About the exhibit
As a Greensboro native I have always been fascinated with the stories of life centered around the textile mills in my hometown.
When my art studio opened in a newly renovated Revolution Mill wing, curious visitors would drop in including those who remembered the workspace from another era - when the mill was still in operation as a flannel mill. They often shared memories of when they or their family members had worked and lived here in the surrounding mill village.
Inspired by these encounters I painted a series of oil portraits of people with connections, past and present to the mill. They include employees and family from the mill’s heyday as the world’s largest maker of flannel to descendants of the mill co-founders to present day tenants in the mill’s reincarnation as a live-work-play development.
The subjects sat for their portraits in my Revolution studio, sharing their stories as I painted their likenesses. A recurring theme I heard from them was the community, family and friendship they found in the mill and mill village.
Each of the Faces subjects will be gifted a print of their original portrait, making possible an otherwise costly keepsake while fulfilling another goal: the democratization of portraiture. Self-Help, the current owner of Revolution Mill funded this project and made this possible.
Learn more about the people behind the faces
About the artist
Suellen McCrary paints expressive portrait and figurative subjects in oils. A graduate of Appalachian State University with a degree in Commercial Design, she enjoyed a successful graphic design and illustration career before transitioning to fine art painting and portraiture. McCrary has exhibited with and received awards from Portrait Society of America, Salon International, Raymar and BoldBrush, and participated in the first Women Painting Women exhibition in Charleston, SC. Her work may be found in collections throughout the US and is represented by O’Brien Art Gallery in Greensboro, NC. She lives in High Point NC with husband John and french bulldogs Max and Zoe.
Find her on Instagram @suellenmccraryart and online at www.suellenmccrary.com.
