"The most important thing to me was when I started painting, I started seeing things I had not seen before," says Judy Chatterton, one of the 28 artists that call Heartwood Gallery in Fayetteville home. "You look at a landscape and just see a bunch of trees and clouds. But when you're trying to learn to paint clouds, you notice all the clouds. When I'm out driving, I just notice things -- like the sun coming up over the mountain -- that people who don't paint might not notice."
Chatterton, who lives in Harrison and commutes to Fayetteville to put in her hours as a member of the cooperative that is Heartwood Gallery, started painting in school in California but quit when her family moved to Valley Springs, Ark. There was no art program in high school, she explains. Instead, she became a registered nurse and worked in home health for many years, not returning to art until she was in her 40s. Now, 20-plus years later, she has a studio in her home, where she paints landscapes and floral still lifes in watercolor, oil and acrylic.
FAQ
Heartwood Gallery
Open House
WHEN — 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday & Sunday, with music, food & drink starting at 4 p.m. Saturday & 1 p.m. Sunday
WHERE — Heartwood Gallery, 428 S. Government Ave. in Fayetteville
COST — Free; artwork will be for sale
INFO — 444-0888
Heartwood Gallery provides not only a venue to show her work but camaraderie with other artists, a chance to be inspired by their work and a guarantee of high quality art thanks to the gallery's jurying process, she says.
"When you buy art, it's something that's unique," she says of art as a gift. "Nobody else will ever have anything exactly like it."
-- Becca Martin-Brown
bmartin@nwadg.com
NAN What's Up on 12/09/2016