STORIES BEHIND THE PAINTINGS:
➝ “Rock And Gem Show”
➝ “RC Plane Club”
➝ “Building Boom: 1945-1960”
➝ “Lords Of The Land”
➝ “Best Tree In The Forest”
➝ (The small works)
Art notes on:
welcome to the neighborhood
A Solo Exhibition at Anne Irwin Fine Art
JAN 5 - 13, 2024 | ATLANTA, GEORGIA
artist’s statment
Welcome To The Neighborhood is my visual diary of life in community. With the paintings as your tour guide, drive through a town's thoroughfares and back roads, peering into the everyday activities of its inhabitants, their work and play, their weekdays and weekends. This collection chronicles the mostly sweet, occasionally complicated, but ever-rewarding experience of making a beautiful life right where you are, with the very people around you.
In an interview with Humans of New York, 93-year-old Mary remarked, “If you force yourself to go outside, something wonderful always happens!” My hope is that Welcome To The Neighborhood will get us outside: to stop at our neighbor’s with surplus garden vegetables; to catch up with a coworker on our coffee break instead of retreating to our phone; or to browse the newspaper's local events section, pick an activity and then go!
↓
STYLISTIC iNFLUENCES
My familiar old-timey and Anglophilic approach adds nostalgia and whimsy to the narratives. The style of my paintings draws from myriad influences: decorative arts and tapestries; Eastern and American folk art, and artistic movements like fauvism and impressionism.
↓
“Land That Has Drunk The Rain”, 44 x 44 inches
“The Allotment”, 36 x 36 inches
STORIES
A combination of real-life experiences and quirky observations through my driver’s side window inspired many of the paintings. I want Welcome To The Neighborhood to pay attention to both the ordinary and extraordinary moments of sharing life alongside others in your town. I hope you’ll enjoy reading a few of the backstories…
↓
“ROCK AND GEM SHOW”
“Rock And Gem Show”, 24 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas, framed
“RC PLANE CLUB”
“RC Plane Club”, 48 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas
the stories behind:
“rock and gem show” + “RC PLANE CLUB”
A couple of blocks from my home, I saw a small yard sign advertising an upcoming local “Rock And Gem Show”. The sign was not flashy in any way, so I’m glad I didn’t miss it driving by. On another day, on another drive, my eyes flashed to a radio-controlled plane circling over a field. I was able to spot the young man below who was guiding its path. Both glimpses reminded me that there are people immersed in these fascinating worlds that I know not a thing about. I always am charmed by people enjoying their hobbies and discovering subjects that really interest them. It didn’t hurt that the subject matters were the perfect vehicles (no pun intended) for this color-happy artist to do her thing!
“BUILDING BOOM: 1945-1960”
“Building Boom: 1945-1960”, 36 x 36 inches, acrylic and graphite on canvas, framed
the story behind:
“BUILDING BOOM: 1945-1960”
This painting is a little love letter to my Cape Cod Revival style home built in 1949. I purchased the home in late 2022 and spent some time reading about the building boom in those years post World War II when demand for homes was high. It is fun for me to think about how much life has been lived in these houses.
I was curious about my home’s first residents—I filtered through dozens of photographed pages from the handwritten 1950 census (available online to the public), until I eventually made out the scribble of my address. The census shared basic information about the home’s residents. The data that ended up interesting me the most was that, in 1950, the head of household worked as a carpet and linoleum installer. I couldn’t help but smile—there are several rooms in this fixer-upper home that have multiple layers of linoleum and carpet on top of another. Initially peeved by this fact when I first moved in, now I choose to look at it differently: perhaps he had extra stock from work and wanted to experiment at home. As an artist, I can understand wanting to satisfy a creative whim!
“Building Boom: 1945-1960” is an abstracted narrative that sets an imagined scene of what burgeoning housing developments may have looked like following World War II. The painting shows gratitude to the hardworking crews who built these homes from the ground up, day in and day out. Additionally, by drawing the house in the upper right with graphite pencil, a draftsman’s medium, I also want to pay tribute to my beloved late grandfather, Keith McClure, a gifted architect.
“LORDS OF THE LAND”
“Lords Of The Land”, 24 x 30 inches, acrylic on canvas
the story behind:
“LORDS OF THE LAND”
If I were to mark my relationship status with the painting “Lords Of The Land” on Facebook, I’d select “It’s Complicated”. (Remember earlier when I described living in community as “occasionally complicated”?) In the span of my late twenties, I moved house rentals 5 times and I also moved studio rentals 5 times within a 10-mile radius; many of these moves were not because of my own decision but rather changes in the landlords’ lives. They would call and give me notice, saying they unfortunately decided to sell or they decided to not publicly rent it anymore.
The positives that resulted were that I got to discover new streets, new neighbors, or new studio space perks. But conversely, it was emotionally-draining and time-consuming to keep shuffling around. I was not financially able to buy a home, and it was disheartening to not have a sense of stability, particularly for my place of residence.
“Lords Of The Land” is a loosely-based narrative about the landlords who made those phone calls to me, letting me know how many days and how much time I had before the keys needed to be returned (do you spot the keys, the calendar, the clock?). The painting could be mistaken for a collage, each landlord visually delineated from the others. The collage-like quality as well as the inclusion of text pays homage to characteristics of folk art. These choices were very intentional because folk art has always been intended to be “for the people, by the people”, helping the common people share and remember stories of their cultural and societal experience. In the painting, the landlords look directly at the viewer, positioned in a way to emphasize the power dynamic I sensed in the their presence. On the painting’s right side, the buildings and homes sit beneath an overcast sky—the tenants at the mercy of both weather and warden.
In the years since, I’ve reflected more holistically on the unusual relationship between landlord and tenant. I think have a more measured attitude about it. I’ve realized the relationship is a symbiotic one: the tenants rely on the landlords but the landlords also rely on the tenants. If you like art with a splash of angst and a pinch of perspective, this one’s for you.
“BEST TREE IN THE FOREST”
“Best Tree In The Forest”, 36 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas
the story behind:
“BEST TREE IN THE FOREST”
The idea for this painting was jotted down in my art notebook years ago. It’s been simmering, and I was happy to bring it to life for Welcome To The Neighborhood. Rather than being inspired by something I observed, the painting’s genesis came from a song, “Western Skies”, by Scottish folk band, Breabach. The story that Breabach tells nearly paints itself. Tap the video below to listen. The narrator reflects on young boyhood and and the way his life changes as he grows older. The passage from the song that I illustrated in “Best Tree In The Forest” reads:
“Under western skies
I was born and I was raised
I pass my mind back often
to my years as a child
climbing trees, running wild,
playing in the autumn leaves
living under western skies”
I knew I wanted the painting to have a large tree with many children climbing it, sitting on its limbs. This tree isn’t just a good climbing tree, it’s the best! The autumn leaves have made their way to the forest floor, so the ground glows with rich burgundies, rusts, and pinks. It’s one of those not-too-cold November days that’s kind of a fluke—it’s late enough in the year that this may be the last opportunity to play without wearing a coat. The neighborhood kids know precisely where they want to spend the afternoon.
(THE SMALL WORKS)
