ARTIST: Barbara Williams

STATEMENT: Home is rolling hills with lots of green tress: scrub oak, hickory and cedar and poor clay soil with a super abundance of rocks. Home is the Ozarks. Builders of this 1930s rock house in Mountain Grove made good use of that abundance of rocks, creating 18” thick walls, probably even gathering the rock from this property on which it was built. The house is not impressive but I am drawn to it, maybe because of its simplicity, its proportions and its being built of rubble rock. Maybe it’s the spirit of the place draws me, if so, whose house was it? Perhaps at one time it was home to Dabbs Greer who taught drama at Mountain Grove High School before going to Hollywood where he became everyman in movies and television. That was 1940-43 and the high school was close enough for him to have walked. I like to imagine him living there and doing that. Home also means family to me. I have placed my Aunt Charlene in front of this house though I doubt she ever visited there in reality. Gouache with its matte chalky appearance seemed to be the appropriate medium to describe the rock.