Event offers chance to support cause, rising local star
by Rebecca Johnston

The beauty in the artist's soul shines through the art and anyone who studies Canton artist Barbara Rheingrover's works knows she has a beautiful soul.

In the past 32 years Barbara has created over 550 sculptures and 1,000 paintings. She works in marble, bronze, oils, acrylics and more to express to the world her vision of life, of honor and of loveliness.

Perhaps her most famous and impression work is "Ovation," a 10-foot, five and a half ton marble piece created as a tribute to the 1996 Olympic athletes who came to Atlanta to compete.

That sculpture reaches high toward the sky today at the Olympic Village on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus in Atlanta, a tribute that will last for generations to come as an artist's interpretation of the heart of the ancient competitions.

When you meet Barbara you wonder how such a gentle and delicate lady can take a gigantic piece of cold marble and turn it into a beautiful expression of emotion. Like a modern-day Michelangelo, she creates what seems the impossible.

This coming week Barbara is part of the first Tuxedo Artisans Market in Atlanta, one of 14 featured artists at the show to benefit Camp STARS or Sharing Together as Real Support, an outreach program of the Visiting Nurse/Hospice Atlanta. The camp is for families and children ages 7 to high schools seniors who have lost a loved one.

The worthy cause is just one of many over the years that Barbara has poured her heart, soul and art into.

Helping others is almost as important to her as creating her expressive art.

She especially loves to teach art and to help other aspiring artists reach their goals. For eight years, she taught sculpture at Georgia Tech in the Art Options Program. She has also taught workshops and seminars throughout the United States and Italy, where she maintained a studio for years.

Barbara taught those who cannot see to carve at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta and at the Kentucky School for the Blind in Louisville. She created "Touchables" for the visually impaired.

Her artwork is found in both private and corporate collections and she has been honored by the state of Georgia as one of the top women in the arts.

Today, she and her husband make their home in Canton and she is busy helping the arts locally through the Cherokee County Arts Council where she serves on the board of directors.

Some of her more recent work includes the impressive "Seasons of Life" series of five acrylic paintings and seven bronzes that she says represent dealing with the issues of life and what it brings you through.

The bronzes are "Anger," "Fear," "Hope," "Redemption," "Despair," "Trust" and "Forgiveness." Some pretty strong stuff.

She says that the series represents the human race's daily struggle and thankfulness for the wonderment of life.

That seems the perfect theme for the upcoming show in which she is participating.

The event came about when one young woman lost her best friend and neighbor to cancer two years ago. The death of Suzanne Clark, a wife and mother of two children, was cut short by cervical cancer.

Now her friend, Kim Chesney, is opening her home at 630 Tuxedo Place Northwest in Buckhead for the event to benefit Hospice Atlanta's Camp STARS.

For more on the event, which opens with a gala Evening Under the Stars Thursday, Oct. 9, and is open to the public Friday, Oct. 10 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., you can visit the Web site at www.TuxedoArtisansMarket.com.

Not only is it a worthy cause, it is a chance to support one of Cherokee County's own shining stars.

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