Bailey Shelton is a Managing Editor at Stick and Hack Media, where she currently writes for digital and print platforms. Her work has been published by St. Louis Magazine, NUVO, and Inside Indiana Business. You can read samples of her work below, or subscribe to her weekly newsletter here.
TITLE: Cameron Smith Wins the Open at St. Andrews
Meta Description: The Open at St Andrews came to a close with an unforgettable finish for Cameron Smith's first career major win.
The energy in the air transcended individual players or scores this past weekend as the 150th Open at St Andrew’s capped the men's golf major season. The competition did nothing less than surpass expectations, with Cameron Smith clawing his way to victory after starting Sunday at a four-shot deficit. Cameron Young and Rory McIlroy followed closely behind, unable to outpace Smith as he fought his way past. For months, the golf world has been buzzing about this tournament, at this course, on this landmark anniversary year. And St Andrew’s delivered in every way.
Though the Home of Golf is unique in many aspects, one of the biggest features of the Old Course is its integration into the streets of the town. Most other champion courses are set away from city centers or neighbor’s porches. Some are so remote that mountains or deserts rim their edges.
At the Old Course, on the other side of the fence are sidewalks, porches, and patios. Locals set out with their dogs and smoke a cigar while they recline and watch the legends play. The spectators without tickets clammer together on garden walls for a better view of the 18th fairway. Fans cheered from windows and decks as well as grandstands when Tiger took the tee box at one, and again when he crossed the Swilcan Bridge for potentially the last time. For the past week, St Andrews was the world, and its club championship was the 150th Open.
“The ground is rock hard out there today,” golf essayist Jim Dodson said over a beer on Thursday as Rory McIlroy made his best effort from the rough of 15, only to have his
ball bounce its way off of the green. Dodson hit the nail on the head. Western courses like Troon or Dundonald have had regular rains rolling off the Atlantic coast, but to the east, St Andrews Links has been hardened by drought for weeks leading up to the 150th Open Championship. With the sun keeping the course a pleasant 70 degrees, the biggest environmental obstacles to players this weekend were the ground and characteristic coastal winds.
Still, key leaders fought for their position throughout the weekend, scoring so well that murmurs of course records dominated spectator conversation. Cameron Smith finished out on top with an overall 20 under par for the weekend, matching the record for lowest score to par in a major championship and snatching his first major win and the No. 2 world ranking.
“Those guys are great players. They weren’t going to give it to me. I had to take it,” Cameron Smith said after his win. Smith flipped the script on the "business in the front party in the back" attitude that his mullet would suggest when he made 5 straight birdies to finish out Sunday's back 9, leaving the likes of Rory McIlroy, Cameron Young, and Viktor Hovland in his wake.
Hovland, in particular, was one to watch this weekend, ending his season with the best major finish of his still emerging career. At the end of round 3, he shared the lead alongside McIlroy but finished Sunday in the crowd-pleasing #4 spot. McIlroy, finishing third, led for 54 holes and hit every green in regulation during his final round. Suffice to say, it was a tough loss.
Cameron Smith celebrated the win as much as he worked for it. “I’m definitely going to find out how many beers fit in this thing," Smith said. “These last four or five holes aren't easy around here, especially with the wind up off the left. I'm just really proud of how I knuckled down today and managed to get it done."
TITLE: Craft Alliance highlights one artist's immigration experience in new exhibition
Subhead: Artist Fidencio Fifield-Perez's work will be on display August 30–October 27.
Opening this weekend at Craft Alliance, the exhibit Fidencio Fifield-Perez: Little Cuttings offers an intimate, personal look at immigration and the concept of home.
Although artist Fidencio Fifield-Perez has spent most of the past decade in the Midwest, he was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and migrated with his family to North Carolina at a young age. His work reflects his experience as a Latino immigrant in America and explores the concept of home. His mixed-media art is inspired by everyday life, whether it's seeing barn quilts while driving through the Iowa countryside or recreating a childhood bed through the textures of a salmon-colored weaving. (You might recognize Fifield-Perez's work from Cherokee Street, including at Bridge Bread and Flowers and Weeds, as well as the Luminary’s recent show Counterpublic.)
The road to the exhibition began more than a year and a half ago, when Craft Alliance curator Stefanie Kirkland met Fifield-Perez through a colleague at the University of Missouri. After a studio visit, Kirkland knew she wanted to showcase Fifield-Perez's work.
“I always want artists to continue their narration and push their boundaries with the material,” Kirkland says. “Fidencio is using papers and fibers in a whole other way.”
For Kirkland, a major goal is to get visitors to Craft Alliance to think about craft in a new way. Traditionally, craft deals with the tactile and material arts, anything from woodcarvings and metallurgy to weavings and quilts. In Fifield-Perez's work, he transforms traditional weaving and paper craft into something reminiscent of his own story and the more refined high arts.
"I completely accept the craft label," he says, "but hopefully I also give you something that is slightly minimal or more modern or conceptually profound.
“Being brought up in a family where labor has dignity, I still have a lot of love and respect for craft or things that are laborious,” he continues, "because I am fully aware that my family is still making a living through the labor that they put out with their hands."
Along with some new pieces, Fifield-Perez plans to highlight his series Dacaments, a collection of lifelike plant portraits painted onto pieces of mail that he had to keep to prove his residency in the United States. Fifield-Perez says he was inspired by votive paintings in Mexico, also known as ex votos, paintings of religious gratitude often commissioned to give thanks for a miracle.
"I love them so much," he says. "The envelopes, for me, are completely a response to those ex votos, which are so crafty and have deep history in Mexico." According to Fifield-Perez, the collection of envelopes signifies the anticipation that he felt while waiting for important notices from the government.
Kirkland says Fifield-Perez’s art has a universal, though-provoking theme. "His work is about longing for home and our sense of ‘What is home?’ and ‘What is place?’" she says. "Hopefully, it will be a landing place for conversation and a point of contemplation."
"Fidencio Fifield-Perez: Little Cuttings" runs August 30–October 27, beginning with an opening reception at 6 p.m. August 30.