From the Project Upland film, "Get the Art", based on Durrell's visual perspective of hunting in the Red Hills:
“I have spent about 20 years studying fine art and art history; I am really drawn to tracing modes of expression as humanity and groups of people evolve. It’s about developing a comprehensive documentation of human evolution through expression. As such, music and the arts are weighted with an incredibly powerful presence in every culture, especially that of the Red Hills region—specifically Thomasville, Georgia. The music, song, and dance came from Atlanta, but the spirit came from way deep in the piney woods. And it is deep in those woods that I join the early morning choir. It’s often men’s day in the woods, and “The Deacon,” Bob White, is singing his solo to the daybreak hymn.
I’ve never been a morning person, particularly at 2 a.m. while I’m loading dogs for the four-hour trip down south to Thomasville. But there’s something about the smell of coffee, the long road ahead, and the thought of stepping out there with my dogs that gets me up every single time. And by the time I pull into the Wildlife Management Area, the soloist is rallying for a chorus. They call from far off, and of course, I can never pinpoint their whereabouts.
Their song is a revenant. Proof that the birds are here.
I’m calling on my roots all the same as these noisy dogs sound like the hounds they once were. We all reach back and look for traces of our past. We do it for ourselves, we do it through the dogs, and we do it to acknowledge the trial and tribulation of a not-so-bygone era of the Jim Crow South, and the perseverance and prevail of the dogmen and plantation owners here who were able to transcend racial constructs to establish the foundation to bird dog history. There are great dogs in the Red Hills, some National Field Trial Champions, some touched by the hands of great men like Neal Carter, Jr.; Terry Chastain, Sr.; and a niche group of plantation dogmen who ran field trials and guided mule-drawn wagons through the lank of Pinus palustris.
But I’d been told by Neal himself, 'The birds just move a little different down in that red clay.” I’m not sure I still fully understand these birds down here, although I try to anticipate what’s going on based on my dog’s body language. It takes a bit for a young dog to learn how to handle coveys down here. All the odds have to add up for the art of handling bird dogs to truly come alive. It’s much less technical and all about connecting simultaneously with the dogs and with the land.'"
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