Y’all know I’m attracted to textures of old walls on a building, layers of colors you can see when paint, stucco, and wood start aging. You know I like to bring these textures into my abstract paintings - pulling inspiration from downtown Charleston homes and buildings. But if I’m going to be honest, I’d been mostly admiring the fact that they are a few hundred years old - thinking about who may have lived in these homes South of Broad during the Civil War, imagining families trying to stay cool on the porch in the summer heat, or keeping the front and back door of their row house open to create that airflow. And then I feel like I would jump to 2018. Bam! Everything is charming and ready for Instagram. I wasn’t fully thinking about how these old buildings get their beautiful textures along the way.

So I sat down and thought more about where all the marks, scars, age spots/beauty spots come from that show up over time. Wear and tear, sun damage and rain have been the things that cross my mind, but riding out my first hurricane I’ve clearly just been looking through rose colored glasses... I’m not a historian. I’m an artist, so these are just my thoughts and reflections.

First off, my heart goes out to Florida and the South Carolina coast being affected by Hurricane Ian <3 I’m not writing this to piggy back on current events, but it really has me reflecting on where some of the beauty marks of a building come from. It’s hard to really know, but I’m now well aware the downtown buildings in Charleston age not only from time and the sweltering heat, but from unexpected heavy rain and high winds. Novel, I know ;) but whew, these 100+ year old buildings have gumption - they aren’t going down without a fight that’s for sure.

I mean if 2020 taught us anything…its that a storm will age us. So maybe we gain beauty marks/scars to remind us of our strength. A sign of a new layer.

While most of my work is inspired from my resident city, Charleston, South Carolina, I grew up in central Mississippi and visited New Orleans often - so I have to credit my initial awareness of historic textures early on to the Big Easy.
This past summer I was down in New Orleans capturing all of the different areas for my Travel Mixed Media series, The undeniably quirky and lovable New Orleans shows off her historic textures, colors and personality unlike any other city 🎺and I had a blast photographing the different areas. But behind the modern moments there are layers to these buildings and the well known Hurricane Katrina will always come to mind when I visit. There are so many stories and even years taken to heal cities like New Orleans. To me the buildings that survive and exist today represent the strength of that city and the people - beauty marks and all. One of the pieces from my New Orleans Mixed Media series, ‘King Cake Walls’ has seen it all - I assume rising tides, 100 degree days, and time have all played a role in this wall. Gosh, she’s a beauty.

So sometimes a beauty mark on a building gets to stay and the sun will dance with it daily - if I’m lucky, I’ll get to photograph it and find inspirational textures for a new painting in my studio. But other times, the marks are covered or repaired. Maybe the historical mark will show up again after the next storm, or with a new owner, or just with time. Either way, I think there’s strength in the textures that we can see and strength in hidden layers that we discover over time. <3

Check out my Original works to explore some beautiful textures and layers!

Layers in Texture