SUMMERVILLE, Ga. — In this small town with fewer than 5,000 people and only a couple of formal restaurants lies a quiet but distinctive pocket of artists.
“I lived here for 33 years and gradually discovered, kind of accidentally, there were so many artists here that people didn’t know about,” said Linda Espy, who creates polymer-clay sculptures and vintage-style jewelry.
She estimates Summerville has close to 50 artists, including sculptors, wood carvers, portrait painters and glass blowers, many nationally and internationally known.
In 1984, Carl McCleskey and Betsy Scott moved from Marietta, Ga., to the south end of Lookout Mountain just above Summerville, where they started a hobby around bronze sculptures. That hobby, now a full-time job, led to their biggest piece to date, a monumental heron sculpture in place at a Greg Norman golf club in Lake Powell, Fla.
Many of their other pieces have migrated, as Mr. McCleskey says, to zoos, churches, colleges and private properties in many parts of the world.
Their 1,000-acre homeplace is a connection to the natural world that inspires them by “just being away from the hustle and tussle of the city,” said Mr. McCleskey, 74, while standing in their studio amid sculpted lions, elephants, buffalos and panthers.
“Betsy has always been interested in nature, wildlife, she had planned all her life to live out like this,” he said.
Outside, the ducks and geese roam freely around four dogs, 12 cats, two peacocks and two donkeys they’ve adopted over the years.
But Summerville has been home to artists for decades, including one who has achieved international fame.
Just north of the McCleskeys is Paradise Gardens, the four-acre property left by Howard Finster, the Chattooga County preacher and bicycle repairman who became an acclaimed folk artist before his 2001 death. Along with sculptures and paintings and other pieces, he designed the album covers for R.E.M.’s “Reckoning” and Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures.”
Atteka Abdou, who calls herself an “octopus artist,” moved back to her childhood town a couple of years ago after she studied briefly in New York City and graduated from Berry College in Rome, Ga.
“I love the mountains and the community,” said the 27-year-old environmental artist.
Her home studio in Summerville is filled with her three-dimensional paintings in vibrant blues, magenta and yellows of octopus arms. On the wall there’s an 8-foot painting of an octopus –her inspiration and poster child of her work.
“The layers of the Plexiglas symbolize the different layers of plastic garbage that these animals have to live in daily,” she said.
UPCOMING ART FESTIVALS* Rattling Gourd Arts Festival, Nov. 7, in the Chattooga County Civic Center. Visit www.rattlinggourdfestival.com.* Howard Finster Festival, date to be announced. Visit www.finstersparadisegardens.org or call 205-587-3090.
“I’m so community-involved. I do art lessons for children, work with the library for an art program,” she said. “There are so many great artists around here that it’s a nice environment to work in.”
Summerville also is home to Ginger Lowry, an equine painter with international exhibitions in England, Australia and Dubai; Chuck Peters, whose stained-glass windows and sculptures are in display in homes, commercial sites, churches and galleries in the United States and Europe; and nationally known chainsaw wood carver Jim Marbutt, who has pieces in city parks, museums and private collections.
Mrs. Espy said the tranquility of the town and the mountains is what attracts many of the artists.
“It’s a relaxing life, the scenery is pretty, not so stressful,” she said. “It’s just a good place for an artist to relax and think and create.”
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