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February 2022 Natchitoches Parish Library Lagniappe
Black History Month - Alma Thomas Art Night
Thomas at opening in the Whitney Museum, 1972.
Since 1976, the United States has celebrated the history, culture, and contributions of African Americans since the African diaspora. Before this, historian Carter G. Woodson had announced the second week of February, due to it coinciding with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass on Feb. 14 and Abraham Lincoln on Feb. 12, to be a time of celebration as black communities had celebrated these dates together since the late 19th century.
In keeping with this tradition, the Natchitoches Parish Library (NPL) has planned an Alma Thomas Painting Night on Tuesday, Feb. 22 at 6 PM to encourage the celebration and remembrance of African American heritage and history. This special event will have two classes, one for adults and another for children, with both requiring sign-up. To participate, please call the NPL’s Children’s Desk (318-238-9222) to sign up.
Alma Thomas was an African-American artist and teacher. She is now recognized as a major American painter of the 20th century. She is best known for her colorful, abstract paintings that she created after her retirement from a 35-year teaching career.
Born in Columbus, Georgia in 1891, Thomas was always interested in art, but not allowed to go into art museums as a child due to segregation laws. Her father moved the family to Washington D.C. in 1907 to escape racial violence in Georgia and for her to attend the public high school system there; public education beyond grade school for African–Americans was not permitted in Georgia. Although still segregated, D.C. was known to offer more opportunities to African-Americans than most other cities. In D. C. she attended Armstrong Technical High School, where she was finally able to take her first art classes.
After completing high school in 1911, she earned teaching credentials in 1913 and taught kindergarten until 1921. Thomas then enrolled in Howard University, where she became the first graduate of its newly formed fine arts department in 1924.
Thomas then returned to teaching, but this time high school art at Shaw Junior High School, a Black school in the still-segregated public system of Washington D. C. She worked here until her retirement in 1960. During the summers of 1930 to 1934, she attended Teachers College of Columbia University and earned her Masters in Art Education in 1934. She later pursued advance studies at American University in 1950.
Thomas did not become a full-time, professional artist until she was 68, in 1960, when she retired from teaching. Throughout her years of study her interests and focus varied to include sculpture, puppetry, figurative painting, and watercolor, before mostly settling into cubism and abstract expressionism. In 1972, at the age of 81, Thomas was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and later the same year a much larger exhibition was also held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Alma Thomas died on February 24, 1978, in Howard University Hospital, following aortal surgery.
In 2015, her painting “Resurrection” (1966), was prominently hung in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, having been acquired for the White House collection in 2014 with $290,000 in funding from the White House Historical Association. It is the first artwork by an African-American woman to hang in the public spaces of the White House and enter the permanent collection. In 2019, Thomas's 1970 painting “A Fantastic Sunset” was auctioned at a Christie's sale, selling for $2.655 million. In 2021, a new record price was set for Thomas's work when “Alma's Flower Garden” (c.1968-1970), was deaccessioned by the Greenville County Museum of Art, which sold it in a private sale to an unidentified purchaser for $2.8 million. The museum had bought the painting in 2008 for $135,000.
This year, a traveling exhibition of her art entitled “Alma W. Thomas: Everything is Beautiful,” is scheduled to be at the Frist Art Museum (Nashville, TN) in spring and the Columbus Museum (Columbus, GA) in summer.
Don’t have a library card? To learn more about Black History using the NPL’s collection and digital resources, text LIBRARYCARD to 318-357-3280 to register for one today.
New and On Order
Would you like to share your writing with others? Have a poem, story, review, or an excerpt that you have selected from your writings?
Please contact Alan Niette, NPL Community Outreach Coordinator, at alan@natlib.org. We will gladly share your tales with our readers!
"What's Up" This Month?
Joey Matheson
Well it’s out there now, and from all reports, its in orbital position, maintaining its distance from the earth and sun. The James Webb Space Telescope is now being put to work and beginning scientific operations. Though, it will be at least another month before NASA will receive data that they and so many other research centers are hoping for.
Now comes the question, after 15 years and 10 billion dollars, “What is the practical side of the time and expense invested?” We will be seeing farther and clearer than ever before.
When it comes to the system of capitalism, we, as a nation, always look for a financial return for the money spent. Columbus’s voyage to the “New World” was not just for the journey and discoveries, but rather the result of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s “venture capitalism.” In other words, looking for a return on their investments. In the mid fifties, the US started its space program, spending money on something that no one was sure of which way the money or research was going in. In 1957, Sputnik changed all of that.
Maybe it’s possible that the James Webb can become an “early warning system,” looking for dangers heading for our own solar system. But, above all, I think, we must not put aside our spirit of exploration.
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien.
-Joey
Digital Hoopla Picks From the Library
Audiobook: The Cheat Sheet (8h 58m, 2021). By Sarah Adams, read by Renee Dorian.
