St. Clair People – Page 5 – Discover St. Clair

Serrell Fleming Tractor Man

Tractors line Moody Parkway between Odenville and Moody.

Saving ‘ageless iron’ from rusty oblivion

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller

Photos by Graham Hadley

If you want to see a child’s eyes light up, put them on a tractor. Better yet, take them by Serrell Fleming’s house at 8701 Moody Parkway, between Odenville and Moody, where they will have almost three dozen tractors to climb on. They can turn the steering wheels, push the buttons and play with the knobs and gear shifts without fear of reprimand. In fact, the tractors’ owner encourages such behavior.

“I take the batteries out of most of them so kids can push all the buttons without starting up the tractors,” Fleming said.

Serrell Fleming showing off one of his vintage restored Ford Tractors.

Old tractors are, as one writer put it, “the antique cars of the farm,” which makes Fleming an antique dealer extraordinaire. He has been buying and restoring old and rare ones for 45 years, simply because he likes them.

For the past 25, he has lined them up in front of his house during major holidays and invited any with an interest to drop by.

His current count is 35 standard-size tractors in his display, plus a few lawn tractors and some children’s pedal models. He puts them in his front yard for at least a week around Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day. Many are decorated with American flags. During the Christmas holidays, he displays them for more than a month beginning in early December and extending well past New Year’s Day, decorated with lights.

He replaces the batteries and puts as many as he can find drivers for in the Odenville Christmas Parade. “All of them will run,” he said proudly. During the parade, he also pulls a flatbed trailer with child-mounted pedal tractors behind his pickup truck.

Cases, John Deeres, Minneapolis Molines, Olivers, Allis Chalmers models, Fords, Farmalls and Massey Harrises cover Fleming’s yard like wildflowers, their ageless iron shining under new coats of red, blue, orange and yellow paint. There’s even a pink one, a Power King that Fleming painted to show support for the American Cancer Society, even though the color is usually associated with breast cancer awareness. “I saw one done that way at an International show at the Coliseum in Montgomery,” he said. After his wife’s death from COPD two years ago, he dedicated it to her memory. “Her favorite actually was the Oliver 440, but she didn’t want it painted because it’s more valuable like it is,” Fleming said.

Passion ignited

Fleming’s tractor passion started with buying used ones and restoring them for his own use.

Later, he began selling them, then decided to become a collector.

He often finds out about them at tractor auctions like the one on RFD-TV on Tuesdays and has been all over Alabama and parts of Tennessee retrieving them. He finds most of them within a 50-mile radius of where he lives. “I don’t find them, they find me,” he said.

When he buys an old tractor, it’s usually in pretty rough condition. “Most are basket cases,” he said. “They have been welded on and patched up and rusted so bad. The (Ford 2000) Hi Crop looked like it had been in a junk yard. I have to disassemble them, strip them (of any remaining paint) and replace parts.”

He has no trouble finding parts, sometimes through salvage yards, sometimes through Steiner Tractor Parts, a Michigan-based company that makes reproductions. A retired sheet metal worker (Hayes Aircraft), he, too, knows how to make parts when he can’t find what he needs. “When it’s using oil and smoking, I have to buy a part,” he said.

Every nut and bolt, manifold and carburetor is color-coded like the tractors: blue for Ford, orange for Allis Chalmers, green for John Deere, red for International. When the U.S. had a more agrarian-based economy, farmers bought whatever brand their local dealer had, and dealers usually specialized in one brand or another.

Fleming’s grandson, Chad Brantley, helped him research information on each of his tractors online, printed that information, encased it in plastic sleeves and attached it to the respective tractors for visitors to read. “It keeps me from having to answer so many questions,” he said. But he doesn’t mind answering a few and loves to talk about his favorites.

Tractors 101

The Oliver HG 68, for example, is a metal tractor that was used in apple orchards in Tennessee because it wasn’t easy to turn over. The Ford 2000 Hi Crop is a favorite because it’s so rare and unique. “I only know of two others, one in Leesburg,” he said. “I looked a long time for this one.” He bought it in 2018 and he’s only its second owner.

