Threads Debuts at Heartland Art Club Gallery

By: Kara Dicker

Beginning March 8 Heartland Art Club is proud to host Threads, a large-scale portrait exhibit by watercolorist Carol Carter. Threads depicts the individual faces of 75 American immigrants who came to the United States in recent decades and earlier. Rendered in the exciting and imaginative color overlays that define the artist’s signature, the portraits share a collective feeling of celebration -- the American immigrant experience is still possible.

“I see this as one painting,” Carter says of the work, which she compares to a giant fabric. The exhibit at HAC will be its first display outside her St. Louis studio.

Threads began in 2019 when Carter, who resides in the City’s Tower Grove East neighborhood, became interested in the growing, vibrant immigrant community there. Initially, the artist made connections to her subjects through the nearby International Institute and at the annual Festival of Nations celebration. Carter took their photographs and gathered the stories of their journeys. During the COVID pandemic, she reached out to social media, and the project soon evolved to include participants throughout the country. In all, the exhibit reflects the experiences of emigrees from 37 countries:

There is the portrait of Alma, who arrived from Mexico in 2002 at the age of five. At 26, she recently received her permanent residency. She makes her home in Louisville, Kentucky.

There is the portrait of Bisa, who emigrated from war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998. She is now a U.S. citizen and proud to call St. Louis home.

There is the portrait of Gustave, who left Sweden in 1877 to make a life in Kansas, where he worked for the Santa-Fe Railroad. One of his descendants sent the artist his story and photograph.

There is the portrait of Nicole, an artist and friend of Carter’s. She came to St. Louis in 1990 from Romania, where she had been part of the political resistance.

Carter holds an MFA from Washington University and has been painting professionally for 50 years. Watercolor, she believes, lends itself to portraiture. “Watercolor is more delicate and softer because it is water-based and transparent,” explains Carter. “It captures a life of a face, the humanity of a face.” Carter, who considers herself an inventive colorist, says it is her goal to make her portraits “look like a breath of fresh air.”

When Threads was completed in December, Carter invited the participants to an unveiling reception at her studio. “Without knowing one another, they would grab hold of each other to take pictures,” she says. “There was such a spontaneous sense of community.”

After five years of gathering photographs and stories and completing portraits, Carter says there is one message that stays with her from everyone she painted.

“At the end of collecting all of these faces and journeys, the one thing that I really came away with was that every single person was glad to be an American,” Carter says.

Then, there is the portrait of Barhan, who is from Syria. He is waiting in Damascus, hoping to realize his dream of being in the United States by May.

Exhibition Opening: Friday, March 8 from 5-7 p.m. at Heartland Art Club Gallery

Gallery Talk: Saturday, March 16, 2 p.m.