Journey through the imagined landscapes of Texas-based artist Heather Sundquist Hall.
Words by Laura Relyea | Paintings by Heather Sundquist Hall
The intimacy and nostalgia peppered throughout the small-scale imagined landscapes of artist Heather Sundquist Hall will spark the heart of any road trip lover. The neighborly feeling her works drum up is in part also due to her commonplace subject matter: a Waffle House; a deserted Winnebago in a forest; the empty swimming pool of an abandoned motel; a field full of inflatable tube men. But a playfulness and joviality to Sundquist Hall’s approach soften the edges of abandoned landmarks and roadside attractions.
“I like to pay tribute to things that no longer exist in the same way,” she tells me over the phone from her home in Smithville, Texas. “I wonder what that would look like, envisioning something somewhere else. I think about how it would be to see a Waffle House in a big field of grass because, to me, Waffle Houses just come out of nowhere and are the perfect oasis.”
In that way, each work is a tribute to the past thoroughly steeped in the present. They are piping with imagined details from her own past despite their typically small scale — her canvases are usually no wider or taller than 24 inches. By keeping her scale limited, Sundquist Hall is able to work quickly while still incorporating a level of detail that captures the imagination — textures and patterns from her grandparents’ floral curtains, a plaid from a couch she sat on once.
“Painting those textiles and patterns that I’ve always been drawn to is my way of honoring them,” she says. “And working on a small scale is just the right amount of speed and time I can handle in the time that I have for art making.”
It comes as no surprise that Sundquist Hall spends a healthy amount of time in a semi-meditative state in her car. “I spend about two hours a day in my car driving back from Austin, where I work,” she says. “A lot of my alone time and thought processes and plans for things come from being alone in the car for a while.”
In this way, what could typically be perceived as a longer, somewhat drab commute to the Montessori school where she works becomes an opportunity to create. “I like honoring that special time away,” she says. “I love the time it takes to get somewhere and the anticipation that builds along the way on a road trip.”
For those who have felt a bit trapped in place for the past year during the pandemic, Sundquist Hall’s works offer a welcome reprieve. After all, who can’t help but smile at the thought of an entire field of wacky, wavy, inflatable tube men? There’s uninhibited joy in the thought of their unwearied shimmying on the sides of state highways, their tireless arms bopping in greeting. When much of the world feels weary or tired around us, a painting of them is a velvety, gentle haven. Sundquist Hall’s works remind us there’s an opportunity for hope to take root in the spaces we’ve abandoned.
This story was published in Issue No. 1 of The Bitter Southerner magazine.
Laura Relyea is a writer living in North Carolina whose work has appeared in Oxford American, Hyperallergic, The Bitter Southerner, and elsewhere. She was formerly a regular correspondent on WABE 90.1’s “City Lights,” and has been a featured guest on NPR’s “On Second Thought” and “The Bitter Southerner Podcast.” For The Bitter Southerner, Relyea has retraced the steps of outsider-art chroniclers Roger Manley, Guy Mendes, and Jonathan Williams; taken readers inside Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts; and written about musicians in recovery.
Heather Sundquist Hall is an artist based in Smithville, Texas. Her work is heavily influenced by narratives, nostalgia, and details. Sundquist Hall’s illustrations have become pieces of her own stories whose purpose is to preserve memories like souvenirs. You can see her art on our site in a beautiful remembrance of John Prine.