Kidnapped by Cutworm (3.5 minute read)
It was a blistering hot day, and I couldn’t remember if there was any shade around the spot I had planned to set up my easel. I had driven up and down that road more than a few times and knew that I had to paint that specific site. I turned the Bronco onto the gravel drive. One lone tree, and it was in the wrong location to give me a break from the sun. I pulled out the collapsible card table and my easel. I had stretched a canvas a few weeks before at my studio back home in Athens, GA. I knew this painting would be a vertical format: the church’s spire dictated it. The subject was Moss Memorial Baptist Church in Tusquittee, a mountain-community part of Hayesville, NC.
After laying out the oil paint on my palette, I covered the canvas with a semi-transparent wash of dirty orange. Then I loosely sketched out the composition with sepia paint on the end of a pointy brush. This is the way I began all plein air paintings, though sometimes the transparent color varied. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with my long hair pulled back in a ponytail. I always wore one of my daddy’s many caps to keep the sun out of my eyes. Think trucker cap, with a big logo on the front and mesh in the back. Daddy got them free from chemical reps. My favorite advertised Talon Rodenticide. The last thing I put on before starting to work was my favorite blue apron. I didn’t know it at the time, but that same apron would accompany me on a 6-week painting trip to France. I sported it while painting Le Mont St. Michel in Normandy, and being filmed by a France TV5 documentary crew. But that is another story.
The church was built out of local fieldstone, and the mortar had a raised-vine pattern. I had seen this on other homes, churches and schools in western North Carolina, and was completely charmed by them. They seemed like fairytale buildings to me. And no matter how disenchanted I became with the Baptist Fundamental Institution, I never could resist the charm of a little church with a steeple.
This church was way out the middle of nowhere. The remoteness of the location played into my lifelong struggle with anxiety. I was keenly aware that I was alone and defenseless against anybody that might want to mess with me. The first day of painting was hot and uneventful.
The next day my lean paint application was dry. I could apply paint a little thicker, and begin to get into the meat of the thing. A few hours into it, I watched a white Toyota pickup truck turn into the gravel parking lot. I turned off the Walkman and stood as tall as my 5′ 3″ frame allowed. A small white-headed man wearing glasses got out of the truck and introduced himself as Cutworm Phillips. He spoke with the most wonderful western North Carolina drawl… and did he talk! After a 10-minute monologue, he looked at my painting and proclaimed it as pretty good. He then proceeded to tell me that he had a beautiful piece of property with a fishing pond that I would surely want to paint. He insisted that he must take me to see it, right that minute. I deferred, saying that I had more painting to do. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said to hop in his truck with him, it was just a mile up the road, and nobody would bother my stuff.
At this point, I sized him up. My instinct told me that he was a kind, harmless old man, maybe around the age of 80. I also figured I could kick him in the nuts and outrun him, if need be. I got in his truck and went to see his pond. This was the beginning of a many-year friendship with Wayne “Cutworm” Phillips and his wife Dale. They enriched my life enormously and felt like family. And I did paint the Phillips’ fishing pond when the leaves turned one autumn. When anyone asked how I met Cutworm, I always told them that he kidnapped me when I was painting.
Karen Adams 2024
