Guest Blogger: Nick Nelson
“When asked to contribute to this blog I immediately saw it as an opportunity for shameless self-promotion. Unfortunately, the guilt and shame built up from years of catechism class and art school got the better of me and I decided to do something high-minded.
I decided to do something never attempted in the blogosphere. I decided to write something that would stimulate discussion. In November of 2006, I had the opportunity to attend a retreat for artists hosted by the Fire House Gallery in Louisville, GA . The purpose of this retreat was to discuss Southern art and aesthetics, if there are such things.
This Vase For America, Anthony Faris
There is such a thing as Southern Literature (Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Harper Lee, etc…) so it follows that there should be a counterpart in the visual arts. Since the retreat, I have been preoccupied with this notion of a regional aesthetics and the resurgence of regionalism in an increasingly globalized world.
So my question to “Internet-land”: Is there an aesthetic or artistic style unique to the South? Is a regional aesthetic or style even possible in such a small world? Is it even something that should be sought after? Because Flint River Gallery, the good folks hosting this blog, specialize in art and artists of the Deep South, I thought these questions would be appropriate.
I have a few offerings. The first is an artist named Anthony Faris who lives and works in Swainsboro, GA. The second is Parrott, GA’s own Meg Anderson. These artists have never met or seen each other’s work, but have adopted similar styles.
To me both artists make art that is about tradition but in non-traditional ways, both make art about sentimentality without being sentimental, both explore nostalgia through contemporary forms and both offer a sense of place through the use of found objects that once haunted places. Those are my humble thoughts.
Worn Gears and Missing Gear, Meg Anderson
What qualities do you, the good people of Internet-land, I think are indicative of a Southern aesthetic? Are there any artists out there, past or present, that you consider quintessential Southern Artists? Let the comments begin! ” — Nick
Nick Nelson graduated with a BFA from Georgia Southwestern State University in 2000. He went on to earn an MFA from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia where he taught observational drawing and two-dimensional design for two years.
He currently works in the Education Department of the Albany Museum of Art in Albany, Georgia. Nelson has shown his work regionally and nationally and is a member of the Stillmoreroots Group, an artist collective that exhibits site-specific installation in non-traditional spaces.
You can learn more about him at Still More Roots Gallery.
As an artist I can understand how easily sentimentality and nostalgia can be used as a vulgar means to provoke emotion from the realm of aesthetic to kitsch, but as someone born and raised in the South (notice the capitalization), who has had only brief ventures into the outside world, I am steeped like a glass of iced tea in the tradition, culture, and nostalgia of my Southern Heritage. It took a number of years and a degree of maturity before I came to fully realize the importance and benefit I was blessed with to have the particular cultural upbringing I did.
I say this with regard to my reaction to the notion of a southern aesthetic in general and to the images in this post in particular. I find that I view them formally and conceptually as an artist but also have a very strong emotional response that could be called nostalgia. I do not think I have seen an artwork that can be called Southern that does not have this effect on me. This does not include, obviously, those pieces created for the express purpose of being bought and sold in a side of the road country store, though the sentimentality is the same.
I suppose what I mean to say is that, although I think it is inescapably true that there is a distinct Southern sense of aesthetic and design, it will always be viewed with the same slight condescension from the outside as any regional, cultural, or ‘primitive’ style of art making, especially as a subculture of American art.
As far as literature, those few writers who managed to force their way into mainstream acceptance despite the early 20th century stigma of intellectual vacuousness (and is it limited to then?) in the South found a way to express Southerness as merely another aspect of humanness, to quote C. Vann Woodward from his book ‘The Burden of Southern History’(which I highly highly recommend to anyone interested in this subject), these writers “…helped us penetrate the romantic haze of an older generation as well as the cynical stereotypes of their own.”
this is the burden art faces also, slightly modified for the contemporary postmodern scene, which may prove more difficult.
Well, there are my two cents, have a nice day.