(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
Country Sunshine
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2018/03 - March
In the ol’ South when someone did a thing exceptionally well, folks would say, “Well, you just went to town on that.” That’s exactly what Stephanie Durham did. She went to town in dozens of wild and wonderful ways.
Growing up in central Georgia, she says, “I was raised in the country sunshine.”
Upon high school graduation she hopped aboard a Greyhound and went to town, literally…all the way to Atlanta. She had a talent for hairstyling, and wound up in a premier salon. For the next four decades she cut, shaped, and occasionally burned hair. What the heck. It’ll grow back.
In her spare time she’d paint. Painting for her was all about storytelling. Her images were and continue to be wildly colorful, capturing the essence of a time, place, or event. Little children, black and white, are a favorite subject. They play, parade, jump rope, or dance, a large ragdoll often dangling from one of their arms.
Stephanie cut hair until she had a fall. That signaled a time to slow down. She packed up and went home to care for her mother and herself.
Her mom died a decade later. That’s when Wildcat Stephanie, as she dubbed herself, picked up her brushes once more and started going to town. She jokes, “Even though my imagination takes me all over the world, I’m always home by 6 o’clock.”
Eventually her paintings caught the attention of an Atlanta art dealer who helped steer Stephanie into the folk art market. She was encouraged to write narratives on the back of her work. A natural born raconteur, it was hard to tell which aspect of the artform she liked best, the painting or the tale-telling.
To see more of her work, check out the gallery at Around Back at Rocky’s Place, (706) 265-6030,3631 Highway 53 East at Etowah River Road, Dawsonville, Georgia, 30534, Saturday, 11:00 A.M. to 5;00 P.M., Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 P.M., or gladly by appointment.
