ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9611010074
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY JO SHANNON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
``The Lord has blessed me with a charmed life," says Bea Gibbons. She turned 86 in mid-October, and still leads an active life - busy with the Allegheny Garden Club, activities at First Baptist Church, and her business, S&B Flowart.
At age 85, she staged a comeback. When the Junior League was looking for items to sell at its Stocked Market last year, Gibbons' daughter Sarah Gibbons Kohler remembered the pictures her mother used to make with dried flowers.
Most of those pictures, created more than 30 years ago, featured delicate artistic arrangements in antique frames. A 1960 story in the Roanoke World-News says Gibbons designed each picture for the decor of the room where it would hang. She grew her own flowers and pressed the blossoms when they were at the peak of perfection.
"I had not made flower pictures for years," Gibbons said. "Then when the league approached me, I got interested again and produced over 200 items for the Stocked Market. They brought in $2,000."
These pictures were smaller and a different style from her original work. They included photograph frames with decorated mats, note paper and wedding invitations and miniature designs in tiny frames. In addition to the traditional designs, Gibbons experimented with abstracts and Oriental designs.
The project for the Junior League reactivated her interest in the craft and has led to a joint effort with her daughter Sarah to market the products.
Gibbons' workroom is filled with stacks of mat board, each holding dozens of delicate dried blossoms, like cutouts from brightly colored tissue paper. Dogwood, azaleas, lilies of the valley, buttercups and bougainvillea will later be placed carefully on matte paper and rearranged until the effect is exactly what the artist has in mind.
"I make the design, then glue each piece in place," Gibbons said. She prefers white glue for this part of the work.
Although the colors will eventually fade - some of the pictures in her home are more than 40 years old - the sepia tones are lovely and antique in nature.
Sarah, a counselor at Cloverdale Elementary School, grows most of the flowers and also makes flower pictures. Sarah's husband, Bill Kohler, a teacher at Lord Botetourt High School, is a watercolor artist.
"Our family is just oozing art," Gibbons said. "My daughter Drew expresses her art differently. She teaches, directs and produces drama for the Franklin County High School theater company."
Besides her flower art, Gibbons said, she has had "three other careers."
A native of Norfolk, she was a legal secretary and court reporter for the Navy during World War II. At that time, she met her husband Bill, who served in the Army Air Force. After the war, they moved to Roanoke, Bill's home, where he worked at Colonial American Bank.
While her daughters were in college, Gibbons spent several years as a travel agent.
Another career, modeling, began in Norfolk when she was 18. In Roanoke, she modeled at Samuel Spiegel Inc. (a stylish women's ready-to-wear) and at Miller & Rhoads Tea Room.
"I was 68 years old and modeled six years at Miller & Rhoads. I got so tired of taping shoes." She explained that the soles of new shoes - a different pair for each outfit she modeled - had to be taped to prevent wear.
At age 80, Gibbons modeled for the Balmoral Ladies' Day at the Shenandoah Club.
Her pictures are on sale at Hotel Roanoke, and she fills requests for wedding invitations and other flower artwork.
And the Stocked Market will have her pictures again this year. It will be held Nov. 8-10.
S&B Flowart can be reached at 563-2423 or 981-1398.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON\Staff. 1. Bea Gibbons of Roanoke displaysby CNBone of her framed flower pictures. Gibbons staged something of a
comeback in 1995 when, at age 85, she produced more than 200 items
using dried flowers for the Junior League's Stocked Market. 2. One
of Bea Gibbons' works: a wedding invitation adorned with pressed
flowers. color.