A Life in Art

Posted on August 2, 2010 by bob in Features

by Jennifer Kornegay

“It doesn’t matter how young or old you are. Everybody starts at the same place: the beginning.”

The statement is profound in its simplicity, and coming from the mouth of renowned Montgomery artist Nan Cunningham gave it even more weight. She was addressing the idea that anyone, at any age, can learn to paint…or write…or sew or just about anything else. “It’s just about how badly you want to do it, and if you’ll devote the time,” she said. “It’s never too late to start something new.”

She backed up her theory with the story of her mother’s entree into art. “My mom picked up a brush for the first time when she was 60,” she said. “She started coming to a class I was teaching to socialize with her friends. Then she started paying attention. She had quite a successful career, with museum shows and her works in galleries in Washington D.C. and New Orleans.”

As she bragged on her mother, Nan absent-mindedly stroked her dog Mullet on the head while surrounded by brushes, tubes of paint, stacks of canvases and the other trappings of her life’s work that cluttered her sun-filled studio in Auburn.

Probably best known for her still life paintings filled with color and pattern, Nan also paints and draws other things. In fact, she paints and draws everything. “Anything is a possible subject for me” she said. “I keep a sketchpad with me and draw everyday things all the time. When I was waiting in the carpool line to pick my kids up from school, I would draw whatever I could see in my rearview mirror.” Today Nan is inspired to capture animals—horses, dogs and others—on canvas. And she still does still lifes as well as landscapes. “I most often paint what is right around me.”

As her environment has changed through the years, so too have her subjects. When she lived on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, in Josephine, she was constantly painting boats and palm trees. The landscapes she’s currently rendering reflect the rural scenes of Central Alabama.

The Montgomery native began drawing as early as she could hold a crayon. Then she got her degree in Art from Auburn University. When she came back to the capital city after college, she taught a few classes, but she also started working in other jobs, and didn’t devote herself to painting full time until about 20 years ago. But she never stopped painting. “I was always creating, on nights and weekends, even as I had other ‘day jobs,’” she said.

Nan still plays with crayons today. Allowing herself 20 to 30 minutes of “playtime” is an integral part of her process. “I paint every day, and I try to work at least four hours a day. When I first come into the studio, it takes me a bit to get past the daily grind, the ringing phone, the other things I need to do,” she said. “So I play a little. I make collages out of junk mail or doodle with some crayons. That helps me move into the painting mindset. It’s like riding a horse. You have to ‘warm up.’”

Even though she’s quite disciplined when it comes to her work, she admitted that her art is always affected by her mood. “My emotional state is always reflected in my work,” she said. “I think it is that way for most artists. Our feelings come through, whether we want them to or not. But some of the best work I’ve done has come out of really dark times for me.”

One example is a series of paintings entitled “Portrait of a Cat Killer.” Menacing figures are depicted in ruddy reds and browns, and these somber paintings stand in startling contrast to Nan’s more familiar bright and uplifting works. She painted them in response to an incident she went through a few years ago. A man in her neighborhood killed a little girl’s cat for no reason, and he got away with it. “We couldn’t get the authorities or anyone to do anything about it. It was awful,” she said. “The only thing I could do was paint. That was the way I could tell the story.”

The paintings rank among some of Nan’s most lauded works, garnering several awards. But they served a deeper purpose for Nan. They were her escape. “Throughout my life, my work has been an outlet for me,” she said. “I can honestly express my feelings on the canvas. Creating can really get you through the tough times because you feel a connection to something greater. When I do a really good painting, I feel as if I’ve received it, that it just flowed through me from somewhere else.”

While she claims those brush strokes of genius are few and far between, a look at even a portion of her large body of work tells a different tale. Her talent and passion are on clear display, and she also generously shares that passion with others, teaching workshops and a few private lessons.

But what she possesses in talent she lacks in conceit. Nan is fully aware how lucky she is. “My art is my lifelong love, and I know how fortunate I am to make a living out of it,” she said. Yet, while keeping the lights in her studio on is important, it’s never really been about fame or money for Nan. “If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d still come in here and paint every day,” she said. “It’s what I do.”