CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: I don't mind telling people that I'm 63.

And I started painting about five years ago.

And I just can't tell you what a joy it is to me to just bring that out, just to take a specific day when I was growing up and just put it down.

It's just such a joy.

[lively fiddle] [engine rumbling] [birds chirping] [engine rumbling] [insects buzzing] [bird screech] [train whistles] Ozarks folk art is an integral part of the cultural heritage of our region.

It is celebrated for its connection to the history, traditions, and the way of life of the people living in the Ozark Mountains.

This art reflects the resourcefulness, creativity, and resilience of the Ozarks inhabitants and continues to be appreciated by those interested in preserving and promoting the region's cultural legacy.

On this episode of "OzarksWatch," we will be headed to Licking, Missouri, to visit with Connie Blaylock Wallace, a painter whose unique style of memory painting captures a more simplistic time in the Ozarks.

[lively fiddle] NARRATOR: Ozarks Public television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Well, today we're in beautiful Licking, Missouri.

And my guest today is a well-known artist.

And we're going to talk a little bit about your art.

But before we do that, why don't we just talk a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are now?

OK.

Thank you all so much for being here.

I was born in Salem, which is just 15 miles from here.

And at home, I was the last of the four-- I was sixth from the top of 14 kids.

JIM BAKER: Oh, my gosh.

Joyce Ann, Mary, Billie Jean, Tom, Deborah, myself, Jim, Brenda, John, Liz, Trish, Linda, Jerry, and Angela.

That's impressive.

So I was born at home with a doctor there.

And I say I was the last to be born at home.

But my little brother Jerry decided that he was going to change it up a little bit.

And he wound up being born at home.

And oh, the secrecy around that was-- JIM BAKER: [laughs] --something.

So yeah.

And daddy was a traveling preacher.

We moved, like, here and there and everywhere all the time when I was little.

We bounced back and forth from Salem to Saint Louis quite a bit.

Between when I was born and when I was four, we moved to South Missouri.

And you've been here since then?

Or do you keep moving back?

Myself, I've settled here.

Michael and I have been married since I was 17.

We got married when I was 17.

We met at the carnival in Licking.

[laughter] That sounds romantic, the carnival in Licking.

Mom and daddy met at the carnival.

So that was appropriate.

JIM BAKER: Oh.

Yeah.

And so we settled.

I was telling the guys earlier, we bought a trailer house, sold that, bought a small home, made a down payment on the farm.

And we have 174 acres here.

And we run a small herd of beef cows.

Yeah, that's a beautiful spot.

And it was kind of interesting finding your house because you're kind of out there, as they say.

But it's a beautiful area and everything.

So one thing that always fascinates me with a family with 14 kids, how did you get to the table to eat?

Did you have to fight your way through?

First of all, we didn't eat much.

I think it's so interesting now how much people eat because when we were kids, half a ham sandwich and a handful of potato chips was a good meal.

We just didn't eat a lot.

And I-- the commodity situation, I wanted to talk about because feeding that many kids was a big deal.

So we had a big garden.

Mother was really good in the garden.

And daddy hunted, you know?

And we butchered once in a while when we could afford to because we were really poor.

But we went once a month to get commodities.

And I have some paintings that kind of pertain to that too.

They drove an old, green panel station wagon.

[laughs] We hated that car so much.

JIM BAKER: [laughs] And it was determined, what you got, by how many children you had.

It was run by the USDA.

JIM BAKER: Right.

All the-- The commodities, for people that don't know, was before food stamps.

Yes.

And so, yeah.

The cans were marked "USDA."

And it was, like, canned chicken, pork, peanut butter, cheese.

And it was all really good quality food.

And my mom was a wonderful cook, so.

But commodity day was one of our favorites.

We got raisins.

JIM BAKER: [laughs] CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: And I have a painting here somewhere.

Down the road from where we lived, down in Hunter, Missouri, I don't know if you're familiar with that area, near Poplar Bluff and Grandin and down in there.

There was a family named the Catletts.

And they had 12 children.

JIM BAKER: Wow.

So between mother and daddy [laughs] there were 20-some odd children.

And we ran in and out of each other's houses.

And one of the girls shared with me not long ago that the boys would take mother's raisins because they made the best raisin pies.

And they would take it and make raisin mash out of it.

