading, photography, and playing music.
ourbrowncounty.com ourbrown@bluemarble.net
Also online at issuu.com/ourbrowncounty OR search in the mobile app ISSUU and on Facebook for OUR BROWN COUNTY P.O. Box 157 Helmsburg, IN 47435 (812) 988-8807
copyright 2022
Cindy Steele is the publisher and editor of this magazine. She sells and designs ads, sometimes writes, takes photos, and creates the layout. For fun, she likes to play the guitar or banjo and sing.
*Michele Wedel is a photographer and visual imaging artist in Nashville. She is the house photographer for the new Brown County Music Center. She finds inspiration for her art in the natural beauty of Brown County and in the variety of amazing people that live here. You can view more of her work on Facebook at Michele Wedel Photography.
Thanks, Mom, for making it happen!
~by Julia Pearson
Employees and friends are being treated to a mural on the wall inside the newly enclosed employee hangout in the back of the Out of the Ordinary Restaurant. It features a countryside vignette with sunset, sunflowers, and a barn. This 40’ x 10’ art piece was recently painted by Sue McAllister in thirteen days.
Sue is almost 80 years old and is a spitfire of talent and energy.
She is well-known to locals as an artist and businesswoman who had her own frame shop in downtown Nashville from 1978 to 1996. Throughout Indiana, and widely beyond, she is known for her expertise in restoration of fine art pieces.
A birthright Hoosier, Sue was born in Salem and grew up with her brother Marvin and sister Brenda. Their mother Aileen knew that Sue was the child who was “always into everything.” Sue heard her calling as an artist
even as a little girl, drawing, painting, and making things with her hands. The family lived in Orleans and then Indianapolis, where Sue graduated from Southport High School in 1960.
Sue married James Francis “Jim” McAllister. They set up housekeeping in Greenwood and raised their family: daughter Perri and son Jim. Sue’s guiding principle in parenthood was to “always know where your children are.”
The couple moved to Brown County when “mommy duties” were no longer pressing. Sue worked in the frame shop and Jim commuted back to Greenwood. Sue felt it in her bones that this was “coming home” and has lived in Nashville for nearly 50 years.
Customers repeatedly asked who could clean and restore art and Sue found her niche in art restoration. Realizing the need, she closed her frame shop so that she could devote more time to restoration. She reports that currently there are only three people in the state of Indiana who do this work.
Thirty years ago she built a home one and a quarter miles north of the courthouse in Orchard Hill, site of the apple orchard business of early artist Dale Bassire. She has a studio in the lower level of the house for her business. Pieces arrive via the US Postal Service, FedEx, and UPS from within and outside of Indiana.
In the early 1960s, the Brown County Art Gallery tragically caught fire. Paintings were blackened by smoke and charred. The damaged pieces were stored in the Gallery’s vault until Sue could get to them. The collection vault of the Brown County Art Guild also holds pieces that Sue cleaned. She estimates she has restored between 4000 and 5000 paintings, including pieces painted by all the members of the Art Colony.
Sue says, “I do this because I love it, and I want to keep the art alive. When I’m through, the piece will be good for another hundred years.” Mexican painter Frida Kahlo said, “I paint flowers so they will not die.” Sue’s work in art restoration fulfills her urge to keep artwork vibrant and alive. The attention to skill and detail in Continued on 20
restoration has given Sue a distinct, closeup relationship and insight into the Brown County Art Colony painters. She has a special appreciation for the work of Will Vawter—his technique and colors. By her own admission, art restoration of these iconic works requires both talent and guts.
Sue was a member of the Brown County Art Gallery for eleven years, producing eight new painting four times a year. She paints in oils, creating florals, landscapes, and still life paintings.
Sue lost her life’s partner, Jim, in 2012. They were married for fifty years. Daughter Perri Engel now makes her home in Columbus, Ohio. Perri’s children are Josh, Nicki, and Jace. Son Jim and his wife, Abby, moved back to Brown County two years ago. Their children are Kelli Sue and Ember Lynn.
A friend observed: “Sue, you’re doing everything like you are killing a snake.”
In the category of hobbies or leisure time, Sue can be found on the golf course several times a week, a sport she started when she was 53 years old. She doesn’t fear getting old or dying, but states unequivocally that she doesn’t want to leave things undone.
Glass Baron Hand-blown Glass
Jim Shore Collec tibles • Lori Mitchell Figurines
Inner Beauty Ornaments • Painted Ponies
Lang Graphics Calendars & Paper Goods
Billy Jacobs Prints
Gooseberry Pa tch Cookbooks
Blue Mountain Greeting Cards
Handmade Soap & Bath Bombs
Wind Chimes • Music Boxes • Children’s Books
Halloween & Christmas Gifts & Décor
~story by Joe Lee, with drawings from the book
In March of 1944, the Mozes family, the only Jewish family in the tiny village of Portz, Romania, was trapped in the web of world history—the tragic world of Adolf Hitler and his Nazis driven by a psychotic vision of ridding Europe of the Untermensch, the “undermen” who were not, according to their ideology, human and needed to be enslaved or exterminated: the Jews, the Roma (Gypsies), the Slavs, homosexuals, the disabled, political dissidents, and anyone else who did not conform to the insanity of the Nazi’s vision of the “pure” Aryan race.
