Now and then, full of good stories and good humor, Collene Karcher can describe herself not only as an artist but as a reclusive artist—off to herself, chisel in hand, absorbed in detail.
There’s truth to it, for sure, but it’s also fair to say that this stone carver, letter cutter and sculptor plays host to an extraordinary procession of friends and visitors who are constantly ducking in and out of her world or who charmingly emerge at the tips of her own fingers.
For the record, Collene lives and works in a fit of hardwoods on a curving ridge north of Bakersville where she and her husband John recently finished both a new home and a studio, each designed and hand-built by the two of them, piece by piece, board by board.
Living in a tent for months while they raised their house brought them in touch with a stream of area inhabitants, including a building inspector who gave them both codes and encouragements, and some hyper-curious neighbors who felt comfortable showing up most any time of the day or night.
“The racoons just mosied right in,” Collene says, “and birds came down to visit. One black-hooded warbler sat at the dinner table with us or hitched a ride on John’s head. At night, the lunas showed up—bigger than your hand—making shadows on the tent.”
And there are other visitors, too, sometimes lots of them.
“It can be corny and romantic how people find me sometimes,” Collene says. “But it’s always great when they come to the studio. It’s very tactile here. I say, sure, everything is meant to be touched. And I learn so much from one-on-one conversations that you can’t have when your work is off in a gallery and you’re some place else. Here I can talk about how I saw something or made something. What happened along the way. Why I used a certain technique or a certain quarry. All in person. And people who visit educate me about what they do.
“I just believe it makes for a better experience to sell work directly out of the studio. I get to spend more time working. And people enjoy being here. In times gone by, book clubs have met in my garden and families have held get-togethers. This is art that’s meant to be lived with.”
In Collene’s artistic vernacular, her pieces oftentimes combine classical sculpture of the human form using marble, limestone or alabaster with Trajan or Roman letter cutting. Practically a lost art in this country, the hand painting, then chiseling of letters on slate blocks and shards has a look and a feel to it—a soulfulness—that sand-blasted letters can never achieve.
Collene’s hand-cut letters, phrases and expressions often turn up as part of her work for the garden, whether as part of a bench or outdoor stone sink or classical torso ingeniously married to a birdhouse. Or they could just as easily flavor an environment where Collene’s frogs, luna moths, bees, roosters and mythological sirens hang out, whimsically and gorgeously entrapped in medallions, triangles and other shapes, awaiting the first sprigs of spring.
“The medium takes time,” says Collene. “It can take me a month to do a single lettered piece.”
And a lifetime of being a happy, cordial, inspired, and socially astute reclusive artist.
Excerpted from the first edition of The Toe River Journal, to appear on regional newsstands in April.
