Dance of the Cotton Fields

Print available for this painting

Cotton History, Music and More – Dance of the Cotton Fields 

Not available for Sale at this time –

On display at the Citrus Center Orlando, FL. “

Can you picture spread across the many southern plains the vastness of a sea of white gleaming through the cotton fields? For the wind does it magic causing the cotton bolls to playfully swirl and dance in the hot humid air.

What also comes to mind is the following lyrics:

“When I was a little bitty baby
My mama would rock me in the cradle
In them old cotton fields back home

It was down in Louisiana
Just about a mile from Texarkana
In them old cotton fields back home

Oh, when them cotton bolls get rotten
You can’t pick very much cotton
In them old cotton fields back home”

In fact, these lyrics are from the song “Cotton Fields” which was written in 1940 by blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly. Additionally, it was also a #13 pop hit for The Highwaymen in 1961.

Cotton has much history, not all of it good. But many a blues singer and song writer can trace music and relate to songs created as a result of those historical and painful times of toiling, picking cotton and of course singing.

“I was influenced a lot by those around me – there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields” – Willie Nelson

“There was a certain feeling I developed as a young person for black people. Somehow, they were able to get pleasure out of things that I couldn’t see them enjoying. I heard them sing a lot, and I didn’t hear white folks going down the cotton rows singing that much. “- Sam Phillips 

Dance of the Cotton Fields

For cotton grows in nearly all tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the U.S., China, India, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Brazil, and Turkey. In the United States, Texas is the largest cotton producer, and the South Plains region in the northern part of the state is the largest contiguous cotton-growing area in the world.

Of course, cotton is a staple textile of the fashion industry. For every closet probably houses a large percentage of cotton items, be it plain cotton, dyed cotton, or cotton mix. Futhermore, cotton is a natural fiber derived from cotton plants whose use dates back to the fifth millennium B.C.

“Cotton was a force of nature. There’s a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.
– B. B. King

 

Once I completed this oil abstract, I could visualize the immense cotton fields with their cotton bolls twirling and swaying in the thick tropical air waiting to become an everyday household item. For cotton is more than an ingredient on your label, it’s an ingredient in your life.

A side note, I created this painting with only my fingers; no paint brush or palette knife was used.

Dare to Feel,

Red

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