Dial Flip Book

THORNTON DIAL

I, Too, Am Alabama

Edited by Paul Barrett
and Rebecca Dobrinski





Opposite: Untitled (fishing lure) (1960s-1980s)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

THORNTON DIAL

I, Too, Am Alabama

THORNTON DIAL: I, Too, Am Alabama

This catalog was produced in conjunction with the exhibitions Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama at the
Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (September 9-December
10, 2022) and I, Too, Am Thornton Dial at the Samford University Art Gallery (September 15-December 2, 2022),
both in Birmingham, Alabama. The editors would also like to acknowledge the exhibition Anyone Can Move a
Mountain at Maus Contemporary (August 19-October 1, 2022) featuring the artist contributors to this book.

© 2022 University of Alabama at Birmingham Press
ISBN: 979-8-9865050-1-5
Cataloging-in-publication information is available from the Library of Congress.
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the written permission of the editors of record.
Every effort has been made to trace the status of all works of art mentioned within the catalog. The editors
apologize for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be
incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
All works by Thornton Dial are © Estate of Thornton Dial / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
All photos are by Jerry Siegel, unless otherwise noted.
Quotes from the Dial family are taken from the transcript of footage created in 2021 for an episode of the
Alabama Public Television show Monograph. The episode was unaired at the time of publication.

Front Cover Credit
Man with His Bream (1987). Thornton Dial. Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett. © Estate of Thornton
Dial / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York. Photo by Jerry Siegel.

Back Cover Credit
Antioch (2015). Thornton Dial. Private Collection. © Estate of Thornton Dial / Artists Right Society (ARS), New
York. Photo by Jerry Siegel.

For Buck and Bill.
You were right, history refused to die.

Untitled (studio door) (c. 1980)
Collection of the Estate of Thornton Dial

CONTENTS

Alabama is not a throwaway place.
1.1 “All Y’all Really From Alabama”……………………………Ashley M. Jones
1.2 “In the Midst of You”……………………………………………….Paul Barrett
1.3 “A Portrait of the Artist”…………………………………………….Jerry Siegel
1.4 “An Up and Down Life Picture”………………………………….Roscoe Hall

If I could do it, I’d do no writing at all here.
2.1 Preamble to “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men”……………..James Agee
2.2 “Blackness in February”………………………………..Michaela Pilar Brown
2.3 “The Indian is Still Here”…………………………………………..Umar Rashid

What do you think an artist is?
3.1 Pablo Picasso……………………………………..interview with Simone Téry
3.2 “Putting the Damage On”……………………………………..Jakob Dwight
3.3 “Surface and Medium: The Quiet Part Out Loud”…………Leslie Smith III

We are made by history.
4.1 excerpt from “Strength To Love”……………………Martin Luther King, Jr.
4.2 “A New Kind of Monument”………………………Margaret Lynne Ausfeld
4.3 “No Right in the Wrong”…………………………………….Shaun Leonardo

I, Too, am America.
5.1 “I, Too”…………………………………………………………Langston Hughes
5.2 “Hoodoo People: We Know Them When We See Them”.…Renée Stout
5.3 “Art is Strange-Looking Stuff”……………………………………...Paul Arnett
5.4 “An Immense Presence”…………………………………………...John Fields

Index
6.1 Thornton Dial
6.2 Referenced Works

Untitled Photo by William S. Arnett (c. 1987-1988)
[20491/2450], in the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Collection #20491,
Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Alabama is not a throwaway place.

By the Roses (undated)
Collection of the Estate of Thornton Dial

ALL Y’ALL REALLY FROM ALABAMA

“...The straitjackets of race prejudice and discrimination do not wear only southern

and victimization of the Negro the outright terror and open brutality of the South.”
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

this here the cradle of this here nation—
everywhere you look, roots run right back
south. every vein filled with red dirt, blood,
cotton. we the dirty word you spit out your
mouth. mason dixon is an imagined line—
you can theorize it, or wish it real, but it’s the
same old ghost—see-through, benign. all
y’all from alabama; we the wheel turning
cotton to make the nation move. we the
scapegoat in a land built from death. no
longitude or latitude disproves the truth of
founding fathers’ sacred oath:
we hold these truths like dark snuff in our jaw,
Black oppression’s not happenstance; it’s law.

