Scenic Country Art – Crossroads Store

Description

This scenic country art depicts a place in rural Georgia that I didn’t personally know the history of when I stumbled across it. In fact, I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure it was the Crossroads Store despite the fact it was on a road named the Crossroads Store Road. It was just a hunch.

What attracted me to this old country store was the fact it reminded me of a vanishing part of my childhood. When I was little our family road trips sent us snaking through country roads of south Alabama. At that point in time, many of these old country stores were still ongoing family businesses. Many of them my parents remembered from their own childhoods. There was always such a homey feel to them and they were often the center of small farming communities. The sort of place were customers might gather and gossip in the shade. This piece of scenic country art captures those memories from my childhood and more and more of these old places are quietly vanishing into the southern countryside.

This scenic country art print has been part of my catalog of work for years but it was only recently that I learned a little more of the story behind it from a member of the family that once owned it. Sure enough this old country store in rural Crisp County Georgia was known as the Crossroads Store. It rests on a farm that still belongs to the same family. Talk about continuity! And it once was frequented by the surrounding community, many of whom were farm workers on the same farm. The old Crossroads store was built in the 1940s and operated into the late 1960s. The life of rural communities has changed much in the latter half of the 20th century and beyond. There are simply fewer people living and working  there than in the past so it’s not surprising to see old places like this to fade into the past, but I’m glad I was able to document this one before it was entirely gone from the earth!

This has a quaint country feel not to mention the beautiful south Georgia landscape. It’s a scene I found personally appealing without any actual background history. That just adds to the appeal for me. What say you? What speaks to you in this scenic country art print? Does it remind you of your childhood? Or maybe it’s the store itself you remember or have a family connection to? I would love if you pause to share what it is that speaks to you loudest in this country print?