LISTEN TO AN INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST:
Jeff C. Williams
Title: The Water Towers Still Stand... Now How Does The Life Blood Come Back?
Medium: Acrylic/mixed media on canvas and wood panels
Narrative: These paintings are based on photographs I took of water towers in rural Illinois. I feel a melancholy with these structures, often the longest looming shadow on Rural-ville USA. The inadvertent symbol of life blood and community. Many of the residents of such villages and towns across the United States feel it and watch it as the towns they (in many cases) love, inch their way towards a potential ghost town status.
I know a lot of human beings in these areas feel a real sense of hope when the look to support the POTUS. I wonder if the POTUS will be able to empathize with people that he has never had a reason to truly empathize with at any other juncture of his life.
South Pekin - with smoke stacks (far left): South Pekin is a village in Tazewell County with a population of 1,149 and has held relatively stable over the last decade.
Tice - single pipe/round bulb (near left): Tice is an unincorporated community in Menard County.
Compton - rooftop green (center): Compton is a village in Lee County. The population was 347 in 2000 and has continued to drop, dipping below 300 residents in 2013.
Mendota - powerline gray sky (near right): is a town in LaSalle County, in the state's north-central region. The population was 7,372 at the 2010 census and was estimated to be 7,204 by July 2015.
Pleasant Plains - orange (far right): Pleasant Plains is a village in Sangamon County. The population was up to 806 residents in 2013, an increase from 777 at the 2000 census. Curiously, its largest population on record was over 1,100 residents in 1920, yet by 1930 the population had fallen to under 500.
