MISSISSIPPI ARTIST CREATES UNIQUE "WIND PAINTING" ARTWORK INSPIRED BY SEASONAL WEATHER PATTERNS AND SOUTHERN AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS

11 September 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
James W. Bailey
2142 Glencourse Lane
Reston, VA 20191
Phone: 703-476-1474
Cell: 504-669-8650
Email: jameswbailey@comcast.net

MISSISSIPPI ARTIST COLLABORATES WITH SEASONAL WEATHER PATTERNS TO CREATE A UNIQUE BODY OF ART WORK KNOWN AS “WIND PAINTING” – INSPIRED BY THE MISSISSIPPI AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL TRADITION OF THE BOTTLE TREE

RESTON, VA - A native of Columbus, Mississippi, Reston, Virginia-based artist, James W. Bailey, is all too familiar with the destructive power of Tornado force winds, having personally witnessed the devastating effects caused by recent tornados that have ripped through his hometown of Columbus the past couple of years. With new artwork featured in an art exhibition in Reston, Virginia, this fall, Mr. Bailey draws upon his southern roots for inspiration and ironically explores the calmer artistic potential of wind and seasonal weather patterns through a unique art making process he calls “Wind Painting”.

“ ‘Wind Painting’ is a visual arts language of expression that physically collaborates with nature to reveal the naturalistic artistic creativity inherent in random acts of design caused by seasonal weather patterns. For example: the way a mass snowfall changes the design, appearance and function of a street,” Mr. Bailey says, jokingly referring to last winter’s record snowfall in Northern Virginia.

Mr. Bailey explains that the process of “Wind Painting” actively involves the use of wind in the creation of his artwork: “I physically paint an understory color palette that is inspired by the seasonal changes of natural color that occur in the south. I then hang paint brushes from the limbs of trees on days in Reston when we are experiencing severe winds. The brushes are dipped in paint and are set free to be randomly blown across a prepared canvass by the wind. The results are completely unpredictable, but always seasonally inspired.”

Mr. Bailey explains the southern context of the cultural importance of the changes of seasons: “The southern experience is very much a creative visual arts experience of life that combines the textures, colors and the rhythms of familial events that move through seasonal time and presents them back to us as a living painting of history, time and tradition. Southerners, perhaps more than most Americans, form strong emotional bonds to the seasons of the year and the cycle of events that flow and repeat from season to season. It’s all part of the historical sensitivity to our ancestral heritage that both blacks and whites, particularly in Mississippi, are instilled with from birth. Events like family reunions held at historic family cemeteries or church cemetery decoration days. These are important seasonal experiences for southerners.”

Mr. Bailey also explains an additional source of inspiration that he drew upon from his native southern roots for his innovative art process: “In my home state of Mississippi there is a rural African-American practice known as bottle trees. African slaves brought with them from Africa their traditional beliefs in good and evil spirits. In the south their religious practices developed into the tradition of placing colorful bottles at the ends of branches of crepe myrtles. They believed that blue and green glass would lure evil spirits away from their homes and trap them inside the bottles”, says Mr. Bailey. “When I was a child growing up in Mississippi, my grandfather and I would visit an elderly black farmer who lived down the road from my grandfather’s farm. He had a huge bottle tree in his front yard. My grandfather and I would sit on this man’s front porch in the evening and he would tell us ghost stories. When the wind blew strongly an eerie haunting sound whistled through the bottles of his bottle tree. This old man, whose father was a former slave in the Mississippi Delta, told me the sound was the moaning of the souls of evil plantation masters who were lured by and trapped inside the bottles while chasing the souls of dead slaves who were trying to make their way back home to Africa. Eudora Welty writes about the practice of the bottle tree in her short story, ‘Livvie’. ‘Wind Painting’ is my homage to this uniquely southern tradition.”

There are four “Wind Paintings” in Mr. Bailey’s Southern Seasonal Series, including “Spring”, “Summer”, “Fall” and “Winter”. Mr. Bailey says that he is in discussions with several Northern Virginia and Mississippi corporations to secure a permanent home for the collection on the condition that it would be accessible to the public. “It’s my hope to make this unified body of work available for all to view, enjoy and experience the “Wind Painting” interpretations of the four seasons of the South,” says Mr. Bailey.

Although individual paintings from Mr. Bailey’s Southern Seasonal Series have been exhibited this past summer at various exhibitions in the Northern Virginia region, this exhibition will be the first in which all four are publicly exhibited at the same time. “Spring”, “Summer”, “Fall” and “Winter” will be featured at a public exhibition sponsored by the University of Phoenix at its Reston, Virginia, campus from September 15, 2003 to January 9, 2004. This exhibition is coordinated through the League of Reston Artists. For directions to the University of Phoenix’s campus, please see the League of Reston Artists’ website at www.legueofrestonartists.org