Christina's Warrior Women

BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER

The approach to adulthood can be complicated for many reasons. For some, navigating the journey from teen to adult can feel like trying to land a two-seater plane in a lightning storm. Until age fifteen, Christina’s life seemed like that of any other kid her age. Her recollection of normal life is roller skating with her friends at her house on Brumette Street in Vidalia late in the evenings. But the day her mother died, all normal ceased to exist. It wasn’t until Christina had children of her own that she began to find her true self again. Today, Christina’s artwork is a visual language of the varied stages of womanhood. Each painting is part of a narrative of the strength and healing women bring to one another and to the world.

Christina’s parents were both successful business owners. Her father owned Georgia Machine Manufacturing Company. Her mother taught private art lessons in her home and later owned The Midas Touch, an upscale children’s clothing store in downtown Vidalia. Reminiscing through old papers recently, Christina pulled out her first job application. She was seven at the time. Christina was running after her dad and “helping” the ladies in the office at Georgia Machine from as far back as she could remember.

Although childbirth after forty is more common today, when Christina’s forty-one-year-old mother, Nancy, and forty-three-year-old father, Clyde, learned they were expecting their second child, most thought it was unplanned. But the pregnancy was no surprise. Christina’s parents seemed unmindful of the fact that there would be a twenty-year difference between their second child and her older sister, Leslie. Ironically, the surprise was Jennifer (Jen), a third daughter born a year and a half after Christina.

When the girls’ father left them, it was, of course, a confusing and painful time. But their mother and older sister did all they could to secure the young girls with love and stability. Tragically, six months after their father left, Nancy was diagnosed with cancer. Within six weeks of the diagnosis, she was gone. She was only fifty-six years old at the time.

Leslie moved into the house on Brumette Street with her own two young children, Laura and Larry, to care for her two younger sisters. At the time, she was also going through a difficult separation. Although Leslie was reserved and kind-hearted like her mother, she was no pushover. Leslie poured everything she had into all four children even though the loss was shared. Throughout high school, Christina continued to work part-time at Georgia Machine, which had been renamed Precision Manufacturing. Then, in 1986, only two years after losing her mother, she graduated from Robert Toombs Christian Academy. After high school, she worked full-time at the manufacturing plant. It was the only world she knew, and she knew it well. Eventually, Precision Manufacturing closed, and GAP Partners, a metal fabrication company in Clayton, Georgia, bought the assets. By that time, Christina was married and had started a family. When GAP Partners offered Christina a position in sales, she took it. While her children were still young, she was able to work from home.

When Christina found herself divorced with her four-year-old daughter, Macy, and two-year-old son, Clifton, she turned to her older sister. With Leslie’s unique dry sense of humor, and an insatiable passion for Jesus, she filled the shoes of both sister and mother. Looking back on that time, Christina said, “The Lord has pursued me throughout my life. He’s always been there. But I didn’t turn to Him until after my children were born, and I began spending more time with Leslie. Her love for Jesus was simply contagious.”

The figures in Christina’s paintings represent both the people she knows personally, and figuratively, women since the dawn of civilization. They are often a representaton of the different seasons women experience in life.

In 2004, Christina found new love when she married Calvin Burdett. With her two children and Calvin’s four (Adam, James Spencer, Rachel, and David Paul), it was a houseful when they were all together. In the years that followed, the Burdetts shared the greatest of joys as their children grew up and began lives of their own. They also shared the greatest of sorrows. In 2008, Calvin and his first wife, Carol, lost their son James Spencer at the age of twenty-one.

Through joy and sorrow, Christina and Calvin continued to grow in their love. Now, with nine grandchildren, the couple moved into a new phase in their lives together. For some time, Christina had been traveling back and forth to Clayton with her job. About six months after her husband retired from the Edwin I.

Hatch Nuclear Plant, she decided to retire as well. With more time at home, she said, “I thought it would be fun to try my hand at painting. I bought a canvas and watched some YouTube videos where they painted with their hands. I started with flowers. It was not pretty. I’m still not good at flowers,” Christina smiled. “I have a good friend who told me sometime later, ‘I’m so proud of you. When you first started painting, I was a little worried.” We both laughed.

As Christina moved from acrylics to palette knife painting, she began to remember things long forgotten. “Me and Jen have talked about this,” she said. “There's so much of our childhood that was lost. Whole parts we don't remember because we’ve both just blocked it out.” Memories of books with paintings by great artists, including the Old Masters, were in every room of the house. An easel ready for their mother’s palette knife. A dozen shades of color in half-used tubes of paint. Nancy Culler’s artwork was sold and displayed in businesses throughout town. Even when Parkinson’s Disease prevented her from painting, she continued to sew small diaper bags to sell in The Midas Touch. The store became a channel for her creativity as well as a place for connection with other women in the community.

Slowly, gently, Christina found her way. Blending, shading, and creating, the symmetry of a woman took shape. The woman on the canvas was depicted from the back. Christina was almost startled as she realized that the woman was herself. And yet, it was all the women in her family as well. The painting was every woman from Eve to that present moment.

As Christina continued to paint, she recognized stages and places, seasons and changes women experience, often alone. “One painting shows a woman in a bar scene with her head down,” she said. “I called it, ‘This is only for a Season.’ Sometimes you get all dressed up, and you're all alone without friends. And then, I've painted women in groups enjoying each other's company and women dressed for a shopping trip.”

Christina’s “Warrior Women Series” is an especially powerful group of paintings. “Rahab” is one of her personal favorites. “She is a warrior woman in the lineage of Jesus,” said Christina. Often, the story in Joshua 2 is remembered from Joshua’s perspective. Scenes describe seven days of marching and trumpet blasts. But before the march, the trumpets, the shout, and the fallen walls, a prostitute named Rahab saved the lives of the spies of Israel. In return, the spies promised to keep her and her family safe. The book of Matthew documents Rahab as the mother of Boaz. “All her accusers, gone. All those who abused her, gone. A slate wiped clean. What would that have felt like for Rahab?” (ref. Joshua 2).

The “Woman at the Well” (ref. John 4) is another in the Warrior Women series. “Her story isn’t summed up in the choices she made,” said Christina. “Not for me. Her story begins after that one encounter that changed everything. And that’s the only story that matters.”

One of my personal favorites is of Christina’s sister, Leslie, playing her beloved violin. Her passing this past February was a loss for many, including my own family. After an annual trip with family to Disney World (her favorite place), she returned to work the following day at Georgia Pine Straw, our family business. Leslie had worked in the office for the past thirty years, and was an invaluable employer and friend to everyone there. She passed away after a sudden illness that same day. She was seventy-three years old at the time. Truly, a warrior woman.

Today, Christina’s artwork is available in shops throughout Vidalia, including The General Store, Downtown Bistro and Catering, the coffee shop and bakery Equipped, and in Mount Vernon at the Southern Peach Marketplace. Facebook has also proved a great market for her artwork. “I hope my art will speak to women about who we are and honor the different stages of life we experience,” said Christina. “I want to empower women and show the power we carry as women to heal one another in this broken world. As I get older, I cherish my friendships more. I see how important our bond is, not only to each other but for the good of our entire community.”

As Christina pulled and pushed the paint with her palette knife, each woman in her Warrior Women series appeared on the canvas from the back. Turned to us, we might have judged the character of the woman by a single moment captured in time. Instead, each one emphasizes the hope in the revelation that each day is new. Her artwork tells us that the story is not over. Not even in the passing from this life to the next. The Warrior Women in Christina’s heart are with her forever.