“My grandfather, Cecil Smith, bought this tractor for me to drive when I was 15,” said Mike Smith, in the printed information attached to the tractor. “It has remained in our family solely from 1964 to 2018.”

Another favorite and his rarest specimen is the Oliver 440, one of only 600 produced. He also has a rare Minneapolis Moline, one of only 137 built. “Honestly, my favorite is the one I’m working on at the time,” he said.

Then there’s the John Deere 40 All Fuel, so named because it has both a gas and a diesel tank. The one-gallon gas tank got the engine hot, then you flipped a switch to use the 10-gallon diesel. “It’s not loud, it’s a beautiful sound,” he said as he cranks up the engine and listens to it purr. “It was practical. It didn’t have a water pump because they wanted it to run hot to burn the diesel.”

Parade of visitors

Fleming is with his display from daylight to dark, watching the happy folks examining the tractors. They come from all over Alabama and nearby states, having seen the Tractor Man on Fred Hunter’s Absolutely Alabama (WBRC-Fox 6 TV) or read about him on his daughter’s Facebook page (Janice Fleming Brantley).

Others just notice his display as they drive by on Moody Parkway. This past July 4th, he even had a couple from North Dakota who were in town visiting relatives and read about the tractors in a local newspaper. He doesn’t have any way of keeping a count of visitors, because he doesn’t sell tickets, but for this year’s July 4th, he gave away all 500 of the tractor-listing sheets he had printed. He gives away bottled water during the warmer months, too.

“I plowed my garden with this one,” he told a visitor who was admiring an Allis Chalmers G. The G stands for Gadsden, where it was made in 1944. Whitt Davis, age 21 months, climbed all over the G while his mom, Jessica Davis, and granddad, Ron Chamblee, watched. “He loves tractors,” said Ron, a Springville resident. “We have to take a tractor or lawn mower ride just about every day.” Ron restores tractors, too, but not to the extent of Fleming.

Serrell loves to talk about his tractors. He knows just about everything about every machine on his property.

Abel Hilliard of Woodville, 15, visited July 3 with his dad and brother. “Dadread about it online,” Abel said. “I think it’s pretty cool. Dad has an old Farmall that he’s working on, too.”

Fleming loves watching the kids’ faces as they play on the tractors and enjoys hearing their parents’ comments, too. “Parents thank me for putting these out for them and the kids,” he said. “They say they appreciate what we’re doing here. One guy left a message on my answering machine saying he saw the tractors but couldn’t get in my driveway.”

Fleming also said the display, which is stored in a couple of sheds behind his house between holidays, is really a family thing. His daughter lives next door, helps with traffic and posts notices about the display on her Facebook page. His son-in-law helps drive the tractors out and back into the sheds, and on off days, he walks the rows of tractors, helping Fleming answer questions.A couple of neighbors keep him company under his sun tent. “There’s no way I could do all this without the help of my family,” he said.

He pauses, gazes out at the rows of tractors and the smiling faces of the visitors, and a broad grin lights up his face. “I’m so glad the young people are bringing the kids,” he said. “Tractor collectors are getting older, and we’re losing the heritage of these.”

The Tractor Man is doing all he can to maintain that heritage.

Features

Attention: Women Working

St. Clair women blaze trails
in male-dominated fields

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Kelsey Bain

The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the one guaranteeing women’s right to vote. It could also be the year that the Equal Rights Amendment, which guarantees equal legal rights for all Americans regardless of sex, becomes the 28th amendment.

While legal experts debate the uncertainty of the consequences of Virginia’s ERA ratification years after the original deadlines, along with the recisions of five other states, a couple of trailblazing women here in St. Clair County continue doing their jobs in male-dominated fields without concern for equal treatment.

In fact, Stephanie Foster, St. Clair’s first certified female school bus mechanic, and Belinda Crapet, the City of Springville’s first female police chief, say they got where they are with the help and encouragement of their male counterparts. For them, equal rights have never been an issue.

