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‘The bee’s knees’: Artists use environmentally-friendly methods to create visual masterpieces

By Tabitha Johnston - Chronicle Staff | Sep 29, 2023

Left Field Clock Company artisan Anna Howard, left, shares discusses her art with Shannon Powers, of Harrisburg, Pa. in Evolve on Sunday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — “Especially with encaustics, people have no idea what it is!” said “Chief Stemwinder” Anna Howard, regarding the artistic medium employed by her friend, Theresa Fitzpatrick, who was collaborating with her to hold a pop-up art show in Evolve last weekend.

Serendipitously, the two artists met when Fitzpatrick moved to the same housing development and joined the same artist co-op as Howard, after moving to Falling Waters with her husband in 2021.

“We’ve got unique art. Most people think of photography, ceramics, painting — whether it’s acrylics or watercolor (when they think of art), so there’s this curiosity people have, when they see that our art is different from what they expect!” Howard said. “What’s nice about Evolve is that people can come in and there’s space to look at the art and take it all in, whereas when you’re at a show where there’s tent-after-tent-after-tent and you’re being shoved along with the crowd, you can’t really stop and take it all in.”

While the rain from Tropical Storm Ophelia over the weekend kept some art lovers at home, Howard and Fitzpatrick agreed their sales from the weekend were still high enough that they plan to hold a second pop-up art show at Evolve sometime next year. In the meantime, Howard will continue to create “uncommon clocks made with laughter and art” for other art shows and custom orders with her business, Left Field Clock Company. Fitzpatrick will also keep busy, embroidering fields of flowers on wet felting hangings, made from wool from a friend’s farm in Pennsylvania, as well as painting canvases with colored beeswax, collected from her own two beehives and purchased from Hive House Apiaries.

Though she has been a beekeeper for 13 years, Fitzpatrick said she herself was unfamiliar with the artistic medium of encaustics until a little over a year ago, when a friend asked her to participate in an encaustics workshop with her.

"Field of Flowers," one of Theresa Fitzpatrick's encaustic works of art, hangs on display in Evolve on Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

“I love weaving on the loom, embroidery, cross stitching and wet felting — the tactile fiber arts are more interesting to me than the fine arts,” Fitzpatrick said.

But after completing the encaustics workshop, Fitzpatrick felt inspired to continue practicing the artistic medium, while putting the beeswax from her hives to good use. Much like her use of regionally-sourced wool to create art and Howard’s use of odds-and-ends — like old Kitchen Aid mixers, dog tags and science fiction books — to construct clock sculptures, Fitzpatrick’s new artistic medium emits a small carbon footprint, so much so that customers have referred to it as “upcycling” in the past.

“When I started this, that’s when ‘upcycling’ was becoming a popular term. Everybody was talking about upcycling,” Howard said. “Yes, it is technically that. But to me, this is art first. I just happen to use things that have already been produced.

“The motivation is not to upcycle, however,” Howard said. “The motivation was, because I can’t draw or paint well, creating these clocks has become my pallet.”

Though both artists selected their artistic mediums due to their own natural taste and abilities, they agreed that creating art that benefits the environment feels like an instinctive choice, possibly related to their upbringings.

Theresa Fitzpatrick, of Falling Waters, shows off an embroidered, wet felting piece, "Garden," at her pop-up art show in Evolve on Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

“I grew up on a dairy farm in the Midwest. Out there, the mindset was that you should take care of the land and the animals, because they give so much back to you,” Howard said.

Fitzpatrick herself remembered back to times when her Italian grandfather would take her hunting with him, during which they never shot anything.

“I’ve always had a great fascination for nature,” Fitzpatrick said, pointing out all of the trees and flowers depicted in her art. “You had a garden — that’s just what you did back then! And you appreciated trees. If you worked really hard and you saved money and you bought something, you didn’t throw it away — you somehow recycled it. I think that mindset has been ingrained in us.”

Clock sculptures adorn a wall in Evolve over the weekend. Tabitha Johnston