Twilight on the Haney Place 16 X 45 inches, acrylic on panel, 2009

The Haney Place is where my mother grew up.  When I was a kid it was beginning to fade.  It took years to piece together old photos and memories to come up with this scene.  I believe that the only thing still there is the barn at the far left. 

Click here to enlarge image.

Stopping By Tucker, 

12 x 43 inches

acrylic on panel, 2009

Driving across the Delta is a relaxing experience to me.  Once we found ourselves in Tucker and the moment I saw these two buildings, I knew it was a painting.  (That doesn't happen very often.)  The store to the left was at one time the "Tucker store" to folks who lived around there.  The house belonged to the Tucker family as well.   

Click here to enlarge. 

Pokeberries

18 x 36 inchesacrylic on panel    2007

When I visit Mt Nebo just south of Russellvile I certaninly am not looking for landscapes involving pokeberry plants.  I would be much more likely to look for boulders or cedar trees.   Somewhere near the visitor center, we were walking along when I saw this really large "scene" of pokeberries so, I snapped a shot.  When I looked at the developed photo I knew it was an attractive composition.   And I started working on the drawing pretty quick and it was only a few months later , not the usual years.  But the drawing took a long time and the painting much longer.  I think it's the colors that command your attention. Colors like these are similar to "fall colors" and they wake you up daily. 

 

 Click here to enlarge. 

Easter Morning at Mt. Zion, 11 X 14 inches, acrylic on panel

Mt. Zion Presbyterian Church on Hwy 425 where Drew County becomes Lincoln County, is a beautiful old building.  I’ve drawn it or painted it several times and I’m thinking about working up another view.  It’s on the list of National Historic Places but for me is the landmark telling me I’ve left Drew County.

Click here to enlarge image.

Downtown New Edinburgh  acrylic on panel, 2009

New Edinburgh used to be a busy little town between Warren and Fordyce.  We would travel through it on our way to visit my Dad’s brother.  Obviously, New Edinburgh flourished when little burgs like this had “stores”…several of them.  What is missing from this view is a couple more stores…one of them of brick construction.  Some of the stores are homes now and most are empty or have been converted to carports.  This is what it looks like in the 21^st Century when you don’t need as many stores.

Click here to enlarge image.

Folded Up  12 x 36 inches, acrylic on panel, 2009

I did a smaller version of this which I liked a lot and then I decided to do a larger one.  It’s just a small house beside a two lane highway.  It’s covered in aluminum siding and will probably be burned down soon enough.  I call it “Folded Up” because of the folding chair leaned up against the front.  In the larger version I added the woman standing at the front door because at this size it seemed too empty. 

Click here to enlarge image.

That Store Bought Window   6 x 13 inches, acrylic on panel, 2009

This is some house down in Louisiana.  We were headed to Vicksburg but this house was not far from Eudora, Arkansas.  I would call it a “shotgun shack” but it’s sporting a hipped roof, which gives me pause.  I was interested to see that someone had put in a modern window and it stood our like a sore thumb to me.

Click here to enlarge image.

Scattered,

 4.5 x 18  inches

acrylic on panel, 2009 

Click here to enlarge. 

Rocket Ship to the Moon   acrylic on panel, 2009

I did a drawing of this old tractor many years ago. I kept trying to figure out a way to do a large painting of it. I enjoy the challenge of painting machinery. I confess these big old back tires nearly defeated me! I forget just when it was that I switched from a daylight painting to dusk with the full moon rising but that did it for me. 

Click here to enlarge image.

Honeysuckle,

20 x 24 inches

acrylic on panel , 2009

Click here to enlarge. 

Untitled, Cemetery   acrylic on panel, 2009

I don’t know much about this cemetery but it was somewhere on the east side of Lake Chicot.  I must have been on my way to Greenville one Saturday…exploring.  This is what I found.  It was wet that morning…sopping wet, to be exact.  It had rained during the night and looked like it might start up again.  For twenty years I’ve thought about working it up into a painting.  It’s not unusual for me to wait decades to do a painting.  There is evident neglect visible in this scene but that’s just the way things are.  If everything was mowed and neat, with little flags flying…I would never have touched it.  This is our world. 

