Ceramics show a precursor to weekend of sculpture

Figure by Magda Gluszek

PANAMA CITY — The new art exhibit at Gulf Coast State College, “Raconteurs,” is a collection that bridges the visual and verbal worlds. Viewers are challenged to witness how narrative impacts the creation of physical objects.

The exhibit features work by internationally recognized artists Ben Carter, Carole Epp, Magda Gluszek and Jill Foote-Hutton. As contemporary makers with the wealth of history and materials at their disposal, each artist is actively engaged in mining their daily experience to generate narratives.

“Even in our most primitive state, we see a compulsion to record our history and call forth the future through visual narrative,” said Foote-Hutton. “Recording our history anchors us as individuals while also placing us within a tribe. The narrative of our journey makes us visible to ourselves. Fables and mythologies are catalysts, expanding our definitions of self and the world we populate.”

The exhibit will run through the weekend of April 15-17, when GCSC will host its second annual Ceramics Symposium featuring Carter, Epp, Gluszek and Foote-Hutton as presenters. The theme for this year is “Word and Object.”

“This is a great opportunity for attendees to learn from a diverse group of professional artists,” said Pavel G. Amromin, assistant professor and gallery director in the Division of Visual and Performing Arts at GCSC. “Together, they will share the ways story impacts and informs their creative process, studio output and their efforts to capture the contemporary story of American Ceramics.”

Art by Carole Epp

The symposium will be in GCSC’s Amelia Tapper Center, 5230 West U.S. 98, Panama City, and will consist of interactive workshops, lectures, panel topic discussions and demonstrations.

During the artist demos, the audience will see a variety of construction methods while panelists cover topics including narrative as a leaping-off point for form and decoration; the power of the frozen moment in sculpture; the vessel as a format for stories in the round; and development of character iconography.



“I reference symbols of my native Virginian identity, such as the dogwood flower, white picket fence and whitewashed brick,” said Carter, who creates utilitarian wares that commemorate and continue family traditions. “These nostalgic decorative motifs are familiar and accessible, conveying the graciousness of Southern hospitality. Through the act of use, my forms serve a commemorative role, highlighting the cultural importance of communal dining on the family structure.”



Flask by Ben Carter

Epp’s work demonstrates celebration and query. Her frozen moment vignettes present “humanity through a subversion of our utopic projections of ourselves,” she said. Pairing religious icons, news headlines, pop culture and kitsch, she lures viewers into a mirror reflecting an uncomfortable reality. She shows how to “investigate the things that are wrong and appreciate the things that are really right.”

“Beyond the work in the exhibition, there would be a void without addressing the role of storyteller both Carole and Ben take on outside of their visual art practice,” Foote-Hutton said. “Since 2012, Ben has produced and hosted the podcast ‘Tales of a Red Clay Rambler,’ featuring interviews with artists and culture makers from around the world. Carole has hosted the blog ‘Musing About Mud’ since 2005, where she provides a platform to showcase contemporary ceramic activity.”

Gluszek employs the figure to examine a collective sense of self. Her work pushes the viewer away with uncomfortable stares and awkward postures, while simultaneously pulling the viewer in to her projected stories with a candied palette.



Symposium 2015

“The figures are experimenting with different modes of self-representation,” Gluszek said. “They alternate between appearing submissive and threatening. It is indistinguishable whether they make these alterations for a self-serving purpose or for the pleasure of the viewer.”

Foote-Hutton’s work is a contemporary exploration of the power of personal narratives and collective mythologies. She employs the concept of the Monster (or Other) to engage a conversation about the disparities of what we think and what we do, about the distance between two human beings, and the nature of lightness and darkness.

“Monsters embody empathy for our own human frailties,” Foote-Hutton said. “Their literary history makes them the perfect vehicle to coax new stories from hearts and imaginations.”

 

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• ‘RACONTEURS’
• Where: Amelia Center Main Gallery, Gulf Coast State College, 5230 West U.S. 98, Panama City
• When: Opens March 7, runs through April 17; gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday
• Admission: Free and open to the public
• Details: GulfCoast.edu/arts

Con founder opening new horizons

Jayson and son at a signing event.

