Pickens Museums

I’ve already made mention here about the outstanding job the Pickens County Library is doing with their historical photos and Flickr.  This past week I had seen something about a photography exhibit at the Pickens County Museum, and decided to check it out.

I was most impressed with this little museum.  Although it’s not high-tech at all, they have quite a collection of artifacts from the area.  The museum is located in the former jail, and the exterior still has the bars and unique architecture.  The history portion is downstairs, and there are art galleries upstairs, which is where I found the exhibit.

The exhibit had some of the usual suspects from the Upstate – Polly Donahue, Terri Bright, Diane Hopkins-Hughes, and David Crosby, to name a few.  I stood and marvelled at what some people are able to get out of a camera, while itching to hit the road again and see if I could shoot something worthy.

A quick lunch at a sandwich shop in Pickens, and I was off to take some pictures.  I followed the course of Twelve-Mile Creek to Six Mile (confusing, at best), and stopped off at Cataleechee to see if there were more shots to be taken there.  Mid day isn’t the best for photography, so I got nothing worthy of posting.  I crossed back over the creek at Lay Bridge, and took a couple of shots of the old rusty bridge.

From here, I skirted the town of Clemson and headed into Pendleton.   While quaint, most of the old shops on the square had modern activity, and kind of killed the mood I was after.  I’m glad to see such vitality, but it often doesn’t make for good photography.

I had seen a couple of photos on Flickr of a set of columns south of the town, and headed in that direction.  These belonged to Tanglewood Mansion.  Instead of the scene I knew from the photos, I found that a new branch of the Anderson County Library had been built nearly abutting the ruins.  A chain-link fence around the remains took away any further incentive for photography. What a shame.

From Tanglewood I drove back through Pendleton and on to Ashtibula Plantation.   It was open for business, but the sign that said "Admission: $5" followed by "No Photography" kind of turned me off.  I took a couple of shots of the exterior anyway, then headed on home.  At least I had found a winner with the Pickens Museum, even though the other historical places didn’t pan out.