Depression-Era Photo Inspires Artist's Journey

By Julie M. Fidler
A Batesville artist, inspired by an old photograph, made a week-long trek along Route 66, stopping here and there to set up her easel and paint.

On Feb. 22, Aline McCracken, a part-time art instructor at University of Arkansas Community College in Batesville, opened a month-long exhibit of water colors she painted on her “sentimental journey.”

In 2005, McCracken found a photo of her father and two uncles, taken during the Great Depression. The three brothers (McCracken’s father, Russell Cantrell, and two of his brothers, Vernon and Doyle) traveled west to pick fruit. They came back and forth from Arkansas, stopping to play music to earn gas money. At the time, they used the well-traveled Route 66.

McCracken knew two of her friends, Stacey Spraggins and Renee Ramsey, would enjoy seeing parts of the famous route. Spraggins, who McCracken said is “fascinated” with Route 66, planned a trip that would take them through five states from Springfield, Mo., to Santa Rosa, N.M.

“Father, Uncle Vernon and Uncle Doyle were three of six children,” said McCracken. “The picture was taken after they’d been in California several years and came home for a visit in Fulton County. They bought this car … Daddy played his banjo. He sold it when I was born, to pay the bill.”

Doyle stayed in California to raise a family while the other two brothers came back to north-central Arkansas.

The three women set out in McCracken’s car because it was the newest, and because it was a PT Cruiser. “What better way to see Route 66 than in a ‘cruiser?’” said McCracken.

However, the car broke down in Santa Rosa, N.M. While they waited for repairs at the dealership, the friends unloaded all of their supplies and painted in the lobby.

“We painted while we were there,” McCracken said. “We took 1,200 photographs between the three of us. People in those towns would follow us around and give us advice and give us presents.”

McCracken had seen part of Route 66 in its hey day. “I was on that road in 1964 in a Volkswagen with a friend from Georgia,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”

The three traveled through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

The artist’s exhibit features watercolor paintings of the road itself or things around it.

Some of the paintings on display have already won awards. “Santa Rosa Angel” won first prize in the still life category at the Grand Prairie Festival of the Arts in Stuttgart. It shows a statue of a child angel on the grave of a young girl.

A painting titled “40 Over, 66 Under” won third place in the landscape category at the same festival. “To find Route 66, one must have a guidebook,” McCracken said. “Many places in the old ‘Mother Road’ are covered by the new interstate highway. In this scene, 66 is a weed-covered trail which curves under and around I-40.”

“That whole trip was just one fantastic adventure after another,” she said. “Art’s more than just paint on paper.”

The exhibit, “Route 66: Springfield to Santa Rosa,” is on display at University of Arkansas Community College in Batesville in the Roy Row Sr. and Imogene Row Johns Library and Academic Building. The show lasts through March, and it is open free to the public.