Kevin Lee

2 days ago | lagniappemobile.com | Kevin Lee

Michael V.R. Thomason, Ph.D., was my faculty advisor. When I made an abrupt shift in my sophomore year at the University of South Alabama (USA) by changing my major from art to history, I didn’t expect to end up with the department head signing off on my class load each quarter. Thomason’s laid-back demeanor made the process efficient and facile, although I never took one of his classes, oddly enough.

1 week ago | lagniappemobile.com | Kevin Lee

Your creativity is your product, singular to you and the life experiences and perspective you bring to the process. If you designed and crafted a chair or a workbench, that is yours. The same with a sculpture, or song or book, all yours if it came from your ideas and skill. So then, why should a business get to arbitrarily seize your property as it wishes?

2 weeks ago | lagniappemobile.com | Kevin Lee

The latest exhibit at Mobile Museum of Art (MMofA), “Vuzumazulu: The Black Solarium,” is loaded with symbology. Most obviously, it represents Mobile artist Abaddon “Apollo” Bene Yakongo’s journey to refine his essential self. The 33-year-old Apollo was quick to nod to vital influence, like the grandfather who encouraged Apollo to draw daily and cultivate talent the elder saw in him. Guidance is invaluable.

3 weeks ago | lagniappemobile.com | Kevin Lee

As the nation’s 250th anniversary builds, contemporary Mobilians might be surprised to learn their historic counterparts missed a chance to be represented on the Declaration of IndependenceMobile was one of the few settlements in British West Florida and had a different freedom than the Atlantic Seaboard’s 13 British colonies. It was largely a liberty born from negligence.

1 month ago | lagniappemobile.com | Kevin Lee

Fairhope poet Mike Turner was named 2025 Poet of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society (ASPS) and was presented with the award at the ASPS spring workshop in Orange Beach on May 17. Turner said in email that his work has included promoting and participating in both ASPS and Alabama Writers’ Cooperative events, organizing the Fairhope Library’s “Beach Beats” series of poetry readings, and supporting other poetry and literary events in Mobile and Baldwin counties and Pensacola.