Carol Williams leans on her sign, outside of the Hot Button Gallery entrance on Sunday. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Almost two years ago, Shepherdstown-based multimedia artist Carol Williams took over a lease at 129 East German Street, to open the Hot Button Gallery in the space.

The gallery replaced a photography gallery in the space owned by her husband, Kimo, who had grown out of his interest in photography and decided to sell his professional-grade cameras in summer 2022.

“It’s such a wonderful space! I love this building,” Williams said, in between visitors to her gallery on Sunday afternoon. “This location has a nice ambience and great lighting for art.”

Williams and her husband met, while both were playing in the U.S. Army Band. After finishing her enlistment, Williams earned a nursing degree, so that she would be able to afford to continue to enjoy her favorite hobby — music. It wasn’t until many years later that she ended up discovering her similar passion for art.

“Back in 2016, I took a quilting class at Jo-Ann Fabrics and quickly found out I don’t want to make full-sized quilts. And then I started to make little hangings that were whimsical and cute, just using buttons that I found around the house,” Williams said. “My first love is political cartoons, but I don’t draw. So instead, I began to turn my hangings and other items into my own forms of political cartoons.”

Art enthusiasts take a look around the Hot Button Gallery on Sunday afternoon. Tabitha Johnston

Rather than considering herself an artist, Williams prefers to use a label more directly related to her work and the intention behind it.

“Actually, I call myself a ‘craftivist,’ which defines someone who uses their craft as a form of activism,” Williams said. “A British woman coined that phrase. She did this thing called ‘yarn bombing,’ where she and other people would go out to a public plaza and knit sweaters for the trees or crochet stuff to put on the lamp posts, to draw attention to some issue that they wanted to make sure everyone paid attention to — usually, environmental stuff.

“You can do craftivism with any kind of craft. But, unfortunately, craftivists often go unrecognized, because the world is too busy, thinking that art is this one thing and one thing only,” Williams said. “The word ‘art’ can be very polarizing, very elitist, very commercial — you have to have an education in the field and compete and have people who will buy your stuff. It’s just as sick as any other type of capitalist thing that we do.”

Williams has forged her own path for craftivism, without caving to all of those restrictions in the art world, by joining artist guilds in Frederick, Md. and Washington, D.C. She has had her work featured in a number of art galleries and, this and next year, will have at least three solo shows being exhibited at galleries in Gettysburg, Pa., Cumberland, Md. and at The Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, Md.

“They will be less political — I don’t think they want my Trump stuff! But fortunately, I have a lot of work that’s not on the floor here, with less of a political focus,” Williams said. “I curate my shows for what would be more fitting of what another gallery would approve of. I completely yield to whatever it is that they want — that’s not censorship, when another institution or organization has a space and they tell you what they do and they do not want.”

“The Squeeze” is one of many multimedia art pieces in the Hot Button Gallery. Tabitha Johnston

For Williams, having her own gallery has given her a greater sense of freedom than most artists, who have to constantly bow to the preferences of their customers and gallery owners, possess.

“If it’s your space, I’ll go with whatever your rules are,” Williams said. “But here, this is my space and I get to make the rules!”

The Hot Button Gallery is located at 129 East German Street. Tabitha Johnston