Copyright (c) 2007 Greensboro News & Record
A backyard dream grows and blossoms Jeri Rowe Connie Logan's backyard studio is always busy. You'll see many of them this weekend during Artstock, Greensboro's annual art tour. More than a quarter of the 80 artists exhibiting their work - 23 to be exact - have hooked up with Logan to take her class. Mind you, Logan doesn't teach them to be artists. That's all that cerebral, think-out-of-the-box stuff. She teaches them how to be a painter - how to hold a brush, be loose and see the subtle purples and blues in a sunlit sky. She does it four times a week, in a backyard studio she had built a decade ago. And she did it with four credit cards, a lot of faith and the dogmatic refusal to listen to anyone who said, "Forget it, Connie!'' Think about her leap. A single mother, newly divorced, with three teenage boys, spends $40,000 of someone else's money to create her own business, off a busy street, in her own backyard where her boys once built forts and played G.I. Joe. Right. Well, it worked. She's now making enough to live on by painting and teaching. But in the process, she has created her own artistic farm system that has helped make Greensboro more art-friendly and, in its own small way, more creative. Artstock, which Logan organized a decade ago, illustrates that. And you know, Logan did much of it from her backyard studio, where the rush of traffic on busy Cornwallis Drive down her driveway feels miles away. Go there, and you're bound to meet Mike Layton. He's 63, a retired third-shift worker for Lorillard Tobacco. He started painting to help deal with his flashbacks from fighting four decades ago in Vietnam. He started taking Logan's classes nine years ago. He now comes twice a week. He's finished so many paintings he's filled a 16- by 20-foot storage shed in his backyard. He calls it his "art barn.'' There's also Ruth Poole. You'll see her art at Artstock. She's 68 and spent her working life in insurance. She took a "little art'' in college. Four years ago, she started taking classes from Logan, and today, she's come to understand what Logan means when she says, "Loosen up!''
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Memo: Connie Logan Hometown: Springfield, Va. Family: Single. Three sons, Matt, 28, an investment counselor; Jake, 25, studying building construction and management at GTCC; Luke, 22, an English major at Appalachian State who is student teaching at Grimsley High. Education: Received an undergraduate degree in art and art education from Virginia Tech. Studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, Florida Atlantic University and UNCG. On creating her own competition: "Creative spirit infuses a city. Mo' art is mo' better for everybody. I don't see it as creating competition. This city is better with more art and more creativity, and in my own little way, I've realized that I'm helping the city become more art-friendly.''
And then there's Brenda Beck. She's 65, still working in real estate and living with a ringing cell phone. She never painted before she started taking Logan's class in May. She lacks confidence, and even when she gets a compliment, she'll say something like, "Ohhhh, I don't think it's very good.'' That's why she's in the running for the Eeyore Award. You know, Eeyore from "Winnie the Pooh.'' More on that later. Still, she comes once a week. "You're creating something that's yours,'' Beck says. "It's such a huge world, with a huge population. Now, (with this class), you can have your own little niche that says who you are.'' All with Logan's help. She's an award-winning artist. She's also a motorcycle-riding mother. At 54, she says the word "way cool'' a lot and thrives on traveling anywhere to discover artistic fodder for her own paintings. Last summer, she went to France. Next year, it's Italy. Her boys are now grown, and their backyard forts are long gone. Yet, she keeps her childlike fascination intact by teaching nearly four dozen students and awarding them diplomas every December. You know, the Loose Woman Award, for the student who's happy with less detail. The D. Claude Monet Award, for the student who always feeds the cat. And of course, the Eeyore Award. Logan divvies out those diplomas during a potluck supper in which she wears her son Luke's old red graduation gown from Page High. It all takes place in her backyard studio, the spot that more than a decade ago sparked all those comments like "Forget it, Connie!'' Well, she didn't. And look what happened.
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