The Mother Ship

The Mother Ship landed in Liberty NC this weekend, and yes I was there! The first time I attended The Liberty Antiques Festival, I was past my due date with Wesley and I had to sit down at the end of every row and recover from the pain in my lower abdomen. (how is that for desperation to shop for junk!)
That was 21 years ago. Last year, she came along with me for the first time. This year she is shooting a film, and I was shopping for props, so I went alone. And I blissfully walked every aisle until I thought I might be having a heat stroke. Acres of antiques....... heaven. Here are just a few shots for you to make you feel like you were right there with me.

The dumbest comment award went to the couple standing next to me when I shot this photo.

"Them ain't antiques, they're just potteries."  There seemed to be a lot of ugly face jugs this year. I don't remember this many last year. Last year was the year of the wooden bucket.

This was the lunch menu offered. I passed so that I wouldn't be up all night throwing up or doing the thing at the other end:)  flounder sandwich sounded tasty though, or maybe those pinto beans and cornbread.... this menu would have pissed my daughter off so bad. My poor little lifelong vegetarian.

 Pretty wooden bucket. I love some wooden buckets, bought one last year for a play. We have used it for every show since. Lots of floor scrubbing in the plays I do

 Yes, it's the south, you are gonna have the obligatory rebel flags. I like red, white and blue though, so I shot this. I actually sort of like the design of the confederate flag, damn all those that made it such a nasty symbol.
 I swear, you would not believe some of the conversations I overheard. It's amazing, when people are outside, they really use their outside voices and you can hear every racist comment that comes out of their cotton picking mouths. I heard conversations about KKK memorabilia that "was hid under that table yonder", conversations about what some of the men folk "like to sell to the blacks", a debate over whether they ought to send all them mexicans back where they came from and why do they even let convicts out of prison, and where was meemaw anyway, somebody go find her before her grandchild comes unglued!

I swany, ya'll, there are some dumbshit people in the south!

Oh yeah, there were too wooden buckets, I like them

This jar was probably the most beautiful thing I saw all day. I didn't look at the price, knew it would never be mine, and I would be tempted to pull out that credit card Wells Fargo sent me with a $17,000 limit, (even though I told them I was unemployed!) and use it, if it were even in a vague realm of possibility. Keep walking..... there was nothing in this booth I could afford. Swoon.

Chicken feeders are now decorative objects d'art when you hang them with dried herbs, who knew?
Everyone was buying one. The miracles of merchandising!

This was a beautifully merchandised booth. This woman also loved her treasures very much and had them priced so that no one would buy them and take them away from her.... just in case....

Look potters! Get your dang shards and put them in a jar!!!! Then you can sell them as a decorative accessory!! This jar of broken shards was $20 I think. Gonna get me some jars, I got plenty of shards!

Pretty, pretty pottery, the glazes were 100 times better in person. That Libby Carrots can was a puzzle though. One of these things is not like the other, haha!

So after I heard the comments mentioned above, and also because I am working on two plays right now about racism and slavery and I have two African American directors, I started noticing how very "white" this show was. There were maybe three African American vendors, and I kid you not I counted only two African American women shopping and I saw one Asian man with his little girl. I live in Chapel Hill where I don't even notice the ethnicity of people, because it is so mixed up with so many countries of origin. But here on this farm, listening to southern white people talkin' and eatin' their barbeque, I was astounded at what a bubble I really live in. I forget this is still the way much of the South is. I love my southern heritage, and I have some really redneck cousins. I can cuss and spit with the best of them, but I do not tolerate racism and the white good old boys (and their women) around here. I basically don't tolerate ignorance, which is all that it is when you get right down to it. Can't we all just get along and celebrate our differences?!?!

The last comment of the day just made me smile:

"You reckon would Deddy like it?"
"He might would".

God bless us all, vive la difference! God Bless Antiques too!
I'll tell ya'll about our day with Wesley later, it was fun :)
xo