After spending all day tattooing dragons and gargoyles or other works of art on the bodies of other people, Kay Boak would sometimes go home and, using a set of colored pencils, create pieces just for herself. She never shared them with others, but after winning the right to show her work through a Locals Only competition at Chattanooga WorkSpace, she is ready to show off what she can do.
She will have a private showing of about 10 new pieces on Friday, Oct. 4, at the WorkSpace gallery on Sixth Street across from the YMCA at 5:30 p.m.
How she got here from Oregon in the first place is almost as interesting as winning the only show she has ever entered.
Blame it on the fog.
If you go
* What: Locals Only showcase featuring works by Kay Boak* When: 5:30-8:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4* Where: Chattanooga WorkSpace, 302 W. Sixth St.* Admission: Free
While traveling to this part of the country to both get away from the smoke caused by wildfires in California, Boak and her husband, Casey Gillum, an antiques picker, left their home in Oregon in search of a few vintage finds and perhaps a new place to live. They randomly decided to visit Chattanooga.
He often travels the country in search of products, and on this trip, they also visited Indianapolis, Louisville and Nashville, among other cities. Chattanooga was an afterthought.
“I didn’t even know it was a real place. I knew of the Glenn Miller song, but just thought it was some train jargon or something,” Boak said.
When they drove down early one morning from Nashville, the city was shrouded in fog, or what Boak thought was more smoke. She was ready to head back West, until her husband told her it was fog, or “some natural (stuff).” Once the fog lifted and they moved from downtown to the North Shore, she knew they’d found their next city to call home.
Image by Kay Boak / Kay Boak is a tattoo artist by day who creates nature scenes using colored pencils as a way to unwind. She entered three of her pieces in the Locals Only competition at Chattanooga WorkSpace and won, earning a solo show there on Oct. 4.“I don’t even really know why, but we loved it,” she said.
Shortly after moving here on March 1, she discovered Chattanooga WorkSpace, learned of the Locals Only competition and decided to go for it.
“I was a little excited and a little nervous,” she said. “What I do for my clients is theirs. I have no emotional attachment to it. I’m proud of it, but it is theirs. I had a lot of anxiety about showing my work and certainly didn’t think I would win.”
Local muralist Kevin Bate is a WorkSpace artist and helped organize the Locals Only event to showcase unknown emerging artists. He said Boak’s three submissions impressed the judges.
“Once we saw her work, we told her she should definitely enter,” he said.
Image by Kay Boak / Kay Boak will have about 10 new pieces in the showcase at Chattanooga WorkSpace.Boak said for her new pieces, she used her travels from Oregon to here as the inspiration, especially escaping from the wildfires. The pieces are based in nature, but tell a story of struggle and coping, with animals replacing people, because she didn’t want to be “politically polarizing.”
“There is a lot of smoke,” she said with a laugh about the fires. “It was rough.”
In addition to the colored pencils, she is using gold leaf and some silver leaf in the pieces. The whole experience has made her feel now confident enough to want to showcase her works in other places around town.
“Oh, definitely,” she said.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.