{"id":14884,"date":"2014-07-21T12:14:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T18:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=14884"},"modified":"2018-03-07T16:21:40","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T22:21:40","slug":"july-is-faulkner-season-in-oxford-local-artists-series-of-paintings-coexists-with-literary-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/july-is-faulkner-season-in-oxford-local-artists-series-of-paintings-coexists-with-literary-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"July is Faulkner Season in Oxford – Local Artist\u2019s Series of Paintings Coexists with Literary Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in <\/em>The Local Voice #208. <\/em>
\nTo download a PDF of this issue, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Oxford, Miss (TLV) \u2013 Local Christian folk artist J-MAN<\/strong><\/span> has a fantastic series,\u00a0 \u201cMeet the Faulkers: The Many Fictional Faces of William Faulkner,\u201d<\/strong><\/span> currently on display at The Frame Up\/Basement Gallery<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"JManArt2\"<\/a>The series of paintings features bizarre, colorful images of Oxford\u2019s favorite literary mascot accompanied by punny phrases. The eye-catching compositions are mixed media on plywood and depict playful images of William Faulkner in various poses and outfits. One of my personal favorites features a speech bubble with Faulkner stating \u201cGeaux to Hell!\u201d underneath \u201cFAULK LSU!\u201d in spangled letters.<\/span><\/p>\n

The showing has been going on since July 7th and will continue until the 31st, but J-MAN is still adding new pieces. As of press time, he told me that his current favorite Faulkner is \u201cthe one I\u2019m painting right now, \u2018Saturday Night Faulkner.\u2019\u00a0 It\u2019s a play on Saturday Night Fever<\/em>.\u201d There will be a reception for the showing on Monday, July 21st from 6\u20138 pm with music by Wendy Garrison<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I asked J-MAN \"JManArt1\"<\/a>what inspired him to paint this series, he replied: \u201cI\u2019ve been painting Faulkner for about three years. It all started with my desire to create an Oxford coloring book. I drew the images, scanned them into my computer, then moved onto another idea. A few years later, I ran across the Faulkner image and decided to do an Andy Warhol style painting as a joke. People loved it and I\u2019ve been painting him ever since.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the paintings\u2019 titles substitute \u201cFaulk\u201d for a similar-sounding expletive, leading to those clever phrases, like \u201cFaulk All Ya\u2019ll\u201d and \u201cMother Faulker.\u201d As a language nerd myself, I enjoy this type of word play, but J-MAN says it initially made him uncomfortable. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\"JManWithSign\"<\/a>Being a Christian artist,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s taken me that long to come to terms with the rudeness of the paintings, but they have become conversation starters. Through the vulgarity, I have dialogue with people that would normally not be discussing God. Plus, they\u2019re just funny!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked J-MAN if he was a longtime fan of Faulkner, and if so, what his favorite novel is. He said, \u201cMy favorite Faulkner novel is Cabin Road<\/em> by William Faulkner\u2019s younger brother John Faulkner<\/strong>. One of the funniest books I\u2019ve had the pleasure of reading. As for William, it\u2019s just too dry for me, although I am reading Light In August<\/em> right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This showing happens to coincide with The 41st Annual Faulkner & Yoknapatawpha Conference<\/strong>, \u201cFaulkner & History,\u201d taking place July 20\u201324\u00a0 at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford. This conference, offered through the UM Division of Outreach and Continuing Education, \u201cwill gather writers, teachers, students and other lovers of Faulkner\u2019s work from the fields of History and Literary Studies for five days of lectures and discussions exploring Faulkner\u2019s imaginative vision of historical forces, processes, and events, the shaping role of such events on his literary oeuvre, his significance as a historical figure in his own right, and the impact of his ideas about history, memory, and the past on historians and their discipline.\u201d Find out more about the conference and this year\u2019s events at www.outreach.olemiss.edu\/events\/faulkner\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"JManArt3\"<\/a>J-MAN said that he\u2019d been thinking about having his Faulkner series showing during the conference for about three years now, and this year it has finally come to fruition.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can always purchase prints at The Frame Up, and we also spied some of his work in the cool art vending machine located at Cups Espresso Caf\u00e9<\/strong> at 1501 Jackson Ave. W., a new coffee shop a couple of doors down from Express Computer Service<\/strong>. If you\u2019re interested in seeing more of J-MAN\u2019s artwork, besides just the Faulkner series, go check out his Etsy page at www.Etsy.com\/shop\/TheArtOfJMAN<\/a>. You can find some church scenes, as well as many more pieces in his signature folk art style.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in The Local Voice #208. To download a PDF of this issue, click here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[300],"tags":[1178,3368,1294,3940,3944,3943,3366,1277,3941,3364,1096,3270,4,3942,1278,1176],"class_list":["post-14884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-localart","tag-art-2","tag-basement-gallery","tag-conference","tag-faulkner","tag-faulkner-art","tag-faulkner-paintings","tag-folk-art","tag-j-man","tag-jason-heavner","tag-jman","tag-lafayette","tag-makers-market","tag-oxford","tag-paintings","tag-the-frame-up","tag-yoknapatawpha"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/JManFaulkFeat.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}