Richard Lithgow, Artist

The Legend of Auntie Cade

Auntie Cade...Auntie Cade...why does that name sound so familiar? Why does it faintly ring a bell somewhere way back in the deepest, darkest recesses of the mind? Where have we heard it before? Hmmm. Maybe we should open up this dusty, tattered scrapbook and take a closer look...

The Legend of Auntie Cade

(Revealer of Truth)

Thomas Kinkade may well have depicted the early American Fantasy, but it took Auntie Cade to bring us the early American Reality.  What was really going on behind all those closed doors in small towns crisscrossing America before, during and after the era of prohibition?  Through her treasured paintings, she reveals the abandoned drinking, the swinging, bawdy sex and illegal moonshining that brought us all, as a nation, closer together.

Though most of her paintings have been lost during her travels, her newest body of work remains intact.  Her canvases are rapidly becoming collector’s items.  Quaint towns filled with the shimmering light, picket fences, blossoming gardens and lamp-lit lanes merely set the stage for the darkest part of humanity to flourish.  Cade freely shares with us her experiences of early American Reality.

Born into abject poverty in the backwoods of Kentucky, Annie, as she was then known, managed to entice a wealthy, visiting doctor into marrying her.  Their marriage was happy, though brief.  One night, while wrapped in her amorous arms, he suddenly upped and died . . . but not before encouraging her to pursue her talent in art.  She used his money to travel and paint, and when his riches ran out, she fell back on the family occupation of moonshining.  Not wanted to share their meager profits with her, however, the Cade clan forced her to move on.  Using her ingenuity and best assets, Auntie Cade (as she was now and forever more to be known) promptly opened her first successful brothel . . . and from there on it, is was all early American Reality and history.

Ooooh, now that sounds intriguing, doesn't it? But maybe that's just the beginning of the saga...what really goes on behind the closed doors of small towns? What really happens on those quiet tree-lined streets after dark? Are things as they really seem..or not? Who knows all about those things we thought were private? And how? And...is it...Auntie Cade?The mystery deepens...how did this happen? Why is she here, of all the places she could be? Is she just another eccentric character....or something more?

Nobody really knows Auntie Cade...but she still keeps showing up after all this time...sometimes in the oddest places. How does she know the small-town secrets that others don't? Was she the movement we thought we saw out of the corner of our eye on a dark and stormy night...when we thought we were alone? Judging from the artworks...maybe so...