The Gallery @ Barr Photographics announces the summer installment of the Corner Gallery’s 2020 exhibition series

The Gallery @ Barr Photographics announces the summer installment of the Corner Gallery’s 2020 exhibition series with a collection of oil or watercolor paintings entitled “Etcetera!” by award winning, Rogersville, Tennessee artist, Carol Thomason.

            In her biographical sketch Carol states, “I was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, where I lived, for 57 years, until my husband Bill and I moved to Rogersville Tennessee seven years ago. Both Bill and I worked for the State of Mississippi Wildlife Department, after retirement I opened a gift shop in Mississippi, where I sold gift merchandise and hand painted ceramics and taught classes for ceramic painting. The retail gift shop segued into a wholesale business of providing my hand painted ceramics to other gift stores. At one time I employed seven people and sold ceramic creations to over two hundred and twenty five stores nationally. I did trunk shows for high end hotels and casinos in and around Mississippi, where I would sell ceramics and personalize the works for individual customers. After five years I realized that we were running out selves ragged and decided to get out of the wholesale ceramic business. Shortly thereafter we moved to Rogersville, where I began concentrate more on image production via painting 2-d images. I paint in various media, pastel, oil, acrylic and watercolor. Recently most of my production has been watercolor and oil, which is reflected in “Etcetera!” Now we enjoy retirement, sitting back with a cool glass of tea and I paint on my own schedule.”

            Mrs. Thomason reveals in her artist’s statement, “Everyone needs to take at least one hour of their day to do what they love to do, "I call this ME" time, whether it is painting, gardening, working on models, clay, stained glass, etc., I can usually find the time to play.  I've always seemed to be drawn to my paints and brushes even though I've tried a million different crafts.  It was not until I moved to Tennessee that a whole new world opened up with new beautiful subjects to paint.  The only problem is my ME time has turned into a lot longer than one hour on certain days!  I've always heard "love what you do and do what you love" and I've found out that painting is my passion, which seems to be okay with my husband, so I paint away.  He told me that a clean house doesn't make memories, so I paint…a lot! Now, all I seem to want to do is travel and take pictures so I can get started on my next painting.  GOD has given us an endless supply of subjects to paint and I'm certainly going to take advantage of it.  Even though GOD is the master painter and I will never be able to match the colors he uses, the joy of painting is in my heart.”

 “Etcetera!” will be celebrated with a reception, gallery talk and demonstration of technique by Carol Thomason, to which the public is cordially invited, on Friday, 12 June from 7 - 9:00 PM in The Gallery @ Barr Photographics, 152 E. Main Street, Abingdon, Virginia. Masks and Social Distancing REQUIRED!  “Etcetera!” will hang, and be offered for sale, through 31, May.   The Gallery @ Barr Photographics is housed in the Greenway Trigg Building, located in the heart of Abingdon’s main street historic district.  Please call 276- 628-1486 or visit http://barrphotographics.com/CornerGalleryFeatureArtist.aspx?cms=9386 for further information.