Nora Springs artist is a hidden gem

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

In Nora Springs there are a lot of unique wonders. While driving near its main street you can find a giant stone sitting out in the middle of the road as part of Boulder Park.

Among its wonders, that includes the Shell Rock River, is an abstract artist living a quietly frantic life.

Carrie Poulter has been working with fluid acrylic paints for about two years — using cups, gloves and different chemicals to make colorful and vibrant pieces of abstract art.

Her home isn’t very different than anyone else’s. A happy dog and children run through it daily.

But follow her to the studio in her basement and you’ll find dried paint on the floor and a hobby shop’s worth of material on the shelves (all in front of a washer and dryer, far enough away not to stain the clothes as they come and go).

Hers is a well-regulated mess, and the floor looks like a Jackson Pollock painting and fits its surroundings.

“This is my little corner of the house where I can be dirty and I can make all kinds of messes,” Poulter said. “I just listen to music while I’m down here by myself.”

There is a science to her art, and she carefully mixes chemicals and colors to make paintings that line her shelves under her artist supplies and materials.

“You apply science and a little bit of a play on a recipe,” Poulter said.

Her paint recipe — which has taken two years to perfect — is her own and it is effective. It’s personal to her and she keeps it under wraps.

“Everyone has their own specific recipe on how they do it, so it’s taken a little bit to master,” Poulter said. “I have made a pretty good recipe.”

When she creates her paintings she has a toolbox worth of materials that she uses, including her own hands with and without gloves, depending on if she remembers to put them on.

After pouring the paint on a canvass she takes a blowtorch and applies the flame several inches above to create cells or little bubbles in the artwork.

While she paints she has Pandora playing a playlist called “hipster cocktail hour.”

She and her husband plan to add a sink so she doesn’t have to travel up and down the stairs from her basement to her kitchen for water.

Poulter gets really excited when she produces something she hasn’t seen before, she said.

She doesn’t paint full-time. Poulter works at a hospital, but she does host painting parties.

“I do bachelorette parties, showers, holiday parties and different events,” she said.

Painting and art in general have been important to Poulter throughout her life.

“I’ve always been a very artistic person,” she said. “I’ve always either done pastels or painted on my own, but I always like to find a different medium and I like to master that medium.”

From modeling paste to landscaping, she’s worked to figure out and work in different areas of artistic expression.

“Then I’ll just go balls to the wall and I’ll figure it out,” Poulter said.

Fluid acrylic painting has been what she’s been focusing on lately.

“There are other techniques that I can sell more commercially, but this one’s been the most fun,” Poulter said.

She didn’t consider selling her paintings commercially until a friend from New York told her  she could. The day she decided to try she sold nine and the next month she sold 20.

“It’s been crazy,” Poulter said.

She’s been selling her painting for about a year now.

“I’m more of a sentimental person, so I’ll keep a painting if I’m really sentimental about it,” Poulter said. “I’ll sell the really good ones, but you couldn’t pay me enough money for some.”

Last year she stopped painting for while after her father died.

“I can’t paint when I’m sad,” Poulter said. “I can’t just bang out paintings because they turn out like crap.”

During that time she had to turn down some commissions.

“Everybody’s been really sweet and letting me do it on my own time,” Poulter said. “Nobody’s been bugging me or rushing me.”

Eventually after making herself continue to paint she returned to her art.

“I got some paintings under my belt again,” Poulter said. “I’m back in my groove.”

Anyone who wants to commission a painting or schedule a class can get hold of Poulter on her Facebook page, “Carrie Poulter Art Studio.”