Mary Gilkerson congaree national park, south carolina
Most people think of Congaree as one big old swamp, but it’s much more than that. It’s got some of the largest trees on the East Coast—they’re the redwoods of the East, and they’re accessible to almost anyone. There’s a nearly three-mile loop of board- walk right through the middle of the park that you can take a wheelchair on. There just aren’t that many wild places like that. The other thing is the diversity of the landscape—
the tremendous range of plants and wildlife. And this is a place that changes dramatically with the seasons. The winter is pristine and cold; the bottomland forest floods and the ice on the water makes these strange and intricate pat- terns. In the summer, it’s a great, shining emerald world. Because of the canopy of leaves in the upper story, the light that makes it through is literally green—it’s magical. When I paint, I’m looking for light: the way it plays across the surface of the
landscape, the relationships between shapes that it creates. Any place you look will be completely different depending on the time of day and the weather. I’m fascinated by how those things change, so I’ll keep going back to the same spots over and over again. I prefer to paint scenes that I pass all the time, that I’m familiar with. I have a hard time working from somebody else’s photograph because I need to feel some kind of relationship to the scene. I grew up exploring the forests around Congaree; it’s a very familiar place in my life. So the residency for me was more about connection with the visi- tors, the rangers, and volunteers. I most enjoyed leading the art walks through the park and sharing with other people the things that I find special about this place. It was a form of interaction I don’t think I could have had without the official status at the park as a resident artist. It’s rewarding to see visitors learning to look at the landscape in the way that
artists look—seeking out subtle differences, like a tracker looking for footprints. When people slow down a little, they can begin to see more color, more shapes, more of everything. And once you start looking like this, you can’t stop—it stays with you. It helps people appreciate the park in a different way.
TPL.ORG · 55
mary bentz gilkerson
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68