Paul Patton
Paul Patton (Ohio, 1922 to 1992) grew up in Rix Mills in Muskingum County, Ohio. After a career away from his hometown, he returned in the mid-1980s to discover that the small, rural town had been practically decimated, in part due to local strip mines. He turned to painting, and executed a series entitled Rix Mills Remembered in which he portrayed his happy childhood, growing up in Rix Mills in the 1920′s and 1930′s. On the back of many of these scenes, Patton included a hand-drawn “key”, identifying the buildings and an artist’s statement describing the scene. His work was the subject of a 2003 retrospective publication Rix Mills Remembered: An Appalachian Boyhood.