Alabama's Art Colony

Sarah Carlisle Towery has traveled the world but feels most at home when painting on Lake Martin

by Lane McMurray Saunders

Not many people can see beauty in a dead sunflower’s bowed head. At age 95, artist Sarah Carlisle Towery sees beauty in everything around her.

Sitting on the terrace in her back yard she speaks of all the beautiful colors of green the trees and shrubbery take on as the sun moves across the afternoon sky.

“See how the sun filters through the leaves,” she says. “Think of how many shades of green the leaves turn as the sun shines through them.”

A kindergarten teacher by profession, Towery has always had a passion for children and a passion for art.

“The happiest days of my life were spent with the children,” she says. “I love when former students come and visit.”

Towery combined her passions by teach kindergarten in the morning and art in the afternoon, both in her Alexander City home. She speaks fondly of her former students throughout the years and is proud of their work and their accomplishments.

“Children see things differently from adults,” she says thoughtfully. “They’re so creative and so passionate about what they see. They don’t all see an apple the same way. We must not criticize their creativity,” she says passionately.

“I did a pen and ink drawing of Abraham Lincoln for my father when I was 14 or 15 years old. He loved that drawing. He framed it. His praise of the drawing inspired me so much,” she remembers.

Towery has taught art at the Demonstration School at the University of Alabama and at Southern Union State Community College in Wadley. She studied her craft at art colonies and schools throughout the United States, Europe and Mexico. In 1999 Governor Don Siegelman presented her The Alabama Governor’s Award for the Arts.

Towery speaks of studying with Viktor Lowenfeld at Pennsylvania State University and of his belief that children should be given the opportunity to grow through making art. She explains how Lowenfeld believes an adult’s interference in children’s art activities intimidates them and causes them to lose their creativity.

“Don’t write all this down,” she says, placing her soft brown fingers across my writing hand. “I get started talking about children and I can’t quit.”

It’s obvious that Towery is a patient teacher with the ability to develop a student’s vision through compliments and gentle critique.

“Let me tell you about Black Mountain University,” she says. “I loved studying there.”

A quiet beauty radiates from her as she begins reminiscing about this part of her life. Her warm brown eyes light up and her bracelets clink on the table’s edge as she punctuates her thoughts.

Black Mountain College was founded in 1933 and served as a gathering place for artists and poets. Informal class structure was combined with communal living and dedicated to educational and artistic experimentation.

“During World War II, Black Mountain College served as a gathering place for European refugees and their families,” she continues. “German and French people were being brought out in the underground.”

“While I was at Black Mountain, Sigmund Freud’s daughter-in-law (Lucie Lux Freud) was teaching an art classes to the children of the war refugees. I worked with her and the class and I sent her stuff.

“I studied painting at Black Mountain under Josef Albers,” she says proudly.

Albers, a German painter, is best known for his work as an abstract painter and theorist. His series, Homage to the Square, is composed of hundreds of paintings and prints that explore chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically on canvas.

Towery is currently working on a painting she calls Homage to Josef Albers. Albers’ flat colored squares are painted on the right corner of the canvas in shades of blue, white, pink, and yellow. A large vase of white flowers covers the canvas’ left side. A few yellow and pink blooms are gathered with the white flowers.

“I’m using the circles of the flowers to offset the Albers’ squares,” she says as she runs her fingers over the canvas. “I thought I would do a painting where the circles and the squares would work together and not compete. I think it’s almost finished but I think the center of this flower needs more yellow,” she says critiquing her own work. “Don’t you think so?”

As she talks of her long association with art, she wistfully reminisces how much she enjoyed studying mural painting at Pennsylvania State University.

“I took mural painting. I was so excited. We used all the Old Masters’ techniques. I had a wonderful instructor.”

She talks proudly of making her own paint, using egg yolk, and of rubbing a sliced onion over the painting surface to help the oils adhere.

“We did everything just like the Old Masters painters did. We had to beat the egg up to make the paint. We had dried powder to mix and make our own paint. It was fascinating! I chose my family to paint for my mural at the school. Of course they painted over it after we left to make room for other students’ work.

“When I came home I painted several murals in Alexander City,” she says smiling. “I’m most proud of the murals. I’d like everyone to see them. Every time I see them … I’m just so proud!”