PANAMA CITY — I grabbed a coffee with JaysonKretzer, graphic artist and founder of Panama City Creative Con, last week to catch up on his efforts to finalize the event.

I’ve known Jayson for a while. I know he likes superhero stories with at least a hint of sunshine in them. Heroes who want to be heroes, who fight for a better world and believe that’s an achievable goal.

Turns out, that’s kind of what he’s all about. He started CreativeCon to give youngsters an opportunity he missed as a child — to be exposed to creative career paths and meet potential mentors, while celebrating the imagination.

“From the time I was a pre-teen and received my first comic book, I was intrigued by art,” Jayson said in a letter to art teachers that he circulated to promote the event. “That’s also when I figured out I was a visual learner.”

But he had no idea how to pursue art as a career. Growing up in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, he never had the opportunity to meet artists in his chosen field or even learn about educational opportunities to enter creative fields.

Finally, at age 25, he attended a comic convention, where he met many industry professionals face-to-face who helped put him on the right track. Now, for more than 15 years, Jayson has worked from home doing freelance illustration, graphic arts and website design. His work also includes sketch cards created for Marvel- and Cartoon Network-licensed products and two self-published books. In addition, he teaches drawing classes in schools and other venues.

Twenty years after he graduated from high school, comic book movies dominate the big screen while graphic novels are moving into classrooms as a learning tool. Between those very visible media, plus the growing popularity of web comics and cinematic video games, Jayson has seen “a renewed interest in sequential art.”

Seeing all that developing on the horizon, Jayson wanted to give children and teens the chance he didn’t have until adulthood; he wanted to establish a convention that would inspire them to be lifelong creators.

“The goal of Creative Con is three-fold,” Kretzer said. “One: To give young people in our area access to mentors in the field they are interested in. Two: To show K-12 students educational opportunities in our area that will help them fulfill their dreams. And three: To provide children with the tools they need to succeed — staying right here.”

Even here in the Panhandle, where it seems like the 21st century is still just getting a foothold, you can make a go of it in creative fields. And you can help others follow their dreams as well.

Peace.

Artist's Touch: Bonnie Tate's 'Journal Portraits'

Bonnie Tate

• ‘Journal Portraits’
• What: Exhibit of photographs by Bonnie Tate
• Where: Bay County Public Library, 898 W. 11th St., Panama City
• Details: 850-522-2100 or NWRLS.com
• About the Artist: BonnieTatePhoto.com

PANAMA CITY — A hand covered in dirt gingerly clutches a snapshot of soldiers as, caught under the edge of a canteen, a journal page below it lists “Impressions of Khe Sanh.”

With the corner of a diary showing her daily chores, a woman kneads dough on a scratched butcher block, her rings and wristwatch carefully set aside.

These and other images designed to put the viewer in the heads of strangers — seeing the world through their eyes, with tantalizing glimpses of their secret lives — make up the compelling “Journal Portraits” exhibit of work by photographer Bonnie Tate.

“I think of them as mysterious,” Bonnie said. “I’ve always enjoyed pairing photography with storytelling, and making series of connected pictures. My favorite pictures are usually of and about people, or at least have a human element.”

On display at the Bay County Public Library in Panama City through the end of June, the photos were inspired by actual entries Bonnie discovered in journals and diaries she found in thrift shops and other locations.

“Being a diary keeper myself, I am interested in how we interpret the events of our lives and string them together into narratives,” Bonnie said. “These are stories we almost always keep to ourselves. I stage each moment using a loose mix of the author’s description and my imagination.”

Including the actual diary or a page from a journal in each photo creates an interesting merging of past and present, she said, adding, “It also passes on the personal nature of reading another’s private thoughts.”

Those personal insights — the little things, the details — are a recurring theme in Bonnie’s work.

“It is the idiosyncrasies, the quirks, the hint of a story, that create the urge for a picture,” she said in an entry on her website, speaking specifically of portraiture. “Tuning in to an individual’s specifics and recording them is in some way important.”

