H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
M ISSISSIPPIAN S & THE BLUES
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
T H E LI V I N G LEGEN DS
Contact:
Lauchlin Fields, Project Manager
601.661.9444
LFields@hcporter.com
H.C. PORTER DOCUMENTING LIVING BLUES LEGENDS
THROUGH NEW PROJECT BLUES @ HOME
VICKSBURG, Miss. — Mississippi visual artist H.C. Porter has begun painting the first
part of her new series documenting Mississippi blues legends.
The project, called Blues at Home, is being touted by Mississippi blues scholar and
Give My Poor Heart Ease author William Ferris as “an inspired project that
celebrates Mississippi blues performers.”
“These paintings will capture our state's rich blues legacy through the faces of its
greatest artists,” he said.
Porter will document — through portrait paintings and oral histories — Mississippi’s
living blues legends.
The first part of Blues @ Home, scheduled for completion spring 2013, will consist of
paintings and stories of the 30 blues musicians Porter has photographed all around
Mississippi. The collection will be combined with music recordings of the participating
legends compiled by Tena Clark, founder and CEO of DMI Music & Media Solutions. This
unique, multimedia collection will become a nationally traveling exhibition showcasing
Mississippi’s blues culture.
Porter is known for her visual storytelling of life in her home state and most recently for
her exhibition, Backyards & Beyond, her depiction of life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast the
year after Hurricane Katrina. Blues @ Home features a list of world-famous blues
performers, including the late Honeyboy Edwards and legends Bobby Rush and B.B. King.
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
The portrait paintings, created from Porter’s photographs, will capture these legends in
their at-home settings — from living rooms to frequented juke joints.
“I’m so excited about my next series of work…not only for the story it can tell about the
state of the blues in Mississippi, but for the historic pairing of visual art and living
Mississippi blues musicians,” Porter said.
The oral histories will be paired with each painting, in the planned exhibition, allowing
the legends to tell about their personal journeys in their own words.
“Being a part of the Blues @ Home experience has made me more aware of the
important connection between visual art and sound art. (H.C. Porter) seems to be taking
considerable care to capture and display the souls of musicians through her windows of
art,” said featured blues legend Alphonso Sanders, who chairs the Mississippi Valley
State University fine arts department and directs the B.B. King Recording Studio there. “I
am extremely grateful for being included in such a landmark experience.”
Clark plans to record original music from the participating blues musicians captured in
the paintings. Those recordings will be combined to create a global release of recordings
by Blues @ Home’s legends.
“I am excited by the opportunity of documenting these Mississippi blues legends. Their
unique musical style has influenced musicians around the world,” Clark said. “This art
form is unique to the Mississippi Delta and America. The recordings and documentary I
produce will preserve these musical treasures for generations to come.”
The paintings, oral histories and music will make up a multimedia traveling exhibition
that will tell Mississippi’s blues story in a unique way.
“H.C. Porter’s approach, combining photography, painting, oral history, and, most
importantly, respect for the artists, adds a new and welcome dimension to the
documentation of Mississippi blues,” said Scott Barretta, writer/researcher for the
Mississippi Blues Trail, co-author of Mississippi: State of Blues and former editor of Living
Blues magazine.
In order to fund the project, Porter is seeking individuals and businesses, who want to
see Mississippi’s blues heritage garner more national attention, to pre-purchase the
paintings. Each sponsor will allow his or her painting to travel in the exhibition for up to
two years before becoming part of the collector’s private or corporate collection. While
traveling, the paintings will carry the name of each sponsor on a plaque.
“Our state is embracing our blues heritage as a tremendous source of tourism, and I feel
strongly that this project can bring some much-needed national attention to the
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
endeavor,” Porter said. “These sponsorships will be a vital part of this project, bringing
immediate ties to the blues tourism effort in Mississippi.”
For information on Blues @ Home or to schedule an interview with Porter, please contact
Lauchlin Fields at 601.661.9444 or LFields@hcporter.com. To schedule an interview with
Clark, contact Laura Torricelli at 626-795-0432, ext. 623 or laura@dmimusic.com.
Additional information on the project is available online at
www.hcporter.com/bluesathome and www.bluesathome.blogspot.com.
Individuals and corporations who wish to pre-purchase one of the historic paintings may
call the gallery for details.
ABOUT
H.C. Porter
H.C. Porter’s works of art have always centered on the people and places
around her home state of Mississippi. As Mississippi’s premier social realist
and visual storyteller, Porter has used her unique mixed media process to
document her neighbors for more than 20 years. For Blues at Home, Porter
will create environmental portraits of living blues legends based on her photographs.
The portraits will give a glimpse into the world of these well-known blues musicians, who
collectively have put Mississippi on the map for their musical contributions.
