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Time On My Hands
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2015/05 - May
Carol Louise Mayer is a delightful artistic chameleon. She has changed her colors many times to accommodate life and her creative inclinations. A milestone metamorphosis was leaving a highly successful career as program manager in a design department in Indiana to be with her new husband in Florida.
It was a hard adjustment. Away from her usual haunts, she asked her husband early on, “What shall I do?”
He had the perfect answer. “Easy. Follow your dream of being an artist.” He then proceeded to set up a studio for her.
“The first thing I did was focus on being creative,” she says. “At the top of my skill and-passion list was a love for building things, so I took an artistic plunge into designing furniture.”
By 2005, she had another inspiration. She morphed from furniture design into clock-making. At that time Florida was bombarded with one hurricane after another. In October she and her husband escaped another threatening storm to North Carolina. Hurricane Wilma and the winds of Fate blew them into the Franklin area where they stopped for the night.
“We were enchanted by the region’s Southern hospitality,” she says. After several visits to the area she and her husband bought a mountain home. Now she had all the time in the world to do art.
Perhaps having free time resonated in her subconscious, for time and clocks became central to her creations.
“I wanted my art to be functional and to be a reminder to make the passing of time entertaining, precious, and fun,” she says.
Carol has several lines of clocks which fascinate different demographics — one, a kind of Victorian teapot look, another that appeals to industrial arts fans, and another for the rustic cabin crowd. She categorizes them as mountain rustic, camera clocks, industrial chic, miscellany whimsy, exploding, and Metal-morphs. These whimsical delights have been in galleries from Indiana to Florida to the Carolinas.
You can see her capricious creations online at carolbiltart.blogspot.com/ or visit North Carolina Mountain Made on Main Street in Franklin and Mountain Willow, also on Main.
With so many styles from which to choose, you’ll have plenty of time on your hands… and your counter… and your table… and…
