Windsor Ruins

Posted on January 8, 2009August 22, 2011 by Varg

I’ve always been a bit of a Highway 61 nut. I mean, Swaggert got busted in a motel, Bessie Smith died and Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil along this stretch of road. So, it’s got some mystic history about it. I’m into that sort of spooky folklore. Not ghosts so much as myths and legends, stuff people talk about.

So when I had the chance to take The Highway back from Vicksburg, MS over the holidays I freed up the day and planned on stopping at Natchez and Saint Francisville along the way. I also wanted to stop at The Windsor Ruins which ended up being the best part of the trip.

The Windsor Ruins are located in Claiborne County in the U.S. state of Mississippi, about 10 miles southwest of Port Gibson near Alcorn State University. The ruins are those of the largest antebellum Greek Revival mansion built in the state, and have been used in various motion pictures. … The only remnants today are 23 haunting columns, a few pieces of china, and a set of the wrought-iron stairs and portions of the balustrade. The flight of stairs and the balustrade are now used at Alcorn State University’s chapel down the road.

They are simply the columns. The mason and plaster supports of a mammoth plantation burned by a stray cigar. On the day I visited it was cloudy and windy and the trees surrounding the property were all dead, a particularly nice setting for these ghosts.

They are only 11 miles off The Highway beside a Kudzu covered cliff. It’s worth the drive. Gallery is below…

1 thought on “Windsor Ruins”

Ray M says:

January 8, 2009 at 11:24 am

Hate to break the romantic spell, but … much of 61 is not the original 61 in the Miss. Delta, north of Vicksburg. The original is crazy curvy, very dangerous. Also, U.S. 49 is the more significant blues highway. U.S. 61 is thought of more as a “blues” highway because many modern-day blues fans are also Dylan fans and Bob had a blues-drenched album called “Highway 61 Revisited.” That highway, however, also runs through Minnesota, where Bob grew up and still owns a ranch.

Great trip, though, I’m sure. Enjoy it! And be sure to stop by the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale.

Just went to see the Windsor Ruins myself for the first time, about a year or so ago. Photo taking holiday, that was. It’s so remote that my cell phone didn’t work at all out there!

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.