Newark woman turns to art to relieve stress

NEWARK – Whenever life starts feeling a little too hectic, Bev Vermillion turns to her paintbrush.

It doesn't take long for Vermillion to lose herself in her work; once she puts the brush to her canvas she feels calm, happy.

"I could sit there for hours and work on a painting. It makes me forget about my worries," she said.

Vermillion worked as a real estate agent for years, and found herself in meeting after meeting at the office. She admits she hated meetings, so to keep herself alert she would doodle. She would pass a piece of paper around to her colleagues to make marks and squiggles on it, then she would turn it into some kind of drawing.

Between her doodles and a few paintings she had brought into work, friends who saw her work encouraged Vermillion to explore her talents.

It wasn't until her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's that she really delved into her art. She became her husband's full-time caregiver, and soon realized she needed to find a way to give herself a break each day and do something just for herself.

So she went out and bought a bunch of acrylic paints, renovated the small barn on her property into an artist studio and started painting.

"I like the flow of it. I'll just put an arrangement of colors on the canvas and study it for awhile until I would see something in it," Vermillion said. "It's almost some kind of soft addiction I have now, but a good one."

Vermillion channels her emotions into her work, and it's obvious looking at the mood of a painting what she was feeling when she created it.

One that she titled "Despair" was the result of a difficult time in her life when a family member was very sick. The colors are dark, swirling deep blues, purples and black. When that family member started showing signs of improvement, she created "Hope," which has a lighter feel to it, with bright blues and white.

She went through a period where she felt angry, and out of that she created pieces with fire. Painting has been a great way to express herself, Vermillion said. For a long time she kept her work private simply because the works felt so intimate to her, they were a reflection of who she was, she said.

Painting has become such a part of her that if she goes more than three days without working on something she starts to feel a little crazy.

It can be difficult caring for someone with Alzheimer's, Vermillion said, much more than people realize. When he first began showing symptoms, Vermillion didn't want to admit that there was anything wrong.

"We still have our good days. There are days where I still don't want to believe it's happening because he'll do or say something and I think, 'This is my Timmy, this is the man I've been married to for 48 years,' " she said.

It turns out the painting has been good for him, too. Tim often joins his wife in the barn while she works. Something about her painting soothes him, Vermillion said.

He is especially attached to some of her works featuring woodland scenes. Tim was a big hunter growing up, and sometimes Vermillion will find him in their sitting room staring at a winter scene where a man is walking through the woods.

Over the past few years, Vermillion has really learned how important it is to set aside some "me time" every day.

"I think everybody's got something, a hidden artist, singer or dancer inside of them," Vermillion said. "It's important for people to remind themselves that they really have to find themselves when they go through something like this."

emaddern@newarkadvocate.com

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Twitter: @emmaddern