Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203060218
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NELL H. COBB
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bell came to Covington as a bride in 1936 from her home in Appleton, Wis. She started housekeeping, became an active member of the First Presbyterian Church and soon organized an art group. The latter recalled her student days when such friends as Ross Lewis, 1935 Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist for the Milwaukee Journal, and Margaret Sommerfeld, a notable New York fashion artist, were members of her college art group known as "The Birds."
"We were having fun in those days and didn't know it," Bell nostalgically recalls. "We were always doing crazy, fun things."
Bell graduated from high school at 16 and attended Lawrence College in Appleton for a year. She left home the following year to study teaching at Milwaukee State Normal School.
A chance meeting on the train to Milwaukee changed the direction of her life. "I enrolled in the school of arts division due to the encouragement of a mere acquaintance - a stranger really - whom I met on the trip down," Bell laughs, savoring the joy of the direction.
Her parents did not object. After all, her father was an architect, and her mother enjoyed setting up an easel in the kitchen, just as Bell does today.
"I congratulate myself everyday that I can still do it, that I can see and enjoy," Bell says with a note of gratitude and pride.
"You know, I ask myself sometimes, `Why am I doing this [painting]?' It is not for money or fame. I love the feel of paint under my fingers. I always wanted to be an artist, even as a very young child."
Today, Carla Bell is called the dean of the Alleghany Highlands artist community. She has taught art - painting, drawing and design - both privately and at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College over the years and has shown her work locally, in her home state and elsewhere.
In the past 30 years, she has had 19 solo shows at colleges and at the Art Center in Clifton Forge. Many of her paintings hang on her neighbors' walls and in homes, offices and schools across the country. She is comfortable with various media, but she prefers oils.
"Oils allow you to play to some extent. It is somewhat akin to working with clay; it's the most free," Bell says.
One of her early oils won a coveted second prize in 1929 for portraiture at a Wisconsin state-wide exhibition sponsored by the Art Institute of Milwaukee. Titled "Annette," this piece will be one of many portraits in the show.
For more than 20 years, Bell has been my next-door neighbor and friend, as well as an adopted grandmother who captured my children on canvas at ages 4 and 7.
Many an afternoon I would call all over the neighborhood, only to find one of the children visiting "Miss Bell's" kitchen studio, absorbed by the latest work in progress.
Later these visits developed into regular art lessons for our son. The artist and her young apprentice established a rapport that transcended age. A childhood fascination became a shared experience: a period of study and learning, an appreciation for both the artist and her world.
Over the years, Bell has influenced not only my family's life but an ever-widening world through her work as an artist.
Reflecting on her life's work, Bell says: "Art has always been a religious experience for me. I approach it as I do worship, a coming before the Creator. Life would be empty without drawings.
"Every day, each season brings something new, something I must put on paper. I just hope I've taught my students to find that same pleasure."
Nell Cobb lives in Covington. A Hollins College graduate, she has taught English at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge.
CARLA HELLER BELL'S one-woman show, "Lives and Loves: A Retrospective," is on exhibit at the Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center in Clifton Forge through March 28. 862-4447.
by CNB