Beverly Buchanan, Athens, GA, 8 July 1995: A video by Judith McWillie

On a high summer afternoon in 1995, artist and documentarian Judith McWillie (b. 1946) brought her Sony camcorder to Beverly Buchanan’s home studio in Athens, Georgia, and recorded a two-hour video of their spirited exchange. Buchanan (1940–2015), whose multidisciplinary practice drew from Black Southern geography, traditions, and forms, had just opened a sixteen-year mid-career retrospective, and was actively developing new “shack” sculptures for multiple upcoming exhibits. Filmed in the cinema verité tradition, McWillie’s distinctly immersive recording follows the two Southern artists as they move through the densely layered space of Buchanan’s house and garden in conversation. The resulting unedited video offers an extraordinary portrait of both artists, singular in its situatedness and relationality.

Beverly Buchanan, Athens, GA, 8 July 1995 translates and poetically interprets McWillie’s intimate primary document through an edited transcription, broken up into scenes, illustrated with video stills, and annotated with contextual information. An introductory essay by Katz Tepper reflects on the enduring impact of the Black vernacular architect Mary Lou Furcron on both artists and their converging efforts to trouble dominant hierarchies. Companion materials feature reproductions and transcribed texts from Buchanan’s and McWillie’s multidisciplinary tributes to Furcron, illuminating the role of the camera in their practices of remembrance, reverence, and refusal.

Authors
Edited by Mo Costello and Katz Tepper
Introduction by Katz Tepper
Texts by Beverly Buchanan and Judith McWillie

Publishers
Soberscove Press

Publication Date
2026

Size
6 x 8.15 inches
320 pages

Binding
Paperback

ISBN
978-1-940190-37-2