Oh, OK. And so I have a painting here.

And it says-- the name of it is, "You Boys Better Not Be Using My Commodity Raisins."

[laughter] That's a good title.

You have to explain that.

So it sounds to me like your art-- and we'll talk about when you got started and all that.

But it sounds to me like your art is totally influenced by your younger days and growing up and your family-- CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yes.

--and all the people around you and the circumstances around you.

A lot of them are actually me in the paintings.

Now, some of them fall within a period, like the '30s and '40s because that's when mother and dad were born.

And I think that what they went through, the end of the Depression, the two World Wars and everything, you know, that's to be commended, even surviving that era, much less raising a family that big.

I mean, my goodness.

I just can't imagine with 14 kids.

That had to be a real challenge.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yeah.

Yeah.

And we worked hard.

As soon as we were old enough to work, we worked really hard.

What kind of jobs did you do, just out of curiosity?

Because-- Well, we, like the kids, with chores and all that.

And dad cut wood a lot.

And there was a time when mother and daddy worked for the mail train, which I think is really interesting.

It ran through Poplar Bluff.

And they would meet the mail train in Poplar Bluff.

And I don't know if you know a lot about that.

But I was little, but I had to research it.

They sorted.

And everybody had a uniform and wore a weapon, which I thought was interesting, thinking of my mother having [laughs] a weapon strapped to her waist because she was a little bitty woman.

But they sorted in between towns.

And the small towns, they didn't stop.

They just tossed the bag out.

And then they had a hook.

And if they didn't stop-- they stopped in the big towns.

But if they didn't stop in the small towns, they would use that hook and grab the outgoing mail and bring it in.

And if you didn't catch it, [laughs] oh, well.

That was it.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: You know, it was the next day before you got mail.

And I think it said that they got demerits if they missed catching [laughs] the bag.

So I would say, my dad never missed catching the bag.

He was-- No next-day delivery.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: No.

[laughs] So let's talk a little bit about your art and how you got started.

You kind of, as I recall, you got started a little bit later in life, as far as doing the art.

Mhm.

I don't mind telling people that I'm 63.

I turned 63 this year.

JIM BAKER: Well, that's young, to me, so.

[laughs] And I started painting about five years ago.

And I just can't tell you what a joy it is to me to just bring that out, just to take a specific day when I was growing up and just put it down.

It's just such a joy.

So what did you just wake up one morning and say, oh, I think I'm going to start painting?

Kind of because retirement wasn't really setting real well with me because I'm like-- you can tell by the way I talk.

And the reason I talk this way is because I had 14 in my family.

If you wanted a word in, you had to talk the whole time.

And then somebody would catch a word-- Wait for a little opening.

--coming in, yeah.

I lost my train of thought.

Oh, no, we were just talking about once you started, I was just kind of curious what possessed you to think of, oh, OK, I think I'll paint.

I just count it as a blessing from God really.

And just it takes up a lot of my time.

And I hold them on my lap and pray over them.

I know, yeah, that they'll bless somebody.

And I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of really good people online.

I have a lot of collectors that get my stuff.

Some of them own 10 or 12 paintings.

And in five years, I've painted over 500 paintings.

And I've sold between 350 and 400.

I know you-- I was looking at the collection of roosters, which you sell out those things instantly.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yes.

Yes, I do.

And then the cows are really popular with people that don't really care for the folk art.

And on that, I buy, like, those big sofa paintings at, like, flea markets and estate sales and stuff.

And I repurposed those.

Because probably about 60% of my canvases are repurposed.

JIM BAKER: Oh, OK. CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yeah.

And then I donate those to, like, cancer benefits and stuff like that.

So now, I'm fascinated with the way you got started.

So you just sat down one day and started drawing?

Yeah, pretty much.

I just-- I told Mike.

I said, I need to go to Hobby Lobby.

And he's like, OK, cool.

And I went and bought my first paints.

And it was funny because at the time, I probably spent about, I don't know, $40, $50.

And now if I go, I'm like-- [laughs] I've got to have some supplies.

I need to go and spend some money this time.

So yeah, that's-- Now, did you start off with the oils or what?

No.

No, I work almost completely in acrylics.

I like the fast drying of it because I'm not a patient person at all.

[laughter] And so they dry really fast.

