“I just love to go to college,” says local artist Marilyn Bachelor.

Natives of Clio, Mich., Dick and Marilyn Bachelor divide their time between a home on the Tennessee River at Bay Hill Village and a cabin at Hubbard Lake in northern Michigan. But with two sons living in Limestone County, the couple spends most of the year here.

Marilyn audits an art class two mornings a week at Calhoun Community College, where she takes instruction from Katherine Lansing Vaughn, who she says is one of the two artists that she considers her mentors. The other is Helga Flowers.

“I’ve taken over 60 workshops,” said Marilyn. “They have been taught by working artists and they are able to share that with me.”

Marilyn, who says she has been painting “seriously” for 20 years, will be among 230 artists exhibiting at the 57th Annual Arts and Crafts Festival n Fairhope. The juried show will be held March 20, 21 and 22.

She has exhibited her mixed-media works several times before at the show.

“My first recollection of painting is sitting in a homemade brown wooden fishing boat that was tied on the shore of ‘Grandpa’s lake,’” she writes in an Artist’s Statement that she distributes at shows. “That day was gray, but warm and humid. I was thrilled by the brilliant color pans in my new Prang color tin when I opened it to paint.

“Color still thrills me—watching colors move and mix, color over texture and color surprises. I enjoy seeing what juxtaposition does to color as well as the influence of light on color.”

Nurse, teacher

It was a long time between that day in her grandfather’s boat with her new set of watercolors and the time when she could become a full-time artist. After graduating from high school, she earned a Bachelors Degree in nursing from the University of Michigan. After working as an R.N. for several years, she went back to school to earn a Master of Arts Degree in education.

“I taught elementary grades, 3rd and 4th,” she said. “There was another teacher that I would switch with so I could teach the same kids two years in a row. I also taught in the gifted program.”

Dick is retired from Buick Motor Division in Flint, Mich. When Marilyn isn’t painting, the couple is usually golfing at Joe Wheeler State Park.

Marilyn holds up two bandaged hands.