Sweet Home ... D.C.

If the fiery hell holes of silent elevator shafts and devilishly high heat indexes have D.C. repenting with sweaty Hail Marys, there is an escape: find Alabama's finest photographer and sculptor William Christenberry at any of four art relief stations around the city. Cool A/C, (photographed) ice-cold Coca-Cola, and - Hallelujah - none of those famous Tuscaloosan chitlins! Get on up, lil' doggies, and drag yourself along on a Christenberry tour that's as Southern as the high falootin' humidity:

Hemphill Fine Arts
Ring the bell and come on up. Sorry, this 14th Street gallery obliges to lock the doors in this art-dangerous Yankee locale, but they promise a friendly voice and an open, cool gallery with nine never-seen-before Christenberry's. The 35 mm Kodachromes are more lush than an Alabama slammer, with color pushing up what otherwise would be flat Walker Evans copies. It's no shame that the earlier celebrated depression photographer sourced Christenberry's hometown of Tuscaloosa in his Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Smithsonian American Art Museum
A true chief cook and bottle washer, our man in question turned his eye to sculpture in the 1970's. Thick and heavy with southern lore like molasses -- a satin KKK doll would be over the top if it weren't so frightening -- Christenberry weaves in the Heart of Dixie in metal signage collages, sculpted architectural models, and his original medium of painting. He's been teaching at the local Corcoran since 1967 but his art never strays from Hale County no matter the form.