Some of them, if you look real close, this one's done on lauan.

And you can kind of see the texture.

But people that collect folk art, they want, like, a real primitive, basic type.

Yeah, and I want to talk about folk art as a genre once I explore how you got into this because I'm fascinated.

You just started doing it.

So did you ever do any sketching or any pencil type stuff?

Or was it always acrylics?

If you look-- I can draw a little bit, which I enjoy.

But if you look at some of the earlier pieces, I did draw on a lot of those.

And now I just use a real fine-tip paintbrush with white paint on it and do my drawing with that.

JIM BAKER: Uh-huh.

But yeah, I like to sketch.

And I've done some fine art, but not very much.

My heart is in this.

Yeah, so do you just have an image in mind?

Like, I know the idyllic scenes and the scenes from the '30s, I mean, something like this reminds me of growing up in Kentucky.

Everything seemed to be simple.

Mhm.

Yes, this is actually a direct memory.

Sourcing water back then was a big, big deal.

Oh, yeah.

If you moved into a home and maybe you didn't have electricity for the pump or, you know, whatever.

So I have one where daddy's lowering one of the boys down into the cistern to clean the cistern because when you would move in, mice and rats and snakes and all kinds of things would fall down in those cisterns.

So they would lower one of the boys down in with a bucket, take out anything that wasn't supposed to be there.

And then mother would lower a bleach bucket and a mop.

And she'd buy a new mop for it.

And they would mop the insides of the cisterns and clean them out real good, let them dry out.

And then the water truck would come.

Well, [laughs] we were so poor.

One day, the water truck-- daddy had water ordered.

And the tank fell off and filled the ditch up with water.

Well, it didn't take us very long to get out there.

And we had a little hillbilly swimming pool for several days.

JIM BAKER: Oh.

So on the-- OK, so those types of paintings have come out of memory and everything.

But then you do cows and roosters.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Mhm.

JIM BAKER: Are those from memory as well, about thoughts?

Or are you just-- CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: No, those are just for the joy of it and because they sell really easy.

So that's if it strikes me to paint a cow, then I just-- JIM BAKER: You paint a cow.

Paint a cow that day, you know?

[laughter] How long does it normally take you to do, well, something like this, a little bit more involved?

But, like, if you're doing a cow or a rooster-- the roosters look, to me, like they're more complicated because there's so many colors and-- CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: But they go really fast.

I can do those in two or three hours on the-- yeah.

Like I said, acrylic is fast drying.

And that really helps a lot.

I have a lot of friends that do fine art.

And they do oil, which I admire so much.

But I just would never have the patience to let something dry for six months before.

[laughs] Oh, yeah, for the aging process on it.

So how long-- describe this type of art.

There's a genre for it.

And it's not primitive art.

But it's more-- there is a primitive.

But it's a little bit more than that.

Yeah, and-- What class is this in?

--if falls in that category.

And these are called memory paintings actually.

And if you, like, look up on the internet, memory paintings, you can come up with some artists that-- well, Grandma Moses, her paintings were memory paintings.

And then I have a lady friend that I met early on in Canada.

Her name is Ilona Fekete.

And she does memory paintings also.

And I own a few of hers.

And so the memory-- these type of paintings are really in realism.

There's no abstract.

I mean, you don't get into abstractions on these.

You just-- Or composition or any-- in fact, you might see other artists-- I do try to keep it where you can actually tell where things are.

But you might see other artists.

And there might be this scene.

And then the truck might be, like, [laughs] you know, they just don't pay a whole lot of attention to composition at all.

So it's more like almost a dream-like memory, like of whatever you feel.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yeah.

Yeah.

So what are some of your favorite paintings?

Oh, before I get to that, you also paint on other, like, boots and hats and stuff, yeah?

Yeah, that, [laughs] I was noticing those boots.

That's pretty good.

I should paint my shoes.

[laughter] I should get my shoes painted before I leave.

But what all do you do on that?

I just do outside shows, like Old Mill Days at Montauk and stuff.

And everybody gets a little silly and wears, you know-- I wear my hat and boots down there.

And I think you know Kaitlyn McConnell.

She came out and interviewed me.

When she came down, I had a big cowboy hat on and boots and stuff.

You know, it's just all for fun.

But yeah, I wear these when I have shows.

