the yin and yang of art by Julia Rosenfeld If you’re looking for Zola Sawyer on almost any Wednesday evening, just stop by the McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, Arts and Crafts Center. She’ll probably be in front of her easel working on a painting, just as she has been most Wednesdays for the last four years. “I just love the camaraderie,” she said. “There’s not always a full house, but last night it was wonderful. There were seven of us, each of us on our own project. One of the young Airmen who’s been coming is working on her third painting. I love seeing her work, she has an amazing skill.” Mrs. Sawyer is pretty skilled too. She has entered two acrylic paintings and three photographs in this year’s Gallery Showcase, each realistic piece as detailed as the next. Yet she’s only been painting for three years, learning the art at the McConnell Arts and Crafts Center. “The first painting I did was of a mill on Cape Cod," she said. "I was amazed that I could do that. I always wanted to paint, and thought maybe I could do it, but I never tried it until I retired.” Her husband, Charles, chimes in. “When I got back from Okinawa, I had one of the best cameras on the market at the time, and I used to take pictures everywhere we went. When we got married in 1969, Zola kept asking me to take pictures of this, take pictures of that. Finally I got tired of it and told her she needed to learn to use the camera herself,” he said with a laugh. In 1974, Mrs. Sawyer enrolled in a photography class at McConnell and “learned everything there was to know about it.” She’s carried cameras with her every day since. Three of her color photographs are featured in the current Gallery Showcase, exhibiting the artistic sensibilities of a fine art painter combined with the technical expertise of a skilled photographer. She paints from the photos she takes and admits painting is her current passion. “I love photography too, since that’s how it all started. But I so enjoy painting. Sailing at Dawn (in this year’s gallery) was my first acrylic painting and I’ve been hooked on acrylics ever since. I actually learned to paint with oils.” She credits the McConnell Arts and Crafts Center for her achievements. “Our instructor, Walt Engle, is great. He lets us go in any direction we want and he can help us no matter where we go. It doesn’t matter what subject we’re trying to do, or if it’s a pencil drawing or watercolor. Whatever we want to try he’s willing to give us guidance and encouragement.” On Wednesday evenings you probably won’t find her husband at the center, though. A Gallery Showcase artist in his own right, he doesn’t always find the atmosphere at the center conductive to his work. “What I do is so small that I do most of it at home,” he said. The chain maille armor and women’s fantasy wear he makes are constructed of intricately woven materials born of huge spools of wire. “I buy copper, aluminum and galvanized steel wire in quarter- or half-mile rolls, then wind them on iron or steel rods to create consistent rings. Then I weave the rings to recreate the shirts and other armor worn during the Middle Ages.” Two years ago, Charles submitted a Dragon Scale armor shirt for the gallery, constructed of two shirts woven together. “It weighed about 44 pounds,” he says. “You can see why they used cranes back then to get the knights onto their horses.” Charles and Zola’s son has gotten into the artistic mix too, working with Charles to create and sell armor, swords and shields at Renaissance fairs. “We bring about three shirts, called hauberks, and as many as six to ten fantasy wear outfits for females. We sold quite a bit of what we had at the last fair, so right now I’m trying to make more for an upcoming fair,” he says. “It takes about a week and a half of steady work to make one shirt. And in that same amount of time, I can make two sets of barbarian tops and bottoms for women.” While the peaceful settings of Mrs. Sawyer’s work and the aggressive nature of her husband’s armor may seem at odds, there’s no artistic conflict in the Sawyer household. “We encourage each other in everything we do,” they agree. “We’re each other’s biggest supporter and strongest critic. It helps us each do our best and have fun doing it.”
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