(gentle music) - Hello, I'm Tonya Terry.

Every other year, the Alabama State Council on the Arts shines a spotlight on exceptional Alabamians and their contributions to arts and creativity.

This is a tradition dating back to 1971 when the Council first recognized individuals for significant contributions to the arts.

Over the years, the Council added awards that honor a variety of artists and other special people who support the arts.

Now designated as the Celebration of Alabama Arts, this biennial program highlights our appreciation for the artistry and creativity that abounds within our state and the people who make it possible.

This spring, the 2024 Celebration of Alabama Art ceremony was held here at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery on May 16th.

I was honored to have been asked to be the emcee that evening, and I'm so happy to be here now to recap this outstanding event, and to introduce you to this year's honorees, once again, from the beautiful Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery.

I'm thrilled to be here to celebrate the rich community of arts in our great state.

Thank you to the Alabama State Council on the Arts for allowing me the opportunity to share this year's honorees, and for their support of the arts in Alabama through grants, programming, partnerships, and advocacy.

The Alabama State Council on the Arts gets to do what they do so well thanks to the generosity and support of the Alabama legislature, Governor Kay Ivey, and the efforts of other state agencies and departments willing to work together to support the arts, and that support makes its way to the arts ecosystem with the dedication of every member of the Council and staff.

And of course, we extend our deepest gratitude to this year's honorees.

Their artistry, mentorship, and leadership infuse Alabama with a quality of life that is remarkable.

It is our pleasure to recognize them.

So, let's get to it.

(gentle music continues) The Alabama Arts Impact Award honors individuals who have made unique and meaningful contributions to the arts in Alabama.

The first honoree of this year's Celebration of Alabama Arts is Pinky Bass, a nationally recognized photographer and mixed media artist.

With over 30 solo exhibits in renowned art museums across the country, Pinky is an innovator in the art of photography.

She is well-known for Pinky's Portable Pop-up Pinhole Camera and Darkroom, first developed in 1989.

Made from an old pop-up camper and built to look like an old bellows camera, the walk-in camera obscura was used to teach hundreds of students and take photographs of the communities Pinky visited.

But she didn't stop there.

She went on to create 20 pinhole camera purses, which are smaller handheld versions of the Pinhole Pop-up.

Pinky has collaborated across the globe from Macedonia to Mexico.

Her photography and the mixed media art created from her photographs, address issues of gender, age, death, and the mythology of that journey.

Here's a closer look at 2024 Arts Impact Award recipient Pinky Bass.

(gentle music) - My name is Pinky Bass.

I'm currently living in Fairhope, Alabama.

I actually started here during World War II when my father was overseas, and even though I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a lot in Georgia, even in Mexico, Fairhope always felt like home.

I still consider myself a photographer, although a lot of the work I do now would be called mixed media because I use different processes, but it's always photographic based.

There's always a photographic image somehow related to the work I'm doing.

In recent years, I've been working with a friend, Carolyn DeMeritt, who has actually been photographing me for like 35 years, and both of us are very interested in the human figure and how it ages, our journey through life toward death, and she's also been photographing my family.

So when my sister's cancer metastasized to her brain, she had made some beautiful images of Fran once her hair fell out, and I shaved mine, too.

(chuckles) And our father also had a shaved head, so we were the three, the shaved head people.

Pinhole was something early on that I started using, and what I liked about that was that you could make all kinds of mistakes, or you could, there was movement.

There were things happening that weren't like a 35-millimeter straight photograph.

So, I really fell in love with that.

Polaroid and pinhole became kind of my words that I would say were really important to me in the whole process of developing how I treated photographic imagery.

Being an award-winning artist isn't anything that I consider myself to be.

I'm receiving this award and I'm grateful, but on the other hand, that wasn't what I set out to do when I began doing art.

And I think it's really hard for people, when you're doing artwork, sometimes you're fortunate and you have a place where you can sell things or where things go into the market.