The Mozes family, Eva and her identical twin sister Miriam, father, mother, and two elder sisters were taken in a horse cart to a Jewish ghetto, an open field of mud with nothing but bedsheets and rags for shelter, in a neighboring Romanian city to await transport to a “concentration camp” in neighboring Hungary to work in isolation. But after being forced into cattle cars, the family and all the other innocent souls travelled the train tracks to Poland instead—to Auschwitz/Birkenau the Nazi’s largest “death camp.” Within moments, the Mozes twins became the only members of the family to be selected to continue living, as subjects for Dr. Josef Mengele’s experiments. The rest of the family along with most of the other prisoners on the train were taken to the “showers”—in reality gas chambers—for immediate extermination. It is estimated that over 1,100,000 (900,000 Jews) were killed in Auschwitz/Birkenau alone.
Eva and Miriam survived by incredible luck, determination, and strength, but surviving and eventually immigrating to the newly formed country of Israel, and in Eva’s case, Terre Haute, Indiana. A marriage, children, and successful
Continued on 28
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business career didn’t heal the terrible loss of family, community, and trauma of the Holocaust that killed six and a half million Jews, and over the course of World War II took the lives of 72,000,000 people with an estimated 47,000,000 of those lives being noncombatants. How can anyone heal after such personal tragedy and incredible global catastrophe?
Eva found a way and it inspires the world: Forgiveness.
Forgiveness not as an exoneration of the terrible crimes committed, but as a way to heal the victim’s own soul. To lay down the burden of anger, guilt, and revenge and move forward into life, the happy life every victim of tragedy deserves.
Eva formed the CANDLES (Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) organization with her twin, Miriam in 1984 and opened the CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute in 1995. Several years later she began leading groups to Auschwitz/ Birkenau to hear her story and the history of the camp.
~by Boris Ladwig
Brown County resident Michele Wedel has loved music and photography since high school, when she used her father’s Nikon film camera to shoot rock stars, including Aerosmith and Ted Nugent. At the time she dreamed of traveling the world on assignments for Rolling Stone magazine, but a 20-year career in corporate America required her to put those passions aside. However, since she moved to Brown County in 2014, she has found ways to reconnect with them, in part as photographer for the Brown County Music Center, where she has shot concerts of acts including Vince Gill, Halestorm, and Kevin Costner. Wedel had obtained a master’s in adult education and began her career in a student loan company, initially reviewing claims and eventually serving as an officer for the company. She oversaw 18 people in sales and
marketing and developed classes to teach students, parents, and teachers about financial literacy, including only borrowing as much as needed.
She used that knowledge to start a Brownsburg-based consulting business through which she helped nonprofits such as Sheltering Wings on staff development, corporations such as Shiel Sexton on how to work with remote staff, and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol on how to handle on-boarding and succession planning. She still teaches classes on financial literacy at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
About a decade ago, when her mother fell ill, Wedel scaled back her consulting work. Her husband, Dale, who works from home as a software engineer for an Indianapolis consulting firm, suggested she pivot to becoming a photographer. Wedel went back to school, got an associate degree at Ivy Tech and launched her photography business. When the couple moved to Brown County in 2014, she did consulting part-time and photography part-time, generating revenue primarily through high school senior photos and product shots for businesses.
To make connections in the Brown County community—to find out who’s who—she volunteered and used her business acumen on the arts commission for strategic planning. She got to know people at the Brown County Music Center and volunteered to photograph some shows. Her work impressed, and she was hired as house photographer in January 2020.
She said she wanted to get to know the community and figure out her place.
“I don’t try to fix a problem,” she said. “I try to find a solution or fulfill a need.”
How long she gets to shoot during shows at the Music Center usually is determined by the artist. Often, she gets the first three songs to shoot up close, but some artists don’t allow even that. The work can require research. For the Halestorm show, for example, Wedel watched recent concert footage and learned that during the second song, singer Lzzy Hale, stands close to the guitarist. Wedel made sure to capture the moment.
She said she enjoys combining her artistic talents and technical knowledge of photography to capture people during a performance and then share those photos to elicit viewer comments such as, “I remember when they did that song.”
“It’s really rewarding,” Wedel said.
She now is a full-time photographer thanks to the work at the Music Center; senior, engagement, and product photos; and gallery nature/landscape shots. She primarily shoots with two Nikons, a D800 and a D750, mostly using 24-70 and 70-200 mm lenses.
She also enjoys astrophotography. One of her favorite photos shows the Milky Way and a seemingly endless number of stars in the top 75% of the photo, but at the bottom, a group of people is illuminated. Wedel explained that she hit the shutter on the camera and left it open for about 20 seconds, during which she crept up close to the group and used a flashlight to “paint them with light” so that they could be seen in the photo as
Continued on 32
well. Without that move, the people would have been indistinguishable from the dark landscape.
Wedel said she and her husband are both kind of nerdy—but then she corrected herself and said that he was nerdy, but she was “nerd-adjacent,” a phrase she heard from astrophysicist Phil Plait, who leads the couple on star-gazing excursions.