Click here to enlarge image.

Untitled, Railroad Crossing   24 x 24 inches, acrylic on panel, 2009

Down on the Delta, the highest places are railroad crossings.  I can’t remember just where this is but the shadows caught my attention.  Other than that, it’s just another thing that describes the Delta in my mind, at least.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD -through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2008.

This painting was accepted into the 2008 Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, AR. Please visit AAC to view the painting in person.  Click here to see a picture from the opening reception held October 3.  The exhibit runs through November 16.

The End of the World

12 x 48 inches, acrylic on panel 2008

Click here to enlarge image.

Our Lady of the Bayou 
16 x 48 inches, acrylic on panel 2008

Click here to enlarge image.

For Sale at the Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR.

Across the Branch
27 x 8 inches, acrylic on panel 2008

Click here to enlarge image.

Blackbirds
8 x 24 inches, acrylic on panel 2008

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD -through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2009.

Twilight Gleaming

16 x 20 inches, acrylic on panel 2008

Better than a year ago, I did a painting of “Old Chocolate” for some friends of mine in South Arkansas.  “Chocolate” was a “work truck” and I was going to do another version for my own “entertainment”.  Which this is.  It was going to have more caked on mud but I got caught up in trying to deal with the colors and reflections and so the mud got left behind.  Maybe another time for the mud.

Click here to enlarge image.

For Sale at the Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR.

Lazy Boats

13 x 36 inches,
acrylic on panel 2008

When school let out my parents would take my brother and me to “the bluff”.  Technically it was Ozment’s Bluff and if this view were turned around, you would see the high ground that forms the bluff…somewhere between 15 and 20 feet from the water’s edge.  Before people hauled their boats around with them, fishermen would tie their boats up just north of “the bluff” and this view was a big part of my memories of Ozment’s Bluff.

Click here to enlarge image.

Breakin' Up

9 x 32 inches
acrylic on panel 2008

I’ve been working on this three-bay shed for about a year.  My first thought was to put some generic thunderheads in the background.  But, on a recent drive to Greenville, Mississippi, I snapped some storm clouds with the camera.  With some small alterations I felt that the clouds would “fit”.  Weather is a pretty big part of the Delta as far as I am concerned and I try to include weather…not just clouds, in each painting.

Click here to enlarge image.

Bleak and Bare,

16 x 26 inches,
acrylic on panel 2008

For as long as I can recall or at least back to the 80s this church sat alongside Hwy 65 south of Lake Village.  I feel certain it’s not on any list of historic buildings but never the less it is an icon sitting there all alone witnessing to whatever part of the world travels along 65.  The red-orange foreground area is the “access road” east of 65.  Lake Chicot would be to the viewers left.  I think the season is obvious.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD -through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2007.

Valley Methodist Church, 10 x 20 inches, acrylic on panel

Several years ago I took some photographs of various places around Drew County that interested me as either paintings or pen and inks.  I was especially interested in old churches and the one that really caught my eye was of Valley Methodist Church in the southwestern part of the county.  I have it as it looked until recently, before its original siding was covered with a modern surface.  But what was so interesting to me was the line of tables for “dinner on the ground”.  I have yet to see another construction like this and so I had to include it in my painting.  This is the way it was.

Click here to enlarge image.

Patches and Puddles, 

14 x 18 inches, acrylic on panel

This road is north of the Arkansas River as it flows by Pine Bluff.  As you drive around the Delta, there are many, many roads that you can glance down.  Sometimes, as in this painting, you can see “nothing”.  But I see a memory of the past that most folks glance at and forget.  To me it’s sort of an icon of a memory…a flat, straight road that runs away from you and zips around a tree or a corner and is gone.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD -through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2008.