On the other hand, that would never work for me.

That would modify everything I did in terms of art.

If I thought I was having to do a piece of art for sale, it would not have the same integrity if I was doing it just because it came from my heart and from my inside.

I'm glad when I make some money with my art, but that's not why I'm doing it.

And if I were doing it for that, there would've been times I'd have quit a long time ago (chuckles) 'cause you don't always make money from what you're doing with the arts.

On the other hand, that's the place where your voice is.

That's the place where your heart and your passion, your energy, your, you know, reason for doing it comes from, from just literally not doing it for the money, not doing it for the recognition, just doing it for yourself, for your heart, for your own passion.

- The next Arts Impact Award honoree is a visual artist, advocate, and creative placemaking guru.

Kevin King was an artist at a young age, but took a hiatus from his practice when he entered the workforce.

During this time, he built several community enrichment nonprofit organizations.

Eventually, his family gifted him art supplies, and from there, his arts practice was reinvigorated.

As his art practice grew, Kevin witnessed a gap in opportunities for artists of color in Montgomery, his adopted town, and he quickly harnessed his community development engagement background to establish The King's Canvas, a now internationally recognized organization focused on creativity, entrepreneurship, and personal development for artists who have been historically and systematically marginalized.

In April, he presented his creative placemaking strategies at the Urban Art Fair in Paris.

Kevin's efforts with The King's Canvas are revitalizing the neighborhood of Washington Park in West Montgomery.

Drive down Oak Street when an event is going on and you'll see the green space packed with community members, the outdoor stage hopping, and the artists drawing, painting, and laughing together out front.

While it may look like folks just having fun, what Kevin has done is put the arts at the forefront of economic development in Montgomery.

Here's more about Kevin King.

(gentle music) - I'm Kevin King.

I grew up in Mobile, Alabama in a household with my mother and my older brother.

So I came up in a household where they encouraged you to do everything.

My mother, my grandmother, my aunt, my uncles, my brother, everyone would just encourage you to be great.

So I remember being at my grandmother's house laying beside my brother watching him just draw images, draw pictures that he had drawn previously in his art classes.

But I just remember mimicking him.

As he drew, I would draw the same thing.

We would go to church on Sundays, and I would always sit next to my grandmother.

And I've always been a fidgety person.

I can't sit still for too long.

And so Grandmother would always give me the church bulletin and either a pencil or a pen just to occupy my time, and I would just sit and I'd draw what was in front of me.

And I like to say that's the first time that I actually started doing, like, live art.

And it was funny because my grandmother used to interrupt all of the little old ladies around her because she was so amazed at the amount of detail that went into my work.

And she always called me her little genius.

And I think that's when she started calling me that, just observing the amount of detail that I put in my artwork even at such a young age.

I stopped doing art around 17, 18 years old after high school, and I did not start back until I was about 34.

My wife and my daughter bought me art supplies, and their words were, "I'm officially taking away your excuses not to create."

The need for The King's Canvas initially started with me recognizing that there wasn't a huge platform for Black artists in the city.

I would go to these art shows, I would see a couple of my Black friends, who are still friends to this day.

We would all be there together, just kinda lookin' at the artwork, having a good time, but I didn't see a big presence of Black artists in Montgomery.

I knew we exist, but there weren't any platforms available at that time.

So I said, "How can I reach the people like me?"

These three people that I were: That high school student who was told to pick a real major, get a real job, you can't make any money doing art.

That creative who had allowed life to happen, like I had allowed life to happen, and now he or she need to get back into creating, how can I reach that person and encourage them to create again?

And how can I reach someone who's creating for the first time who didn't even know that they possessed the skills to create?

That was also me because my first time painting was when I started painting that time.

I didn't know I can paint.

And so I said, we need something like that, specifically because at that time, I didn't necessarily see a platform that was specifically dedicated towards providing opportunity and access for Black and marginalized artists.