Despite all her work and hobbies, Wedel finds other ways to give back.
She recently helped a group of veterans process donations for families from Afghanistan who are relocating to the U.S. Wedel said she had always supported the military, in part because her father served in the U.S. Navy. She also wanted to engage in some positive work to help counteract all the negativity, arguing, and people politicizing things that has been going on since the pandemic.
She helped Team Rubicon, a nonprofit founded by a group of former military veterans who use their skills to aid people after disasters. Wedel worked in a warehouse, processed donations of items such as soap, shampoo, and baby formula, or helped sweep and mop—whatever needed to be done to keep processing donations.
Nancy Crocker, a Nashville Town Council member, said Wedel brings positivity and professionalism to everything she does.
“I’m pretty sure I have never seen her without a smile on her face,” Crocker said.
“She has a willingness to contribute to her community and freely gives of her time…but she knows her boundaries and does not agree to do more than she is able,” she said.
Crocker also marveled at Wedel’s photography skills.
“She has taken many pictures of me and all of them are better than anyone else has ever taken. No idea how she does that,” she said.
Wedel shot photos for the music center for eight months before the pandemic hit. She and her husband were fortunate because they could work from home and spend time in beautiful Brown County, but she missed photographing concerts and seeing the community come together.
She has enjoyed the return of live shows at the Brown County Music Center. She shot photos in October at the Melissa Etheridge concert, one of the first after restrictions were eased.
“It was such a cathartic experience,” Wedel said. “Everybody [came] there just for good music.”
Her Facebook page is Michele Wedel Photography.
The schedule can change. Please check before making a trip.
Jan. 29 Rainwater Studios Showcase
Feb. 4 Love Letters
Feb. 5 Dueling Pianos with Jeff & Rhiannon
Feb. 12 Indianapolis Jazz Orchestra: Valentine’s Day Deluxe
Feb. 18,19 Arsenic and Old Lace
Feb. 20 Arsenic and Old Lace @ 2:00
Feb. 25, 26 Trial by Jury
IU Gilbert & Sullivan Society
Mar. 4 Heywood Banks
70 S. Van Buren Street 812-988-6555 www.browncountyplayhouse.org
Jan. 22 The Mavericks
Feb. 2 Emmylou Harris
Feb. 5 Wynonna Judd
Mar. 5 Chris Janson with Ray Fulcher & Shane Profitt
Mar. 12 The British Invasion
Mar. 13 Little Feat
Mar. 18 Tower of Power
Mar. 19 Wobby Weir & Wolf Bros.
Mar. 27 Graham Nash
Apr. 21 Classic Albums Live Performs Led Zeppelin II
Apr. 25 Willie Nelson & Family
812-988-5323 www.browncountymusiccenter.com
Thurs. Nov.-Apr. 7:00
Jan. 6 Jayme Hood | Dave Sisson
Jen Edds -In the Round
Jan. 13 Zion CrossRoads Duo
Jan. 20 Andra Faye & Scott Ballantine
Jan. 27 Frank Jones
Feb 3 Dietrich Gosser | Luke Knight Samuel Sparrow - In the Round
Feb. 10 Stant & Moore w/ Marina Stant
Feb. 17 Taylor Hernly
Feb. 24 Tyrone Cotton
51 State Road 46 East 812-988-2291 www.browncountyinn.com
Country Heritage Winery
Music Fri. & Sat. 6:00-9:00
Jan. 8 Gene Gillham
Jan. 14 Forrest Turner
Jan. 15 Paul Bertsch
Jan. 21 Open Mic Night
Jan. 22 Coner Berry Band
Jan. 28 Forrest Turner
Jan. 29 Homemade Jam
Feb. 4 Frank Jones
Feb. 5 Gary Applegate & Joe Rock
Feb. 11 Forrest Turner
Feb. 12 Ruben Guthrie
Feb. 18 Open Mic Night
Feb. 25 Forrest Turner
Feb. 26 Coner Berry Band
225 S. Van Buren Street
812-988-8500
www.countryheritagewinery.com
Woods Pizza
Music Tue. & Fri. 5:00-8:00
Karaoke Sat. 7:00-10:00
Jan. 4 Rich Hardesty
Jan. 7 David Ackerman Duo
Jan. 8 Karaoke
Jan. 11 Island Party
Jan. 14 Jess Jones
Jan. 18 Justyn Underwood
Jan. 21 Moonshine Mary
Jan. 22 Karaoke
Jan. 25 Brandon Boerner
Jan. 28 Scooter Hanes
Feb. 1 Rich Hardesty
Feb. 4 Scooter Hanes
Feb. 5 Karaoke
Feb. 8 Island Party
Feb. 11 EKG EddelmanKincerGroup
Feb. 15 Justyn Underwood
Feb. 18 Scott Clay
Feb. 22 David Ackerman Duo
Feb. 25 Jess Jones
44 N. Van Buren Street
www.bigwoodsrestaurants.com
Music Fri. & Sat. 5:00-8:00
Jan. 21 Wayne Pennington
Jan. 22 Stant & Moore
Jan. 28 The Hammer & The Hatchet
Jan. 29 Dakota Curtis
Feb. 4 Will Scott
Feb. 5 John & Terri Whitcomb
Feb. 11 The Hammer & The Hatchet
Feb. 12 Coot Crabtree
