Janet Acuff Marney

Fairfax, VA

Flowering Dogwood

Hayseeds and Muddytoes: Fond Memories from the Oral History of Poquoson, Virginia is the title of my mother’s book. If you had lived in Poquoson during her childhood, you were either a farmer (a “Hayseed”) or a waterman (a “Muddytoe”). During my childhood in the 1960s, that began to change, and a third employer brought new residents to the city: NASA and the Langley Research Center (LaRC). Virginia played an important part early in the Space Race, and in 1965 LaRC completed the gantry used to practice landings on a lunarlike surface for the Apollo program. That gantry is across the creek and within sight of my mother’s childhood home.

Today farming is no longer an important part of our community, but watermen still tend crab pots along the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. They provide an interesting counterpoint to the structures looking skyward, which are also part of the state’s heritage. I’m proud that the waterways of Poquoson are a part of Virginia’s reflection.

My photograph was printed on fabric and treated as a wholecloth quilt. I embellished and decorated it with thread and trims. Materials include: artist’s photograph printed commercially on fabric; thread; trims.

Sally Harcum Maxwell studied Art History at the University of Virginia, but she had not practiced those art forms considered more traditional before marrying a love of fabric inherited from her grandmother with her own need for self-expression. Strong ties to her family inform her art, and she spends much of her time on the family homeplace. The marshes and waterways of Virginia the landscape of her home regularly appear in her figurative work. What’s more, fabrics and trims from her grandmother and other relatives are often added to more modern materials. The combination is one of history and art, and one that she is pleased to share with others.