Gary Bolding
by Jenn Allen
Gary Bolding’s latest collection of work, on display at Stetson University’s Hand Art Center, focuses on a small oil town in southern Arkansas known as Vaselina Springs. Home of 25,104 individuals, including
the Blackfish family, members of the Choctaw tribe, and the infamous
Lester Harley, founder of Athena Oil. If you haven’t heard of Vaselina
Springs, you are not alone. Bolding, currently a professor at Stetson
University in DeLand, Florida, has spent years creating this town and
documenting it in great detail. From maps to timelines that start with
the Garden of Eden, there is little he doesn’t know about this town. It
is hard not to get wrapped up in this fantastic place that he illustrates
through paintings, short stories, letters, and songs. This ongoing, collaborative body of work evokes a sense of Americana while preserving the
disappearing southern oil towns.
Jenn Allen: How do you pronounce Vaselina Springs?
Gary Bolding: Vay-sah-LEE-nah Springs. That’s specifically
because the town I grew up in is technically El Dorado
(doe-rah-doe), Arkansas, but they pronounce it “doeRAY-DOE.” I always say I grew up in a town that
didn’t know how to pronounce its name.
my hands and has a different person who lives in the town. Some of
these people could become part of the narrative. As long as the CDs
are moving out, I will continue to make more portraits. The population
isn’t necessarily all present day. The story starts in the Garden of Eden.
Some of the 25,104 citizens might be from the early 21st century; some
of them might be from today. Some of them are ghostly and from the
past. It’s a multi-generational story. Now, I have so many characters,
and I start to see a resemblance in them and create families. In the
Harley family, Lester Harley started this company, Athena Oil; Athena,
always the wise choice. Athena was the goddess of wisdom.
Are all the faces in the CDs made from your thumbprint?
They almost all start as th