Red Jacket by Sister Barnes

Sister Barnes Jacket signed by Nall and Sequined by his friend (Image Courtesy of Jacob Bright)  

Nall and I are second cousins or something like that. I’ve known him since we were children. Our grandmothers were very good friends in Troy and his mother also grew up there. So our families have known each other all my life.

After the family moved, Nall would spend summers with his grandmother and play with all the kids in the neighborhood. Years later I moved to Texas and Nall went to France and we lost connection.

After I moved back to Alabama, as luck would have it, a friend of mine—Betty Sims and I got together to do a cookbook which we were doing for our charities. We asked Nall if he would like to contribute by doing a few paintings to be featured in the cookbook. He said yes right away and did several paintings for the cookbook. All of the money from this project went to each of our charity of choice. Nall was so sweet and wonderful doing this with us.

"Celebrations from the Heart" cookbook by Sister Barnes & Betty Sims featuring Nall's Artwork (Image Courtesy of TThe Nall Institute LLC.)

We started doing book signings together, seeing each other regularly and rekindling our friendship. We were doing a book signing at Fine Things, a beautiful gift shop in Arab,Alabama. It was around Christmas and I had just bought a beautiful red satin St. John jacket. I just loved it and wore it to the signing.

We were sitting down and Nall was sitting behind me. All of a sudden I felt something on my back and said, ‘Nall, what are you doing?’ He answered, ‘Signing your jacket.’Shocked, I said, ‘you’re not writing on the back of my brand new jacket!’ ‘Yes, but now it will be worth so much more,’ he informed me. The woman who came with Nall offered to sequin the signature—that autograph.

I couldn’t believe that Nall did that to my beautiful, new, elegant jacket! But it was done, so I reluctantly agreed. And do you know what? That jacket is my fondest memory I have of Nall. Now I would never part with it.

Sister Barnes
Cookbook writer