Feb. 18 Wayne Pennington
Feb. 19 Stant & Moore
Feb. 25 Jan Bell
Feb. 26 Travers Marks
15 S. Van Buren Street
812-988-4554
www.nashvillehousebc.com
MUSIC 6:00 to 9:00
Jan. 1 Scott and Malissa
Jan. 7 Brandon Boerner
Jan. 8 Jess Jones
Jan. 14 John Ryan Music
Jan. 15 David Ackerman Duo
Jan. 21 EKG EddelmanKincerGroup
Jan. 22 Past Tense
Jan. 28 Married Band of Two
Jan. 29 Matixando
Feb. 4 Mike and Todd
Feb. 5 Scooter Hanes
Feb. 11 Jess Jones
Feb. 18 David Ackerman Duo
Feb. 19 Scott Clay
Feb. 25 Matixando
Feb. 26 Will Scott & Friends
EVENTS
Jan. 13 Painting Party
Jan. 15 Frosty Trails Running Festival
Feb. 10 Painting Party
Feb. 11 Valentine’s Mixology Classes
Feb. 12 Adult Prom
418 Old State Road 46
812-720-4840
www.hardtruthhills.com
19th Hole Sports Bar
Jan. 22 Mitch Ellis, 7:00-10:00
Jan. 29 Tyler Poe, 8:00-11:00
Feb. 5 Karaoke, 8:00-12:00
Feb. 12 Past Tense, 8:00-11:00
Feb. 19 Tyler Poe, 8:00-11:00
Feb. 26 Austin James, 8:00-11:00 2359 East State Road 46
812-988-4323
www.saltcreekgolf.com
Line Dancing with Billy Mon. 6:30 | Mike’s Music & Dance Barn
2277 State Road 46
812-988-8636
www.mikesmusicbarn.com
Brown County Art Gallery
Jan.-Feb. Gallery Permanent Collection
Corner of Main Street and Artist Drive
812-988-4609
www.bcartgalleryonline.org
Brown County Art Guild
Now-Jan. 15 Winter Stillness
Permanent Collection Exhibition
Now-Feb. 26 Guild Artists Winter Show
Now-Feb. 26 Be Still Exhibition/Sale Still life work by Guild member artists. Jan. 22-Feb. 19 Annual Patron & Youth Exhibition - All ages can enter. Cash prizes awarded. Reception Sat. Feb. 19
2:00-4:00. Applications online or at the Guild gallery. Patron - $40 first entry, $20 second entry. Youth - one entry, free 48 S. Van Buren Street
812-988-6185
www.browncountyartguild.org
James Whitcomb Riley Special Tour at T.C. Steele State Historic Site
Jan. 8, 11:15-noon
Learn about the longstanding friendship between T.C. Steele and James Whitcomb Riley. This guided tour will include the House of the Singing Winds and the Large Studio. Entry included with site admission. 4220 T.C. Steele Road in Belmont 812-988-2785
tcsteeleshs@indianamuseum.org
Jan. 11, 7:00-9:00
Brown County Public Library “Seven Secrets to Better Photography” Program by Bloomington photographer Kip May and sponsored by the Brown County Photography Club. 205 Locust Lane, Nashville 812-988-2850
Trails Festival
Jan. 15, 10:00-2:00 | Hard Truth Hills
Extreme trail races will take runners on a tour through the hilly terrain of Hard Truth Hills property. 418 Old State Road 46 812-720-4840
www.hardtruthhills.com
photo by Bob Gustin
P~by Bob Gustin
atricia Rhoden Bartels has painted with aboriginals in Australia, explained American culture to teenagers in Russia, and taught art in a Yupik village in Alaska. Her art-related travels also took her to India, China, Japan, Europe, Mexico, Turkey, Peru, and many other nations.
But perhaps her favorite scenes to paint are found on the driveway to her house atop a hill in southern Brown County, or even those she sees gazing out of her living room windows.
Her 30 years here “seems like an instant,” she said, and there’s nowhere she’d rather live.
Some of those 30 years were spent teaching art at Brown County Junior High. And it’s in Brown County that she
”Oftentimes, working with the kids stimulated me to think about things and go off in a different direction.”
connected with artist Fred Rigley and became a painting companion to him, which prompted renewed interest in pursuing her own work. Their plein air excursions continued until his death.
Known for her impasto style of painting, characterized by thick strokes of paint (like Vincent Van Gogh used), she does florals which include silver and gold leaf paint, and landscapes in the Impressionist style reminiscent of the founders of the Brown County Art Colony.
Art has always been her passion. Though her mother died when she was an infant, one of the family stories told was how her father first saw her mother while she was doing charcoal drawings in the window of an art store. She doesn’t know whether she loved that story so much that it planted the seed for her art career, or whether she was genetically predisposed for art in general, or both. But she remembers as a child drawing on the pages of a phone book so heavily that it became unusable.
