Mountain Muses

Below is my take on how I became an artist...

When I was in high school a friend of the family who was a medical doctor, saw my drawings. Both he and my parents encouraged me to become a medical illustrator. My father bought me an exquisite set of India inks and pens to use. My mother painted in oils and made it look as easy as making meatloaf. I took a few private art lessons and the ones offered in school. Soon, in art class, I began drawing people and even bones which I got from the butcher's shop around the corner. After Christmas break, when I returned to school, the bones I'd left in the supply closet were covered with ants! My art teacher was irate but let it go. Her name was Mrs. Wasserman, an eccentric woman who also had faith in my artistic talent.

After that, I put drawing aside to get a degree in Special Education. Attending Adelphi University and Florida State, I got my ticket. I sketched along the way, the best of which is a portrait I did of my mother. It hangs in our hallway today. As we raised three children, I began to read a great deal especially when they took naps. Emily Dickinson's quote, "There is no frigate like a book", almost became a tattoo on my right arm. I found that you could leap into other worlds and walk in another's shoes by reading and writing. My shoes were just fine but the lure of another place, another time, became integral to me.

About this time, I joined the Tennessee Poetry Society which incidentally met in the library just around the corner. Living just one block from Memphis State University had its advantages. The children were able to attend the Model schools there and I had plenty of opportunities to attend lectures of famous writers. My poems grew like crabgrass, many so bad you want to forget and my stories all seemed to emulate C. S. Lewis who I read often. Luckily my poems were published in journals such as Old Hickory Review, Voices International, and others. Then I met a Kentucky couple at the poetry society meeting. They were from outside of Louisville and hosted the group, Green River Writers. Later, Ernie O'Dell said she felt like they "discovered me". Twice I drove from Memphis to Louisville for the Green River Writers retreats. One time, my station wagon almost broke down on the way home.

In another vehicle, a van, we later headed for Kentucky. I had called Ernie and asked what she thought about it. Of course she encouraged me to come to the Bluegrass State and  I valued her opinion. Kentucky is rich in writers and the atmosphere here is like none other. In additon it was a sweet place to raise children and teach school. I found out that the Hindman Settlement School's writers workshop was right next door. No need for trips to Louisville. Ed McClanahan reviewed my story, Fishing with Lazarus, there and it was published in A Gathering at the Forks.

For a few years, my writing took a back seat to teaching and raising children. Then I discovered that anything is fuel for thought. I began to write poetry about my family. The naps were gone but I could squeeze in writing while waiting to pick up one of them at the movies  or drama and ball practice. I began to submit poems and stories to Appalachian Heritage, Now and Then, Grab-a-Nickel and others. To sharpen my skills, I attended some of Gurney Norman's fruitful writers' workshops in Hazard and Hazel Green. Charles Simpson, who attended the same church as we did, was there too. He and I felt Hazard needed a writers' group of its own. Writers of the North Fork was born.

Anyone who feels that you cannot return to a passion in life, please listen. For a period of a dozen years, I didn't write anything except  to fill in forms at work. I put composing with words on a shelf and knew it would be there when I needed it. I withdrew from writers groups and became a cheerleader and advocate for my students and our children. When I meet my students on the street, they embrace me and talk to me like we are family. My children have all moved to bigger cities. In time they may move to rural areas or come back here.

Just last year, I poured on the juice. My mother passed away and I wrote a bumper crop of poems about her. Is it possible to write that many about one person? Believe it or not, you can. I am in many of those poems too. It felt natural and was great therapy for my grief. I submitted the collection entitled, Surface Mining as Grief, to Black Lawrence Press, a partner with the magazine, Adirondack Review, both of New York. To my amazement, it was a semi-finalist! Other writers in this category were college English professors and the like! Talk about a shot in the arm! I began entering more and more contests and fanned out to writing short stories once again. My poetry reappeared in Modern Magazine of the Mountains. Other poetry was accepted by the Kentucky State Poetry Society's magazine, Pegasus and by a journal in Wales named, Envoi. ALL ROADS LEAD TO HAZARD was born. Contests have that lottery feel to them. I placed in two more but found many to be a dead end. When you write, think of this notion penned by poet William Stafford,

"If somebody else doesn't like it that way, you can make it the way they like if you want to , but it won't be art. " (CUS, p. 17)

Create for art's sake. I have begun painting in watercolors and write often, switching back and forth between those venues to stay fresh. Currently I am an officer in Art in the Mountains and a juried artist with the Appalachian Artisan Center.  I want to create my own images and literary offerings and if somebody likes it and it can serve the common good, that is wonderful. If it ends up like a pile of ant covered bones in a storage cabinet, that's not the end.

Now, I am a studio artist at the Appalachian Artisan Center in HIndman, KY.