UNDER ONE SKY
This
historical panorama is rendered on 4 canvas panels set in a
single frame. Each panel depicts the landscape that lies to the
North, South, East and West of the new F & M Bank Building in
Clarksville, Tennessee.
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Acrylic
Polymer
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Size: 96” x
48” approx.
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Private
Collection of the F & M Bank / Clarksville, Tennessee
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Artist is
available for other corporate commissions
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Special
Commission - Not in Publication
Under One Sky
addresses the panorama that is Clarksville’s
history, beginning with the Valentine Sevier
Station near Red Paint Hill and ending, in this
particular work, with the establishment of the
city as a viable social and economic center of
activity in the Middle Tennessee Region during
the 19th Century.
The overall
flatness of the ground planes is intentional -
the vastness of time makes even the most
cataclysmic events in history mere
“bumps along the way” when measured
against time in its fullest context.
The buildings
are presented as small objects in a vast
landscape. This is especially true of Sevier
Station, a lonely settlement and the site of
great loss to the Sevier family… their blood
was shed there.
Clarksville’s
earliest settlement was to the North of the F & M Bank Building.
To the East the early churches were clustered. The
residential neighborhood of Dog Hill was built on the upward
slopes to the South. Many of the commercial & Governmental
buildings occupied the West side of the Town Square. The F
& M Bank Building occupies the ground where once stood the
Franklin House Hotel, circa 1842. The somewhat surreal quality
of the landscape is reminiscent of the hypothetical realism of
William Dunlap… “Look at it, think about it” he advises
viewers of art.
I believe
most serious art contains certain aspects not
fully understood by the artist or the
audience… elements that give rise to
thinking beyond the visual. Certainly there are
parts of this work I do not understand - if I did
I would be inclined to share that understanding.
It is a
privilege to have done this work for F & M
Bank and for our community.
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