Bonnie’s father was a journalist, who often told her “the devil is in the details.” She developed an appreciation for specifics and nuances, and this carries over to how she approaches photography. She even has a series she’s working on that shows both God and “the Devil” can be found with a macro lens setting.

“In all of my projects, I approach image-making with an eye for life’s small details,” she said. “I am shooting and organizing this series of photos by season so that when viewed as a whole, the photos will suggest the movement of time, the passing of a year observed in the smallest of moments.”

A series of moves around the country eventually brought Bonnie to Bay County, but she turned that period of transience to her advantage by finding a variety of subjects for her lens. One such move to Texas resulted in a black-and-white series she calls “American Home.”

“With the nature of our time in each place being transitory, my idea of home takes on an ephemeral quality,” she says in a posting at her website (BonnieTatePhoto.com). “Our temporary Texas home was a summer lake house fully furnished with the odds and ends and memories of another family. 

Using the artifacts and surroundings that were not mine, I hoped to create an intimate yet slightly distant sensation that matched my experience.”

Bonnie initially studied creative writing at Florida State University, then went on to receive an MFA in photography at the University of Memphis.

“I got into creative photography when I started studying art at FSU, around 1999, right before the digital wave,” she said. “I had a few great teachers who got me looking at projects by other photographers and also the history of photography, which opened up the possibilities for me.”

She currently teaches photography classes at CityArts Cooperative and Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, and is also available for private lessons. For information on these or other classes, email bonnietatephoto@gmail.com, visit BonnieTatePhoto.com or call 850-238-2077.

“By nature the camera is cold,” she said. “I think that a glimpse of someone’s home, belongings, habits, makes a portrait a bit warmer and richer. Ultimately, I hope that each portrait taps into the unique mystery of the person in it.”

Artist's Touch: Breathing Life into Feats of Clay

Meghan Sullivan at Floriopolis

PANAMA CITY — Meghan Sullivan says she has to stay in motion. A sculptor and potter, she works in terra cotta, making tiles, plates and figures. She also teaches drawing at Gulf Coast State College and the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida.

“I really like the tactility of making things,” she said during a conversation at the Floriopolis gallery in St. Andrews. “I don’t think I could sit in an office all day long and be happy.”

This year’s artist-in-residence at GCSC, Meghan grew up in Boston, the youngest of six children.

“My parents always had art around us,” she said, adding that her father worked for the city Arts Council. “We had these handmade plates, and we would fight over who got which one, because siblings fight about everything.”

Girl and Frog tile by Sullivan

Her older sister attended a free after-school arts program while in high school, and when Meghan was old enough, she joined the program because “I wanted to be like her.” She spent the four years of high school receiving six hours of art classes each week.

Meghan attended the Massachusetts College of Art, which was across an alley from her high school. It was affordable, and she could live at home. In her freshman year, she took a pottery class that changed her life.

“It was the most challenging class I had taken up to then, and I was compelled by it,” she said, and by graduation, she was creating ceramic figures.
She took a job working 40 hours a week throwing plates, bowls and cups, then got a residency just outside the city, teaching and doing figurative sculptures. She applied to the University of Florida and was accepted as a post-baccalaureate student.

“It was my first time away from Boston,” she said. “It was very hot, and the first time a lizard came into my house I freaked out. But I really liked living in Florida.”

Meghan eventually got into grad school in Nebraska, earned her master’s degree, and joined the AmeriCorps to pay off some of her massive student debt. In that capacity, she worked with elementary schools in blighted neighborhoods, building community gardens with children and organizing big awareness campaigns and events.

She also did creative projects and volunteered as a bike mechanic at a co-op. Finally, she was offered a job with the city. “But I knew if I stayed there another year, I would end up living in Lincoln, Neb., for my entire life,” she said. “I really missed ceramics, and I was teaching but I wasn’t teaching art.”

Conversation by Sullivan

That’s when she learned about GCSC’s Artist in Residence program. She arrived in Panama City in time for the 2014 spring semester, and was invited to remain through the 2015 school year. She was already familiar with Tammy Marinuzzi and Pavel G. Amromin, assistant professors in the college’s Visual and Performing Arts Department, who were also in Gainesville when Meghan was a student there.

