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I live in North Carolina very close to where I was born and raised. My husband and I have been married for almost 30 years, and I have one son, a wonderful daughter-in-law, and three lovely grandchildren. My experience in painting goes back at least 30 years. I love to work in oils, watercolor and acrylic mediums. My first art teacher was my mother, Elaine Benfield. She and my late dad, Clyde, continue to inspire me through encouragement and the memory of it.
Mother coerced me into going and paid for my first watercolor workshop with Mariam Simpson of New York many years ago. We took it together; and to this day, still laugh at our first paintings. It was very appropriate that we were taking the class in an elementary school room. We laughed so hard we thought “the teacher” was going to throw us out. The first-grade artwork on the wall looked much better than what we did. It was absolutely necessary to stop by the store and buy mats for our paintings before we unveiled our work to my dad and husband. It really did make them look better .....a little. My next teacher was Berthe Michel of Salisbury, North Carolina, who gave me private instruction in watercolor.
I’m not sure of her age, but she was very experienced and such an inspiration to me. She critiqued an oil painting for me that I had done outside of her studio; and I still remember how I felt when she gave me her honest opinion. She said, “You’ve never studied trees, have you? Your limbs look like rubber hoses!” It hurt at the time, but it was true. Now I never paint a tree branch without thinking of rubber hoses. She would also say “it’s just a piece of paper”, so thinking of it that way made me less afraid to mess up. Her house was full of her paintings.
One I remember in particular hanging in her hallway was of fried eggs on a plate. I had never thought of an egg as a subject until then, but it made a great picture. We’d have a break during the class; and she’d serve baklava she had ordered from a catalog. Writing about her really does bring back a lot of great memories. I don’t know if she’s still alive, but I would love to tell her what she meant to me because I don’t think she ever knew. When I lived in Virginia, I had another teacher that was also inspirational.
My interest in pottery began somewhere around the year 2000 when I was lucky enough to be given a kiln by a neighbor of my friend, writer and artist, Mary Lee Scalf. I knew absolutely nothing about pottery, much less how to operate a kiln. At the time, our garage was set up as a mini-florist, complete with silk flowers, oasis, and all the other tools I needed, so I had no idea where I was going to find room. Contrary to the reaction I expected, my husband Ron was more than willing to manually haul it up the hill from the lady's patio.
He wired the 220 it needed, and it found its place in the florist. The first time I fired it, after reading the instructions over and over again, I was a nervous wreck. I felt as if I were launching a rocket into outerspace. Obviously, it has become second nature now. Handbuilding classes were first on my agenda, with a local high school offering adult classes at night. Once I was proficient at that, I bought a wheel; and took private lessons from Sonja Stoekli, a very talented artist who also taught the handbuilding class.