pink = where I went
I drove to Louisville from Nashville, right after my time there. My friend Elishua was living in Louisville, doing AmeriCorps at Americana World Community Center.
I stayed with him for several days in the common house above Americana, where he and fellow AmeriCorps workers live for a year at a time. The building is a former Catholic high school and convent. The bedrooms, kitchen, and living room are where the nuns lived. The space has a dorm-like, communal feel.
There is a lot of great programming going on at Americana, and it was exciting to see my friend fluently contributing to this active, important place. Largely serving the immigrant community, Americana welcomes people in a variety of ways, including a community garden, outreach in local schools, a maker space, counseling for torture survivors, and after school support.
The morning after my arrival, Elishua gave me a tour of the building and garden.
In the basement is Fiberworks, a space for women to sew and make things that they can then sell. Most of the people that use the space are from Iraq, and are using skills they brought with them from their homeland.
Elishua explained how in addition to serving a practical purpose, the space is the hub of the community, where the women share their unique immigration experiences and practice their English together, making their new life here more manageable. Americana sells the things they make at craft fairs and community events, which Elishua has often tabled. The artist gets 90% from each sale; 10% goes toward buying new fabric and sewing machines. He said that a lot of their materials come from donations; the women work with what they have. The fabric may not have been their first choice but they make cool things with it. They had incense burning in the space and it smelled nice.
Elishua told me about World Fest, an event he tabled for Fiberworks. He said when Fest-goers learned what Fiberworks was, they were eager to support it. Since the event had a largely Iraqi focus, there were Iraqi desserts along with local Kentucky fare too. The women at Fiberworks made derby hats for the Kentucky Derby. Lots of people bought them; he said everybody gets into the Kentucky Derby. There are fireworks during Derby week–the biggest fireworks display in the country. The Derby is expensive, but there are different free satellite events and parties that everyone goes to. He knows a woman from Venezuela who said her favorite thing about being in the U.S. is the Derby. She also loves going on distillery tours.
At my opening in Jodi’s studio in Nashville, many of the people I talked with had lived in, or had meaningful connections to Kentucky. One artist told me about how her family worked on Rand Paul’s campaigns when she was in high school. She described Paul as approachable, “not like Mitch McConnell,” and hard-working; how he “got in to fix what was wrong.” She said I should go to Bowling Green, Kentucky, and go to Rand Paul’s office on the downtown square. She said she thought he, or people working with him, would be happy to talk to me.
So one day I went to Bowling Green. I parked a few blocks away and walked through the old downtown. I found his office and found the door unsurprisingly locked, and so I rang the bell to talk to someone. A woman asked what I was doing there. I gave her a long answer about making paintings about places I go in our country, and that a woman I met had worked on his campaigns and recommended I come here. There was a quiet moment and then the woman said he wasn’t here. Unsurprised, I walked around the side of the building and found this beautiful light pink wall that looked striking as a backdrop to the blue dumpster and slate ground. It was not a wasted trip, because I talked to the lady, I was unsurprised, and I saw the pink wall with the blue dumpster, which was a surprise.
On my way back to Louisville that evening, I drove through the farmland on a self-guided wayward tour of barns that have quilt patterns painted on them.
I had gotten a brochure of the “Barn Quilt Trail” of Hart County. I focused on Bonnieville. I got lost on the country roads winding over gently rolling hills, and many times had to stop and drive back in reverse down long gravel driveways. I crept down private lanes under clouds that looked like they would unleash a downpour at any moment.
I talked to people who seemed mildly concerned to see me in my rental car on their little road, at first. When I told them I was there to see the quilt paintings, they seemed to just barely remember that they had colored shapes on their property that put their homes on a map I held in my hand. Then they welcomed me with some mixture of pride and confusion, and we talked about the coming storm with ease.