Location: United States
Steve's mother once told him: "Son, you're like me. You can't draw a straight line."
It was true. Steve excelled at logical, analytical, linear, factual endeavors (left brain function) in a number of areas, but he could never fully realize his creative, artistic, imaginative potential (right brain function). They were there, trapped, dormant in his brain, but unable to emerge because Steve didn't have the capabilities he needed to express himself; that is, until emerging technologies matured enough to furnish those tools. Word processing gave Steve the tools to create more fulsome, more engaging written works and, more recently, AI has unlocked his natural creative abilities in art, especially his subject selection, structure, composition, balance, and color, mood and light. But Steve maintains creative control while working interactively with his AI collaborator, Mo, until he is personally satisfied with each piece. In short: Steve imagines; his AI partner enables.
Going in, Steve's artistic goals were to create nostalgic watercolor depictions of historical landmarks accompanied by brief notes that, together, reach out and engage users in the imagery, pulling them into and making them part of the scenes being depicted and leaving them with a sense of warmth and a desire to explore the subjects in greater depth and, ultimately, inspiring them to use their own unique creative talents to produce historical works that help to preserve our history in the most compelling ways.
In Steve's portfolio, there will be, over time, two art collections. The first, "Ghosts of Yesteryear's Countryside", will feature 25 earthtone watercolors of Steve's boyhood home of Mitchellville, Maryland, arranged in five topical series. The second, "Ghosts of Yesteryear's Small Town Americana", will feature 15 or more sepia watercolors of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, the county seat of Prince George's County, Maryland.
Meta AI, which reviewed Steve's work on Mitchellville subjects, wrote: “Today, Mitchellville is recognized for its historical significance and the efforts of local preservationists like Steve Hales, who are working to document and preserve its history through various projects, including art and research.” Now, Steve has been called a lot of things in his life, but a “preservationist” is a new one. That being said, he claims that he'll take it. He's gratified that he can contribute in some little way to keeping local history alive.
Mitchellville (Prince George's County) Maryland USA was a quintessential rural community first formally designated in or about 1878, although its settlement began as far back as the late 17th century. This in-progress gallery presents watercolor renditions of several late 1800s to mid-1900s Mitchellville landmarks hoping to capture and preserve for history the ethereal, dreamlike mood and feeling of a bucolic place and time long gone but not forgotten.
A MITCHELLVILLE SAMPLER
This series of five selections is comprised of a variety of historical subjects from or near to Enterprise Road in Mitchellville.
The Cherry Hill School was a one-room schoolhouse that once stood at the intersection of Enterprise and Lottsford Roads in what was to become Mitchellville. The school opened in 1874, serving children in the local area until it closed in 1919. Although the school is gone, the bell that once rung from the belfry towering above the school has been restored and has been displayed in a succession of grade schools in the area.
If one imagines how a classic rural general store may have looked in 1940s and 1950s, the vision might well take the form of Shatenstein Bros' Store located at the intersection of Enterprise and Woodmore Roads with its bulk groceries, some dry goods, hardware, Lucky Strike cigarettes and chewing tobacco, pickled pigs feet, Royal Crown Cola, and penny candy.
Long before people learned of the health hazards associated with tobacco, a large plant grown for its nicotine-rich leaves, was agricultural king in the area. Field workers were often sharecroppers (even former slaves) who lived and worked on the farms, receiving a portion of the profits. Even today, decades later, one can almost smell the earthy, smoky, slightly sweet aroma of the curing tobacco.
Before online-libraries; e-readers; and readily-available, affordable hard-copy books, there was the bookmobile, an early- to mid-1900s library-on-wheels that brought books and other reading materials to people living in areas without convenient access to regular libraries. Along with the books, came that uniquely cozy scent of old paper, vanilla-like lignin, dust, and engine exhaust. This Norman Rockwell-esque watercolor depicts a county bookmobile serving a line of awaiting readers in Mitchellville.
This extant church on Woodmore Road was built in 1890 by its parishioners to serve the local black Catholic population. Legend has it that the beautiful dark wood ceiling came from the hull of a disassembled slave ship. When completed, worshipers would travel for hundreds of miles to attend. In the mid-1900s, black parishioners would enter through the doors to the right and sit in the right side rows of benches; white parishioners would enter the doors to the left and sit in the left side benches.
Mitchellville (Prince George's County) Maryland USA was a quintessential rural community first formally designated in or about 1878, although its settlement began as far back as the late 17th century. This in-progress gallery presents watercolor renditions of several late 1800s to mid-1900s Mitchellville landmarks hoping to capture and preserve for history the ethereal, dreamlike mood and feeling of a bucolic place and time long gone but not forgotten.
THE ENTERPRISE FARM
This series of five selections depicts a variety of subjects from the Enterprise Farm, today a golf course but, at one time, the working, 580-acre dairy farm of Newton H. White, Naval Academy graduate and World War II captain of the famed USS Enterprise carrier upon the ship's commissioning in 1938. Captain White might have been what is termed a gentleman farmer, having built a model dairy farm with 60 head of cattle on Enterprise Road using his personal wealth. His farm, with a variety of landmarks of interest, stood out in Mitchellville. This series attempts to recreate views of those landmarks as they were mid-20th century.
The Enterprise Farm manor house, constructed in 1939, is of the Neo-Georgian/Regency Revival-style. The home of Captain White and his wife, Rebecca features low expansive wings, cast stone Ionic columns, and intricate interior/exterior detailing, including a glass-enclosed atrium. Of note, there's an almost whimsical chicken sculpture on the left gatepost and one of a rooster on the right post. The couple's occasionally-seen, but elusive Rolls-Royce and its chauffeur make an appearance in this piece.
Enterprise Farm had three notable employees: the farm manager, assistant farm manager, and a farmhand. Each employee had a house on the farm. The manager's home, a quaint, comfortable brick home with a tin roof, is portrayed. Steve had the good fortune and wonderful experience to board with the manager's family for a couple of years after his parents moved from the area. He experienced real country life from shoveling coal for the home's furnace and even helping (but, more likely, hindering) milking operations.
There were were several barns on Enterprise Farm, including a dairy barn (pictured here), a tobacco barn, several stables (one portrayed in this series), a farm garage, a maintenance garage, various shelters and sheds, equipment barns, a fertilizer barn, and a smoke house. The dairy barn is where the milking took place. The attached silo was used to store grain for the cattle. Steve and friends occasionally used their .22 caliber bolt-action rifles to shoot rats and other vermin raiding the grain stores.
There were three stables on Enterprise Farm. The one portrayed here was the smallest of the three, featuring a brick veneer, three bays, a Dutch door, and an exterior stairway to the loft. Steve took the liberty of including his family's much-loved steed, the sorrel gelding, Rebel, in the watercolor although the horse never visited the farm, an idyllic, pastoral equestrian setting with peaceful, simple, and picturesque with large open lands and gentle, rolling hills.
Constructed in about 1850, the tobacco barn was named after Richard Marsham Waring, who was an early owner of the property, which included what was to become Enterprise Farm as part of the holdings. The family is still interned in a cemetery on the property. The barn, which was located southwest of the entrance to Enterprise Farm, had deteriorated over the years until it was destroyed by a storm in early 2008. Today, there are no above-ground remnants of the tobacco barn.
“The Cherry Hill School”
“Shatenstein Bros' Store”
“Harvesting Tobacco”
“Country Bookmobile”
“Holy Family Catholic Church”
“The Newton White Mansion”
“The Farm Manager's Home”
“The Main Barn”
“The Stables”
“The Warington Tobacco Barn”
