The Everchanging Rural Georgia Scene

My Favorite Painting Spot

It wasn't long after moving to Georgia in 1982 before I found the one spot that inspired me to paint the Vanishing Rural Georgia scene. Just north of Madison, near the town of Bostwick Georgia stood an old abandoned plantation complete with a plantation mansion, overseer's house, barns and sharecroppers shacks. The main house was slowly being repainted after decades of neglect and most of the out buildings were disintegrating.
I drew a pencil of the overseers house which was never photographed and long since sold.
Then I painted the "Window on Georgia" piece showing the beginning of the repainting process while showing the sharecropper sheds in the front and reflecting an old house in the back. I followed this painting by "Out Behind the House" of an old tool shed that was in back of the main mansion.

The tool shed collapsed a couple of years after my painting was completed in 1984 leaving only the roof on the ground for a couple of years before that too disappeared. One by one the out buildings disintegrated while the main mansion, now repainted, started falling apart too. A large branch fell through the roof around 1990 and rain poured in for many months before the roof was repaired. Windows have been broken and although the building has been used in the movie "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" and in several commercials as well as in the short lived television series "Vanished", no one has restored the building to livable status and soon I believe, it will also collapse.

I've painted and drew the sharecroppers' shacks on a few occasions and one painting, "Gone But Not Forgotten" won a best in show award in 2007.

All-in-all, the Nolan Corners area has been good for my artistic temperament and helped me create some of my most memorable works. I hope that the vanishing rural scene in Georgia doesn't vanish too quickly. I believe that I still have a few paintings left to do of this fascinating theme. And I'm still looking for that one scene that will make the ultimate statement on the rural farmhouse of the past.

My Favorite Painting Spot

The Ever Changing Georgia Landscape

When I moved my family to Georgia in 1982 it didn't take long to find the one spot that would inspire me to paint the Vanishing Rural Georgia scene. It was Nolan Corners near Bostwick Georgia where an old plantation house and sharecropper shacks were still in existence. Since I began drawing and painting the various buildings surrounding the area, one-by-one they have been disappearing. The first to fall down and get hauled off was the tool shed that I named "Out Behind the House". That vanished around 1986 when the shed collapsed leaving only the roof for a year or so, then that too was gone.
The main plantation house was being renovated and I captured the partial repainting in "Window on Georgia" in 1984. Since then the entire house has been painted bit not renovated. A tree limb went through the roof in the early 90's and rain entered the building for many months. Some of the glass windows have been broken and, although the building still stands, it won't be too long before it's eventual collapse.
The sharecropper's shack that I painted in "Gone But Not Forgotten" collapsed months after I painted the window and I was compelled to do the complete building from an old photos I had taken.
I have also completed a couple pen and ink drawings of the Nolan buildings and a pencil that I did of the overseers' home for the Nolan family never was photographed. There are still a couple buildings left and the lay of the land still makes an interesting landscape scene. I know that, when the old plantation mansion goes, it will surely be the end of an era.