North Georgia Arts Guild

North Georgia Arts Guild Announces Booth at Butler’s Galleries

By Tricia Moore

The North Georgia Arts guild is proud to announce the opening of its gallery booth at Butler’s Galleries in downtown Clayton. It has been a dream of the guild to have a space to display the artwork of its members for some time. The dream finally became a reality when Butler’s came under new management last year and the guild was offered the opportunity to rent a booth there.

A lot of planning and organizing and just plain hard work went into the transforming of the booth into an attractive display space designed specifically to showcase the work of NGAG artists. Donna Persinger, the guild’s 1st Vice President in charge of membership, volunteered for this challenging job. With the help of Kim Adams, she set about the task with a vision of what could be and a great deal of enthusiasm. Donna is a talented encaustic artist who has had a great deal of experience in running an artist co-op. She states that she was “eager to contribute to this venture,” and that, “it was a way of looking forward after a difficult year of dealing with the stress of

Tricia Moore is a retired teacher, having taught both English and art in public and private school settings. She is currently an active member of the NGAG and has held several positions on the board. With her background in both art and writing, she feels that writing the NGAG featured artist article in The Georgia Mountain Laurel is a good fit and something that she will greatly enjoy doing.

Covid.” Her vision was to “create the look of a professional gallery to show off the work of our wonderfully talented members – a bright, uncluttered space in which the artwork would be the focus.” She faced many challenges in this endeavor, including several hourlong trips from her home in cold and rainy weather. The securing of materials, painting, paneling one wall, creating a hanging system and appropriate lighting are just a few of the many tasks that were involved. In addition to the physical work required, Donna and Kim are responsible for the scheduling and coordinating of the artists who will be displaying their work in the booth. They came up with a plan to have guild artists display on a three month rotating basis. The booth opened in February featuring NGAG artists Joni Mitchell, Lewis Hinely, Mary Beth Stager and Kathy Ford with a display of greeting cards by Ann Thompson. As chairman of the guild’s Outreach/In-reach Committee, Kim Adams states that she became involved in this project because she feels the, “booth at Butler’s is one way we can reach into our organization and support our members.” She and her daughter Jordan have set up their own booth at Butler’s adjacent to the guild’s booth filled with a wonderful juxtaposition of Kim’s beautiful “hard” artwork of glass and jewelry and Jordan’s “soft” fiber art pieces. Kim’s vision for the guild booth in the near future includes adding more pieces of artwork from the artists who are currently displaying, adding membership forms and guild information and a notebook that contains bio pages of all of the members of the guild. Donna and Kim make a great team, working off of their individual strengths and experiences. They worked together on writing the call for artists and the random drawing that decides which of the guild’s artists will be featured in any three-month rotation period. Together they picked out the hanging system and lighting. With Kim’s knowledge of and experience with Excel, she was able to efficiently organize the artist list. Others who helped in getting the guild booth up and running include Kim’s daughter Jordan, Susan Markulis, Kathy Ford, Mary Beth Stager and Penny Bradley. Donna expressed her gratitude for all the help and support she received. The guild booth at Butler’s provides an opportunity for those in the community and visitors to the community alike to view and purchase original one-of-a-kind fine art and craft items. So please make sure you come visit the booth at Butler’s Galleries and enjoy the artwork of the very talented members of the North Georgia Art Guild.

Finding Art