Artist’s Statement
This series was started in 2010 and have been reworked and updated since, though the kernel of the original has been maintained. These works represents the culmination of several years of research into Southern vernacular and history that was started during my undergrad study at the Atlanta College of Art (BFA 2000).
I am intrigued by the parallels between random associations of advertising imagery and language, capturing these impactful combinations of visual and textual phenomenon in painterly language. These works combine various pieces of signage, folk art and murals, from the walls and awnings of businesses, magazines and photographs from history that I have collected over the years, that highlight sometimes uncomfortable realities of Southern history and culture. I hope that the subtle relationships presented in these paintings, between the imagery and text, will make the viewer consider the Southern identity as both modern and yet inextricable from history. I am not trying to ‘preach’ a gospel of some sort, I am only noticing and presenting some contradictions that we live with and have accepted as common; sometimes they make me laugh, and sometimes they are depressing, but nevertheless they make up the visual landscape I was raised in and for good or bad such images and ideas have formed my identity.
Banjo Hoodoo – 24” x 12”
While many people may think this is just a misspelling of ‘voodoo’ I assure you it isn’t. In the Lowcountry region where I am from, the Geechee folk (Gullah in South Carolina, but same people) speak of ‘hoodoo’ and ‘gree-gree’ as a common part of their cultural metaphysics. Similar to voodoo in that the roots are in Africa and the West Indies, hoodoo is more about luck and charms and a respectful dialogue with nature than so many bloody chickens and ‘black’ magic. In this painting, I have borrowed the image of a bluegrass banjo player playing a tune with a snake who might be listening or singing along. The sound of a banjo always puts me in mind of marshes and oak trees full of moss and the drawl of the Southern tongue; it’s like a language in itself that carries over the air to somewhere unseen. Like with the spirits, it’s always good luck to toss a coin to such folks if only to ensure your own good gree-gree.
Blind Blue Revelations – 12” x 24”
While researching images of the blues musician Blind Willie McTell for a sculpture commission, I came across a picture that had often been titled with his name but turned out to be someone else. I learned that blues musicians in the early days of the 20th century often travelled extensively to work and play music and would use different names in order to be able to sign multiple contracts for recording. The pay was terrible in those days, you would only get paid for the one song at one time and royalties were nonexistent. So, there’s a lot of ‘Blind-something’ musicians out there that may have been the same person. It was also common to name someone by that disability, which, for many of these musicians, was no impediment to their success. Blind Willie, Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Blind Boys of Alabama and so on, are all honored in this work, whomever they were, and for the ‘revelations’ of their music while their identity remained a mystery.
Red Earth Porch Duet – 18” x 36”
Similar to the Banjo Hoodoo work, this is one of those relationships that seems less odd within the context of rural Georgia. I knew a girl who saved a bird, a bluejay or crow, I cannot recall, and even after releasing it, it would hop onto her shoulder whenever she went outside. I’ve often thought about that girl and her bird and wondered how long the two interacted over the years. This work is an imagined portrait of them, serenading the moonlight, illuminating the silky red earth.
Easter’s Possum – 24” x 24”
Regrettably She was Fancy – 18” x 36”
My sister got some chickens a few years ago, succumbing to that agrarian tendency we all feel sometimes to be farmers like our kin. But living in the city limits of Savannah she could only have 4 at most, and no roosters were allowed. That wasn’t a problem as she wasn’t interested in making more chickens, just having a ready source of organic eggs. Until Fancy came along. Fancy was one of her biddies that grew like the others, but then started to show more glorious plumage. Sexing chickens is more art than science, and such mistakes happen. She tried to ignore it, but when the green, gold and scarlet feathers emerged, the reality was undeniable. Especially on the morning that started at 5 AM with full on crowing. With houses close by on her midtown street, this was clearly unacceptable and although he was beautiful, Fancy had to go. He was replaced with a perfectly average hen and lived out his days somewhere in Pooler on a farm.
Raccoons for Augury – 24” x 24”
I would love to tell you a story about someone with a pet raccoon who could tell fortunes, but I just don’t have one. This work was inspired by the making as I had created such a lush texture that I really didn’t want to paint over it. The colors and shapes suggested stripes a little, so a raccoon emerged, standing on the shoulders of a figure. Like previous works in the series, there was a suggestion of the border between the wild things and the civilized, and the grey area in between that Southern folk often occupy. Telling fortunes through bird flight, or the pecking of a chicken, or the selections of a raccoon, seemed as logical to me as any other ‘augury’, so that is what it became, and why not?
