There is a heavy landscape element to this painting. If it had a theme song, it would be “This Land is Your Land”. That idyllic Woody Guthrie song meant something to me as a kid. I thought it could be true. The painting had a different back story.
It started at the Arty Block Party in Park Circle. I was a featured artist doing a painting demonstration. Though introverted, I want to put on a little show. So I brought my giant beach ball with painting prompts written in each section. It was tossed about the audience. The person who caught it shouts out a color or type of long or demand to use the giant brush meant for scrubbing the charcoal grill. As the painter, I must comply. Fun! For the first hour. I was hot. I was covered in paint and the party was winding down. The ball was supposed to get tossed back to me but it was intercepted by a gentleman who requested I paint a big purple heart. I put on a happy face and brushed on a giant purple heart across the whole painting. Big purple hearts really aren’t my thing. I went home and scrubbed up and put the painting aside.
Later, at another North Charleston art event, I ran to the same man. We get to chatting and realize we’ve met each other once before. It was Willis Sanders. He is retired but still an arts advocate and artist who works a little purple heart into all his images. He had visited a school where I was teaching GT art classes when we met years before. He told me that he had been sitting for a student to paint his portrait. Soon that portrait would be going to the White House for Youth Art Month. How cool is that?
The next day there is a whole article in the paper. There is a copy of the stellar portrait, Willis, the model, and the artist who turns out to be one of my former students. Imagine a painting of black man, made by a brown child, going to be on display living in our current White House. I got inspired. I pulled out the hot mess of a painting with a giant purple heart scrawled across it. Now, I saw a purpose. I understood Willis Sanders’ request for a Purple Heart. I felt connectivity back to “This Land is Your Land”.
I transformed the heart into the infinity symbol so the love goes on and on. May there be love for the land and all its inhabitants. May it truly be “made for you and me”.
“Big Purple Heart”. Acrylic on canvas. 36x48 inches. $1,000. Available to purchase here.