In Millville, Pat Witt's Barn Studio has history of art

MILLVILLE, N.J. - There is a cycle of inevitability in nature - of birth, growth, evolution, and, eventually, death - that hasn't escaped the eye of Pat Witt.

Renowned for capturing the beauty of the changing seasons in the swampy bogs of South Jersey, Witt, 88, is beloved for teaching four generations of children and adults to look deep beyond the mechanics of painting and drawing.

Thousands of students have passed through the doors of her Barn Studio of Art since she opened it in 1962, a place that has been called a sanctuary for creativity on the bottom floor of a converted hay barn and florist shop in a wooded glen off Whitaker Avenue. The top two floors of the rambling red structure are where she lives and where she raised her two daughters.

"I grew up in a house where I learned that if you take time to make the coffee before you look outside, you may miss the sunrise," said Witt, known as the "wetlands painter" and who was born on a farm in the south Millville meadows.

Outside is a meandering collection of woodsy trails and unkempt gardens and ponds where legions of children have allowed their feet - and imaginations - to roam as they got a close-up look at nature before settling onto paint-splattered wooden stools in front of easels in the studio.

"They may not become artists. That's not the point. The point is they have learned to think with all their senses," Witt said on a recent morning as a dozen children settled in for a three-hour session led by one of Witt's former students, Kara Macon-Rehm, 34, an art teacher from Vineland.

Other former students - now well-known artists - have also stepped in to teach some of the weekly classes to children and adults. Macular degeneration and other health issues have slowed Witt's ability to lead the sessions and to paint impressionist landscapes with the same fervor she once did. But she is still in the studio every day, offering encouraging words to students and imparting advice about everything from color theory to how to approach the guinea hens outside that peck at the studio's floor-length windows.

And her Socratic way of teaching - answering a question with another question to get students to really think about the knowledge they're seeking - is a strict technique used in a very loosely structured learning environment.

"Creativity is always nurtured here but it's never competitive," Macon-Rehm said. "I think that's why so many of us who came here as children walked away with this incredible gift of being able to think and learn on our own terms."

Others agree.

"It's funny, because when you are here, you don't feel like you are learning heavy lessons about any of this, you just feel like you are just having fun," said Samantha Miller, 17, of Millville, who started going to the studio when she was seven and now helps out with teaching the classes on Saturday mornings. "But there is just this air here that lets you explore and think and just be."

Painting in gouache and oils, Witt trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She has had one-woman shows at various museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Witt founded the Maurice River School of Painting in 1965 to capture the natural wonder of the Cumberland County region and promote education about it. She was the subject three years ago of a PBS documentary, The Art Spirit: Pat Witt and the Barn Studio of Art.

"Pat truly is a force of nature," said Michael Cagno, executive director of the Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, where Witt has been the subject of many exhibitions and programs over the years. "And I call her studio 'the Temple' because it's where I go to rejuvenate my art spirit. It's the only place where I turn off my cellphone."

Off the main studio - where the easels and stools themselves create a kind of artsy centerpiece in the high-ceilinged room - are smaller rooms and little niches chocked with the kind of stuff you'd imagine finding tucked away in someone's attic: trunks containing fancy costumes and old feather-plumed hats, bins full of old dish-soap bottles, and egg cartons stacked to the ceiling.

There's a small pottery studio in one corner of the barn and a glass-enclosed room where orchids and begonias bloom all year.

"When people bring their children here for classes, they'll look around the studio and talk about how it hasn't changed since they were kids. And they'll look up at the ceiling and find their name and sometimes they get tears in their eyes doing it," Witt says of the "good graffiti" on the ceiling in a section of the studio where students have been invited to sign their names before they head off into the world.

Though many have chosen career paths outside the art world - becoming lawyers, doctors, journalists, accountants, and business owners - others have gone on to become professional painters, art teachers, and museum curators.

About a decade ago, the conversation between Witt and her daughters turned to planning what would happen to the studio when Witt was no longer able to teach - or was gone.

Seven years ago, the family converted the Barn Studio into a nonprofit corporation that will continue Witt's legacy. A board of directors, which includes Witt's daughters, Carole Witt Mankin and Nancy Witt Mulick, oversee the operations with three others. The studio also offers of a community outreach program that brings art education and appreciation to underserved school districts.

A fund-raiser will be held March 21 to fund these programs and keep the art classes affordable.

"I think it's vital to her legacy that it became a nonprofit and it eases her mind that what she created here for all these thousands of people over the years will perpetuate into the future," Cagno said.

The Barn Studio of Art will hold its annual fund-raiser March 21 at the Greenview Inn at the Eastlyn Golf Course, 4049 Italia Ave., in Vineland. The event will have an "old-fashioned barn dance" theme.

Tickets are $85 for adults and $45 for children under 12 and include hors d'oeuvres, buffet dinner, a silent auction of original art, dancing, and live music. For more information about the fund-raiser and art class schedules, call the Barn Studio at 856-825-5028 or visit www.barnstudio.org.

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