Hurricane Helene & When’s Company Gonna Leave-Georgia Red Mud Painting

Revised and updated on Feb 12, 2025, still so much left out...

I did this painting seven days before Hurricane Helene dropped a 10 ton oak on top of our house. The old bones of this house was the only thing that held the tree up, if it hadn't it would've crushed my wife laying in our bed. We have been through a devastating time. At some point in a lull, I found this painting and realized that I had used my front porch right where the tree came down as a model for this painting. The only thing I left out was that massive post oak looming over our home.

Another interesting coincidence is the story behind this scene and how it relates to what happened to us and this old man sitting out on his porch looking out towards his farm in his fields. He and his faithful dog just want to get back to work. Barred by a house full of company, chained-down by the chatting, the catching up, deaths, births, marriges, divorces, the reminiscing, the cooking it, the eating it, piling in the car, going here and there to see this and that then all back to the house again for more cooking and eating, and chatting and reminiscing.

The old man just had enough of all that so he is sitting away from it all, hiding on his front steps looking out towards his farm-a moment at least, quiet there, wondering, for the love of all mighty when is company going to leave.

Well this happened to us in a way when Helene dropped the tree on our house. We had so many great people come by to help-new people, people we didn't know at all, asking for nothing but to help. It was a wonderful experience, way beyond my ability to put here to words but as far opposite as this old mans desire to be alone, we didn't want our company to leave and as long as my mind allows me to remember I will never let them leave.

Such great people...a couple fellows came from Chattanooga and stayed a week in tents out back, friends of friends, to help us fix the broken bones of our roof. We had a wonderful church come and a pastor who is also a sheriff, they came and brought food and they got that tree off our house in one day with our local tree man and his gigantic boom crane weilding uncle. That man should be wearing a super hero cape after the absolutely dangerous things he did in that bucket truck juggling tree branches, chainsaws and pullies.

So I look at this painting with the tree gone there and I know it meant something I can't really figure that out. I'm not sure I want to figure it out or even can figure it out. I am not the same person I was when I painted this 5 months ago. That person is gone. I know I was happy with this painting when I finished it. I think it's one of my best in this new series of realism paintings. I have not been working for a while because the house was destroyed and the bedrooms were destroyed and our bodies were destroyed from just all the work we had to do...the work we're still doing. My art room had to turn into a bedroom and it was like that for four months, cramped, eyeball to eyeball, nerve on nerve to say the least. Finally fighting through a terrible slipped disk in my lower back, up the ladder, down the ladder many many times, the ceilings and the holes filled, drywall, cussing, drywall, cussing, drywall, cussing and everything painted up, the bedrooms are bedrooms again and my art room is a place to make art if I can find it... Hopefully I'll be back on here a little more often.

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.