05521
Bunker, watercolor on
paper, 20¼ x 28¼"2
Window, watercolor on
paper, 38½ x 28¼"I
t took seven years and trips to all 50 states
for Mary Whyte to complete her newest
watercolor series.
“The last project I did was called Working South, and
it depicted blue-collar workers in vanishing industries.
As that was coming to a close, I knew I wanted to
follow it up with something even bigger and grander
in scope,” Whyte says.
She knew she wanted to encompass every state—
create a portrait of America that showcased the diver-
sity of the country—but wasn’t sure how to go about
choosing those Americans. “That’s when it came to me,”
she says. “That, to me, what makes somebody the most
American is someone who’s willing to lay down their life
for their country. So it became a project about veterans.”
The result, titled We The People, features citizens of
all ages, all heritages and from all five branches of the
military, and is the subject of an exhibition opening in
Charleston, South Carolina, in October.
Finding veteran subjects wasn’t as easy as Whyte
had thought it might be. “I knew I wanted to paint
everyone from astronauts to homeless veterans and
everything in between,” she says. “I made a list of which
states I was most likely to find a dairy farmer or a coal