Peyton Carmichael

My studio in Greenville:

This is my childhood home, and when my grandsons are present, they represent the sixth generation of my family who has lived here. It is now “historic” with it’s own plaque out on the front porch. The house was begun in 1867, just two years after “the war”, by my great-grandfather who had served in the conflict as a surgeon in the Hayneville Guards. He and several of his friends in Lowndes County had moved to Greenville in 1867  because the train came through here and they hoped it would grow and be good for business. The part of the house he built is now in the back – one can identify it easily – and the front was built by my grandfather beginning in the 1890s.

Interesting that I would start an article about myself by describing the house, but I have such a strong sense of identity with it. It was here that I sat and listened to my grandmother Daisy tell of the travails they experienced in Reconstruction, how her father never got over his experience in the war, and how as a child she had viewed the body of Jefferson Davis as it passed through her hometown of Baton Rouge on the train. Daisy loved flowers and was something of a botanist, breeding special camellias and planting roses everywhere. When her bulbs bloomed in the spring it was so beautiful it took my breath away. My first flower painting was for her, a Purple Dawn camellia. I fell in love then and there with color and with a love of detail.

The house now belongs to me, which I consider a great blessing. I have planted my own garden and installed a white picket fence around it. There is also a big lawn behind it for badminton and practicing chips with a wedge. There are magnolias and japonicas and camellias and many azaleas, plus a perennial garden with a bay tree and lots of herbs. Some of Daisy’s garden features are still around: the iron bench, the birdbath and the old urn on its pedestal. I’ve photographed them so you can enjoy them also.

My studio here is located in the sunroom on the back of the house, looking out on the garden. When I get tired I go outside and sit under the arbor and admire the combination of vines growing up and over it – especially the Cardinal Creeper with it’s unique red blooms. I used to sit there as a child and eat pecans that I had gathered from under the ancient pecan trees in the side yard. Sometimes, when I am back in Mountain Brook, I dream of the arbor.

My studio in Mountain Brook is so full of paintings and rolls of paper and carts of paint and tins of brushes I can hardly ever find anything. It is tumbling with ideas and schemes and sketches and plans – I can feel them all around me, holding their breath, waiting to see which will be chosen next.

For me, painting is a blessing that never ends. It is exhausting work, and sometimes it doesn’t turn out and sometimes it disappoints, but it is also something to celebrate. It is in a constant state of renewal and surprise. When you paint flowers, you paint something entirely and intensely beautiful.