The things you do for friends…

When you receive a wedding invitation out of the blue from a friend you haven’t seen in five years and haven’t spoken to in at least two, it’s curious, to say the least.  My dear friend, Lorri Jones, left San Francisco and the web that she wove here for over 10 years to blaze some new territory (or old) by heading back to her hometown of Mocksville, NC.  This was an event I was NOT going to miss.  I was bound for NC to visit an old friend and some new ones at Skram Furniture (but that’s another story).

I’m not sure if she was surprised, but I think she was genuinely happy to have four misfits from her previous life in California there to share her day.  We hadn’t all been together since Lorri left, so we were expecting a reunion!

Mocksville’s a small town in a dry county about 50 miles west of Winston Salem and according to the latest census data, has a population of 4,178.  I probably don’t need to say too much more.

While Lorri was whisked off to her honeymoon, the reception at the Family Life Center left the four of us with something to be desired and we were in search of a better backdrop for our reunion.  We jumped in our cars and headed back toward Greensboro and landed at a place called the Sagebrush Steakhouse and then went to a local Applebee’s.  We were desperate.

Enter Marty McKinney.

After a mini-tour of some local Greensboro spots, we headed ‘Elsewhere’ for a party/fundraiser celebrating Andy Warhol.

artist collaborative / living museum

The story behind Elsewhere begins in 1939, when Joe and Sylvia Gray began selling furniture imports at 606 and 608 South Elm Street in downtown Greensboro, NC. Following WWII, the business made multiple transformations, from Surplus Store to catalog company, mending used army goods and selling them to Boy Scout troops across the country. After Joe’s unexpected death in 1955, Sylvia began to stock surplus fabric, clothing, and eventually general thrift items such as toys, books, housewares, and knick-knacks, and for the next 40 years, added to the increasingly unmanageable mass stored in boxes and piles throughout the three-story building.  We took a tour of the attic which hints at what the seemingly chaotic heap looked like at Sylvia’s death in 1997.

Sylvia’s grandson , George Scheer, was inspired by the potential for these “found objects” as artistic resource and went on to recruit fellow artists and friends to begin excavating Sylvia’s old store in May 2003..  The reorganization of Sylvia’s collection took form and local support increased.  Today the space houses an artist-residency program and living museum created by a collaborating community of artists where the rule is “…nothing comes in and nothing goes out.”

Upon entering we were each handed our Warhol glasses.

Marty got a little greedy

She looked like she "belonged" there.

One of the gems.

a local

My favorite room in the house

I realize that I probably won’t be seeing Lorri for a long time and I miss her, but if Lorri invites me back again, you can bet I’ll be headed back to Elsewhere.