I will be presenting an educational session on the murals of my 3rd cousin, 5 times removed, Rufus Porter, at the Old House and Barn Expo this Sunday, March 13 at noon. I will be showing photographs of several Porter murals I’ve personally seen, as well as several I have not (thanks very much to Linda Lefko who wrote the book Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School with Jane E. Radcliffe). I will be talking about this work from an artist’s point of view and specifically, how Porter created depth, light and interest in his paintings.
Doing the research for this talk was like visiting an old friend (or cousin!). I have been enamored by Porter’s paintings since I first visited the Rufus Porter Museum in Bridgton, Maine. The museum committee had invited me to come teach a class on painting floorcloths several years ago. The small cape which houses the museum has Porter murals in one of the front rooms- all four walls. The way the 19th century scenes wrap around you in that room magically transported me back to 1840. It made me immediately want to create this stuff! I bought Lefko’s book and started studying. Porter wasn’t only an artist; he was a scientist and inventor too. In 1825 he wrote a little book called “A Select Collection of Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments, Which Are Well Explained and Warranted Genuine and May Be Performed Easily, Safely and at Little Expense“. It has everything from how to make invisible ink to how to make gun powder to how to paint a “Landscape Painting on Walls of Rooms”. He explains in just a few pages the science of creating a mural. My little math brain sat up and took notice. A formula for painting a landscape? Cool! (Maybe it’s those Porter genes…) One class at the museum turned into 7 years of teaching there during the Cultural Heritage Series of classes. Every year I’d go visit the murals, and every year I’d discover new things.
Mural in progress.
So now I’m working on my 9th mural (painted here in my studio on canvas, rather than Porter’s way of touring around New England and painting at homes all over the place) and with each one I feel I’m getting closer to being able to create that mood and sense of time and place. Subtle (and not so subtle) shading and highlighting combined with careful composition and the use of “old” colors take each scene back in time. Maybe someday my mural scene will become a time machine which will transport me back to the mid 1800s and I will sit down and talk with my fascinating cousin Rufus! Oh, the questions I’ll have!
I am hoping to have this talk video taped so that I can make it available on my website. Check for updates on that next week!