Jeannie Maddox & Sam Maddox

“Is it a painting or a photograph?” This is the most commonly asked question that festival-goers from across the country ask when viewing the large three-dimensional work of Jeannie and Sam Maddox. The works are based on the photographs that both Jeannie and Sam take from their travels around the country. The urban scenes are taken of people being themselves while the swimmer scenes are shot in their pool with friends acting as models. Once Jeannie has decided on the image and how it will be executed, Sam begins the process of building the armatures. These are plunge-routed from cabinet-grade birch which involves multiple armatures. Each one is individually stretched and then gessoed and finally screwed together. Some of the larger 4’ x 6’ 3-D canvases can take as much as 100 hours to build. Jeannie’s painting process is ala prima, or wet-into-wet, and can often range up to 450 hours to complete. Jeannie’s paintings are in private and corporate collections across the United States and in Japan, Venezuela, Switzerland, Holland and Italy.