“The mechanics here (at the Pell City Schools bus shop) encouraged me to take the certification test, and they keep telling me I can do this,” Foster says. “Other mechanics sometimes make derogatory remarks at conferences and mechanic classes, but no one at the shop does.”

Foster, the second woman in the state to earn a school bus mechanic certification, is shop assistant for the Pell City Schools Transportation Department. Her primary job is behind a desk, where she handles morning dispatches and deals with parents calling about kids missing buses and drivers calling about fights among students.

She checks images that are captured from security cameras and sends digital copies to the Police Department when a video shows a driver not stopping while a school bus is loading or unloading. Occasionally, she fills in as a bus driver. A big part of her job is ordering parts, and being a certified mechanic comes in handy for that.

“Before, when a driverreported a problem, I had to get a work order to a mechanic, he would look at the bus, then a lot of times, I had to call a parts manufacturer for a diagram of the area where the problem was. Then the mechanic would identify which part was needed from the diagrams, and I would place the order,” she says. Now, she looks at the bus and diagrams, which she keeps on file, and determines herself which part to order. “It’s much more efficient this way,” she says. “The quicker we can get that bus back on the road, the better.”

She has been with the department since 2013 and was certified in January of last year. “You have to work in a shop five years before you can take the certification test,” she says. The three-part exam included an on-site, hands-on portion that involved a state instructor “bugging” a school bus. Foster found nine of the 10 changes the instructor made to the vehicle. “I missed the easiest one — the oil dipstick was missing,” she says.

Although she knows a piston ring from a push rod, shecan’t rebuild an engine. But she is familiar with all its parts. She helps with the state-required monthly bus inspections, hooking her laptop to the bus to find what’s causing engine lights to come on. She replaces fluids, light assemblies and switches. She is qualified to replace brake chambers, hazard and turn signal switches, and one of the most common problems in school buses — door switches. “They tend to break a lot on our new buses,” she says.

Drivers have to do safety pre-checks before each trip, mornings and after school. If they hear air escaping, or the air pressure gauge shows it isn’t building enough pressure, they know there is a leak. “I got certified because I wanted to be able to walk out to the bus and know what it is that’s leaking, not just say we have an air leak, but to tell them it’s the right rear brake chamber of a door that’s leaking air, for example,” says the 2010 graduate of Pell City High School. “Safety is important to me, and I wanted to make sure when I talk to our mechanics that I know what I’m talking about. I wanted to speak their language.”

The 27-year-old has always liked taking things apart to see what was inside and to learn how they worked. Her interest in mechanics developed as a teenager, when she hung out with her best friend, Patrick Ferguson, who worked on race cars, four-wheel drives and rock crawlers. “I was his sidekick, and he taught me a lot,” she says. She worked at Advance Auto Parts in Pell City and Leeds for two years, then as a painter’s prepper in a body shop.

Her husband, Joshua, paints vehicles for a living. The couple has two children. Their son, 7-year-old Tristan, thinks it’s cool to hang out at the shop with Mom each morning while awaiting his bus ride to school. Five-year-old Emma has shown no signs of following in Foster’s footsteps.

Kristy Lemley, shop secretary, was impressed when Foster did a road-side repair on a recent trip. “We were taking two buses to Transportation South, a bus dealer and repair shop, and the air line going to her seat busted,” Lemley said. “It made a loud noise, and Stephanie jumped. Then she hopped out of the bus, looked around and found the problem and fixed it. We went on with our trip.”

“They were air-ride seats, and mine dropped to the floor,” Foster recalls. “I couldn’t have driven the bus like that.”

“She doesn’t give herself enough credit,” says Lemley. “She can do my job, her job, the supervisor’s job and most of the jobs of our mechanics.”

Justin Turner and Greg Davis, the other two shop mechanics, spent a lot of time helping her prepare for the state exams.

“Without those two, I would not have made it through the test,” Foster says.

Davis says he and Turner “think the world of her” and that she has been a definite asset to the shop. “If just any woman had come up to me and wanted to be trained, I would have had reservations, but I knew Stephanie’s character,” Davis says. “She has always been wise beyond her years and driven to be successful at things she does, so I had no qualms about showing her how to become a mechanic. She’s a bulldog, and when she gets something into her head, she does it. Those qualities are hard to find in any gender these days.”

