The cover of the program for the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival on October 5 features a painting by a Wilkesboro artist who believes that art is all-encompassing, as he strives to capture beauty and inspire peace in his works.
Betty Powell’s impressionistic painting on the cover has three women, including two in old-fashioned bonnets, making a quilt during the apple festival. Powell said the interesting scene reminded him of his grandmother, who lived near the base of Mount Rogers in Southwest Virginia.
Women with the Austin Community Center in northeast Wilkes County worked on quilts during the many apple festivals, organized by the Brushy Mountain Ruritan Club and held in downtown North Wilkesboro.
Paul Barelski, member of the Brushy Mountain Ruritan Club who manages the program, got Powell’s permission to use the painting on the cover after recognizing that it was natural for that purpose.
At age 90, Powell still considers himself a student of life as he celebrates new steps in his painting. “True seeing is the goal of all artists and enlightenment occurs when a person lets his innocence see nature and life with childlike wonder and reverence,” he said.
Powell severely limits her schedule as an art teacher but otherwise shows little sign of slowing down. He was judging entries in the Wilkes art Gallery’s 45th annual Northwest Artists’ Exhibition last month. An exhibition of his artwork at the gallery ended on August 28.
Powell has loved art since childhood and was recently surprised when a man asked him, “What’s the point of art.” He quickly replied, “Well, look around you. Do you see the furniture over there? An artist designed it. This building we’re in, an artist designed it. Look at your car, the upholstery. Everything.”
Aiming to master the brightness and vibrancy of pastels, Powell studied Wolf Kahn, Charles Basham and others. As an adult student at Appalachian State University, he studied under other renowned painters and master painters. Powell has long been a member of a group of area artists called ART MIX and said he draws from others.
The landscape of North Carolina is his main source of inspiration. “I believe that if you go out into the landscape and not only look, but also listen with your heart as well as your ears, the landscape will speak to you. The importance of the landscape is its grandeur and power. The celebration of the landscape is recovering our unity with God and nature,” said Powell.
“As a landscape artist, I am fascinated by rich colors and like to use pure, vibrant colors that are happy. I like my pastel paintings to have a strong play of light and shadow and to have a poetic element of atmosphere , knowledge, feeling and inspiration. I found pastels to be the most suitable medium for expressing the beauty I see around me. Pastels have a life and brightness of their own.”
Her sensitive pastels, watercolors, oils, acrylics and mixed collages hang in private and public collections across the country.
Powell said he was born and raised in a nature-loving family in Rockingham County. His early artistic influences were his parents, Roy and Virginia Crowder, and a first through 12th grade art and piano teacher, Maude Reynolds. Powell often played by the creek and learned the names of the wildflowers from his mother.
While majoring in voice at Elon College, Powell met the man she married in 1953, Bob Powell, of Wilmington. The family lived in various parts of the state because of Bob Powell’s work at the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms before moving here when he became the agent in charge of the ATF office in Wilkesboro in 1968.
They moved to Michigan when Bob Powell was promoted to ATF assistant special agent-in-charge for Michigan in 1976, but returned to Wilkes three years later when he retired rather than accept another transfer. “Bob loved Wilkes County,” Powell said.
Powell earned an associate of arts degree from Wilkes Community College and Bachelor of Science and Master’s Degrees in art education from Appalachian State University. She was an art teacher in the Wilkes schools for eight years and taught art privately for many years.
Powell said his wife, who died in 2012, and their children, Susan, Bob Jr. and David, have been great supporters of his work. The fourth child, Stephen, died. Powell has two grandchildren, one great-grandchild.
In addition to arts organizations, Powell is an active member of the North Wilkesboro Presbyterian Church and the North Wilkesboro Rotary Club.
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