- Ashley M. Jones

Fairfield (2007)
Private Collection

Alabama is not a throwaway place. It is not a place to cast off and say, “too
bad” or “not enough.” Growing up here, I always thought I had to leave to
follow my dreams, that Alabama was a place of shame only. That art couldn’t
thrive here. But the opposite is true—we are the birthplace of so many amazing
artists, writers, and changemaking movements. The people of Alabama are the
thing which makes this place breathe. And all those folks who say to me in my
travels that Alabama is where all hatred resides, I like to remind them that this
entire nation was built on racism, pillage, trafficking, mistreatment of
marginalized people, and a violent adherence to a system designed to keep
those on the bottom squarely there. I didn’t learn about Mr. Thornton Dial until
recently, and I’m struck by his own thoughts about freedom, Blackness, and the
way his work screams a unique Southernness that is familiar to me. It is high time
for his work to be celebrated, collected, and highlighted in Alabama—we
have to start valuing ourselves without the need for validation outside of our
state’s borders. We have to understand that this place is more than a scape-
goat, and that the issues we have here have roots in every single state in this
country. By the same token, what we create here has influenced every single
state—we are a building place. We are an artful place. We are a place where
freedom can be born.

- Ashley M. Jones

Coming in From the Background (1996)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

IN THE MIDST OF YOU

On November 12, 2010, a mutual acquaintance brought me to Thornton Dial’s studio in
Bessemer, Alabama, for the first time. This was one of Alabama’s greatest living artists,
possibly one of the greatest American artists. I was starstruck, and in the moment cannot
have said anything noteworthy or memorable. The artwork was, and is, both memorable
and extraordinary.

Mr. Dial was an enigma because I never had the pleasure of knowing him well. Preparing
for the largest exhibition of his work ever mounted in his home state presented seemingly
endless opportunities – and just as many rabbit holes. One rabbit hole led me to re-watch
the 2007 Alabama Public Television documentary, Mr. Dial Has Something To Say. In the
midst of the interviews with people I recognized, I was struck by Jane Fonda’s statement to
the camera, "One of the things that I really wish for is that Thornton Dial, before he dies, gets
the recognition that he deserves."

Artists from Alabama are rarely celebrated as such. Rather, we gaze longingly at the works
of artists from here, basking in the reflected glory of those who left and achieved success
elsewhere. We claim them and hope they won’t embarrass us by rejecting our pride in their
accomplishments. The scars of the Reconstruction run deep. When we take too much pride
in our achievements, we risk giving oxygen to the Lost Cause myth. So, we qualify our best
contributions and perpetually live in the shadow of other places. The grass is always greener
on the other side of the fence – or the state line. Or the Mason-Dixon Line.

I reject this mindset out of hand. While I’ve never been particularly religious, I think of Luke
17:20-21, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they
say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
The excellence of human achievement is with us, and all around us. What more perfect
expression of faith can there be than to acknowledge what is best in humanity?

In 2013, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts exhibited, Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper,
organized by the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, but

otherwise I found no evidence of another institutional exhibition dedicated solely to the
work of Thornton Dial, despite Dial’s work featuring prominently in group exhibitions in
Birmingham, Gadsden, Mobile, Montgomery, and Tuscaloosa over the years. Dial enjoyed
a major solo exhibition jointly presented by the New Museum and the American Folk Art
Museum in New York in 1993. He was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial. In 2005 the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presented Thornton Dial in the 21st Century. His 2011 solo
outing, Hard Truths, organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, traveled to the New
Orleans Museum of Art, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, and concluded at Atlanta’s High
Museum of Art in 2013. While Alabama celebrated Kerry James Marshall with a solo
museum exhibition in 2005 and Bessemer-born Jack Whitten with a solo show at beta
pictoris/Maus Contemporary in 2011, Thornton Dial was left behind.

On February 1, 2016, the week after Mr. Dial died, the Birmingham News published an
appreciation by Gail Andrews, then R. Hugh Daniel Director of the Birmingham Museum of
Art. She wrote, “…the question that has frequently arisen is, why didn’t more people in
Alabama, specifically the Birmingham area, recognize and appreciate his talent? We can
say the same about many other artists from our state, but this artist had a particularly stellar
exhibition and gallery record.” She continued, “That said, not everyone embraced this work.
In the case of Mr. Dial, the work looked raw, unfinished and primitive to some. The same was
said of Lonnie Holley’s assemblages and his ‘one acre of art,’ eventually taken over by the
airport for expansion.” However, three weeks later, the High Museum of Art opened Greener
Pastures: In Memory of Thornton Dial, Sr. Both the New York Times and Washington Post
published obituaries before the Birmingham News. Alabamians should not have to wait for
validation from New York and Washington, DC. As the quilters of Gee’s Bend sing in Maris
Curran’s 2018 documentary for the New York Times, “Give me my flowers while I yet live.”

