Door leading to studios from gallery space. Stained-glass art from previous renter

“I cannot expect even my own art to provide all of the answers – only to hope it keeps asking the right questions.” Grace Hartigan

This quote says ‘Rebecca’ to me. I met our first artist, Rebecca Haworth four years ago at a weekend writers’ retreat in Black Mountain, NC. I listened as she read her poems about the wind and kept wondering, how does she capture its ethereal quality and put it into images that beautifully? Years later I saw her art and she does the same thing ~ puts into a concrete art form something that is intangible. It’s her sense of humor and genuineness that makes one feel like instant friends.

I have to say I love Rebecca’s studio space! It’s filled with found treasures including old dolls and trinkets and bits she’s found in nature. It’s like a seek-n-find for the imagination.

One of Rebecca’s tables of inspiration

I start with Rebecca because Wingmaker began with her, but as she’s mentioned, she’s an introvert so talking about Wingmaker and the other artists comes more naturally …

In the studio we have four artists working in several media. All of us are ambidextrous – able to us both hands with equal facility; unusually skillful; adroit 🙂

We have oil, acrylic and encaustic painting, ceramics, collage, mixed media, sculpture and jewelry making in our bag of visual art tricks. Poetry, prose and non-fiction in the literary arts.

I feel certain that at some point one of us has or will try every art form we can find. I personally work in ceramics, mixed media painting and sculpture, acrylic and oil painting, also I love fiber arts and hope to instruct a bookmaking class in the fall. Around fiber I love bookmaking, weaving and dying fabrics to use for other projects. It would be fun for me personally if we had another artist in the space that loved to dye fabric. There is such magic in the white blank fiber becoming a colorful support for further work or the end work in itself.

Wingmaker invigorates me regardless of how I’m feeling when I arrive. I walk through the door into a different realm. And I become more me.

Rebecca

My personal credo is: Begin. Begin Again.

It is the tagline for my personal website which should be published within the next six weeks. It is my credo because that is how I’ve lived life. Evolving from – what seems like one lifetime to another. I had a very successful corporate career and was fortunate, through patience and planning, to be able to stay at home and raise my two children. Shifting into wife and mother was about the third time I made it to ‘Begin Again.’ In 2006, when my youngest started middle school, I began working on a second degree; a BFA in painting.

My secret dream from childhood was to write and make art and this “Beginning Again” has been amazing.

Most of my work, both written and visual is informed by my personal exploration of Spirit, time and the existence of the non-material realities. My work often represents the flux of matter and energy and the movement of, or between, the seen and unseen. I am deeply inspired by nature and the elements of the earth and I am acutely aware of my insignificance in the fullness of time – my short time in the earthly realm. My joy is living in the mystery of existence.

Some of Rebecca’s work

I haven’t said much about Sharon. She was the driver behind Wingmaker being the open, light space it is. She has the nerve to jump in with both feet into any seemingly impossible remodel task (a hangover from her property management days). So soon after demolition Sharon and her husband Bill decided to downsize. Sharon had a house to perk up and sell and promptly began remodeling a new abode. She has been over her head in dust and contractors. We are planning an intervention any day now.

Kim’s note ~ Thank you, Rebecca! Until Rebecca has her website up, you can see some of her work at Community Supported Art program.

You can also find her at Wingmaker Arts Collaborative:An Evolving Experiment.