Featured Artist: Peggy Blood
Peggy Blood is a community artist, a member of the Telfair Friends of African American Art, a faculty member at Savannah State University, and the President of The National Alliance of Artists from Historical Black Colleges and Universities (NAAHBCU). Her work has been featured in China and India through the United States Department of State "Art in Embassies" program.
Artist’s Statement:
My love for nature is represented in all my paintings. Living in the south among beautiful trees, I am inspired by meandering creeks, majestic old trees, lush marsh lands, and vegetation trails. These are the foundations for my most recent paintings. The colorful brush markings start with delicate and strong strokes of color that mimic shapes of trees and vegetation.
Like people, trees have strong personalities and attitudes; some are bold, and overpowering, others are quiet, slim and/or graceful. Starting with a seed, small, fragile and innocent, a tree starts to develop and bloom. Loving life with determination, regardless of the challenges; they fight to thrive. Each changing season brings a promise for a new beginning. As the cycles of time past, a deterioration of the core changes its physical structure, purpose functionality and effectiveness within its environment.
As colors glide across the canvas mimicking shapes of trees, the ending results are unknown; my curiosity is heightening as the painting takes on a life of its own. The process may take months as I study and become acquainted with the formation of what is being created or revealed to me.
After a long period of study and examination the intensity of heavy impasto texture and colors start to develop, and the fragmentary passages begin to come to life. At this time, it has been transformed from a blank canvas into an episode that communicates beyond words I can articulate or convey. "Autum Spice," a prominent tree with colorful foliage and roots moving into the crisp season of fall, depicts the personalities of some of the trees in southern Georgia and represents my expressionistic interpretation of the life cycle of trees.
https://art.state.gov/personnel/peggy_blood/
[Images used on front cover, page 2 and back cover: Peggy Blood, Autum Spice, 2024]