Mount Vernon News

HOWARD — Apple Valley is full of elegantly winding roads peppered with picturesque houses. The homes overlook a placid reservoir that runs the length of the development. It is on a hillside on the east side of the lake that the Apple Valley Clubhouse is home, every second and fourth Wednesday of the month, to the Apple Valley Artists.

The informal group was formed last fall by Sue Simon and Amy Williams, two members of the Knox County Art League who live in Apple Valley. Since then, they have accumulated a steady group of regulars, while others drop in occasionally as time allows. Simon and Williams said that everyone is welcome, regardless of where they live or how skilled they are.

“We can all learn from each other,” Simon said.

As a result, everyone from beginning painters to professionals have been known to show up for the morning sessions.

Ed Hayes has been painting for 17 years. He drives over from Mount Vernon to spend time painting with the group, often sharing tips he learned from Lancaster master portraitist Marvin Triguba, with whom Hayes studied for 10 years. His favorite things to paint are portraits and city-scapes. He once painted a series of portraits of great composers because everyone in his wife’s family was musical, but Hayes himself didn’t play an instrument. Through his chosen medium, he was able to participate.

“I generally go with what inspires me,” Hayes said.

On a recent Wednesday, he was working on a painting of an alleyway in Beijing, based on a picture Hayes took when he visited China in the 1980s. He said he hopes to visit China again soon, to see how it has changed in the last 20 years. Hayes, a past president of the art league, is a wealth of information, and not just about art.

“I also like to learn foreign languages,” Hayes said as he carefully placed a stroke of oil paint onto his canvas.

Amy Williams was working with colored pencils instead of paint on this particular day, basing her drawing on a photograph of sheep that she took a number of years ago in Indiana. Although she used to work as a graphic designer, Williams has concentrated on raising her children, aged 15 and 9, since she and her husband moved to Knox County four years ago. She noted that now that she’s out of touch with the current computer software used in graphic designing, it would be hard to go back into the field. In lieu of that, she’s enjoying the chance to spend some time with her art.

As an art league member, Williams, like several of the group, volunteers as a tour guide at the B&O depot on West High Street, where the art league is now housed.

Art has been a calling and a source of delight for Sue Simon ever since she was little. Although she explores the whole range of art media available, watercolor remains the center of her world.

“I’ve tried other things, but always came back,” Simon said, adding that she isn’t a purist with watercolor technique.

The traditional approach calls for the artist to paint with a wet brush on wet paper, causing the classic pale and diffused appearance of watercolors. But Simon often elects to use pure color with a dry brush on dry paper, which gives the colors a bright, precise crispness. Old buildings and barns were Simon’s favorite subjects for a long time, but then she did some duck paintings, which sold almost immediately from the North Main Gallery where they were featured. Since then, she has done a series of duck paintings, which have proven popular. That flurry of activity follows years of activity as a professional artist.

“I used to do art shows for 13 years up and down the East Coast,” Simon said, “from Bar Harbor to Virginia Beach.”

Originally from Lansing, Mich., Simon has seen many parts of the world, thanks to her husband’s work for Batelle, which took them to such places as Germany and pre-revolutionary Iran, when the Shah still ruled. She and her husband retired to Apple Valley 3 1/2 years ago.

Eldoreen Donnell was making her first visit to the painters’ group. The former Michigan resident has lived in Apple Valley for three years.

“Oh my gosh, do I love it,” she said, pointing out that Apple Valley reminds her of Upper Michigan, and reminds her husband of Tennessee. She was working on a pen and ink piece as she talked, but she said that Simon was going to help her combine that technique with watercolor in the future. Although Donnell enjoyed art in school, she only returned to it after her retirement.

“It’s for my own pleasure,” Donnell said. “I don’t sell any. That way I’m not pressured.”

Having an artist for a parent brought Helen Neumann in contact with art from as early in life as she can remember. Her dad was an artist, and she followed in his footsteps, becoming an adept watercolorist. She said she also likes print-making and working with an etching press.

Neumann paints whimsical scenes, often featuring cats, flowers or scenes from nature.

“I like to capture things that will make people smile,” Neumann said.

Then she demonstrated to Donnell how to put little dots of watercolor on the paper, then draw each one down with a simple, precise stroke, creating the image of a leaf with each move of the brush. Neumann said the sense of color in her paintings is sometimes influenced by the fact that she grew up in Hawaii. She has been in Ohio now for 31 years, nine of those in Apple Valley. Neumann, who, like Simon, has art for sale at the North Main Gallery, is also involved with Studios on High in Columbus, a co-operative group of 17 artists who share, compare and compete.

The Apple Valley Artists is one of several arts activity groups which have sprung up in the Knox County Art League. A photography club has monthly meetings, and a poetry forum sponsors open-mic poetry and music nights every first Friday of the month. For further information on those groups or to join the Knox County Art League, call 397-5257.

The painting group meets at the Apple Valley Clubhouse, just off Apple Valley Drive on the east side of the lake, on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. Everyone is welcome. Sessions start at 9:30 a.m., though people are welcome to come and go as they please. For further information, contact Simon at 392-4759 or Williams at 397-6427.