Rock­mart con­tin­ues to en­joy a real cul­tural trea­sure in one lo­cal artist with an ex­pand­ing body of work that ranges from sculp­ture telling the Na­tiv­ity story to land­scapes that tell sto­ries of a nat­u­ral and en­gi­neered world.
Su­san Wa­ters is a na­tive of Bath in the United King­dom, and moved to Rock­mart in years past.
Over the past two decades, peo­ple have seen her work in the an­nual Rock­mart Christ­mas Pa­rade as her crèche cre­ations of the Na­tiv­ity story told a dif­fer­ent scene from the story since the 2000s.
Last year, her work was the high­lighted hol­i­day gallery show for the Rock­mart Cul­tural Arts Cen­ter. That show was hugely pop­u­lar, and drew crowds to the Rock­mart Art Gallery through the hol­i­day sea­son to see life­sized recre­ations of the peo­ple, an­i­mals and even the an­gels on high she built by hand us­ing only pa­per, glue and metal wire.
Dur­ing this win­ter’s Juried Art Show, Wa­ters took the Best of Show for her land­scape work. It was one of three paint­ings she en­tered into the show.
Her blue-rib­bon paint­ing “Flower Power” is a de­pic­tion of a field of flow­ers in the fore­front and the steam­ing power plant in the back­ground is just one of many paint­ings she’s cre­ated over the years.
Doc­tors at Johns Hop­kins Univer­sity hope to raise aware­ness and funds for re­search fol­low­ing famed gui­tarist Peter Framp­ton’s an­nounce­ment that he has a rare mus­cu­lar dis­ease.
Framp­ton’s physi­cian, Lisa Christo­pherS­tine, is the di­rec­tor of the Johns Hop­kins Myosi­tis Cen­ter. She tells The Bal­ti­more Sun that she and Framp­ton spoke years ago about po­ten­tially be­com­ing a voice for in­clu­sion body myosi­tis. Be­cause the dis­ease is rare, it’s dif­fi­cult to gen­er­ate fund­ing.
LOS AN­GE­LES — The orig­i­nal stars of “Bev­erly Hills, 90210” are plan­ning a high school re­union with a twist.
Priestly and Jen­nie Garth will play “height­ened ver­sions” of them­selves in a six­part se­ries air­ing this sum­mer.
Singing is among her many other tal­ents, and Wa­ters par­tic­i­pates as a mem­ber of the Rock­mart Com­mu­nity Choir when they per­form hol­i­day shows.
Cur­rently Wa­ters is plan­ning to teach a Pa­pier Mache Chicken Work­shop at the Rock­mart Cul­tural Arts Cen­ter which is com­ing up on March 23 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The open­ing class will cover how to make the sculp­ture, and then fol­low­ing on March 30 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., she’ll go over paint­ing the sculp­ture.
The class costs for $60 per per­son. Have fun and learn from a mas­ter artist. Call 770-684-2707 or email [email protected]­mart-ga.gov to sign up.
The dis­ease causes weak­ness in the legs, fore­arms and fin­gers. Its cause is still un­known. As it will even­tu­ally pre­vent Framp­ton from play­ing gui­tar, the 68-yearold is em­bark­ing on a farewell tour this sum­mer.
Ian Zier­ing, Gabrielle Car­teris, Brian Austin Green and Tori Spell­ing also will star in the up­com­ing se­ries.
The orig­i­nal se­ries aired from 1990 to 2000 and fol­lowed a cir­cle of friends in high school and young adult­hood.
A date for the new se­ries hasn’t been an­nounced.
Rock ‘n’ roll pi­o­neer Jerry Lee Lewis is re­cov­er­ing af­ter a mi­nor stroke, but he’s ex­pected to make a full re­cov­ery.
A state­ment from his pub­li­cist says the 83-yearold Rock & Roll Hall of Famer had a stroke Thurs­day night and is re­cu­per­at­ing in Mem­phis. His pub­li­cist, Zach Far­num, said no sched­uled shows have been af­fected.
He is sched­uled to per­form at the 50th an­niver­sary of the New Or­leans Jazz and Her­itage Fes­ti­val in April and his pub­li­cist said he has plans to record a gospel al­bum soon.
A small north­ern Alabama mu­sic stu­dio where The Rolling Stones, Cher, and other stars recorded their hit songs is turn­ing 50 this year.
Mus­cle Shoals Sound Stu­dios will host an April 27 cel­e­bra­tion of the mile­stone in Sh­effield, Alabama.
David Hood will per­form as part of a Mus­cle Shoals All-Stars re­vue, fronted by singer Carla Rus­sell, Al.com re­ported. Hood is one of the stu­dio’s co-founders and the bassist for pro­lific ses­sion mu­si­cians Mus­cle Shoals Rhythm Sec­tion, also known as The Swampers.
The Swampers opened Mus­cle Shoals Sound in 1969, af­ter back­ing R&B stars such as Wil­son Pick­ett and Etta James at nearby FAME Stu­dios.
Hood and fel­low Swampers mu­si­cians Jimmy John­son, Roger Hawkins and Barry Beck­ett recorded much of their work at the Sh­effield build­ing — for­merly the home of a cof­fin fac­tory.
In 1978, they re­lo­cated the stu­dio to a for­mer Naval Re­serve Build­ing along the Ten­nessee River. That’s where Bob Dy­lan recorded his 1979 “Slow Train Com­ing” al­bum; and his 1980 “Saved” al­bum.
Cher was among the first artists the Mus­cle Shoals Rhythm Sec­tion worked with at the orig­i­nal stu­dio. Her re­sult­ing al­bum, re­leased in June 1969, was ti­tled “3614 Jack­son High­way” af­ter Mus­cle Shoals Sound’s ad­dress in Sh­effield. The ad­dress was su­per­im­posed on the al­bum’s cover photo, Al.com re­ported.
From top left, Tori Spell­ing, Jen­nie Garth, Gabrielle Car­teris, and bot­tom row from left, Brian Austin Green, Ian Zier­ing and Ja­son Pri­est­ley.