She has a bachelor of art education from the University of Toledo, and two master’s degrees (arts and fine arts) from Bowling Green State University, as well as studying at Portland State University, Kent State University, the University of Hawaii, and Penland School of Craft in North Carolina.
She taught art in public schools from 1973 to 2013, and has been a professional painter since 1973.
Her work is in the permanent museum collections of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, the Indiana State Museum,
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Eli Lilly Collections, and the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science. Recently three of her paintings were turned into huge mosaics on the walls of the IU Health hospital in Bloomington.
And her list of honors includes awards from the Hoosier Salon, Midwest National Abstract Painting, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Heartland Art show, Indiana Heritage Arts, and many others.
But teaching, both in Ohio and in Brown County, has been important.
“Oftentimes, working with the kids stimulated me to think about things and go off in a different direction” with her own artwork, she said.
Patricia and her husband Gary Bartels own the recreational business Explore Brown County, have two children, Lance, a pilot with United Parcel Service, and Christopher, a dentist who owns Tipton Lakes Family Dentist in Columbus.
Patricia and Gary moved to Brown County in 1984 and began building log cabins on land originally owned by her father.
“I knew when I was very young that I didn’t belong in the city,” she said.
Continued on 42
Patricia also has a degree in biology. Her father was a pathologist. She worked as a lab tech for a hospital in Ohio before beginning her teaching career, and says her background in science helps with her painting.
She remains in touch with many of the students she taught through the years
She paused her painting career for a few years while her sons were young, but got back into it with a nudge from
friend and fellow artist Terri Schultz, who suggested she get to know local landscape artist Fred Rigley.
Rigley (1914-2009) was considered one of the last surviving artists who painted with some of the founders of the Brown County Art Colony. Rigley agreed to take her under his wing. It became a 17-year companionship for the two artists.
“We had a wonderful relationship,” she said. “He became like a father to me.”
She considers the floral paintings she is known for as abstracts, with the focus of the paintings being color and shape and moving the eye around the surface of the painting, not necessarily a realistic representation of the flowers. The landscapes she paints are often more literal, she said.
But whatever she is painting, she said art is a stabilizing factor and became even more important as the coronavirus kept her home in recent years.
“It keeps me off the shrink’s couch,” she said. “I mentally couldn’t handle what goes on every day without art.”
More information can be found on her website <www.rhodenart.com>.
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Also comfort footwear from Minnetonka and Acorn including slippers for the entire family onka andAcorn
49 S. Van Buren St. in Nashville • 812-988-6535 Find us on Facebook • OPEN DAILY 11–5
Selling gently used items to bene t Brown County. Accepting clothing and household item donations. Women’s boutique, kids and teen clothing, men’s clothing, and household items
Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 to 5:00 Fridays 9:00 to 2:00 South Van Buren in Nashville (near stoplight, behind Subway) (812) 988-6003
Closet, New
here are a few new watering holes in town, so I decided it was time for yet another epic Sampler adventure, the New Nashville Bar Crawl.
Not the same crawl through my usual local drinking haunts—the Corn Crib Lounge at the Brown County Inn, the Hickory Sports Bar at Out of the Ordinary, the tasting room at the Country Heritage Winery down at Coachlight Square, and the 19th Hole out at the golf course.
The New Nashville Bar crawl would begin at the Ferguson House, and end up at the Seasons Hotel’s new lounge, The Rafters, with many delightful stops in between.
The Ferguson House’s Pioneer Room is a cozy little pocket bar with a couple of tables and a sweet little six-stool bar. The walls are lined with fine large prints from the Frank Hohenberger collection, so patrons can play the game of identifying the old time Brown County characters.
There’s Allie Ferguson herself, along with Alex Mullis, sheriff Sam Parks, game warden Oliver Neal, and several scenes of backwoods moonshine stills collected up by the sheriff and revenue agents.
“Here’s to ’em!”
I settled into my preferred spot on the end stool and studied the bottles gathered around the row of beer taps along the back wall, a somehow deeply satisfying tableau that tends to lead one into a meditative state.
There’s something gratifying about bellying up to the public bar and having a few pints in the company of strangers and passing acquaintances. I ordered a glass of beer, and Mrs. Sampler opted for a nice chardonnay, deftly served with a winning smile by our charming bartendress, Lorraine.
In fine weather, the Ferguson House features a beer garden out back, at the mouth of “Antique Alley,” with a full bar and live entertainment.
As with most things in life, the perfect Nashville bar crawl is a matter of timing; of being at the right place at the right time. It’s a matter of knowing when to move on to the next thing. The Pioneer closes at four o’clock, perhaps a haven for day-drinkers and senior citizens, but, happily, right around the corner, we discovered the delightful Henhouse, which is an offshoot of The Bird’s Nest restaurant.
Upon entering the Henhouse, I couldn’t help notice that everyone there except for me was female. For a moment, I feared I had wandered across some kind of unknown gender line, that perhaps “Henhouse” was some kind of cultural code I had not properly interpreted.
But then some regular guys came in with their wives (dragged in by their wives, most likely) so I felt better.
The back bar at the henhouse displays “Sugarland Shine” in a mason jar, “Clyde Mays Straight Rye Whiskey,” “Songbird Coffee Liqueur,” and “Howler Head Kentucky Banana Bourbon Whiskey.”