“We shared a car ride once,” she said. “I knew how they drove, but I didn’t know them that well. But I’m a figurative artist, they’re figurative artists, so we kind of feed off of each other.”
A solo show of her work will open at GCSC Feb. 27 and be on display through March. Meghan’s artwork is shaped by her personal experiences, according to a statement on her website (MeghanSullivanCeramics.com) — specifically, being part of a large family and growing up in an urban environment. She calls herself “a storyteller,” for whom the journey is as important as the destination.

“While my background has influenced the tone and content, it is not straightforward autobiography,” she said. “One specific instance in a larger experience is used and extrapolated from in order to create the final composition. ... While the conclusion may not be clear, the meaning of my work is found in the pondering of it.”

Artist's Touch: Embracing a natural humanity

Heather Clements at work.

‘HUMAN NATURE’

What: Solo exhibit by artist Heather Clements (HeatherClementsArt.com)

Where: Amelia Center Main Gallery, Gulf Coast State College, 5230 West U.S. 98, Panama City

When: Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday (regular gallery hours) through Feb. 14; Clements will present a lecture 1-2 p.m. Jan. 30; the gallery will have an opening reception 5-7 p.m. Jan. 30

Admission: Free to exhibit and events

Details: GulfCoast.edu/arts or 872-3886

PANAMA CITY — Heather Clements sat at a cafe table in CityArts Cooperative on a recent rainy morning to discuss the illusion of our place in the world and how she tries to express that through her art.

For several years, her focus has been on the intersection between humanity and the greater world — often depicted by melding the human form with trees, flowers and animals.

“The main concept is environmental, the blur between humans and the rest of Nature,” she said. “The idea of ‘Human vs. Nature’ is an inane statement. We are Nature.”

The Visual and Performing Arts Division of Gulf Coast State College is hosting “Human Nature,” an exhibition of Heather’s drawings, Jan. 26 through Feb. 14. The exhibit, including several new pieces never before shown to the public, will be on display in the Amelia Center Main Gallery (room 112) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday (regular gallery hours).

In addition, Heather will present a lecture from 1-2 p.m. Jan. 30 in the Amelia Tapper Center, room 128. An opening reception will be 5-7 p.m. the same day. Admission is free for the exhibit, lecture and reception.

“...Humans are not separate from Nature, but a part of Nature,” Heather said in promotional materials for the show. “I believe in order to have the motivation to innovate for a sustainable future, we not only need to understand the facts, but have a full perspective shift that embraces the awe-inspiring symbiosis we share with the rest of nature. My art explores how beautiful and euphoric it can be to reconnect with our natural world.”

Work by Heather Clements

Originally from northern Virginia, Heather attended art school in Baltimore, Md., graduating cum laude. But she had no idea what to do with her degree — “or my physical body,” she said.

“I didn’t want to go back home,” she said. “I wanted to move forward rather than backward.”

A friend was moving to Panama City, a place Heather said she’d never heard of before, and she joked about moving with her to be by the beach. Heather contacted several galleries in the area, and the owner of The Gallery Above on Harrison Avenue (now the A&M Theatre) offered her a solo show.

Shortly thereafter, he handed the whole gallery over to her. She ran it as a community arts hub from 2007 to mid-2009, with monthly exhibits, themed shows, open mic nights, touring bands, indie films, swing dance lessons, performance art events and much more.

“It has been a place for people to come with an open mind and experience unique and creative things,” Heather told me as the closing loomed that summer, adding that she was proud of the “real creativity and thoughts and emotion and feeling in the art.”

Heather went on to offer drawing classes at the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida, where she also served as the exhibitions manager and graphic designer. In 2010, she became a director at CityArts Cooperative, where her husband, Mat Wyble, now runs Mat’s Good Coffee. The changes in her life have reflected in her work.

“Before college, my art really wasn’t about anything. I was experimenting with light, color, texture. Honing my technical skills,” she said. “In college, I started to stretch and learn conceptually, how to make my art about something.”

