NORTH CARROLLTON - Kay Slocum is a woman of many talents.
When it comes down to it, there are not many things she can't do. She can nurse a patient back to health, pencil sketch people, animals and buildings and decorate a home with stained glass works of art.
"I always say I was born later than I should have been," Slocum said. "If there is something I want to do, I figure out how to do it. I just start doodling."
Slocum and her son-in-law, Tyler Murphy, tiled her kitchen floor, and she's about to start reupholstering the seats in her son's boat.
But Slocum's most prized work is artistic in nature. The pencil sketches of her grandsons and the stained glass pieces that can now be found in various stores in the area are her pride and joy.
Slocum's work is usually identified as "Art by Kay." However, some of her pieces are signed "Art by MeMe," thanks to the nickname she got from her grandchildren. She even uses the affectionate name as part of her e-mail address.
But sketching and drawing comes naturally to Slocum.
"I've never had an art lesson; I just do it," she said.
After suffering health problems last summer, Slocum decided to turn to her artistic talent full-time.
"After 30 years of nursing, I just decided I needed a break from nursing," she said. "Since then, I started concentrating on doing what I like to do."
Slocum took the storage shed in her back yard and opened a shop in March as a place to do her most recent artistic endeavor - stained glass.
She also takes time out to paint and sketch when she feels like it or when someone calls on her to work on a project.
She has sketched historic buildings and sites for various towns in Mississippi, including McCarley, Winona, Itta Bena, Philadelphia and Carrollton. She said a church in Itta Bena asked her to do the sketch there, and the Junior Auxiliary of Philadelphia commissioned her for the sketch of the Neshoba County town.
But her first sketches of historic places were done in Greenwood in 1997. Slocum said no one asked her to do the work. It was something she was interested in at the time.
"I've never marketed my talent," she said. I've just done it because I wanted to do it."
Many of her painting and drawing jobs have come through word of mouth, she said.
After Slocum's former English teacher, Sandra Moore, saw her work, Slocum was commissioned to do an official print for a fund-raiser for Mississippi Delta Community College's Alumni Association.
"The next thing I knew, I was showing them my stuff, and I was doing it," she said.
The pencil sketch highlights many of the sites located on the Moorhead campus.
Slocum said the college now owns the rights to the piece.
She worked with Bethe Williams, dean of College Relations and Development, on the project.
She brought preliminary drawings in and the committee decided what it wanted on the print, Williams said.
"Some are historical sites and some are newer sites," she said.
"We have been very pleased with the work," Williams said. "We have sold quite a few to alumni, and we've made some note cards."
Four prints that were matted and framed sold immediately, she said.
"It has been a nice fund-raiser for the alumni association, and she certainly is a talented artist, Williams said.
But drawing pencil sketches is just one of Slocum's talents. She also paints.
Many of the old buildings and signs in Carrollton and North Carrollton bear her mark.
Along with the help of painter Patricia Ball, Slocum painted all the signs in historic downtown Carrollton. "Leland Jones cut the signs, and Patricia Ball and I painted them," she said.
And several years ago, Slocum participated in a community project and helped repaint all the buildings in Carrollton is their historically correct colors. She said Louanne Thompson spearheaded the project.
The repainted train on the side of the Helping Hands building in North Carrollton also was done by Slocum and Zona Pilgreen.
"I didn't originate the painting, but it was fading and had gang emblems on it, so we repainted it," she said.
In Greenwood, examples of Slocum's work can be found at Danny's Flowers. She did an outdoors scene on the wall at the front entrance.
And Chris Shelton, owner of Danny's Flowers, had nothing but praise for Slocum's work.
"She came into my shop one day and said I needed a mural there," he said.
Shelton quickly told her he couldn't afford to have it done.
"She told me she would do it for free," he said. It was a means of getting her name out in the public.
Shelton said he showed her a magazine photo of what he wanted on the wall. He said she painted the scene exactly as it appeared in the book.
The outdoor garden scene is "just gorgeous," he said. "She's very talented."
Shelton said he has known Slocum all of his life. He is the same age as her daughter, Monica Murphy.
Since painting the mural, Shelton had Slocum sketch a photo of his grandmother's house that he gave his father as a present. Slocum also is doing a sketch of Shelton's own home.
"She is wonderful," he said. "She is good at everything she does."
Most recently, she has been commissioned to do a painting of the Carrollton courthouse to go in the board room at Holmes Community College in Goodman.
Slocum said Susan Murphy, superintendent of Carroll County Schools, was approached and asked who could do the painting.
Slocum said Murphy recommended her for the job.
"The portrait of the courthouse will be 24 X 36," she said.
Slocum said Holmes is having portraits done of all the courthouses in its district to hang in the board room.
But most of Slocum's work is found in her own home. On a guided tour, she quickly points out the entertainment center in her living room. The piece was built by Slocum and her husband, Jimmy.
She also has a $10 table she purchased at a garage sale sitting in the living area. She took the top, which had been beaten and battered, and painted an outdoors scene and wolf on it.
Sketches of Robert E. Lee, her children, Monica and Harlan, and her grandchildren, Dalton and Nicholas, are located in her home as well.
She especially likes the sketch she did of Dalton prancing around the house in his cowboy hat.
Slocum also repainted both bathrooms in her home in faux finish. And in her son's bathroom, she painted mallard ducks above the shower.
Despite having painted many walls and pictures, Slocum said it is not her favorite thing to do. "I don't especially like painting, because I can't get the same detail as I can with a pencil sketch," she said.
But stained glass is Slocum's latest fascination.
Slocum starts off her stained glass projects with sheets of different colored glass. She said she also cannibalizes some glass, which means she reuses old glass to create some of her pieces.
Being an artist, Slocum said she makes many of her patterns for the stained glass projects. But she said she also purchases some of them.
"There is two methods to doing stained glass," Slocum said.
The first is the Tiffany method, where you take glass and put copper foil around the pieces and solder it together with lead.
She said copper foil is used to put the pieces together because the solder will not stick to glass.
The soldering iron, which stays on ready in her shop, is heated to 700 degrees.
Slocum said she has only burned herself once with the hot iron. "If you ever do it once, you'll never do it again."
The second method for doing stained glass is involves taking lead came, which is a flexible strip of lead, to join the pieces of glass together, Slocum said. The joints are then soldered, whole piece is cemented and glazed, she said.
"I had always wanted to do real stained glass, and I saw an offering for a class at Greenwood High at night. I'm still taking it," she said.
The next thing Slocum said she wants to learn how to do is a Tiffany lamp shade.
