User:Prettiestpretty/Sunday in the Trailer Park with George
Sunday in the Trailer Park with George is a painting by George Surat (1869-1926), a farmer from St. Paris, Ohio.
Surat's work is classified as a "pointillist" which he accomplished through the use of needle, dipped in paint and then applied to canvas. Surat later claimed that he got the idea from his wife Axa during the winter of 1918. Surat, intrigued by his wife's needlepoint, claimed that pointillism was a more masculine art form than the sissy stuff his wife made.
Surat painted his work from memory of the bucolic trailer court that once stood where New Paris' rendering plant was later built.
Sunday in the Trailer Park with George was Surat's only work on canvas - the painter spending the final eight years of his life working on the ten foot by nine foot canvas in home's fancy parlor. Surat died as he finished the hibachi fire tableaux in the center of the work. Surat's wife was quoted in New Paris' daily newspaper "Bonjour Tristesse" as stating that it was a good thing the painting was done because she needed the fancy parlor for the funeral service.
The only other know work by Surat was the Mail Pouch sign on the side of his dairy barn which collapsed in the late 1970s. Surat's Trailer Estates was subsequently built on the land by an heir of the painter.
In 1985 the St. Paris Little Theatre set the image in the painting against the back drop of Jesus Christ Superstar (substituting "George Surat" for "Jesus Chirst" in all lyrics) and premiered the work on January 21, 1985 in the auditorium of the St. Paris Local Schools Junior High School building. The highlight of the musical the artist, portrayed by a baber, comes out and shaves a number "3" (as a tribute to Dale Earnhardt) into the hirsuit back of the fat man in the foreground. The musical was also noteworthy because throughout the two hour show, none of the charecters, save for the artist, moves from their place in the tablueax.
Surat's great great great grandson Francis "Buzz Bomb" Surat (1970- ) is the internationally known tattoo artist who’s oeuvre was chosen when he received the "Bush Commission" of 2004 and inked the back of the First Mother of the land, Barbara Bush, with the family's motto "Zero to Bush in 3.9 Seconds".