Relevant Experience: I've dabbled in many different artistic mediums throughout my life. I'm frequently inspired by other artists, and I love taking that inspiration and turning it into my own style. My heart crafts are crochet, collage (anything that involves paper!), alcohol inks, and Zentangle®-inspired art.

 

​Fun Creative Memory: I've been entering my crafts into the WNC Mountain State Fair for a few years now, and my favorite piece I've entered was my first collage piece that received first place and Best in Show! 

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: I thoroughly enjoy crocheting because it's very meditative for me and almost any paper project because I love cutting out images. 

Relevant Experience: I graduated with an Art Education degree and have spent over 20 years in the classroom. I have spent the last 5 years focused on my alcohol ink floral designs and have won multiple awards for my creations.

 

​Fun Creative Memory: Arts Night at Skyland Elementary School. This was a night where every child in the school had artwork on display. I loved seeing their excitement! 

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: My kids and granddaughter.

Relevant Experience: My introduction to art started in the 80’s learning Bob Ross’ techniques through his workshops. This was soon put on hold until retirement in 2018. I credit Purple Crayon for re-igniting the spark with their intro class in Fluid Art in 2019. With my background in Culinary Arts (food as art), Education, and Research, I set out to learn all I could about the technique. I have narrowed online Fluid Artists down to three that I follow. Their techniques reflect their locations: U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands. My goal is to work toward finding my voice in my paintings and feel that experimentation is the key.

 

I have exhibited artwork and taught Fluid Art courses at the City of Clemson Art Center and participate in the Clemson Area African American Museum Kwanzaa Celebration with an exhibit focused on the holiday. I have entered two Juried Shows: Anderson Art Center and the Anderson Artist Guild and was pleasantly surprised to have one of my pieces chosen for the “Art Around Town” during Anderson Soiree in 2021. I have sold my artwork at Pendleton’s Fall Harvest Festival, Pendleton, SC, and the Holiday Market at Clemson Art Center.

 

​Fun Creative Memory: Making my own wedding cake! It was five tiers, and each tier was a book that represented the hobbies and professions of both of us, and the last tier was the book titled “Love Story.”

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: I get excited when my “mind’s eyes and ears” see or hear something and immediately I see the image on the canvas. It can be a song or a word or two from a song that does it, and, the next thing I know, I am trying to figure how to make it happen.  When it does happen, I am definitely dancing to the music!

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Relevant Experience: My experience as an artist and teacher spans over 40 years and includes: Fashion Illustrator, Textile Designer, Fiber Artist, College Adjunct Professor in Textile Design, Studio Artist, and High School Studio Art and Art History Teacher. I have a B.F.A. from Caldwell University in NJ and an M.A. from FIT and Parsons in NY. 

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Fun Creative Memory: A wonderful creative memory for me is when, one year, I had my high school class pick and interpret a theme for a class project. They picked Asia, and they created everything from a 6' 3D pagoda, to a mosaic dragon that wrapped around the walls of the class, to a tiny origami crane. It was an enriching cultural experience for all of us!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: I get so excited and happy when I see the look of accomplishment on my students' faces after completing a challenging project. Art is a form of self-expression to be shared and appreciated by all. We learn from each other, and sharing our talents is part of experiencing art!

Relevant Experience: I’ve made art and shared the creative process for 50 years. I began as a cloisonne enamellist, my jewelry shown in galleries and juried shows across the country. During that time, I also taught enameling as Artist-in-the-Schools. 

 

In my early 40s, I completed a graduate degree in Art Therapy. I learned that offering a safe place for children to freely create with art supplies and toys helped them find what was needed to integrate mind, body and spirit for healing. 

 

I retired from private practice in 2012 and moved to Baja, Mexico, where I opened and offered classes in a community art studio. Folks gathered there for mixed media, collage, altered books, drawing, Women’s Wisdom Circles, The Artist Way workshops, as well for open studio times. 

 

Three years later, we moved back to the states, settling in Prescott, Arizona. For the next seven years, I facilitated SoulCollage® workshops and taught classes on gelli printing, luminarias, memory boxes, color wheel, liquid watercolors, and Blooming Elders through the OLLI and Community Education programs at Yavapai College. I also taught Art Therapy to both graduate and undergrad students at Prescott College. 

