Artist Kathy Andrews Fincher

She is Big and Small Town Famous

When I met with Kathy Fincher to discuss an article about the Rabun Pickleball Club, I didn’t know she was the artist behind the “Mama Says…®” Collection I had admired years ago. This figurine collection of children was produced by one of the world’s most popular gift companies, DEMDACO. Though this collection of over 100 figurines of children, including 2 nativities, is retired today, Kathy says designing 3D led to her most notable accomplishment to date, designing and sculpting an 8’ bronze monument of Martin Luther King Jr. Unveiled on April 1, 2023, in Atlanta’s Peace Park, the monument is nominated for an Emmy Award for the Southeast. Born in 1952, Kathy Andrews, says she “came with the dirt in Duluth, Georgia”. Her roots date back to its founder, Evan Howell. (Duluth was first named Howell’s Crossroads.) Kathy was the granddaughter of Parson’s General Store’s founders Kate and Calvin Parsons. Three generations of Parsons’ family members and their spouses worked in the store at some point or another. They sold dry goods, shoes, gifts, groceries, hardware lumber, shoes… Locals said, “If Parsons ain’t got it, you don’t need it”. And this was true from 1876 until recent years.

Kathy had four brothers and lots of ponies. Since her parents weren’t home to set the rules, she was a serious competitor with her brothers and neighborhood boys. In 10th grade, Kathy attended Brenau Boarding Academy in Gainesville, Georgia where she met two lifelong friends: Cyndae Arrendale and Jenny McCrary. Cyndae’s family, from Clarkesville, owns Springer Mountain Farms and Fieldale Farms. She introduced Kathy to Lake Burton and Mountain City Playhouse, and today they still enjoy lake living and clogging. Jenny’s family conveniently lived in Gainesville so the girls would sneak out most afternoons to ride Jenny’s horses.

Kathy’s mother studied art at the High Museum and dreamed of being a portrait artist, but this was cut short by the demands of retailing and raising 5 children. She had aspirations for her daughter and was thrilled to discover Jenny’s mom, Lydia Banks McCrary, studied art at the Louvre in Paris and owned the Renaissance Studio. The two mothers conspired, and arrangements were made for Kathy to take studio studies that continued over her 5 years at the academy and college. Because classical studies are structured and disciplined with little emphasis on creating, Kathy was not inspired and changed her major to Parks and Rec when she transferred to UGA. But she was inspired by Jenny’s brothers who introduced her to snow skiing at Sapphire Valley and she learned quickly. Her freshman year of college she was invited to become a ski instructor at Cataloochee Mountain. For the remainder of her college years, she taught snow skiing on weekends. After college, when her fellow instructors headed west, Kathy accepted a job at Beech Mountain to launch the first freestyle ski school in the southeast. Ironically in 1976 it snowed more in the North Carolina mountains than it did out west forcing the popular Warren Miller Ski filming crew to film their annual feature film at Beech Mountain! Kathy had the opportunity to ski with the best freestyle skiers in the country.

Kathy’s parents, Margaret and Andy Andrews, were charter members of the University Yacht Club on Lake Lanier so she and her siblings learned to ski at a very young age. In high school, Kathy and two of her brothers were selected to ski for the Lanier Islands Ski Team. Other shows followed in Chicago, the Wisconsin Dells, Calloway Gardens, and the US Show Team in Japan.

After 5 years of professionally skiing on water and snow Kathy’s father announced, “Time to grow up!” In 1977 she received her wings as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines and flew for 32 years.

In her early thirties, Kathy decided to design and build a house on a lake near her home in Duluth. Since her mother designed and built a house, so could she. During the time she was building she met a fellow flight attendant, Jef Fincher. They began dating and he helped her with her house. He was literally the nicest guy she’d ever met. She felt deep in her heart that God put them together and when he proposed she accepted. At age 33, they married and children were a forbidden topic! But God has a sense of humor and she got pregnant on her honeymoon. Kathy was devastated, Jef was over the moon!

Promising her new husband she would stop skiing while pregnant, she turned her focus to tennis, a lifelong hobby. Kathy’s team made it to the USTA finals and hoped Kathy wouldn’t have to play a tie-breaking match. Unfortunately, she did. She played for three hours and lost in a tiebreaker blaming it on a “nagging problem that wouldn’t go away”. She was in labor!” Jef was on a flight but managed to show up as the baby was being delivered. Kathy remembers her husband bursting through the door saying… “she was doing what?”

During that labor, Kathy shared that her heart was not in the right place. She could only visualize tennis rackets and skis when she shut her eyes, not diapers. As she prayed, God reminded her that wild animals instinctively protect their young. Fear not, He would give her a new heart. And He did. Kathy told me her two daughters Maggie and Kelley, are her greatest joy. Yes, she was pregnant again within 17 months! (Add 5 grandchildren to the joy list!)

After Maggie’s birth, Jef wanted Kathy to stay home, like his mother, and raise the girls. Kathy’s mother and grandmother ran a business with a housekeeper watching the kids, why couldn’t she return to skiing? A Bible study on marriage by Kay Arthur changed her heart. She says that God spoke to her through and said, “Let go of who you think you are and let me show you who I know you are.” Kathy listened and embraced the art of parenting.

