Food Feature: Time out

Escape the rat race in Madison

No, you haven’t driven onto the set of It’s A Wonderful Life or ‘Leave It To Beaver.’ You’ve just entered Madison, Ga,. says my boyfriend, Jon, when I open my eyes and look out the window at the town’s dusty antique stores and quaint, old houses. But I soon discovered that although this small Georgia town is a picturesque piece of Americana, it is also something of a cultural center, a place where the arts are alive and infused with blue blood money.
The Madison Morgantown Cultural Center, housed in a renovated school building built in the late 1800s, was established by the Morgantown Foundation 25 years ago, and next July it will mount a “Best of” exhibition, a retrospective of the various artists featured by the Center in celebration of its 25th anniversary.
Today, however, the Center’s galleries are echoing with activity: Luo Shi-Wu, a watercolor painter and calligrapher from southeast China — a region known, curiously enough, for its peaches, peanuts and red clay — is busy hanging his show, which will be up until Oct. 22. As tall as he is quiet, he nods and ducks his head in a wordless greeting as we say hello.
That night we will return for the opening of Luo Shi-Wu’s show, Observing Harmony, but, for the moment, I stand in front of three scrolls titled “Ink and Rice.” In these, Wu’s brush strokes are broad, deliberate and serene; I am reminded of the rounded belly of a woman with child. And, indeed, there is a contemplative nature and an almost palpable sense of ch’I, or life force, about Luo’s paintings. According to Luo, his work draws heavily upon Taoist philosophies, in which the subject and object are blurred.
After touring briefly through the various galleries of Wu’s work, we head “downtown” to check into our bed-and-breakfast, the Brady Inn. A quiet, reclusive place to stay, the thick, high walls must have witnessed a great many births and deaths in the Brady family. We poke around and realize that we have the place to ourselves — free range over the TV, den, industrial-sized kitchen (stocked with fresh peaches and Coca-cola), dining room and clawfoot bathtub — that is, until later that night, when another couple will show up and check into their room.
Besides the Morgantown Cultural Center and the various denominations of churches, the town square is the hub of social activity and human commerce. In the way of restaurants, there’s Amici’s for pizza, the Chop House for steak and seafood and Marlowe’s, which recently opened. For the most part, though, we stay in our room, except to venture out for Wu’s opening, to raid the kitchen and watch old episodes of “Dr. Who.” It seems the only interference from the outside world is the chatty inn keeper who, in the morning, serves up a fine breakfast, complete with coffee, toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, grits and coffee, even though we sleep in so late she says she’d given us up for dead.
Perhaps what’s best about Madison is just that: It’s a pleasant, quiet town, where no news is good news. However, if you bore easily, the Hard Labor State Park is nearby, as is Lake Oconee, as well as access to horseback riding and trail rides, hiking and golf; Madison is bordered by four major golf communities. It’s also a short drive in the country from Athens, and, if you discover you’re terrified by the din of uninterrupted silence, it’s only an hour and 20 minutes back to Atlanta and its incessant murmur of the downtown connector.






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