Cheryl Vickers has been named Newnan-Coweta Art Association’s Artist of the Month for the month of May.

As an artist , Vickers likes to bring something special to the painting, whether it is enthusiasm for the subject, imagination to make changes in what is seen, or the courage to paint something that is important to her. She says that most ideas have been painted many times, but what makes each idea worth painting is what the artist brings to the subject on the canvas.

Vickers is a 1967 graduate of the University of East Carolina’s School of Art with a major in Art Education and Interior Design. After teaching elementary art for several years in the Dekalb School System, she and her husband Claude Vickers moved to Coweta County. Vickers began teaching art at Evans Middle School when it opened in 1974. She was only the second art teacher in the county at that time and the first one at the middle school level. She was instrumental in developing several programs within her school and the school system such as Evans Honors Art Program for talented middle school students, Very Special Arts for special needs students, and an art curriculum for the county. She also taught staff development classes both in Dekalb and Coweta.

In her 31 years of teaching art, she supervised 24 student teachers. As of today ten of the art teachers in the county were either one of her student teachers or in her Honors Art Class. In 1998 she was nominated by the Art Department of the University of West Georgia as Outstanding Supervisor of Student Teachers. She was one of fifteen teachers selected by the Georgia Arts and Humanities Council to participate in a study of the Art and Architecture of Chicago and developed a curriculum on Architecture to be used in the classroom.

Today Vickers continues teaching having an adult class at the Harriet Alexander Art Center and she volunteers at Wesley Woods providing art activities. She is on the Patrons Board for the Centre of Performing and Visual Arts. She maintains two studios: one at her home in Newnan, and one in the North Carolina Mountains on the Hiawassee River. Her inspirations come from the environment that she sees, whether it is a beautiful sunset taken with her camera at local parking lot, the bubbling sulfur pools out west, or the daisies blooming her yard in the summer. Vickers feels artists are partners in creation. They show the world the form, the substance of ideas that have never been seen.

Vickers is a member of the Newnan-Coweta Art Association. NCAA meets the third Thursday each month (from September through May) at the Harriet Alexander Art Center on Hospital Road at 7 p.m. Visitors and new members are welcome. An art demonstration is presented each month. Come and Join the fun.

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