Jeannie Maddox & Sam Maddox

The most commonly asked question I have heard over the past 30 years is “Is it a painting or a photograph?” I love painting the abstract shapes that go together to show what the refracted body of a swimmer under water really looks like. I also enjoy painting the overlapping images of store mannequins behind the glass and the traffic on the street reflected in the glass. My husband, Sam and I set up a photo session for the swimmer pieces where we take as many as 750 photos of one or more swimmer models. When we travel, we love shooting urban scenes for the city series. Once we have decided on the image, Sam plunge-routes the armature from cabinet grade birch. This process gives the stability that store bought stretcher bars cannot provide for the large, often 4 x 7 feet museum wrapped canvases.