BY ANDY LEE WHITE
FOR THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA —
Opelika’s Art Haus hosted a combined book reading and art show on Wednesday Sept. 27, featuring author John M. Williams and artists Julie Plasketes and Kat Fitzpatrick. Both artists had numerous pieces of work on display for attendees to view prior to, and following, Williams reading excerpts from his new novel “End Times”.
Gail Smith Langley, founding member of The Mystic Order of East Alabama Fiction Writers, opened the program with welcoming remarks for everyone in attendance and thanked the artists for showing their work. Langley introduced long time columnist and author Rheta Grimsley Johnson who shared remarks about her friend, Williams, before introducing him to the crowd. Williams’ and Grimsley Johnson’s musical play “Hiram: Becoming Hank” , about the formative years of Hank Williams, has enjoyed two successful productions, and is currently under consideration by several theater companies.
Williams spoke about his new novel, “End Times”, touching on the writing process involved in the creation of his new book and his inspiration for writing the book. A main character and voice within the book is based predominantly on a man introduced to Williams while visiting Grimsley Johnson, known locally as Whiskey Gray, although renamed “Red-Wine Pyle” for the novel. After recognizing the richness of his stories, Williams began frequent visits and phone calls with Whiskey Gray, taking notes and digesting his colorful stories. Williams described how these stories, along with notes and material collected throughout the years eventually formed composite characters that told him the story that emerged.
“End Times” is set in a small southern town, and as Williams pointed out — that is the setting for all his writing, having spent the vast majority of his life in Auburn, or LaGrange, Georgia. He described “End Times” as a mystical dark comedy and “book about good people who are trying to deal with a bad world. There’s a lot of bad stuff that happened in the book, but the people are good.”
The plot involves a brother and sister, who are orphans growing up in this small town and “having to deal with all the predators and horrible stuff and good stuff and all of it.”
Williams pointed out that much of his writing has a “theme of somebody resisting the standardization and thwarting forces of society that take away your individuality, your creativity.”
He read several passages from “End Times” and took questions from the audience before thanking everyone for coming and then retiring to his merchandise table to sign books and pose for photos.
Williams grew up in Auburn and is a graduate of Auburn High School and Auburn University. He retired from LaGrange College in 2015 after teaching English there for 26 years. He was named Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel in 2002 for “Lake Moon”, and was a finalist for the Townsend Prize in 2003/04. In 2009, his play “Fish Hungry” won the Society of Southwestern Authors One-Act Play Competition, and in 1988, he won the Hackney Literary Award for fiction from Birmingham Southern College. Recent published works also include “Village People: Sketches of Auburn” (Solomon and George, 2016) and Atlanta Pop in the 50s, 60s and 70s: The Magic of Bill Lowery” (The History Press, 2019) with Andy Lee White. Earlier publications include “The Slyburn Girl” and “Leonard” (novellas) and “The Weariness of the South” (stories).
For more information about Williams and to follow his blog, visit johnmwilliams.net/blog.
ARTISTS
Julie Plasketes is an artist who has lived in Auburn for more than 30 years with her husband, who is a professor at Auburn University. Plasketes has been an artist for most of her life and her medium of choice is collage. Her current series featured at the show is titled “Sundowning” . Plasketes explained that sundowning can occur in people who suffer some form of dementia and it usually happens at dusk when the sun goes down. The person gets disoriented and often confused and frustrated. Her almost 90-year-old mother suffers from sundowning and was the inspiration for her current series of collages. Plasketes said her main goal for her collages is to “make calm out of the chaos.”
Artist Kat Fitzpatrick hails from Mississippi but grew up in New Orleans.
“Growing up in New Orleans shaped me in big ways as far as appreciating characters and wildness,” she said. Fitzpatrick said she’s been an artist her whole life as were her mother and her mother’s father. Fitzpatrick had her “Delta Blues” series on display Wednesday. The group was painted in encaustic, as is most of her work. Encaustic is a 2000-year-old medium that uses melted bees wax with powdered pigments for color. Fitzpatrick said she fell in love with this medium 20 years ago and though it has experienced a boom in popularity in recent years, she was the first artist in Mississippi to use bees wax in their work.
“I’m always looking for the miraculous in the mundane and I usually find it,” Fitzpatrick said. “The art is an exercise of tuning in and getting quiet to let another voice speak that’s not of your control and maybe it’s a deeper part of me but anytime I tune in I’m always glad I did.”
For more information about Fitzpatrick visit www.katfitzpatrick.com.
