Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Early morning thoughts about life in Floyd

The small hours of the morning are a good time to reflect on how lucky we are to have arrived here in this community. I am on the computer as usual while Gretchen and assorted cats sleep soundly.

We are experiencing a torrential downpour here in the mountains and power has been flickering on and off for the past few hours. The weather map seems to say that we will have more of the same with a snow storm coming by late tomorrow.

The rain has washed away the last of the ice that has covered our yard and we'll have time to replenish the supply of firewood on the porch before the next snow storm.

Weeks of temperatures in the teens has given the wood stove an insatiable appetite. We are pleased that our supply of firewood has held out this long. We have good neighbors who helped us when I was not in shape to cut and stack wood for the stove.

Gretchen and I have been fortunate in many ways. Our involvement with art and artists gives us opportunities for continued personal and professional expansion even though we are decades beyond our corporate careers.. We continue to support grassroots efforts at sustainable economic development and see that as a long term vital activity.

My custom framing business continues to attract appreciative customers and that is a wonderful thing indeed. I am finding opportunities to donate framing and photographic services to local organizations and am still helping others with web pages.

Gretchen continues to paint in pastels and mixed media and she is holding small classes on pet portraits for other artists. She is displaying her art in more venues every month thanks to her involvement with a network of local artists who share ideas and resources..

We support local merchants and buy from local sources unless the products are only available elsewhere. We are practicing economies in all areas and find that our quality of life has not suffered because of this.

I feel that businesses in this area of the country has always been struggling to survive and that this struggle will continue for the foreseeable future. On the positive side, there are those who still have money to invest and their continuing investments in this county make a huge difference in our ability to continue and attract tourists and new settlers.

Some have their attention stuck on the fact that businesses are closing, but I see that as a normal part of winnowing out enterprises that have failed to meet the needs of the local community. The positive signs are the continuing appearance of new businesses and home-based enterprises which bring money into the county from outside.

We have a high percentage of very creative people in this county but they are like seeds from which an attractive community will emerge. It takes innovative business people with investment money and resources to enable our creative potential to flourish and pay dividends. Fortunately we are blessed with creative and business people who work together in many ways.

People with small businesses are attracted to communities with great creative potential. A community cannot survive by standing still. They either grow because they are interesting places to live and work or go into decline because they have no future to offer their children.

We are struggling to make ends meet like the rest of the world, but we feel there is promise for a better life and it stems from the creativity that is encouraged here.

Artists celebrate First Friday in Floyd

Friday nights in Floyd Virginia are a celebration of country music, and on the first Friday of every month the artists of Floyd join in with art exhibits and receptions all over town.

Art lovers and artists flocked to the Art Under the Sun Gallery to see the latest offerings from Flame Bilyue, Karen Sewell, Gretchen St Lawrence, Pat Woodruff, Andrea Marshall, Cheryl Mackian and Tina Liza Jones. Visitors caught up on the latest news while enjoying tasty snacks and listing to the music of Andrea Marshall.

Next door at Wildfire Pots, McCabe Coolidge and Karen Day welcomed visitors with new pottery designs and stories of last month's work on St Johns Island in the Caribbean.

McCabe and Karen are also spearheading the local Empty Bowls campaign in Floyd which provides food for hungry school children. Their mission statement can be expressed as: WildFire Pots - Nourishing Community Bonds, Feeding People, Kindling Generosity. They are good people.

Up the hill at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts, their First Friday event featured 300 works and 55 models by members of the Floyd Figures Art Group. The Breezeway Gallery displayed details about their upcoming classes along with work produced by the instructors.

 The Jacksonville Center also had live demonstrations of Handmade Paper with Lee Chichester, Cookie Decorating with Lora Mahaffay, and Polymer Clay Beads with Teri Walters.

The economy is slowing down, but our local artists are supporting each other and keeping the vision of better times alive by creating beauty and inspiring others to create also. Almost every one of these local artists go out of their way to encourage new artists.

Every year we see a new crop of gifted people becoming active in the arts because of the cooperative spirit of these talented and generous Floyd artists. It is a great place to live if you have creative talents that you want to release.

The young lady on the right is an aspiring writer. She is getting valuable exposure to creative activity because her mother works at the Jacksonville Center. She is just one of many who are inspired by the supportive community of artists who work and teach there.

Creativity can be contagious

One of the first things we noticed when we moved to Floyd three years ago was the amazing number of creative people who lived in this county. At that time about one out of every ten citizens seemed to be an artist, artisan or musician.

What we didn't expect was that it would be so easy to join in the creative activity and get seriously involved.

What happens in a supportive environment is that you rehabilitate your innate creativity through instruction and support from professional artists and start creating art as a normal part of everyday life.

As you create more artwork, you begin to develop a style and you start looking for instructors who can help you develop in a particular direction.

The next thing that happens is that people who have been admiring your work want to buy pieces from you or ask you to do a commissioned work. You may still consider yourself an amateur artist, but you have a growing public and the next step is almost inevitable.

