Church Goin Mule – Behind the Plow: Songs for Pilgrims Working Their Way Back Home

This exhibition round includes works provided by Church Goin Mule which will be on view in the North Floor Gallery from November 27, 2024 – February 8, 2025.  Lowe Mill A&E invites patrons and art lovers to join us for Open Studio Night, a building-wide experience when our over 150 studios will be open to the public.  The evening also includes receptions for all seven of our gallery spaces. This series gives the public a chance to meet and interact with visiting artists and discuss their work as it is on display and available for purchase. Come out, enjoy a pleasant evening, and maybe you’ll find that special piece of art that speaks to you!  The Open Studio Night reception is Saturday, February 8 from 5-7 pm.

 

About the exhibit:

The mule was once a southern fixture, working for rich folks and poor folks from Virginia to  Texas. Taj Mahal proclaims that blues music was born behind a mule. And so in following the  plow behind that mule, this exhibit was born working into the world, hoping to discover and  understand something more about our place.  

This show is about the longing that is inherent in the human heart, the searching that belongs to  all creatures. From the animals that know when to head south, when to bed down, when to start  back into the springtime world, to the human trying to find their way in the land, to find solace  and assurance in their everyday decisions of living, to find where their home truly rests.  

Themes of seeking, storytelling, perseverance, hope, and heaven; the things that help make up  the human heart – much like the book of Psalms that speak to every human condition, especially  the ideas of journeying, endurance, trust, and gratitude. The Psalms are also traditionally used in  Hoodoo and Rootwork practice, underlining the idea that human and nature work together in  knowing and unknowing ways, that imagination and practice make the world an easier place to  live in and to find love. That stories was everything, and everything was stories. These paintings  hope to remind the viewer that it takes the natural world, the supernatural world, storytelling, and  one’s own determination to find their way back home.  

Merrily, Merrily,  

Big Love & Brayerfully, 

mule  

 

About the artist:

Church Goin Mule is a southern outsider artist that lives in the Mississippi Delta. She has painted
all her life and gets by with a little help from her friends. Thank you for being one of them. You
can find more work online at churchgoinmule.com or @churchgoinmule on instagram.