 

We are now happily back in North Carolina after being away for so many years. My greatest joy is gathering folks of all ages together to enjoy the creative process, focusing on having fun while seeing themselves reflected in their art!

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Fun Creative Memory: The time I was asked to create an art activity for 90 community volunteer elders to do during their yearly meeting. I offered them liquid glitter watercolors, sponge brushes, droppers and straws, plus good quality paper to try wet-on-wet painting. The collective excitement in the room was palpable as they delighted in what resulted from playing and experimenting with these paints!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: I love the synergy when folks gather in circles and feel safe to experiment, play, share stories, and open their hearts to find connection within themselves and with others. It’s the best of all good feels for me.

Relevant Experience: Most of my life, I thought I couldn’t be an artist because I didn’t have drawing or painting skills. When I started taking workshops in collage, it opened a door for me. Over the last 20 years, I have taken many workshops in collage, assemblage, encaustic, alcohol inks, and altered books. Locally, I have had classes with Ginger Heubner, Fleta Monaghan, Celia Gray, Danial Essig and  Ursula Gullow. I have discovered there are many ways to be a creator!

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Fun Creative Memory: When I was a child, I spent many hours alone under the azalea bushes in my Grandmother’s garden. I had an elaborate imaginary world peopled with “dolls” I made out of flowers, clad in gowns made out of petals and leaves pinned together with thorns. My love of color and texture began there as I “played.”

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: Creating intuitively, with no set destination and finding something that evokes an emotion I didn’t know I had.

Relevant Experience: I have been an avid quilter, quilt designer, long arm quilter, and sewer for over 20 years. I have taught both sewing and quilting classes in California. In addition to quilting and sewing, I also enjoy dyeing fabric, painting on fabric, watercolor, fluid art, alcohol inks, pyrography, beading, jewelry making, book art, and just about anything that lets me express my creative self.

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Fun Creative Memory: I remember when I was about 6 or 8, my grandmother taught me how to sew and crochet, even though I was a “true” tomboy. Apparently, her lessons were good, and they stuck. When I was in junior high school, I would come home from school and make myself a new outfit just about every day!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Life. There is just so much creativity in the world to experience!

Relevant Experience: I have been a practicing and gallery shown artist for over 25 years and delight in learning new techniques and incorporating different materials and mediums into my work. Experimentation fuels my own practice, and I love sharing and exploring that process with others. I believe everyone has an inherently unique way they see and make art—even if they do not know it yet! I have taught and facilitated workshops in both fine art gallery and scholastic settings and enjoy working with students of all ages and levels. Each of us has a singular way of "making a mark," and I love helping others discover their own visual vocabulary.

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Fun Creative Memory: A book making/paper marbling project from around 4th grade. We marbled paper—which felt extra "fancy" at the time—and with it created a thread bound book in which we then wrote and collected our own poems and stories. I think it was probably the first fully finished and complete piece of art I made, and I considered it a very special object!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Finding ways to make seemingly disparate materials come together to  make a cohesive work of art. Also gardening, where endless creative opportunities abound—and I have very poor impulse control!

Relevant Experience: I have taught needle felting since 2002 in my studio on Long Island and, after 2014, here in WNC. https://ireneheckeloriginals.com/

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Fun Creative Memory: I have two. I love creating collectable teddy bears and making an adult smile when they hold one. And I love creating needle felted pet portraits for friends and clients.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Being able to create and touching people with the results.

Relevant Experience: I have been teaching papermaking classes for the past two years and have been a general art educator since 2018. I've taught at different art studios and shops, as well as the Massillon Museum in Ohio and the Asheville Botanical Gardens. I love showing how paper is made to all sorts of people and embracing the art of having fun while learning.

