Much like her bubbly personality, Angie Cole’s paintings have pop.
The 42-year-old Greenwood artist is known for using bright colors to depict Mississippi Delta living and landscapes. She paints the settings that have always inspired her the most. Cool blue and violet shadows over a cotton field at sunset. Diesel tanks in a field beneath a stunning azure and storm-threatened sky or the dusty silhouette of a tractor as it rides within a golden glare.
Cole describes her style of art as recognizable abstract.
“I play up colors a lot. I like to use purple a lot for shadows because I don’t use much black at all,” she said. “Delta landscapes are covered in various crops, including a lot of cotton. It’s a livelihood for so many in our community. I can't help but appreciate that and often paint cotton.”
Cole and her husband, Robert, a lifelong farmer, often ride the back roads in search for scenes for potential paintings. She snaps photos of anything that catches her eye and also has friends send photos of landscapes they’ve captured on their cameras. The majority of her work is painted from these real-life still shots.
As a sort of a unique calling card, some of Cole’s paintings include an added element of woven objects through the canvas, whether pieces of cotton, actual dirt and dried grass from the region or copper that catches and deepens the colors around it.
Her work seems to inspire others to take note of their surroundings. It also inspires fellow Greenwood artist Shawn Hodges.
“No matter what she does or what she paints, I am instantly taken in by her work. I have to look more to see all her colors and see the light that she has asked the viewer to believe in. Her work inspires me as an artist but more importantly just makes me happy,” Hodges said. “I’d say she’s doing something right.”
Indeed she is. About 70 percent of paintings are commissioned, while the rest she puts on Facebook for sale — and those often move pretty quickly.
Cole, a 1993 graduate of Greenwood High School and a 1998 graduate of Delta State University, has been interested in painting and creating art for as long as she can remember. Her curiosity with it even got her into a little trouble as a girl.
She used to sneak around and get makeup from her aunts and cousins to draw faces.
As a youngster, Cole stayed with her grandmother while her mom was at work. One day her grandmother called a roofer to check on a leak, and it caused Cole to panic a bit.
“When he got up on the roof, he discovered where I had taken some shingles off and created art on the roof because I just knew a plane would fly over and see it,” she recalled. “Yeah, that didn’t go over well.”
When she isn’t painting, Cole uses her degree in art and education from DSU to introduce others to the craft. In addition to being a high school art teacher at Pillow Academy, she works one-on-one with students — from kindergartners through adults — who are interested in becoming better artists. In most cases, she paints along with them, offering a demonstration piece that moves step by step, from beginning to completion of the painting process.
“I have taught art at Pillow for about six years now, and I love it. I love the enthusiasm of the kids,” she said. “No matter what problems I may have, they just melt away because my students are so lively and fun.
“Watching them develop skills and seeing how proud they are of their work gives me such a feeling of accomplishment. I try to build their skills by picking a project that highlights a technique or concept and build on that.”
She said there never seems to be a dull moment when dealing with high school kids, much like her home life with three teenage girls – two age 15 and one 18 – under the same roof.
“We’ve got one with a (driver’s) license, of course, and two more with permits. They keep us hopping for sure.”
•Contact Bill Burrus at 581-7237 or bburrus@gwcommonwealth.com.