This project comes on the heels of Backyards & Beyond: Mississippians and Their Stories
— the First Year After Katrina, Porter’s powerful documentation of Mississippians living in
the wake of Hurricane Katrina. That collection of 81 of her mixed media paintings and
coinciding audio of the people’s stories in their own words, earned Porter the distinction
of the Visual Arts recipient for the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters in 2009.
It also further displayed the artist’s love for her home state and her willingness to use her
talents to bring attention to the human spirit that thrives in Mississippi. Blues at Home
will follow the tradition set forth in her last project.
Porter will create this collectiin of portrait paintings of living blues legends in her unique
style. The paintings, paired with audio recordings of the musicians, will tell the story of
the blues art form that was born on Mississippi soil.
Tena Clark
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
Mississippi-born Tena Clark has been a powerhouse in the music business for nearly 30
years. She has produced and written award-winning songs for such legendary
performers as Patti Labelle, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin and has a
long and impressive list of songwriting and production credits in film and television. She
is the founder and CEO/Chief Creative Officer of DMI Music & Media Solutions and has
earned a position as one of the top music producers and composers in the country.
Through her innovative entertainment and music marketing company, Clark created the
national campaign, “Have You Had Your Break Today,” for McDonald’s.
Clark, a preeminent songwriter, is one of the rare female producers in the music business
and is among the most influential women in American media. In 2011, the Committee of
200, a prestigious group of the highest-ranking women executives in successful private
and public companies, named Clark Entrepreneur of the Year.
Her most recent endeavor was her production of “Twist, An American Musical,” for which
she is the composer and lyricist. The production, which received rave reviews in Atlanta,
where it premiered, is directed and choreographed by Debbie Allen and is set to open
again this summer at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Clark will record and produce all of the music for Blues at Home, a guarantee that this
compilation of blues from Mississippi’s living legends will be of the highest quality and
like no other that has come before it. The music — to be released globally as a
compilation album — will be a soundtrack of Mississippi’s homegrown music from the
very best in the blues.
Lauchlin Fields
Lauchlin Fields, a Clinton native, has been writing about Southern culture
for nearly a decade. She continues by collecting the stories of living blues
legends as part of Blues @ Home.
She currently works as project manager for Blues @ Home. Alongside Porter, Fields
captured the stories of the project’s living blues legends and collected documentary
footage.
Fields honed her expertise for the blues and its cultural significance with her degree in
Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi and as circulation manager for Living
Blues Magazine, an international publication featuring the best in blues journalism.
She began her writing career as a journalist with The Vicksburg Post, a locally owned
Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper. While there, Fields covered all aspects of features
and news writing and was recognized for her reporting by the Mississippi Press
Association’s semi-annual Better Newspaper Contest, which recognizes excellence in
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
newspaper reporting and advertising. She is currently the writer and photographer for
Vicksburg Impressions, a quarterly local culture magazine with a circulation of 10,000.
Fields is the creator and owner of Front Porch Fodder, a company designed to help
businesses and individuals create unique identities and promote growth through creative
marketing.
Fields adds her mark to this historic blues project by helping to give the participating
blues legends a voice that, along with their celebrated music, will carry on for
generations.
THE LEGENDS, PART ONE
• T Model Ford — Greenville
• David “Honeyboy” Edwards — Meridian
• Jimbo Mathus — Como
• Jimmy Duck Holmes — Bentonia
• Bill Abel — Duncan
• Bill “Howl-N-Madd” Perry — Clarksdale
• Alphonso Sanders — Cleveland
• Vasti Jackson — Hattiesburg
• King Edward — Jackson
• Kenny Brown — Potts Camp
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
• Eddie Shaw — Benoit
• L.C. Ulmer — Ellisville
• Mickey Rogers — Greenville
• Eden Brent — Greenville
• Tommy “T-Bone” Pruitt — Ellisville
• Elmore Williams — Natchez
• Hezekiah Early — Natchez
• YZ Ealey — Natchez
• James “Super Chikan” Johnson — Clarksdale
• Terry “Harmonica” Bean — Pontotoc
• Ben Payton — Jackson
• Eddie Cusic — Leland
• Cadillac John Nolden — Renova
• Jesse Robinson — Jackson
• Bobby Rush — Jackson
• Zac Harmon — Jackson
• Pat Thomas — Leland
• B.B. King — Indianola
• Sharde Thomas — Sardis
LINKS AND INFORMATION
H.C. Porter: www.hcporter.com
DMI Music & Media Solutions: www.dmimusic.com
Blues @ Home Online: www.hcporter.com/bluesathome
Blues @ Home Blog: bluesathome.blogspot.com
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME
Blues @ Home on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Blues-atHome/145354938833431
Blues @ Home on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/Blues_at_Home
H.C. PORTER GALLERY
1216 WASHINGTON ST., VICKSBURG, MS 39183
WWW.HCPORTER.COM/BLUESATHOME