Atlanta
The work in this collection represents a growing number of works I have made about my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up outside the city in Avondale Estates, Georgia, and lived in Atlanta for the first time in 2020.
2019
Sunset on Ponce, 2019, appliqué fabric pieces, beads, thread, machine and hand stitching, approximately 4 x 5”, front and back. Included in the show “& Yet” at Agnes Scott College’s Dalton Gallery.
DHUMP, 2019, pencil, pen, colored pencil, watercolor, crayon, and white gel pen on Bristol, 8.5 x 11”
This church community used to house the preschool I went to—Druid Hills United Methodist Preschool, known to us as DHUMP for short. A lot of my earliest memories took place on this corner of Ponce. It is now being sold as $500,000 - $1,000,000 dollar townhomes. Part of me is grateful they kept the original structure instead of completely tearing it down. I’ve seen a lot of churches go this way in the past few years in Atlanta, and it always makes me wonder…what happens to the congregations? Even churches with struggling turnout numbers still have people come worship, so what happens to those worshippers when their church is turned into million-dollar condos?
Destination DeKalb, 2019, appliqué fabric, watercolor, coffee, thread, all hand stitched, 4” round hoop
This piece is a memorial for the Decatur/DeKalb County water tower that was torn down in November 2019. It had not been used for the last 15 years and the county considered it an “eyesore,” but I always loved passing it and I keep looking at the empty piece of sky now that it’s gone. The water tank was part of a New Deal-era project, constructed from 1935-1936, so it stood sentry over Decatur for over 80 years. The City of Decatur logo was painted on one side (not pictured) for the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, with text on the other side reading “Destination DeKalb” (half pictured). This piece was included in the show “& Yet” at Agnes Scott College’s Dalton Gallery and is now in a private collection.
2020
For several months of 2020, I tried as often as possible to draw for at least one hour and make an observational drawing looking at a specific scene I was sitting in front of. Here are some of the drawings I made.