 

Favorite Creative Memory: I’ve started doing more “mindless” paintings with just a canvas board and some acrylic paints. I’ll create painting on top of painting on top of painting, never letting anything sit and be a completed project. One of the more recent times, I put my hand on the wet paint and left a print. I thought it would be relaxing to just trace around the fingers like in grade-school. Unintentionally, I picked a lot of warm colors and made what looked like a heat map. So I continued my pattern and created an art piece I genuinely liked and hung up in my studio! I don’t know what I love more: the process that lead me to it or the final product.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: It’s always seeing something new! I love travelling and hiking, so, anytime I see a new view of mountains, forests, or unique landscape, I just hope I remembered to bring my sketchbook. They are the most exciting things to draw for me, and I have a small travel notebook I’m filling with all my favorite sights.

Relevant Experience: I've taught bookbinding, sewing, dyeing for 30+ years, most recently at Local Cloth, John C. Campbell Folk School, Center for Craft, and the NC Arboretum.

 

Favorite Creative Memory: The first time I made an outfit (in high school) and discovered that I could make cute clothes for myself. I continue to love sewing and knitting my own clothes.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Really, anytime I am making; it’s my meditation.

Relevant Experience: I’ve been teaching art workshops locally for the last year, and I love every
second of it. I also teach several classes online and am working to expand my online offerings. I’m a
self-taught artist, illustrator, and surface pattern designer. I specialize in watercolor, block printing, digital
illustration and creating patterns. I love dabbling in any medium, and I have a long list of skills I want to
learn, including basket making and oil painting.

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Fun Creative Memory: Some of my favorite creative memories are making practical crafts with my
mom as a kid, such as the year we made felt ornaments for the Christmas tree, or the year we carved potatoes to make homemade block printed wrapping paper. Before I even knew what folk art was, those projects taught me how much joy comes from making something with your hands to decorate your home. That joy is so deeply ingrained in me, and it’s the primary motivation behind everything I create.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: It makes me so happy when a medium or artform takes on a life of its
own: watercolors blooming and spreading; a block print that has a completely different feel once it’s
printed in reverse; how patterns can make everyday objects feel like home. As an artist, I work to hone
my craft, but every time something unexpected happens, I fall in love all over again. I’m endlessly
inspired by flowers, the natural world, and the small joys of everyday life.

Relevant Experience: I have been teaching art to students of all ages for over twenty-five years. My own professional works of art have been found in juried art shows and collections nationwide, including the Hotel Allegra (Chicago), the Bali Club (Hawaii), Disney’s Contemporary Hotel (Orlando) and the Tower Hill Gallery (Michigan).

 

Fun Creative Memory: Teaching my friends new techniques at a picnic table in the woods.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Women sharing creative ideas (with a giggle).

Relevant Experience: As a child, I pursued many creative avenues, including painting, art classes, acting and theater. I started my career in Los Angeles as an actress working in television and film and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and ran an acting studio for 10 years. I coached actors on acting, personal awareness, being able to market themselves, and maintaining a creative career, from a good-feeling place. 

 

In 2019, I moved to Asheville and transitioned my creative pursuits back into art and indulging my love of all things paper, including collage, junk journals, artistically designed yearly planners, and my recent love of gelli prints.

 

I am currently pursuing a life coaching certification, and I look forward to building a practice helping inspire creativity as a basis for a fulfilling, connected life. I always teach and coach from an inclusive, playful, and encouraging place. I value process over product, so plan to have fun in my classes—AND leave with something pretty!

Fun Creative Memory: Too many to mention! I still vividly recall the delight of being the Wicked Witch in my first community play.  And in general, I really love the feeling of being “in the zone” and magically transported in the creative flow. 

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: The joy of a fun, collaborative, creative process with a group of women. And artistically, I love anything that includes working with paper. The fairly recent discovery of junk journals and gelli prints have my fun-meter turned to ‘"high"—and my bookcase filled to overflowing! :)

Relevant Experience: I am a glass artist with more than three decades of experience in fused and stained glass, mosaics, and bead making. Until Hurricane Helene, I taught classes and sold my art at Foundation Studios in the River Arts District. My work has also been featured in shows at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA. Before retiring a couple of years ago, I was a part owner of an environmental consulting firm based in Boston and Washington, DC. And I find my artwork is inspired largely by nature. I also enjoy making silver jewelry from metal clay and creating fabric collage landscapes.

