Popular culture offers contrasting portraits of neighbors and neighborhoods.
In television shows as ageless as “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” and as recent as “Parks and Recreation” or “The Good Place,” the people who live closest to you are to be celebrated and cherished; through their proximity, they share your life’s smallest, sweetest moments.
B-grade thrillers and even some TV news programs cast shadows of suspicion. Using dramatic music and furtive glances from behind the blinds, they ask just what your neighbors might be doing over there, closed up in their houses all day.
A Columbia gallery show finds joy — and takes pride — in real people you’re bound to see shopping at the farmers’ market, on stage at a concert or milling about a museum. In three exhibiting artists’ eyes, neighbors are to be known and loved — and perhaps even studied, so that we might unlock a few small secrets to their meaningful lives.
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For the Love of Locals, currently on display at the Montminy Gallery inside the Boone County History and Culture Center, features work by Lisa Bartlett, Jane Mudd and Amy Stephenson. They offer soulful portraits of “individuals who are both friends or acquaintances and are influential to Columbia’s art community,” according to the gallery website.
By those standards, Bartlett, Mudd and Stephenson are quite portrait-worthy themselves, exerting their talent and influence, exuding kindness throughout their work. Spending time with their pieces here, and reading the expressions on their subjects’ faces, you imagine them using their singular personalities to recognize — and perhaps in a few cases, coax — what’s beautiful and unique about each soul.
Here is just a cursory look at the people in their neighborhoods.
Lisa Bartlett’s lyrical portraits
Strains of soul, blues and folk music have long resonated in Bartlett’s work. She prizes singers and songwriters who convert their emotions into I-IV-V progressions and fascinating rhythms.Â
Here, she once again pays fitting tribute to the local music community, capturing the right-now energy of these performers at work while casting them in historical context — and in league with the greats of their craft.Â
A portrait of Audra Sergel captures the singer belting a tender ballad; those who know and have heard Sergel can read the painting and practically hear the power and sensitivity contained in her voice. Sergel wears a dress made of sheet music and plays a piano which resembles a spiral staircase, curling up and off into the sky. The heaven-meets-earth quality of her sound is captured with perfect pitch.Â
Elsewhere, Bartlett captures the rough-hewn soul and family-band attitude of roots musicians Dave, Dyno and the Roadkill Orchestra in a portrait of Dyno Penny and a full-band creation; the latter employs a folk-art approach to portraiture, a perfect marriage of medium and subject.
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Bartlett’s portrait of singer Rochara Knight looks like an illustration from a historical text about Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin; Knight sings here with her whole body, freeing herself and others through song — as evidenced through the flock of small, red birds loosed from her hand.Â
Jane Mudd sees an artist’s soul
In the exhibit, Mudd’s hand glides along the contours of local artists’ souls, showing them as their true selves, in their true elements. A mid-shot portrait of photographer Notley Hawkins is a beautiful image of patience and trust, Hawkins placing faith in the camera as an extension of his own eye.
While we cannot see what he sees, the lovely, swirling clouds Mudd paints behind him exist like clues as to why the photographer might pause everything right there, right then.
The gentle wisdom of painter Byron Smith is conveyed in a portrait where he gazes with affection at the viewer, raising his hand as if about to make a point. The gesture does not belong to someone hoping to win an argument, but comes from a person prepared to speak softly and, in so doing, enrich the hearer. Mudd’s use of color, and her ability to faithfully capture the features of Smith’s face, makes him a welcome, winsome sight.Â
Wisdom also attends Mudd’s portrait of longtime journalist, professor and artist John Fennell. She paints him against a backdrop of swirling colors, a surprisingly effective contrast to Fennell’s thoughtful yet forthright manner. The subject’s smile and slightly cocked head also prepare the viewer for a nugget of truth, shared with soft concern for their present path and future destination.Â
Amy Stephenson captures embodied beauty
Stephenson does so much work for the viewer, capturing the secret smile of a subject or understanding them through the ways they hold their bodies. This sort of embodied beauty and confidence invites the viewer beyond the visage and into the room with the subject, anticipating their next motion or word.
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The expression Stephenson captures on Robin LaBrunerie’s face exceeds the painting’s price tag. Hopeful, playful — with just the slightest hint of hesitation — her subject gazes into the distance, in seeming disbelief of her status as a subject yet radiating loveliness anyhow.Â
In a piece featuring three members of the Hawley family sharing a couch — each member at their own quiet activity of reading, knitting or working — Stephenson shares a silent, stolen moment between parent and children. The sort of everyday togetherness that strengthens a family bond without anyone offering a word.Â
And Stephenson’s look at musician, poet and creative entrepreneur Josh Runnels, who performs as J. Artiz, has “future legend” written all over it. Painted against a grainy birch background, Runnels cradles himself with intention and ease. There is an unspoken but iconic confidence in Runnels’ face, pointing his chin toward the viewer and preparing them for the musicality of his life.
For the Love of Locals is on display through June 25. Learn more at https://boonehistory.org/events/for-the-love-of-locals/.Â
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.Â