This woman answers to ‘Chief’

Belinda Crapet Johnson has those same “git-‘er-done” qualities. She didn’t grow up wanting to be a police officer. She stumbled into law enforcement for lack of something to do and discovered her true calling. “My youngest child was in kindergarten, and we lived across the street from Moody City Hall,” says Crapet, who uses her middle name professionally. “I walked over to see whether the city was hiring. I got a job as part-time dispatcher. I was trained on the job.”

As a dispatcher, she would take a call, then send an officer to investigate. “I often wondered what happened on those calls,” she says. That curiosity led her to attend the Reserve (Weekend) Police Academy in 1992. “They don’t change anything in the academy because you are female,” she says. “Physical agility, firearms, all of the requirements and tests are standardized.” She prepared herself for the physical demands of the academy by running to get into shape.

Sometime during the early 1990s, central dispatch came into the county, eliminating her job with Moody. She went to work in the county probate office. She had already finished the academy by then, so when Moody had an opening for a police officer, she joined the force.

“I was was there six or eight years and was one of the first school resource officers in that city,” she says. “This was around the time of the Columbine (Colorado) school shooting.” She was a police officer in Odenville from 2001-2008, served briefly on the Ragland police force, then went to Springville in 2010. “I started as a patrol officer, was promoted to investigator, then I was appointed chief in 2018,” she says. “I had the rank of sergeant in Odenville but was hired as a patrol officer here.”

Although she’s the first female police chief for Springville, Crapet is quick to point out that she isn’t the first woman police chief in St. Clair County. “Branchville has had two women police chiefs, Wendy Long and the late Joann Lowe, and Argo has had one, Rebecca Downing,” she says.

According to a recent article by the Associated Press, only five of the nation’s 50 largest police departments are led by women. A 2013 survey by the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives showed only 169 women leading the more than 1,500 law enforcement agencies across the United States that responded to the survey. A 2018 survey reported by Statista, an online business data platform, said only 26.7% of law enforcement officers are female. Springville has two females out of 11 officers, including Chief Crapet.

Even though she’s the chief, Crapet doesn’t wear a full or Class A uniform all the time. “That’s for dress-up,” she says. She usually works in a Class B uniform, which consists of a Polo-type shirt and black or khaki pants. Her five children grew up seeing their mom in a police uniform, but her eight grandchildren and two great-grands are still getting used to the idea.

“The grandkids don’t usually see me with gun and badge,” she says. “One day I walked into the house of my 3-year-old grandson in full uniform and he said, ‘Nana, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’m a police officer.’ He just looked at me.’ Another grandchild had to do a history project and chose female law enforcement officers in Alabama as her topic.”

As for how she would feel about one of her grandchildren going into law enforcement, she says she would support her — or him. So far not one has expressed an interest in it. “I was school resource officer at Moody High School when my kids were there,” she says. “That was awkward for them.”

Her job requires a lot of administrative work in her office at City Hall. That office could best be described as “executive unisex.” A four-month dry-erase calendar hangs on a wall behind her large desk. “A Policeman’s Prayer” banner hangs on another wall, alongside a painting of rocking chairs and an American flag on a country front porch. Facing the desk is a flat-screen television hanging next to a Back-the-Blue wreath. A vacuum cleaner sits next to a coffee pot.

Theoretically, Crapet only has to spend 40 hours per week in her office or in her unmarked patrol car. Realistically, she is on call 24 hours a day. She doesn’t get called out much in the middle of the night, though. “I had to go out more when I was an investigator,” she says. “My husband hardly knew when I was gone.”

She likes getting out of the office, talking with business owners, their employees and people on the street. She wants them to know she cares. “I go to school events, too,” she says. “I’m best at community relations. I love that and working with children.”

Frank Mathews, a police investigator for Springville, has known Crapet for 17 years. “She’s a great chief, she’s doing an excellent job,” he says. “It’s the experience she has behind her that makes her so good. She’s been there, done that. She has come up through the ranks. Blue is blue — male or female.”

