Rawson's Corners
William Faulkner, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, invented a county in Mississippi in which he set the stories of many of his best-known novels. Yoknapatawpha County defined the edges of his characters' lives.
Many other novelists, of course, have invented places which have become, in the popular mind, as vital as any real place.
Thinking about this as I began my current series of 8"x12" panels, I began to develop one thread of images which started to form an idea of a small rural town named Rawson's Corners.
Rawson's Corners is, of course, merely a metaphor for all the small, sleepy, rural places. A lot has happened there to mould the collective psyche and not all of it is 4H and apple pie.
I imagined it to have been originally served by the railroad, but eventually the passenger service, and then the freight, were discontinued. The interstate highway comes no closer than forty miles.
About 1920, with half the farmers' sons who served in the First World War not returning, whether by loss or by choice, Rawson's Corners began its hundred-year decline. For a moment, in 1931, it made the national news as the scene of a never-solved murder.
Today it slumbers on, not changing much, as season follows season. Its story, in studies, is one I'd like to tell.
Here's an 8"x12" study of the Caleb Hayes place (Hayes&Co. Seed).
Yesterday's Rawson's Corners Depot is another view in town.
I'll keep you posted as I wander 'round the town. My aim is to show those who haven't been there what it's like.
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Classes:
Two-day Weekend Workshops
7-8 June 2014
28-29 June 2014
Contact me about these dbjurney@verizon.net
The Ogunquit Summer School of Art
Ogunquit, Maine
Two two-day workshops
14-15 August 2014
27-28 September 2014
Contact them at 603-819-9100
Those interested in an ongoing weekly class should contact me. dbjurney@verizon.net
I am lovin' this!
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