By Colleen Nelson
We’re sitting in Leslie Fehling’s spacious kitchen where it morphs into a dining niche, then opens onto an enclosed porch filled with afternoon light. This is where fifteen or so practicing artists gather at varying times of the year to hug and say hello, then head downstairs to watercolor with Leslie. Then it’s back upstairs for a scrumptious lunch that Leslie’s mother Sondra helps prepare and some quality time to talk art. Some come from states away to spend a few days relaxing, painting and sketchbook journaling – most of us live close enough to pilgrimage here to learn the tricks of the watercolor trade and share the collective inspiration that comes from sharing artist time and breaking bread together.
“The coolest thing is the relationship,” Leslie agrees. “I’ve made friends all over the world with my classes and we all have this common interest in relationship – getting together to do art. A few of my students are younger than 50 but they are the people who have the time for it.”
Learning to make that “me time” is what taking a workshop is all about. Those of us who have been with Leslie since she started classes at Summerhill – her Victorian throwback home on the hill above Ruff Creek – have learned the joy of just doing it and the rewards that come with practice, practice, practice.
“You’re doing it for yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Leslie tells her students. The freedom not to worry is where the joy of making art begins.
I’ve left my watercolors at home today and brought my reporter’s notebook, ready to explore Leslie’s own background narrative, to see how she arrived at this moment of being both a teacher and a world traveler. She does workshops from Tuscany to Croatia and across the states from Maine to Alaska and California, absorbing the beauty and uniqueness of each new place and cultural experience she and her students bring home as art.
“I love traveling. It makes one modest. It makes you realize what a small place you occupy in the world.”
Travel comes naturally to Leslie – “ I was born in Hawaii and went to 13 different schools in 12 years. My father was in the Air Force.” She remembers quilting with her mom, learning to knit at age six, taking after school oil painting classes in San Antonio Texas in 7th grade. But it was the fifth grade teacher in Germany who had her students sit on the lawn and draw what could be seen in the circle they made with their hands that opened Leslie’s eyes to the art of reality. “I looked at all those blades of grass twisting together and it was the first time I really looked at the world instead of drawing from imagination.”
Leslie majored in art at Colorado College and later married Fred Fehling, moved to Greene County and home schooled their children. Fred was an airline pilot and Leslie was a stay at home mom with a penchant for needlework and quilting. Her eye for color and detail began winning awards at the Greene County Fair and later, at regional and national competitions. When her neighbors wanted to learn to quilt she held her first classes.
When I interviewed Leslie for another publication in 2010, her children had fledged and she was conducting weekend workshops in decorative stitchery for professional sewers. Her basement was full of sewing machines and beautiful cornices, pillows and drapery popped on the walls.
Now the basement is full of tables to paint on, an overhead projector for demonstrations, glass doors that lead to beautiful gardens, and a breathtaking hilltop view to sketch and paint. Leslie grins as she remembers her own journey from those perfect stitches to the joy of splashing colored water on a page and turning it into art with a mind of its own.
“I’ve always sketched.” Leslie knows the power of line and color to capture the day to day moments in a busy life, especially when traveling, to preserve those sweet small details that in time get lost.
It was a family trip to Maine in 2011 that turned making art for personal fulfillment into a new profession.
“It was at the top of Mt. Katahdin and I saw a woman painting.” Turns out it was international artist Evelyn Dunphy, “I said ‘That’s beautiful!’ and she told me ‘I teach. I take groups to Ireland.’ That’s when I knew what I wanted to do next. Life is too short not to do the things your heart is telling you to do.”
Inspired, Leslie began sketchbook journaling her own travels. In 2013 a personal trip to Ireland turned into a self published book that became both her resume and a lesson plan for future workshops. She taught classes at Wash Arts in Washington, joined Artbeat Gallery in Waynesburg, turned original watercolors into prints and notecards and began offering classes at Summerhill.
Still, “my dream was always to teach in Italy.”
When fellow artist Kit Paulson had to cancel plans to teach a workshop in Tuscany in 2015, she asked Leslie to go in her place.
By the next year, Leslie was invited back to lead another workshop and a happy handful of her Summerhill sketchers joined her for a week of staying at a villa surrounded by vineyards and fine views. There would be quaint towns to visit, great food to eat and plenty of time to sketch, paint and find words to describe the adventure of a lifetime.
The workshops Leslie is invited to teach keep growing, spread by word of mouth by those who appreciate someone who helps them find their own style and not be afraid to use it.
I give Leslie a hug and wish her safe journey – she’s leaving in the morning for a workshop in Florida. Bring home some sunshine!
