The Blue Awning
This article was originally published in the Daily Post Athenian in Athens, Tennessee on September 15, 2022.
The removal of the blue awning at The Arts Center has left a gap in its chalky metal-clad façade. Peeking through this gap is the building’s original brick – a dirty yellow – and, in a deep hunter green, the crossbar of the letter “H,” the bottom half of a lowercased “a” and swash of a lowercased “r.”
It’s the hand painted sign denoting the proprietor of the market for which this building was built; Harrod.
Thursday morning, I was standing in The Arts Center lobby with Chris Adams talking construction and he asked if the blue awning had been original to Harrod’s. “No but come here!” I said, with a level of enthusiasm that likely caught Mr. Adams off guard as I led him out the front door and pointed up to the gap. “Well, that’s pretty cool,” he affirmed noting the suggestion of the sign.
I am too young to remember our building as Harrod’s, but I know the architectural and ornamental elements of the market that remain. The grid of frosted vintage glass block is original I know, so I pointed to the windows with the assurance, “we’re preserving those.” Looking at the frosted glass, Mr. Adams smiled and said, “Now, I’m pretty sure that’s where the donuts were.”
I returned the smile, nodding, because I hear that often. Occasionally, gentlemen of a certain age will come to The Arts Center remembering those delicious donuts. The grown-up bag boys linger in that space where they sold the donuts and some have been known to ask to visit the basement, to test, perhaps, the resilience of their juvenile fear of that dungeon.
The basement door is wooden, musty, and always open. “Please Keep Door Shut,” it reads in bold red letters that I like to imagine were painted by the same hand as the green sign on the façade. Visits to that door tend to elicit shudders – even from the most time-tested of bag boys.
On my way back to my office, I stopped to study a painting in our current exhibit, “Reminiscence: A Selection of Works by Ethel Stone Carroll.” I thought for a moment about how the morning after Leslie installed the exhibit I walked out of the kitchen with my cup of coffee and stopped in my tracks. “Oh,” I exhaled, “this exhibit feels like my childhood.”
Visual art – like music – is so deeply intertwined with memory. Ethel’s bold colors and her brushstrokes with a sense of humor transport me back to afternoons in the Kimball living room. Standing there studying textures of an unknown piece in a familiar gold frame, I can feel the sturdy comfort of Ellen’s piano bench, I can nearly taste the jelly toast soon to cross the counter.
Standing in front of Ethel’s work, I suppose I feel like those bag boys must as they look at the frosted block. Really, we’re gazing through windows to the past.
These relics of Athens’s history may not be as resonant with each reader as they are with those familiar with Harrod’s, with Ethel Carroll. I do believe, however, that there is something universal about the delight in discovering hidden artifacts.
In that spirit I invite you to stop by our renovation in progress, to catch a glimpse of the old letters, to come inside and study the work of another local treasure. And then I’d like to hear what emotions each inspires in you.