Much has been written about Mr. Dial's work, including significant historical publications by
Paul Arnett and his father, Bill, who championed many Alabama artists' work for decades
before those artists had an appreciative audience at home. The challenge then became
to create a new publication that would add to an already rich body of writing. Alongside
essays by scholars and art-historians, I asked artists from around the United States to respond
to Thornton Dial's work and to relate it to their own artistic practice.

History is subjective. Art, even more so. This publication brings together a range of artists
and scholars who contributed their reactions to Dial's work. The proof of concept - why I
selected these contributors - became the catalyst for the exhibition Anyone Can Move a
Mountain and a constellation of guiding stars illuminating the framework for Thornton Dial: I,
Too, Am Alabama. Paul Arnett, co-author of the seminal, Souls Grown Deep, Volumes 1&2,
and Margaret Lynne Ausfeld, curator and contributor to the original, History Refused to Die:
The Enduring Legacy of African American Art in Alabama, were kind enough to contribute
here. Ashley M. Jones, Alabama’s youngest-ever Poet Laureate, wrote a new introduction
for her poem, All Y’all Really From Alabama, that beautifully mirrors Langston Hughes’
poem, I, Too, which inspired so much of the thought process behind this exhibition and
catalog.

Just as James Nelson, Douglas and Tita Hyland, Georgine Clarke, Jon Coffelt, Emily Hanna,
and Bill Arnett introduced me to significant artists and their work over the last 35-years, it is
now my privilege to continue to introduce others to important Alabama artists. My heartfelt
thanks to Richard and Dan Dial and the Dial family for welcoming me into your homes and
sharing your stories. Thanks to Paul Arnett for helping me to fulfill a pipe dream I shared with
your father years ago. Thanks to Rebecca and Jack Drake, and to Doug McCraw and
Becky Patterson for your unwavering support of Alabama artists (and my tilting at windmills).
Thanks to everyone at AEIVA, Samford University, and the Wiregrass Museum of Art for
sticking with this project through COVID and my constant insistence that we do more to
give the Dial family and Alabama the show Mr. Dial always deserved. Thanks to Guido Maus
for allowing me to bring Anyone Can Move A Mountain to Birmingham during the
exhibitions at AEIVA and Samford. And thanks especially to my mother, Jan, for her love
and encouragement.

I have heard Joe Minter use the following phrase many times, but it was never so poignant
as when he said it at Mr. Dial’s memorial service: “We may not have it all together, but
together, we have it all.”

- Paul Barrett

Untitled (c. 1989)
Collection of Doug McCraw

“During the late 1990s, when I was
introduced to Mr. Dial’s work, the
composition of his artwork felt like it was
in a period of transitioning to a much

more sophisticated level of
expressiveness. Despite his reserved

speaking style, his art is powerful,
forceful, and full of impact. He always
spoke with such a soft but clear voice.
It reminded me a bit of my father who

shared that trait. If the words were
recorded and transcribed, it would
read like a sort of prose - very Southern,

very soft, and very clear.”

- Doug McCraw

Untitled (undated)
Collection of Doug McCraw

“I learned a whole lot just by being around him and knowing how to look at something and
look like it needs to be needed. So I learned that from him and yes, I did learn that.”

- Dan Dial

“He was always making something, so it really didn't excite me or nothing like that because I
was used to it. I guess when we started going to different shows and museums and stuff like
that, I started loving it a whole lot because I said, this stuff going somewhere, it's going to be
something- I realized that. I guess I was around four to eight, somewhere like that and I said,
Daddy going somewhere with his art and he loved to be praised about what he do. I guess
it went so many years and he made it and didn't nobody praise him for it, but when that
time came, people started praising him for it, that made him love it even harder. That made
him work harder at it. Daddy would paint all night.”

- Thornton Dial, Jr.

Face to Face with the Tiger (undated)
Collection of Rebecca & Jack Drake

The Tiger in Control of His Jungle (1990)
Collection of Doug McCraw

Fishing for Business (1989)
Collection of Doug McCraw

Untitled (1996)
Private Collection

“They was round, probably 20 feet long or something like that. He didn't fish fair, he
believed in trapping fish with nets, but when it came down to the art, he always made art
but didn't nobody never recognize it. He made baits, painted them, little designs in them,
but he always wanted to make a million of them. I don't actually think they account to a
million.”

- Thornton Dial, Jr.

Untitled (fishing lure) (1960s-1980s)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

Man with His Bream (1987)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

Time Clock (1994)
Collection of Paul H. Arnett

Posing with a Laying Bird (1995)
Collection of William Matthew Arnett

Clockwise from top-left: Charles Shannon, Alabama (1995).
Crawford Gillis, Alabama (1994). John Lapsley, Alabama (2004).

