Common Threads Articles & ReviewsHarper Lee, 2001 Jamie Ellin Forbes, Fine Art Magazine, New York City
A recipe for any day delight: while you’re alone, feast on the textures and mood of Chip Cooper’s photographs, but when family and friends gather, feed them Windham’s stories of Thurza and other memorable Alabama characters—out loud and with expression! William Christenberry John Shelton Reed, the well-known Southern writer who teaches sociology at the University of North Carolina, contributed the book’s foreword. “Kathryn Tucker Windham and Chip Cooper might seem at first to be unlikely friends,” writes Reed. “One is a lady from the Black Belt, the other a boy from the hill country. One was a child in the 1920s, the other in 1950s. And one is best known as a writer, the other as a photographer.”
Alabama Alumni Magazine The book Common Threads includes 15 stories by Kathryn Tucker Windham and is accompanied by photographs from Chip Cooper, an award-winning photographer and director of photography at the University of Alabama. Windham remembers her life in the rural South, while Cooper’s photographs tell other stories of the region, from the bayous of Louisiana, to the Coastal Carolinas, through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida. Windham’s career has spanned more than 50 years and includes 24 published books. She has written ghost stories, cookbooks, history books, a weekly newspaper column and stories about growing up in Alabama. At 82, she shares her home with the internationally known spirit, Jeffrey. She was the youngest child in a large family of storytellers and began her writing career reviewing movies for her cousin’s weekly newspaper, in exchange for a pass to the local theater. After graduating from Huntingdon College, Windham became a staff writer for The Alabama Journal in Montgomery, The Birmingham News and later for The Selma Times-Journal. A nationally recognized storyteller, she most recently, in October 2000, was the recipient of the Alabama Humanities Foundation Award. Though not a UA graduate, Windham has deep ties to the University having spent countless hours there visiting and lecturing. Cooper, who grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, now calls Tuscaloosa home. He has published three previous books, including Silent In the Land, and has shown his work in exhibitions from France to Costa Rica to Washington, D.C. He is a past recipient of an art fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
The book got off the ground when Cooper ran into Windham in Birmingham, lat year, after the idea had been kicked around for quite a while. “She said to me, ‘Chip, I’m 81 years old and I’m running out of time. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do this.” “I’ve known Chip for a long time,” Windham said. “I knew his photographs would be marvelous. He sees things I don’t see until he shows me.” Windham said when she and Cooper started the book she “wondered if anything would come of it.” But she is thrilled with the final product. The writer found inspiration for her stories by visiting Grist State Park about 16 miles outside of Selma. Grist is not very well known and she would go there for peace and tranquility. She wrote every day at Grist throughout the entire summer of 1999. “Nobody knows that park exists,” Windham said. “I went there every day and took my lunch and my big yellow legal pad and wrote. I would go early in the morning and stay until it closed late in the afternoon. There were no phones, no distractions. It was always cool and shady and there was a pavilion for when it rained." Unlike Windham, who wrote exactly the 15 stories she needed for the book. Cooper said he started out with more than 1,000 photographs and had to weed down to his favorite ones for the book. The cover photograph is his favorite. It depicts a casket, a bird and old photograph of a little girl, among other things. “I like to tell stories with my photos and I thought that one does that,” Cooper said. “That which was lost, that which was buried and that which has come back again.” “Kathryn is wonderful,” Cooper said. “Just being around her is an inspiration. She is feisty, yet compassionate. She is curious and sees stories and photographs everywhere—very little gets past her. Working with her has fulfilled one of my long time dreams. I can’t begin to tell you how much I have learned from her about the South.” Cooper said the book’s title Common Threads is like his and Windham’s work, “weaving in and out of each other like a patchwork quilt.” To make that quilt, Cooper said, other University of Alabama graduates were involved in the collaborative effort including designer Laura Lineberry; attorney and entrepreneur Robert W. Monfore, who funded the project; and Donna Smith, who heads the publishers marketing efforts. Monfore serves as president of Monfore Group Inc., a management company, was well as having an active local law practice. Lineberry is art director for the Office of Marketing and Communications at the Capstone and Smith is currently vice president of Monføre Group Inc. Long-time friends, Cooper and Monfore have worked on three previous book projects. CKM Press, the Tuscaloosa-based publishing company, was formed in conjunction with the production of Cooper’s last book. CKM Press is a division of Monfore Group Inc. “I have been a fan of Kathryn’s for many years. I heard her one day on the radio and could just visualize what she was talking about,” Monfore said. “Some time ago I suggested to Chip that he should consider pursuing a project with Kathryn, but nothing ever happened. When the idea came up again, Chip went to Selma to discuss with her a joint venture. At that point they decided to work together on this book.” “My work has changed quite a bit in this book,” Cooper said. “If you go back and look at some of my early work I think you’ll see it’s grown quite a bit. “This is the first product I’ve ever done that I see as a national book.” And others see it that way, too. In a review of the book Time magazine associate photo editor Robert Stevens writes, “Finally a marvelous book about the South. A refreshing body of photographs without the clichéd images that are all too familiar. A new and fascinating viewpoint that will delight all!” |