 

Fun Creative Memory: Baking and decorating holiday cookies with my mother and sister every year using 1950-era cookie cutters and experimenting with lots of different-colored icings and decorations and making a huge mess in the process. It is a tradition I have passed down to my own children using the same cookie cutters!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: I really enjoy both teaching and taking classes. I love to see women tap into their innate creativity and the amazing art they produce with just a little bit of encouragement. I also love challenging myself by learning new skills and working with different media. That does result in a need to constantly invest in new supplies (and more storage), though! 

Relevant Experience: I love to introduce people to mosaics.  I took my first workshop in 2006, was bitten by the mosaic bug, and now teach all kinds of mosaics in Asheville and at the John C. Campbell Folk School. https://lindapannullomosaics.com/

Fun Creative Memory: I made a 7' tall birdhouse totem pole in the Picassiette style (smashed plates) incorporating mugs and plates, some from my mom and children. It won 1st place in the Art Category - Habitat for Humanity ReUse contest and the best thing is that house wrens have nested there the last two years! 

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Although I love teaching all of my mosaic workshops, it's particularly fun teaching POTHEAD planter workshops.  Everyone receives the same instructions, and all have so much fun releasing their inner artist to make a unique piece of functional art!

Relevant Experience: I have been developing and teaching personal growth workshops for over 30 years. After graduating with a Master’s of Social Work in 1978, I went on to pursue additional training in Somatic Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and Creative Art Therapies, deepening my understanding of the body and the creative process for healing and transformation.

Fun Creative Memory: My favorite creative memory is having a SoulCollage® birthday party when I was 60! I invited my friends over, and we made cards all day!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Anything that uses art as a medium for personal exploration and is done in community brings me joy!

Relevant Experience: I’ve been a high school biology teacher for 22 years and have been making and teaching pottery for quite a long time as well! 

Fun Creative Memory:  Anytime I open a kiln and see how the pieces turn out!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Nature, my family, poetry, music, my dog, University of Michigan football.

Relevant Experience: I became fascinated with mosaics while living near Barcelona, Spain in the 1990s. I took my first mosaic class in 1996 and have been hooked every since and have continued to create and expand my abilities. In 2018, I started teaching workshops and truly love sharing this art form with others. The vintage glass windows came to my attention around the time I started teaching, and it was a natural fit for me, as it resembles the process for creating mosaics. 

Fun Creative Memory: I recently designed and painted my first mural. I am NOT a painter, so it was so satisfying to see the image in my mind become a reality on the wall. It is super simple, FYI, but it makes me so happy to see it.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: So many things make my heart sing! Backpacking, cooking, learning new arts and crafts, time with friends, traveling, animals. What a beautiful and complex world!

Relevant Experience: I was an elementary school teacher for 14 years before being introduced to wire wrapping in 2000. I took to it naturally and have been creating one-of-a-kind pieces and teaching jewelry making at various local bead shops, Blue Ridge Community College, and, of course, Purple Crayon, since then. I hand wrap semi-precious gemstones, fossils, pearls, vintage china, and glass cabochons and also use wire to create weaving or chain maille jewelry. My jewelry can be found at Vessel in Hendersonville, Kress Emporium, Linden Boutique, and the NC Arboretum in Asheville, and more. www.JewelrybyNadine.com

 

Fun Creative Memory: Winning Best in Show for Craft in a large show in Atlanta.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: Turning a design I dreamt about into a finished piece of jewelry.

Relevant Experience: I have been practicing yoga and meditation for more than 20 years. I teach public classes, lead workshops and retreats, work with private clients, and am on the staff of the teacher training program at Asheville Yoga Center. My classes are known for their meditative quality and deeply supportive and restorative atmosphere. In response to students repeatedly asking for a way to “take a bit of class home,” I launched her podcast of free audio offerings, Embodied Meditation, in April 2019. Join my mailing list (pmgilchrist@gmail.com), or connect with me on Instagram (@gilchristpaige) or Facebook (Paige Gilchrist).

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Fun Creative Memory: Family legend has it that, as a young child on a road trip with an aunt and uncle, I regaled them with the entire score of the musical Oklahoma from the back seat. Over and over. (Years later, I put all that energy to use and earned a BFA in theatre.)

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: Learning! About anything: yoga philosophy, anatomy, neuroscience, social justice, herbalism, poetry, parenting—you name it.