So let's talk a little bit then about what some of your favorite paintings are.

OK, my absolute-- I love this painting because, like I said, it comes from a very fun, direct day.

The Brush Arbor ones are really dear to me.

That's one of the first-- well, my sister bought the first Brush Arbor one that I did.

And then I've done about five probably.

JIM BAKER: OK.

I don't know if you're familiar with what those are.

Not particularly.

But you could explain it to me.

[laughs] CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: If daddy didn't have a church-- JIM BAKER: Oh, OK. --he would, like, ask for permission to go on the property.

And there would be-- he would pick out four trees and clear the area and then cut down trees that would go as cross pieces and across the top.

And then if he had rope, he would lash it, the top, with that.

And if he didn't, he would take a pocket knife and strip really thin limbs and make lashings out of them and lash the whole top and then literally throw brush up on the top.

And we would make handwritten flyers, you know, "revival tonight," and take them to the closest town and put them up all over town.

And then we would choose what songs me and my sisters were going to sing that night.

And that's why the music would waft out all over the hills.

JIM BAKER: Yeah.

Yeah, that's one of my best memories.

Let's talk a little bit about you have some of your works are in galleries and different places.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

I was so fortunate early on to just make really good connections with some people online.

And they picked me up and were so good to me and introduced me to collectors.

And the one gallery that I'm represented in now is in Dayton, Ohio.

And that's the only place right now that I have any in galleries.

Most of my sales, 90% of my sales, are just somebody sees it online, likes it, and says, send it to me.

And I have a really terrible way of doing business.

[laughs] I just, like, wrap them up, send them off.

If some money comes back, I'm so happy.

And if it-- If it works, it works.

Well, in five years, I've not been cheated one single time.

We'll put your website and everything up on the screen.

And I'm thinking it was called "Folksy Painting" or something.

Yes.

My memory was getting a little crazy there.

So I guess that describes the art form that you're talking about.

And so what are your plans for the future?

Are you going to continue to just paint things that you want to paint?

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Mhm, definitely.

And if they sell, they sell.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yeah.

I don't like doing commission work or anything.

I've been asked a lot about that.

I don't like it at all.

I like to just-- sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll be like, oh, I remember that day that such and such happened.

And I have a little blanket laying over there.

My mom was just a little over 5 foot tall.

And you probably could not have made her weigh 100 pounds if you got her soaking wet.

She went down to Mexico on a missions trip.

And she decided she was going to buy every one of us a Mexican blanket.

So here's my mom, she has to walk back to the car.

I don't know how far she had to walk.

She got 12 Mexican blankets.

[laughs] I can just-- I can just see her, a little bitty old woman walking with those blankets.

So that will be one of my paintings when I get to a point to where I feel like I want to put that down because I think that'll just be-- Well, it sounds like you got a kind of a fertile imagination and a fertile background.

So the subjects are not going to be that hard to come by.

It's just a matter of-- CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: Yes.

--when the inspiration hits you and all that.

I'm always fascinated.

And we've done several shows with artists and scientists.

And I'm always trying to figure out, OK, what's the source of inspiration, you know?

What causes you to be creative?

What causes you to be innovative?

And you think about things.

What's your driver?

Is it your family?

Is it your background?

I kind of sense that.

Yeah.

I have three children of my own, 12 grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

And so I expect this to keep evolving.

Melissa, Tammy, and Derek, by the way.

[laughs] JIM BAKER: You are good with names.

I expect this to keep evolving, to where if I'm fortunate enough to live to an old age, painting this era, of having my grandchildren here on the farm, because I don't do that now.

I stay mostly in mother and daddy's and ours.

But I expect it to evolve into, you know, Mike and the kids on the tractors and all that later on.

So instead of spending all your time taking selfies with a camera, you're going to be doing the paintings?

Yeah, I'm not much of a selfie-type person.

[laughter] Well, I really-- it's just been a joy to talk to you.

Our time has gone by so fast.

CONNIE BLAYLOCK WALLACE: It has.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate your spending time with us.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

We'll be back in a moment.

[lively fiddle] NARRATOR: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I hope you enjoyed our visit with Connie Blaylock Wallace and seeing her fantastic folksy art.

Join us again next time for another edition of "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

[lively fiddle]