Darcy Meeker worked as a journalist until she was 44 and she decided she needed a change.
"I started feeling like my hands were hungry," Meeker said. "I knew I needed to be making art or some part of me would shrivel up and die."
The then 44-year-old Meeker traded her pen for a potter's wheel. She took a sabbatical from her job at the University of Florida and spent a month creating art in Tennessee. Meeker said after that, she was sure she wanted to do nothing but art for the rest of her life.
Then, in 1992, Meeker was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, a hereditary disease that weakens the muscles of the body. Despite her illness, she has spent the last 18 years of her life as an artist and said her work keeps her going.
DEALING WITH MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY
Meeker attributed her sudden passion for art in part to the diagnosis.
"That was probably part of the feelings I was having ... of my vitality going away. But so long as I keep making art, things keep being good. I'm not as strong as I was, but I still have a pretty good imagination. ... I'm surrounded by love and help and kindness. Everywhere I go. It's just magic. It's wonderful. It's just a gift from the universe," Meeker said.
Meeker's choice of media allows her to create art. She began creating clay masks because clay is malleable. When she stone carves, she'll use alabaster because alabaster is soft stone, and she also works with copper because it's easy to tool.
Her husband Jim Pease, professor of agriculture and applied economics at Tech, described himself as her biggest fan and said she uses the gifts she has.
"She works with what she's got, and she is sometimes very, very frustrated. She can't hold an envelope in her fingers. She doesn't have enough grip in her left hand to even grasp an envelope. She picks herself up, and she does what she can. She's learning how to ask for help and finding that people enjoy helping her. In her art, she finds ways around things," Pease said.
He said Meeker is inspired by the French painter Henri Matisse, who became ill in his later years and created paper cut outs, which are now displayed in galleries.
"That's particularly poignant for her because you make art with what you've got and how you can do it. Not only when times are perfect and you're perfect. You do it with what you've got," he said.
CARVING OUT THE ARTIST
Meeker's first medium was not the one she ultimately stuck with.
"The first thing I did to make my hands feel more satisfied was to turn things in clay," she said. "But it was kind of boring. All you get is these perfectly symmetrical things"
After seeing quilted figures with clay faces at an art show, Meeker challenged herself to create clay masks. She put the first one she created in her garage and said the experience of seeing it was awe-inspiring.
"It was breathtaking. It was as if this figure was floating, and you couldn't see the rest of the figure, but only the face. ... It was like it was a real presence. I could experience the presence and it took my breath away. While I was making her I'm saying, You know if I can still do this when I'm 84, I'm not going to care if nobody wants to make love to me; it felt that good. That was the amount of energy I felt rushing through me. It was like I had been a fire house my whole life and I finally found a hydrant."
The first floor of Meeker's Blacksburg home is a gallery. Her masks cover most of the upper panels of the walls. Various sculptures are on display in the corners of her dining room, living room and den, and her copper pieces fill the walls.
Pease said only the upper floor of their home is untouched by Meeker's art and this doesn't bother him in the slightest.
"I love living around pretty things," Pease said. While he doesn't consider himself an artist, he has developed a deep respect for art.
"I've learned a lot more about art appreciation being around her. I never imagined myself spending from 10 in the morning until 10 at night in the Louvre and just soaking it all in. But I did. And I loved it. And I never imagined myself driving to Trenton, N.J., to go to the grounds for sculpture to go to see art there, but I did and I loved it," Pease said.
Before Pease became busy with his academic duties, he used to help Meeker polish stone.
"She is endlessly innovative, and that's thrilling. I love to see her work emerge. I love to help," Pease said.
He has seen Meeker's techniques become more refined over the years.
"When she first started making (art), she would cut out a piece of copper and basically stitch it into a piece of canvas, and now she's gotten much more sophisticated at that. And finding better color schemes to go with the shapes she makes," Pease said.
He recalled one particular creation of Meeker's that he found impressive called "Healing Woman." It's a white stone of a woman sitting with her hands cradled in her generous lap that was on display in the Perspective Gallery in Squires Student Center.
"A woman came in and looked at it and burst into tears and said, 'I just want to crawl into her lap,'" Pease said. "Her art evokes things from people that they don't expect. That was a very important piece."
Pease finds that his wife cares about her art as much as the people in her life.
"She cares about everybody and not just passively. She'll go out there and try to do something about people, and maybe that something is for them to see their own issues in a different way," Pease said.
Meeker's compassion is exemplified in an artists' group she created, the Backyard Stone Carvers.