But in her last years of college and immediately after, Heather’s art was about Heather.

“I was working through my issues,” she said. “Art would tell me what was going on in my head when I couldn’t figure it out for myself.”

In her time living in Panama City, Heather’s art has gone through definite periods of focus: portraits, octopi, and paper cuts, for example. For her new exhibition, she returned to her “first love” — drawing.

She works from reference photos, and she wants her human models to be completely natural (no makeup and no styled hair). She doesn’t draw them thinner than they are, and she doesn’t remove freckles or wrinkles.

“Ever since I was little, my art focused on the human figure,” she said. “Maybe it’s egotistical of us, to be a human and draw humans, but that’s what’s important to us — ourselves.”

But the most important reason Heather’s work forces viewers to examine their relationship with the natural world:

“There are a lot of things wrong in the world,” she said, “but none of them matter if we don’t have a world to live on.”

Artist's Touch: When art is life, ‘we are the plan’

Heather Parker

PANAMA CITY — Heather Parker relaxed on a couch Friday in the community gallery she founded last year, nursing an aching knee, and musing on the accomplishments of the year and the life that brought her to this place and time.

Floriopolis, which is referred to as an “arts and culture metropolis” in historic St. Andrews, opened Jan. 18, 2014, at 1125 Beck Ave. Heather and some of the 100-plus artists who have work in the gallery, as well as students, friends and family, will celebrate the anniversary 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday with free art projects for everyone, live music and a wine toast at 4 p.m.

Heather said the past year has been a learning experience. Some plans remain unfulfilled, but many projects reached fruition and paid off in spectacular ways.

“We know what we’re doing now,” she said. “The mission is very solid, the role we’re playing in the community is solid. It didn’t take as long to fine-tune as I thought. ... What has been great is, people cry when they come in — there’s so much self expression. I’m personally still coming to terms with that.”

The gallery’s new exhibit, “Glow,” will be in place through March. Then Floriopolis will host an ongoing project through September called “The Space Between Words,” which will include a short story contest. The winning 2,000-word story will be tattooed on 2,000 people — each receiving one word from the tale.

October through December, the exhibit will be “Life on the Water,” with an eye toward work the public will want for Christmas gift shopping.

“We had great traffic and super sales for the holidays,” Heather said.

'Charlotte,' by Heather Parker

Heather’s favorite medium is acrylic painting on wood. It has required her to learn about absorption rates, how paint will spread or bleed. The wood grain always becomes part of the work, as she finds hidden shapes in the swirls of dark and light.

“I’ve barely painted anything this year, though,” she said. “That’s why I started painting little blocks of wood, something to do first thing in the morning before I’m even really awake yet.”

She “always loved art,” Heather said, but she wasn’t much of a student in her youth, graduating high school only because an administrator liked her. She moved out to live with other students when she was in 10th grade, and paid her portion of rent by selling artwork door to door.

“I only went to art classes and on test days,” she said.

Later, she worked at the education department of a children’s museum in Virginia. But when her work and her daughter Megan’s kindergarten schedules couldn’t be reconciled, Heather quit and began homeschooling. Selling art to make up for the loss of income led to a position at the Suffolk Museum of Art.

“You can use art to teach almost anything,” Heather said.

The family moved to Bay County from Virginia in 2000.

“We had been doing trade shows a couple of years,” Heather said. “We were tired, we ran out of gas, and our trailer was damaged as we crossed the bridge. ... We sold the trailer and stayed.”

Heather has worked for the Junior Museum of Bay County, the YMCA, and the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida. Then she and a fellow artist, Xan Miller, opened the CityArts Cooperative downtown. Heather is still involved there via her connection to the Chautauqua Learn & Serve School, where she is the artist in residence.

“My time at the Coop helped me figure out what I wanted to do as a person to contribute to the world,” she said, adding that the reactions of people who visit Floriopolis are always positive and personally satisfying. “That might be the best thing that happened to them today.”