Springville Mayor William Isley says he recommended Crapet to the City Council upon the recommendation of former Chief Bill Lyle when Lyle retired. “She wears the hat well,” he says. “She works hard to retain the officers we have and makes sure they stay up-to-date on all their certifications. I’m impressed with her. She’s in a male-dominated profession, but this lady has walked into it and stood tall. She demands the respect of all who work for her. I fully support her in all she does.” Crapet says she and Cathy Goodwin, a lieutenant with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, have been around longer than any other female law enforcement officers in the county. “I’ve got 29 years of service, 25 of them on the street,” she says. In all that time, she has caught no flack about being female, neither from fellow officers nor from people in the communities in which she has served. “I’ve had a lot of good mentoring from male officers through the years,” she says. “I’ve seen a lot of women come and go. I’m still here because I’m just stubborn. When you come into this field, as long as you realize you are held to the same standard as male officers, you will be fine.”

Features

Marion Frazier

A beacon of love, hope and service

Story by Joe Whitten

Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Submitted photos

“How would I describe Marion Frazier?” Bill Hereford, asked, echoing the interviewer’s question. “That’s easy — dynamite comes in small packages. Marion is a great community leader and friend who lives her faith. She gives me chills when she sings our national anthem.”

If you don’t know Marion Frazier, you’ve missed knowing a Pell City personality whose countenance and demeanor radiates her love for God, family, church and community. She has a deep concern for others — a life principle instilled in her by her mother, Lizzie Roberson. Marion voiced this when she spoke of her students as “the students I served.” Only the rarest of the best see teaching as a service to students.

“My mother was one to help people in the community,” Marion recalled, “She instilled in us that we needed to help somebody when they need it … and that’s what I’ve done.”

Born to John H. and Lizzie Roberson, Marion grew up in a home full of love. The family was one of togetherness that included evenings at the fireplace singing, playing games and mom making popcorn ball treats. These times contributed to a large family learning to live together. Her parents believed, “All of us want to live and want to be in harmony. That’s what we were taught at home. We didn’t fight at home.” She paused, then with a laugh confessed, “But we took care of each other if we needed to when we got outside!”

Her community influence started in 1967 at Eden Elementary School, and she’s been a driving force since then in the betterment of Pell City and St. Clair County. “She is dedicated to the betterment of the community,” said Sherry Bowers.

For 32 years, she “served” Pell City’s children. Her first year at Eden, she had a combined first- and second-grade class, which presented difficulties, she admitted. However, it was a good year. “Although I was the only black teacher there,” she remembered, “they took me under their wings — teachers, parents and children. … And all those children at Eden school, I loved them. I still get letters from them, and I see them in town and we just had a wonderful year.” She taught at Eden seven years, at Iola Roberts nine years, and finished her career teaching at Kennedy. She emphasized that she enjoyed teaching in each of those schools. All of her “children” were under her wings of love and acceptance.

“Marion Frazier was an exceptional teacher who loved her students and was dedicated to meeting each one’s individual needs,” said Sherry Pate, Marion’s principal at Kennedy. “She not only educated minds but also hearts. Mrs. Frazier’s spiritual beliefs spilled over into the lives of her students. It was an honor and pleasure to work with my good friend, Marion Frazier.”

Her God-given compassion got her appointed to the YWCA Purse and Passion Steering Committee. “Purse and Passion is a part of the YWCA,” Marion explains. “We work to fund Our Place, a home for abused women and children from St. Clair and Blount counties. It has been in existence since 2008. I came on the Steering Committee in 2010.”

The biggest fundraiser for this is the summer luncheon. At this event, tables are sponsored by individuals who invite friends to come who know they’ll be asked to donate to the local domestic violence shelter. Corporate and private foundation gifts are collected or pledged prior to the luncheon. The event raised $54,000 in 2019, though naturally the amount fluctuates year by year. According to the August 8, 2019, St. Clair Times article, Purse and Passion has helped raise $650,000 over the past 10 years.

