Portfolio

East Texas Car Share

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“Paper Mill Car Share.” Acrylic monotype, 18X24 by Stephanie Khattak.

This piece is based on another Farm Security Administration photo by John Vachon. It shows four Southland paper mill workers and their car share vehicle. I like that it also shows their work gear and lunch boxes. Reminds me of how my dad used to dress for work and the lunch box he carried for so many years. My mom always packed my dad’s lunch (or dinner, if he was on an evening or overnight shift) and used to put Mrs. Baird’s fruit pies in there for dessert. So, when I see these types of lunch boxes, I think of fried pies and those big metal clasps snapping shut.

The paper mill has been a theme in my work before and probably will be again. As I’ve mentioned, it had a huge effect for Lufkin and surrounding areas, too. It was one of the largest employers for generations, and when it shut down, it didn’t necessarily tank the economy because I feel at that time the town’s economic drivers were changing anyway. But it definitely caused a shift and left a lot of people displaced, professionally. It is integral to the larger East Texas story.

Tacky Party

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This painting was inspired by a photo of my great-grandmother, auntie, grandmother, great-great-auntie and their church lady friends. I grew up in a small, unincorporated community outside a marginally larger town, so the people who are your friends as children are usually your friends your whole lives. These ladies were no exception, and neither am I. We are lucky like that.

We’ve had to say goodbye to most of these ladies over the years, and the ones still with us are in their late-80s, so time is a gift. I, like many in my generation, left home at 18 and only return sporadically. This gives time the illusion of stopping, then speeding up in fast-forward. I feel that the “Tacky Party” days were just yesterday, not 30+ years ago.

One of my favorite poets, Faith Shearin, articulates this feeling perfectly in her poem, “My Grandparents’ Generation.”

If there is a consolation prize for having so many wonderful people in our lives only to lose them, then it is that they are together wherever they are.