My art is inspired by a freedom to play that I didn’t know as a child stifled by abuse. Architectural lines may seem as unforgiving as the bars of a prison on mind, body, and soul. However, in finding a different vantage from which to view or a different light to shed on the architecture, my works demonstrate that whatever the circumstance the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

My adulthood play is enlivened by Julia Margaret Cameron’s pioneering, Danica O. Kus’ perspective, and Julia Anna Gospodarou’s impactful monochromes. There are so few female black and white architectural photographers that a Google search begs the question, do you mean men. However, through play and example, I find my own way through monochrome documentary and abstract architectural photographs with distinctive textures, tones, and perspectives.

Recently, I realized my attention to fine detail and the varying tones in black and white images began in my teenage hobby of sketching. Using #2 pencil and varying degrees of erasure and finger brushes and rubs and intensities of graphite edge, I sharpened my monochromatic ability “seeing” color in shades of grey. Drawing from the color image of a full-sailed schooner ship at sea calls for special focus to the nuances of depth, texture, contrast, shadow, and light and how to bring it into another life using only a pencil.

I bring that same focus to bear on every pixel of monochromatic photography, minutely going over both my documentary and architectural fine art pieces to develop my tenants of rich tonality, vivid texture, and creative perspective. Sometimes, imagining depicting the image from the point of a pencil aids my endeavor so even white has hues.

Earth’s green things delight me—identifying wildflowers, sauteing buttery dandelion buds, welcoming stowaway wild violets, grasping rich garden soil, and photographing flora lifecycles. Nature was haven from childhood abuse and is oasis amid adult responsibility.

Nature’s roots run like veins throughout my life and, therefore, art.

The only time I strayed from my desire for color growing up was as a teenager, sketching chromatic pictures such as stamps and prints into the shades of greys using #2 pencils. It is always the challenge in my of trying to portray color through monochromatic variety, then, by light erasure, touch, and the pencil’s sharpness and today through deepening shadows, contrasting, and highlighting.

The cold spring water below the site of the bottling factory of Chewaukla Mineral Co. (later the Sleepy Hollow Water Co.) outside Hot Springs (Garland County) became a national sensation with backers from Chicago and an “expert” touting its “radioactive medicinal value.” Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians wrote, sung, and orchestrated a song dedicated to this “Sleepy Water of Hot Springs, Arkansas.” Radio programs and papers such as the Chicago Tribune lauded testimonials of what the water had cured and could cure.

In a 1986 publication, Bill Dever recorded a legend from a commercial brochure for the Chewaukla Springs “bottling plant,” writing, “One such spring, as legend has it, was named after an Indian princess, whose father, the chief, came to the area to utilize the waters and for recuperation.” The name “Chewaukla” was, in this legend, said to mean “sleepy water” and was given to the springs “since the drinking water gives the restful and relaxed feeling that a deep sleep gives a person.” However, though the Chewaukla Springs Mineral Co. used the legend and the logo for their marketing pamphlets, the Quapaw, Choctaw, and Osage Nations neither recognize the legend nor the word Chewaukla or the fact that Native Americans did more than trade in the area that became Hot Springs.

One of the earliest records uncovered for the company—1913 Mineral Resources of the United States—reports sales for Chewaukla Spring. The geological survey reported that total sales had “increased from 1,032,032 gallons, valued at $132, 257 in 1912 to 1,428,869 gallons, valued at $151,412 in 1913, an increase of 2 per cent [sic] in quantity and 15 per cent [sic] in value. The average price per gallon rose from 10 to 11 cents.” There is little information on the early history of the company.

The Garland County clerk’s office dates the incorporation of Chewaukla Mineral Spring Co. to February 8, 1938, with it being renamed the Sleepy Hollow Water Co. on July 8, 1959. However, a Broadcast Advertising booklet dated November 1931 lists Chewaukla Mineral Springs as preferring WMAQ for advertising, and other evidence points to a founding of the company even earlier.

Unlike many of the springs of Hot Springs, Chewaukla Spring is a cold-water spring. It remains under the site of what became the Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co bottling factory. This old bottling factory is located on Sleepy Valley Road off of Highway 7 South just north of Hot Springs proper and within Hot Springs National Park. Today, Chewaukla Bottling Factory is not marked by sign, path, or map. It deteriorated and burned into shells of blackened gold and red brick and brackish mire of leaves. In the summer a camouflage of tree leaves further hides the site.

