Appalachian watercolors
Alan Shuptrine exhibit showcases region’s way of life
It’s not unusual for an artist to be visited by a muse when it is least expected. For Alan Shuptrine, an early morning dream inspired him to dedicate himself to painting a series of works based on life in the Appalachian Mountains.
To date, the Chattanooga artist is about 10 short of his initial goal of 100 paintings and hopes to have those completed by January. Many of those completed works are part of a traveling museum collection titled “Alan Shuptrine: Appalachian Watercolors of the Serpentine Chain.” Now at the Museum Center at Five Points in Cleveland, Tennessee, the exhibition is at the end of a two-year, four-museum run. It will close in Cleveland in mid-January.
“The museum concept came to me from the beginning,” Shuptrine says. “I woke up at 3 a.m. with the idea, and I knew what I wanted to paint.”
Shuptrine is also collaborating with Jennifer Pharr-Davis on a book, to be called “I Come From a Place,” that will include his 100 paintings and her text. Like Shuptrine, she is an avid outdoors enthusiast who has lived among the Appalachian Mountains all her life.
Shuptrine’s father, Hubert, was also a painter, and like him, the younger Shuptrine is fascinated by the Appalachian Mountains. Hubert Shuptrine is renowned for his collaboration with poet and novelist James Dickey on the 1974 publication “Jericho: The South Beheld.” The younger Shuptrine and Pharr-Davis have followed their lead for “I Come From a Place.”
“On ‘Jericho,’ he and James Dickey refused to work together. They decided to go their separate ways. My father would paint, and Dickey would write, and then they would put them together,” Shuptrine says.
Pharr-Davis has suggested some locations for Shuptrine to consider painting, and he has used them, but she has not seen his works.
“Jennifer and I worked together on a common theme, but we have not influenced each other. She did the text solely on her own, and now that I have read it, I’m glad we did it that way. It’s beautiful.”
Pharr-Davis says the process of working with an artist was liberating and fun. “I’ve done a lot of writing in the past, mostly nonfiction memoir or instructional-type stuff, so this was an opportunity as a writer to loosen up and be more artistic and fluid.”
The title of Shuptrine’s museum exhibition is derived from the vein of serpentine that runs throughout the Appalachian region. It is similar to a vein that runs through parts of Europe.
“Scientists theorize that at one point the East Coast and Europe were together and split. So, in a sense, those settlers that came here were coming home. My dad’s two books were about coming home, so it’s ironic that mine is too.”
Where Shuptrine’s works differ from his father’s is that the elder painter focused on the “vanishing South,” and the younger’s work is more focused on the present, and perhaps the future.
“I’m not going to paint a guy with his new F150, but I wanted to paint the living Appalachian Mountains,” Shuptrine says. “There are still plenty of traditions still around, from the fiddle tunes to quilt patterns to whiskey making to storytelling. I’m fascinated by it all.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@times freepress.com or 423-757-6354.