The Art of Quilting

Lois Williams Wrangle is a prolific quilter, but she hasn’t always been.

Her quilting epiphany came in 1995. A friend at Church of the Good Shepherd made quilts for annual fundraising raffles.

When she had to quit, she asked church women to continue in her stead. Lois didn’t know how to quilt, but she wanted the tradition to continue. On the following Wednesday at 12:30 on a wing, a prayer, and a fat quarter, she walked into the Cashiers Quilters weekly meeting to embark on a new craft.

The rest is history.

The quilters welcomed her with open arms, nimble-thimbled fingers, and yards of fabulous fabric. Today Lois stitches lap quilts, adult and baby quilts, and so much more. If a thing’s not moving she’s likely to cover it with nine-patch, double-wedding ring, or eightpoint star.

Her husband once laughingly said, “Okay, let me get this straight. You buy a bunch of fabric. You cut it into little pieces. Then you stitch it all back together again.”

Right now, Lois is working on three quilts, shifting one to the other. Her most recent project is a pink baby quilt. Yep, you guessed

Lois Williams Wrangle

it. It’s for a granddaughter, due in October.

In the early 1900s quilts were household essentials. They were made of repurposed clothing, feed sacks, old linens, and fabric scraps. Mid-century templates replaced paper and cardboard patterns. Technology kicked in the 1980s when hand quilting was replaced by affordable quilting machines.

Today, most quilters do piecing by hand or sewing machine, then ship the cover off to a company that stitches quilt-top, fill, and quiltbottom together in a variety of dazzling designs. In just one century we’ve come a long way from quilting bees (piecing together Grampa’s thread-bare overalls and flour sacks) to phenomenal hand-dyed art fabric creations.

Cashiers Quilters are gearing up or a 2021 regrouping. Join them on Wednesdays at 12:30 P.M. at St. Jude’s Catholic Church. Beginner to advanced quilters are welcome. Aside from making quilts for family and friends, you can make cozy gifts of comfort for seniors, shut-ins, those in recovery, or those in need.

Assuming the Covid veil is lifted, you’re invited to Cashiers Quilt Show at the Cashiers Fall Leaf Festival, October 9. Call Guild President Joan at (828) 331-7031 or visit cashiersquilters.com.

The Bascom creates visual art experiences that inspire and empower individuals and communities through seeing, thinking and doing.

The continuous goals of The Bascom’s programming are building essential creative skills for area youth and adults, increasing professional development opportunities for artists and educators, and becoming a key player in the creative economy in Western North Carolina.

For over 30 years, The Bascom has been a vital cultural resource to the Western North Carolina region. What began in 1983 as a small exhibition space in one room of the Hudson Library now occupies a 6-acre former horse farm near downtown Highlands.

The 28,000-square-foot main building houses exhibition and event spaces, classrooms, offices, and a retail outlet. The adjacent David Drake Studio contains studio space for pottery and threedimensional arts instruction and additional retail space. Entrance to the campus is through an early 19th Century 87-footlong covered bridge. Along with sizable terraces, our outdoor spaces include meadows and forest land, streams and trails, unblemished mountain views and sculpture installations.

Annually, more than 25,000 people visit The Bascom. An additional 500 take classes in ceramics, drawing and painting,

Just before it plunges into a busy Summer Season, The Bascom pauses for a moment to reflect on over 30 years of vision and inspiration that’ve earned it a reputation far beyond the confines of the Plateau.

with more than 1,200 youth participating in art activities. We reach another 3,000 visitors and residents through our extensive outreach programs. We partner with local, county and state organizations and provide programming in local schools, libraries, senior centers, literacy councils, regional arts organizations and community nonprofits.

Our impact on the regional artistic community is significant in that we support almost 300 working artists through residencies, retail sales, exhibition sales and instruction.

If you’d like to learn more, visit thebascom.org or call (828) 526-4949. Of course, the best way to understand The Bascom and its treasures is to allow yourself a languid stroll through its galleries and spaces. It’s located at 323 Franklin Road.

by Billy Love, The Bascom

The Art League of Highlands-Cashiers’ May Program, set for Monday, May 24, at The Bascom will be given by Carol Misner.