BACKYARD STONE CARVERS
The Backyard Stone Carvers meet on Fridays and chisel and chip away at stone in Meeker's backyard if the weather is nice and in the basement of Glade Church, located on Glade Road in Blacksburg, in inclement conditions.
Group member Andy Sisson said he is impressed with Meeker's carving style both as an artist and someone who has a physical challenge.
"She has a very keen imagination. And I think that her style is very inventive. While there's a lot of expertise involved with her work, there's often a little touch of whimsy somewhere, and I just find that delightful. She's expressed aspects of women healing from everything of breast cancer to domestic violence," Sisson said.
Sisson has multiple sclerosis, a condition that affects the ability of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to communicate with one other, and is inspired by Meeker.
"I'm so impressed with her perseverance and stamina in spite of ... living with a physical challenge. And I, too, have encountered that with multiple sclerosis. Realizing that just because you have some kind of a health challenge, or in my case a neurological challenge, it doesn't mean I can't take a chisel, take a rock, and start carving," Sisson said.
Meeker leads and instructs the Backyard Stone Carvers, but Sisson said he never feels like he's in a classroom setting.
"We're a group working together. But let's face it," Sisson said and then lowered his voice. "All of us are in awe of her work."
Stone carver Milia Boroyevich said Meeker's love of stone carving is why the group exists.
"Darcy has an unbelievable passion for what she does. She also has a passion for everything else, for life, for seeing people, movies, food. Everything she does, she does with a passion," Boroyevich said. "Probably none of us here would be in stone carving if it weren't for Darcy's passion."
She also considers Meeker a dear friend. Meeker made a point of accompanying Boroyevich, who hails from Eastern Europe, when she received her citizenship.
"It really made it that much more special with somebody being there to share and to witness. She has this sense when things are important to support you," Boroyevich said. "She's very open to new people, to new ideas."
Sharon Dowdy, a stone carver, said she remembers feeling close to Meeker almost immediately.
"She's a good teacher. She cares about people. She helps you in any way she can," Dowdy said. "She's not just a good sculptor; she's a good person.
"She's helped me be able to take what I put into realistic pieces. She's helped me immensely in conveying that spirit in abstracts instead of just trying to do the detail. ... You can convey that same emotion and feeling in abstracts," Dowdy said.
Carver Jennifer Lovejoy said Meeker helped her not only discover her pieces, but gain confidence about making art.
"She created a safe way of taking that step. I was totally intimidated, and she encouraged me to connect to it however I felt," Lovejoy said. "She created a teaching of trust, and it allowed me to respect my instincts to engage myself in the making of something."
Meeker encouraged Lovejoy to display her work, and Lovejoy said the experience was rewarding.
"Sitting back and watching the interaction of people when they came up to my own work. Watch them touch the work. Watch how their faces change when they viewed the work. It just opened up the whole magic of this is why I do this. It has a meaning. It has a value to people beyond me. And I feel like I've given a gift. It really reinforced (the fact that) this is something I value greatly," Lovejoy.
Stone carver Estill Putney said Meeker expanded her definition of what it means to be an artist.
"I had an idea that an artist was very careful, and I'm not that kind of person. She helped me recognize the fact that I'm the kind of person I am," Putney said.
Putney said Meeker not only brought out the artist in her, but in those around her.
"She has the ability to bring out the artist in a person, or the authentic person. Because everybody's an artist, but an inauthentic artist is an embarrassment to the trade. She nurtures the artist in people. She finds it, she knows when it's there, she supports it, she creates and she challenges the person to follow the lines of their own being, to develop their own veins of richness. Which are different in every person and they're different at times of day," Putney said.
THE ARTIST IN EVERYONE
Meeker speaks of her pieces as if they are alive, but considers parting with her art rewarding.
Meeker recalled a young couple buying a $6,000 stone, "Bride" from her, but could only pay for it in $50 per month installments. "Bride" is an Italian crystal alabaster stone of a woman whose arms cradle her bare breasts as her hair cascades from her head and surrounds the entire piece.
"Their sons grew up with that respect for beauty and creativity and commitment to it in their lives. ... They were so happy; it meant so much to them. How could it mean more to me not to sell it to them? How could that be more valuable to me to still have it?" Meeker said.
She said she wants all her creations to have a sense of vitality.
"I wanted to give life in their lives, and when it does it's a blessing for all of us," Meeker said. "When people buy your art, they live with it for the rest of their lives."