“All of my work has always been about the landscape,” Franklin artist Norma Hendrix declared. Often, art depicting landscapes is formal and organized, focusing largely on the grand scheme of the view and skipping over the smaller details. Hendrix chooses to do the opposite.
“When we’re walking in nature, we’re hearing water, we’re seeing a butterfly, and that is how we take in nature,” she explained.
Hendrix has had a passion for art since she was young, always sketching her surroundings. When she was 14, she began taking private art lessons.
“This one teacher was really great with helping young people obtain a portfolio in high school by putting them under a very rigorous, but good, program,” said Hendrix.
Through this program, she received a National Scholastics Art Scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD) in Columbus, Ohio in 1974. She graduated from Ohio University in 1979 and moved to Highlands. She relocated to Franklin in 1993 and attended Western Carolina University, graduating in 2002 with a Master of Arts degree. She also obtained her Master of Fine Art degree in 2007 from Northern Vermont University.
Hendrix achieves a unique landscape style with a variety of media, including graphite drawings, rubbings, paintings, and collages. Hendrix makes all her own paper, reducing the effect on the environment as she creates her art.
“What I love about rice paper is how when you layer it, you still see the ink that’s underneath coming through. That is the layering that I feel is in nature; it’s all layers.”
As Hendrix explained her artwork, she described how the fragmented pieces of graphite drawings give the feeling and energy of being in nature and the minute elements seen. At her Franklin studio, her walls are lined with her distinct body of work.
While in Wales
Last year, Hendrix spent time as an artist in residence at Stiwdio Maelor in Corris, Wales, on the islands of Great Britain. While there, she experimented with graphite rubbings, using leaves that she was able to press onto the paper.
Earlier this month, she shared her knowledge of graphite rubbings with an eager group of students at Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center. A recently awarded grant paid for supplies, but participants brought their own leaf, plant, and flower clippings with them to make the rubbings. Hendrix held up some of her own work and then assisted her budding artists in the step-by-step process. It was a process she said she greatly enjoyed while in Wales.
“What was so great about the residency was only having the heavier background paper and all the scraps I brought from the studio. I had a large pile of collage papers, and as the week went on, it was cool to see the pile get smaller and smaller.”
The art she created from her time in Wales recounted the memories of the scenery she saw.
“I was in a little village in Snowdonia National Park in Wales; it is unlike anything in America. There are no stoplights; it’s just a little tiny village made of row houses built from slate.”
Although the mountains of Wales are similar to those surrounding Macon County, Hendrix described differences.
“I could be walking down the street, see a steep hill, go through one of these little footpath gates, and suddenly see rushing water. No signs, no billboards, no stoplights; it’s just pristine. And then I’d end up crossing a sheep field and there are other footpaths that go up into the mountains; water is everywhere. You never see litter, everyone is friendly, everything is quiet.”
She kept a diary of her time in Wales and while there she also participated in an exhibit, called “Nature Reconsidered,” with four other female artists.
“The whole idea of a residency is that, even though I have my own freestanding studio at home, I always am meeting obligations. You can get away from those obligations at a residency. Sometimes, especially to accomplish a body of work, you need to not be at home, and that is the whole point of an artist’s residency opportunity. [Being in Wales] was a beautiful way to do a residency.”
Hendrix has done several other residencies, including some in France and Vermont, but she said the Wales residency was the most impactful. She plans to return to Wales in May 2025 to participate in another residency.
In the meantime, she will continue to be inspired by this area’s beautiful scenery to complete art in her Franklin studio and teach others the techniques she has learned that preserve various aspects of nature.