Blues @ Home: Mississippi’s Living Blues Legends

About the Project

For over 30 years, visual artist H.C. Porter’s environmental portraits have captured the human spirit of and everyday Mississippians. In December 2010, Porter set out to document Mississippi’s living blues legends through Blues @ Home, a collection of 31 paintings and coinciding oral histories collected by collaborator Lauchlin Fields.

Award-winning photographer, printmaker, and painter H.C. Porter created mixed media environmental portraits of each of the legends portrayed in Blues @ Home. Porter used her unique mixed media process to capture the human spirit of America’s most celebrated music tradition.

Each painting is paired with oral histories, allowing each blues legend to tell the stories behind the music in his or her own words. The oral histories, collected by Project Manager Lauchlin Fields, give a more in-depth look into the culture of the blues through the first-hand accounts of the living legends.

This multimedia experience of paintings, voices, and original music recordings became a nationally toured exhibition which showcased the immeasurable hold the blues has on the world.