Peter Muzyka's love for the rural landscape began when he grew up on a sheep farm in Pennsylvania. As an adult, seeing abandoned and deteriorating farm houses and barns pulled on his heartstrings. For years now, he's been recording this vanishing history with egg tempera and oil paintings as well as drawings and photographs.
"It's like the farmers and their families left their spirits behind," Pete comments, in his story of Abandoned Rural America, which includes plenty of images from Georgia. Pete also shows an audience of Athens Art Association members some artworks of Lisa Whaler, Don Jolley, John Dyer and Blake Smith on the same theme.
He has scheduled a series of exhibitions, and with each exhibit he invites other artists who also describe the rural landscape. He is expanding the show adding other media, and it now includes three dimensional work and video.