Kathy’s mom and aunt, both artists, felt she now had time to paint with them. They were introduced to pastel painting and called themselves the Parsons Painters. For the first time Kathy was allowed the freedom to create. It wasn’t long before her landscapes and wildlife paintings were noticed by a publisher and Kathy’s work was sold as limited editions to frame shops across the country. One day Kathy’s publisher handed her a contract for a children’s calendar based on a photo the publisher took in her house of a painting of Maggie called “Ladybug”. This was a collaborative painting with a fellow artist for her children’s room. She immediately told her publisher they had a problem; she didn’t paint faces and she didn’t paint that one. “You do now!” The contract was with Current, Inc., the largest publisher in the world at the time. Since there was little time for creating 12 paintings, Current compromised and asked her to paint 6 images and another artist with a similar style, Laurie Snow Hein from south Florida, could paint the rest. Kathy was in shock. Laurie was her friend who painted “Ladybug” with her! “Let Laurie paint them all!” Kathy offered! “Too good of a contract!”, the publisher repeated.

With her back against the wall, and a whopping deadline, Kathy got on her knees at the easel and asked for help. The response was simple. There are only 3 primary colors, use your knowledge, you can figure it out! Kathy did all she could to make the December child simple. She hid as much of the child’s face as possible with a wool hat and scarf. The artist applied one decision at a time: design, values, warm tones, cool tones, light source, thick lines, thin lines… As she painted the shadows around the corners of the child’s mouth, she was amazed that each stroke changed the entire expression. Stories, she discovered, could be shared through the face of a child! She was hooked. She completed her first calendar in 1991 and was asked to be the exclusive artist a few years later. The Mama Says… calendars are sold today through Legacy Publishing. (Cracker Barrell, Hobby Lobby, and other stores.)

Kathy’s paintings of children were published as limited-edition reproductions and sold to frame shops across the country. Top companies licensed her work for cards, books, calendars, stationery, figurines, western bronzes and more. Kathy became the most licensed children’s painter in America. (Her cards by Leanin’ Tree and Legacy are sold in multiple gift shops in Rabun County, including Goin’ Postal.) With more than 100 paintings of children, she shares the spirit of childhood in the style of Norman Rockwell. Perhaps her most important work was painted shortly after 9.11. In response to the devastation, she wanted to remind everyone of who they are as Americans. She wanted to keep the American Dream alive so she created “The Dream Keepers”. The painting portrays seven children (representing the 7 continents) putting the American flag (freedom) back together using their handprints on a school wall. Light from a side window cast the shadow of a large cross (faith) over the flag. The original painting was presented to President G.W. Bush in the Oval Office and is in the permanent collection of the Presidential Library. Kathy designed The Dream Keepers 9.11 Memorial, a life-sized monument based on her painting for the city and citizens of Duluth, Georgia. Later the artist was notified by the N.Y. Port Authority that on the night of the unveiling, they raised a flag over Ground Zero in honor of her children’s memorial. Later, they personally delivered the flag to Duluth’s First Responders. The Dream Keepers is the largest patriotic bronze of children in the country.

Included in the details of the statue: Dr. King’s Divinity robe melts into a simplistic garment resembling that of Moses. The wind twists the robe, so each fold leads to the Bible. The open pages of the Bible are shaped like a flying dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. By adding a small piece of bronze to his eyes to catch the light, they appear to sparkle as he looks to the heavens for guidance.

The 8’ bronze statue (14’ including the base) of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Mountaintop” address unveiled a few months ago, was her greatest challenge. Kathy was commissioned by the National Monuments Foundation to design and sculpt the source of Dr. King’s greatness. She studied every MLK monument in the world and learned that few portrayed him as a pastor. “Why not?” The artist reasoned that as a pastor he became an articulate speaker, his supporters held him up, and he quoted scripture from memory to support his cause (although his Bible was within reach). Wasn’t it Dr. King’s faith that made him a great man? Her design would portray his faith.

She sculpted a maquette (16” conceptual clay) of Dr. King on Stone Mountain granite holding a Bible opened to the final chapter of Deuteronomy where Moses sees the Promised Land. Like Moses, Dr. King said, “Let my people go”. Like Moses, Dr. King was given the vision of seeing his people enter the Promised Land. And like Moses, both men died. (Dr. King was murdered the following morning.) “Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord” were his final words and that was the vision Kathy wanted to capture.

Rodney Mims Cook Jr., President of The National Monuments Foundation, shared Kathy’s maquette with the Nobel Peace Prize leaders and received raving reviews. The idea was approved, and sculptor Stan Mullins joined Kathy to sculpt the large clay in his studio in Athens, Georgia. The artists were entrusted with priceless references. Alveda King, MLK’s cousin, provided the artists with her grandfather’s 100-year-old robe, Dr. King’s father. The Millennium Gate Museum shared Dr. King’s brother’s Bible from the A.D. King Library.

The unveiling at Rodney Cook Sr. Peace Park was a revival. A World Peace Revival. The City of Atlanta introduced a proclamation that April 1 will be celebrated as World Peace Day. Hundreds of people attended the event, which is a block from the King’s family home. His children and many of Atlanta’s dignitaries were in attendance. Most agreed that they could not take their eyes off his face.

Kathy’s creates stories, leaving enough room for the viewer to finish. But the Glory is all Gods because “Glory to God” is written on each of her works.

Publisher’s Note: Mayor Kurt Cannon heard of Kathy’s abilities and asked her to do a rendering of the plans for the new Clayton City Complex. Another challenge for this artist, but one she met head on. The rendering turned out beautifully as we are sure the project will. Her heart was in that because she is an avid pickleball player and a complex is part of the plan..

For more information on the sculpting of “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, visit www. worldpeacerevival.org

To see more of Kathy’s art and to hear her testimony, visit: www.kathyfincher.com