You finally realize that you have the ability to generate income from doing something that is deeply satisfying and you are performing a service to others at the same time. The next thing you know, you are painting or sculpting or making jewelry and you are producing income and having the time of your life.

This doesn't all happen in a vacuum. Some farsighted people set the wheels in motion many years ago when they created the non-profit Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd, VA.

Thanks to the Jacksonville Center and its dedicated staff and instructors, there is a constantly growing number of artists and artisans achieving recognition and even producing income from their artistic endeavors.

The Jacksonville Center has spawned additional groups of artists who produce art on a professional level and teach or provide drawing sessions for aspiring artists.

One of these groups is the Floyd Artists Association which runs the Art Under the Sun Gallery featuring works by local artists and artisans. Art Under the Sun also hosts a First Friday event every month with music and refreshments and an exhibit by a visiting artist.

If you get a chance, be sure and visit the latest exhibit at the Jacksonville Center and also drop in at Art Under the Sun Gallery to see their latest offerings.

You will get a warm welcome and may end up being inspired to create something yourself. It happens quite often in Floyd.

Just be careful or you will end up like Don George, who just finished a 14 foot Gothic Revival Banquet Table which was so large that he couldn't assemble it in his workshop. He did the final assembly at the Jacksonville Center where his table was the talk of the recent Artists Reception.

People who give of themselves

I am constantly amazed at the number of people in Floyd who put service to others above self interest. In this county where there is very little money to spare, there always seems to be people willing to give a helping hand to others.

McCabe Coolidge and Karen Day operate Wildfire Pots located under the Sun Music Hall in Floyd. When they are not making pots and creating artwork, they are heavily involved in food programs for school children and help distribute produce to folks who can't get around very well.

I caught them in the midst of preparing produce for distribution.

The fresh produce looks delicious in McCabe's pottery. Actually, we have found that everything looks better in his pottery. The forms are organic and every piece shows the touch of the artists hand.

They are open from 11 to 4 on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday.

If you are in the vicinity of the Sun Music hall, drop in and enjoy their hospitality.

McCabe and Karen have always provided space in their studios to promote other artists. It is just another aspect of their willingness to help others.

When you drop in at Wildfire, you will see work by other artists such as handcrafted jewelry and the fiber art of Glenda George in addition to McCabes unique pottery.

Karen is developing a new promo piece for their expanding activities and I felt it should have wider exposure. It tells their story on one small piece of handmade paper.

(click to enlarge)

Doing what you love may require another way to pay the bills

 Doug Thompson's article, Opinions Vary, about Floyd musicians applies equally well to artists and artisans all over the world.

He points out that Floyd, Virginia, is not a town where those who do what they love can always make a living out of that love. Most artists, musicians, craftsmen, etc., have other jobs or resources to pay the bills. Those day jobs or deep pockets allow them to do what they love and let other things pay the bills.

I say this is not unique to Floyd. It is a worldwide phenomena.

Being a fantastic musician or a highly skilled artist is no guarantee that you can use that skill to keep food on the table. You have to be able to attract paying customers and you have to be willing to do what those customers need and want before they will pay you for your services.

One of the things you will learn early on is that there is no entitlement in a free market. Nobody owes you a living.  You must make people want to pay for your products or services and that takes more than artistic skill.

Does this begin to sound like work? It IS work and it takes a great deal of good business sense to generate income on a regular basis.

So, if there is something you really enjoy doing, but it doesn't pay well, then you need to find out what it will take to make a living doing what you are doing.

If you can't see your way to making a living in the near future, then you need to take on additional work doing something that people will pay for.

If you are doing something that you really enjoy and it has the possibility of generating an income that you can support your family on, then it is worth all of the effort that you have to put into it to get really good at it. Most people I know who have their own business are working more than 50 hours a week, but they would not consider any other career to be a satisfactory alternative.

Running a small business successfully is a real challenge. It can also provide incredible job satisfaction even when you are still learning the ropes.

Just don't expect people to give you money. You need to figure out how to earn it by doing things people need and want. This is true whether you are a musician, an artist, or a craftsperson.

I've been backsliding - but I can still get up

It has been so long since I blogged, I knew I was slipping back into "corporate mode" where it is all work and no time for reflection.

Starting a business has that seductive quality about it where it seems that with just a little more effort, something worthwhile will be gained and a rest point will be reached.

That is not the case at all, you know, because there is always another challenge around the bend that can be surmounted with just a few more hours effort... Days go by and there has been no time for savoring life.

What brought me up short was listening to some visitors from northern Virginia discussing their lives and careers.

Their work and commuting takes 13 hours a day and they are dedicated executives who are all striving to achieve worthwhile goals in an increasingly unstable working environment. Listening to them was like opening old wounds and I experienced a sudden rush of empathy and personal weariness.

I thought, "I've been there and I've done that and I thought I'd gotten it out of my system. But here I am working 15-16 hours a day in a beautiful country environment and I'm not taking time to enjoy the sunshine and the beauty of country life."

Damn! I've fallen into the clutches of a seductive career opportunity again!

