A Cotton Bride

While looking for pictures online, I found photos of slaves picking cotton.  Many of them used a huge canvas bag that trailed behind them while they picked and from the back these gathering bags looked like wedding dress trains.  Hence, my cotton bride was born.  I am now researching more ideas for incorporating cotton and its history into my art.  Throughout my art, I hope to show my respect for a people who were ripped from their land, their society, their people and who persevered with such overall dignity and forgiveness that I want to recognize them in my paintings.

"Heading Home"

July 27, 2013

The above picture is new, taken from an old picture in an ancient photo album I bought off eBay some years ago.  I had always liked the picture and felt I should let it remain a photograph, but it called out to me in a period of art-drought and the painting almost painted itself, for which I'm very grateful.

What do you do when you are in a period where you can't paint or whatever you paint is so bad you feel you'll never paint again?

Birds Watching

So, here is another painting containing birds.  The man is cutting bait or cleaning a fish and the birds have learned that they might get dinner if they are patient.

"Baiting the Hook"

I finished this painting just last week.  Another of my pier fishing paintings.  This one is 36" x 36."

"Portrait in Tennis Shoes" Accepted in Anderson, SC Juried Show

I am pleased to announce that my painting "Portrait in Tennis Shoes" has been accepted into the 38th Annual Juried Show for the Anderson (SC) Arts Center.

"Breakfast"

My latest almost-finished painting is called "Breakfast."  It is another in the large series of paintings I am making from photographs taken on a Myrtle Beach, SC pier.  I should also post my "Birds Watching" so you can see my continued fascination with the birds and fishermen/

women who cut bait, eat their meals and fish on the pier everyday.  The pier becomes a microcosm with its own food chain, its own mystery, its own dependency and relationships.  I am fascinated and hope you'll find my paintings interesting as a result.

"Mother and Child" Selected for Juried Art Show in South Carolina

I am pleased to announce that my entry, "Mother and Child" has been selected for Artfields juried show in the city of Lake City, SC.  If you'd like to learn more about Artfields, go here: www.artfieldssc.org --quite an ambitious project where vendors in the town have volunteered to host the 400 artworks selected.  So while my entry will be displayed in the Hub, where people will go to register to vote for their favorite artwork, you can also find art professionally displayed in restaurants, barber shops, dress shop and a stable, to name a few.  There will be 3 prizes totaling $100,000, an astronomical amount for an artist, to be sure. I'm excited to participate in a project that may help revitalize a rural community.

Mother and Child

When I attend the November Spring Maid Watermedia Workshops, I am drawn to the fishermen on the Spring Maid pier.  I have done a series of paintings of the photographs I've taken.  Whole families come out in their winter gear to fish, and I find it not unlike a play being performed for my benefit.  I wanted to paint this little boy and his mother and call it "Mother and Child" so that my viewer can consider its implications of the nativity, the idea of fishermen, the whole layered possibilities of the premise of fishing--people's passion for pulling something unknown from the ocean. I'd love to hear your comments.