All photos courtesy of Jerry Siegel

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

One of my first introductions to vernacular (formerly outsider) art was through my uncle,
also named Jerry Siegel, a gallery owner and collector in Selma, Alabama. His focus was
on Alabama artists including Anne Goldthwaite, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Crawford Gillis, and Clara
Weaver Parrish, among others. But the piece just inside his office door that most captured
my attention was a drawing by Bill Traylor. Traylor was a former slave living in Montgomery,
whose work was brought to the art world by Charles Shannon. I loved the looseness and
emotion of the work and how it depicted Traylor’s life. Shannon, a significant painter in his
own right, had befriended Traylor on the Montgomery streets in 1939. Shannon was also a
close friend of my Uncle Jerry, and, in 1996, he sat for one of the earliest portraits I made of
Southern artists.

This series of Southern artists started organically, photographing friends who also happened
to be great artists: Crawford Gillis and John Lapsley of Selma; Mary Ward Brown, a
distinguished writer from Marion, and Shannon. After seeing these portraits, Bill Eiland,
Director of the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia, suggested I had the
beginnings of a nice series of late-career Southern artists. As I was introduced to many New
Orleans artists by Donna Perret Rosen, director/owner of Galerie Simone Stern, the series
grew. I soon began to reach out to artists whose work I admired and hoped to meet. Being
a fan of vernacular art, I made trips to Gainesville, Georgia, to photograph R.A. Miller, back
to Montgomery to see Mose T., and to Pink Lily, Alabama, for a visit to the studio and
environment of Charlie “Tin Man” Lucas.

Early on I was particularly interested in vernacular art, and I loved the accessibility of the art
and the artists. It was an adventure to pull up to their houses, knock on their doors, and be
exposed to the wonders of their art, whether it was tacked on walls, lying on beds, or nailed
to the side of the house, and especially to the storytelling that is such a big part of the work.

In 1996 the Souls Grown Deep exhibition opened at City Hall East in Atlanta. It was at this
show where works by Thornton Dial and Ronald Lockett really made an impression. I was
drawn to the work and wanted to meet Mr. Dial and make his portrait. I reached out to
Matt Arnett, who was willing to make the introduction.

Thornton Dial, McCalla, Alabama (2007) The day I went to meet Mr. Dial was a
Photo courtesy of Jerry Siegel beautiful morning in June 2007. I made the
drive from Atlanta to McCalla, a pretty spot
studio and in his environment on the grounds. about 30 minutes southwest of Birmingham.
Mr. Dial met me as I made my way up to
the house. At this point in the series, I had
met and made portraits of a number of
great artists. But for some reason this one
felt different. Most of the time, when I ar-
rived for a shoot, there had been a phone
call or an email. I had no communication
with Mr. Dial before I arrived, so I was not
sure if he would be happy to have me
there, or consider me a necessary evil or a
pain in the ass. He could not have been
nicer. He showed me around the studio,
telling me about the pieces he was working
on. He was soft spoken and generous with
his time. We made portraits both in his

When the time came to publish the artist series, there were many strong contenders to
choose from for the cover of the book. Early on it was pretty clear that the portrait of
Mr. Dial belonged on the cover. With that said, the greatest gift of this project has been
meeting the artists who welcomed me into their homes and studios, sharing their thoughts
and work, and the lasting relationships I’ve cultivated as the series continues.

- Jerry Siegel

Above: Lonnie Holley, Alabama (2009)
Photo courtesy of Jerry Siegel

Below: Lonnie Holley - Untitled (wire face) (1987)
Collection of the estate of William Sidney Arnett

This Page:
Above: Thornton Dial’s Studio (2007)
Below: Home of Thornton Dial (2007)

Facing Page:
Above: Thornton Dial’s Studio (2007)
Below: Thornton Dial, McCalla, Alabama (2007)

All photos courtesy of Jerry Siegel.



An Up and Down Life Picture (c. 1989-1990)
Collection of Doug McCraw

AN UP AND DOWN LIFE PICTURE

Thornton Dial’s painting, An Up and Down Life Picture, remains relevant in today’s world.

Dial’s choice of materials, and his method of applying those materials to wood and canvas,
forces the viewer deep into the work’s presence. Through his hands-on process, Dial never
fails to present his subject matter clearly and concisely, while inserting the viewer into an
often familiar moment.

Under closer inspection of An Up and Down Life Picture, I find myself obsessively counting
the number of eyes staring back at me from the painting’s surface. I am pushed to look
closer at the shapes and forms of each figure, trying to understand the time and place
when each was created. At first glance, Dial’s color palette and composition appear to
be a commentary on what it feels like to be simultaneously immersed and alienated in
America’s complex culture - the daily struggle of one’s spirit within themselves - and more
precisely, what it means to be Black in America.

