The Guggenheim, y’all

WRITTEN BY TOBY NIX

I never really understood art. I made the clay ashtrays in school that every kid from my generation made. I've still got something I made from clay on one of the shelves in our living room. I don't know what it is, which I guess makes it abstract.

Other than that, I've never fancied myself as any kind of artist. I can't draw anything. My wife and kids can take a pencil and a piece of paper and draw whatever you tell them to. It's a gift they have that I'm jealous of. My eyes just don't see how to get from a blank sheet of paper to what they create.

As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that maybe I am an artist. I was always comparing myself to a definition of art I held that took the world's definition of art – the Mona Lisa, the Michelangelo. I can't compete with that.

But when you take into account all the art the South offers the world, I think I can hang in there with the best of them.

Southern art is in our yards. It may be a rusted-out truck bed that was converted to a flower bed. Or an old toilet-turned-flowerpot. I have neither of these, but I've seen my fair share of displays over the years.

I don't know for certain that I've ever seen a pink flamingo in the wild. I could possibly be convinced that no such bird exists. But it doesn't stop the aspiring Southern artist from scattering pink flamingos over his front lawn.

And don't get me started on the culinary arts of the South. In the South, we don't just cook; we create. Our barbecue pits are like studios. Every rib or brisket serves as the canvas to the pit master artist wielding his paint brush filled with family secrets and salt.

If you don't think food can be art, you've never seen the beauty of a perfectly golden cornbread or stood around the proper low country boil.

I don't have enough space to get started on the music. From the blues of the Delta, to the bluegrass of the Appalachian, from Southern rock to country grammar, it's like we don't give the rest of the country a chance to compete.

We have line dancing, we have clogging. There's a reason everyone moves to the South, and it ain't the humidity.

The next time you're on the road and see a "See Rock City" sign painted on the side of a barn, think back to the simpler times of your childhood. You may be seeing it from the driver's seat now, but there was a time in your life when you saw it from the back seat, as a child going on a trip.

The next time someone tells you the South isn't the hub of artistic genius, invite them over to your house and give them a peek into our steep culture of art that is second to none.

I may not be able to draw a convincing stick figure, but my brisket sure does have some pretty smoke rings on it. NCM