And it evolved into a understanding that we needed to also transform the physical space and improve our quality of place in a neighborhood like Washington Park that's historically disenfranchised.

(mellow music) I think artistic expression is important for not only children, but also adults.

People assume that because I used to run a youth organization that this is a youth organization, and it's not.

I started The King's Canvas for adults, even though we do have teaching artists in schools.

Just the opportunity to be creative, it affects every other area in our life in a positive manner when we are able to be creative and not have that creativity silenced, not to have that creativity stagnant.

And so, that's why places like The King's Canvas and other places exist to not only provide an opportunity for youth, but to also provide an opportunity for adults.

I think I've always been about people.

Being in community work all of these years, I think it benefits people who are in your sphere of influence, and therefore, it benefits people who are in their sphere of influence.

I'm just a cheerleader.

The King's Canvas is just a springboard.

It's not the end all, be all.

Neither am I.

And so, we wanna really equip and develop people and utilize all of this community work that we do to be able to teach, train, develop people, and equip people into long-term sustainability, however that looks for that individual.

- The Albert B.

Head Legacy Award, named after former Executive Director of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, Al Head, recognizes public officials, arts patrons, arts administrators, or arts educators who have empowered arts to thrive in their community, creating lasting importance for future generations in Alabama and beyond.

This year's Albert B.

Head Legacy Award recipient, Jeanie Thompson, has an extra special connection to the award's namesake, Al Head.

As a partnership between the two of them produced the Alabama Writer's Forum, an organization Thompson led for over 30 years until her retirement in late 2023.

Jeanie's legacy as a leader in literary arts began when, as a student at the University of Alabama, she founded the "Black Warrior Review" literary journal, now in its 50th year.

Jeannie built a career as an advocate and educator of the literary arts in Alabama.

She has taught creative writing in numerous programs across the Southeast and through the Writer's Forum, founded Writing Our Stories, a collaboration with the Alabama Department of Youth Services, which educates justice-impacted youth to harness the power of words for expression.

Jeanie supports writers so well because she's one of them, a prolific published poet.

We hope you'll enjoy learning a little more about 2024's Albert B.

Head Legacy Award recipient, Jeanie Thompson.

Take a look.

(gentle music) - I'm Jeanie Thompson.

I was born in Anniston, Alabama, and I grew up in Decatur, Alabama, and now I live in Montgomery, and I've been in Montgomery since about 1997.

I'm a Baby Boomer and my parents provided a wonderful home.

One of the things that they did was to read books to us.

And my brother, they pushed him towards science, they pushed me toward art, is what I always think.

But if they hadn't read to me when I was a child, I don't know if I would be a writer.

First grade I liked to be read to.

I wanted to listen to the books and look at the illustrations while I was listening to my father read.

And I think that was a major influence on it because now I love art, I love visual art, and I love the sound of words.

It was the first art form that I felt like I had kind of an innate ability to achieve in.

You know, there's the making of art, and then there's the teaching of art, and then there's the sharing of it and experiencing it.

And I can't imagine my life without it.

I collect other people's art.

It's hanging in my home.

I have a big poetry collection, and I love to encourage writers just by buying their books.

When you show me what you do as an artist, I show you what I do as an artist, then we know each other better.

We can get along better.

We can see what we have in common.

We might want to collaborate with each other.

And I think that that's, in our society today, we really, really need to work on that.

(bright music) My work as an arts administrator with the Alabama Writer's Forum, which was an organization that we founded in 1993.

The person who is responsible for there being an Alabama Writer's Forum is Al Head.

He wanted to have a partnership of the State Arts Council that promoted writers and writing that the Council could fund grants for, and could support the literary arts.

And at the time that he was really pushing this, it was a time in my life where I was available to do something radically different.

So, long story short, I went up to Al and I said, "If there's a job in this, I would be interested."