Blair Goodgame, who served as co-chair of the event, considered Marion’s help as vital to the luncheon’s success, saying, “Marion has been an invaluable asset to the YWCA Purse and Passion Luncheon. Serving on the steering committee and as a table captain for many years, Marion has contributed not only her time, but also her talents. She often sings the National Anthem at the luncheon. As her voice fills the First United Methodist Church’s Beacon, it puts a smile on the faces of everyone in attendance … She is a true blessing for the St. Clair County community.”

For more than 20 years, Marion has served on the boards of The Children’s Place and DHR. The Children’s Place provides help for abused children. An April luncheon raises funds for this important facility. The director of DHR meets with the board to bring concerns to them for their counsel. “Marion and I worked together as DHR board members,” said Rev. Paul Brasher. “She is one of the most caring and tender-hearted persons I’ve ever known. She’s a fantastic person and a fantastic Christian that I really respect. It’s an honor to be her co-worker.”

Marie Manning spoke of Marion’s work in helping college students financially. “She has served on the Scholarship Committee of the Delta Epsilon Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma to provide students with funds for college. … She is truly a leader in her community and the city.”

With a servant’s heart, her sunshine disposition has blessed many people at St. Vincent’s St. Clair Hospital, where Marion has volunteered as a Pink Lady for 26 years.

She has served patients by reading to them and family members by praying with them in the chapel, and she now works in the gift shop. Undoubtedly, she has brought comfort to a hospital room through her singing, for songs can soothe the troubled soul.

Church is a sustaining force in her life. She’s been active in First Missionary Baptist Church, Pell City, since childhood. “I was over the Youth Department for 27 years,” she said. “My mother was a singer, and I enjoy singing. I have been singing in the choir since I was in the youth choir, and then the adult choir, and now I’m still singing in the senior choir.” Of their September 2019 Women’s Conference, she said, “We brought in a speaker, a singer — she was a recording artist — and we had a splendid time!”

Although having given up a lot of her church responsibilities, she’s still over the program committee and does all the programs for special events. “She has worked in the church and community for many years, and I’m certain her efforts are appreciated by many,” said Dr. Jeffrey Wilson, her pastor,

Her sphere of service extends beyond the local church, for since 2000, she has been secretary of the Mount Zion Coosa Valley District Association of churches serving St. Clair and Jefferson counties.

Married to Jesse Frazier for 46 and a half years, they have one son and daughter-in-law, Jamey and Kimberly Frazier, who are parents to Isabella.

Kimberly Frazier wrote, “To my second Mother, You have been the best mother-in-law anyone could ask for. You portray everything good in the world, and I am honored to be your daughter. You are always there for us, without hesitation, and with loving, open arms. Thank you for the father and husband you raised for Isabella and me. He carries your Godly spirit. You mean the world to us, GG.”

Marion’s mother was the great influence in her life, and the love of God the guiding force. A song she loves is Dottie Rambo’s “He Looked beyond My Faults and Saw My Need.” The concluding stanza reads: “I shall forever lift mine eyes to Calvary / To view the cross where Jesus died for me. / How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul; / He looked beyond my faults and saw my needs.”

Marion Frazier has looked beyond the faults of others, saw their need and sought to lift up wounded, falling people to give them help and hope.

Faith and dynamite — that’s Marion Frazier. And when faith and dynamite join hands, step aside. l

Features

Joy Varnell

Capturing the living
moment on her canvas

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Mike Callahan
Submitted photos

One night, artist Joy Varnell was up late watching television when she stumbled upon a show about beach weddings. As the camera panned the California venue, she spotted an artist among the guests, paint brush in hand and canvas on easel. Intrigued, she recorded the show, then played it several more times. Realizing he was painting the wedding scene, she said to herself, “I think I can do that.”

The problem was, she didn’t know how to get started.

