Backyards & Beyond: Mississippians and Their Stories by H.C. Porter (2008) Hardcover - Hardcover

H.C. Porter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0981849903 ISBN 13: 9780981849904

Publisher: Backyards & Beyond, 2008

Synopsis

Mississippi's premier social realist and cultural storyteller, H.C. Porter is known for her environmental paintings capturing everyday moments in the lives of Mississippians from the Delta to inner city neighborhoods. For nearly two decades, her narrative mixed media paintings have offered the world a contemporary Southern vision. In September 2005, just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina landed full force along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the focus of her work shifted to telling the visual stories of those putting their lives back together in the coastal communities of her home state. For the next year, Porter captured black and white portraits that would serve as the basis of her paintings, while collaborator Karole Sessums recorded the voices of those being photographed. The pair covered 90 miles of Mississippi coastal communities devastated by Katrina. What Porter and Sessums found on the Mississippi Gulf Coast was larger and even more astounding than the hurricane's destruction. Am

About this title

About the Author

H.C. Porter grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, where she returned to live and work after receiving a BFA from the University of Alabama in 1984. She started her printmaking studio at the age of 23 in her grandmother s basement, but the fumes soon overcame the weekly ladies club meetings upstairs. Porter then became a charter member of Jackson's young, tight-knit enclave of artists working in what became known as the Millsaps Avenue Arts District. During this time her distinctive style evolved. Well known as a social realist, Porter has traveled extensively, exhibiting her work in nearly every major city in the United States; her collectors span the globe. In 2006 she moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she lives and works above the H.C. Porter Signature Gallery located in the quaint, historic downtown district. Porter was awarded a fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts for her work on the Backyards & Beyond project. This is her first book. Karole Sessums has always possessed a passion for people, travel, and the outdoors. She has toured the Southeast as a singer-songwriter, worked as a traveling nurse, and lived on her bicycle as a roving Christian missionary. She and H.C. Porter have worked together for more than 20 years. Sessums conducted the live field interviews and field recordings, served as the overall project manager and exhibition curator, and created a short documentary film about the making of the Backyards & Beyond exhibition. Sessums earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. When asked how she juggles interests ranging from the creative to the analytical, she replies, My left brain is constantly telling my right brain to take a break, but my heart always seems to take over in the end!

Edition details

• Publisher: Backyards & Beyond
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0981849903
• ISBN 13: 9780981849904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200
• Editor: Marlo Carter Kirkpatrick