On February 17, 2020, I was asked to document Jason Bouldin’s artist’s talk about his exhibition of eulogy paintings at Rowan Oak called How Can I Keep from Singing? which he named after the hymn about unshakable gratitude, even in the face of oppression and death. Each painting that hung in the upstairs gallery across from the Faulkner family bedrooms was a portrait of something that had died, be it a bird that a cat had caught, a rabbit that had been run over by an car, or flowers that had dried.
Jason is the son of painter, Marshall Bouldin. One of the show’s paintings is of a pecan tree on the family property in Clarksdale that was snapped in two by a tornado a month after Marshall’s death. His studio is in the background. I was given footage of Jason and Marshall in that studio by @carlylewolfelee that she had shot 2012. I edited it and footage I shot of Jason working in his studio on July 17, 2021 into the little film I made about the exhibition. The painting he tweaked that day was a portrait of his father’s funeral wreath that he kept in storage since November of 2012.