Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 3, 1993 TAG: 9302030154
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
2 ARTISTS PLAN PULASKI STUDIOS
Two highly individualistic artists will open studios and sales outlets in downtown Pulaski later this year.Annie Moon went from painting to quilts and now specializes in unique dolls of various materials. Pam Tyrrell went from commercial art to making various kinds of items from materials that others would throw away.
They met a few years ago when they came to the New River Valley by different paths. They ended up becoming neighbors when they lived on Goose Creek and traded school buses.
"She had a bus that ran, and I had a bus that didn't run," recalled Tyrrell, whose bus broke down in Roanoke.
But Tyrrell's bus had a wood stove in it, and Moon had cast envious eyes on it while Tyrrell was wishing she had a bus that would still go.
"And one day, one of us slipped and it came out," Tyrrell said. They were delighted to make the trade.
Moon now uses the heated bus as part of her studio in Floyd County's Indian Valley, and Tyrrell has hers parked behind the house she is renting in Radford.
Moon hopes to open her shop in downtown Pulaski in April or May. Tyrrell will come to Pulaski's Main Street in October, after she returns from an annual New York trip to exhibit and sell her wares at the fall Renaissance Festival.
They will be part of the increasing number of antique and art shops that will accommodate visitors to Pulaski's Main Street this year.
Moon, 53, and Tyrrell, 41, made their bus trade last May but they had become acquainted by then.
"She had lots of stuff on her car and I saw her car go by," Tyrrell said. "She and I like to collect stuff because we never know what we're going to do with it."
Moon's dolls can be made of wire, fabric or paper.
Tyrrell paints, embellishes fabrics with beads and semi-precious stones, paints furniture and designs and paints clothing, among other things. Her home is a hodgepodge of boxes, drawers and other containers for the "stuff" from which she creates her products.
Both are born recyclers.
Tyrrell used to paint designs on T-shirts and throw away the paper that she put beneath the cloth to keep it from leaking onto her table. Now she uses that paper to make a variety of other items ranging from trays to book covers - and they sell better than the colored T-shirts.
"I have to sometimes paint shirts in order to get my paper," she said.
Tyrrell was a textile designer in New York before deciding to go to California and see the Pacific. She now has decided New River is water enough.
Moon was a painter in Norfolk before she ended up in this area.
"There is so much talent in the area," Tyrrell said. She expects great things from the burgeoning development in downtown Pulaski, she said, where she and Moon will be neighbors again.