I ordered something called a “Hermes pain killer” with tikki rum. The wife had some iteration of a white Russian named a “Caucasian” in honor of “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski.
By early evening, it is time to get some fresh air by taking a little stroll up Van Buren Street to the oldest dining establishment in the county, The Nashville House, and their new addition, “The Hohenberger Bar.”
Continued on 46
Like the Pioneer, which has the same owners, The Hohenberger’s walls feature prints from the famous photographer’s collection, leading to another game of “Guess Who?” There’s Wash Barnes, Josh Bond, and old Valentine Penrose.
Our charming and efficient bartender, Sierra, crafted a stiff Old Fashioned for Mrs. Sampler and poured me a Bells dark beer called, humiliatingly for a grown man, “Teddy Bear Kisses.”
The atmosphere is cordial. A couple of shoppers come in for a break in the very comfortable spot.
At what point does simple bar hopping turn in to an out-and-out bar crawl? You’ll know. Just make sure you have a designated driver. Fortunately, I had arranged for my sober brother to transport us to our next stop, The Rafters at Seasons Hotel.
The Season’s bar has been completely transformed into a modern, open and inviting space with a comfortable lounge surrounding a large, three-sided polished granite bar. Stone, wood and metal combined with all new windows and doors create a sleek, plush atmosphere.
The original rustic feel of the Seasons has been retained in the original columns of Brown County stone and the old wooden beams (hence the name).
I ordered a “Caribbean mule” from the new menu and Mrs. Sampler had a glass of white wine. We chatted with some nice folks who had just moved here from Illinois. Relaxing and enjoyable.
As a nightcap, I felt that a little snort of good whiskey might be in order, so I finished my crawl up on Hard Truth Hill, where they make and age all the bourbon they sell right on the property.
One aspect of drinking out in public is just being around people; in a loud, happy room, with several strangers on a cozy stool, staring
at the man in the mirror through a forest of bottles.
For those who crave the togetherness and energy of a big crowd, the bar at Hard Truth is the place to be. It is always crowded so, as one online review at their website observed, “Be prepared to wait.”
The industrial-looking 25-stool bar and the huge warehouse-sized dining room have been packed out every time I have been there. In its first year of operation, this place attracted a quarter of a million people.
The drinks menu features their own Quaff ON! brews including “Six Foot Blonde”, “Busted Knuckle Porter,” “Aquaffalypse,” “Quafftoberfest,” and Hard Truth spirits like the popular Cinnamon Vodka and Toasted Coconut Rum. Judging by the crowds, they must be on to something up there. They are nurturing a community, a culture based in conviviality, accessibility, and a sense of belonging. It is destination drinking, an adult theme park where the theme is drinking.
I sampled the Sipes’ Straight Bourbon Whiskey, named for Henry A. Sipes, purportedly Brown County’s first known distiller.
Let us pause to reconsider the simple joy of that American institution, the humble bar. While sitting home alone, sober, it may not seem that appealing, but after you get out there, find your spot, have a few welcoming libations among the populous at large, it seems right and good, and even fun.
You may even find yourself profoundly satisfied.
~by Ryan Stacy
When the pandemic hit in March of 2020, Lou Stant wasn’t sure what to do next. His band, the Mizfits, had fizzled (founding members Mel Chance and Steve Mara would eventually die of COVID), and since recording his latest solo album Pilgrimage a couple of years earlier, he hadn’t written much new material of his own. Not that it would have mattered much: thanks to the statewide lockdown that soon followed, there was no place to play, and nobody to play for.
In that downtime, however, Lou watched Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary and, inspired, began writing new songs in the vein of some of country’s biggest names: Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash.
Which, as it happened, was about the same thing Curtis Moore, the Mizfits’ bassist, had been doing too. “We hadn’t talked in a while,” says Lou, “and one day just out of the blue, Curt and I were on the phone, and we found out that we had both been writing country songs.” Soon the two were getting together, both on acoustic guitars, sharing ideas and working on new material. Their voices and their playing were a good match, they discovered, with Curt singing the low parts and taking the lead parts on guitar, and Lou playing
rhythm and adding tenor vocals. As for the sound, “It’s country, with rockabilly, and kind of folksy,” Curt explains. Lyrically, he says, “It’s based upon working men and women, the people we’ve encountered. My experience is as a factory worker, and Lou’s is in mental health services.”
Calling themselves Stant & Moore, Lou and Curt began to play live at places that had opened back up, like the Bird’s Nest and the Story Inn, with Lou’s daughter Marina joining them on the fiddle. The
response has been good over the past year and a half, which they chalk up to their on-stage presence and their songwriting. “There’s a lot of fun and humor in our music,” Lou says. “People can expect to be entertained.” Curt agrees, saying, “The whole purpose is to make people feel good when they sit and listen to us.”
