The Proposal Painting

Lacey Stinson's love for natural forms, a recurring element in his body of work, comes from having grown up around lakes, creek beds, and undeveloped Southern woods of the United States. Spanish moss creeping from tree to tree, the odor of crawdad flutes rising from the mud, snapping turtles, and rabbit-chasing hounds colored many of the days of his earliest youth. His father's work as a Navy pilot led to two summers in the arid landscapes of southwestern Spain. This invigorated his young imagination. Sand-swept landscapes reluctantly bore scrubby, low-canopied, patchy coniferous forests. Whether mule-drawn cars bearing produce into town, or the orchard trees, ritually stripped of their bark to make cork for bottles of wine"”one of the region's more prized industries"”the timelessness of a day's sights and sounds still inspires him when visiting North Louisiana's peach orchards growing near his current studio. Stinson's early interests continue to manifest themselves in his later work. His North Louisiana landscape painting has subsequently evolved into abstract studio paintings on large canvases. Expanding on these painting accomplishments, Stinson began collaborating with other artists and writers to design and illustrate poetry chapbooks, children's books, and collections of short fiction. Out of this graphic and illustrative period came his collection of 'Small Worlds' drawings. Two pieces from the 'Small Worlds' series were recently shown at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. Stinson remains committed to executing regional themes in small and large forms. A Louisiana native, fine art painter of landscapes, portraits and surreal masterpieces, Lacey Stinson currently resides outside the northern Louisiana communities of Monroe and Ruston with his feline companion and muse Pip, who regularly sits in Mr. Stinson’s lap while he draws, paints, and plays the piano.