Paducah's Artist Relocation Program - Saturday

We met artist Nancy Calcutt in her gallery in Paducah's Lower Town Arts District. It was open studio day, which comes around every second Saturday of the month.

This town of some 26,000 people created an amazing program in 2000 in which they help artists relocate from other parts of the country to the historic neighborhood. Nancy told us that the artists meet once a month to discuss the business end of being an artist in a community like this, since many of them had had showings, etc., but hadn't owned their own space before.

Know an established artist who could use a break? Send them to the Artist Relocation Program, and they might just end up with their own home/gallery/studio. There's info and an application on the site. I just looked at the available properties and they are really amazing.



Her portraits are my favorite. Love the colors in this one.




I recognized the subject of the painting to the bottom right as someone we'd just seen hanging out at Etcetera. He's a local.



Nancy's home on the left and gallery/studio on the right.

Wow, do you think they could use some writers down there to round out the culture? I'd be willing to put my words on a wall!


Observe the dreamy expression on KFlight's face when talking about practicing her own art form, pottery. I hope she does get into a class before too long. It's so good for the soul to get caught up in your art, whatever it is.

Downtown Paducah - Saturday 6/13/2009

Masses of cone flowers planted in the downtown parking lot. Nice touch!



Lunch at Kirchoff's bakery and sandwich shop was terrific. We bought three sandwiches (portobello mushroom, chicken salad and grilled brie) and an gyros salad and split them. Not a bad bite in the bunch, but the chicken salad is probably the most addictive. Mmm.

B-Light eyes the grilled brie.



Just nice to see that people are enjoying their outdoor space, even in an alley.



The shorter building is a former slave market. It currently houses a museum, but we were on CBT (Central Baby time) so we didn't go inside. :)



KFlight demonstrates the proper way to interact with the murals on the flood wall that defends downtown Paducah from the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.


I make the common mistake of posing with the flood markers. The two at the bottom are from 1887 (54.2 feet) and 1913 (54.3 feet). Waaay up at the top is the 1937 marker (60.8 feet) which denotes the flood that prompted the flood wall to be built.

Mom and I talked to an old-timer sitting at a picnic table nearby, who told us that they had German prisonsers of war building the wall during World War II. He was pretty interesting until he got bitter about the changes in the world and started advocating prayer and a hickory stick in every classroom.

I excused us saying, "We have to catch up with that baby down there."

"That baby doesn't have a chance of--" he started, but then I tuned him out. Sigh.



Hey, this chair in the window at Etcetera Coffeehouse is very similar to mine at home...same fabric! Yummy beverages here!


A couple of enterprising young girls came by and posted this sign in the window while we were there. A guy sitting at an outside table said, as I was taking this photo, "It makes me want to get a dog just so I can hire them!"


B-light got a little tired riding around in the car.


And he's out!



No, I mean, really out!

Mt. Kenton Cemetery, Paducah, KY - Saturday 6/13/2009

I got up and went out for a fast walk in the Mount Kenton cemetery, which is across the street from the hotel Mom and I stayed in. Pretty place with lots of nice paths.

The columns in the background were impressive from all over the cemetery.


This explains them.



These plot markers seemed unique to me, but maybe this is a regional thing? There are family names on them and individual graves behind them.


Close up of one of the names.

I think this was the oldest gravestone I found. Not even two years old when she died in 1852.