Stant & Moore have also been busy recording Workaday World, a fifteen-song album due out in early 2022. It’s the kind of music that takes the listener straight to Nashville’s coffee shops, cafes, and watering holes: no-frills Midwestern countryfolk that balances heartfelt slow songs (“Outside Lookin’ In,” “15 Years”) and funny upbeat numbers (“100,000 Ladybugs,” “I’m Gone”), with plenty of nice three-part harmonies and fiddle playing in the mix. There’s only so much ground you can cover within the time constraints of a song, though. So over the years, Lou’s expanded his imaginative observations into book-length storytelling: he’s selfpublished three novels so far, and has “six or seven” more manuscripts he hopes to put out eventually. Although it’s highly imaginative—even surreal, at
times—much of what’s beneath the strange characters and situations in Lou’s fiction are drawn from his own life and work, he says. His Of Moose and Men, for example, features a protagonist who, like Lou did, leaves the city for life in the country. The stories told to him by patients in state psychiatric hospitals inspired parts of another of his books, The Madcap Chronicle of Elton Brunicol. As for Lou’s latest novel, An Extended Morphine Holiday, which follows a man who, upon awakening from surgery, finds himself on an adventure in the American Old West with Vladimir Putin—I’ll admit I’m struggling to make the connection.
Lou says living in Brown County has played a big role in his music as well as his fiction writing. “In order for me to write effectively, there has to be a certain clarity borne out of peacefulness,” he relates. “There’s something about going on my back deck and looking out on the woods, watching the wildlife, that’s just really conducive to the quiet calm that I need to write.”
More about Lou Stant, his music, and his writing can be found at <www.loustant.com>, <www.facebook. com/StantandMoore>, and at <www.amazon.com>.
~by Mark Blackwell
Somewhere on a ridge, in the woods, on a January day, 100 years ago:
Brang-dang-dang-dang! There goes the old Big Ben. Must be 5:00 already. I never will understand how morning comes around a good two hours before the sun gets up. I wish there was a way to save some daylight for mornings like this. Well, I best crawl out from under these comforters and fire up the stove.
Dang, it is cold this morning. Jack Frost has painted frost-ferns on the windows and I can see my breath. On the good side, that means I ain’t froze to death yet. I am glad to see that the stove held some coals from last night. I just have to shovel some ashes out, throw in some kindling and a couple of splits of firewood.
Speaking of firewood, I hope there’s still some stove wood left from yesterday for the cook stove. Nope, there ain’t. So, now it’s back to the bedroom for my boots and overalls. And while I’m heading out to split wood for the cook stove, I may as well take the thunder mug out to empty it in the privy. I slip my jacket on and head out into the snow.
It’s about 30 yards to the privy but it always seems farther the deeper the snow and the colder the day. Personal business taken care of, it’s time to make little sticks out of big ones.
Alrighty, I’m back in the cabin with an arm-load of hickory. Time to fire up the old Kitchen Queen so Ma can bake some biscuits to go with my ham and eggs. Come to think of it, I better check the pantry to see if we have any eggs. The hens ain’t layin’ the way they was just a few weeks ago. But I don’t blame ’em. With weather like this I wouldn’t want to lay an egg either.
While the stove’s warming up, I’ll go check for eggs. The chicken coop is built on the side of the cow shed
so as to save lumber and shave a few steps off taking care of the live stock. I am glad we have a milk cow and a mule for plowing and transportation. After I look for eggs, I’ll throw them some hay. Well, Hell!
There’s tracks and feathers and blood all over the chicken yard. Looks to be two dead hens and four broken eggs. It could be anything; raccoons, weasels, fox but judging from the tracks I’ll be fox hunting this afternoon.
Back at the cabin, I report on the hen house massacre and sit down to a hot cup of coffee in the comfortably warming kitchen. Ma made some soda biscuits which I et with sorghum syrup and a slice of ham. It was a good breakfast but I still missed eggs.
I lite a couple of oil lamps and tended to the parlor stove (which is kinda funny since we don’t have a parlor). Then I take my shotgun down from over the back door. It is a 12 gauge, Black Prince, that I won in a poker game a few years back.
I slide the locking lever over to break down the barrel to check for any fouling. The barrel looks clean. It’s a single shot which means the shooter has to be a pretty good shot because a second chance takes breaking down the barrel, removing the spent shell, shoving in a fresh load, snapping back the barrel, then getting the stock back on your shoulder and aiming.
By the time a hunter gets all that done your game has already scampered away. But on the bright side, a single-shot gun keeps you from gettin’ profligate with your ammunition.
Well, I’m warm again, I’ve got a full belly, a clean 12 gauge and no excuses. So, I wrap a couple of biscuits up in an old napkin, tie a scarf around my ears, hitch up my collar, and set off on a path of retribution for the varmint that ruint my mornin’.
I don’t have a good notion of what time it stopped snowing but Brother Fox done his dirty work after it quit. And that makes him
easier to track. I can see that he took off from the henhouse and headed down the ridge to the creek. And that reminds me that I forgot to fetch water.
We have a cistern and pitcher pump to water the animals but for drinking and cookin’ water I have to get that from the spring about half way down the other side of the ridge. So, it’s back to the cabin, again to fetch a couple of pails.
I hate havin’ to go over to the spring. It’s steeper on the west side of the ridge so the snow will be deeper. It seems like the day is conspirin’ against me goin’ after that fox but we can’t get along without water.
