This is the most beautiful structure in Plains, with its soaring steeples and stained glass windows. The Baptist congregation was first constituted in 1848 about two miles further west at the site of Lebanon cemetery, and this building was completed in the town in 1906, about twenty years after the town was established around the new railroad. My father was a deacon and Bible teacher and our family attended Plains Baptist Church. I was baptized there when I was eleven years old. Rosalynn and I moved our membership to the more racially inclusive Maranatha Baptist Church after we came home from the White House. I have painted several views of the church, and this is my favorite.
-- Jimmy Carter (2018, p. 66)

Jimmy Carter first explored art as many American children do, through grade school art classes. His interest deepened later in life while in the Navy, and with his fellow sailors, he took to painting and began to study the works of famous historic artists. Carter continued to pursue artmaking throughout his tenure as both governor and president, carving out time whenever possible to further his informal artistic education. His first experience selling his own art occurred on a cruise ship on which he and Rosalynn took a landscape-painting lesson. On the final night at sea, their works were auctioned for charity, which proved to be an energizing moment that rekindled Carter’s enthusiasm for painting. His paintings are thoughtful and chosen with intention: “Almost all my paintings represent subjects that have been personally meaningful to me” (2018, p. viii).