Encountering a career situation that allows you to create almost without limit is incredibly addictive. Days pass with your attention fixed on situations and designs that test you to the limit. The outside world becomes a blur of flickering images and tiny voices that attempt to distract your attention from the designs that challenge you.

Our visitors jolted me to my senses and my absence of blog posts galvanized me into a semblance of action. I'm back in action and I will try to share some of the beauty that I have been observing.

I'll leave you with two images to enjoy. This one is titled, "Elves in my Garden" and it is a new work from local artist Liz Stucki that I had the pleasure to frame.

The earlier image is a photo of the artist's storm-shattered window showing the delicate tracery of the broken safety glass after a recent storm. Liz is currently figuring out how to capture this image in another pen and ink drawing.

I am looking forward to seeing what she does with it.

(click on images to enlarge)

The inside story on Phoenix Hardwoods of Floyd, Virginia

I have been writing about Bill and Corinne Graefe and their distinctive furniture for several years and now they have finally  launched a brand new website which tells their story better than I can and shows many examples of their fine handcrafted slab furniture.

I never knew, for example, that they were inspired by George Nakashima, an artist from the 50’s who made furniture using slabs of wood with the natural edges left intact.

They have spent the last 8 years developing and refining their designs and techniques until it is hard for me to see much resemblance between their source of inspiration and their current products. They are true artists in their own right and they make a significant contribution to the community.

Their new website was constructed in one day by Corinne Graefe, who had never built one before. She created an entertaining and easily navigated portfolio site which shows off their products and answers frequently asked questions.

When you make products that look like theirs, you can bet there are many questions. They answer them all, including where do they get the wood they use for products like this headboard/room divider.

They have a refreshing response to the question why they are still building furniture when the Chinese can build it so much cheaper. I think they must be on the right track because their backlog is steadily growing.

Drop by and check out their new site. It is both a website and a weblog, so feel free to welcome them to the Internet by leaving them a comment or a question

Student Art Exhibit at the Jacksonville Center

The third annual Student Art Exhibit is now on display in the Hayloft Gallery at the Jacksonville Center in Floyd, Virginia. It includes work by adult and youthful students.

This 8x10 foot "Sunburst" quilt by Barbara Murray filled the South end of the Hayloft Gallery with light.

The equally striking "Quilt with Dolphins" by Sally Johnson held my attention immediately. The contrast of supple dolphin shapes and the angular geometry of the main quilt pattern was striking.

Linneya Cooley executed one of the most appealing pieces in the show in my opinion. Her mosaic self-portrait conveys a universal message. Her artist statement says, "This piece of art has a spirit in it. The ghost is me."  Linneya is 9 years old.

The exhibit features the work of 27 students who have taken classes at The Jacksonville Center. The exhibit includes work done in class as well as work inspired by having taken a class.

This exhibit will close January 26.  Try to see it before it closes.

16 Hands Studio Tour brightens up gloomy day

The weather may have been ugly, but the 16 Hands Studio Tour made us forget the weather completely. In addition to the artistry of Silvie Granatelli, Ellen Shankin, and Brad Warstler, we got to meet guest artists Pietro Maddelena from Tuscany, Bernadette Curran from Philadelphia, and Stacy Lane from Floyd.
(click on the images to enlarge)

Studio Tour traffic was heavy in spite of the weather. We saw many out-of-town visitors as well as old friends from Floyd.

The 16 Hands Studio Tour will continue Sunday, May 6, so you still have time to drive down the parkway and visit these artists in their studios.

I think the outstanding feature of these twice-yearly tours is the fact that we have an opportunity to talk with the artisans and get to know them as individuals.

They take the time to visit with us and have refreshments at every studio, so with all of the friends we encounter on the  Studio Tour, it feels like a party as well as an opportunity to buy gifts for family and friends.

We have never failed to come away with new treasures and some of the most intriguing offerings come from the guest artists.

We got off to a late start, so we couldn't finish the entire tour today. We will take care of that omission Sunday by visiting the rest of the studios on the route. Perhaps we will see you there.

The Jacksonville Center Newsletter continues with new publishing team

One of the most successful ways of connecting an organization to a community is to publish an easily read newsletter on a weekly basis.

The Jacksonville Center Team has taken over the task of publishing the weekly Jacksonville Center Newsletter and their splendid first issue makes for interesting reading.

This newsletter is absolutely essential if you would like to keep up with the cultural activities at the center.

I am no longer Executive Director at the Center, but I continue as a volunteer and I find the Newsletter to be a vital link to the good work that is being done at the Jacksonville center every week.

If you are not receiving this newsletter, you are missing out on one of the most important cultural and visitor attractions in Floyd, Virginia.

The Jacksonville Center is a must-see destination for visitors to Floyd and is a great place to bring your relatives when they come to visit you. Make sure you pick up the new Spring Course Catalog while you are there. It has a fine list of fascinating courses and they used a lot of my photos to Illustrate the catalog. :)

You can get on the distribution list of this newsletter by sending an email to newsletter@jacksonvillecenter.org

You will not regret it. It will give you an inside view of Floyd artisans and Floyd art that you will not get elsewhere.