“I have been a longtime enthusiast of American roadside culture that began with childhood trips with my family in the 1950s and 60s. One summer car trip in our 1961 Comet took us to Panama City, Florida and in the following year a western trip to Yellowstone Park to see Old Faithful geyser.

My most memorable journey was riding a Greyhound bus with my mother to visit a cousin from Decatur, Georgia. The bus seemed to stop quite frequently in small towns along the way and it gave me a small window of opportunity to experience those
communities while they were still in good condition. I was given a moment in time to glance at the neon signs, diners serving “Good Food,” and movie theater marquees advertising Jerry Lewis in “The Bellboy.”

For the last twenty years, my painting and photography have been influenced by my ongoing search for these roadside remnants of the past. My process usually involves spending a block of time shooting photographs during a road trip and then editing the imagery that works for me. Recently, I spent a week traveling Route 66 through Illinois and Missouri and took a second trip this past summer on the Lincoln Highway in lowa. Usually, I use my photo references for producing acrylic paintings, but I have also been experimenting with various computer programs such as Corel Painter and have produced a body of work consisting of digital paintings. For me it has been a way to combine an artist’s skills as a painter and a photographer.”-Mary Ann Michna

“Mary Ann Michna won an award for her short documentary Remembering James Dean, 1989. The recognition, given by Video Review magazine, was titled the “Real Life” award. How apropos of her American art. The reviewer cited Michna’s care and poignancy in portraying the sincere admiration fans expressed for the late actor.This care for the past is key to Michna’s art; she seeks moments, events, icons of our past that still speak. Her worlds embrace ordinary life in America and her bond to the everyday makes Michna part of the long history of American artists seeking to commemorate aspects of life in our country. Robert Henri and the Ashcan School over one hundred years ago challenged the Academy for the right to paint everyday life in America Michna proves what Henri wrote in 1923 (updated), “Painting is the expression of ideas in their permanent form. It is the giving of evidence. It is the study of our lives, our environment. The American who is useful as an artist is one who studies her own life and records her experiences; in this way she gives evidence. Fleeting evidence expressed in permanent form.”–Rusty Freeman

Part of our Social Alchemy Project in partnership with University of Southern Indiana & The New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art- this exhibit was made possible by Indiana Humanities, Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, The Arts Council of Indianapolis, The City of Indianapolis and The Efroymson Family Fund.