The company was a source of mineral water for people as far away as Chicago, Illinois. For example, the April 14, 1931, issue of the Chicago Tribune included an advertisement in which the “Sleepy Water” was described as “to be had from only one Source pair of twin springs in the Arkansas hills. Peculiar natural forces here inject tertian mineral combinations which are not to be found in any other water. These natural alkalines neutralize, and absorb the acid poisons and body wastes which so often cause and aggravate diabetes.” In addition, the water was said to help those who suffered from “rheumatism, high blood pressure, arthritis,” and numerous other ailments, given its power “to drive out poisons and purify blood.” Another advertisement in the September 3, 1927, Reform Advocate, a Jewish publication from Chicago, featured a claim, signed by one Dr. Robert Unzicker of the Physicians’ Diagnostic Laboratory, that the water from Chewaukla Springs was highly radioactive, showing “five times more Radium reaction than the other waters analyzed by me.”

In the early twentieth century, radium was in or touted to be in toothpaste, cosmetics, butter, and a good deal of other household products. Before radioactivity was understood as potentially dangerous, radium was thought to be life-giving and therapeutic. Surgeon General Dr. George H. Tourney, believing in radioactivity’s curative properties (circa 1910), had written, “Relief may be reasonably expected at the Hot Springs in… various forms of gout and rheumatism, neuralgia; metallic or malarial poisoning, chronic Brights disease, gastric dyspepsia, chronic diarrhea, chronic skin lesions, etc.” However, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Radium Historical Items Catalog 2008 includes a glass bottle that once held the “Sleepy Water” cure and lists the bottle manufactured by Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co. under the product category of “Quack” cures, stating, “There were probably no actual radioactive materials, advertised more based on the mineral contents than the radioactive assets, but the fact it comes from a radioactive spring is still noted in the brochures.” This glass bottle reportedly dated to the 1910s.

Chewaukla Mineral Springs Co did not only capitalize on advertising in papers. They used their Chicago-based radio program and a song written and played by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians orchestra. The orchestra dedicated the song, “Sweet Chewaukla, The Land of Sleepy Water,” first published by Irving Berlin, Inc. of New York in 1929, “to the famous Sleepy Water, Hot Springs, Ark.” Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were famous for performing at the inaugural balls of U.S. presidents, making “Auld Lang Syne” popular for the American New Year’s Eve, and writing over 100 albums, including music for movies such as The Thin Man, Many Happy Returns, and Winter Wonderland.

The Hot Springs building remained open for decades. It has been all but erased from the landscape by abandonment, deterioration, fire, and green growth. There is not any marker, path, or drive for the Chewaukla Springs Mineral Company mineral springs bottling factory despite its colorful history.

Final Revision for Encyclopedia of Arkansas article with photography is forthcoming.

Photos digitally manipulated into geometric forms, using rich color or color enhanced photos. My analytical abstracts and jumping off point for the rest of my abstracts.

Once, I passed barns without a glance. Now, I notice these ordinary structures for the extraordinary variety of architecture from unnamed architects and as stalwarts of the rural. When all else falls, these buildings stand.

The Honor Guard is just that--strength, endurance, steadiness against time and nature, holding the fort down for countless farms and ranches across Arkansas, United States, and beyond. They have always been assurance of safety, enduring long past use. It is a building plan passed down in history from one person to another. They are buildings that lack the esteem of an architect's name. Perhaps by noticing them, we become part of their history and heritage.

All these wonderful moving kaleidoscopes are birthed from photographs. I rejoiced in their birthing because in them I explored a lifelong love of kaleidoscopes. Every one of them has one element that is the same that creates the white in them--white orchid photo cutouts blended in.

I can’t tell you how many times in the past I passed barns without a glance. Now I notice these ordinary structures for the extraordinary variety of architecture from unnamed architects and for being stalwarts of the rural. When all else falls the barn stands.

The Roundup barns encircle to represent sheltering protection and endurance against the torrent of time and enclose and embrace in itself the landscape. They, like people, are both individual and part of a larger landscape.

These are all Arkansas barns captured in my haunts about the state as I scan ever back and forth, looking for gems to photograph. Some were easily found and accessible. Others I captured from outside barbed wire and no trespassing signs.