Night Fishing at Hartwell – 36” x 36”
I had heard of ‘jug fishing’ but I frankly thought it was like ‘snipe hunting’; not a real thing, just something you tell kids and Yankees to tease them. Throwing floating bottles with reflective tape on them, tied to a baited fishing line and hook, out into the water at night, to wait for a catfish to grab them and carry them off, seemed a little ridiculous. But my brother in law said it was something we could do sometime at Lake Hartwell and I played along and said ‘sounds like fun!”, but thinking all the while that we wouldn’t actually be doing it. Lo and behold, as I was set the task of putting shrimp on hooks, I realized it was in fact a real past time. My job was to sit at the front with a strong light that caught the reflection of the fluorescent tape on the bottles and wait for one to take off; and they did! Perhaps it’s not the most noble form of fishing, but it is better than using dynamite, and not as tedious as fly casting, and in the end, we had a mess of catfish for breakfast the next morning, and yes, we had cheese grits with them. We may be lazy fishermen but we aren’t savages. Now I am wondering if there really is a snipe out there.
Bargains with Crows – 24” x 24”
Did you know that if you leave seed or other food for crows, they will often return the favor and bring you something back? Shiny pieces of glass, metal, jewelry, broken lightbulbs, even money, sometimes. There are numerous stories of such relationships, and the results of trying to form such a bond can often be surprising; there’s a girl who was in the news who had an exhibit of dozens of items she was given by her crows, including a diamond ring. Southern folks place all sorts of human ideations on animals, imagining communications where they don’t exist, but maybe there’s a wisdom there. In this work, a boy is contemplating the shard of something shiny his new crow friend has brought him. Maybe this is his first encounter with a wild thing that seems to understand something unspoken, and the relationship will lead him to strange new places.
Never a Fish – 36” x 36”
Midnight Noodlin’- 24” x 24”
If you aren’t familiar, there is a practice in the swampy areas of Georgia and the adjacent coastal states of fishing by hand known as ‘noodling’. You feel around in the muck with your feet and arms until you find a hole in a bank into which you thrust your arm. If there is a catfish inside, and they are usually fairly large in these cases, they will try to swallow your hand, which I guess is the ‘noodle’? You then reach through the gill and hoist the fish out. Now I like catfish as much as the next person, but the very thought of this practice utterly terrifies me. I have a healthy respect for nature, and my awareness of the deep waters and woods of the South crosses casually into the superstitious, as it should if you ask me. Tempting fate by teasing a catfish that might be the one that can swallow you whole just doesn’t seem wise. I will stick to more traditional means, thanks very much
Jasmine Through a Fence – 24” x 24”
One of my favorite plants is Confederate Jasmine. The way it effortlessly piles up on itself forming a green architecture, sprouting small fragrant flowers, thrills me. I enjoy plants that assert a certain personality and grow in spite of barriers, though I draw the line at kudzu. A sight of the vine and the flowers, contrasted against a white fence, inspired this work. Mimicking the twisting, elegant vines, I decided to spend many hours collaging and cutting the vine, individually painting and cutting the leaves, and finally dotting the seersucker flowers. The contrast of the rigid geometry succumbing to the organic forces of the vine symbolize so much to my eyes.
Sundays Best – 10” x 10”
All Natural (2) – Chief with Balance – 24” x 24”
Kountry Kafe – 36” x 48”
This work incorporates the text of a Southern diner, commonly found in many small towns, where the sign is composed with a seemingly quaint misspelled consonant- K instead of C. Coupled with this text is a Brer Rabbit cartoon I observed, painted on the cinder block exterior of a building on the edge of a transitional neighborhood in Savannah, GA. The cartoon character was meant to be friendly and welcoming to children, which, in this area, were predominantly Black, based on the geography of the facility, but the cartoon was also fundamentally challenging, as it is a symbol of racist literature. Nevertheless, the stories of Brer Rabbit are common fodder for all children in the South and the realities of their history is unknown to us until we get older. To underscore this contradiction, overlaying the rabbit, are Ben-day dots, from the printing industry, representing the fact and varieties of ‘color’ and perception. The salt and pepper shakers are common in any diner table setting and are rendered both in a ‘classical’ representation and a crude ‘folk’ manner representing the essential factors of both taste (flavor and style) and Southern society (Blackness and Whiteness), or, spice and purity.
