By Donna Cornelius Even the most industrious cooks can find it hard to meet the culinary demands of the holiday season. One foolish person has in the past made her own food gifts for friends and neighbors, invited her Friday night supper club to a small party, hosted a Christmas Eve dinner and committed to making an app, three side dishes and a dessert for her family’s main … [Read more...]
New Digs, New Opportunities as Artists Incorporated Moves to Grand River
By Ingrid Howard At the end of this year, Artists Incorporated will close its Vestavia Hills location. The art gallery opened 19 years ago at its location off Rocky Ridge Road in Vestavia Hills. For the past year, it also has been operating on Saturdays at a storefront in the Shops of Grand River mall in Leeds. By January, the artists plan to consolidate the gallery and … [Read more...]
If You Build It, They Will Laugh: New Birmingham Improv Theater Will Drop the Mic Five to Six Nights a Week
By Emily Williams In 2005, when David Grissom sold off an improv theater he owned for a time in Chicago, he told himself: “I will never do this again.” Luckily for Grissom, trained in the art of improvisational comedy at Second City in Chicago and current founder and chief creative officer of Positively Funny Improv, he has the skill to find the comic irony in his current … [Read more...]
Creative Hobby: VH Resident Spends His Retirement Making Stained Glass
By Ingrid Howard In addition to Christmas trees, lights and wreaths, Town Village Vestavia Hills has another decoration for residents to enjoy, and this one can last year-round. On some of the windows in the independent living community hang stained glass creations made by hand in Ron Vander Shaaf’s third-floor apartment. He learned that the price for a two-bedroom apartment … [Read more...]
‘Shining Time’ : John Baumgartner Relished His Professional Baseball Career
By Rubin E. Grant John Baumgartner walked into the home team clubhouse at historic Rickwood Field on a late November morning and immediately looked at a picture hanging above some lockers. The picture showed former Birmingham Barons legend Walt Dropo swinging a bat. Dropo and Baumgartner were teammates with the Detroit Tigers in 1953, but it wasn’t Dropo at the plate that … [Read more...]