A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Local items of interest from Greenville and Upstate SC.
I’ve notice something new this year. Several communities have been holding spring fairs. Anderson held their fair a couple of weeks ago, and one is currently underway in Simpsonville. It seems a strange time of year to hold a fair, so I decided to check out the Simpsonville Fair at Heritage Park.
This has been an incredibly busy weekend. I paddled two different rivers – the New River and the May River near Bluffton, and the weekend wasn’t yet done. I was also serving as a docent for the Laurens Cemetery Tours this year.
Furman graduation, Clemson graduation, Bob Jones graduation, Newberry College Graduation, Strawberry Festival, Greer Festival, Spartanburg Spring Fling, Reedy River Duck Derby, Kentucky Derby, Shape Note Singing, etc, etc, etc….
The list of events for the first Saturday in May for our area is truly mind-blowing. There was no way I could get to all of them, but I participated in as many as I could.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about locating several old cemeteries for the various textile mill villages in Greenville. In the article I said that I was disappointed that I had not been able to visit the Brandon Mill Cemetery, as it was overgrown and off-limits.
I had posted a link to the blog post on one of the Greenville discussion groups on Facebook, and it generated quite a bit of discussion. Teresa Slack posted a comment that they would be organizing a clean up of the Brandon Mill Cemetery. I knew that I had to attend.
So far I’d found two old textile mill village cemeteries somewhat by accident. These reminded me of an article in the Greenville News by Judy Bainbridge from 2009. The article was entitled “Woodside, other mill villages need care.” Bainbridge had listed several mill village cemeteries in town, and at the time I’d thought about trying to find them. Then I kind of forgot about it. That is, until my recent discoveries. Now I was ready to seek out these other forgotten cemeteries.
It’s strange how these discoveries start out, sometimes. I had popped out to run some errands – purchasing bulbs for a finicky light fixture in a bathroom, which required specialized bulbs from Home Depot. As always, I have at least one camera (besides my iPhone) with me in the car. I liked the way the afternoon light was falling on the buildings, so I decided to ride around Greenville a bit and take some photos.
My aimless wandering led me through the mill villages between Poinsett Highway and Old Buncombe Road. I soon found myself at the old American Spinning textile mill, exploring some of the shadier streets. That’s when I stumbled upon the old cemetery associated with the mill village. I had to get out and explore.
It was a beautiful spring day, perfect for exploring downtown and the Falls Park area. Ken wanted to get some photos of the Rock Quarry Garden for a painting subject, so Tuesday morning of this past week I drove over to Clemson to get him for a downtown Greenville photo walk.
This past weekend had already been incredibly busy. There was the Morten Lauridsen event, SC Comicon, and I was barely getting started. Seems like everyone had an event planned for this first weekend in April, and I was going to hit as many of them as I could.
This past weekend went from the sublime to the ridiculous – from the ethereal sounds of Morten Lauridsen to the total weirdness of South Carolina Comicon.
This past week Furman University and First Baptist Church of Greenville have played host to composer Morten Lauridsen. Lauridsen taught several master classes at Furman, then worked with the choir from First Baptist and the Cantus Chamber Choir from the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts. The weekend culminated in a performance of Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna at First Baptist Church, under the direction of Vivian Hamilton and accompanied by members of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra.