I began my relationship with the town of Laurel in a hurricane so it was ironic again a hurricane--The Broken Fall: A Katrina Collection-- led me back to the gem of a town in the piney belt of Mississippi where lumber barons reigned and built stately homes along a grid that compares only to New York in street planning. Numbers and straight lines. A novel idea for someone from the Crescent City. We love curves and names you cannot say or spell. Clio = CL ten. Really.
And if you follow those lines around their central park, one will stumble upon one of the finest private museums in the South. Lauren Rogers, as a young local visionary, began building his dream home there, and upon his untimely death, it was finished as a gallery and an extensive working art resource library. Their basket collection, made locally by Native Americans is unrivaled, and I look with great anticipation to this month when Welty in New York debuts, celebrating the writer's photographic journal of the Big Apple. But the grande dame of the landmark is the Reading Room, sophisticated and rich in legacy, including its free-standing coat of armor which always entices local children to spend a night at the museum. And they come and come. Adults come free! Please visit and ask for Liz. She's their lethal weapon! www.lrma.org
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