I have lived in Selma, Alabama most of my life. Anyone who has a love of aesthetics should visit. A sense of humor doesn’t hurt either. Selma has it all, her historic architecture is some of the most incredible to be found in the state, her natural setting on a bluff overlooking the Alabama River is simply beautiful. her inhabitants are characters out of a book and there is no way for me to describe. While they are eccentric, they are always quick to offer their southern hospitality to anyone who shows up on their doorstep and especially love wayward artists. I am lucky enough to live on a small farm in the middle of all of this with my family and the expected animals. Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to join with several “characters” to form a group called Arts Revive, www.artsrevive.com for economic development through the arts. One project that has been especially successful is the Harmony Club Art Show, www.harmonyclubofselma.com which is opened to Alabama artists. This show has helped bridge the racial gap and has given the local residents an idea of how much talent is around them and the possibilities it holds for the future of this area. Working with this group has personally challenged me to try things I may not have otherwise. This setting has offered me the freedom to play and explore new areas in my work.

In the past, I had the incredible experience of studying at the Art Students League of New York and have had the good fortune to study with such greats as Albert Handell and Anthony Palumbo. I am greatly inspired by contemporary masters as David Leffell, and Ramone Kelly as well as any artist’s work that I look at in awe from old masters to local artists, trying to take the opportunity to always grow in my own work.

I have come to especially love the purity, grace and challenge of painting the human figure. I come from a long line of artisans and craftsmen and am happy to say that my two sons are highly creative and finding successes of their own expression. For me, any form of creativity has been a link to contentment and to God as long as I can remember. I hope my sons find the same satisfaction. Self expression is to me as necessary as air. So it follows that if any one of my works inspires some level of feeling in just one person, I have found true personal success for the moment. And to please myself is by far the most difficult achievement and also the most fleeting of victories.

Born in Selma, Alabama, the as yet undiscovered cradle of the arts in the South, Vicky Sommerville has always been a step ahead of the masses - just ask her creditors. A master of abstract art at the young age of three, as evidenced by her first showing on the Frigidaire art gallery, she has gone on to teach herself the intricacies of form, color, and design. Unable to lure the great masters to Selma except on video, Vicky set out on a quest for knowledge into the wilds of the north where she discovered the Art Students League and the strange and wonderful concrete jungle of New York City. But the peaceful beauty of Selma called her home, not to mention her two boys who had run out of frozen pizza and clean clothes. Invigorated by her stay in New York, Vicky’s fame spread like the muddy waters of the Alabama River at flood stage. Today she is known for her wonderful portraits that capture the inner spark of her subjects. A minor celebrity in Selma, Vicky divides her time between painting, teaching art classes, raising her sons, training her horses, working to uplift Selma through the arts, and wondering how to fit 48 hours into 24.