Battle Ground artist Maria Wickwire, a retired teacher, had an unusual and late start to her art career.
A guest art teacher was showing Wickwire’s students how to create clay teapots one day and suggested Wickwire try it out.
“I got my hand in the clay and couldn’t put it down,” she said.
That was 14 years ago. Wickwire fell in love with sculpting and continues to work with the medium. “I’m an odd one,” she said. “I have not been an artist all my life.”
The 59-year-old artist will be featured on the April 7 episode of “Oregon Art Beat” on Oregon Public Broadcasting. The episode will air at 8 p.m.
A representative from the program got in touch with Wickwire in June, about a month after the end of a three-year sabbatical away from creating new works. Her first reaction was dread. Having only been back in the studio for a month, she didn’t have much new work to show off.
The program came to her studio in September and February, and the dread went away.
“I never expected myself to be on ‘Art Beat,’” Wickwire said, adding the show routinely features established artists. “I didn’t see myself that way. I’ve been very excited by it and pleased.”
Wickwire draws on her own life experiences for her sculptures, one of which — “Anillos” — is on display in Lake Oswego, Ore. “All of my pieces are very textured, and they all have to do with life experience and the way it writes itself into our bodies.”
Retired physician Malcolm MacGregor has a lot of stories to tell and, in recent years, he’s begun putting them down on paper for others to read.
“I just write for the joy of it,” said MacGregor, an 85-year-old Vancouver resident. “I have a lot to say.”
MacGregor recently released his second self-published book, “A Trail of Envy.” It’s based on his life, though in the book he calls the main character Malcolm McKenna.
“It holds all the secrets of a small town and a small-town doctor,” MacGregor said.
His first Malcolm McKenna book, “Diagnosis: Terminal,” came out in 2008. McKenna also self-published a children’s book called “A Pretty Lucky Bird” in 2007 that was based on his experience raising a family on a farm.
Next up, MacGregor plans to release a collection of poetry called “Poems that Pique.” One of the poems, “She’s Mine,” is inspired by a print of a lion standing over a lioness that hangs in his dining room.
MacGregor also has a book in mind inspired by the lioness. It will be about a character called Felina, who is the ultimate woman.
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