When’s Company Gonna Leave-Georgia Red Mud Craig Chandler

My family is going through hell right now after hurricane helene dropped a ten ton tree on our house. I dont really care about anything other than the people around me, many, strangers up until this nightmare. I really know love now and my life has changed at 56... This fast post is probably just temporary, because I've never been this tired in my life, I will fix it later, but the few that saw the photos on my former social media site Instagram know, most of them didnt even bat an eyelash or say a thing when I showed the destruction of our home. Why be on Instagram? These same looky-loos have bought my art and communicated to me many times in the past...It messes with your psyche. Social media is horrible. What is wrong with asking how you are? No, just looks and seen ats... I just cant deal with it anymore. I make art, its personal, I'm not Walmart and my life is not some drama you stare at and if yout want to grace me with your presence by giving me a thumbs up click, well....no.

I guess I just dont get social media so I am done with it, email me if you want to talk. The art I make now is the best ive ever done and I am a little set back now, but ill be back, fuller, stronger and on fire,

Saluda Bootlegger with Stacker Jugs-Steven Chandler Georgia Red Mud Southern Art

Here's one straight from my kinfolk in South Carolina, namely my grandpa who long years ago ran white lightning from upstate South Carolina on down to Brunswick Georgia and who knows where else. (see my Ludowici Lawmen post)

I'm sure there was a look-out dog or two in there as well.

I had some of that white lightning a few times, it knocked my socks off...good.

Hardrock’s Prize Winning Shoats Georgia Red Mud Steven Chandler Memory Painting

Hardrock Garrison was one of my grandads partners in crime back in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s rural South Carolina.

I never met him as I believe he died tragically before he reached is golden years but every wild story involving my grandad running corn liquor, gambling or farming had Hardrock in there somewhere, pronounced Hod-rock by my grandads heavy South Carolinian dialect.

So this is Hardrock as I imagine him with his prize winning shoats ready to horse trade them for some white lightning or maybe some farm equipment.

I wish I had written some of those stories down, my grandad died going on 40 years ago, those stories come to me sometimes like a flash out of nowhere and they come out in these paintings I do.

7UP & Hog Farmers Georgia South Carolina Art in a Rural Winter Farm House

I did this one back this winter huddled in the studio snug up with a heat blanket and space heater in a 35 to 50 degree house.

This old Georgia farm house has no central heat, just a big old wood stove in the hall. Why I got to thinking about hogs and farmers and 7UP is a mystery to me.

I am not a 7UP drinker and the last time I farmed a hog was 4 decades ago with my grandad on his South Carolina farm. Winter in a old southern farm house does something to you I reckon.

Hog Farmers-Georgia Red Mud Painting Wading in Realism

My other series of art not shown here, realist, figurative women, have bled over to the flat, iconic Red Mud southern narrative. I knew it would and there is no going back. There has never been in my mantra the idea of going back, for better or worse, press-on. I like what I am doing now more than ever, both here and the “models”.

There is a greater challenge in this departure and an even greater sacrifice as I know I am not going to be able to let these go as willingly as before. The reasons for this I’ll type about later. I have taken down much of what I have had on this blog, years actually. So much I have created that is out there in the world when I see it pop up at auctions, I wonder who did it. Me? One time at least it wasn't. Other times, most of the time I wish I hadn’t.

I guess what I am saying here is I’m cleaning house, turning a new leaf, evolving again. Whatever "folk" I had in me is fading away. I can’t make it anymore, I am too critical of it and it is not challenging at all. In fact just about everything I see in terms of art falls victim to this from my eye to the point I can hardly look at anything anymore.

These hog paintings started this past winter cooped-up by the space heater in my studio bedroom thinking about the days decades ago when I helped my grandad out on his South Carolina farm before he died. Again, I like this rather larval stage new direction very much...more to come,better,honest.

As for the "Other Work" that blog page is on the way.

Ludowici Lawmen Georgia Red Mud Painting

I did this one thinking about the stories and warnings my Grandad would tell me about the times he ran liqour from Brunswick Georgia up to his home in Ninety Six South Carolina way back in the 1920's and 30's.

He always warned me about that town.

"Don't ever drive through that town."

"Go around that town...those Ludowici Lawmen will get you boy."

I was always scared to death of Ludowici Georgia.

The Savannah Oyster Thieves-Steven Chandler Air Force Brat-Rockets Red Glare & WW3

Inspired by my trips down to Savannah and an unconditional love of everything oyster. This as well makes me think of my grandad's stories of running illegal corn liquor from Ninety Six South Carolina down to the shipyards of Brunswick Georgia in the 1920's. I will never forget, "Don't ever get caught in Ludowici," he would warn, "the Law there," then eyes to the ground and a slow nodding of the head. I never got the full story, but to this day my fear precludes my foot in Ludowici Georgia.

This wasn't my life. I was an Air Force Brat with deep southern roots, born on an Air Force base, I have no "hometown." I was raised around NASA rockets, roaring F4 Phantoms overhead and silos of mixed-race men working harmoniously in deep holes filled with intercontinental ballistic missiles and my dad, the officer, with the code and keys to WW3. I grew up knowing I was ground zero everywhere I went.

Why these images and stories come out from my fingers is beyond me.

Backdoor, Studio As Of Now-Georgia Red Mud Paintings

View from the studio back porch door-October 2022

Ansel Adams would sometimes come in my high school photography class out on the central coast of California.

He was friends with my teacher. I didn't know who he was, an old fella who liked photography.

I could just kick myself sometimes.

The Lightning Bug Lantern Haint-Steven Chandler Art Summer 2021

I have seen him on my property he is real!

During the day he has no lantern, night he certainly does.

I have seen them...

heard them...

smelled them.

There are ghost and haints all over this patch of Georgia.

The proof is in the painting. georgiaredmudpainter@gmail.com

Appaloosa Horse Georgia Red Mud Painting

Hangs in my kitchen,

In my 130+ year old,

Rural southern farmhouse.

Giddy Up! georgiaredmudpainter@gmail.com

Midnight Savannah Frog Gigger 2016 Original Georgia Red Mud Painting

My Granddad in Texas had a old bamboo frog gigger hanging in the garage.

I was most fascinated with it every visit I made. They used it to gig bullfrogs at the the farm tanks. They call ponds tanks in Texas.

It must have been twelve feet long. georgiaredmudpainter@gmail.com

Sidewalk Blues-Steven Chandler Artist-Rare Charley Patton Photo

I have a old photograph that inspired this painting.

Looks nothing like the painting. Energy doesn't have a look.

(Sometimes my Old Red Wings model for me)

The photograph, I tell you, that will be something to talk about when I show it.

georgiaredmudpainter@gmail.com.

Old Stradivarius Player, Contemporary Southern Art, Georgia Red Mud Painting

georgiaredmudpainter@gmail.com