Jesus God Hallelujia!
Someone in CHURCH yesterday
asked me if I had been planning
on opening a bar
called CHURCH
for a long time.
It got me thinking.
I have known
that I love the Hospitality Industry
since High School
& College;
receiving my
Bachelor’s in Business
with a Major
in Hotel, Restaurant, & Travel.
I get bored easily
and there is never a dull moment
in the bar business.
If I learned anything
from that
Seventies Education
it was that to create a
Designation Food,
Drink,
or Entertainment Establishment
you must provide
more than food and drink.
You must create an experience
for your guests
and you must give them
something that they are guaranteed
to talk about
around the break room
the next day at work.
After working
with major
hotel corporations
in Franchise Development
and Quality Assurance,
my life changed.
I (thought) I veered
from THAT world
when completing
a Master’s Degree
in Education & Psychology
in the early Eighties.
I needed THAT
to boost my confidence
and knowledge
of how the hell
to raise two children
whom I loved dearly
when I was only in my
early twenties my self.
I enjoyed that responsibility
and life and about died
when it ended.
In the late Eighties
when confronted with
a quest for truth,
I pursued
a Master’s in Divinity
with a Major in
Pastoral Care.
Not able to reconcile
the incongruities between
The Dogma of The Church
and what I knew to be True inside,
I left the Church proper
(Sister Louisa’s story is really my story)
and began secular work
with troubled adolescents
and their parents.
After years of THAT,
I had an itch to create vignettes
within my life.
I bought,
restored,
and sold homes
in places where
NO ONE wanted to live
and elevated their worth
by filling them
with such love and beauty
that their value
was transformed.
I LOVE that.
Sister Louisa
was conceived
from this very bent
towards transformation.
I opened an antique store
in East Atlanta
in The Nineties
called
RESURRECTION ANTIQUES
AND OTHER WORLDLY POSSESSIONS.
It was here that
I started collecting
tacky-ass pictures
of Jesus.
Assloads of them.
Being weak minded,
whatever/whomever
I surround myself with
is who I become.
I have always kept
a picutre of Jesus
by my bed
so that his energy,
simplicity,
and single mindedness
is the first thing
that I see
when I wake up.
Retarded,
I know,
but true.
Destiny had it
that I would meet
Hollis, Daniel, and Lary
and during our first meeting
would decide to travel
for a couple of weeks
together
to Prague
and
Amsterdamn.
Through this ridiculous
and life-changing encounter,
Lary informed me
that I was gay,
Hollis inspired me
to say what I believed,
and Daniel amazed me
with his childlike
expression of life.
Sister Louisa
was conceived
through the excitement
of our new relationship
and the planning of the
first Telephone Factory Art Show.
Daniel was a real artist
with paint on his clothes
and shoes,
and he cut his own hair.
Hollis spewed hilarity,
because she has
no other damn choice.
That Bitch can write.
Lary is God.
He’s above and beyond
all things Human.
I knew that I
wasn’t a “real” artist,
that my art
was the art of living.
Drunk,
I went to my antique store
and took all the
tacky-ass pictures of Jesus
off the walls
(that nobody bought),
brought them to The Telephone Factory
and wrote what was on
the inside of me
on the outside of
those paintings.
Embarrassed
by what came out,
I couldn’t sign them
Grant Henry.
I created an alter ego
to which I assigned
the name Sister Louisa,
her being a woman
to eliminate any suspicion
that she
was I.
Sister Louisa
sold sixty plus
pieces of art
her first show.
I thought,
hmmmmmm…
Having made some money
with my real estate,
I decided to sell everything,
houses, cars, shit.
I had been making
Sister Louisa Art
but couldn’t take
it with me,
so I filled the dumpster
behind the Telephone Factory
with her art,
and darted off to Mexico
to live simply,
forever.
Well,
after a year,
I realized that
I wasn’t done
yet.
I returned to Atlanta
and was confronted
with the terrifying fact
that a friend had retrieved
and stored all of my
Sister Louisa Art
from the dumpster.
Boomerang Jesus.
Bored,
I told a friend
who owned a Restaurant
and another Bar,
The Local,
that I wanted to learn
to bartend
so that I could have parties
in my new loft
at The Telephone Factory.
I did NOT want a job,
I wanted to learn
to bartend.
Well,
I bartended at The Local
for almost 10 years
and rememebered
why I loved the
hospitality industry
and bar business.
Sister Louisa
continued to refuse to die,
and she thrived in
Sister Louisa’s Art Gallery
in The Church of The Living Room
in The Telephone Factory.
Through the encouragement
and support of amazing friends
and family,
you know who you are,
I left The Local
to open a bar
called
CHURCH.
I already had the art.
I already had the church chandeliers.
I already had tons of Jesus shit.
I already do Sister Louisa matches.
I already had the best training on how to run a bar.
I already am a marketing whore.
I already had a Last Supper Table.
I already had Blood-of-Christ Red Leather Sofa Set.
I already had a Ping Pong Table.
I already had a Collection of Authentic Roadside Religious Signs.
I am not smart enough to know
that,
yes,
I have been planning
on opening a bar
called CHURCH
for a long time.
Additionally,
I’ve conducted several encounters called
IT IS OUR DUTY
TO CATAPULT
EACH OTHER
INTO GREATNESS.
It is because of
the love and support of
all of my friends
and family
that I am able
to focus forward
with blinders on
and let
what is being created here
be created.
It’s not me.
I have nothing to do with it.
I just am too lazy
to stand in it’s way.
SISTER LOUISA’S CHURCH
OF THE LIVING ROOM
& PING PONG EMPORIUM
…Come On In, Precious!
will open as soon as
“her” liquor license
is approved.
I’d guess
mid-to-late
November.
Thank You for your patience,
and excitement.
Jesus loves your butt.
-Sister Louisa