Final Days of “Stop, Look & Listen” & Helen Keller Arts Shows at BPL

Roger Stephenson, Jock Webb – Gip’s Place, Bessemer, AL
Pigment ink print on archival paper, 2022, 43” x 37”

Two art exhibitions – Roger Stephenson’s knockout photo exhibition of musicians and the delightful Helen Keller Art Show of Alabama – are approaching their final days at downtown’s Central Library. Stop, Look & Listen is on view in the Fourth Floor Gallery and has been extended through Saturday, November 2. The Helen Keller Art Show of Alabama, on display in the First Floor Gallery, draws to a close this Thursday, October 31.

A vast assemblage of works by Roger Stephenson, Stop, Look & Listen, features a trove of black-and-white photographs of locally and internationally known blues and jazz musicians. Stephenson specializes in performance photography, and his images portray the artists at their most expressive moments. “I love the challenge of capturing expressions and gestures to create an image that communicates with the viewer,” he says.

Originally from Yorkshire, England, Stephenson could be found snapping photos with a Brownie box camera in his hometown of Harrogate at the age of nine. Today he is an official photographer for the Blues Foundation at their Blues Music Awards and International Blues Competition and a contributing photographer for the magazine Living Blues. His photographs have been published in numerous media, including on musicians’ websites, CD covers, and concert posters. His work has also been exhibited at galleries and museums in Alabama and Mississippi.

Several of the musicians portrayed in Stop, Look & Listen – including Earl “Guitar” Williams, Elnora Spencer, “Hurricane” Elaine Hudson, and Jock Webb – performed in a blues concert at the library on Friday, September 13, and returned to the library for an artist’s reception the following day. Stay tuned for information on next year’s blues concert!

All the photographs in Stop, Look & Listen are for sale. The artist receives 100% of the proceeds from sales but may choose to donate 10% of the proceeds to the Friends Foundation of BPL.

Cur’Niyah Sigel, Fun, Flashy, Snowflakes
Rudd Middle School (Pinson), CTSVI: Kate Follett

During the month of October, the walls in the Central Library’s First Floor Gallery have been adorned with the radiant works of the Helen Keller Art Show of Alabama (HKAS). The exhibition showcases 40 pieces of art created by students with visual impairments, blindness, and/or deaf blindness from across the state of Alabama. Children who participate in HKAS use various media to create one-of-a-kind masterpieces, many of which have tactile components that can be experienced through the sense of touch.

On Thursday, October 17, Shirley Wilson, Director of HKAS, and Candace Sanders, a TSI, conducted an after-school workshop for students from Phillips Academy. The students watched a documentary narrated by one of the show’s featured artists, received a guided tour of the show, and donned simulation glasses to experience what it’s like to have various types of visual impairments. Students were then given the chance to create works of art while wearing the simulation glasses – an illuminating experience for everyone involved!

From left: Gavin Tucker, Shirley Wilson, Kaleah, Terrell, Candace Sanders

All the artworks in the Helen Keller Art Show of Alabama are for sale. Proceeds from sales go directly to HKAS, which covers framing and transportation of the artworks to museums and exhibition spaces in the following year’s show, as well as the purchase of art materials for schools that do not supply them.

The Art for Everyone exhibition series is made possible by a grant awarded to the Friends Foundation of the Birmingham Public Library by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

By Margaret Splane, Library Assistant III