And there was a job, but it took a lot of work on into being an arts advocate.

And I think that's one of the reasons that I'm receiving this award, is for arts advocacy.

And that means you tell the people, you tell the powers that be that can support the arts with funding, you tell them why it's important in their communities.

And I found that I liked having that opportunity, I liked doing it.

I didn't mind going to the Legislature at all.

I could talk to anybody in any political sphere and sorta sell the arts to them.

That's not something that everybody who's an artist is comfortable with.

I do think it's important to let people who can influence how arts are funded, how they're presented in communities, to let them know what's important.

It helps people live their lives.

It helps us be better humans.

Now that I'm retired and I'm slowing down just a little bit, of looking at things and trying to look back, I'm kind of amazed that I was able to do some things that I was able to do.

And when you're a creative person and you have the creative impulse in you all the time, it's life giving.

If somebody came to me and said, "Okay, we're gonna unplug you, and you can't be creative anymore, you can't write, you can't teach, you can't listen to music," I would say, "Well, why am I alive?"

(chuckles) You know?

Why am I living if I can't do those things?

- The Jonnie Dee Riley Little Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes one who has devoted a lifetime of energy, service, and contributions to the arts in Alabama.

The award is named after a past Council member, Dr. Jonnie Dee Riley Little, who served on the Alabama State Council on the Arts Board from 1974 to 1986, and exemplified the spirit of this award in every respect.

This year's lifetime achievement honoree, Greta Lambert, has been gracing stages and screens with her talent and expertise for many years, most notably on stage here at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival for almost 40 years.

Ms. Lambert has served Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the theatre community as an actor, director, teaching artist, and associate artistic director.

As a performer, Greta has played almost every iconic female lead Western theater has to offer: Lady Macbeth, Rosalind, Viola, Beatrice, Titania, even the powerful Prospero.

And that's just the Shakespeare plays.

She's also starred as Blanche DuBois, Hedda Gabbler, Eliza Doolittle, the repertoire goes on and on.

She has trained numerous emerging professional actors through the Shakespeare Festival MFA program, and she has engaged thousands of children across the state through student matinees and other education programs.

If you've ever taken a field trip to see a show at this theater, you have Ms. Lambert to thank for that, and you may have been lucky enough to see her perform.

Thank you, Greta Lambert for a lifetime of talent and dedication to the performing arts.

And here's more now about Greta Lambert, 2024 Jonnie Dee Riley Little Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.

(gentle music) - My name is Greta Lambert, and I'm originally from Birmingham, Alabama.

When I was growing up, I lived mostly right outside Washington, D.C., and my mom tells me I was, like, the shy kid in school, excruciatingly shy, but whenever there was, like, something to read out loud, I was always the first kid to raise my hand.

And my teacher said, "She reads with expression."

And that's sort of how this whole acting thing began.

Plus, I used to watch all the spy shows with my dad on TV like "Mission: Impossible," "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.," "Honey West," and I noticed that they would dress in disguises and speak with foreign accents.

And I thought, "That is so cool.

That's what I wanna do."

I went to a college at Montevallo, and then I went to University of Florida to study acting, and then I headed up to New York.

And so, I worked very hard for about six months, finally got an agent, and the first thing she submitted me for was a 10-month contract at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

(laughs) And I thought, "Oh my gosh, I have spent my whole life trying to get out of Alabama."

So I went so that she could have her commission, and as soon as I got here, I loved it.

And I went back to New York off and on for about the next four years.

I even went out to LA for a couple of years and did a TV show, but always I was offered great roles, so I came back to Alabama.

It's my home, and I love it.

(gentle music) When I was in grad school, my acting teacher, David Shelton, was amazing, and he taught me how to always look for truth in my performances.

You know, if he saw a teeny bit of fakery in your acting, he would call you out on it, which is great because it kept me, you know, raising the bar for myself.

But the audience, you know, they're that missing piece of the action.

