Never out of ideas

Holy Smoke, Cheryl Ann Grace. All images courtesy of the artist. — *Holy Smoke,* Cheryl Ann Grace. *All images courtesy of the artist.*

I spent most of my adult life not having time to paint. As a single mother, I was just working and trying to keep the boat afloat. Then I met this wonderful man five years ago, and he said just quit. I was like “No, I can’t quit and just paint!” He said "Cheryl, you can. You can do that.” Since I painted in my head for all those years, I'm not struggling for material. It just pours out of me and I have enough time now to paint it all.

One of the objectives of my work is to portray the city’s culture bearers, and the drag community here is definitely one of them. In my former non-profit profession I got to know a lot of drag queens on a personal level who often faced great challenges and have had to rise above to make something beautiful out of their lives and to be their true selves. Every day they get up and just decide who it is they're going to be that day, and then totally embrace that. I became especially close to Princess Stephaney, whose portrait you used for the cover, and I found it fascinating that she's somebody different every single day. I have so much admiration and respect for her creativity and strength, her support of many non-profit causes in our community.

A friend once showed me an old image of a nineteen fifties airstream; it was just a couple of people sitting outside of it like just sitting there and something clicked with me when I saw it. The first one in the series was inspired by the concept of nowhere, a theme in some of my son's work, who is also an artist. The people are just hanging out, sitting in nowhere, probably having fun, but not interacting with each other. There are no mountains. There are no amenities, they're just there. The TV is on but its not plugged in, kind of Dada-like, defying reality. They’re just sitting in the middle of nowhere. The second one came to me as just nude men at a weenie roast. It’s not necessarily a gay thing, nudity is just a part of this series. They all have these deadpan faces. One is reading "Tender is the Night" . They're quiet. They're just kind of being there together just doing nothing in nowhere.

I have more in my head. The next one's going to be Heirstream spelled H E I R - stream and it's going to be very privileged women sitting around doing nothing.

I find myself more and more drawn to a storytelling style of painting; telling a story through objects. In my "Gospel According to New Orleans" series I have Fats Domino portrayed on a chalice with dominoes in the curtains behind him. In another from that series, "Fess", I try to tell the story of his life through symbols that show different moments in his life. He played cards to make money, he boxed to make money, he tap danced as a kid and sold Hadacol to make money.

I like for art to have a broad appeal-art for the people. I want it to be real. I want it on the down low. I have so many tales I want to tell, including my Southern Gothic Horror childhood (but I have to go there slowly) and so much inspiration from this magical city I call home. I really want to do some paintings depicting Appalachian tent revival religion and snake handling. I've got all of that in my head because I'm from South Carolina and I was exposed to that a little bit in my youth. The work is so entertaining when you make your own story.

I’ll run out of time on this earth before I run out of ideas.

The Ship

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