I've added a new page to my portfolio highlighting my sidewalk chalk art. My style and subject matter varies, based on the event and inspiration, but I enjoy recreating classics in the Madonnari tradition as well as coming up with my own designs, and occasionally, I volunteer my chalking to the community. I've had a couple of paid opportunities and have won or placed ten times in the past 5 years. I still consider myself new to this art form and this genre of art and am still very much learning about how best to pursue it in my locality with my skills and experience. I am pleased with the successes I've enjoyed so far, but still have much growth ahead.
I have added recent large landscapes to their portfolio page: Cape San Blas, Canyon de Chelly, and Yosemite.
16x20 inches Acrylic on Canvas.
Father's Day gift to my father, depicting him and his grandchildren (my kids) playing in his Library-study. 30x36" Acrylic on Canvas
The last painting I completed at my previous studio in Birmingham before we moved to Tennessee. It received an Honorable Mention in the Gadsden Art Association's 61st Annual Juried Show this fall. I consider my style to be a blend of Realism and Impressionism, and this seems to land more on the Impressionism side of that scale. Been flipping through my Pro-Life art portfolio and realized I don’t have a good photo of this one featured. This is the man I married. This painting is titled “The Little Ones Along the Fence,” and depicts my husband digging the grave for our miscarried daughter, our second child. It's acrylic on 18x24" canvas. In my head, I compare it to “The Gleaners” because of its outside labor related domesticity. We found a Catholic cemetery in a nearby town that saved the small space along the fence for smaller burials, such as miscarried children, but part of it was he had to help dig the grave. My husband needed something to get him through our loss. Something to DO. So much of the time when it’s a baby-related issue we focus on women. But men feel it too. I carried Alex but sometimes I feel like her death hit my husband more. She’s been on my mind lately, anytime Pro-Life legislation and activism is all over the news. I’ve also been feeling for my better half alot lately and how he carries all of us. He takes care of every single one of us, myself included, and made sure as a father his miscarried daughter was laid to rest with dignity. This is what a true man is, and I’m grateful every day that God answered my prayers with him.
Timelapse of the watercolor I painted based on our visit to Monticello last summer, which I then gave as a gift to my father, fellow artist Robert F. Jackson, who is a University of Virginia alumnus and fan of Thomas Jefferson like me and my husband.
As a cradle Catholic, it actually has taken me much of my adult life to understand Mary better, and to adopt any sort of regular prayer devotion around her role in Salvation history. So for me to be willing to see myself in her shoes so to speak, I feel is a great leap forward in my faith life as a Catholic artist. Likewise, I treasure my son. And to imagine what it must have been like for Mary, who I'm sure treasured Jesus, to watch Him grow and eventually suffer and fulfill His role in God's plan must have been torturous for her to endure. For this reason, this piece is still first and foremost a self-portrait and portrait, just in the arrangement and tradition of a "Madonna and Child," and I have therefore included it in my "Portrait" page of my portfolio of this site.
This piece's title is a play on words with an obvious juxtaposition of classical imagery over a modern "media" filled setting.
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May 2021
AuthorSonia Jackson Summers |