Mt. Zion, 18x36 inches, acrylic on panel

Mt. Zion Presbyterian Church is a landmark as you drive north on Highway 425 from Monticello, Arkansas.  The building is situated on the east side of the highway just north of the Drew County line in Lincoln County . Mt. Zion is on the National Historical Register; this building was erected in 1925 but the congregation was organized in 1858.  I have done several commissions of this fine old site but this painting is my own personal painting of a favorite place from my home area.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD -through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2005.

Red, White and Blues  11x26 inches  acrylic on panel

For a few years I taught Art at Dermott High School and since I was the yearbook advisor, I carried my camera with me a lot of the time.  On one drive north of Dermott , Arkansas I pulled over and snapped this shot of these youngsters in front of this “used church”.  I don’t think this church was in the possession of its original owner and it’s possible that that owner took the stained glass window with them.  I had drawn this scene several times but nothing really worked until I cropped the steeple.  Then the various elements around the church worked with the children and the painting proceeded.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2005.

South of Pine Bluff    16x42 inches   acrylic on panel  

One spring as I was headed back to Dermott a storm loomed over this old store south of Pine Bluff, Arkansas on highway 65.  I took a photo quickly (for obvious reasons) but did nothing with it except to occasionally glance at it.  After about twenty years of this I sketched out a rough idea and then did a detailed drawing of the building which I transferred to a masonite panel and got started.  Even with a black and white photo at hand it took a year to bring this painting to its finished state.

 Click here to enlarge image.

For Sale at the Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR.

Moving Off            18x36 inches       acrylic on panel  

I have always liked airplanes and crop dusters were a staple romantic part of the South.  Nowadays crop dusters are Ag Cats but still a part of the South nonetheless.  Between my home town of Monticello and Dermott, where I taught for five years, the hills drop off into the flat lands of the Mississippi Delta.  For a few years this was the scene along there.  The sky is handled like a watercolor and the foreground is more like fluid oil paint.  I enjoy the range that acrylic paint has and this painting pretty well shows just how wide that is.

Click here to enlarge image.

Late Afternoon, Greenhill     24x36 inches       acrylic on panel  

My uncle, Garvin Scoggin kept this feed shed in this field just off the gravel road for his cows on the north side of the road.  That’s his barn to the right in the distance.  What interested me in this painting was the way the shed seemed to touch the gate and the slightly rolling hills to the right.  The painting is almost cubistic while being more or less realistic…something I find very satisfying.  By the way…neither the herd nor their fast food stand are there anymore.

Click here to enlarge image.

St. Sebastian’s Bucket    24x30 inches        acrylic on panel  

This is an old well bucket that my Scoggin cousins used for target practice down near the creek.  I took a photo of it about ten years before I ever did this painting.  I called it St. Sebastian’s Bucket after the Catholic Saint who was martyred by being shot several times with arrows.  It seemed appropriate in my mind and not every painting title works as well as this one does.  I’m extremely fond of this painting because it is exactly the place where I reached a workable plateau with acrylic paint.  And I remember my red headed cousins when I look at the rusted parts of the bucket.  I think it’s wonderful when a painting can tie memories to visual designs; it’s like sparks jumping around in my brain. 

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2005.

The Milk Barn    5x7 inches    2005    acrylic on panel  

At some point after my grandparents had passed away I took a lot of snapshots of various things on the Haney place. This dilapidated milk barn was one of them. It had fallen in to disrepair by then. I have some vague memories of this structure when it was in use buy mostly it's only a ghost since its long since been torn down.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2005.

Higgins Gro. & Serv. Sta.    10x22 inches    2005    acrylic on panel  

Many years ago I was commissioned by the Union Bank & Trust Co. to do a series of paintings depicting the history of Monticello and Drew County. My uncle, Werner Haney, and I went around taking photos of the "high points" in Monticello "and environs." Uncle Werner had a better camera than I did, so he helped me out. One of the photos he took was of Higgins "store" as it was sometimes called by us locals. It was on what was then the highway heading south out of Monticello. It would be hard to find a better icon of the forties and fifties and I've always come back to it over the years. This version is far more successful since I've included more of the highway and the scrub pine forest.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2006. 