And even when we have school fest performances for kids, and you know, you can see some of 'em on the front row like this (chuckles), by the end of the show, you know, they're sitting like this and you know, you got 'em1 I've been a teaching artist, and I've been the Associate Artistic Director, and the Director of Education.

I love teaching, I love inspiring young people, and like I say, there's always somebody there who's like me, that's finding a way to express themselves that they never had before, or they're getting confidence.

And even if kids don't go on to be actors, it doesn't matter.

There's something very important about theater and young people.

It helps them think outside the box, and think creatively, and work together, and collaborate, and listen to each other.

And there's something about passing down stories that's just valuable for our community, for our culture, for young people.

So teaching is a great gift, and I loved it.

For any young person who's thinking about going into the theatre, my advice would be see all the plays you can, do all the plays you can.

Take every opportunity, community theatre, school theatre, doing student films, everything you possibly can, 'cause the best way to learn about acting is to do it.

The best way to learn about building props is to do it.

Or watch people, or learn from people.

Live your best life and expose yourself to as much theatre and literature as you possibly can.

It's thrilling to be acknowledged for doing things that you love.

And it's just a great privilege to be recognized, and I'm so grateful.

- The celebration continues now with our next Alabama Arts Impact Honoree, Monique Ryan.

Ms. Ryan has combined her extensive professional dance background and love for dance education to create space for better representation and inclusive artistry in the dance community of North Alabama.

She has danced with the Atlanta Ballet, Total Dance, Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Elton John, Arrested Development, and performed at the 1996 Olympics.

Monique is the founder and executive director of Dance Theatre of Huntsville, an organization dedicated to bringing dance closer to Black and Latinx children and young adults with little to no access to classical, contemporary, and modern dance training.

Many of Monique's students have gone on to become professional dancers in dance companies, films, sports performance, and on Broadway.

Here now is a closer look at 2024 Alabama Arts Impact Honoree, Monique Ryan.

- I'm Monique Ryan.

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.

I started dancing at the age of nine.

I grew madly and passionately in love with ballet.

The house that I lived in as a child had this huge screened in porch, and there were several little girls in our neighborhood who did not dance.

They didn't do any kind of activity outside of school, so I would invite them to my front porch, and there is when I became a teacher.

(chuckles) I taught all the neighborhood girls how to dance, and how to, believe it or not, twirl the baton.

I think my mother thought I was a tomboy, but then my mother saw a softer side of me and said, "I know there's something out there that you really would like to do."

I'm like, "Yeah, right."

Well, she took me to a talent show at my elementary school, and I just sat there thinking, "This is so boring," Until a dance group came on.

They all looked like me, and I sat at the edge of my chair, and until they stopped dancing, I started to breathe again.

And that's when I knew I liked to dance.

I really enjoyed dance.

I loved the stage, I loved the lights.

Everything about performance made me happy.

I really, really enjoyed the applause.

That feeling is one of the best feelings in the world, and I wanted to share that with so many of the children in my community, especially the African American and Latino children.

I really wanted them to know that that feeling exists for them.

- My experience with Miss Monique has been eventful.

She's been ushering me through my career.

She's been a part of the many transitions, the ups and downs.

I always call her for advice, professionally and personally, because although now I work for her, but personally, she still is like a second mom to me.

So we've gone through a lot, and I'm just happy to just be in her presence and learn and train from her.

- What I am most proud of is the students who stayed the long course.

I have been called one of the firmest teachers around, but I am true to the art of dance.

I really am.

I serve North Huntsville, Alabama, where although we are the Rocket City, there are still pockets of places in the city who lack access to just dance.

And so, for those reasons, Dance Theatre of Huntsville has made a big impact on my community.

- Folk and traditional arts make visible the role the arts play in passing heritage from generation to generation.

- The Alabama Folk Heritage Award recognizes the exemplary artists who have made outstanding contributions in art forms rooted in traditional and ethnic cultures of Alabama.

