Peanuts!

I think this piece is more about the peanut than the Blue Jay.  I was in the FFA when I was in high school.  I had several ag classes in 9th/10th grade and was the chapter's Vice President before the allure of the bass guitar became too strong.  I remember one of them was Agricultural Mechanics and I learned to weld in that class.  During football season the FFA would sell boiled peanuts at home football games. Every Friday when we had a home game the class time was spent pulling peanuts and getting them ready to boil.  More than a few were eaten during the process along with the usual teenage mischief when left unattended by Mr. Russell or Mr. Campbell.

My Dad was a hobby farmer and tried to grow or raise a little bit of everything at least once including peanuts.  We had several long rows and had to hand harvest them.  Hard work, but worth it. To me, there's nothing like a freshly dug peanut.  Dad even built a contraption to allow them to air dry before storage.  By trade he was a Computer Maintenance Manager for the Air Force.  Hobby farming was his relaxation.  Occasionally he'd take me along when he went to various farm machinery auctions.  He had a pair of Farmalls and was always on the lookout for an attachment or extra parts.  One auction was in Cairo, Georgia.  It's in Grady County between Bainbridge and Thomasville.  Cairo is just visible on the painting below on the lower left.  The county Cairo (pronounced KAY-row) is in was known for it's syrup making until the mid-1990's. When you went thru town you knew syrup was the industry by the smell.  What they made was not related to Caro syrup you find in stores.

It was autumn when we went to Cairo.  Right in the sweet spot of the peanut harvest.  We were heading right thru the heart of peanut country.  75% of the nation's peanuts are grown within a 100 mile radius of Dothan, Alabama.  We were looking for a disk attachment for his Farmall.  It was summertime hot and every small intersection had someone selling boiled peanuts. Cooking them on the spot in giant pots fired by a propane burner.  He stopped on the way home to Defuniak and got me a bag.  A reward for not being a pain-in-the-ass 14 year old.  Next to the county fair it's  Indian Summer heat, high school football and the smell of boiled peanuts which makes early autumn.

Here in Western New York where I live now fruit stands are aplenty, but I damn sure miss boiled peanuts.

This piece is called Georgia Peanut and is acrylic on an 8 X 10 hand-dyed map of the south Georgia area.

Map & Legends

Fall 2019 will see a body of my work called "Maps & Legends" presented at GoArt!'s Main Gallery in Batavia, NY.   Birds are my primary subject and maps are used as backgrounds.  The maps are either vintage maps from the USGS or NOAA that I've downloaded and color manipulated in Photoshop or actual road maps that I've hand-dyed using watercolors.  Elements of collage might also be used; watercolor paper with various bits and pieces of maps to serve as background.  Radius Gallery in Missoula has categorized my work as assemblage and I like that term over "mixed-media."  

Maps can trigger the memory of a place long lost, but still crystal clear; a grandfather's yarn beginning with "I remember when Daddy and I used to go..."  Due to habitat loss, birds are experiencing more and more of what would be our version of "remember when there used to be..."  As the climate changes and unmanaged development continues, wildlife is pushed to the margins of existence. These paintings might mark an unfortunate place on the map for "remember when we used to see...."

I'm also planning some sort of presentation as well.   More storytelling than presentation. My roots are Southern and storytelling is in the blood.  Each piece should have its own narrative.  There's always more to them than just a well executed painting.  I wasn't always this "into" birds, but they've been at the periphery of my experiences waiting for me to notice.  It is that story that will be told. Not just the story of me, but the legend of us.

For those that can't attend I want to include you via these blog pages.  As each painting is finished I'll post it's story here.  Please climb aboard for this ride of Maps & Legends!