HER | Nancy Coe back behind the brush in Atlanta studio

Nancy Hall Cole, retired Texarkana art teacher, recently opened a new studio, Art Play - A Learning Studio in Atlanta, Texas. Classes will be offered Monday through Wednesday with more planned in the future.
Nancy Hall Cole, retired Texarkana art teacher, recently opened a new studio, Art Play - A Learning Studio in Atlanta, Texas. Classes will be offered Monday through Wednesday with more planned in the future.

For many years, area art students looked to Nancy Coe for inspiring guidance, and now after a brief rest from teaching, this longtime fixture on the local arts scene is back at it with her own studio again. Formerly Nancy Martin before her marriage last year, she ran a studio for many years in Texarkana, Arkansas, then retired, defeated cancer and settled into a new town. She maintained contact with the local arts community, such as 903 Artisans, but it's been a while since she taught.

Now, she just opened ArtPlay A Learning Studio, with classes for adults and children, in Atlanta, Texas.

With this past year's pandemic putting her at home, she suspects that isolation may have played a role in inspiring her to teach again

"The world just kind of stopped for a year," she said. "I was just feeling restless."

She and her husband Eddie married last May during the thick of the pandemic, but they didn't get to hold a big wedding or go on a honeymoon, none of the things they planned on doing.

Nancy said she was driving through Atlanta and thought she'd go talk to someone about a building after seeing one that caught her eye. It was not for rent, unfortunately, so she thought that was it for this spur-of-the-moment interest.

But not so fast. Another building enticed her, just perfect for a studio space at 216 S. Louise St.

"I was driving down to go to a friend's house and I passed the building I'm in now, and I thought, 'You know, that's really a great art space with all those windows,'" Nancy said.

As it turned out, the man who had it was the same one who sold her her house.

She called, worked out a deal, and here we are, she said. That initial query was at the end of February. "It was that simple, that fast," Nancy said. She opened on March 29 with a building just a bit off the beaten path.

"The main thing is the lighting. The windows are three sides of the building, so it's real bright, a lot of natural light. On sunny days like today, I won't even have to turn on overheads," Nancy said. "That's how good the light is inside. And then it's a good size; it's room to have tables and have people spread out and all of that."

Nancy said enduring the pandemic has been tough and it affected her artwork.

"I myself personally had a hard time being inspired to do my own art," she said. "I don't know if it was the atmosphere of the world at the time or what."

At the time she thought, "what's missing from my life is being around other artists.'"

So when she saw the building it was kind of a heads or tails thing. "If it wasn't meant to be, OK. But it was meant be, apparently.

"I believe in that. I believe that things happen for a reason," Nancy said.

At Artist's Hideaway in Texarkana she used to hold experimental art days and workshops. This was what was missing from her life, painting and playing with other artists.

"That's a real source of inspiration for me," said Nancy, who's been in Atlanta for three years, a town where she enjoys the small-town community feel of life. Everyone knows everybody else, and she likes that.

"I like being able to walk out my door and somebody drive by and me wave at them," she said.

At ArtPlay, Nancy intends to hold classes Monday through Wednesday for both adults and children. In May, she will add experimental days on Thursdays with other days open for workshops.

Look for Nancy to invite area artists to participate in those workshops, plus organize more activities for children over the summer. She intends to have drawing classes, a first for her, because there's interest.

"I am so excited to be doing this again," she said. "I love doing the art myself, but I love sharing knowledge with other people more than anything."

(On the Net: Look for ArtPlay A Learning Studio on Facebook. Or call Nancy Coe at 903-824-8188.)

Upcoming Events