That issue was soon resolved when she walked into the home of a friend/client and spotted a wedding invitation on her kitchen counter. “The client mentioned that she wanted to give the wedding couple something unique, and I suggested that I go to the wedding and paint a picture,” Joy said. “She agreed, and when I got back to my car, I thought, ‘What have I done?’ ”

What she did was create a new twist in her artistic career, one that eventually caused her to dump her day job and paint 40 hours a week. She attends weddings and receptions, capturing special moments on canvas. After eight years, that twist has resulted in more than 300 paintings, taken her and her husband all over the United States, and made a lot of brides happy.

Joy started drawing as a child and painting as a teenager. She studied interior designat Southern Institute (which later became Phillips College) and worked as a kitchen designer for 16 years before striking out on her own to do interior design and faux finishes — a lot of faux finishes.

During all those years, she was painting in her spare time and selling her work. Her husband, Tim, kept encouraging her to spend more hours at her easel. Then came that first wedding, a huge event at the Birmingham Museum of Art. She painted the bridal couple descending the stairs for the reception, and in a newspaper article about the wedding, the bridegroom mentioned that her painting was his favorite gift. From there, her new venture took wings.

“This got bigger and bigger and just took over, and I quit doing interior design,” she said. The transition from landscapes, pet portraits and still life to painting people was a struggle at first, but Joy has a knack for looking at something and being able to paint it. Soon, she was painting weekdays and attending one or two weddings on the weekends. Now, it’s a full-time business. “I did 48 paintings in 2018,” said Joy, who calls herself a “live-event artist.”

Her modus operandi is to show up about three hours before the event, usually wearing a black dress or pants, to start painting the background. “The vendors usually dress in black, so I do, too,” she explained. The most popular request is to capture the bride and groom’s first dance, so she usually sets up at the reception. When the guests come in, she’s ready to paint them into the scene. When the wedding couple appears, she adds them to the painting.

She tries to get a good likeness of the bride and groom, but not the people in the background. Most of them can be recognized by what they’re wearing. She uses the term, “most,” but brides and their mothers are much more specific than that. “The details of the people in the painting are amazing,” said Pamela Rhodes, mother of a bride who married in Addis, Louisiana. “Joy painted my daughter and son-in-law’s first dance as husband and wife (Peyton and Sean Forestier). We are able to identify every person painted, even the guy singing on the stage (my brother-in-law).”

“The Creator of the Universe certainly shines through Joy’s hand,” gushed Jurrita Williams Louie of Dallas, Texas, who got married in Tuscaloosa, her and her husband’s hometown. “She captured our first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Louie as if God came down from heaven to earth to do it. I can’t quite get over the detail and thoughtfulness with each stroke.”

Joy’s medium is acrylicsbecause they have no odor and dry quickly. “I have to work very fast, so at least the couple can see themselves before they leave,” she said. “People come up and say, ‘It looks just like them,’ as if they are surprised. Well, that’s the point.” As for mistakes, she just paints over them.

At the time she started, she found only four artists doing what she does. Three were in California, one in New York. There are many more now, but she believes the examples on her website, joyvarnellart.com, and her willingness to travel make her stand out. Her new business has taken her to California, New York, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast, Georgia and up and down the East Coast as well.

“I average about 12-15 weddings around the New Orleans area and south Louisiana each year,” she said. One such event took place at the restored art deco Lakefront Airport terminal in New Orleans. “It was my daughter, Celeste’s, wedding to Don Jude,” said Claudine Hope’Perret. “It was their first dance, and the painting shows amazing work and detail, even down to their lit-up tennis shoes.”

No one has ever expressed a dislike of her paintings, though she did have a girl ask her to re-do the groom’s hair once. “I strive very hard to get what they want,” she said.

Tim, who is retired from the Norfolk Southern Railroad, goes to the weddings with Joy and does most of the driving. Anything over 500 miles, they fly. He packs up her paints and tools at home, unpacks and sets up at the venue, then repacks. “He calls himself my roadie,” she said. “He’s my public relations man, too. He mingles.”

Some of the brides are nervous, and others just very excited and enjoying their day. The grooms are always nervous, and usually say, “Where do you want me?” Kids just stand and stare.

