East Texas

We're in East Texas at Mat's mom's lakehouse this weekend. We got here yesterday. It's actually a work trip because we're starting on a new documentary project about a woman who is from Center Point, Texas (about an hour from here). She was among the first group of black students admitted to UT in the 50's. Her name is Barbara Conrad and she is an opera singer. She endured a lot of terrible acts of racism back in those days. Since then she's gone on to be quite famous (if you know anything about opera divas which I don't) living and working in NYC, etc. She was very nice when I met her yesterday. Mat and the crew will be shooting her all weekend. She has a performance in Gilmer on Sunday, and then there's a big homecoming celebration at her teeny tiny Baptist church in Center Point next weekend. The crew will be back here for that, but we'll be leaving for Colorado on Friday so we'll have to miss it. I imagine when the project gets fully funded we'll travel to New York to shoot a bigger performance.

Later, when I have some more time, I'll write about what it was like driving around all of these small backroads in East Texas today. It's so different than anywhere else even in Texas. It reminds me a little of growing up in Texarkana, but this area is so very poor. I can't even imagine what it's like to be from a place like Center Point or Big Sandy or Scroggins. I hope the documentary will capture some of that for people who have never spent time around here.