Tribute to Joyce Porter Hammers She was known throughout Butler County and beyond as a matriarch to all and an artistic businesswoman who reinvented herself over the decades. Joyce Porter Hammers, 83, passed away December 28, 2014, at the Morgantown Care and Rehabilitation Center after a long illness. She was a proud native of Morgantown, where she spent her life. As a young woman, she worked as a secretary at a number of Morgantown offices. Her first brush with art was at a painting class at the Morgantown Library in 1972 she took with her daughter, Kelley. After surviving a life-threatening cancer in the late 1970s, Joyce left behind office work to pursue her love of art and storytelling full time. She and her late husband, Floyd Hammers, ran Hammers Art & Frame Shop for many years where she completed more than 100 of paintings, architectural drawings and photographic works. Inspired both by the classic works of Rembrandt and modern style of Georgia OKeeffe, she began with portraits of religious figures and her children, working mainly in pastels. She later expanded her scope to close-up perspectives of flowers. Over the next two decades, she completed dozens of portraits and sketches, specializing in children. Throughout the 1980s, she completed about 10 pen and ink drawings of historic Butler County structures, many of which are no longer standing. A longtime member of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen, she displayed her work at festivals and shows throughout the region, from the Kentucky State Fiddle Competition to the Morgantown Catfish Festival and from Bowling Green to Berea. She routinely participated in the annual Transfinancial Bank juried competition and showed at the Capitol Arts juried competition in Bowling Green. She received purchase awards at the Medical Center Women in the Arts juried competition, and her work brought in high bids at Public Theatre of Kentucky fundraisers. A devout Christian, Joyce expanded into theatrical arts in the early 1980s starting with her monologue representing Susanna Wesley, mother of Methodism founder John Wesley. Over the years, she wrote and performed other monologues representing women she deemed overlooked by history. They included Sarah Clark, an American pioneer woman; explorer Sacagawea; abolitionist Sojourner Truth and scientist Marie Curie. For 14 years, she opened her home to hundreds of children to see her enormous Candytown Christmas village, a massive display that filled her living room with holiday scenes she fashioned from colorful lights, figurines and gingerbread houses. Her late husband, Floyd Hammers, also an artist, passed away in 2011. His oil paintings are on display at Smith Funeral Home. A favorite quote - A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness. Thank you Dana Felty Bynum for the beautiful tribute!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 00:53:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015