We all know Alabama's cultural heritage is rich and multifaceted.

Our 2024 Folk Heritage Award Honoree has brought the beauty and tradition of religious practices in Greece to his incredible work as an iconography painter in Alabama.

Elias Katsaros is well known for his use of the 16th century Cretan style of Byzantine iconography.

His work can be found in Orthodox churches and a few Episcopal and Catholic churches across the United States, including orthodox churches in Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery.

He is also an incredible portraiture artist, something he continues to practice today.

We are excited to honor his artistry and service.

Here's more about the 2024 Alabama Folk Heritage Award Honoree, Elias Katsaros.

(gentle music) - My name is Elias Katsaros.

I was born in Istanbul, Turkey from Greek parents because there were a lotta Greeks living over there one time in 1945.

Iconography is different than, iconography is traditional work.

You have to follow the tradition of the church in iconography, you don't do your own things.

But when you do paintings, it's a different ballgame.

You're doing your own things.

You want to express yourself.

Iconography, you have to humble yourself because you're doing something for the church.

You don't do it for yourself.

Years ago, they didn't even sign the icons because they said, "I don't do it for me, I do it for the church," you know.

If it wasn't my father, you know, who was painting all the time at home, I saw that thing, I loved it, you know, because of the brush strokes and the drawings.

And I used to go with him because he used to do stage decor for the schools for free.

He didn't charge any money.

Schools like high schools, and they used to play Ancient Greek dramas, things like that, and he used to do the stage decor, and he says to me, "Come with me so you can learn how to mix paint and all the pigments and all this stuff."

I was real excited going with him since I was, what, 13, 14 years old, 15 years old?

And that was my beginning, yeah.

In '68 I met Elaine, my wife.

I owe a lot of things to Elaine.

Because of her, I do what I do.

I was always working to become better, better, better, but I was never satisfied.

If you feel like you're good and that's it, you're never gonna progress.

I never wanted compliments from my parents.

I wanted always my teacher to tell me, "It's terrible!

Do it again!"

(chuckles) But otherwise, you know, you're never gonna learn.

So, whatever you like to do, do it.

(chuckles) If I see person, "Can I draw your face?"

Sometimes they'll look at me like... Of course now I don't have problems 'cause I'm an older person with a gray hair, so they feel like, "Oh, he's an older guy, you know, (giggles) he wants do my portrait.

Yeah, sure."

(chuckles) They gave me those pencils for the computer to do drawings, you know, in the iPhone, iPad.

I try, I threw it in the corner.

I said, forget it.

I prefer charcoals, pencils, color pencils, watercolors, oils, the traditional.

I wanna get dirty on my hands, I said, not this.

I cannot do it.

I admire these people, they do it.

I'm not against it.

I always get the good quality oils, good quality brushes, because if you don't have good quality brushes, even if you're an amateur, you're not gonna do a good job.

Always buy the good quality brushes.

They're a little expensive, but it's worth it.

Don't buy cheap stuff, you know, because you cannot express yourself.

Then you'll think it's you.

It's the brush.

But if you have good brush, then it's you.

(laughs) - Our next award, the Distinguished Artist Award, recognizes artists with deep connections to Alabama who've earned significant national or international acclaim for their art over an extended period.

Our 2024 Alabama Distinguished Artist Award honors prolific photographer, Chester Higgins, whose art gives visual voice to personal and collective memories.

He's the author of eight collections of work, the topic of two PBS films, and his solo exhibitions have appeared in the Smithsonian, the Museum of African Art, the Schomburg Center, the National Civil Rights Museum, and the Dapper Museum in Paris, to name a few.

Oh, and he recently retired from "The New York Times" after 38 years as a staff photographer.

Higgins is no stranger to accolades for his incredible work.

He was recently inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.

He's received grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Andy Warhol Foundation.

