LaVerne Smith-Turner

Release Date: 3/6/2000. Expired: 4/29/2000

April 1-29, 2000 Opening Reception Saturday April 1, 2pm-5pm

Waverly resident LaVerne Smith Turner uses her art to look closer at the details and color of nature around her.

“Living with nature as a child helped me to develop an appreciation for the beauty and intricacies of nature around me,” Turner said. “I noticed the smallest of details, far beyond what those around me recognized. In my paintings and other art media, I began to bring up close those things which I observed in even the smallest of flowers and other plants.

“Since I am also fascinated by color, I began reproducing those color combinations that occur naturally in our surroundings. The results produced by this combination of detail and color excite me, and I am anxious to create more and more.”

The Carroll County native will be featured in an exhibit April 1-29 in the Visual Arts Gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson. A reception with the artist will be 2-5 p.m. Saturday to mark the opening of the exhibit.

“She emphasizes the lines and the shapes making these realistic looking flowers look abstracted,” said Curtis Southerland, gallery coordinator for The Renaissance Center. “The flowers are painted so up close that you have that reality but still maintain an abstract feel.

“LaVerne seems to really be in tune with nature and colors and shapes,” Southerland said. Turner has been a part of several exhibits around the southeast and has worked as an art instructor at many different levels. For 25 years she was an art teacher at Waverly Central High School and Lakeview Elementary School in Humphreys County. Prior to that she taught in Rogersville, Trezevant, Paducah, Ky., and Carroll County.

Her exhibit at The Renaissance Center will include mostly oil paintings along with a few acrylics, watercolors and graphite drawings. She also will have some pieces for sale in the Virtually Unlimited Bookstore at the center, including some unframed original watercolors, boxed card sets and postcards of some of her paintings.

Since returning from the public school system, Turner has served as director of the Senior Citizen Art Program in Waverly and was an art instructor for off-campus courses offered by the University of Tennessee at Martin and Austin Peay State University.

“I began drawing at an early age, but did not decide to pursue art as a career until I was advised to do so by an art instructor in my first year of college,” Turner said.

She graduated from Murray State University in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art Education and was voted the Outstanding Art Student of the Year by the faculty. She went on to earn a Master of Arts degree with a major in painting and a minor in ceramics from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in 1968.

Turner was the oldest of four girls raised on a cotton farm in rural Carroll County. Her late husband, Gordon L. Turner, retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority after 27 years and the Turners owned and operated the Nolan House Bed and Breakfast Inn in Waverly.

“In 1984, my husband and I purchased and began the restoration of a Victorian home built in the 1870s,” Turner said. “In 1986, after a substantial investment of our time and effort, this Waverly landmark was placed on the National Register for Historic Places… My husband and I received great pleasure from saving and restoring this beautiful home. This was a fulfillment of the things I had taught to the students in art history at Waverly Central High School.”

Turner has two sons. Danny L. Turner is a pharmacist and owns a video production company along with his wife, Gretchen. Gregory N. Turner operates his own leadership and management development firm and resides in Franklin with his wife, Carie. Turner has participated in art shows in Jackson, Mackenzie, Murray, Ky., Nashville and Clarksville, among others.

Her free exhibit at The Renaissance Center, 855 Highway 46 S., Dickson, is open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday during April. For more information on the show, call The Renaissance Center at (615)740-5600.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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