One evening I was sitting in a circle playing banjo with my fiddler husband and friends. We played tunes called Red Haired Boy and Sally in the Green Corn and Lost Boy, wonderful tunes that seemed to possess a special kind of magic capable of transporting one back to an earlier time in our nation's history. I felt an enormous debt of gratitude to the countless musicians who had faithfully kept the tradition alive from one generation to the next so that I too could enjoy and be enriched by it. So I decided to create a series of paintings inspired by the titles and stories of these fiddle tunes. For help I turned to the American Memory archive at the Library of Congress that was created during the 1930's and 40's when the government commissioned photographers to travel throughout America documenting with their cameras the people and places that they saw. Many of these images, especially those of rural life, fit so nicely with the style of music I love and play. I hope you enjoy this artistic journey back in time.