Wonders Eye. Annette Marie Kinship, artist
By Andrew Patterson
Annette is worried about her family and friends in Florida. She’s up at 3 a.m. speaking with her two daughters and her sister, Ruthie, in New York. Having lived through a Category 3 hurricane, she knows. Nervously glancing outside she remains jovial to help her daughter through the worst of it.
Four hours later, and just like the winds changing direction, now her daughter is deeply concerned. “Mom, the eye of the storm’s over you.”
Annette isn’t just a talented artist and creator with her photograph-like graphite portraits or ornate pottery. A modern-day Renaissance woman, Annette juggled the roles of artist, businesswoman and mother to seven children. Since moving to Asheville five years ago, she has been creating a sanctuary where art combines with food, yoga, music and massage to heal mind, body and soul.
The angst she’d been feeling for her daughter was abruptly turned inward. As trees snapped around her, an emergency evacuation alert rang out on her phone. The Swannanoa River was creeping up their road. Thankfully, their house was high enough to remain untouched.
Their art gallery in Black Mountain wasn’t so lucky. The normally tranquil creek transformed into a powerful, destructive force, flooding the first floor and leaving nothing untouched.
Decades of accumulated art materials, like those her eldest daughter gifted her before getting married, either washed away or were buried in mud. How, then, could she reconcile the thousands of hours she’d poured into her art and its destruction?
“Art isn’t my career,” Annette says, reflecting on the overwhelming loss. “It was my joy. But I saw that [art] could become a financial gift. To lose that much… I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
Annette’s relationship with art is not just about creation—it’s about healing. Her work allows her to process the challenges and joys of life. The beauty is created through the discipline of sitting in discomfort.
“I can’t feel horrible about it, because there’s so many of us,” she says. “I was struggling. I finally went to the River Arts District, and it gave me the perspective I needed. We have a home.” Her gratitude is grounded in the compassion she feels for those that lost everything.
It wasn’t just a drawing; it was the hours spent mastering her craft. It wasn’t just clay pottery; it was the fulfillment of a dream, one sparked when her youngest son reminded her to pursue her own education and invited her to enroll with him. It wasn’t just four walls; it was a lifetime of experimenting with new businesses, each step bringing her closer to creating a sanctuary for healing and self-expression. And now, just a few pieces remain.
After weeks painstakingly cleaning out mud to salvage what she could, PTSD kicked in and she’d wake up seeing mud at the foot of the bed. Somehow though, her story’s like that of one of her favorite missing paintings. “To everyone else it looks finished, but I still have work to complete it,” she says. “I’m hoping someone finds it and I can finish all those hours I’ve poured into it.”
Annette isn’t finished. While Michelangelo had the Medici family, maybe Annette finds her own patron, because her vision to create a holistic experience that supports other artists and the public for holistic enrichment is the kind of beauty we can all use.
Find and support Annette on Instagram @annettemariekinship. Andrew’s book, My Journey Beyond the Summit, is available on Amazon. To connect or nominate somebody for this column, reach out at ap@andrew365.com.
Annette is my sister. She truly has weathered a multitude of storms. She has always had God at her side and I know the He helped her pull through each one. I pray for all of those effected by hurricane Ian, a few years back, one of whom was sister Ruthi, as well as those hit in the Carolinas, sister Annette.