He is honored internationally, but his roots are here in Alabama where he was first inspired to capture the beauty of his friends and family down in Coffee County.

How lucky we are to have a man like Chester Higgins representing Alabama to the world.

Now, take a look at 2024 Alabama Distinguished Artist, Chester Higgins.

(gentle music) - My name is Chester Higgins.

I live in New York, Brooklyn, New York, but I'm from a little country town in Alabama, Southeast Alabama called New Brockton in Coffee County.

And I went to a school, I'm alumni of Tuskegee University.

I considered at Tuskegee wondering if it should be done as a writer, but you know, I'm lazy, because writers, the work of a writer's never done.

So, with the desire to find a medium that I could use, I guess I just essentially, I thought too fast for writing, and the image was perfect for my speed of thinking, and also perfect for dissemination because it didn't need interpretation.

I picked up the camera because I wanted to see, I wanted my great aunt and my great uncle to see pictures of themselves.

On their wall they only had two things.

It was the Farmer's Almanac, and a picture of Jesus Christ.

I like to see their faces.

I like to see their hearts smile.

Just to see the acknowledgement of themselves on their wall, a sense of agency.

I spent a year and a half working just for that one moment.

Artistic expression is the soul and the heart giving testimony to how you experience reality, and the best of art, whatever it is, makes your heart smile.

My style of photography is loving people and trying to show the best side of people.

So one can say, my style is sympathetic.

And I feel essentially that with my work, I'm a witness.

Is there a picture that defines me?

There are many.

Do I have a favorite picture?

No.

And I don't have a favorite picture because one of my mentors, who was a painter, Romare Bearden, says, "If you ever have a favorite picture, then why keep working?"

So I try to make each of my images favorite.

There's a picture that I made that people seem to really love, and that's the picture of the poets Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou dancing over the ashes of Langston Hughes at the Schomburg Research Center.

Essentially, you know, people, you know, art is something you should live with, and when people collect my work, I like the idea of their giving my work a home.

So that's what I've always tried to do.

Make images that will make people, in one way distract them, but distract them in a very good way.

So, I feel good about what I've done.

I feel good about the legacy of my books and images I left behind.

I hope the Creator gives me another 20 or 30 years to do more.

And now I have just retired after 38 years as a staff photographer for "The New York Times," and I'm the author of eight books.

My thing now is trying to study the beginning, the world essentially before Genesis in Ancient Egypt.

That's what is obsessing me at this point.

I think all artists are obsessed with something, and that's my obsession now, to create, to find the answers to those questions and to create more books or photographs around that.

Well, I'm still learning.

Yes.

There was a time, you know, when I had to use a 35 millimeter, now I use an iPhone.

(chuckles) So technology, you know, and I still need to learn a lot more about Photoshop and design.

But you know, but that's good.

Learning means I'm living.

You know, when you stop learning, it gets kinda boring, you know?

(chuckles) - This year's final honoree, Russell Gulley, epitomizes the spirit of the Alabama Arts Impact Award as he has spent his life making meaningful contributions to the arts.

He has a heart for service, starting with playing music at his local church, serving in the US military during the Vietnam War, writing and recording iconic Muscle Shoals music, and establishing the Big Wills Arts Council.

He created many community arts and education programs, including Radio Visions, the DeKalb County Fiddlers Convention, and Arts and Education programs with Fort Payne City Schools.

Russell has also taught classes in traditional music and oral history.

Continuing to create and tour his music with solo albums that honor the musical roots that influence him, Russell shares that musical legacy with his community as director of the Salt and Pepper Roots Music Celebration at the University of North Alabama.

We are excited to celebrate Russell's many contributions to the arts.

Here's more on 2024 Arts Impact Award recipient Russell Gulley.

(gentle guitar chord) - My name's Russell Gulley, and I was born in Rome, Georgia, but I grew up here in Fort Payne, Alabama.

I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and of course music is a big part of the worship services.

