THE SERPENTINE CHAIN

My name is Alan Shuptrine. I am a watercolor artist living on Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. With my wife, Bonny, I own a fine arts gallery, with businesses of restoration, conservation, and crafting one-of-a-kind gold leaf frames. All my life, I have wanted to paint a collection of thematic watercolors that capture the heart and soul of the Appalachian Mountain culture in a collaborative book.

My father, Hubert Shuptrine, a nationally acclaimed realist painter, partnered with James Dickey on their Pulitzer-nominated book, Jericho: The South Beheld (Oxmoor House, 1974). In the same vein, New York Times best-selling author, Jennifer Pharr Davis, and I created a coffee table style book called I Come From A Place.

I am passionate about Appalachia. I grew up in more than 20 small towns along the Atlantic states, mostly in the South. Following in my father’s footsteps, my genre is mostly southern and Appalachian. Over the past 30 years, my realistic paintings have won numerous national awards. I am known for dramatic light and shadow in my paintings, as well as handcarved and gilded frames that I make for artists, collectors, and museums. I have exhibited my works all over the country; including a four-month-long show at the Vero Beach Museum of Art called In The Tradition of Wyeth: Contemporary Watercolor Masters and my own solo exhibition, Alan Shuptrine: Watercolors of the The Serpentine Chain that traveled to 4 Southeastern museums.  

I Come From A Place is a unique and upscale large format art book which explores and celebrates the connections between the people of Appalachia and their historical and cultural counterparts in the British Isles. This kinship can be traced culturally from the folk tales, quilt patterns, whiskey making, fiddle tunes, and speech patterns that can be found both in Appalachia and in Celtic Britain.

Mined from caves and cliff walls, the ancient Celts prized serpentine for its beauty and believed it held magical powers.

I wanted to expose the significance and irony of serpentine, a dark green and mysterious mineral vein that lies beneath the Appalachian Trail. The project has a coming home theme: why people live where they live, and why they feel a kinship or spiritual connection to a certain area. When you ask people about this, they simply say “it just feels right” or “it feels like home.” If you ask anyone living along the Trail, “Where is your heritage?”, the majority of them will say English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh. That’s because they are the offspring of the early British settlers who moved into the rugged Appalachians and stayed there, because it “felt like home”. But there is something deeper than home–a buried secret. Running from Springer Mountain, Georgia and ending in Maine where the Trail stops in Mount Katahdin, serpentine is sometimes just inches under your feet and at other times it’s a half mile deep in the mountain. Britain was once connected to the Eastern Seaboard millions of years ago. Continental drift pulled Britain away from our coast, and as the Atlantic Ocean was formed, the Appalachian Mountains were severed. Consequently, there is a matchbook vein of the same serpentine in the British Isles which snakes its way from Cornwall to Iceland to the Arctic Circle. So, when the 18th Century settlers moved into our Appalachians, they were actually coming home to the very same mountains (and to the very same serpentine) they had left an ocean away.

The second KickStarter campaign video

My interest in preservation and conservation of our wilderness has spilled over into my 30-year career. I’ve been an outdoorsman and sportsman all my life, from childhood days where I would pass the time climbing trees, to later enjoying hiking, fishing, and hunting. My wife and I have always supported the protection of our lands, and we are actively involved in The Tennessee Land Trust, The Lookout Mountain Conservancy, and we support the Tennessee Wilderness Act.

Mist and Lace, watercolor, Alan Shuptrine

This was my chance to fulfill a dream: to leave a monument of Appalachian Mountain culture, celebrating their heritage and providing a visual testament to the land.

For the last 25 years, our gallery has sold fine American art to private collectors and museums, including the works of my father, the late Hubert Shuptrine (1936-2006), who was nationally acclaimed and best known for his collaborative coffee table book titled Jericho: The South Beheld (Oxmoor House, 1974). Written by James Dickey, author of Deliverance, Jericho sold over a million copies in its first edition and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Twisted, watercolor by Alan Shuptrine

Award-winning book, Jericho: The South Beheld

Below is an image of one a watercolor from the Trail titled Into the Clearing (Smoky Mountains, Tennessee). It is framed in one of my hand-carved rustic surrounds with embedded serpentine stones and black mica.

Falling by Alan Shuptrine, Hot Springs, North Carolina

We all know the Appalachian Trail is a rugged path stretching 2,155 miles from Springer Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME. It was used by the Native Americans for trade and travel routes. And, we’ve all heard stories of hikers and their grand adventures; however, I’m interested in something deeper: Celebrating the connections between the mountain folk of Appalachia with their cultural and historical counterparts in the British Isles.

I wanted to preserve these people and their way of life so future generations can become knowledgeable about the true people of Appalachia. As time progresses, so many of the “old ways” are being replaced with technology and a faster pace of life. I feel that in order to preserve this heritage, it needed to be captured in a respectful and timeless light, before it is lost entirely.

-Alan Shuptrine

Eternal by Alan Shuptrine