Her murals may be seen at Special Services Vending, at the First United Methodist Church, and at the Nathaniel Stephens Elementary School lunchroom, all in Alexander City.

Her inspiration comes from her many painting trips to Mexico.

“I’d go most summers and at Christmas,” she says. “It was a wonderful time in my life. The atmosphere there and the people and the place we stayed … we stayed right downtown in San Miguel de Allende.”

She grows quiet as she remembers those years, her memories almost visible in the changing expressions on her face and in her warm brown eyes.

Towery is a charter member of the World Art Workshop, which was organized in 1972 during a painting trip with friends to Mexico. The group set its purpose to travel, study and paint in unusual and unfamiliar places.

“We wanted to travel, to go to new places, and experience new things, and paint,” she says.

The group painted in Greece on the islands of S‡mos and P‡ros for two summers.

In 1991, seven members of the World Art Workshop were invited to Alexander City by Towery’s children to form the Sarah C. Towery Art Colony on Lake Martin.

“I always wanted Lake Martin to have an art colony,” she says. “I had been to art colonies and enjoyed them. My children invited the artists to Lake Martin. The artists brought their wives or husbands and we all stayed in a cabin at the lake and painted. Everyone was so nice to us. We had a wonderful stay.”

She speaks of the area’s younger artists and her hopes of those friends keeping the art colony alive.

“I hope the local artists will keep the colony going after my death,” she says.

The Art Colony has grown and flourished. Students and instructors from around the country and abroad gather for five days of painting and instruction at Children’s Harbor on Lake Martin in the fall of the year.

“I love Lake Martin,” she says. “It’s so beautiful. I think it’s a wonderful place. But it’s growing and growing. I wish we could just keep it like it is. It seems perfect to me.”

“Let me show you my studio,” she says. “I want you to see my work in the house.”

We walk through her house and look at her paintings and the portraits of her children. “I’ve had a wonderful life, but I’ve had sadness, too,” she said, pointing to the portrait of a daughter who is deceased.

“I’m the tenth of 12 children,” she says, “and I had a wonderful childhood. My older brothers and sisters were so good to me. My brother John D. had a car and he taught me to drive in a Studebaker with a rumble seat,” she says chuckling.

“Children never think of all the sacrifices their mothers and fathers make in raising them,” she says seriously. She points to a collage of muted faces painted on Godiva chocolate paper wrappers.

“My granddaughter is always sending me Godiva chocolate and it’s wrapped in this beautiful paper. I was thinking about children and their mothers’ sacrifices when I was creating this. I painted lots of children and a few adults on the paper. I was thinking about mothers worrying about their children, about sending them to school, and about feeding them. And I cut out words from magazines to paste on the painting. I put the ad about the diamond ring on the side for a joke.”

We round the corner and several vases of dried flowers sit on tables.

“Everyone wants me to throw these dead flowers out,” she laughs. “But look at the beauty in the lines of the flowers.”

The muted colors of the flowers capture her imagination as she gently runs her hands over the blooms.

“See the little bells, the wonderful shapes and lines. I don’t think people should throw them out. I think I’ll spray paint them with different colors and see what happens.”

“Look at these dried camellias,” she says, speaking of the dried blooms arranged with sea glass around a candle. “I painted some of them. Aren’t they beautiful.”

Her studio on the ground floor of her home once housed her kindergarten students but now her paintings and creations of family and friends and students and famous artists line the walls and shelves. Only the small colored chairs around the table speak of its having been a kindergarten. As she points to the paintings and interprets them to me she points to her great-grandchildren’s artwork hanging on the wall. “My great-grandchildren visited me yesterday and we had such a wonderful time getting the paints out.”

Catie Radney, first-place winner in this year’s Alexander City Public Library Art Show, speaks of Mrs. Towery’s influence on her life and her painting. “I love to talk to Mrs. Sarah. She has so many stories and so much knowledge to share. Her love of art and her words of wisdom have touched so many people. I admire her passion for art. She is truly inspiring!”

Leaving Mrs. Towery’s home, the sun has dropped and the leaves are now a forest, dark green around her house. She stands on the porch watching me drive away and I think of all the glorious colors in her life and in her artwork. As Pablo Picasso said, “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others, thanks to their art and intelligence, who transform a yellow spot into the sun.”