For one night only this month, visitors to the Kentuck Art Center will delight in the smell of coffee lingering in the air and the low hum of the didgeridoo ringing through their ear drums.
Tonight the Kentuck Art Center will not be having its normal Kentuck Art Night. Instead, Coffee with the Collector will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Kentuck’s Georgine Clarke Building. Tickets are $20 or one can buy the guest speaker’s book instead of a ticket.
Coffee with the Collector will promote the 46th Annual Kentuck Festival of the Arts by giving a preview of the artists featured. The sneak peek will be revealed by special guest, Margaret Day Allen. She is the author of “When the Spirit Speaks: Self-Taught Art of the South,” which features some of the artists that will be in the festival.
“The artists that are featured in the book are Allen’s favorite artists,” said program manager at the Kentuck Art Center, Exa Skinner. “She’s travelled all over the South to interview these artists and listen to their stories.”
Allen also includes an art road map in her book. She lists some interesting places to hit up that feature the works of the artists she’s met. What makes the art road map feature of her book authentic is the fact that she has been to all these places in her travels across the South.
“I hope that viewers will learn a little bit more about some of our artists that will be in the festival and gain some knowledge about where the artists come from, who they are as people, and why they create art,” Skinner said. “Hopefully they will be excited to come to the festival and meet these artists in person.”
Coffee with the Collector will also have live musical entertainment from UA alum and Kentuck Festival didgeridoo artist, William MacGavin. This will also be MacGavin’s third year as an artist in the Kentuck Festival.
MacGavin has been playing the didgeridoo for over a decade and discovered it when his sister was gifted one from Australia. He then began to make his own didgeridoos out of plywood and fallen tree limbs. MacGavin has now made somewhere between 200 and 300 didgeridoos.
“I started building didgeridoos because I didn’t have enough money to buy them, but still wanted to learn how to play,” MacGavin said. “Through building didgeridoos, I understand better how to play them and the learning came so naturally for me.”
MacGavin is involved with the art community in Tuscaloosa through his business, MacGavin Woodworks and as a member of the Woodworkers Association of West Alabama. He helps children build bird houses at some Woodworkers Association events. He also visits third grade classrooms before Kentuck Art Nights to show children his didgeridoos and how to play one.
“I’m all about community building,” MacGavin said. “I’m excited to grow the global didgeridoo community here in Tuscaloosa, and Kentuck has been a crucial part in this.”
The Kentuck Festival of the Arts will be Oct. 21-22 and local residents and students can get a head start on the festivities tonight at Coffee with the Collector.
