When artist Bernice “Penny” Hackett didn’t have a yellow crayon, she went into her garden. The young Hackett plucked a blossom from the salad greens of the vegetable patch and rubbed it on her paper to complete her third grade homework assignment. Much like that yellow flower, Hackett’s childhood memories growing up on a farm in Virginia remain the source from which her artwork blooms. 

Her work in Jefferson Arts Gallery’s “A Taste of the South” reflects everything she loves about the region. She tells its stories through paint and fabric. For Hackett, the south is mud oozing between her toes and the smell of a heavy rain. It’s braiding grass and churning homemade strawberry ice cream under the cool shadow of a weeping willow tree. 

“I think the [exhibit] title makes someone think of food, but the south has so much more,” says Hackett. “The diversity, the trees, the wetlands, the egrets, the big oaks, the leaves, the buildings, the houses, the flowers, the animals. It’s whatever that person perceives to be Southern to them.” 

Hackett’s journey to art began in high school where she was encouraged to pursue the fine arts in college. She attended Norfolk State University and felt “green around the edges” when it came to learning the varied techniques. Painting was a natural fit, and she worked late into the evenings and early hours of the morning to practice and perfect her craft. 

Professors supported her drive, showing her new brushstrokes to achieve greater shading, volume and texture. After graduation she returned to her hometown high school where she served as art teacher for 30 years. This full circle moment felt like a responsibility to instill students with the confidence she wished she’d had when entering the academic art world.

“When you’re dealing with a student you have to be careful with your language because you never know what you might say that might hurt them later on in life,” says Hackett. “You want students to be successful and you want them to exhibit their work.” 

Hackett’s days were filled with lesson planning to avoid becoming stale in her instruction. She attended seminars and paged through magazines for new ideas. Hackett would even turn to her students for ideas. 

“One student knew how to airbrush and taught me how to,” recalls Hackett, always in awe of her classes’ ingenuity and openness to new techniques. 

When Hackett retired and moved to Monticello, she returned to her own paintbrush. It began gradually when her mother, now 93 years old, recounted tales from her rural upbringing. As Hackett listened on the phone, she sketched as she envisioned these scenes.

She drew her mother ironing her grandfather and uncle’s shirts on an antique ironing board, filling an old soda bottle with water to dampen and steam the clothing. Hackett also spent time remembering growing up on her grandparents’ farm in swirls of paint—milking cows, the hollyhocks that grew by the smokehouse, her grandmother’s blue dress.

“My grandma loved to cook and she would offer anyone who came through her door homemade ice cream, cake, and pies,” says Hackett. “In one of the paintings she has a big bowl in her hand and is stirring it with a wooden stick. She loved to can peaches and fruits and I have jars painted into the background to represent that.” 

Other multimedia works incorporate fabrics that relate to the subject at the center of the painting. Hackett collects handmade papers, twigs, feathers, seedpods and other items to bring an authenticity to these scenes. 

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