"Soul Center" is a painting I did while living in New Orleans before all of our lives were changed by Hurricane Katrina. It is done with oils and acrylics on slate, and mounted on stained wood and double-varnished.

Merely a couple of months before Hurricane Katrina, down at Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans, the historical Presbytere was celebrating the replacement of a roof cupola that had been destroyed during a 1903 hurricane.

During the process of renovation, the builders were replacing the rough-hewn slate shingles that adorn many of the roofs of the buildings in The Quarter. This slate, mined in Pennslyvania Dutch slate-quarries over 300 years ago, was used to minimize the risk of fire spreading from wooden building to wooden building.

There were huge, dusty piles of this material that were simply going to be hauled off and disposed of, so naturally, I recycled all that I could carry back to my studio, apparently believing that my paintings on solid wood weren't heavy enough.

I was struck immediately by the properties of the slates, and though they were by their nature somewhat fragile, I not only liked the smooth yet irregular surfaces to paint upon, but I also marvelled at the way the slate almost resembled wood in the way that it absorbed paint, though not to the same degree as wood. I also liked the edges of each shingle remnant, often choosing to accentuate the multiple horizontal "ledges" of each side with gold paint, so as to elegantly frame the subject matter in the center of the piece.

Though a few of my finished slates were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita before I had a chance to mount them on wood, I am currently working to finish the half dozen pieces that survived, and I will be posting them on my website soon.

This and many other paintings may be viewed and purchased at:

www.hallahart.com