Drew County Sale Barn    8x24 inches         acrylic on panel  

I have painted a lot of "places" around Monticello and Brown Calhoun's Store is one  of them. The store is at the left and the Sale Barn, obviously, is to the right. For some reason I took a "panoramic" view and then I taped the photos together. As often happens with me, the photos lay in an envelope in a box for several years before I looked at them again and felt the need to work it up into a suitable composition. This is an excellent version of what this place would have looked like from the fifties until the early eighties.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2006. 

Fading Away       8x22 inches         acrylic on panel  

 This house was “fading away” when I took a snapshot of it in the early eighties.  It was a type of house that we call a “shotgun shack”.  The word “shack” is not derogatory; it’s the alliteration that calls for its use.  To me, most generic “shotgun shacks” were taller and slightly less wide.  The roof would have had a steeper pitch as well.  Anyway, this one used to be near Arkansas City and the vine covered “garage” was something else that caught my eye.  I like the gaps that showed how it was constructed and also the bent boards that curve away from the walls.  The cotton field and telephone pole are invented to match the feeling the place invoked.  No doubt this “place” has faded away completely by this point in time. 

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2006. 

John Deere out by Andy's Field     acrylic       8x27 inches     2006

This tractor was in the children’s part of the Little Rock Zoo.  I took a snapshot and figured I could use it in a painting at some point.  The shape of the tractor and its tires interested me a lot.  So I “moved” it from the zoo to the Delta.  You can tell by its tires that this Deere has been retired.

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2006. 

Highway 425 north of Yorktown    acrylic      5x24 inches     2006

I have traveled this stretch of highway many times and for some reason this particular straight stretch is interesting to me.  I like the way the highway aims northward.  It is enjoyable to me how the layers of forests (or woods, as we would normally say) drop back into space.  The “telephone poles” defining the highway perk my interest up a bit too.  The clouds are morning clouds and the sun hasn’t been up long.

Click here to enlarge image.

For Sale at the Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR.

Delta Gin    acrylic      2006

This old cotton gin used to sit on the eastern side of Lake Chicot and therefore, across the lake from Lake Village .  When I lived in Dermott, I would occasionally drive that way as I traveled to Greenville , Mississippi .  In some ways it was like traveling back in time.  I felt like it was actually 1941 or some such year.  Nowadays the east side of the lake is lined with vacation homes and the gin is gone.  I painted on the frame to make it seem like you were looking through an old (and transparent) frame at an equally old scene.   

Click here to enlarge image.

SOLD - through Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR 2007.

Delta Cathedral  

12 x 16 inches; acrylic on panel;  2007

I know that barns are more favored by most folks, but I like these sheds that protect the farm machinery from the elements.  And, if I can find one that interests me, I like to paint them.  This is somewhere between Pine Bluff and Little Rock on the eastern side of the river.  The three bays can be seen as religious symbolism…hence the name Delta Cathedral. 

Click here to enlarge.

Waitin'   

16 x  36 inches; acrylic on panel;  2007

When you live on the Delta you get used to field after field of cotton or soybeans.  During the period when I lived on the Delta, I took many photos of various fields, usually trying to capture THE cotton field of all time.  I don’t REALLY think that this is the “mother of all cotton fields” but it does convey a certain timelessness which is part of why I paint the Delta.  If you don’t pay too much attention to details, you could imagine this being a field in 1923…rather than the 21^st Century.

 

Click here to enlarge.

For Sale at the Cantrell Gallery, Little Rock, AR.

Falling Apart   

5 x 24  inches; acrylic on panel;  2007

On our way from England to Little Rock last year, I saw this and shot it real quick.  To me there is a feeling of a church speeding into the past.  I’ve seen similar scenes many times in my life but this one didn’t get away.

 

 

Click here to enlarge.