Once the viewer has made their own connections to Dial’s color choices and his artistic
figurative approach, the next complex layer takes precedence: the effect he creates with
his choice of materials. This is the moment when the viewer is able to become conscious of
Dial’s materials and everything about them—their size, placement, and message. For me,
there’s always a reason behind the materials I choose, and I would argue the same was
true for Dial in his artistic process. I use a variety of materials, including cotton, paper, and
rayon, for the purpose of driving myself deeper into my work. More specifically, I use media
as an illustration or description of my intimate attachment to the subjects and personal
experiences I portray or infuse into my artwork. As a result of these media choices, the
viewer is enticed to draw nearer, too.

Dial’s application of medium, covering black house paint with white house paint, effectively
builds forms and creates dimension: one with strong texture—with an almost ghostly
atmosphere. It is a technique that I apply to my own paintings. During this stage of
incorporating a variety of materials and media, I see the painting’s texture start to emerge.
Through the torn materials, whether they are strategically or randomly placed, I can begin

to visually and conceptually tell my story. Whatever theme or story I’m telling, this texture is
what drives me, and ultimately pulls in the viewer to try and understand the work—an
approach and purpose I consider similar to Dial’s own.

Dial’s work continues to reveal its complex layers (and its creator’s mastery) to the viewer,
like a gradual epiphany. And understanding the meaning behind his titles is no less
important. I have often taken Dial’s approach to selecting a work’s title. His titles are raw,
giving the viewer insight into where he was personally during the time he created the work
and what he needed to express.

My interpretation of An Up and Down Life
Picture is the harsh reality of Black America
during the time of progress. Dial’s vision in this
particular piece was to present the hard work
it took to get our community, especially in the
Southeast, to feel comfortable in expressing
the pain, guilt, and hardship involved in this
progress.

His figures express the challenges we faced

while fighting for equality and attempting to

uplift our spirits within this country. If you take

a close look at Black America in the South Roscoe Hall - The Entire Year (2022)
and beyond today, we’ve reached that point Photo courtesy of the Artist & Scott Miller Projects

of expression at the highest level. However,

we are still in the spiritual upheaval of attempting to keep up. Gaining the knowledge

needed to compete, or even just living within the moment, can often be more challenging

than the fight itself.

An Up and Down Life…for real.

- Roscoe Hall

Climbing the Tree of Life - The Long Yellow Man and the Alligator (1992)
Collection of Doug McCraw

Shedding the Blood (1991)
Collection of Doug McCraw

Everybody Loves the Movie Star Lady (1989)
Collection of Doug McCraw

“Well, I think with me traveling and getting the opportunity to talk to people, most people
that you talk to that's art lovers will say that he's one of the greatest artists of the century.
So I really wouldn't want to say... What I would say about it is just that I think it's great. I think
it's... I like all the materials and stuff that he worked with and amazed at how he was able to
put it together. You got a large portion of people that loved what he did and respected
what he did. I think growing up with him that you... I kind of thought like my mom and dad,
get this stuff out of the house so we can get this corner over here cleaned up. But now
looking back, I personally praise and fell in love with the creations that he made, and I think
the majority of people that get to see his work feel the same way.”

- Richard Dial

"What y'all think about this?" "Oh dad, I don't think I like that one." "Well, you got to like this?"
"No, dad. I don't like it," but just to watch him work, it was amazing. Because he would work
on three and four pictures at a time, and he would stay up. Mom would say, “It's getting
late out there. You need to come over in the house. Somebody can come up in this yard.
We won't even know you gone.” But it was great watching him to work, especially when he
would be in the house, and he would sit there and draw his pictures. That was wonderful.

- Mattie Dial

Untitled (fishing lure) (1960s-1980s)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

If I could do it, I’d do no writing at all here.

Having Nothing is Having Everything (inset, verso) (2005)
Collection of the Estate of William Sidney Arnett

"If I could do it, I'd do no writing at all here. It would be photographs; the rest would be
fragments of cloth, bits of cotton, lumps of earth, records of speech, pieces of wood and
iron, phials of odours, plates of food and of excrement. Booksellers would consider it quite
a novelty; critics would murmur, yes, but is it art; and I could trust a majority of you to use it
as you would a parlor game. A piece of the body torn out by the roots might be more to
the point."

- James Agee, from the Preamble to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, 1941

This is What People Like to Wear When They Out for Business (1990)
Collection of Doug McCraw