The program begins at 4:30 P.M. with a wine reception. At 5:00 P.M. Misner, a botanical artist, will give a presentation of her work.

Ms. Misner, a former math professor, began her professional art career nearly two decades ago in Birmingham, Alabama.

A friend, an interior designer, recognized the quality of her creations, and encouraged her to begin selling her work instead of giving it away. She took his advice, and her friend’s interior design company became her first venue. Her work’s popularity grew, and she began receiving recognition across and beyond Alabama.

While attending the Atlanta Market, she took her portfolio to the Wendover Art Group, and she was immediately added to their stable of artists. Her work was highlighted a few months later at the High Point Market.

Ms. Misner has been a recurring featured artist for a number of auctions for major charities in Birmingham, including First Light, Exceptional Foundation, and Art Blink. Additionally, she received the high honor of being chosen by Birmingham Aids Outreach, which selects only one artist per year, to feature at its Arty Party fundraiser.

Carol has developed a unique technique, generally working in monochromatic acrylic washes, by applying several layers of paint, each as the previous layer dries. Those familiar with her paintings, immediately recognize her distinctive style.

Since moving to Highlands in 2015, she has produced many works of local flora.

Blackberry Farm, a luxury hotel and resort in Walland, Tennessee, has commissioned over two dozen of her paintings in which Highlands’ plants were dominant.

She says of her recent work, “My paintings depict the things that people really love about Highlands. My renderings bring the outside in.”

Misner’soriginal works and limited edition giclee reproductions grace homes and businesses throughout the United States and can be purchased directly from the artist, as well as locally at Acorns of Old Edwards Inn. Her website is carolmisnerstudio.com.

This informative presentation, as well as the wine reception, are free and the public is invited. For more information about the Art League, visit artleaguehighlands-cashiers.com.

The Art League of Highlands-Cashiers’ May meeting, set for May 24 at The Bascom, is a deep dive into the endlessly fascinating works of botanical artist Carol Misner.

Carol Misner

If you’re a Laurelphile, you probably remember Annell Metsker’s beautiful cover/article a decade ago. She’s back, having evolved from a photographer/painter to a stunning oil painter, both digital and traditional.

She still takes photographs and uses them as reference, but today she considers herself first-andforemost an oil painter.

Annell’s happiest portraying a human or pet, capturing bold color, shape, form, and texture at peak light.

She paints a dramatic story, establishing the subject’s true character with daubs, layers, and textural smears of impasto in photo-realism, impressionism, or abstraction.

While many of her portraits of pets are often an homage to a cherished four-legger now waiting at the Rainbow Bridge, one of her most heart-tugging works of art is that of a child.

Annell shares the experience, “I painted a first-time mom (at age 42) and her newborn. Every six months I created photo-realism paintings of her daughter. By age two-and-a-half the mom was satisfied with my process and allowed more creative freedom for what I call my Angel Portrait. As I studied the daughter’s face I kept thinking, ‘This child is truly an angel.’

“Months after unveiling the Angel Painting, I received a call from the grandmother. She said her daughter and baby were casualties in an auto accident. She said the paintings were a great comfort, for they captured her loved ones’ spirits. She felt their presence. I still get gooseflesh thinking of the foreshadowing of that sweet Angel.”

It’s the heart she paints into her work that makes it so captivating.

Contact Annell through her website, annell.com, or email her at annell@annell.com, or call her at (704) 996-0559. She’ll discuss your commission goals, background settings, wardrobe choices, and all the factors built into her art. Email several photos to get started, or set up a shoot at her Covid-free studio.

While she frequents Charlotte, she is a Lake Glenville resident and available for consultation. Let her fill your heirloom portrait and your home with heart-warming memories and forever smiles.

Photo by Susan Renfro

You’re probably a lot like me when it comes to tumbling out of the far end of this long, sad pandemic – a bit dazed, tripwiresensitive to a random cough or a sudden sneeze, and hungry, so hungry, for conversations with friends and out-of-the-blue people just passing by.

Languid conversations and quick, unexpected exchanges – these are the social lubricants that have made life on the Plateau not simply bearable, but sweet, and joyful, and marked with a touch of strange. They’re a gift that we freely share with one another and we bequest it upon visitors without hesitation.