Relevant Experience: Prior to opening Purple Crayon in 2017, I was an Instructional Designer and Performance Consultant for a large corporation. In 2003, I graduated from Coach U and became a Life Coach. 

 

I have been helping women discover the joy of play since then, initially encouraging them to create and, now, being fortunate enough to also be able to provide a space to do it.

 

Currently, my favorite creative activities are probably quilting, collaging, and mosaicking—and, of course, running the studio and teaching workshops, both of which I LOVE!

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Fun Creative Memory: When I was in third or fourth grade, my best friend, Pam, and I would write stories together. I think I saved pretty much all of them, and I pull them out whenever I need a chuckle!

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: I love exploring new ways of making art by building on skills I already have. I figured out how to do pixel quilting, for example, by combining my skills in electronic photo manipulation with watercolor quilting. It took me a while to get the technique just right, but that was part of the fun! 

Relevant Experience: I am a mixed media artist and have been teaching art classes for over 30 years to kids and adults in a variety of media. I have taught everywhere from art and craft stores, to summer camps, schools, art councils, and private lessons. I have been involved with a creative problem solving program for kids K-college for over 35 years. I am always learning new techniques to apply to my own work, and I love figuring out new ways to experiment and push it to the next level. The best part is sharing these with others and letting their creativity take over, too!

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Fun Creative Memory: I used to love spending hours and hours in the darkroom developing and printing my own photographs. All through college and even later in my home darkroom, I could get lost in that tiny space for hours creating and watching “magic” develop.

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: I get so happy when I am teaching something and can literally see someone light up with excitement. I love helping people find their creative muse, learn something new, or have them tell me a story or show me what they created after a class.

Relevant Experience: A horticulturist by trade and artist by heart, I was diagnosed at a young age with a rare form of breast cancer. During a very difficult and emotional recovery, I was inspired by a piece of art created over 40 years ago by my great grandmother Jean. I began handcrafting unique wire bonsai trees just as my great grandmother had many years before. My work is currently sold in shops and galleries throughout North Carolina. www.facebook.com/BeansBonsai/

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Fun Creative Memory: I remember 7 years ago creating a vision board of cut-out pictures from magazines of everything I wanted to manifest for the remainder of my life. So many of those things have already come true, and I believe the best is yet to come!

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: My son, nature, and the beautiful mountains that surround us!

Relevant Experience: As the Senior Director of Admissions for the largest hospice provider in the country, I taught staff for 20+ years, both in-person and remotely. In 2015, I decided that I wanted to do art, something I hadn’t done since Jr. High.

 

I was certified to teach Zentangle® in 2016 by the founders, Rick and Maria, and have taught classes in Florida and NC since then. 

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I also enjoy using found objects to create mixed-media projects. It amazes me how easy—and fun!—it is to transform a discarded circuit board, or an ordinary switch plate, into a beautiful piece of art with just a little paint and imagination! 

 

Fun Creative Memory: I have been a collector of "things" since I was little: rocks, broken glass pieces, pens, craft materials… "You just never know when you’ll need it!" is something I’ve said all too frequently throughout my life. I am finally getting the chance to use everything I've collected as I continue to explore different mediums and types of art.

 

What Makes Her Heart Sing: My heart sings when I’m working on any piece of art now that I’m using the creative side of my brain. Teaching others and seeing their joy is a close second!

Relevant Experience: With a BFA in drawing and painting, and various MFA classes, I have been teaching fine arts for over 30 years to a variety of age groups, at a variety of levels, and in a variety of media. I've also taught in both private and group settings and currently teach at various studios in North Carolina and Maine, as well as online. 

 

Presently, I am a Pastel Society of America Signature member and an International Association of Pastel Societies Master Circle member. Links to my art shows and exhibits, local and international, as well as my workshops, are on my website: www.travelingartista.com. 

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Fun Creative Memory: My favorite creative memory, as a teacher, is watching a student grasp an idea and burst through to her personal creative spirit with excitement and creativity!

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What Makes Her Heart Sing: My heart sings the most when I'm outdoors, painting in pastel, with a wonderful, creative flow. I barely realize how the image gets on the canvas as the colors and texture start to sing along with me!