I've loved music ever since I was a kid.

I don't know what first attracted me to it.

My mother let us buy our first guitars from Sears and Roebuck with the one agreement, and that was if we would play in church.

That's where she wanted us to play.

We had a very prominent guitar teacher here in town who would come to our houses and give us our instruction.

We all wanted to learn Beatles songs, so he would teach us Beatles songs.

As a kid, I began to realize Elvis was doing blues, but it was hopped up a little bit and was rock 'n roll.

Same thing with Jerry Lee.

Those were my first idols, but beyond them, then there was the whole generations of the people who created the music that preceded them.

I've been around some tremendous guitar players, and so I've never felt like I was really a good guitarist.

One thing that I felt like I did excel at was as a songwriter, I was known more as a lyricist.

I wasn't writing stuff like "When a Man Loves a Woman," I was writing more stuff like Frank Zappa's "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?"

(chuckles) One of his songs.

When I was planning to go to college, I wanted to study music.

My uncle asked me, he said, "Russell, why are you studying art?

Shouldn't you be studying to be a lawyer or maybe a doctor?

You know something you make money at?"

I told him, I said, "Well, I'm not studying to learn how to make a living.

I'm studying to learn how to live."

(bright music) We formed a band that Jimmy named Jackson Highway.

We were named after the address of the studio, and as we had built up a catalog of material for the publishing company that we also had been playing on, then it was very easy to convert that into our first album because we wrote the songs, we played on the songs, we sang on the songs.

The only thing kept us from being number one in Chattanooga, for example, was Elvis just died and Ronnie McDowell put out a record called "The King is Gone."

Overnight it became number one in Chattanooga and kept Jackson Highway at number two.

(chuckles) That's when we really started the Jackson Highway career of touring all over the South.

Jackson Highway was together full time for over 13 years.

So now what does music mean to me?

It means a sense of place.

If you study your music and you know where it's from, as well as the others, you need to know how it relates to the others, but then it becomes part of you, and it's good for a lifetime.

What got me really keyed into arts and education, one of my very first programs.

Today, it seems like everywhere, particularly where there's a blues society, one of the big things is to have a Blues in School program.

I'm so glad to see that that's happened.

But I had one of the very first Blues in Schools programs.

That's one of the things that I'm most proud of, is what we've been able to do there.

(gentle music) I'm not gon' be here forever, so the time I got left, this award has inspired me to go on.

In fact, I guess you could say it gave me the inspiration to get up off of my deathbed.

And I thank the Arts Council for this honor.

I truly did not expect it.

And this is more important to me than a gold record.

I just really appreciate it.

So, I came up with this little phrase that I use a lot now.

It says "More in '24."

That's because I've been to the edge, I'm coming back, and people are gonna see more of the Salt and Pepper Music series, they're gonna see more of the Arts in Education programming, they're gonna see more of me as a artist, as well as a visual artist.

I don't talk about my visual arts because it's my therapy.

When I get down and can't do anything else, I go grab a couple of pieces of canvas and work for a little while, and it's amazing how I come back out of there thinkin', "Yeah, okay.

I can do this."

- Friends, thank you for joining me, Tonya Terry, in celebrating the rich artistic culture in our state.

And on behalf of the Alabama State Council on the Arts and Alabama Public Television, congratulations once again to 2024 Celebration of Alabama Arts honorees Pinky Bass, Kevin King, Jeanie Thompson, Greta Lambert, Monique Ryan, Elias Katsaros, Chester Higgins, and Russell Gulley.

Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for the artistic legacies you've established in this state and beyond.

We treasure you.

Cheers to Alabama Shakespeare Festival for providing the perfect location for our celebration, and thank you to all the state officials, city officials, arts organizations, artists, and audiences who support the arts in Alabama.

If you'd like more information about the Alabama State Council on the Arts or the biennial Celebration of Alabama Arts, please visit arts.alabama.gov.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)