“Hi, my name is Bree Camden, and I'm hopelessly in love with my best friend and star quarterback Nathan Donelson (so is half of America, judging by the tabloids and how much the guy dates). The first step is admitting it, right? Except, I can never admit it to him because he clearly doesn't see me that way, and the last thing I want is for things to get weird between us. Nothing but good old-fashioned no-touching-the-sexiest-man-alive platonic friendship for us! Everything is exactly how I like it! Yes. Good. (I'm not crying; I'm just peeling an onion.) Our friendship is going swimmingly until I accidentally spill my beans to a reporter over too much tequila, and now the world seems to think Nathan and I belong together. Oh, and did I mention we have to date publicly for three weeks until after the Super Bowl because we signed a contract with... oops, forgot I can't tell anyone about that! The bottom line is that my best friend is now smudging all the lines and acting very un-platonic, and I'm just trying to keep my body from bursting into flames every time he touches me. How am I going to make it through three weeks of fake dating Nathan without anything changing between us? Especially when it almost-sorta-kinda seems like he's fighting for a completely different outcome? Send help.” -XO, Bree
The Cheat Sheet is a closed-door sizzling-with-chemistry romantic comedy that will have you laughing and rooting for these lovable best friends from the very start!
Movie: Prom Night In Mississippi (1h 30m, 2021, NR).
In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for an integrated prom in his hometown of Charleston, Mississippi where proms were still separated by race. The school board refused. Eleven years later in 2008, Freeman offered again, and his offer was accepted. This documentary follows multiple individuals throughout the process of throwing an integrated prom, including Jessica, whose parents are against the integration; Chasidy, whose mother supports the integration; and Billy Joe, who fears that his parents will disown him if they were to ever become aware of his true thoughts and feelings. As all of the eager students get ready for the prom, this documentary follows them throughout the process as well as through prom night.
eBook: The Village Library (2021).
By Bella Osborne.
Two different generations. Two unusual people. Thrown together to save their local library.
Tom is a teenager and blends into the background of life. After a row with his dad, and facing an unhappy future at the dog food factory, he escapes to the library. Tom unwittingly ends up with a bagful of romance novels and comes under the suspicion of Maggie.
Maggie is a pensioner and has been happily alone for ten-years, at least that's what she tells herself. When Tom comes to her rescue a friendship develops that could change her life. As Maggie helps Tom to stand up for himself, Tom helps Maggie realize the mistakes of her past don't have to define her future.
They each set out to prove that the library isn't just about books, it's the heart of their community. Together they discover some things are worth fighting for.
From the Stacks: Featured Cookbook
641.5 STE—El Charoo Café, by Jane & Michael Stern, with recipes by Carlotta Flores.
The colorful history of El Charro Café and the recipes for vibrant, exciting Mexican food make this book as unique and entertaining as the restaurant itself. It is rumored that in the 1940s, founder Monica Flin sat on the El Charro patio, sipping martinis from teacups and playing cards with John Wayne, who was in Tucson to film westerns. Today the restaurant is run by Carlotta Flores—Monica’s great-niece—her husband, Ray, and children, Raymon, Marques, and Candace.
A number of favorite dishes originated or were made popular by El Charro. Monica Flin’s tostada grande is a staple in many Mexican restaurants in Arizona. The El Charro chimichanga—which Monica is said to have invented—”is definitely the biggest and best in town,” according to Gourmet magazine. And the topopo salad, another El Charro creation, is a festival of textures and tastes. But what El Charro is perhaps best known for is its signature dish, carne seca, beef cured in open metal cages high above the restaurants patio.
Reading El Charro Café Cookbook is like a visit to this Tucson institution. Here are delicious Sonoran-Mexican recipes, vintage pictures from the early days of Tucson, and fascinating anecdotes about the restaurant and its founder.
Sopa Seco de Fideo (Vermicelli Soup)
pg. 52
This is a forgiving recipe that invites the cook to take it in whatever direction feels right at the time. Basically, it is noodles and tomatoes, flavored to taste, with cheese of choice. “A catch-all recipe,” Carlotta calls it, with variations “from macaroni and cheese to any number of casseroles.”
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients:
1/4c oil
2lbs coiled fideos (vermicelli)
1c tomato sauce
1tsp salt, or to taste
1/4c garlic purée: 2 heads of garlic & 1/8c water (pg.93)
1 white onion, chopped
6c hot chicken or beef stock
1/2c chopped bell pepper
1c chopped fresh tomato
1c shredded longhorn cheese, or other cheese
Garnish: 1c shredded additional cheese
Instructions:
Heat the oil in a skillet, and lightly brown the fideos on both sides.
Transfer to a 4-quart saucepan. Add the tomato sauce, salt, garlic purée, onion, stock, bell pepper, and tomato and simmer over low heat 20 minutes. Stir once or twice, separating the fideos with a long fork.
Continue cooking, uncovered, until all the liquid had been absorbed.
