Lucy
Hunnicutt
At the far end of the 1980’s I took a step off the path I’d been following and ended a marriage, quit a stressful job, and left Austin, Texas. I landed in a remote undeveloped spot in the panhandle of North Florida. Eventually I opened a small nursery where I grew and sold chemical free herbs. My home
was a 97 year old two room heartpine cabin surrounded on three sides by pine woods and fronted by a sand road that led in both directions to a country church. Sunday afternoon from my porch swing these two churches delivered to me some of the finest music I have ever been blessed to hear.
The winter nights were long and quiet and during one of them while stoking the woodstove that heated this place I picked up a brush and began to paint. The first thing I ever did was a dream I had still in
my mind from the night before. In it were angels against the dark blue sky with the words “the wings
of white birds became angels and flew to the far heavens where they rested.”
This life of quiet is very seductive to me and I still try to live as simply as I can. I moved back here to Baldwin County, Alabama in 1997 to be near my mother before she died. I found some property near Palmetto Creek and built a house there. Behind my house there is a small studio where I work nearly every day. I am grateful, very grateful to be where I am doing what I do and feel blessed if my work speaks to you.
"All of these paintings are parts of my life in a remote area of north Florida where I lived for nine years, in a two-room house, faded on the outside to turquoise. I learned that I could do many things I'd never suspected I would have to. I learned to build a fire that would warm me through the night. I learned to build a fence around my garden so the deer wouldn't ravage my tomato crop. I learned to row a canoe out to the oyster beds on a frigid winter day, where I walked for hours with a friend, an oyster knife and a bottle of whisky to keep us from freezing while we ate oysters so fresh they actually glowed. I learned to climb a tree if a wild hog chased me. And I learned the value of good neighbors when trouble came.
At times I felt loneliness so deep and terrible it threatened to drown me. Other times I was touched by an indescribable sense of something I can only say is the opposite of that, a feeling of connection so profound, so sure and total. I believe this was God coming through to me.
These days, I still live in relative isolation, but it feel's very rich to me in all the things I consider necessities."
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Lucy
Hunnicutt artwork
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