Don’t believe me? Recall the last time you stopped by Highlands Post Office to mail a package. Or visited Albert Carlton-Cashiers Community Library to check out a DVD for the night. Or went to a kids’ soccer game at Zachary Park.

I’ll bet you a half-dozen cupcakes that you became enmeshed in a conversation that enlightened or entertained or shocked you in some way. Of course! That’s the way it’s always been!

The McKees and the Alleys and the McCalls and the Brysons set the standard for welcoming visitors and newcomers.

And folks gathered at The Mountaineer, and Tommy’s, and Helen’s Barn, and Bill’s Soda Shop, and Evan Pell’s General Store, and they’d share a meal or a cup of coffee or a pour of peach bounce (I’m looking at you, Helen’s Barn), and they’d chat, and gossip, and talk big, and whisper notions.

What a show! And everyone was invited! (By the way, if you’re a resident and you don’t know what I’m talking about and proclaim that you’ve never been part of the conversation, then Shame on You! Open your ears and your eyes and your mind and your heart! It’s been this way since the Cherokee and their Sacred Fires – you may not receive a formal invitation, but you’re always welcome to join in the talk.

But we went silent in March 2020. We and the country and the world.

Taking the place of those earnest chats and circular chautauquas was silence and an undercurrent of unease, even when we were following all the correct practices and procedures.

Which brings us to Calders Coffee Cafe, where the conversation has resumed in all its cheerful, unpredictable glory.

I visited on an ordinary Tuesday morning and stayed for a little over an hour.

Owners Clay and Leigh Hartman

Just what the doctor ordered: Calders Coffee Cafe serves up palate-pleasing beverages, comfort food that soothes something deep inside, and healthy doses of conversation. It’s located at 384 Main Street in Highlands.

Over the course of this visit, I saw eight friends for the first time since Before-Covid, learned of the arrival of three grandchildren, one divorce, two deaths, and one romance that not only survived but grew stronger over the course of the last year, and heard the Funniest Riddle in the Western World: “Why was Cinderella such a lousy baseball player?” “She had a Pumpkin for a Coach!” (My son Alex brought that one home from Mrs. Chalker’s Great Beginnings Class at Highlands School 27 years ago. What’s the life cycle of kids’ jokes and riddles: Do they set out across the world at the speed of laughter, arriving home after decades of service; or do they lie dormant like a hibernating Black Bear, waiting years for a sunny spring morning when they can startle and delight once more?)

Calders has preserved and revived something precious and vital that I’d feared had departed some time in the last 14 months.

Of course, this is all enhanced by Calders’ Bill of Fare, which, naturally, boasts organically-grown, ethically-sourced Java (that includes the signature Calders Vibe); Teas; Hot Chocolates (Milk and Dark – both wonderful, the Dark transcendent), Iced Drinks, and Frozen Beverages.

Let me spotlight the Shot in the Dark that I enjoyed on this visit: This is a smooth cup of java laced with a double shot of espresso. Consume the entire cup and you’ll be inspired/compelled to A) Write an opera; B) Develop an innovative hair style for yourself and your pet (and begin trimming it into existence right there); or C) Track down that Golden Person who never knew you existed in high school and proclaim to him/her that he/she made the biggest mistake of their life when they let you get away.

On the food side of the equation, there are Sandwiches (croissantbunned, english-muffined, and biscuited), pastries (including divine Cinnamon Rolls), and pretzels.

All of them facilitate the process of rumination and conversation, but let me single out two: New Yorker Bagels (that are actually made in the Big Apple) and Welsh Cakes, light and fluffy and as close to an emotional hug as my Anglophile Sweetie is apt to get until we’ve achieved some form of herd immunity.

Trust me, arm yourself with one of these savories and a cuppa of something brewed up at Calders and you’ll find the courage to fully embrace this strange season and, this is most important, rediscover the sublime joys of the Plateau’s favorite pastime.

Calders Coffee is located at 384 Main Street in Highlands. You can order online at calderscoffeecafe.com or call (828) 526-200-9308. But really, it’s best if you stop in and chat.

by Luke Osteen photos by Susan Renfro