Black Mountain artist's work exhibited in Asheville

Works by Black Mountain artist Carol Cole Czeczot and her friend Martha Little of Weaverville are on exhibit through Sept. 25, 2016, in the Hospitality Room of Jubilee! Community Church, 46 Wall St., Asheville.

Cole Czeczot’s works range from the subtlety of a sunset on distant mountain snow to the turbulence of colliding galaxies in the deepest reaches of space – which explains why she calls her collection of paintings “Heaven and Earth Art.”

The oil-on-canvas renderings vary in size from 16”x-20” to 30”x24”, and represent her desire “to explore, celebrate and convey something of the essence of the worlds around and within us – to capture at least traces of beauty and truth and share them with people who view my art.”

Cole Czeczot and her husband, Mike Czeczot, and their two cats moved from Daytona Beach to Black Mountain in 2010, where she continued to pursue her passion for performing arts by appearing in several Autumn Players’ Readers Theatre productions at Asheville Community Theatre’s “35below” and, in 2015, the Black Mountain Center for the Arts production of “Steel Magnolias.”

Although Cole Czeczot was equally passionate about visual art, she often let logic overpower desire.

However, exposure to the visual arts scene in Black Mountain and Asheville only intensified that desire.

“I knew of the Black Mountain Center for the Arts and looked online for information on art classes,” Cole Czeczot said. “That led me to renowned wildlife artist Bob Travers, who teaches there… I looked at Bob’s website and was so impressed with his work and excited that an artist of his caliber taught at a location convenient to where I lived.”

So Cole Czeczot “e-mailed him and he told me I could join one of his classes at the center in 2012.” She adds, “I soon found out that he excels at teaching, too, and really strives to help students cultivate their unique styles.” The class is also where she met co-exhibitor Martha Little.

Early on, her lessons were all about technique – selecting a medium, mixing colors, preparing a canvas, then sizing the desired image. She chose oils because “I like the vibrancy and flexibility of oil paints, though I think I will probably want to try other mediums at some point.”

Cole Czeczot’s “Heaven and Earth Art” theme was also an evolutionary process.

“My love of nature began early, with exposure to the beach, state parks and so forth. I (lived) just north of the ‘Space Coast,’ and watching rocket launches made me feel connected to NASA missions and space," she said. "The images from the Hubble and other telescopes captivate me and reflect the grandeur of creation, but I have no desire, at least for now, to focus solely on them; I’m too in love with the Earth and its beauty to do that.”

In her Artist’s Statement, she adds: “The overlap of the ephemeral and the eternal, of earthly and celestial images, appears all around us. The Blue Ridge Mountains captivate me, as they do so many, with the light and shadows that shift across their graceful ridges, with the changing tableau of the seasons."

The Jubilee exhibit is open Sundays 9 a.m.-1 p.m. To view her works online, visit www.blackmountainartist.com.