In the early years, when canvas and paper were luxuries Billy couldn’t always afford, he painted on wood. Boards, panels, whatever the mountain offered. What started as necessity became one of his most distinctive voices. The grain of the wood doesn’t disappear under the paint — it shows through, breathes, becomes part of the composition in ways no canvas can replicate. These are pieces that feel genuinely rooted in the place that made them.

There is something fitting about a North Georgia artist painting on North Georgia wood. The surface carries its own history before Billy ever touches it, and his images sit on top of that history the way stories sit on top of landscape — connected, inseparable, each one richer for the other. Donna’s wood-surface pieces are among the most tactile works in the collection, the ones visitors want to reach out and touch.