UNION — Paintings by some of the residents of its assisted living center will be on display and for sale during Oakmont Resident Care Center’s first Art Exhibit.
Virginia Babb, supervisor and admissions coordinator, announced Friday that the Art Exhibit will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. today featuring the works of nine residents who are students in an art class taught by Carmen Jeter.
Babb said Jeter’s mother, Vivian Johnson, is a resident of the center and, like her daughter, is an artist herself. She said the class, which Jeter has taught for the past two years, grew out of a conversation they had after Jeter show her examples of her work and her mother’s.
“She showed me a couple of pictures her mother had done and that she had done,” Babb said. “We got to talking about how it would be a really great activity for the residents to start painting. So we started the art class.
“Carmen is our art instructor and teaches the class once a week,” she said. “She dedicates her time, she dedicates her talent, and she supplies a lot of the arts materials.”
Babb said Oakmont also supplies materials for the class and that a couple of people have donated art supplies. Some of the paintings produced by the class over the years have been sold and the money from the sales used to purchase art supplies for the class. She said the proceeds from the sale of any of the paintings on display in today’s exhibit will also be used to buy art supplies.
The paintings, which are on display in the three halls of the assisted living center, range from individual works to multiple interpretations of the same image to works based on nursery rhymes. Babb said the nursery rhyme paintings were done at the request of the Master Gardeners Club for the Union County Agricultural Fair. She said the club was so impressed by the work the arts class did that it is planning to donate a tree to the assisted living center.
“The nursery rhymes were displayed at the fair,” Babbs said. “The Master Gardeners Club requested the paintings and coordinated them with their flower displays at the fair. They liked them so much that they are going to donate a Magnolia tree which will be planted outside the center and dedicated to the residents.”
The majority of the paintings, however, are multiple versions of the same image, with each artist doing their own interpretation of the scene.
“Each artist paints the same thing but they are all different because of the different artists,” Babb said. “They have different visions of what they’ve seen and that’s what they paint.”
Babb said the students’ paintings of the same subject are displayed together so viewers can take in each interpretation.
Also on display are individual works including several by Jeter’s mother.
Babb said the paintings attract a great deal of attention, both from residents and visitors.
“The paintings get a lot of attention here,” Babb said. “The residents enjoy them and visitors are just amazed at the talent here.”
Babb said there are currently nine students in the class: Betty Byrd, Jennie Happerfield, Vivian Johnson, Kathryn Jolly, Louise Patrick, Margaret Reardon, Mary Jo Rogers, Lou Smith, and Peggy Vaughan. She said works by all the students will be on display this afternoon.
For more information about the Oakmont Art Exhibit call 427-0315.
Editor Charles Warner can be reached at 864-427-1234, ext. 14, or by email at cwarner@heartlandpublications.com.
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