The most common request she gets while painting is, “Will you take 10 (or 20) pounds off me?” That often comes from the mother of the bride. “Sometimes a woman will come up and talk to me because she’s afraid to talk to Joy,” Tim said. “One woman asked if Joy would take off her stomach and give her some boobs.” A man might ask her to cover a bald spot.

Sometimes Joy adds details that represent something meaningful to the couple. Once, she painted a map rolled out to represent a treasure hunt, because that’s how the groom led the bride to her ring and his proposal. She has painted favorite dogs, relatives who couldn’t attend, even dead relatives into the paintings. She has put cats in, too. “Very often the venue will have one, and I’ll paint it peeping through a window,” she said. Occasionally she’ll give the bride a brush and let her paint a few strokes of her own.

She has painted outdoors in all types of weather, from 35-degree temperatures on New Year’s Eve to 95-degrees in the sun. She prefers the reception to the ceremony because it’s less structured, and she gets to interact with the people. “That’s part of what makes it fun,” she said.

One of her most memorable events was a Hindu wedding in Indiana. The bride wanted her to paint the Seven Vows, but she didn’t know what they were or where they occurred in the ceremony, which was four hours long. She kept asking people, and no one seemed to know. Parts of the ceremony were in English, parts in Hindi, and it turned out that the Seven Vows were at the end. Tim found out and clued her in.

An outdoor wedding in Biloxi,Mississippi, was notable because a storm came up and sent many guests inside. The bridal party remained outside, and at the end of ceremony, the couple was framed by a rainbow.

There was one in Fort Deposit they’ll never forget, either, but for a very different reason. “When we got out of the car there, we realized we had left my paints at home,” Joy recalled. They carry an emergency set, which has been upgraded as a result of that trip.

She hates having to tell people she is already booked for their special date, and has painted two events in one day, as much as 90 miles apart. One time, she got two separate bookings for the same wedding, at Aldridge Gardens in Hoover. “The bride’s mother had contacted me and asked for a painting of the couple’s first dance,” she said. “Then I got another request for the same wedding. The bride wanted one of the father-daughter dance to give to her parents. Neither knew about the other’s request.” She had two canvases on her easel throughout the reception and kept swapping them back and forth so neither party would know about the other. The backgrounds were the same. “The bride’s mother began to catch on, but the dad never did,” Joy said. “I presented both paintings at the end.”

Sometimes she finishes a painting on site but brings home most of them so she can apply an art varnish as a protective sealer. Her studio is a sunny 11’ x1 2’ room of her house, with a huge front-facing window. She and Tim have lived in that house on a mountain top in Springville for 12 years, surrounded by rock formations, trees and lots of wildlife. Deer and turkey wander around the property, along with a family of foxes that they feed daily. The house is filled with Joy’s still-life paintings, such as wine bottles so real you want to grab one and pour a drink.

Jessica Silvers Posey of Maryland, who married Aaron Posey in Laurel, Delaware, said Joy painted the most beautiful picture of the couple’s first dance. “The details are phenomenal,” she said. “I relive that moment every time I look at the painting. Everyone who walks past this painting in our house can’t help but stop and stare.”

While mothers, parents, bridesmaids, co-workers and grooms hire her to paint as a gift, most of the time it’s the brides who engage her services.

She offers three standard sizes, 18” x 24”, 24” x 30” and 30” x 36”. Clients may choose something larger but cannot choose whether the finished product will be vertical or horizontal. “I decide that, depending upon the venue and what I want to get in the painting,” Joy said. The largest one she has done was 42” x 48”. Her prices start at $1,000, plus travel expenses if she goes outside the Birmingham Metro area.

Although 99 percent of her business comes from weddings, she has painted at Christmas parties, company anniversaries and fundraisers. One of her corporate events was the opening of Nick Saban’s Mercedes-Benz dealership on I-459. And yes, the coach was there.

Even though she doesn’t normally turn down an event unless she is already booked, she did refuse to paint at one recent wedding. Her own daughter was the bride, the wedding took place at Joy and Tim’s house, and Joy wanted to relax as much as possible and enjoy it.

“I will paint it later from photographs,” she said.