The pieces show well individually or together in 12” prints

My art is inspired by a freedom to play that I didn’t know as a child stifled by abuse. Architectural lines may seem as unforgiving as the bars of a prison on mind, body, and soul. However, in finding a different vantage from which to view or a different light to shed on the architecture, my works demonstrate that whatever the circumstance the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

The Lodge series exemplifies my rough history, rich heritage, and vivid design. College Lodge rests on Petit Jean Mountain in the Arkansas Ozarks, USA. It was built in the 1920s through the efforts of YMCA and YWCA chapters of Arkansas colleges. In the 1930s it became part of YMCA’s Camp Petit Jean. At this camp you could spend the night in the kids’ shacks and tents or enjoy the luxurious boulder-hewn and rock-built College Lodge or “Guest House.”

Until recently, I paid little attention to this seemingly simple, small structure in its’ present day roofless ruinous state. One rare morning, I was at Petit Jean Mountain’s Stout’s Point photographing a rosy sunrise. As I was beginning to leave, I stopped to challenge myself to take this studio-apartment-sized ruin as far as I dare be inspired and to find meaning in architecture separated from me by a century of use and disuse. The Lodge became my playground and practice of vivid texture, rich tonality, and creative perspective.

At one time I secreted away my traumatic experiences, and it cost me. Today, writing and art are some of the means I speak up for myself and other survivors. Though trauma silences, art speaks. In both art and trauma, no voice should be bound by but all may be engaged by past, present, and inspiration of future.

Art has also freed me to play as I never knew how in a childhood stifled by abuse. The architectural lines with which I play may seem as unyielding as the bars of my youthful prison of mind, body, and soul. However, by finding a different view of or light to shed on architecture, my photography engages the truth that whatever the circumstance, the human spirit, by God’s grace, may ever arise in inspiration, creativity, and life.

The Old Mill ever engages present, ever remembers the past, and ever stands for those who will come. Most people come, especially in the spring and summer when blooms are happiest, to photograph the sculpture amidst its garden setting. I, however, was intrigued by what was within. The famous Rodriquez faux bois technique of shaping concrete posts and beams as aged wood, the windows that continually look toward a dawn that dances light in bright shapes from open windows and doors, the authentic 1800s grist mill handed down through the Cagle family at rest in the center, and a rainbow of shapes, textures, and colors of rocks in the walls. I came for a canvas against which to paint black and white in vivid textures, rich tonalities, and creative perspectives and unearthed the history of a sculpture and the men whose vision fashioned it.

To this day photographers come from far and wide to capture this sculpture among ever-green gardens in North Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The Old Mill is best known for gracing the opening credits of the 1939 Gone with the Wind movie, six years after the The Old Mill’s completion. Nine decades later it remains a monument to Justin Matthew’s vision for the 1800s mill replica, “quietly [weathering] the years in the depths of its secluded valley,” Matthew’s friend, Thomas R. Pugh, whose “tireless energy” embodies the water wheel, and famed Mexican sculpture Dionicio Rodgriquez, whose handiwork stands the test of time and art.

Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, US is one of three glass chapels in Arkansas.

This chapel rises 48 feet into the sky with over 6,000 square feet of glass and 425 windows. The chapel is made with all organic materials to fit its natural setting. The only steel in the structure forms a diamond shaped pattern in its wooden trusses. The building has a native flagstone floor surrounded by a rock wall. To preserve the natural setting, no structural element could be larger than what two men could carry through the woods.

The surrounding woods offered a quiet calm beauty and breeze-stirred trees are rest for my weary soul. However, Thorncrown Chapel was a beautiful gem amid it.

Its architect, E. Fay Jones, who was mentored by Frank Lloyd Wright, was recognized as one of the top ten living architects of the 20th century. Thorncrown was listed fourth on the American Institute of Architects top ten buildings of the 20th century.

The light play on these rafters among trees and amid seasons offers an exceptional opportunity to revel in rich tonality and creative perspective. By stacking the images, I achieved great clarity throughout that turns this marvel of architecture into a study of fine art and architecture alike.

While photographing Thorncrown, I had the pleasure of becoming an informal pop-up photographer of people's families and friends, infusing the building, images, and day with the diversity and inclusivity of the chapel’s walls that became a part of my memory.