(Heather will teach art classes at the Panama City Beach Senior Center on Jan. 20, Feb. 17 and March 17.)

Heather’s husband, John, doesn’t like attention, she said, but she credits him with keeping her on track. Not only does he do a lot of the heavy lifting around Floriopolis, as owner of Patriot Tax Solutions he does the books. John’s “a numbers guy,” and each time Heather comes up with another event, project or mission to tackle, John asks her what the plan is.

“I know how far out of his comfort zone I push him,” Heather said, such as when she decided to “bomb” downtown with 500 Styrofoam monkeys, or create a transparent plastic giraffe and photograph it visiting locations all over town.

Okay, he’d say, what’s the plan?

“We are the plan,” she said. “As we do it, the next step will reveal itself.”

Artist's Touch: Stress relief becomes way of life

Don Taylor and work-in-progress.

PANAMA CITY — Touring Don Taylor’s home off State 390 is a lesson in local history and art, as he and his wife, Louisa, recount the house’s former occupants and location while showing their collection of works from across the world.

Art has been in Don’s life since his childhood, growing up in St. Augustine.

“My father went to art school and did metal crafting,” Don said. “He turned down an animation job offer from Disney in 1930. He painted as a hobby and gave the paintings away to friends.”

Reaching his upstairs studio and classroom space, Don held up a work-in-progress showing three cooks busy in a kitchen. He photographed the men through a large plate glass window using a telephoto lens, then combined his favorite poses into a single composition.

“You’ll never get a photograph that’s got everything you want in the right places,” he said. “Don’t try to copy the photograph. Pick what you want out of it and recompose.”

(One of the day-classes he’s teaching at the Panama City Beach Senior Center this month covers sketching designs based on a favorite photo.)

“The thing I really enjoy, probably more than anything else,” Don said, is sketching and painting from real life. He’s filled books with sketches and watercolors of sites he’s visited in his travels, and he said every detail of that day is imprinted in his memory when he does so.

“I can take thousands of photos (on a trip) and six months later I’m hard pressed to tell your where in the world I was,” he said. “But with these (sketches) I become totally absorbed in it. I can tell you everything — where I was, what was going on around me.”

Sample from Taylor's sketchbooks.

Don had never heard of Panama City before he attended veterinarian school at Auburn University. His next-door neighbor had lived here though, and, “I came down and spent Christmas with them here, and when I finished school I moved here in 1972,” he said.

He established a veterinary practice, Gulf Coast Animal Hospital, which he sold 15 years ago to spend more time painting. Now, he only works relief days at the practice. Don is also a veteran of the Vietnam conflict, where he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Don started painting as a form of stress relief, and found he loved doing it.

“You forget all your problems and worries,” he said. “It’s not like work, it’s something I totally enjoy.”

Don began teaching painting “a number of years ago,” and has a waiting list for new students. He teaches in his upstairs classroom space, as well as local galleries and recreation centers, and far-flung workshops, such as one scheduled at Blue Ridge, Ga., in June.

He began entering shows almost as soon as he started painting fulltime, about 15 years ago, and has won numerous awards and recognitions across the country. Most recently, Don was recognized by the American Artists Professional League for his watercolor painting “Heaven’s Glow.”

“We are extremely proud to recognize some of America’s finest artists, and our award winners’ work epitomizes the quality of art that our organization strives to support,” said Peter Rossi, AAPL president, in remarks at the 86th annual Grand National Exhibition held in November 2014 in New York City.

Don also has served on many art association boards; he is a past president of the Southern Watercolor Society and past member of the Board of Directors at the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida.

“We have a wonderful local group of artists,” he said. “A lot of them have been painting 20 or 30 years, and still have a good time.”

In the artist’s statement on his website, DonTaylorArt.com, Don said he hopes his art will evoke the same feelings in the viewer that he experienced when first seeing the subject — “the sense that there is more to the subject than mere rendering. ... I attempt to apply the illusion of detail in many works so that viewers can use their imagination to complete the image. Sometimes less is more.”

