This past Saturday, ArtWorks held its After Hours event, highlighting artwork from multiple local artists while showcasing three featured artists in particular: Pam Toll, Susan Fecho and Chris Pappas.
The event took place at the ArtWorks building from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., giving visitors an opportunity to meet the featured artists and learn more about the inspiration and processes behind the pieces on display.
Toll’s love of art began in childhood. Born in Oklahoma, she grew up in a creative household. Her father painted as a hobby, while her mother sewed and encouraged her artistic interests by taking her to art lessons. At age 13, she received a paint box, and today she continues to find inspiration from a variety of places.
“It comes from all over the place,” Toll said. “I travel with art. South Africa, Italy, France, Spain and Macedonia are some of the places where I go, and I paint for a couple of weeks. I get ideas from doing that, and I love landscapes and a sense of place. They can come from a dream or just something on the side of the road.”
In addition to creating her own artwork, Toll taught art classes at the University of North Carolina Wilmington for more than 20 years after graduating from UNC.
“I’ve always sort of been attracted to helping others,” she said. “You can’t really teach art. You teach the technical parts, and then you give them that open space to work. I would always walk around the room, and that way, when they wanted to ask me something, I was there. I could address whatever they were asking about.”
Like many artists, Toll acknowledged that the finished product does not always match the vision she initially has in mind.
“It’s like a search,” Toll said. “It never turns out the way you have it in your head because it never kind of measures up. I always used to tell my students you’ve got to walk a tightrope between surrender and control. It’s the two things together. If you have too much control, you don’t make something worth looking at. You sit down and let the pieces talk to you, and you go back and talk to it. It’s a back-and-forth.”
Fecho, a mixed-media artist from Tarboro, incorporates many elements of her upbringing into her work. Describing herself as a child of the mountains, she often draws inspiration from the sights and experiences that shaped her early years.
Around fourth grade, after moving to Carrboro, Fecho began taking art classes and quickly discovered a passion that would stay with her.
“I was just as strong in science and industrial technology, but I kept taking art classes,” Fecho recalled. “I love the arts. I love problem-solving and putting them together. I learned that you have to control the media, especially when I’m doing mixed media with wood. Craftsmanship was another thing.”
When developing a new piece, Fecho prefers to plan ahead as much as possible. One example is her work titled “Hyde County Shoreline,” a woodcut mixed-media piece that visually captures the storms that sweep through Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks.
“Since it’s a woodcut, that means you’re working with small sharpening tools that you have to keep sharpening,” Fecho said. “I could only do as much as a hand-sized piece a day. It would take me several months to complete it. On top of that, there are different colors. You can see the shift in the papers that are printed in blue on the same block over and over. Then I pulled it together on one sheet of washi paper. I tried not to think about how long it would take because I would have gotten discouraged.”
The ability to combine different materials and techniques into a single work comes naturally to Fecho, who credits that ability to understanding both the craft and the layers involved in creating a finished piece.
“When I work on these odd pieces, there are certain things,” she said. “The botanical parts of it, the storytelling, soft colors. I know that I have complete control, even if I can’t plan everything.”
Having her work displayed in the gallery and contributing to the growing arts scene in Sampson County is especially meaningful to Fecho.
“We always consider the fact that a big city will have an important art scene,” Fecho said. “But there’s a lot of other creative work in small rural areas. We have to grow where we’re planted. To help support the small rural scene, which helps share the rural voice and stories that come from this part of America with everyone else, that’s what I enjoy. Being a part of this environment and seeing what everybody else shares.”
Pappas has spent more than four decades working as both an artist and illustrator, building a career that has spanned advertising, education and fine art.
“I’ve always done artwork ever since I was a little kid,” Pappas said. “In kindergarten, at 5 years old, I drew an apple tree. My teacher got someone to watch the class, walked me down the hall to the principal’s office, sat me on her lap and said, ‘Look at what Christopher did.’ From that day, I just got locked onto artwork.”
Today, Pappas continues working as an illustrator, though he said the industry has changed significantly over the years.
“My focus over the last 10 years has been more on painting and drawing,” he said. “I’m thrilled to be a part of this gallery because ArtWorks is a really nice organization.”
As a child, Pappas spent time catching butterflies in the woods and mounting them as part of a personal hobby. When he eventually stopped doing that, he found another way to celebrate nature — by painting it.
Many of the pieces he displayed at the gallery featured butterflies and natural scenes, subjects that continue to inspire much of his work. Personally, he is especially fond of the line-and-wash style of art.
In addition to his work as an artist and illustrator, Pappas teaches classes at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh.
“I’ve had a whole range of different students in my classes over the years,” he said. “I teach pen and ink as a 16-hour class in the spring and fall. It’s a really good way to pass it on. I love the classes, and when they leave, they really love what they’re doing.”
One student in particular left a lasting impression on him.
“She said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this, Chris. It’s so detailed,’” Pappas recalled. “Her hand was shaking, so I told her to think about it for a second. I had her hold her pen in her right hand and put her left hand over that one. She was able to draw perfectly. The stuff that she did would blow your mind. She was really good.”
Stories like that are among the reasons Pappas continues to teach.
“There’s a ton of different stories like hers that are inspiring,” he said. “I’ll be teaching as long as I can drive and as long as I can hold a pen and my eyes hold up as someone who’s almost 70 years old.”
In addition to his paintings, visitors also viewed several illustrations Pappas created throughout his career. Among them was a detailed drawing of his grandfather’s shaving tool, which he rendered from a photograph he had taken. The illustrations showcased the precision and realism that have become hallmarks of his work.
For the three featured artists, the event was about more than displaying finished pieces on a gallery wall. It was an opportunity to share the stories, experiences and lessons that shaped their work while connecting with visitors who may have been discovering local art for the first time.
From Toll’s landscapes inspired by travels around the world, to Fecho’s layered mixed-media storytelling and Pappas’ detailed illustrations rooted in a lifelong passion for nature, each artist brought a unique perspective to the gallery. Together, their work served as a reminder that creativity thrives not only in large cities, but also in communities like Sampson County, where artists continue to create, teach and inspire others.
As visitors moved through the gallery Saturday afternoon, they experienced more than an art exhibit. They experienced the personal journeys behind the artwork and the growing artistic community that ArtWorks continues to cultivate in downtown Clinton.