My brother Howard says we've got way too much on the walls!

Here you've got two shots of the great couch my friend Cheryl gave us, along with two chairs, and end table, a coffee table, and a parsons table. The only two we couldn't fit in the apartment were the end and coffee tables. They are quite comfortable and fit in with our eclectic decor very well. And like Cheryl pointed out, the price was right!

You can see just how the couch fits with the folding bookcase. Above the left end of the couch, there's a framed original of the man wearing a pork-pie sort of hat, holding a cigar and resting his elbow beside a bottle of liquor. It's called "Caught Red-handed." At the Serendipity this year, the patient art silent auction at the Mississippi State Hospital, I bid on this one and hovered to assure that I'd get it. Can you tell that the guy's hand is a rusty red? The photos around it and our wonderful Mark Millett are more of my Jackson landmarks, places I like the looks of, and neon sign. The three bottom ones, though, are of Memphis: a small shot of Beale Street's neon signs, one of a man playing his trumpet in front of a restaurant, and one of the photographer for the Tri-State Defender. Wikipedia has this about the newspaper: The Memphis Tri-State Defender is an African American newspaper published in Memphis, Tennessee. The Tri-State Defender is one of the longest continuously-published African American papers in the Southern United States and as such is quite prestigious for a publication of its type. It was very active in the Civil Rights Movement. As its name implies, it is aimed at the African American market not only in Memphis proper, but also in nearby areas of Arkansas and Mississippi.

The Mark Millett is "Remember When," no. 203 of 750. Imagine my utter surprise when I saw it leaning up against the front counter at The Butter Churn in Clinton on June 3. I was so excited about having found a screen to set-off my brand new twin bed for our Portland apartment that I almost missed it. I knew it was huge and Mama would croak because I brought home something else to load into the UHaul less than a week later, but I was not about to pass up this print that I'd been admiring for ages, especially already matted and framed. Later on I looked at Millett's Web site and discovered that the series is sold out. Wasn't I the lucky dog? I wrapped it up in single-bed-egg-crate-foam, attached with packing tape and bungee cords. Leland carefully packed it into the Buick where it made the trip splendidly, as you can see.

The yellow and green art at the top right is one of my folk-art efforts, "Get the Juice, You'll Get the Blues." The blues (plastic beads) is pouring out of the bottle into the seated guitar player. The white-framed colored-pencil drawing of three men is another of my MSH patient pieces. I got it at New Stage when loads of patient are was on display in the Hewes Room, accompanying one of New Stage's plays.