"Studebaker Memories" is one of the paintings in the latest In-Town Gallery exhibition.
"Old Blue"IF YOU GO* What: "End of the Road," paintings and photos by Gay Arthur.* Where: In-Town Gallery, 26A Frazier Ave., through Oct. 31.* Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday* Opening reception: 5-8 p.m. Oct. 3.* Admission: Free.* Phone: 267-9214.* Website: intowngallery.com
To some people, there's nothing that embodies waste and desolation quite like the sight of derelict vehicles dotting America's backyards and byways. That's assuming they pay attention to them at all.
On her way to walk her dogs at Chester Frost Park last year, Gay Arthur noticed a green Jeep perched in oxidized splendor atop a hill, like a king in the weeds. In this rusting eminence, the Hixson-based oil painter says she saw inspiration, not an eyesore.
The tableau provided the initial impetus for "End of the Road," her series of paintings and photos depicting abandoned automobiles that will be on display throughout October at In-Town Gallery, where Arthur has been a member since 2007.
Since graduating in 2003 from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in painting, Arthur says her eye often has been drawn to scenes of obsolescence. Previously, that inclination was reflected in her series of works about mailboxes and the now-shuttered U.S. Pipe factory on Broad Street.
"End of the Road," she says, pays homage to machines that often have great significance to their owners.
"It's about nostalgia," she says. "The automobiles and vehicles in our lives have taken us places, and we have had memories in them. It's like your home; it becomes part of your identity and how your peers feel about you sometimes.
"I wanted to honor the memories of some of those old cars and vehicles."
After her initial encounter with the Jeep, Arthur spent months wandering Chattanooga's back roads and scrap-yards, seeking out appropriately picturesque junkers.
Eventually, a friend pointed her in the direction of Old Car City USA. A car dealership founded in the 1930s, the location went to seed long ago and now bills itself as "the world's largest known classic car junkyard," according to its website.
During her May visit to the junkyard, located just north of Cartersville, Ga., Arthur wandered the 34-acre site and took hundreds of photos of hulks artfully speckled with rust in alluring shades, often with weeds and trees growing around or even through them.
"Nature doesn't give damn about them," she says. "The trees don't care what's there, and I found that fascinating."
"End of the Road" will feature six framed oil paintings hanging on the gallery's front wall, including "Out to Pasture," which depicts the abandoned Jeep and a pair of attendant donkeys grazing in a nearby field. In a flip bin near the gallery entrance, she also will offer eight unframed paintings, many of which depict close-up details of the cars, such as emblems, fenders and doors.
In addition to Arthur's paintings, the exhibition will include her photographs. Although these works are outside the medium for which she was made a gallery member, Arthur says she discovered during her time in Old Car City that the degradation of some of the vehicles was so stunning that painting it would have diminished its beauty.
"I loved seeing the whole vehicle, but the textures of these cars that have been there 50 or 60 years -- what the weather has done to the finishes -- was just awesome," she says. "You wouldn't believe it actually looked like that."
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.