Well, I was right but it brings me no pleasure to be so. The snow is deeper and I can’t make out my regular path down to the spring. I don’t get half way down the slope before I trip on a hidden root. This pitches me headlong down hill, tumblin’ faster and faster. I finally get stopped but its through the agency of hundred plus year old oak tree.
I didn’t get the water. I didn’t get to eat my extra biscuits. I didn’t get to shoot the fox and the sun still ain’t up. But on the good side, I don’t think I broke anything except my pride.
Life could be tough on a cold winter’s day, a hundred years ago in Brown County. But that’s no reason not to come on down to check on how things are today.
They are good and gettin’ better.
EVENTS
Rainwater
JANUARY
Love
FEBRUARY 4 at 7:30pm
Dueling Pianos with Jeff & Rhiannon
FEBRUARY 5 at 7:30pm
Indianapolis Jazz Orchestra:
Valentine’s Day Deluxe
FEBRUARY 12 at 7:30pm
Arsenic and Old Lace – Live Retro
FEBRUARY 18 & 19 at 7:30pm
FEBRUARY 20 at 2:00pm
Trial By Jury
An IU Gilbert and Sullivan Society Production
FEBRUARY 25 & 26 at 7:30pm
Heywood Banks MARCH 4 at 7:30pm
~by Jim Eagleman
You will relate to this article if at some time or another you have cut wood with a chainsaw. I am not talking about just those men who’ve done it, for I’ve seen many women handle a saw with great ease and care.
My wife, Kay for example, having watched YouTube videos and observing me on many occasion buzz up a log for firewood, grabbed for the saw one day and proudly said, “I can do that!” “Woah, wait,” I said, as I gave her a pair of chaps (the orange kind that prevent injury), gloves, and my hard hat with face, head, ear, and eye protection. Then I handed her the saw.
I could’ve used her help recently when I decided to tackle an old pignut hickory stump that had remained off to the side of our road for years. It was time to remove this eyesore and hazard. It wasn’t so dangerous that we could drive into it, it was just a nuisance. Kay was visiting her mother for a few weeks, and with our daily calls back and forth, I told her of my project. “Be careful”, she said.
Another reason to remove the stump came from my friend, Lanny who kept saying over the years, “Get rid of that thing, will you?” It was time.
I dug out three other stumps next to a studio we recently built, so I thought I had some experience. But I wanted more options, so I looked up again on YouTube some suggestions that ranged from burning them out, to using a stump grinder, to good old fashion cutting the stump sections out with the chain saw.
My good friends at Bear Hardware did rent out a grinder but the fee seemed a little high for my project and they weren’t all that impressed with its performance. I didn’t want a smoldering, smokey stump for a week or more. I’d have to dig out and remove the charred remains.
So, I chose the chainsaw option. But I had forgotten how tough this pignut hickory stump was—at least 25 years old and a good 5 feet across. The wood wasn’t punky or rotten as you might think. It was incredibly dense.
It took six chains, a lot of sharpening, two tankfulls of gas, and over two days to get the job done. Digging away the dirt from the base of the stump gave me more room to maneuver the saw. You have to get the bar of the saw deeper than ground level—so digging is the first job. Then the more you dig, the better angle for the bar and more sawing.
Each cut went into the dense wood slowly, the chips getting finer and finer. Chainsaw professionals want big chips to fly as they cut. It tells them the chain is as sharp as can be. Fine sawdust indicated my chain had become dull again. To help widen the cuts, I drove a wedge into the first cut with a sledgehammer, and then another one into a second cut, then another, soon burying all three. I should’ve known better than to pound them into the wood so deeply. I had to watch where my next cut would be so as not to hit the wedge. I think you can tell, it was no easy task.
I thought about this pignut hickory tree while I was sawing the stump and I became anxious. Odd that I felt that way. The tree had been dead for many years and was not doing typical tree things, like taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. It had long given up its role as an air cooler in summer and a wind deflector in winter. The limbs long gone had been places for chickadees and nuthatches to perch. That didn’t make me feel any remorse. No, I
thought more about me and my struggle, needing to end this difficult task, getting it out of the ground in several large chunks. I thought about my saw needing a tune-up, the six dull chains that needed sharpening, and that if I didn’t get this all done, the next days’ rain would make a sloppy mess.
I was not bothered by this tree’s important role in nature since we have many trees—one less won’t make that much difference. Right? And I couldn’t even recall this particular hickory’s amount of firewood that warmed our living room, long used up now, probably when our boys were much younger. They took turns after football practice to split and stack the wood.
But almost like a family member that grows up with you, you may not remember all their habits, traits, good or bad, but over time the memory drifts back. This tree did a lot of jobs, and even at the end—all the small limbs, twigs, and leaves returned to the soil. Even the stump helped create soil over the years it remained there. In the deepest roots, I noticed several cream-colored grubs that attracted a few chickadees. They jumped in and out of the hole when I left for a break. Another job for the hickory.
Now at this writing, the dense, old chunks from the hickory stump, scarred and dirty, are stacked by the wood stove door. “You can call ’em all night burners,” I recall my dad saying.
And that’s what they did as their last job. I felt a lot more gratitude for that old hickory.