Artist's Touch: Art in the Family

Sarah, Theresa, Taylor and Craig Bush at Floriopolis

PANAMA CITY — Craig Bush described his family as “unconventional” during a recent conversation at Floriopolis gallery.

“We all tend to be nonconformist,” he said. “We don’t listen very well.”

What they do well is pursue their muses. Craig, 64, is a retired educator, novelist and painter. His wife, Theresa, 62, is a retired paralegal, jeweler and crafter. Their daughters — Sarah, 36, and Taylor, 29 — are artists working in acrylics, ink and other mediums.

All four gathered on the couch and chairs at Floriopolis to talk about the way art is part of their lives, both as a family and as individuals.

“I was poor growing up, so there wasn’t a whole lot I couldn’t do,” Theresa said. “I still feel that way. I was taught if you want it, then you do it. You make it. I made things because I needed to have them.”

Theresa in her workshop.

Theresa has sewed and made crafts all her life, but retirement gave her time to focus on creative pursuits. After taking an Education Encore class on jewelry design at Gulf Coast State College, she discovered a love of jewelry making — though she wears almost none herself. She also does stained glass art, baskets, felt figures and more.

Her work is for sale at Floriopolis, RTA Designs, and Shipwreck Ltd., but she hopes to do more online sales in the new year. Her Etsy.com store is Four Free Spirits.
“I don’t want to make a lot of money, I  just want to make stuff and get rid of it so I can make more stuff,” Theresa said. Sarah responded, “I want to make enough (money) to replace my low-level job.”

Art by Sarah Bush

Craig said Sarah was in middle school when they all recognized her artistic bent. Her successes encouraged the rest of the family to “kind of dabble” in art more. But Sarah recalls always having art in their home.

“That’s what you do in life. You make stuff,” Sarah said. “When I was little, Pop would write messages in symbols and have me decode it, and that’s a lot of what I do now with iconography, symbology and archetypes. ... My parents have always been creative, as long as I can remember. Even my grandmother was always making a quilt or sewing something.”

When Sarah was in daycare, Craig would walk her home in the afternoons. They collected pieces of colored glass on the roadside each day and glued them to a length of driftwood.

“It’s still hanging on our wall today,” he said. “It’s a little bit bizarre.”

Sarah received an art scholarship to Gulf Coast State College, but kept taking art labs instead of other core courses. After some time focusing on drawing and “building sturdy things,” Sarah said she’s trying to go back to “actually painting.” Her work is online at SarahBushArt.com

Art by Taylor Bush

Taylor said Sarah was her early inspiration, and she took the same classes with the same teachers Sarah had. Taylor creates black-and-white designs and is looking into making prints, fabric designs and possibly T-shirt images, mass producing some of her drawings.
Craig’s debut novel, “Hometown,” was released this autumn, and he’s just completed the first draft of his next novel, “The Ninth Rainbow,” which he hopes to publish in early 2015. “It’s somewhat apocalyptic, but it ends up with a lot of hope,” he said.

Of the creative process, Craig said he follows where the characters lead him: “I often don’t have a clue what they’re doing. When it’s best for me, I can’t type fast enough to keep up with it.”

Craig also paints impressionistic landscapes that he describes as “a little bit Van Gogh-ish.” He has never tried selling any of his paintings, adding that “none of us is great at marketing ourselves.”

As a child, Craig’s imagination was encouraged by a teacher who gave him a copy of “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein. But reading Herman Hesse in the 1960s made him want to be a writer. He studied journalism in college before shifting to education.

Craig at his writing desk.

“With the novel release, I think I had the right expectation, which was no expectations,” Craig said. “It’s shown me the importance of people in the arts being willing to help one another. It’s not a competition.”

The children have their own places now, but Theresa still had some trepidation about how Craig’s retirement could cut into her creative time. Over the years, each of them has learned to value a level of solitude, but she said it took “some adjustment” when he began staying home all day.

“I think we all appreciate our alone time a lot,” Taylor said, adding that the creative process requires solitude as well as preparation and openness. “Sometimes it’s sort of like a transmission from the universe, and you’re there to catch that. I think that’s the point of the whole thing. It’s super magical.”