Hunt and Pray – 36” x 48”
This work incorporates three symbols, the hands, the lamb and the target with numbers, against a ‘paint by numbers’ deer in a landscape. Together, they make a suggested statement about the relationship of the institutionalized tradition of hunting and the evangelical practice of prayer within Baptist fundamentalism. The imagery of the hands was borrowed from a very small transitional neighborhood church, the sort that houses only around a dozen of the most faithful, near Price street in Savannah, whose hymn singing made me stop on the sidewalk one difficult Sunday morning. The church must have also housed a daycare building (as the two often go together) with the lamb cartoon seated amongst some other Ark animals. The word ‘Pray’ immediately made me think of ‘prey’ and how odd it is that a people who hold faith so tightly, hold the practice of hunting with equal zeal. The 5th commandment is ‘thou shalt not kill’ after all, but many weekends in Georgia are spent in tree stands at dawn, and church pews by noon. I chose the kitschy paint by numbers image to represent this flattened, simplified, sanitized version of the pastoral landscape. However, though I’ve never wanted to hunt, I will eat venison, wild rabbit and pork, and without some good prayer I would be lost.
Guns and Jewelry – 36” x 36”
In Statesboro, where I lived for 10 years, there were numerous pawn shops and gun stores and other places that would buy your gold jewelry and sell you firearms or ammunition. Between churches, retail and restaurants there was a definite point of view, though often quiet, that I observed out of the corner of my eye. There was one actual pawn shop sign, with poorly proportioned letters and cheap images, that said nothing more than ‘Guns’ next to a generic handgun, and ‘Jewelry” next to a generic necklace. I found this oversimplification of objects, housed in this store that serves the desperate, to be emblematic of the basic stereotypes of Southern culture; boys and guns versus girls and jewelry. Both equally external, both equally transient, both commonly desired.
Good Boys – 36” x 36”
The ‘good boy’ image is drawn from a popular ice cream advertisement and represents a mischievous character, but also the common place ‘average’ kid, or every-man. The ‘BOYS’ text is rendered in an institutional lettering style, directing the viewer to a restroom or locker room, with the imagined, weathered ‘Good’ acting as a unifying satire. It is a common enough phrase, used for children and animals alike, but it presumes a lot as both goodness and badness are subjective realities. On a more personal level, growing up as a gay kid in a straight dominated world, these private spaces caused me great anxiety as my sense of being ‘Other’ and more vulnerable was so pronounced in these zones of exclusivity and male preening.
Workin’ Mans Blues – 26” x 26”
Cousins – 10” x 10”
Catch of the Day – 36” x 48”
The buffet after church, or at a long lunch, or anytime really, is an institution in Southern eating. A common sign seen at these establishments is ‘Take all you want, Eat all you take!”, encouraging, ironically, both gluttony and frugality. This sort of dining is especially appealing for seafood which is traditionally expensive, but the industry of fishing and our consumption of fish has left our oceans in a state of steady decline. The imagery of the child and the cartoon pirate come from children’s paper placemats, with treasure hunt games and such, meant to entertain and distract an otherwise disinterested child while the family eats. Reflectively, this same sort of ‘disinterestedness’ is the very quality that allows us, culturally, to ignore our impact on the climate and the environment with the fish head on the lower third of the canvas symbolizing the beautiful, but dead, product thereof.
Serenade with Haunted Piano – 14” x 10”
All Natural – 36” x 36”
As an imaginative young man in the South, I grew up watching re-runs of popular Westerns like “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza”. In those stories a very clear perspective of ‘them’ and ‘us’ was formed with the Indian playing the role of the primitive, super-natural, somewhat threatening, spiritual, ‘Other’. But as I grew up, I read about the complex relationship between the European, founding pioneers of America and the native people who were enslaved, brutalized, defrauded and ultimately sequestered on reservations with poor soil, fit only for cultivating misery and alcoholism. Today, the ‘Native American Chief’ imagery, is used to sell ‘All American’ or ‘Organic’ products, while the actual people who inspired the imagery are/were pushed into the margins to make way for the non-native settlers, who dominated the landscape with their racist ideology. The combination of the Indian head, with its inaccurate decoration (Cherokees didn’t wear feathered war bonnets) on a brick wall, advertising a brand of beer, or tobacco, with the tag line ‘All Natural”, is set against the final imagery of a Plains Indian on horseback on collaged paper. This final drawing is copied from a Plains Indian ‘ledger drawing’ of the late 1800’s, a tradition that began when government Indian investigators left bank ledgers for the tribes that the indigenous people took and made drawings in. This image of the man on the yellow horse, is how the Native American sees himself, as compared with the verbiage and imagery, that depicts only the perception and stereotype framed by the ‘invader’.
Medicine Man 1 6" x 6"
Medicine Man 2 6" x 6"
Medicine Man 3 6" x 6"