Second Issue of Reckon Hits the Newsstands

The second issue of Reckon, the Center's exciting new magazine on the contemporary South, hit the newsstands in late August with a broad line-up of interesting articles, including a cover story on painter Benny Andrews, a native of rural Georgia. Andrews, the son of self-taught artist George Andrews, likes to mix oil and collage in his highly narrative work, which often has gone against prevailing tastes and trends in the art world.

"My work has always had the problem of where to place it," Andrews told Reckon contributing editor Lisa Howorth. "I will always be an outsider, and I like that."

At 64 Andrews is gaining recognition and praise for his paintings and collages. Most of his work is conceived in series. These include the strong social commentary of the America series, paintings and drawings created during 1990-91; Cruelty and Sorrow, a wrenching group executed in 1993-94; and the Stations of the Cross group dealing with resurrection and rejuvenation. A 1994-95 series, Revival, is based in Morgan County, Georgia, around 1940. As Howorth writes, "The whole theme is really a stage set in the Plainview Baptist Church. The cast consists of the deacons, the preacher, the sisters (older church ladies), the congregation, and Andrews's perspective from the mourner's bench, where the sinners awaited salvation. These are tense, emotional paintings, but they are not without humor and sweetness."

The second issue of the magazine also features interviews with writers Larry Brown and Reynolds Price, new fiction by Brown and another Mississippi writer, Cynthia Shearer, and articles on Louisiana's two-time singing governor, Jimmie Davis, the cultural tradition of the Natchez Pilgrimage, the rise of gated communities in the South, the McKissick Museum in South Carolina, and the Southern imprint on truck stop culture.

Other articles cover the legacy of Sheriff Buford Pusser, the consequences of luring auto plants to the South, a search for wilderness in the Okefenokee Swamp, efforts by a group of Southerners to save the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the memories of a Key West man who sparred with Hemingway, the annual Southern Circuit of independent films and their makers, a Sunday morning service with singer and preacher Al Green, the Photographic Archives at the University of Louisville, and a new wave of Southern cooks who are bringing innovation to traditional fixin's.

Reckon is a quarterly magazine that examines contemporary Southern culture and lifestyles. The magazine is distributed by subscription and by selected bookstores and newsstands across the country.

To subscribe to Reckon, send $21.95 to Reckon Subscription Department, 301 Hill Hall, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. If you would like to obtain a sample copy, send $5.95 per copy to the same address. If you would like to charge your subscription to a credit card or make other subscription inquiries, call 800-390-3527. For additional information, call 601-232-5742.

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