Columnist JohnArchibald remembers the artist Jim Bird of Forkland, Ala., who passed away Monday night at 96. The artist built his own casket. 'This man died as he lived. As he damn well wanted. With family and friends and laughter and creativity.' 🤖➡️
But there I was, eight years ago, gawking at the towering art he’d built from junk in a hay field off the highway to Demopolis in Alabama’s Black Belt. There I was, banging on his door, a little concerned about a pair of nearby “guard turkeys,” with no idea what else to expect.
Jim Bird didn't think of himself as an artist. He just liked to make stuff. He made a lot of people happy. This man died as he lived. As he damn well wanted. With family and friends and laughter and creativity. With stories he told, and stories told about him.Bird’s last words, spoken a few days earlier, had been hard to make out, his granddaughter Alison Bird said. But it was clear the last thing he tried to tell was a story. “Because that’s what he did.”
“We were telling stories about him and making him laugh,” Alison Bird said. “He couldn’t open his eyes or anything, but he would lift his eyebrows every time we said something funny. So I know he could hear us. I know he was enjoying that. Those eyebrows went up every time he wanted to laugh.”It was a storybook life. And a storybook ending. But what of his legacy?
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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