Using pages from my grandmother's old hymnal (only the songs we would sing when I was a child) I created a background for the painting of an old, southern, one-room church. My original intention was to place the hymnal pages so that the pages would create the effect of the rows in the cotton fields but as I began to create this piece I quickly realized that if I were staying true to the theme I should leave things in a "messy" form and simply paint large cotton around the church.
The painting was meant to capture the childhood my grandmother has painted in my mind with her many stories. She and her 7siblings worked cotton fields and sang together for fun at fairs and such. I tried to capture the chaos of life with the importance of hard work and faith in a way that would speak to people.