If you took the cutoff from Highway 61 into Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had need of 1. sundries 2. spiritual uplift or 3. a powerful folk-art environment, you could stop at Margaret’s Grocery. The Rev. H.D. Dennis, who encased the country store inside and out with his sculpture and fantastic architecture, would preach you a personal sermon while his wife Margaret stood ready to meet your earthly needs. These pictures are from 1995. The site decayed after the couple’s passing, but rehab is happening under the auspices of the Mississippi Folk Art Foundation and its director, Suzi Altman. You can learn
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E.T. Wickham: Well that it is as it is
The E.T. Wickham site in Palmyra, Tennessee, is one of the country’s spookiest art environments, even in the open field to which the family has relocated most of the statues. Credit the vandals who wrecked the work, but even more the ghost of E.T.’s vision that survived their pummeling. The statues lining the north-central Tennessee back road were erected in the 1950s and 60s by Enoch Tanner Wickham to honor historical figures and family members. They did not fare well after his death in 1970s, but their state seems to have mostly stabilized. Thirteen years ago Wickham family members relocated
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