Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502200024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SALLY HARRIS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
An artist with a lifelong love of animals could have painted hundreds of cats and dogs. Instead, Carol Flynn Hoge paints mountains and flowers and turns the energy of her love of animals to saving their lives.
In a studio overflowing with large, dramatic canvases, books, and paints and brushes on a white drop cloth splotched with color, Carol Hoge paints flowers and landscapes.
She uses the money from these paintings to save countless animals from starvation, disease and misuse. About half the price of each painting she sells goes to support her passion for caring for hapless animals - by taking pet food to people who can't afford it, by caring for strays, by paying to spay or neuter other people's animals.
"My friends who know me well, if they know I have a vet bill, will come out and buy a painting," she said.
Hoge's life seems to be a collage of art and animals. "I grew up with a mother who took in every stray in the neighborhood," she said.
She also grew up drawing. When a teacher in her Yonkers, N.Y., school told her parents she had a flair for color and should have art lessons, they hired a local artist to teach her. When she was old enough to ride the subway alone, she went to the Museum of Modern Art and then to the Hudson Museum for classes. She majored in art in high school and college.
Another teacher, this one at Mayville State Teachers College in Mayville, N.D., entered one of Hoge's floral collages in a tri-state show, and it won first place. The college bought it.
As a result, Hoge got her own show in the Rourke Gallery in Fargo, N.D., and, because of it, two universities bought her paintings. "That was the first time I'd actually sold anything for money and had a show of my own," she said. That was 1967.
Since then, Hoge has sold more than 1,000 paintings. Her works hang in banks and homes, in hospitals and galleries throughout the country. She has won awards such as Best in Show at the juried Petersburg (Va..) Art Festival and the University of Virginia Hospital Show.
"My objective when I'm painting is to express an emotion that a particular sight has aroused in me," she said. "I am able to convey my love for the mountains and nature. I am inspired by my environment and color, and shapes interest me and challenge me the most."
She prefers "free-falling forms" over detailed images and often works from imagination and memory, using color "to create a mood or state of mind." And, when she uses color with interesting shapes, she said, "harmony is achieved to lay the foundation for a good painting."
Even though her first training was with oils, Hoge prefers to work with acrylics "because they can be transparent, translucent or opaque." They also lend themselves to the large canvases she loves to paint.
Hoge prices her paintings for the general public and enjoys seeing them hanging anywhere - beauty shops, restaurants, banks, homes, galleries.
For a solo show at Gallery 3 in Roanoke March 3-31, she is working on 20 paintings, from a glowing Oriental floral to mountains of various shades of browns and blues to an abstract collage triptych. Her florals are inspired by artist Georgia O'Keefe and are "exploding colors and shapes" that emphasize form, not individual flowers.
"I'm getting away from last year's blues and greens and brightening up," she said. "This year's will be done with more crimsons, brighter golds than I've ever used before."
Hoge's conversations are interrupted by phone calls, usually about animals. It is no surprise that her love of art led her into the cause that would consume much of her time for years to come.
She moved to Blacksburg nearly 20 years ago and had a solo show at Block Prints. "I think I sold everything in that show," she said. "That established me in this area."
A few years later, she went to an art auction benefiting the Montgomery County Humane Society, which did not have a shelter at the time, and volunteered to help.
"I attended three meetings and was asked to consider being a board member," she said. "After one year, I was asked to run for president, and I didn't run against anybody. If you were willing to do it, you got it."
For the next four years, her phone rang so much she had to wear a beeper. "If somebody found a pup, if somebody found kittens, I was called," she said.
While she was president, the society raised enough money to rent a shelter and then decided to buy the Hans Meadow facility. "I think it's the most worthwhile organization I've been involved with because every penny donated helps with the operation of the shelter, and it takes in and places so many animals," she said. "It's a no-kill shelter. I couldn't support a shelter that euthanized. Our adoption rate is phenomenal."
Still active with the society, Hoge gives not only time, but her own money for the welfare of animals. Because the society's limited budget must be spent on the shelter itself, Hoge uses the funds from the collection boxes to make weekly trips to provide food for pets of people who can't afford to buy it. "They wouldn't be able to keep their pets if I didn't help," she said.
When the shelter is full, she pays people to keep animals. She still gets many calls from people who have found strays or who must give up a pet. One dog, for example, has an ear infection that must be treated before it can be placed. And Hoge has an account at a veterinary clinic so that people who cannot afford to spay or neuter their pets can have it done. "When it gets up to $1,500 to $2,000, some of my friends help with that," she said.
In 1991, when Hoge was named Mother of the Year in arts and sciences, her family emphasized her generosity. She donates paintings to "any group I feel needs support," including the Friends of the New River Symphony, the Medical Clinic, the Virginia Tech Alumni Association and the Roanoke Fine Arts Museum.
Her volunteer work is done in addition to her work as a wife and mother of five children, a home-bound teacher for grades K-12, a free-lance art teacher, and an artist who tries to paint every day. She also feeds the family's 13 cats and five dogs, all dropped off. "I've never had an animal of choice," she said.
But she loves every minute of it. "People who know me will say I absolutely love life and I love painting and I'm very appreciative that I've had a wonderful life thus far and a talent I could share with so many people."
Memo: NOTE: Also ran in March 2, 1995 Neighbors.