Commissions come steadily for
formal oil portraits, and probably McKinney’s most
prominently displayed is one of Carl D. Perkins completed
in 1995, hanging in the U.S. House of Representatives
in Washington, D.C. Congressman Perkins, a native
of Hindman, Kentucky, was commemorated with the painting
as the longest reigning chairman of the committee for
education and labor. In the painting, Perkins
stands next to his desk in his office. Behind
him on the wall is an American flag as well as the
state seal of Kentucky. His gaze is direct despite
his smile, and the skin tones are high-lighted by the
contrast of the muted colors in his suit and law books. This
is a formal technically rendered memorial portrait,
and McKinney compares this type of work, more formulaic
and dependent on skill, to playing a classical piece
of music, where the amount of personal expression is
subordinate to the talent required. The wall
behind Perkin’s head is more loosely rendered than
the objects, and energizes the painting as a whole. Though
this type of work, like classical music composition,
is not what typically comes to mind when referring
to the art of Appalachia, it is work by an irrefutably
legitimate Appalachian with deep roots and loyalty
to the region, portraying an important Appalachian
political figure. The social contribution that
portraiture as well as public works provides is no
coincidence; art, historic and contemporary, is a necessary
process and product, within the region, and without.
•••
Sam McKinney was born in Lexington,
Kentucky in 1951, where his parents lived briefly after
World War II. His father, a paratrooper who had
jumped at Normandy, was training in Lexington on the
G.I. Bill to be an electrician. After his educational
training was completed, the McKinney family returned
to their hometown, Fleming-Neon, in Letcher County,
Kentucky. For over a decade, his father worked
for an electric company before becoming a self-employed
electrician and repairman in the small coal town.
•••
Fleming-Neon
(“Flaming-Neon,” it was jokingly called by some) was
built around the coal mining industry, and in fact,
a financial investment by John D. Rockefeller helped
found the town. He was interested in developing
self-sufficient towns, complete with their own means
to generate electricity, all for coal mining purposes. This
type of influence and pressure by rich organizations
and industry has shaped Appalachia for over a century,
in some way devastating. The political agenda
behind Rockefeller’s investment is still quite clear
in the aims of later heirs. In the Forward of
Michael Bradshaw’s 1992 book, The Appalachian Regional
Commission: Twenty-Five Years of Government Policy, the
Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV, a U.S. Senator at
the time, stated, “…special assistance to Appalachia
not only benefits our region; it benefits the entire
nation because of the access it provides to our plentiful
natural resources of coal,” (page x of Forward). This
political influence and emphasis on money shaped local
policies and populations in Eastern Kentucky to an
extent that the indigenous culture became unique. |
